Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAEL : THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

It is essential to understand who the real Israel is because God says we are blessed if we bless them and cursed if we curse them. Israel is God’s true congregation. If the name is placed upon the wrong group, it can lead to misunderstandings, deceptions, and curses. This is naturally why Satan does it: to confuse and to cause the real Israel to be persecuted as impostors.

Who is the God of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses? As shown in the previous chapter, Jesus is Jehovah Elohim. Where does the name Israel come from?

Jacob was named Israel after wrestling all night with a Man who turned out to be the Lord. It was Jesus he wrestled with, and to whom he said: “I will not let thee go, except thou bless me”.

So Jacob asked for Jehovah Yeshua’s blessing. It was Christ he clung to and would not let go without a blessing.

“And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed” (Gen 32:27-28)

Thus, the name Israel was given to Jacob because he had refused to let go of Christ.

If he had let go, he would not have been called Israel. The name Israel is therefore given to a nation that holds on to Jehovah and will not let go until He blesses them. The real Israel is not those who rejected Christ and let Him go, but those who held on. The Jews who rejected Christ did the very opposite of Jacob. As we will see, when God gives a name, it reflects a person’s character trait, and if that trait changes or they do the opposite, their name changes too.

The name Israel is an experience with God, a relationship with God rather than genetics.

The reason Jacob ended up in this situation in the first place was that his brother Esau was coming against him. Esau was Isaac’s firstborn, the one who would normally receive the blessing of being a priest in the family. He had the birthright, but because he was not faithful, God took it away and gave it to the second born. It was given to Jacob because he held on to God in the right way.

Esau had married heathen wives and followed a religion that was part truth and part error. Although he, too, was a child of Abraham, the priestly right to be called God’s people followed the faithful brother, not the one with the rights of the flesh.

Jacob feared his brother would harm his people because he had obtained God’s blessings in the wrong way, which is why he found himself in the prayer battle that he did. In the end, he allowed Esau to keep the material inheritance of the firstborn, and Jacob relied instead on God’s promise of a future blessing. He gave up what he could see for the promise of what could not be seen.

This fits very well with what happened among the Jewish brethren in the time of Christ. They split into two groups; one remained the stronger and had the power to persecute the minority. Yet the persecuted brethren were content with inheriting the promise through Christ and let go of trying to rule over the physical Jewish inheritance, which included the land, the mountain of God, and the temple. The land was promised to the faithful, yet the unfaithful drove the faithful from it. They were forced to live among pagans and endure the trials that came with that. The same happened at the beginning with Jacob and Esau. At first, Jacob, fearing for his life, was forced to flee the land of promise, even though it would one day rightfully be his, and live abroad. Esau continued to live on the land with his family until he moved east of Canaan.

When Jacob feared Esau, he clung to God, as the first church did.

Because the first Christian-Jewish church remained faithful, and those who rejected Christ did not, they inherited the name Israel, which had always followed the faithful within the family.

But although they inherited the name, they were also given a new and more exalted name:

“For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the LORD shall name. Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God” (Isa 62:1-3)

Zion is likewise a name that followed the faithful and was also used for Jerusalem.
God said the land would no longer be called “desolate” but Hephzibah, which means “my delight is in her”. This naturally requires that they remain faithful. Jesus may be the fulfillment of the new name prophesied in Isaiah, showing that His followers would be called by His name, Yeshua, meaning “Yehovah saves”. In Latin, this name was translated to Iesus, from which we get the name Jesus. The designation ‘Christians’ comes from the word Christ and implies following Christ, a title that means the anointed one. Christ and messiah are the same word for anointed, drawn from two different languages. A Christian, then, simply means a follower of the Messiah. We see this term used already in the New Testament: “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian” (Acts 26:28)
Christ expressed it differently: He said they would be called by His name, gather in His name, and receive people in His name. This is consistent with the Old Testament: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and…turn from their wicked ways…I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14) The name Israel also contains parts of God’s name. It literally means “God perseveres” or “God rules.” If God is denied the right to do both, the name no longer represents the group and becomes a lie unless placed upon the faithful.

First, the Christians called themselves in Hebrew Talmidim of Yeshua, which in the Bible is translated into Greek as mathētai of Jesus. It means students/learners of Jesus and is used between 200 and 300 times in the New Testament. While calling themselves students of Jesus, they also considered themselves as Israel. The name Christian is used only three times and is associated with a later period when the gospel was spread in Greek and Latin, and heathens had joined the assembly.

First-century Christians began using this term instead of Israel for two reasons. When it was first used in Antioch, the Christians were considered a sect called “the sect of the Nazarenes” (Acts 24:5). In this way, the Jewish leaders tried to separate the sect from their own religion by calling it not a Jewish sect, but a Nazarean sect. Jews still today call Christians Notzrim, referring to someone following a man from the city of Nazareth, as a protest against Jesus being the Messiah.
The Jewish leadership refused to have anything to do with their messianic brethren and did what they could to ensure that Christianity would no longer be associated with Israel. The followers of Jesus rejected this term but accepted that they had to call themselves something else for the sake of peace. The first Christians would suffer harsh persecution and be misunderstood if they continued to call themselves the children of Israel.
If the majority of the Jews had remained faithful, none of this would have been a problem or source of confusion. Because of their unfaithfulness and resistance, rather than learning the gospel from their Hebrew scholars, they had to be taught the truth through a different language, spoken by a scattered people: “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people” (Isa. 28:11)

The unfaithful Jews tried to portray themselves as the faithful Israel and the followers of Christ as the apostates who had no right to the name.

Christians, therefore, accepted being ostracized and felt that a greater thing than being called Israel was to be called a follower of that same God.  
This change of name had been prophesied. Someone greater than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had come, bringing a greater revelation of God’s salvation and preservation. What the name Israel had prophesied, Jesus fulfilled, and so His followers were known by His title, Christ, as the gospel was, after some time, shared in Greek rather than in Hebrew. God’s people remained the same and are always called by many names, each tied to their experiences.

The Jews who refused to believe and accept Jehovah’s salvation became like Esau. They had the flesh, the firstborn right to the promises, but they threw it away. Like Esau and Jacob, they had come from the same womb and dwelled together for a time. As their differences came to light, they parted ways, and God chose the faithful younger over the unfaithful older, who, by birth, had the firstborn right. The leadership and priesthood were taken from the Jewish nation and given to the “younger” Jewish brethren, the fishermen and ordinary Jews, who were made priests and leaders of God’s people in the place of the others. Jesus made a parable about this.
“The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son, And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. …But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage” (Matt.22:2-3; 8-9)

The “elder brother” had once again been rejected; the promises and the priesthood were no longer theirs, yet they claimed their birthright nonetheless and held on to the empty shell of a name, rituals, and a piece of land that was no longer rightfully theirs.

Rather than going into combat with them, the followers of Christ, the true Israel, did as Jacob had done. They did not fight or war with their apostate brother, but allowed them to hold on to their “empty house”.

Unfortunately, because the unfaithful kept the name and upheld the history and promise associated with it, many are now confused into thinking they are the real Israel of God.

But God now sees them as Esau, Jacob’s twin. There is a certain poetry in this as well, because the last kings of Judah, who reigned when Jesus was born and crucified, were partly descendants of Esau. King Herod and his descendants were raised Jewish but were in part Edomites. Literally, a descendant of Esau tried to kill Jesus so that Jesus would not take his throne from him. His son also killed John the Baptist, mocked Christ, and persecuted His followers. Of him and his meeting with Jesus, it is recorded: “And Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate. And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves” (Luk. 23:11-12)

Had Jacob let go of Jehovah during their wrestling match, he would not have been named Israel. If Israel let go of Yeshua, they no longer had the right to the name Israel. Only those who cling to Him have the right to use the name, just as many who call themselves Christians are not truly entitled to that name if they do not follow the way of Christ.

The Jews who rejected Christ clung to a name and their genetics as their salvation, deceiving themselves that they were God’s people regardless of their conduct. In reality, they were persecuting and even killing those who had continued in God’s path. Their delusion is reflected in the second temptation of Christ. Satan quoted the Bible and Psalm 91, telling Jesus to throw Himself off the elevated temple and trust that God would still protect Him. Jesus said this was the sin of “testing God”. You cannot go against God’s counsel and claim His promises at the same time. This is a deception of the devil.

Another parallel is found in the actual lives of Saul and David. Saul was elected king by God; he was chosen and given the Holy Spirit for his mission.

Yet when he was unfaithful to God, God rejected him as king, took from him the position he had been given, and decreed that his descendants would not inherit the throne. David, who is a symbol of Christ, was elected king instead. Saul then began persecuting David and tried to kill him, just as the Jews who would not receive Christ persecuted and killed those who did. As in the parable, David and Jesus gathered all those considered outcasts of society who were treated badly by their king. It did not appear that God would give David the kingdom, and Saul continued his reign even after being rejected by God. To many, this seemed a sign and confirmation that Saul was still chosen and favored by God. How could the rejected David be chosen when he was an outlaw living in the woods, in caves, and in pagan lands? Was it not natural to think God was with the one who had been publicly anointed and still held the throne? If Saul was prevailing over David, was this not a sign that God favored him? In the same way, the first followers of Christ appeared to be rejected, while God seemed to remain with the Jewish leaders. This continued for a time, until they met their demise as Saul did. Against God’s counsel, they went to war with Rome believing God would go with them, just as Saul went to war hoping God would go with him. He was wounded in battle and died by his own hand. Many Jews defeated by Rome also chose to end their own lives in the midst of their conflict with Rome.
Masada is a mountain by the Dead Sea where nearly one thousand Jews committed suicide while the Romans camped below. They had persecuted Christ and His followers, holding on to the land and their rule, until they went to war with Rome and lost, repeating the story of Saul and David.
It does not matter who rules the land today; the Bible tells us that the land will be given to His faithful followers on the day of judgment. Similarly, although outcast for a while, David did take the throne and the land at God’s appointed time.

So the Jews who reject Christ can claim what they want, but their end, if they do not convert to Christ, is the same as Saul’s. The land belongs to Christ and His followers and will one day be given to them. That Jews today are temporarily in the promised land does not change this fact. They are trespassers. 

Great confusion, therefore, arises when people today assume that the descendants of those who rejected God, and whom God rejected in return, are the ones to whom the future promises of Israel are directed. They look at the name and not the meaning behind it. They reject the true Israel that is now “called by a new name”, and they think God is speaking through and blessing those who rejected Him.

Lucifer

God does not allow anyone to legally keep a name tied to their position after they have lost it.

This is why the name Lucifer, meaning “light bearer”, was taken from him when he misrepresented God, and he was given the name “opponent” instead. The first name describes what he used to do, and the last describes what he now does. We see names change several times in the Bible to reflect a person’s new position. Examples include Abram becoming Abraham, Oshea becoming Jehoshua, and Simon being given the name Peter (which means Rock).
Satan is the first to go from an exalted position with a name reflecting that, to receiving a name that describes his conflict with God instead. However, Satan refuses the name change; he still considers himself to be the light bearer, the one in the right, and so he has kept the name Lucifer. Those who follow him still call him by this name. He does not call himself Satan, for that is a name change made by God. Just because Lucifer kept the name given to him when he was faithful does not mean he is right or that he is still a light bearer. Calling himself Lucifer does not automatically make him one. The name cannot sanctify him or confirm his position. The name he gives himself does not change who God says he is or what he has become.

Fleshly Israel did the same thing as Satan. They kept the name given in recognition of their faithfulness, but God had now given them a new name tied to their rebellion. The faithful remnant among them was the only one lawfully (by heaven’s standard) entitled to keep the place and name. Although the land now belonged to Christ’s followers, they understood that it would be seized by whoever took it by force until God one day restored the earth to them. They knew it was not something they were to fight for, as it is given to Christ to take what is His in His own time (Rev.20:7-10).

The destiny of the unfaithful part of Israel was prophesied beforehand. In the Messiah prophecy in Psalm 69, it says: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Let their table become a snare before them: and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap.
Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake.
Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them.
Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents.
For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.
Add iniquity unto their iniquity: and let them not come into thy righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” (Psalm 69:20-28)
“And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
Let his days be few; and let another take his office”
(Psa 109:5-9).

When someone takes “your office,” they also take your title and job description. This is precisely what Christ says happened, in multiple ways and on multiple occasions. It is also what happened to Saul: another took his office and thereby his title as king.

This was the office of Israel: “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel…” (Exo 19:6)

They rejected their High Priest, Christ, the heavenly sanctuary, and His teachings of the law, and so their “office” was taken from them. Who, then, was given it instead?
To the Jewish followers and those converting to the Judeo-Christian faith, it is now said: “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (Rev 1:5-6)

As you can see, the “office” of Israel has followed the faithful and even those who were grafted in.

Now, because the office of royalty and priesthood is given to the followers of Christ, the title Israel follows them. However, it is not used as often as the name of Christ, which is a superior title to Israel, as Christ is greater than Jacob.

It is unfortunate that many are now fooled into thinking the Jewish congregation is still the priests and teachers of God, and so they go to Israel and to rabbis to learn how to interpret the word of God. The Bible is clear that they are no longer to mediate God’s law or word, and can only teach the true follower of Christ an apostate version of keeping the law. It is like a sheriff losing his job but continuing to impersonate one. He acts without authority and provokes the rightful leaders of the land. If we go to the one impersonating the sheriff, we betray the leadership that removed him for a reason, and we rebel against the newly appointed sheriff. Likewise, it is rebellion against Christ and the true Israel when we go to Jewish rabbis to be our priests and teachers, instead of the ones God has now chosen.

If these titles and tasks have been taken from those who originally held this office and name, it means that although they call themselves Israel, the promised seed and priests, God now calls them something else. God always replaces a title with a new one that describes the current state of its bearer.

It is a name tied to their opposition and betrayal.

Even I struggle to repeat the new names they have been given instead of Israel. It is sad and overwhelming.

Jesus gives them a new name: “the synagogue of Satan”, which means, translated, “an assembly of the accuser” (Rev 3:9; Rev.2:9). God says they are blasphemers, which means to “defame God”: to represent Him falsely or to use His name together with a lie. This new name is also seen in the prophecy in Psalm 109: “Let Satan stand at his right hand”. As we will explore further in this study, we will see how they have become Satan’s helpers to deceive and scatter.

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAEL: THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

One of the arguments Christians use today for why Jews by flesh are still chosen is comparing how they have been scattered throughout the world with what the Bible says. Because they are scattered, the promises of gathering are logically assumed to be about them.

So, who is the real Israel scattered and who is scattering them, according to the Bible? How does it all fit with Armageddon?

To understand the gathering of Israel, we need to first understand who Israel is and then how they were scattered. If we do not understand who was “scattered,” we do not understand who is to be “gathered.”

Throughout history, people have been displaced from their lands by war, conquest, and, at times, natural disasters. Today, we are witnessing the largest movement of people in human history.

“At mid-2023 as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order” -numbers 110 Million displaced people worldwide. (https://www.unhcr.org/refugee-statistics/)

Although the numbers were historically lower, people were still constantly displaced. Babylon deliberately displaced the citizens of the northern Israelite kingdom and encouraged its own people to settle in that area instead. This was used as a tactic to prevent resistance. The more spread out a population is among other people, the less influence and power they have, and the more likely they are to adapt to their surroundings and blend in with the majority. At least, that was how it once worked. In our time, large groups of people have moved and settled close to one another, allowing their cultures to remain intact, as seen in Chinatowns in the USA, Muslim neighborhoods, Jewish communities, and so on.

The point here is that the Jewish people are not alone in being dispersed to new lands. The fact that ethnic Jews were scattered on several occasions does not automatically mean they are still the Israel to “be gathered.” Being scattered alone is not evidence of being chosen for “gathering.”

This is why it is important to understand that not all who are scattered are people God will gather. Only those who are part of His kingdom, His citizens of the New Jerusalem, a city which will be placed upon earth in the future.

In the past, Israel had been a great nation, but because of unfaithfulness, they were, as God had said in advance, to be scattered and driven from the land. Note that their first two scatterings were a judgment from God or a consequence of their unfaithfulness:

“And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste” (Lev 26:33)

“And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you” (Deu 4:27)

“The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth,” (Deu 28:25)

“And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee. …And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.” (Deu 28:37 &64)

It was prophesied early on that they would not just be scattered, but would become a part of the nations they went to. Concerning Ephraim, the largest tribe forming the once Northern Israelite kingdom, it is written: “And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.” (Gen.48:19)

Jacob says he shall become a multitude of “goy,” the expression used for any heathen nation elsewhere in the Bible. It is applied to nations other than Israel. It is clear here that the northern kingdom of Israel would later become many nations and would even forget who they once were.
(see Leviticus 26:33; Deuteronomy 4:23–27; 28:25, 37, 64). The first great scattering (also called the first diaspora) began when the Assyrians carried the ten tribes away into captivity (see 2 Kings 15:29; 17:6)

From this, it is fairly easy to understand that a part of Israel would never be gathered into one land, but would remain as these other nations. There would be no room in physical Israel to hold “a multitude of nations.” (Gen.48:19)

This makes it only possible to gather a remnant in the physical country, or the borders would have to extend over most of the Middle East, far beyond the land promised. This is what God said about the Babylonian captivity and the return: “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness” (Isa 10:22)

“Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it.” (Eze 14:22)

As it was written, so it happened. After Babylon, only a remnant returned. The rest remained scattered and became a multitude, just like the tribe of Ephraim.

Why did God not include the rest of Israel when He gathered them for a second chance in the land? Because God only gathered the faithful of that time. Those who did not desire to follow the Lord, who had become one with Assyria, Babylon, and wherever else they had been driven, were not gathered and remained in their countries. Most of those scattered the first time do not even know they were once part of ancient Israel, nor do they identify with their past. They do not practice their ancestral religion and live as everyone else does in the countries they ended up in. Most modern Jews do not know who they are genetically. Their DNA is diverse and shows different genetic forefathers, indicating that even though they are of Jewish descent, both males and females in their ancestry break the lineage and are of non-Jewish descent. They are mixed with the people of the nations among whom they have lived. They are not a pure genetic race and never were.

Some Arabs have as much Jewish ancestry as Jews, because both are of mixed race. The government of Israel recently passed a law against genetic testing, most likely because it has been demonstrated that modern Jews are not a clearly defined genetic race. It is a religion first and foremost. Many Jews immigrating to Israel have less than 10% Jewish genes; the rest is mixed with European, Russian, African, and other Middle Eastern genes. Those mixed “goyim” genes are sometimes related to other Jewish mixed genes and are therefore sometimes called fully Jewish when they are not. The connection is seen because if a few families a thousand years ago married, for instance, Spanish or German husbands and wives, many of the Jews hundreds of years later will all have those Spanish and German ancestries in common.

That does not make those genes Jewish ancestry simply because many Jews have them. Those same genes do not trace back to Biblical times or to the Biblical land. Such is the case with many Ashkenazi Jews who appear as genetic cousins on genealogy sites, yet are connected through non-Jewish genes as much as Jewish ones. If a mixed gene pool intermarries, they will share a common mixed pool. So if someone receives 100% Ashkenazi on their test results, it does not mean they are 100% a descendant of Jacob. It simply means they are 100% descendants of the first mixed pool, which was scattered and intermarried across Europe.
Mostly, those returning to modern “Israel” do so because they have kept the traditions of their religion, and not because their racial lineage is pure. It is historically documented that many who emigrated from Eastern Europe and Russia were socialists and atheists who retained Jewish culture.

However, it is not to be doubted that most of the Jews returning to modern “Israel” today were part of the second scattering.

The second scattering occurred when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Jews were forced out of the land. But are these same people to be gathered back to the land once again? For two thousand years, Jews did not have a state in the former Judean and Israelite lands. Did God gather them again one last time? Are they God’s scattered people by virtue of their descent, and if so, do the “multitude of GOYIM” who are also God’s scattered people have to return to the physical land as well? If we go by the flesh, yes. But God only gathered the faithful in the past. And if we measure by the flesh, when are you supposed to go to Israel? Is 5% genetic Jewish ancestry enough, 10%, 25%, 50%, or 100%? When we cannot even determine the correct amount of genetic makeup required, then who shall go? Because Jewish genes are diverse and diluted, the State of Israel has decided that only those who are Jewish by religion, or who have Jewish practicing parents, and in some instances practicing grandparents, can return. The rest of the Jews, for instance, those who come from a family that converted to Christianity, cannot. This means that the modern state of Israel believes that not all of Jewish ancestry is to return, only those who have rejected Christ. The State of Israel gathers the very ones whom the New Testament says have fallen away.

As we are about to see, the Jews who reject Christ are no longer God’s scattered people. A new group is, and the Jewish nations, shockingly enough, are actually the ones who scattered and displaced them. 

The scattering of God’s Israel

Jesus, Yehovah, is the King of God’s people. If someone rejects and disobeys the King, they are not His people but are regarded as rebels. Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of His day: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Matt.12:30).

In this context, they had just called the miracles of Christ to be of Beelzebub, the prince of demons.

Jesus answered them:
“Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (v.25).

He spoke of Satan’s kingdom, but the principle applies equally to God’s kingdom. If God’s people are against Him, the “house” will not stand, unless He continues only with those who are with Him. So Jesus said right after this that those who are not with Him scatter. The Jewish leaders who would not accept Christ as their Messiah and Lord caused the scattering of God’s people to take place. They are “the bad guys” scattering God’s true people, not the victims.

It was prophesied in Ezekiel 34:
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment. And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.  (Eze 34:2-5; 11-16)

Christ is the good shepherd prophesied. He also said: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (Joh_10:27)

But before He spoke this, He said about the Jews that rejected Him that they are not His sheep or part of His flock:

“Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you” (Joh 10:24-26)

Did it mean He rejected all Jews? No. It only means He rejected those who would not follow Him. He continued with a remnant, as Paul said: “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin” (Rom 11:1)

He had not rejected Israel of the flesh; He had simply been compelled to continue with a remnant of them and let the others go, just as He once did with the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel. He let the northern kingdom go and did not gather them.

Jesus is also clear that they need to be gathered to Him, and not merely to a land. If Christ is not King of Israel, there is no Israelite kingdom, only the illusion of one. The ancient physical land of Israel was a theocracy, with God on His throne in their midst. Jesus dwelt above the Mercy Seat. Without Him, there is no truly authentic land of Israel. It is a land of man’s creation, of man’s laws and man’s rules. Modern Israel does uphold laws similar to those given by God, but it also has many that are not. The ancient kingdom of Hammurabi was similar; he, too, upheld many of God’s laws and mixed them with his own. Babylon was good at that, drinking from the cups of God’s temple while praising the gods of silver and gold. Taking something from the Bible and adding your own ways is not synonymous with honoring God, as King Saul experienced when the kingdom was taken from him and his descendants and given to David.

The story of Saul and David parallels Israel by the flesh in more ways than those previously mentioned. Like Saul, they were anointed for their position as leaders of God’s people. But Saul combined disrespecting God’s authority with performing “deeds” and “rituals” to satisfy God. “And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed” (1. Sam.15:15)
He called his disobedience a sacrifice and celebration of God, but he only fooled himself.
God could not lead through Saul, yet at the same time, it seemed Saul was faithful and honored God. The prophet Samuel called his behavior idolatry. Although there were no graven images or gods, his rebellion was considered idolatry. “And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king” (1Sa 15:22-23)

Just because God had anointed Saul did not mean He could not reject him and anoint another. Another took “his office.”

When Saul realized he was rejected and that another had possibly been anointed in his place, he began persecuting David and all who followed him. He scattered David and his followers abroad, yet after some years, he met his end on the battlefield. Saul even killed all of God’s priests when he suspected they were loyal to David.

The same thing happened to the Judean state in the time of Jesus. When they realized Christ was God’s anointed, God’s priest and king, they became jealous and hostile. They could not control Jesus, and He called them out for their hypocrisy and trust in rituals for salvation. Christ appointed new “priests” and “leaders” and gave the Holy Spirit, just as He had done when God elected people to leading positions in the past. The past became a prophecy: just as we see Jehovah first choosing 12 brothers and then 70 elders, likewise we see Christ choosing 12 apostles and 70 new elders for the new church. (Exo 24:9; Luk.10:1; Exo.24:4; Matt.19:28).
Over and over again, Christ demonstrates how He repeats doing things similarly to before.

Not only did the Jewish leaders follow in Saul’s footsteps by refusing to obey Jesus, their Lord, while claiming to honor God through appointed rituals, but they also did as Saul did and tried to kill God’s anointed, the Messiah. In the end, they did kill Him, and then they began to persecute Christ’s followers.

Like Saul displaced and scattered David away from the land, so did the Jews do to Christ’s followers.

The Jews who did not receive Christ are therefore those who scattered the true Israel, and not themselves the scattered Israel. This is important to understand because there is a prophecy that God will punish those who scattered His true Israel in the end days.

This means modern Israel is in for a surprise if they think God is coming to defend them, when in fact, He comes to judge them.

When Jesus was taken at Gethsemane, He quoted the Bible: “And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered” (Mar.14:27)

Notice especially that Christ is quoting the Old Testament and the prophet Zechariah (Ch. 13 v.7) regarding the scattering of Israel. By doing so, He shows that the prophecies of the scattering of Israel, the ones who are to be gathered, are about His sheep, His followers. By quoting this verse as He was captured to be executed, He identified Christians as the true Israel mentioned in Zechariah, and identified those doing the scattering who will be judged as the Jews who did not receive Him. If a Christian today claims that Zechariah and the gathering of Israel refer to Christians, he will be rejected by most Christians for what is popularly called “replacement theory.” But this is actually one of the last things Christ does as He is taken captive, to ensure we understand that it is His faithful followers who are the true Israel mentioned in Zechariah, whom God will finally come to defend. Not until the Jews lay hands upon Him does He identify who the Old Testament prophecies are speaking of. This is natural, because until that moment, the Jewish nations were still God’s people. Now they were divided, and the prophecies followed Christ’s followers and not the others, and so Christ made this known.
The Old Testament is now speaking of Christ’s Israel, not the Israel that rejected Him. Likewise, the prophecies and the promises of God fighting for His Israel and gathering them are about Christ’s sheep.

Christ tells us plainly that the scattering of these sheep was carried out by the Jews who rejected Him. They are the ones who “smite the Shepherd,” scattering His followers.

Just as Christ said it happened. The Jewish nation systematically chased their own brethren, by the flesh, out of the land for believing in Christ. “And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him” (Acts 8:1-2)

The Jews who rejected Christ “ran them out of town,” so to speak. Was it Christ who took Jerusalem from His own followers and gave it to those who rejected Him? No, it was the enemies of Christ, those who were not “for Him,” who scattered them and now make an unlawful claim to the land.

But as time shows, and as we will discuss in these articles, it will get even worse. They would drive the scattered into the arms of “the man of sin” and indirectly “cause the truth to be trodden down.” The Jews scattering Christ’s followers had great and far-reaching consequences.

The high priest who ordered Christ’s death accidentally made a prophecy as he gave the death sentence:

“Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (Joh. 11:50-52)

Here we see that those scattered were to be gathered to Christ, not to the land. The condition for the land to continue as the capital of God’s people was their faithfulness, and they were given 70 prophetic weeks to be faithful and to receive Christ (Dan. 9). Yet when they did not, God’s people would be scattered as a result. Had they not rejected Christ, Jerusalem would have remained the center of truth throughout all ages.

As it happened to Saul, so it happened to the Jews who did not accept Christ: “But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.” (1Sa 16:14).
Saul would not give up his throne, palace, or title even though God had rejected him. Likewise, the unfaithful Jews, after chasing Christ’s followers away, sat in Jerusalem and refused to give up their titles or offices.
In the end, Saul became desperate and would rather consult his forefathers than go to the one God had chosen: David. Saul had a woman summon what appeared to be the ghost of Samuel, a dead prophet, to receive a word from him. It ended with Saul’s death. David took the throne, but he became a king over a people who were at first conflicted and confused. Similarly, the Jewish nations, upon rejecting the Spirit telling them the truth about Christ, listened to evil spirits and put their trust in the heritage of their deceased forefathers to be with them and guide them onward.

The true scattered Israel, Christ’s sheep, were not scattered because of their own unfaithfulness, but because of the Jewish leaders’ unfaithfulness. They can be compared to Ezekiel, Daniel, and his friends, who were driven out of Jerusalem even though they were faithful, because of their people’s unfaithfulness. Both the good and the bad among Judah were scattered to Babylon and the surrounding nations because of the unfaithfulness of the leaders in Jerusalem.
And just as Saul perished, those Jews who relied upon their “flesh” and their “descent” to be saved were themselves destroyed and scattered from the land.
When Saul saw he had been defeated fighting God’s enemy, he killed himself on the battlefield.
Many of the Jewish people, who had no problem driving their Christ-following Jewish brethren away from the land, ended as Saul ended. They, too, thought they fought God’s enemy when fighting Rome, and many ended up committing suicide when they realized they had lost. Today, we can still see the Jewish settlements on the top of Mount Masada, where almost a thousand Jews committed suicide once they realized they had been defeated. Thus, they ended exactly as Saul did. First anointed, then rejected, persecuting the new anointed who took their place, and then refusing to give up their land and title, fighting God’s enemies and losing, and then ending their lives rather than converting. From then on, both those who scattered Christ’s followers and the Jews who rejected Christ were scattered abroad. But one party was innocent in the scattering, and the other was the cause of it, and it is important to know the difference.

The faithful who were scattered are prophesied to bring a blessing wherever they were scattered:

“And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.

And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver. Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off” (Mic 5:7-9)

But to the unfaithful scattered, God says:

“And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste” (Lev_26:33).

“I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them” (Jer_9:16)

These are two different destinies for two different Israels. Jews who rejected Christ were harshly treated everywhere they went; “a sword was drawn after them.” They still proclaim in their museums and books that they have been treated unfairly and poorly, and they have. For almost two thousand years, they have had conflicts wherever they ended up. And although Christians were also severely persecuted, they sacrificed willingly to give a blessing of life to others. They became a “dew from the Lord.” Because of them, God blessed the West with prosperity, as long as His people were allowed to live in peace. The land that treated the true Israel of Christ rightly always prospered. In the end, this gave Protestant nations the upper hand over all other countries. When they change how they treat God’s people, they will fall one by one. And so God’s people have been the “dew” in those lands. Accidents on sea and land have been prevented because one of God’s people was among the passengers. Such has it always been since God’s people were scattered. Those around them take part in their blessings.

The Scattering of Truth

Because the Jewish leaders rejected Christ, David their king, and scattered Christ’s sheep, the truth was, as a consequence, scattered from Jerusalem as well.

“Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father” (Joh 4:21)

This was not because God had rejected Jerusalem, but because Jerusalem had rejected Him. According to Daniel 9, the city would have remained forever as God’s capital of truth had the Jewish leadership and the majority of the people been faithful.

Now Paul, from the tribes of Israel by the flesh, a part of the remnant, previously a citizen of Jerusalem, understood that they were scattered from physical Jerusalem: “The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb.13: 11-14)

Christ has built the New Jerusalem in heaven, prepared for the earth: “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

It is to this city that Christ will gather His people:

“And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped” (Rev 21:2  & Rev.14:16)

Jesus is Shiloh: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” (Genesis 49:10)

He is the one who will gather people to Himself. Not the United Nations, not the democratic state of Israel, but Christ. The gathering of those who scattered the real Israel is not a fulfillment of this prophecy. Any “gathering” not accomplished through Christ’s second coming is a fraud, an imitation of the truth, someone imitating Christ. Thus, it can be said that the state of Israel itself is a “false Christ,” or “false Messiah.” That is how serious this is.
Jesus warned: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before” ( Mat 24:24-25).

Carrying the “star of David” on their flag, symbolizing the Messiah, and “gathering” what is claimed to be His people, the State of Israel is actually playing “Christ,” making the state a false Christ. And many have fallen into the deception, even the elect.

The gathering will happen very differently when it is real. It will not happen through an earthly state, but “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matt. 24:27)
When Christ comes to gather His people, they are not just situated in the country of Israel; they are still scattered all over the world (Because the real Israel has not been gathered yet):

“And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat 24:31)

When this gathering is done: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Rom.11:26)

All of Israel here refers to the dew spread among the nations, a remnant of physical Israel and a remnant of converted Gentiles, representing one fold with one shepherd.

When Jesus speaks of false Christs and not being deceived about the gathering, that it will happen when He comes in the clouds and not before, He also finishes His speech by speaking of another gathering.

“For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together” (Matt.24:28). Here we see that when Christ comes, there has been a pre-gathering of those who are to be judged: the carcasses and the eagles, the deceived and the deceivers.

The False Gathering

Any physical gathering before Christ’s second coming is a false gathering orchestrated by the master of this world, the dragon. Satan’s key deception throughout time has been to imitate God. Now he is imitating Christ, and as Christ prophesied, Satan does it with signs and lying wonders. One of Christ’s greatest miracles was to gather the remnant back to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity.

To be a false Christ, to imitate Christ, Satan must gather a people to the land, with signs and wonders as well. He has gathered the unfaithful, rebellious Jews who rejected Christ, in the hope that they will do his bidding as they did in the past, confusing Christianity and manipulating events so that the true Israel is called impostors and the truth is scattered. Jews, too, are deceived about themselves. The sign and wonder of gathering a remnant of Jews in the physical land of Israel has the world amazed, especially the Christian world. It is considered a miracle, and a miracle is assumed to be from God, because it resembles something God has done before and which is prophesied to happen again. This makes it the perfect deception for Satan to pretend to be the God of Israel, performing these miracles.

If God gathered Jews by the flesh to the land, then to them that is evidence that they are the real Israel and the real people of God. So Christians have rejected themselves and look to the Jewish nations as the recipients of God’s promises to Israel.

The Bible prophesies that Satan would try to make such a gathering.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit” (Isa 14:12-15)

“I will sit upon the mount of the congregation”. Here, the Hebrew reads “har mô‛êd,” which does not refer to any ordinary congregation. It speaks of Jerusalem. It does not speak of just any gathering; it speaks of the gathering of Israel during the Lord’s feasts. These gatherings took place three times a year:

“Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts (mô‛êd).” (Lev 23:2)

“Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty” (Deu 16:16)

This place became the mountain that God had chosen: Mount Moriah. This is where God sat in His temple, dwelt above His throne, and where Israel and Judah came at the times of gathering and gathered with Him in His dwelling.

Christ no longer dwells in Jerusalem, and so God’s people must look to the tabernacle in heaven and the throne there, to the promised Jerusalem above, and gather in spirit on the feasts, just as Jesus told the Samaritan woman.

But Satan’s dominion is here on earth. He cannot do what Christ will do, which is gather His people to the New Jerusalem in heaven. So he creates an imitation, an unholy gathering here on earth, to mimic the gathering of God, for the eagles and the carcasses. He does it to draw people’s attention away from the truth and from God’s requirements, and to make people trust in a lie.

He wishes to sit, symbolically speaking, on the mount of assembly, to gather an unholy congregation of those who have departed from the truth but still claim God’s name and God’s promises. Presently, Old Jerusalem is a confused city where all those whom Satan has deceived have gathered from the nations in the mistaken belief that they are God’s chosen people, although they have apostatized from the truth. The Orthodox Church departed from Christ’s teaching and culture, relying on the commandments of men. The Catholic Church, which claims to be Christ’s voice on earth and the means of man’s salvation, promotes falsehoods. The Protestants continue to uphold the errors of the Roman church, perpetuating apostate and pagan culture without reforming back to Christ and His kingdom. The Muslims declared Christ to be only a prophet and not Jehovah or the Son of God, and have instituted their man-made culture, following their leaders before God. And the Jews, who rejected their Messiah and their Lord, yet still claim to be His chosen people before the entire earth. The truth is still “run out of town,” and the courts of the Lord are still trampled upon by Gentiles, those who have rejected His authority.

Satan has made his unholy gathering and continues to do so. You can go to physical Jerusalem and have your pick among the unholy gatherings, whichever succeeds in deceiving you. However, his attempts will come to an end. As Revelation 16 prophesies, while Satan is busy with his unholy gathering, having a false people gathered for every main deception he ever conducted to wound Christ’s assembly, Christ “will come as a thief” and defeat them. (Rev.16:15)

The land belongs to Christ’s faithful followers, but He has asked them not to take it from either Muslims, Jews, or apostate Christians, but to wait for His intervention. This war will be fought by Jehovah, not by His people.

“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem” (Zec 12:1-2)

Remember, it is the next chapter that Christ quotes when He says His followers are Judah and Israel, the ones to be saved against the madness Satan will create. Throughout time, many have come against Jerusalem, besieged it, and taken it: Rome, the Byzantines, various Islamic groups, the Crusaders, the Ottomans, the British, and lastly the modern state of Israel, claiming to be the same Jews to whom this land was promised. None of these kingdoms did or will stand and remain. The New Jerusalem is in heaven, to be placed on earth. The Jerusalem that exists now is not the Jerusalem of the promise, as Paul said: “But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all” (Gal 4:23-26)

Physical Jerusalem was said to be in bondage when it was under Jewish control, a leadership that rejected Christ, as declared by Paul himself, an Israelite, while the Jews still held the land. The same people taking control again still represent bondage. They have no atonement for their sin without Christ and remain bound to their sins and delusions.

Christ told the Samaritan woman that the mountain in Jerusalem would no longer be used for gathering to Him. We know from the book of Daniel that this was a direct result of the Jewish nation’s rejection of Him.

When Satan has made it a place of gathering for those who listen to him but deceive in God’s name, we know it is not God’s gathering. It is not Christ’s gathering, but the one prophesied as the gathering of the dragon, the false prophet, and the beast: the carcasses and the eagles.

As modern “Israel” has taken control over this area, the two powers that Satan used to kill Jesus and scatter God’s true Israel away from Jerusalem, the Roman pontiff and the Jewish leadership, are again working against the truth. And the “real Israel” is claimed to be impostors and hated by Jews and Christians alike. For where there is a counterfeit, the original is despised.

The book of Revelation portrays what we have examined here. We see a woman, representing God’s people, clothed in the sun with the moon under her feet. The moon represents what has been. The moon has no light of its own; it simply reflects sunlight. Because God’s days begin at night, the moon is seen before the sun. In the same way, the sanctuary system given to Israel was a symbol of Christ and pointed to Him. The woman with the moon under her feet and clothed in the sun reveals that she represents faithful Israel before and after Christ, having the symbol of Christ under her feet while clothed in the truth of whom those symbols pointed.
She brought the world Christ; the Jewish nation was still God’s people until He was rejected. Then we see the woman is scattered but preserved: “And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God” (Rev.12:6)

Here Christ reveals that the woman, His people, are now translated into His followers.

We then see Satan going after her: “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.”

Because Christ’s followers are a continuation of Israel, they are said to have brought forth the child. To leave no room for doubt, Christ again specified:

“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev.12:17). The remnant of Israel (the woman with child) that gave us Christ are the followers of Christ (the remnant of her seed).

One Fold – One Israel

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAEL: THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

Exploring Romans 11: Will Jews convert and be God’s Israel once again?

Misunderstanding Paul’s wording in Romans 11 has led many Christians to believe that Jews who rejected Christ are still God’s people and will one day return to Him. The establishment of the state of Israel is, by many, considered the fulfillment of Paul’s prophecy.

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Rom 11:25-27)

Perhaps rendering the word “until” according to its Greek meaning, “while,” would have avoided all this misunderstanding, but that was the translators’ choice. Is Paul here speaking of a mystery concerning Jewish conversion in some distant future, or has Paul’s meaning been distorted by false teachers and faulty translation?

Paul’s meaning is clear throughout the 11th chapter, and the rest of the chapter must serve to explain this one verse. Further revelations in scripture must also align with it.

Do we interpret it to mean that Jews who rejected Christ are predestined to convert, or is there a misunderstanding here? Christ has never forced anyone to follow Him.

If Paul is saying the mystery is that God will reject the Jewish people but save a remnant in the end, it would mean that God has shown no mercy to the many Jews living in the time between then and now. This is nonsensical, because God cares for all people, Jews and pagans alike. He would not prevent the conversion of Jewish people before the end simply because His plan is to win them only at that final moment. God seeks to save every individual He can, in every age.

This leaves us with two options;

1. God foresees that many Jews will convert in the end, despite generations of rejection. This is indeed wonderful and possible. As the prophet Daniel was told concerning the time of the end: “Knowledge shall increase, and many shall travel to and fro” (Dan. 12:4). An increase in knowledge naturally leads to more conversions; it is a logical sequence, but hardly a mystery. Paul describes the Jews as “natural branches” cut off from God’s tree because of unfaithfulness and, if grafted back, grafted to their own tree naturally (Rom. 11:24). What is the greater mystery: a branch grafted back to its own tree, or one that was “grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree”? Paul is clear that a Jewish conversion is not a greater mystery or achievement than a pagan conversion. A Jewish conversion, therefore, cannot be both a mystery and something natural at the same time.

If Romans 11:25-27 is meant to speak of Jews converting in the future, it still does not prophesy the State of Israel, because God does not need a “State of Israel” to save Jews. The two are not synonymous. Previously, Jews lived among Christians and had to converse and interact with them daily all over the world. This led to many Jewish conversions, which is why Jewish leaders in each place encouraged Jews to form closed communities wherever they lived, avoiding as much contact with Christians as possible. The State of Israel gathered the Jews who had been spread among Christians and secluded them in a land where they learned only from one another. The result was a stronger identity rooted in the rejection of Christ for many, while others, no longer in small communities abroad, became atheists. A study quoted in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz shows that only 30% of Israelis say they are religious. (https://www.haaretz.com/2015-04-14/ty-article/israel-china-among-least-religious-nations/0000017f-e103-d804-ad7f-f1fb55ca0000)

This indicates that since the birth of the State of Israel, many Jews have become less spiritually interested and even more ignorant of Christianity.
Paul is not prophesying the State of Israel in Romans 11, as that is not synonymous with a “state of conversion.” Those Jews who returned to the land after the Babylonian captivity had to convert before returning. It was God’s condition that their conversion take place wherever they had been scattered. Thus, the belief that God gathered modern Jews to the State of Israel in order to convert them there contradicts God’s established order and law. Returning to the land was a reward for their conversion, not the means to produce one.

“And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee” (Deu.30:1-3)

Those who claim that Jews are to return before they convert speak neither truth nor light:
“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa.8:20)

Solomon understood this sequence and prayed accordingly, offering a prayer that God said He would hear.

“If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; Yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness;
And so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name: Then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling place, and maintain their cause” (1. King.8:46-49)

Christ was clear that the only acceptable repentance was acknowledging Him as Lord (Mat 23:39). Jews need atonement to receive God’s approval and restoration, an atonement given only through Christ. Thus, the modern Jews who have returned to the State of Israel, by not accepting Christ and by not inviting Christian converts to join them, do not fulfill the requirements for return. Worse, they defy Christ’s own words and conditions for returning.

If Paul is prophesying the return of many spiritually blinded Jews, he is prophesying their conversion to Christ, not a return to a land.
It is a natural consequence of the world becoming more enlightened and people less isolated through the internet that many Jews will convert to Christ in the end times. However, this cannot, in my opinion, be what Paul is speaking of here. For then “the whole of Israel saved” would be ignoring the fact that Jews have been lost for 2,000 years, and only a remnant at the end would be saved, which is then called “the whole of Israel.” This makes little sense. The mystery Paul is speaking of must be something other than what some speculate.

2. The second option for understanding this verse is that a word within it should have been translated into English somewhat differently. If we compare it with the rest of the New Testament, the great secret of the gospel at the time of writing was that the invitation was extended to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. It took a while for the apostles to understand this, and they even needed a prompt before they would preach to the Gentiles (Mat 15:23; Joh 4:9; Acts.10:45; Gal.2:12). They were greatly astonished when Christ preached to non-Jews, and they debated the matter after Christ’s departure, when Peter had witnessed pagans receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts.11). This was the great “secret”: that pagans were to become part of Christ’s Israel and be equal to the Christian Jews.

This is the secret: “the fullness of the Gentiles” has to come “in” so that “all Israel shall be saved”. This understanding fits with Christ’s own message: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. … And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” (Joh.10:11,16)

Here Christ speaks of Israel and of people from another “fold” who must be brought in to create “one fold.” If this is what Paul meant, he is echoing Christ’s own words and not introducing a new doctrine.

Earlier in chapter 11, Paul explains that he himself is part of the remnant of Israel, those who received Christ. He is part of that remnant in his own day. He then explains that Israel is like a tree with branches, and the Gentiles are “grafted in” to this tree that is Israel, while those among “the natural branches” who reject Christ are cut off, meaning they are no longer part of Israel.

The modern State of Israel is a “cut off branch” from the real Israel and is no longer God’s Israel. As Paul states, if individual Jews convert, they are grafted back onto the tree, and so it has been throughout history.
In the Bible, the word “Jews” is used not only to describe a people but also a state of the heart: “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Rom 2:28-29). In Revelation, this notion is repeated when Christ says that some claim to be Jews but are not.

The stem of God’s tree is not a Jewish state or the state of Israel; it is Jehovah and His law and prophets.

The letter to the Romans was written by Paul while he was in Corinth. He wrote chapter 11 during this same period, when he was also mistreated by Jewish brethren, leading to this declaration: “But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’” (Acts 18:6)

Paul understood that for Christ to return, “the other fold” had to come in, and this is why he directed his focus toward them rather than toward the “spiritually blinded” portion of the Jews.

The sequence of events is explained by Christ. He said to the disciples: “These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat 10:5-7)

The first to be reached was genetic Israel. Once this was done, the apostles were sent to all the world with the gospel: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Mat 24:14).

Notice that the message is the same to Israel as to “all nations”: “the kingdom of heaven” and “this gospel of the kingdom.” It is Christ’s kingdom, Christ’s domain.

This is repeated in Revelation, where an angel carries a message to worship God, their Creator, a message that is to go not just to Jews but to “every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people …Fear God, and give glory to him” (Rev.14:6-7).
The plan is explained fairly well here and elsewhere. God intended to first reach Judah, then as many of physical Israel as possible wherever they were scattered, and then extend the offer to the whole world. Once those who receive salvation have “come in,” and the fullness of all who are called has been gathered, Christ will have “one fold”: “the whole of Israel.” The “whole” does not mean everyone; if it did, then all Jews and all Gentiles would be saved. This is not the meaning of “the whole” in Paul’s letter. He means that those Jews who convert to Christ, together with those coming in from the Gentiles, will form “a whole” — a new whole, a complete “fold” as Christ described. This was the secret hidden from many: that the long-awaited Messiah of the tribe of Judah would not save His people and establish His kingdom until “the fullness of the pagans came in.” This was the entire plan from the very beginning, from when Israel was called out of Egypt to be a kingdom of priests, commissioned to bring the truth about God, His law, and His atonement to the world. But instead of fulfilling this calling, they imitated the pagans, kept their knowledge and practice to themselves, and refused to share it or draw others to it. Rather than seeing themselves as God’s ambassadors, they felt superior to others and did not proclaim their God. God’s plan did not change; instead, He commissioned the apostles, the seventy chosen, and the first Christians to do the work that Judah had been unwilling to do: to reach the rest of the world.
The secret was therefore not that Jews would convert, as they were the natural “branches,” but that pagans would be “grafted in” before Christ’s kingdom could begin. Christ is not waiting for spiritually blinded Jews to convert, but for those who have not yet had the chance to hear the gospel to hear it. Then, as Christ said, “the end shall come.”

There is no additional period of time allotted, no return to a Jewish state for another attempt. Everyone must convert first, wherever they are, and then Christ will come and gather His people. The Bible teaches that it was first the Jews, then Israel, then the pagans, and then “the end” comes.

The invitation and call to the pagans were prophesied several times in the Old Testament.
“Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.  … He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law” (Isa.42:1.4)

While Jews hoped the Messiah had come to deliver them and rule over the world and the Gentiles with “an iron rod,” they failed to see that the Messiah’s purpose was to save the Gentiles and invite them to become part of Israel (Rev.19:15; Rom 2:10-11). The “iron rod” spoke of the final judgment upon all mankind, an idea that was strongly resisted.
“Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak, saying,
“The Lord has utterly separated me from His people” From Isaiah we see that God also in the Old Testament invited the stranger to come and worship and be one with His people if he wished: “ Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, …Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer…mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people. ..The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.” (Isa.56:3-8)

The truth comes from the Jews.

So why does Paul say: “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom 9:3-5)

This is a valuable and powerful statement that, if understood correctly, can protect someone from deception. If the wrong meaning is drawn from it, however, it only serves to confuse. Paul sometimes explains things in a more complex way than many without formal education can follow, as Peter himself acknowledged about Paul’s writings (2.Pet.3:15-16). Paul most likely wrote in the academic style of his day because, unlike the fishermen Peter and John and others from common trades, Paul had been educated in rabbinical schools and was a Pharisee (Php.3:5, Act 22:3). This may explain why the letters of Peter, John, and James are straightforward and easy to understand even in translation, while Paul often argues back and forth before arriving at his conclusion. This is a very different approach, and it is easily misunderstood, particularly when he presents the views of others alongside his own responses, making both appear to the modern reader as his personal opinion. It was, in fact, common in the ancient Greek style of writing (Aristotelian Argument) to first introduce an issue, then present the case, then address the opposition, provide proof, and finally present a conclusion. While Paul does communicate as a learned man of his day, great confusion arises when everything he says is taken as his final conclusion. Much of Paul’s rhetorical style is lost on modern readers, as it was on some in his own day who lacked formal education. One such example is Paul’s discussion of God’s law, where he appears to dismiss it, yet concludes that the law is good and has not been abolished (Rom.3:31; 1.Tim.1:8). Many Christian doctrines are built solely upon the arguments Paul raises, rather than upon the conclusions he gives in answer to those very arguments.

So, is Paul saying in Romans 9 that God’s people are the genetic Israeli people, regardless of what they do or believe, because they were once given “the covenant” and “the promise”?
In the next verse, Paul says: “Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” (Rom 9:6-8)

Paul explains here that just as not all of Abraham’s physical children inherited the promise given to Abraham, neither are all who are Israel by flesh inheritors of that promise.

What many think Paul is saying is that everything belongs to those of the flesh, even though he himself is explaining that his meaning is the exact opposite.

Jesus explained the same in a straightforward way in His address to the Samaritan woman: “The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (Joh 4:19-23)

Why did Jesus not say salvation came from Him? Why say it came from the Jews, the same Jews He knew were about to end His life? This is precisely the point that Paul also explains.

Jews needed to receive Christ as their King and Savior and had to understand that the law and the prophets spoke of Him.

But when Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, He made a point of helping her understand that the Messiah’s mission was rooted in the Jewish system, and not in hers or any other pagan tradition.

The truth, the promises, the culture, and the law had been entrusted to the Jews, and the gospel was to be built upon those truths rather than upon a different religious framework. It was important for her to understand that the foundation of Christ’s mission was the truth given to the Jews.

This is also Paul’s point. He is not saying that Jews who rejected Christ are still Israel of the promise and continue to have a claim on God’s promises, but rather that the pagans who have “been grafted in” to the tree need to understand that this is the tree they are grafted upon. They are partaking in the blessing given to physical Israel and the Jews, and the gospel belongs within this framework, not within a pagan or any other religious tradition.

In essence, Paul was teaching the pagans not to alter the foundation of the gospel and create a separate religion. This is remarkably fitting advice, given that the Roman church ultimately did exactly that, rejecting the Jewish roots and replacing them with pagan ones. Both Christ and Paul warn against such a move. Separating Judaism from Christianity caused division in what was meant to be united, and it was contrary to God’s will. The Jews who rejected Christ also played their part in creating this division. The Roman Church and the Jews-by-Flesh together succeeded in destroying the witness of the gospel by severing the law and the prophets from it. The Jews claimed to keep the law, and the Roman church claimed to keep the gospel. Both are now ignorant of their own impending doom, having worked together in pulling the two witnesses apart, with equal guilt.

The truth Paul explains in his letter is the same truth Jesus conveyed to the Samaritan woman: that the gospel and Christ are only understood correctly when united with “the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers…”

Yet, although given the key to unlock the mystery of redemption, only by accepting Christ would they truly be God’s “Israel”.

Paul’s explanation of the “grafting in” of the pagans is also meant to prevent the notion that Gentiles are to transform their own religion and simply call it by Christ’s name. It is also a call not to hate or reject them despite facing resistance from many Jews, but rather to feel blessed by them and by their history and experience with God, and to hope, pray, and trust that many will turn back to God and be “re-grafted.”

The first headquarters of the gospel messengers was Jerusalem, and the first preachers were Jews. However, the Roman church transferred this headquarters to Rome and changed the very foundation upon which people understand the gospel.

Thus, the letter to the Romans stands the test of time and exposes their folly.
However, this move could not have happened if the Jewish leaders had not scattered the true Israel from the land.

Jesus began by preaching to His Jewish brethren, reaching them first with the gospel. He also preached to the Samaritans, who possessed part of the truth but had been misled on several matters. He clarified to them that the Jews were on the right side of their long-standing differences. He then sent out His apostles to preach to the “lost” from the tribes of Israel. The reason they received the truth first was that they were closer to it and better equipped to preach to the pagans worldwide. They were commissioned to enlighten the world concerning His identity and purpose. And so it happened, just as God designed it. The Bible, which speaks to billions worldwide every day, was written by Jews. Christians are educated through scripture, taught once again by Jews: faithful Jews. They learn from Israel’s history, from the covenants given to them, from their relationship with God, their failures, and their prophets. And lastly, from the Lion of Judah, Christ, who was born a Jew. The whole Bible is a Jewish book. Every page of the New Testament is a gift from God through the Jews. They were entrusted with the truth, and their history forms the very foundation of the Christian faith.

All of this is the fulfillment of the promises given to physical Israel, and God kept His word. The fulfillment is not, however, attributed to the Jews who rejected their own Lord. They are no longer grafted in and are no longer part of God’s Israel, even if they call themselves Israel. They forfeited the opportunity to educate the world. Paul’s meaning is that we must recognize how everything was fulfilled through the Jewish people, and this recognition is not to be extended to the disobedient Jews of today.

Paul also calls for respect for what the Jewish people have contributed, and any persecution of Jews by Christians throughout history is not God’s design. Christians have not been called to persecute anyone, least of all their own spiritually blinded brothers. You cannot cure hardness of heart with more hardness. Only love can give birth to love. Every Christian should therefore pray for and love those who are spiritually blinded, not hate them.

But loving them does not mean giving them the false assurance that they are the “real Israel” in their spiritually blinded state. Only by converting can they be grafted back into the “real Israel,” the fold that is the remnant of Israel by flesh, those who have preached and won willing souls from among the Gentiles to the gospel. This is the real Israel. The “spiritually blinded Jews” must join this group, this tree.

Replacement theory

God’s Israel was never taken from the Jewish people and given to the Christian people. God’s Israel followed the line of the Jewish people through Christ, His disciples, the seventy chosen, and the tribes of Israel, through a Jewish book, the New Testament, and then also through the “grafted in Gentiles.” Israel was not taken from one group and given to another. Israel continued with the faithful remnant, who became the teachers and forefathers through whom Gentiles were reached and added. Thus, God’s Israel is not a replacement theory; it is a continuation through a faithful remnant and those “adopted” into the family. Those Jews who rejected a place in Christ’s leadership and kingdom were, as they chose, removed from “the tree.”

Replacement theory does not say that Gentiles are now part of Israel. The Bible says they are.
Rather, replacement theory is the lie of both the Roman church and the Jewish establishment:

1. The Roman church preaches replacement theory by removing the gospel of Christ from the God-given Jewish culture and replacing the foundation of God with the foundation of man. By dismantling the base of the gospel, the Roman church turned Christianity into a replacement religion altogether. God continued with the faithful remnant, not with the Roman church.

2. Replacement theory also takes the promises given to the faithful remnant of God, those who received Christ and preached the offer of salvation to the whole world, and reassigns those promises to the Jews who rejected God. To rob the faithful Jews, Moses and the prophets, and the true meaning of the law and the culture, and then claim that the real Israel consists of those who misunderstood and disobediently persecuted Christ and His followers, is another form of “replacement theory.” We take from those whom God has declared to be faithful Israel and claim that God’s promises belong instead to the unfaithful, broken-off branches. Peter, John, James, and all those they reached are then set aside in favor of the descendants of the Pharisees who scattered them, which is an insult to God. It is also contrary to Israel’s history as recorded in the law and the Bible. God never chose the disobedient remnant over the obedient one.

When we understand who the real Israel is, we will understand that it is blessing them that brings a blessing in return, not donating money to the modern State of Israel and its warfare.

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAEL : THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

I was once at a meeting in a synagogue where Christians and Jews gathered to hear a speaker from Israel defending the country’s right to defend itself against the Palestinians. During the talk, the question about Jesus came up, and he answered, to the amusement of everyone there: “When our Messiah comes, we will ask him: Have you been here before? And if he says ‘yes’, we will believe him.” Everyone laughed.

For a long time, many evangelicals have believed in a pre-tribulation rapture in which Christians are brought to heaven while a Jewish kingdom simultaneously begins here on earth. The Jews are given another chance to choose Christ. The promises of a great kingdom, not fulfilled at Christ’s first coming, would be realized then.

Unfortunately, if this interpretation is false, it means that both the evangelical and the Jew are in for a great end-time surprise, finding themselves unprepared for the deceptions of Satan. If the warnings in Revelation are directed at Christians, yet they believe those events will happen to the Jews after Christians have gone to heaven, they will miss out on a warning meant for them and on guidance on how to endure the trials.

For the Jew, it is dangerous to think he can wait to make up his mind about following Jesus until Jesus comes. By the time Jesus comes, it will be too late.

The pre-tribulation doctrine entered the evangelical churches and spread among the masses through Scofield’s Bible commentary. It was a successful Jesuit attack on the Protestant churches.

As the Reformation grew increasingly influential in the 16th century, the Papacy instituted a society whose primary task was to combat it by slowly altering Protestant doctrines and creating divisions among Protestants to weaken their progress.

No Protestant would listen to what the Catholic Church had to say anymore, because they believed the Pope was the Antichrist. One of the key goals was to propose an alternative identity for the Antichrist, shifting suspicion away from the Papacy and onto an unknown figure in the future. They had to create a new common enemy. Then they had to infiltrate this idea into Protestantism and make Protestants believe it was their own conclusion. Once accomplished, the gap between the two movements would be small enough to pull Protestants back toward submission to the Catholic Church. After all, if the Papacy was not the Antichrist, should they not cooperate against the real one?
The idea they presented was that the temple mentioned as the place where “the man of sin” would sit was not God’s congregation, nor was it the individual believer as Paul described (1Co. 3:16, 1Co. 6:19, 2Co. 6:16), but rather a physical building. Not just any physical building, but the Jewish Temple itself. The Antichrist, they claimed, would sit in this temple. Since there was no temple in Jerusalem anymore, this had to refer to some distant future.

In this way, they could slowly bring Protestantism back into their fold under the guise that all Christians share a common enemy: this mysterious future figure.

In 1585, Jesuits Francisco Ribera and Robert Bellarmine began writing down these ideas of a future Antichrist, arguing that the Papacy was not the one. Slowly, the ideas were planted among the Protestants, but they were not widely received. The understanding that the Papacy was the Antichrist and would lead people into false Christianity and damnation had deep roots.
The Jesuit ideas were spread slowly and quietly.
In 1744, Morgan Edwards shared similar thoughts with a Baptist college, generating further interest in the alternative theory of a future Antichrist.
In 1791, Manuel De Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit from Chile, wrote a manuscript in Spanish under the pen name Juan Josafa [Rabbi] Ben-Ezra. Lacunza wrote under a Jewish name to conceal the fact that he was a Catholic, believing the Jewish name would give his book greater acceptance among Protestants, his intended audience. He also advanced this futuristic interpretation in his book.

The idea gained increasing acceptance, but only among a smaller Protestant minority. However, there were some problems with this theory. There was no Jewish state and no Jewish temple for the Antichrist to sit in, which made the idea seem unlikely and distant. This was one of the biggest obstacles when introducing it. For an Antichrist to sit in a physical Jewish temple, the temple had to be rebuilt, and for the temple to be rebuilt, Jerusalem would have to become a Jewish state. The original aim had been to redirect suspicion of the Antichrist away from the Papacy and toward a future Jewish figure. If the Jews created a state in Jerusalem, Protestants would be convinced the doctrine was correct, completely abandon the Pope as the Antichrist, and look for this mysterious coming figure. But Jerusalem was protected by the Turks, whose mosques stood on the site of the temple. The Turks had to go.

In 1826, Samuel Roffey Maitland, the Archbishop of Canterbury, presented the futuristic idea, and it continued to spread.
In 1827, Edward Irving, a Scottish Presbyterian and forerunner of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, translated Lacunza’s work from Spanish into English. Lacunza, it will be recalled, was the Jesuit who had written under a Jewish pen name.

In 1830, John Nelson Darby presented further speculation and theories on the same topic, reinforcing the views of the others.

For there to be an Antichrist in a Jewish temple, there first had to be a Jewish temple. To have a Jewish temple, there had to be a Jewish state in Jerusalem, and to have that, Jews had to return in large numbers to Israel. But the Jews had not turned away from their defiance or met God’s criteria for ruling their land as they once had. Jesus had said that their ability to live peacefully in their land depended on their acceptance of Him. (Luk. 19:41-44; Matt. 23:38-39; Joh. 4:23)
If the Jews were to come back without conversion, a theory had to emerge to make sense of it. The idea proposed was that there was one salvation for Jews and another for Christians. Before, there had only been one salvation and one destiny, regardless of who you were. (Col. 3:11; Gal. 3:28; Rom. 10:12)
Now, this view had changed. The idea that Jews would receive their messianic experience and a second chance was introduced alongside the rapture of Christians. With this theory, people would accept the Jews returning to the land even though they had not accepted Christ as the Messiah. This, as we saw in the previous chapter, is contrary to God’s Torah, in which God said a conversion must happen while they are scattered in foreign lands. This is God’s law and the order of things.
It was apparently not considered an insult to God to create a theory in which, if the Jews did not accept the humble, self-sacrificing Messiah, then it was the Messiah who had “come in the wrong way” and would have to change his approach, returning instead as the political hero they had always wanted.
To help unconverted Jews return to the land without conversion is a violation of God’s Torah. This did not stop Christians. They believed Jews would get the land back even though they had not accepted Christ, as their election was by heritage and not by faith. The idea was that God’s people were not those who did God’s will, but those who were born into it. The hypocrisy of the theory was evident, as many of Jewish descent were no longer practicing Jews, and numerous Muslims had at one time been Jews before converting. So in reality, it was not simply about being of Jewish descent; it was about being of Jewish descent and rejecting Christ, as no interest was shown in Jews of other ideologies. When you begin with a series of lies, it becomes a web of contradictions full of holes and inconsistencies.

Although the doctrine was becoming complicated, larger and more influential groups now believed it. Scriptures about the return of Israel from Babylon were now used to support a future gathering of Jews in Palestine, or they would use scriptures referring to Christ’s second coming and the gathering at that time. All the scriptures that spoke of Jews being God’s people were no longer tied to converted Jews but to the unconverted. In other words, to be accepted and blessed by God, one had to be a Jew who denied Christ as the Messiah. The ideas spread further and further, with Bible verses selected and combined with no regard for other scriptures that said something different, all arranged to make the whole thing appear Biblical.
The more widespread the idea became, the more its proponents realized that for Jesus to come back, there had to be a Jewish state. Jesus had said He would return when the gospel had been preached to the whole world: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Mat. 24:14) Yet now another stumbling block had been placed in the path of the evangelical understanding. A Jewish state had to be established so that the end-time events, as they envisioned them, could unfold and for Jesus to come. But nothing seemed to be happening to bring this about, and the larger body of Jews themselves appeared content to wait until their Messiah came to do it. Christians then took it upon themselves to fulfill what they believed was a prophecy. If God would not act, they would make it happen themselves. A smaller group of Jews had already started a Zionist movement to return to the land, believing it was still rightfully theirs, and they were further inspired by the evangelicals’ conviction of their right to it. Together, the evangelicals and Zionists would push for the creation of the new Jewish state.
The problem with Protestants actively wanting to fulfill their perception of the prophecy was glaring: they needed a Jewish state for the Antichrist to come and deceive the whole world. Why would Christians want to pave the way for what they themselves believed was the end-time deceiver? Were they now preparing the way for the Antichrist? New theories were added to justify it: Jesus was to rule in Jerusalem with the Jews, and Christians were to be raptured to heaven before the end-time troubles began. This reframed their efforts as a preparation for Christ rather than merely for the Antichrist, and the theory of the pre-tribulation rapture was used to make this complicated end-time understanding fit with the Bible. Either way, they needed a Jewish state, and so they were now gathering the Jews for Christ’s sake, so He could establish their kingdom with them. Their actions now seemed somewhat more legitimate. Yet another problem arose with this theory. Many evangelicals found themselves holding the very same mistaken belief that had once left the Jews unprepared for the first coming of the Messiah. Now they believed what the Jews had believed then and still believe today. The difference was that Christians needed the Antichrist to appear first, and so they could not wait for Jesus to establish the Jewish state. Meanwhile, the Jews were effectively being supported in the very belief that had caused them to reject Christ in the first place.

Many Christians were again doing what the Jews in the time of Christ had done: turning the matter from spiritual obedience to the pursuit of a physical kingdom.
Protestants and evangelicals began paying out of their own pockets to send Jews to what was then known as Palestine, the land that had once been the Jewish state in Biblical times. Christian missionaries went to Palestine, often risking their lives trying to convert Jews or to help them understand “their role” in the end times. All of this was done with few realizing that they were fulfilling ideas planted in their churches by the Jesuit organization, whose ultimate goal was to bring Protestants back to accepting the Pope as the leader of Christendom.

The British Literalists–strong among the Anglican Evangelicals and in various Nonconformist churches–were not about to abandon their hopes of converting Jews and sending them to Palestine to meet their Messiah, especially not around 1840, when the current British policy of offering protection to Jews living in Palestine raised great expectations among the pre-millennialists. Indeed, Literalist influence was unofficially shaping that policy. An ardent Literalist, Lord Ashley (later the Earl of Shaftesbury), was stepson-in-law and confidant of Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary. Ashley had private hopes of bringing about, through British action, the restoration of Israel to Palestine in preparation for the Second Advent. In 1840, he prodded Palmerston, by adducing political reasons, into seeking international backing for Jewish migration to Palestine, while he confided to his diary his own very different motives, which were distinctly religious:

“Dined with Palmerston. After dinner left alone with him. Propounded my scheme, which seemed to strike his fancy . . . . Palmerston has already been chosen by God to be an instrument of good to His ancient people; to do homage, as it were, to their inheritance, and to recognize their rights without believing their destiny . . . . I am forced to argue politically, financially, commercially; these considerations strike him home; he weeps not like his Master over Jerusalem, nor prays that now, at last, she may put on her beautiful garments.  (Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, Diary entries, quoted in Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. 1, pp. 310, 311. Ashley was the one referred to, but not named (in London Times, Aug. 17, 1840, p. 3, col. 5), As the promoter of Western-sponsored Jewish migration to Palestine

Ashley’s influence was likewise behind the establishment of a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the creation of an Anglican bishopric there in 1841, and the appointment of a Jewish Christian bishop to it. On October 16, 1841, he wrote in his diary: “Where would the Sultan’s permission [to build the bishop’s church] has been without Palmerston’s vigour in consequence of my repeated and earnest representations. (Hodder, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 377 (cf. pp. 370, 374). See also Harold Temperley, England and the Near East: The Crimea (1936), p. 443, note 275; Barbara W. Tuchman, Bible and Sword (1956, 1968), chap. 10.)

But Ashley’s dream of a British-sponsored and treaty-protected Jewish migration to Palestine did not materialize. The Four-Power Treaty of 1840 ignored the matter. Even the Jews themselves showed little interest; more than half a century passed before Zionism among the Jews arose.

Still, a large portion of the Protestant movement continued to hold fast to the belief that the Antichrist was none other than the institution of the Papacy, which claimed to be God’s throne on earth. All the great Christian leaders in the United States still upheld this belief and were struggling to resist the Jesuits’ infiltration of their institutions.

In 1909, something began that would permanently shape the evangelical view of the end times and pull it away from its original belief. Cyrus I. Scofield compiled all of these views and presented them in the Scofield Reference Bible. It was largely through the influence of Scofield’s notes that dispensationalism grew among fundamentalist Christians in the United States. Scofield’s notes on the Book of Revelation became a major source for the various timetables, judgments, and plagues elaborated on by popular religious writers such as Hal Lindsey, Edgar C. Whisenant, and Tim LaHaye, whose writings inspired popular films such as Left Behind. With this ideology firmly established, the Christian churches had a new common enemy.
Someone once said, “Nothing unites humans like a common enemy.”

The Pope was no longer seen as a threat, and slowly, the hands of Protestant groups and the Papacy could meet. They were now Christian brothers, a Christian family.
The ideas invented and planted by Jesuits were accepted as end-time facts, and many have been taught this understanding from an early age.
The Papacy had successfully undermined the Protestant movement enough that it was no longer threatened by it. Slowly but surely, every denomination that had thought the Pope to be antichrist began rejecting that belief. 

The fight for a Jewish state and to bring Jews to Palestine continued. If this did not happen, the theory would eventually be rejected. But if it did happen, they would all see it as evidence that their interpretation was true, and even more would come to believe it. It would be a sign and a wonder not easily argued against. Perhaps even God’s faithful, commandment-keeping Christians would give up and follow.

The Ottoman stronghold had been weakened, and Jerusalem was now under the control of the British Mandate, a Christian Protestant nation.

It was not until after the Second World War and the intense persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany that a larger portion of the remaining Jews was motivated to move to Palestine. The sympathy generated in the aftermath also led to widespread acceptance and support.

Under the German Socialist Party and Hitler, millions of Jews were treated like animals, starved, tortured, experimented on, and ultimately killed. When the truth came out, the world was horrified. Even among the worst Jew-haters, heads were bowed in shame. It did not take long before the United Nations was founded, and it was decided to give a portion of Palestine to the Jews. Although the threat against them had been removed and the need to move was not pressing if they could be restored and honored in their European countries, it was decided they would be given Palestine instead. After the traumatic experience of World War II, many Jews were glad to move, trying to build a life for themselves away from the cruel hatred they had suffered. Many were running as fast as they could. After all, what had happened in Europe could happen again. The Jews had a common potential enemy: everyone else. Now they would build their fortress in the land from which they had once been driven.
However, they were not given Jerusalem. What the Jews did not know was that they had just walked into another trap.

The Jews were now attacked by Islamic countries that had long controlled the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Jewish temple once stood. God had allowed the Islamic people to protect the mount from the construction of a new temple. Although God allowed the Jews to fight off their enemies, He did not allow them to take over the Temple Mount. Though they reached the mount during the war, they were quickly told by their own leaders to leave it as a Muslim religious site. Many were distressed and did not understand the order, but it was given all the same. God allowed their decision to become their rescue. Had they tried to rebuild the temple, God would have had to stop them.

The lie behind the doctrine

A large part of the reason the Jewish nation rejected Christ as their Messiah was that they had a hope, stirred by scripture, of becoming a great nation in the world. The Messiah would come, deliver them, and rule from Jerusalem. They would become the chosen people before all the earth and be granted positions of honor.

When Jesus came, He showed no intention of fighting the Roman Empire or taking control of the political world. This did not seem consistent with the prophecy about the Messiah, and so they refused to accept Him as their long-awaited Messiah and rejected Him.

For them, the Messiah is a religious-political figure.

God, however, had repeatedly tried to explain to them that He cannot establish an earthly kingdom unless it is built on His terms and principles.

When they rejected Him in the past, God withdrew, and they were subdued by their enemies. When they cried out to God for help, He sent judges, kings, and leaders to help them regain their independence. In the end, they were taken to Babylon. God’s throne and the Ark were hidden, and the temple was destroyed. Not because God was not stronger than Babylon, but because God would not be king in their midst if they did not represent Him rightly. How can He be king if they won’t obey His leadership?

Around the time a more faithful remnant was to return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, God gave Daniel an important message “to his people” concerning them and the future of Jerusalem, “thy holy city.”

God said He would give them, as a people and as a city, 70 prophetic weeks, which translates to 490 years, to do one important thing to ensure their future in the land.

“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy” (Dan.9:24)

Further, the angel explains that the Messiah would come during the last seven years, be killed in the middle of those seven years, and that their probation time would end approximately 3.5 years after this. The time period can be easily counted down to Christ’s first coming.

This period reflected the message Jesus gave to the Jews during the first 3.5 years of His ministry. Jesus would not first take the land, drive out Rome, and then try to convert them.

Instead, Christ told them they needed to stop the rebellion, to become a better representation, to allow themselves to be instructed and corrected, to end their sins, and receive the atonement that He would give them.

Had they fulfilled the conditions within the time granted them, their nation would most likely have been restored. But because Christ would not rule among them unless they changed their ways, He had to call on them to change first.

The lie told to Jews then, and told to Jews now, is that the kingdom of the Messiah begins politically and that conversion follows. This has never been God’s way. He would not even let them enter the Promised Land until they first made a covenant with Him. When they broke this covenant, He refused to let them enter until all the rebels among them had passed away. Only when the new generation chose Him were they allowed to enter the land. Even Moses was denied entry when he sinned. God’s conditions are ever the same. This is why Jerusalem could only remain and be saved if it first accepted Christ. God’s kingdom among men never starts politically; it always starts spiritually.

Jesus said: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” ( Luk 17:20-21)  

That was not the answer they wanted, because they believed they were already righteous. However, the constant debate between Christ and the leaders showed that they did not correctly represent the law of God. They were not consecrated to the truth they proclaimed.

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

Even so, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Mat 23:25-28). 

God will not build a kingdom based on force or with a mob of hypocrites. That is why Jesus had to WIN THEM OVER, WIN THEIR HEARTS, in order to establish a kingdom among them. When they rejected this, they also rejected the kingdom promised to them. The Kingdom starts within and then manifests outwardly, while the Jewish nation saw no problem within themselves and wanted a kingdom to begin outwardly and then compel inner change. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.” “Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not” (Luk 11:44 & Matt.23:2-3)

Christ warned against the danger of a hypocritical religion and how the spirit and goodness of God’s standard were destroyed in their representation of it.

Christ had to reach their hearts to reinstate Jerusalem as the capital of God. But they refused Christ’s righteousness, cast away His teachings, and killed their King.

As Pilate wrote above the cross of Christ, it was: “And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written” (Joh 19:19-22).

How, then, could God reinstate Jerusalem as a great nation and grant them independence when they refused to be led by Him and had cast Him away as they did?

When forced to choose between the only one who could give them true independence and continued suppression, they chose to be ruled by the Roman leader rather than live in a kingdom governed by Christ: “But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.” (Joh. 19:15)

There, they sealed their destiny. They had left “their house desolate,” and God could no longer establish a kingdom with them. They did not want to, they did not receive Him, and they would not agree to God’s terms. The 70 prophetic weeks finally ended, not with Christ’s death, but when they began the “scattering” of God’s faithful people and prevented “the holy city” from being a city proclaiming the truth. They did it to themselves; they chose this. Christ was killed in the middle of the last prophetic week of the 70 weeks, and the end of it came with the stoning of Stephen and the scattering of Christ’s followers from Jerusalem (Acts 8:1).

The lie today is that the prophecy of the Messiah’s kingdom among the Jews is yet to be fulfilled in the end times. The very same doctrine that bewildered them in the past has resurfaced. The Jews are still waiting for their Messiah, a political figure, to give them power. They still will not receive Christ’s righteousness or accept that they need it to be part of such a kingdom.

Because of the unfaithfulness of Judah, Christ had to change plans. Instead of Jerusalem being the center of His reign on earth, Christ had to give it up: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” ( Joh 18:36-37).

There was a time when a group of Jews wanted to crown Him king. After He had fed the 5,000, they wanted to make Him king and thereby launch a political rebellion against Herod and the Roman Empire:

“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone” (Joh 6:15)

Jesus refused because He could not, and would not, start a political armed revolt at that time. Just as the Lord could not in the past give His unfaithful people victory in war, neither could He now. They had to receive His righteousness. Had He allowed them to crown Him, they would have repeated the history of when they brought the Ark of the Covenant into battle against the Philistines, thinking they could force God’s hand to guarantee victory. It would have been to use Christ as a tool for their own agenda.

The very day after their attempt to crown Him king, they went looking for Him again, and He tried to speak to them about what was truly important for their restoration.

“Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled”. 

He then went on to explain that they had to “eat his flesh and drink his blood,” a symbol of letting Him change them, take away their sins, and atone for them. They needed to learn from Him and His example. (Joh. 6:26; Joh. 6:41)
The Jews then murmured at Him because He said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”

They did not want Jesus speaking about their spiritual needs when they wanted their physical and political needs addressed. “Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” (Joh. 6:60 & 66)
This situation clearly illustrates that those who wanted to make Christ a king did not truly respect Him if He did not do what they wanted Him to do.

They did not want a spiritual transformation. This made it impossible for God to restore His King in the land after the 70 weeks.

Right before Christ spoke the words “your house is left unto you desolate,” He told a parable about a powerful man who invited specially chosen people to his wedding feast. But the invited guests declined the great offer, and he had to call upon those who were not originally invited instead:

“And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise: And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them. Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they who were bidden were not worthy. Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage” (Mat 22:3-9). 

The evangelical lie

Because the prophecy of Daniel 9 clearly shows that the probation of the Jews as God’s people centered in Jerusalem is over, and they did not meet the required conditions, certain teachers decided that this prophecy had to be divided. The last week, the final 7 years, would be “cut off” from the 70 weeks and placed in the end times. In this way, they create a “gap” between the 69th and 70th weeks. Within this gap, the Jews are scattered, and in the final week, they are given the opportunity to fulfill the requirements and succeed after all. In effect, they move the last prophetic week of the Jews’ probation in Jerusalem to the very end of history.

There is nothing in the time prophecy that indicates in any way that the 70 weeks can be separated by a two-thousand-year gap. Rather, it is presented in the Bible as one continuous prophecy with different waymarks.

By dividing the prophecy and moving the last week (7 years) to the end, they can claim that the final verses speak of an Antichrist and thus fit with their previous teaching.

This is all an error and a belief that was strengthened when Jews made their return to the land.

The expectation for these 7 years is higher than ever, and the Jewish return is seen as confirmation that this theory is true.

Unfortunately, it has also led to the belief that Christians will be spared from the great end-time conflicts. Most of the book of Revelation is dismissed as having nothing to do with Christians; instead, they claim it speaks of what the Jews will have to endure. The mark of the beast, the plagues, and the woman riding the beast are all assigned to the trials the Jewish nation will face. Many Christians are left unprepared, failing to see that this is a warning directed at them specifically, and that it even speaks of false Christian movements among them. This leaves them vulnerable to the end-time deceptions of the “beast and the false prophets,” not realizing the warning is about their own leaders deceiving them. Even worse, by dismissing the book of Revelation as irrelevant to themselves, they have fulfilled the very prophecy of the false prophet mentioned there.

The book of Revelation is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.” (Rev. 1:1) It was given as a warning to Christ’s followers to help them understand events connected to them: “to testify unto you these things in the churches” (Rev.22:16)

The important thing to realize is that Christ’s principles have not changed. He will not lead a Jewish nation that rejects His character and teaching. It will not happen. Christ’s righteousness is testified to in scripture, a book that most Jewish scholars still reject. The conditions remain the same. They were given a time, and that time is long over. Because they rejected their Messiah, His kingdom is not of this world. The New Jerusalem is being built in heaven, not on earth, for His faithful, and will be placed on earth only after all have been judged. There are no new opportunities to establish an earthly kingdom of God before the judgment. The Jewish desire for such a kingdom will not come to pass.

Taking the land by force.

Once before, Israel tried to take the Promised Land by force against God’s command. This happened while they were camped at Kadesh, after twelve men had spied out the land and ten had refused to believe in God’s power to save them, stirring up a riot among the people against God and His leadership. They chose defiance.
When God responded by saying they were destined to die in the wilderness, they decided to take the Promised Land anyway and force God’s promise to be fulfilled, despite God saying He would not support them.
So they went to war and lost in great numbers.

This mirrors the situation today. The state of Israel has been forcing itself into the land despite God saying it is not of Him.
Today, Israel’s nuclear facility stands in the area where they fought for the land against God’s will, and they rely on their own atomic arsenal to defend their presence there, showing once again their dependence on themselves for salvation.
Yet there is no blessing in going against God’s order, and it will not save them. Instead of standing as a monument to their supremacy, it remains a memorial to their defiance against God.

Article series: INTRODUCTION – WHO IS JEHOVAH? – WHO IS THE REAL ISRAEL – THE SCATTERING – THE GATHERING: ONE-FOLD – ONE ISRAEL : THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL NOT CHOSEN – DANIEL 9 AND THE PRE-TRIBULATION DECEPTION – JUDAISM ACE IS NOT A GODLY REPRESENTATION OF OT – THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL – THE DIFFERENCE (between Biblical Israel taking of Canaan and modern Israel taking of Palestine) – What side should we take in the Palestinian and Israeli conflict?

The Jewish division in the first century

Around the time Jesus came to preach the law, two other great Jewish directions of faith were already taking shape.

Two great Jewish rabbis shaped this era: Shammai and Hillel, known today as Beit Shammai (Shammai’s house) and Beit Hillel (Hillel’s house). The two groups, following their teachings, disagreed on hundreds of points. Hillel died around the year 20 CE, after which Shammai became president.

Hillel was the grandfather of Gamaliel, who is mentioned in the Bible and at whose school Paul studied (Acts 22:3). Shammai was a leading figure around the time the rabbis and scribes rejected Christ. Given the influence of these two great rabbis, it is clear that their teachings are what Christ debates in the Gospels. They also inaugurated a new era of Judaism. In particular, Shammai promoted the idea that there are two Torahs: one written in scripture (the Written Torah, referring to the texts of the Hebrew Bible), and one given verbally (the Oral Torah, understood as teachings and traditions passed down by word of mouth). The verbal Torah gave them the opportunity to add explanations and practices not found in the Bible and to present them as words from God.

Christ debated these groups, and the Jewish people had already reached a crossroads. Judaism would not remain as it had been in light of these divisions and new ideas. With the oral Torah, it could only go in two directions: the Judaism of Christ, or the divergent paths led by these rabbis.

According to the New Testament, Jesus is described as the oral Torah, the law that became flesh, the word of God made manifest. When Jesus explained the law and how to uphold it, He is presented as the oral Torah, teaching how the written Torah was to be practiced and lived out. The oral Torah introduced by the rabbis is thus described as a competing interpretation, claiming authority alongside Christ’s teachings.
In one sense, Christ was compelled to enter history at this precise moment because, had He not, the Jewish nation would have been led entirely in the direction of the false oral Torah. He was their last hope of keeping their religion free from fanaticism.
John wrote about Jesus: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Joh 1:11-13).

Here it is stated that those who receive Christ and His teachings will be given the power to become the sons of God, while those who choose other teachers will be rejected as His children.

Jesus said: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (Joh 3:19).

The Jews who rejected Christ continued a new form of Judaism inspired by rabbis rather than by Christ, accepting the oral Torah—which refers to transmitted traditions and interpretations, not recorded in written scripture—as their guide to God. These ideas and works are the foundation of Judaism as it exists today. Around 500 years after Christ, oral traditions on interpreting Scripture and God’s law were written down and compiled into the Talmud (a central text of Rabbinic Judaism). One version was written in Jerusalem (Talmud Yerushalmi) and the other in Babylon (Talmud Bavli). The Talmud consists of two main parts: the Mishna, a compilation of laws and teachings said to be the oral Torah given to Moses, and the Gemara, a commentary on the Mishna. The Mishna was compiled by rabbis who presented their traditional interpretations as divinely originated. The Judaism we know today, even among those who do not use this book directly, has, over many generations, been shaped and influenced by these interpretations of scripture. God’s enemy inspired the Talmud to widen the gap between Christianity and Judaism, creating a stumbling block hindering Jews from accepting Christ.

This Judaism was both a rejection of and an alternative to Christ’s rabbinical oral teaching, and therefore a rejection of His righteousness. Regarding these oral laws, Jesus said: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mat 15:9).
Many problems, therefore, arise when Christians assume that modern Judaism harmonizes with Christ’s Judaism. Learning from a Jewish teacher today can mean absorbing the very doctrines Christ spoke against, replacing His righteousness with that of His contenders and killers, the Pharisees and Scribes. No Christian should exchange the righteousness of Christ for that of Hillel or Shammai. It is critical that Christians understand this before seeking to learn scripture from modern Jews.

The Gospels and letters of the New Testament are the oral understanding and explanation of God’s Old Testament and law, and the New Testament itself is the true counterpart to the written Jewish Talmud. Christ preached God’s law, and the law, the prophets, and Christ together represent the truth. All other New Testament writings either complement this or were written to resolve issues within the churches. No one after Christ can present new laws or do away with God’s laws. Only God has that authority, and He has declared that the law will not change.

The Hebrew language is not needed to understand the Bible. The spirit is.

It has become popular in our time, especially after the birth of the modern state of Israel, to say that Christians need to learn how to understand the Bible from Jews. This was God’s original plan: had they received Christ and His teachings, they would have been the center of learning for all nations, holding an elevated position of sharing and mediating God’s truth to the world.
Now, many Christians look to Jews and the state of Israel for scriptural learning, believing they maintain their God-given role as teachers. Yet, these teachings often contradict Christ’s, as they rely on traditions that rejected Him. This subtle confusion leads Christians away from the original truth Christ offered.
Multitudes are turning to rabbis and Hebrew teachers, attending Hebrew schools to gain a deeper understanding of scripture. Many Jews who have recently converted to Christianity uphold this view, claiming that after only months as Christians, they are better equipped to teach the Bible than even a lifelong believer. Upon conversion, they assert a Jewish superiority over other Christians regardless of the depth of their faith or the extent of their knowledge.

In one respect, it contains elements of truth; in another, it can lead to deception. Many modern Jewish converts are heavily influenced by the doctrines of the churches that converted them and mix these with traditional rabbinical thinking, making it difficult to understand the Old Testament correctly. They use their Jewish heritage as supposed proof of God’s approval of their doctrines, and few dare say anything against them. It becomes a way to whitewash false Christian doctrine through a Jewish voice.
If reading Hebrew were the only requirement for understanding truth, then naturally all who speak Hebrew would share the same understanding. Yet they do not. Within Judaism and Hebrew messianic movements, the understanding of truth differs despite the ability to read the Bible in Hebrew. It is not the Hebrew language that reveals truth; it is the Holy Spirit. When man dismisses the Holy Spirit, human thoughts and ideas are added to God’s original meaning, distorting it regardless of the language. People have blind spots in every language, and our minds shut out what we do not wish to be true, no matter what tongue we speak.

Jesus revealed this when He spoke to the most learned Hebrew-speaking biblical scholars of His day and said to them: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life” (Joh 5:39-40).

They saw eternal life in the scriptures, but could not see the very condition for it: Christ. Still today, Jews memorize the scriptures and know them by heart, yet cannot see Christ in them. They do not understand what they read or what God truly wants. God does not want sacrifice, rituals, hypocrisy, or outward displays; He wants mercy (Matt. 9:13). As Jesus said: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (Joh. 7:24).

All of Christ’s debates with the Pharisees and scribes concerned the interpretation of the Bible. Jesus most likely spoke both Aramaic and Hebrew. The Pharisees and scribes spent years studying the scriptures in their original languages, yet Jesus said they distorted them, misunderstood their meaning, and misinterpreted what God intended. Their error was so great that they could not see that the fulfillment of the law and the prophets was standing right before them. They were so wrong about God’s law that they viewed Christ, who was in perfect harmony with it, as a lawbreaker, while considering themselves, whom Christ said had broken it, as law-keepers.
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Mat 22:29).

Although they claimed to be true to Moses and the biblical teaching, Christ said the opposite about them: “And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luk 16:31).

They read Moses every day, and still do. Yet they do not understand what they read correctly because they have pushed away the interpreter, the Holy Spirit. Jesus warned His followers: “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matt. 16:6). Here Christ explains that their interpretations are like leaven in bread: they spread and affect everything, even that which is good.

The Hebrew language, therefore, cannot bring someone to the truth; it is as weak a language as any other. Only the language of the Spirit can translate scriptures to the heart. Only an upright heart can see the truth when they read the words of truth.

Although the disciples had attended the synagogue and learned from the Jews for most of their lives, Christ had to unteach much of what they had absorbed and reteach them so they would understand things rightly.

“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. …Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures” (Luk 24:27 and 45).

The oral traditions of the rabbis were eventually written down. The word Talmud means “learning,” yet Christ was meant to be the true Talmud for understanding the law, rituals, and prophets. Jews who rejected Christ rejected His teaching and took up that of the Pharisees and scribes in its place.

Although not systematically followed by all Jews, the ideas behind much of the Talmud are now part of what constitutes modern Judaism and how they understand scripture, their rituals, and their history.

For Christians, going to Jews to learn how to understand the Old Testament is therefore highly problematic and can at best result in a deception that leads away from God’s intended meaning. Leaven is a small portion of dough representing error mixed into a greater dough representing truth. Rabbinical Judaism does have many good teachings, but its errors lead away from Christ’s righteousness.

Who would have predicted that Christ’s followers would one day sit at the feet of those who continue the ideas of the very ones Christ openly rebuked for being unlearned?

Yet it has happened because the birth of the modern state of Israel has led many to believe they are God’s chosen again and therefore must have the truth.

After Christ came, Judaism split into two groups. One followed the disciples who had learned to interpret the scriptures rightly according to God’s will; the other followed the Pharisees and scribes. Those chosen to uphold the truth were those who followed Christ’s interpretation. Thus, the Christian movement, while it remained undefiled, held the oral truth of the scriptures, while the Jews held a corrupted version and understanding. God’s plan to educate the world through Israel was fulfilled by the apostles who wrote the New Testament, the most widespread text in the world.

God continues to show His people that He does not reveal truth through a single language. During Pentecost, people from many nations were gathered in Jerusalem. When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples, God revealed several important things.

The continuation of the blessings to Israel was only to be fulfilled upon the faithful. As prophesied: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit” (Joe 2:28-29).

Peter confirmed that this was fulfilled and spoke of the Christian-Jewish movement. (Act 2:16)

The second was that the Holy Spirit, instead of letting all those people understand Hebrew, revealed the truth in their own different languages: “And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God” (Act 2:8-11).

Thus, the truth of God can be understood perfectly in any language as long as the Spirit interprets it. Likewise, as Christ showed, speaking Hebrew did not necessarily mean one could interpret scripture correctly. It was God who created the diversity of languages: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech” (Gen 11:7). God is not revealed in just one language.

During Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, God did the opposite of what He did in Babel and allowed anyone to understand the words spoken.

From all of this, we can understand that a Christian does not need to go to a Jew to rightly understand the Bible; in fact, doing so will often lead to confusion about its real meaning. They must go to God or to those who have continued the faith of the apostles. That does not include modern messianic Jews if they are inspired by a false Jewish understanding mixed with the theology of the apostate churches that evangelized them. Now that evangelicals have largely adopted the false Jewish understanding about the coming of the Messiah, many messianic Jews feel at home with these teachings, while in reality, they need to hear the truth. Some messianic believers do hold more truth than some Christian churches, but it is not a fixed rule that truth is always found with those who claim to be Jews by flesh. Nor is it a fixed rule that the moment a Jew converts, he becomes superior in teaching to every other Christian.

Right understanding is found where the line of faith has continued for generations, proven to have the spirit of prophecy and the blessings of God, along with respect for God’s law and Christ’s gospel, upheld as Christ directed.

The Book of Revelation describes God’s remnant of Israel in this way: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:17).
This woman represents the true Israel of God, scattered and forced to flee in hiding, persecuted. The story of the church is told in multiple ways throughout Revelation, depicting trials and deliverance that have brought the assembly into close relation with Christ. Through these experiences, God’s people have been sanctified and disciplined, just as Jacob; they are walking with a limp, symbolically speaking. They understand God better than many who have moved from erroneous Jewish understanding to charismatic Christian views without being able to properly distinguish error from truth. God has always had a people representing Him, a kingdom of priests.

Christians who have misunderstood scriptures resemble in many ways the understanding and teachings of those Jews who have misunderstood, which makes it fairly easy to go from one error to the other.

If the true group of God’s people, through whom God has worked by Spirit and prophets, is ignored, important corrections to misunderstandings are not made. Warnings that false teachings have entered the churches are not heeded. Who the end-time adversaries are is not understood.

Many Christians seek truth from messianic Jews who are not yet mature enough in Christ to lead the way. They do not yet have the experience and background to lead. Yet they are chosen as guides solely because of their ancestral heritage. There are exceptions, of course, and God calls out leaders wherever He pleases according to His own judgment. God’s men are also found among the messianic community.

Unconverted Jews do not represent Moses and the prophets.

Modern Judaism, even in its most dominant form at the time of Christ, misunderstands Moses and Abraham and even their own ancestors. Jesus clarified that Moses and Abraham were more like Him and loved who He was and is. They knew each other: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (Joh 8:56-58).

Many Jews thought they were like Abraham or followed in his footsteps just because they were descendants of him and had words describing his life and relationship with God in their hands. But Jesus told them that one thing does not necessarily mean the other: “They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham” (Joh 8:39).

When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, both Elijah and Moses came to encourage Him (Matt. 17:3). Jesus said: “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me” (Joh 5:46).

From all of this, we can see that Moses and the forefathers were closer in practice and understanding to what Christ represented than the Jews of His day. Since Christ’s time, Jews have rejected the Spirit speaking the truth and have had over two thousand years to solidify and deepen their misunderstandings, leaving them in as poor a spiritual state now as then, if not worse.

By rejecting Christ’s interpretation of the Old Testament, they can no longer correctly teach how to understand its scriptures and are no longer qualified to teach the law. They will present a Moses, an Abraham, a David, an Elijah, and an Elisha who differ from who those men actually were, for those men had Christ’s righteousness, the very righteousness the Jews reject. They will also teach people that they are Jews in the same sense as themselves, which is a lie. Many who were faithful to God, like the Old Testament prophets, were killed by their own people. Isaiah was sawn in two; Jeremiah was put in stocks; Zechariah was killed at the altar.

Jesus said to them: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” (Mat 23:29-36).

Through this, Jesus shows how they ended up so far from the truth despite having the scriptures to guide them. It had always been a pattern: one faction misinterpreted God to their own damnation while trying to silence those who spoke the truth. Even Moses was nearly stoned by them in his day.

If those who saw and interacted with Moses firsthand, who witnessed the sea part before them and heard God’s voice speak the law, a far greater manifestation than merely reading about it, were still able to reject the truth, it is all the more possible for Jews to do so in Christ’s day and in ours.

Had Jesus come among them today, He might have been stoned within the first month, let alone after three and a half years. That is, unless someone were imitating Christ and speaking what they wanted to hear, in which case they would receive him, as Christ said: “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (Joh 5:43).

Satan will even send people who claim to be the anointed one and the Messiah. Satan knows they will receive a false Christ if he is pleasing to them: “And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you: For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Mar 13:5-6).

This is precisely what happened to the Jewish congregation when they received a false messiah, which ultimately led to the rebellion against Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. They would have received Christ had He rebelled and promised to free them from Rome. But Christ said He came to free them from their sins, and thus He was rejected. He did not flatter them or elevate the false teachers but called them out on their fanaticism and bad behavior. Rather than admiring their studies and degrees, He rebuked them. Yet when someone came who flattered them, favored and supported their errors, and claimed God wanted them to be delivered from Rome and would go with them in their rebellion, they received him gladly. We see this, for instance, in the Bar Kochba Rebellion.

The Jewish sanctuary and feasts

God took from the Jews the sanctuary and with it the feasts that could only be fulfilled with a sanctuary. In doing so, God did not merely take away the priestly service; the feasts were no longer theirs, though they would hold on to them anyway. The Jews had done the same at the border of the promised land: when God told them to take the land, they refused, and when God told them to return to the wilderness, they did the opposite and tried to conquer the land without His blessing. Likewise, when Israel gained its independence, it would not keep God’s feasts and sabbath and instead followed the practices of the surrounding pagans. When they rejected Christ, they continued to keep the feasts and sabbath as if they had done nothing wrong. This is Satan’s constant tactic for keeping people in rebellion. When the Christians were faithful, he persecuted them; when they became apostates, he needed them to keep their biblical traditions so they could confuse the truth. He employed the same strategy with the Jews. First, he wanted them to rebel against God. But when they crucified their King, Satan wanted them to appear pious and to seemingly harmonize with God’s standard. What Satan fears is when we obey God and practice His truth together. As long as a lethal lie remains in a religion, he lets us keep the religion, for it cannot save us and will only confuse everyone else. Satan either wants us to reject God outright or to misrepresent Him and cause confusion. Either way, the result is the same to him.

The biblical command was for Israel to assemble three times a year at the Tabernacle during the appointed feasts.

“Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year. Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:) And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD” (Exo 23:14-17).

Among the requirements to keep these feasts was to appear before the tabernacle with its appointed sacrifices, as well as a tithe from the harvest. To keep them, there must be a tabernacle, and there must be a sacrifice. After the Jews lost the temple, God therefore also removed from them the blessings of the feasts. They can no longer meet the requirements God has set for keeping them. Because these holy times were God’s assembly, it also meant God was no longer gathering them to Himself.

The second requirement is that the tithe go to His house; His house, after Christ, is Christ Himself. He is “the temple,” and His people are both the “temple” and “the priests”.

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body” (Joh 2:19).

About Christ’s followers, it is said that He “hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Rev 1:6).

This means the tithe is to go to Christ, the high priest, and His workers, as they are the new priests.

After Christ died, there were to be no more animal sacrifices; none would be accepted. “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (Dan 9:27).

Therefore, the only way to keep the feasts after Christ’s death is through His sacrifice.

It is therefore impossible to keep the feasts or receive their blessings without approaching the heavenly sanctuary. Without Christ’s sacrifice at the center of the feasts, there is no true feast-keeping.

Because Christ made the other sacrifices to cease, the now-kept Jewish Passover is in violation of the order of Christ if it is replaced with a sacrificial lamb.

The Passover was a prophetic feast pointing to Christ’s coming, death, and resurrection. The Passover lamb symbolizes Christ. Egypt symbolized the kingdom of death, and leaving it symbolized life in Christ. All of Israel had to put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts to be spared from the coming judgment.
This symbolizes that those of Israel, who have not accepted Christ’s blood for their sake, are under God’s judgment. Their feast is illegal, for it is not kept after God’s order.
Every year, Jews continue to prick their unleavened bread with a fork. This has now become a symbol of their continued rejection and crucifixion of Christ: “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.” (Zec. 12:10)

Each serving is eaten in rejection, each hole a repetition of those made on Christ’s afflicted body: the nail marks on His hands and feet, the wounds from the crown of thorns, and the hole in His side where blood and water came out. Every time they eat the pierced unleavened bread, rejecting Christ as the One the symbol points to, they uphold their resistance.

Their sacrifices are illegal.

The Jews have successfully, after scattering God’s people, given the world the illusion that the Passover is theirs, that it is Jewish only and unconnected to Christ. The truth is that Passover belongs to Christ. It is His feast. He is the high priest, the lamb, and the sanctuary. He is the temple to whom we gather. Without Christ, the Passover is a lie and the breaking of the law.

All the feasts given to Israel belong to Christ. They are a testimony of His sacrifice and priestly service and represent the plan of salvation laid out. When the Jews rejected Christ, they stole these feasts from the One they were all about and, by doing so, misrepresented God and His laws. The feasts were meant to follow the remnant of Israel, Christ’s followers, as they followed Christ into the sanctuary in heaven. Rather than bearing witness to the world through Christ, the Jews deceive the world by claiming the traditions are theirs and that Christians are not permitted to take part because Christ has no part in them. Christians are fooled into believing these lies and end up rejecting God’s celebration of Christ’s priesthood, believing it has nothing to do with Christ and belongs only to Jews.

The Jews did this very early on, so early on that Paul had to address the deception.

In Colossians, he addresses how those who are not circumcised have been told they cannot take part in the sabbaths and moon days, and they have been told they cannot eat or touch what the Jews claim are holy and only for them. Paul then argues that they are indeed holy through Christ, that His death for them and the cleansing of their sins are a greater “cleanse” than circumcision can be. That one is superior to the other, and by the circumcision of the heart through Christ, they are allowed to take part in what is actually about Christ in the first place. “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; … Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Col 2:13, 16-17) .

These verses have often been twisted and used as an excuse for Christians to abandon these same things, including the Sabbath. However, the meaning becomes clear because Paul first speaks about circumcision, and we know Jews would not let anyone take part in their worship and Passover if they were not circumcised. The only reason Paul would reassure them that they were good enough was to encourage them to take part in the feasts, the sabbaths, and even the feast meals as equals through Christ. The argument is that these things are a “shadow of things to come” and that all of it “is of Christ”: His body, His sacrifice, His priestly service, and His first and second coming. The greater qualifier is therefore taking part in Christ, not circumcision, which says little about where the heart truly is.

Circumcision was once an important symbol of giving one’s body and heart to God in obedience. But when they maintained it while rebelling against God, the symbol no longer functioned as a qualifier.

“For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Rom 2:25-29).

The famous verses of Paul that many Christians claim mean they no longer have to keep God’s law, feasts, and sabbath are actually Paul saying they are qualified to keep them, even more so than the circumcised.

The newly converted pagan Christians were discriminated against to such a degree that they misunderstood what belonged to Christ and returned to pagan feasts and traditions, even Christianizing them in order to win pagans over. Paul warned them strongly against thinking they had no part in God’s culture because they were not of Jewish heritage. These ideas had been planted by Jews who rejected Christ, attempting to separate the prophecies pointing to Christ from Christ Himself, and converted Jews upheld these errors even after becoming Christians.
Paul tried hard to hold together what the others tried to pull apart: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:26-29).

He argues that they, too, although uncircumcised and of pagan origin, are now through Christ Abraham’s seed. They are grafted in and part of Israel, and therefore the promises are theirs, not the Jews’ alone. Unfortunately, the rejection by the Jews led newly converted pagans to think they had to continue in their pagan culture and keep culture separate from faith. Paul warns them against such folly:

“Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain” ( Gal 4:8 -11).

Through the false gospel, this has been turned around to give the opposite meaning. Christians now use this as evidence that they are not to observe the sabbath and feasts ordained by God. But Paul is clear: he speaks about the feasts and seasons they kept when they knew not God and while they followed those who are no gods, and warns that by returning to the traditions of the pagans, they return to bondage.

They can be the promised seed, part of the culture of God, yet are driven away by Jews of the flesh from taking part, told they cannot participate, and therefore return to their pagan culture. This happened because God-given culture was separated from faith. In this way, Jews could monopolize their culture without Christ, and pagans could keep their culture with Christ. Both are a deception. Paul warned against separating God’s culture from Christ.

The pagans were to be grafted in and become part of Israel. The new branches, converted pagans, took their place, while the unfaithful Jews of the flesh were rejected. “Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear” (Rom 11:20).

The feasts were given by God as a witness of Christ to His faithful. The feasts and the sabbath can only be kept through Christ. Jews who continue these traditions while rejecting Christ are not only keeping an empty shell of religious practice, but they are also bearing false witness. They prevent Christians from taking part in Christ’s culture by fooling them into believing that these things belong to Jews of the flesh rather than Jews of faith, which can include both Gentiles and Jews. On Passover, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood are blessed. On the Feast of Weeks, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood are gifted the Spirit. On the Feast of Trumpets, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood are warned and given time to prepare for the coming judgment. On Yom Kippur, only those who cover themselves in Christ’s blood are represented by the High Priest. On the Feast of Tabernacles, only those who have covered themselves in Christ’s blood will be harvested by Christ to the new Jerusalem. There is no blessing in any of the Jewish feasts without Christ. The blessings of the feasts follow Christ’s followers, who are the ones who can rightly explain and keep them. Unfortunately, because the Jews scattered the faithful from Jerusalem and claimed the feasts were desecrated by those who believed in Christ, they succeeded both in getting Christians to reject God’s culture and in making themselves appear as its guardians still.

The feasts were meant to prophesy the plan of salvation and Christ’s priestly service, and He gave them to Israel to safeguard the truth spoken through symbolic language. “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (Heb 8:1-5)

To rightly keep the feast now, the believer cannot go to Jerusalem. As Jesus said: “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father” (Joh 4:21).

Rather, to keep it, we have to turn our hearts to the sanctuary in heaven.

God gave the Jews the feasts that Yehovah called “my feasts,” so they could minister God’s truth and the gospel to the world. They chose to refuse, and they stole the foundation God had built to share the gospel and claimed it had no part in Christ. They stole from Christ what belonged to Christ. When they did this, they robbed the temple of God and placed themselves under condemnation. And because they did this and confused the followers of Christ, the truth about Christ’s mission as a sacrifice and priest is lost to most Christians and even the world.

It is true that God told Israel in Egypt to keep the feasts throughout all generations. However, God directed this command to them as a chosen people. The moment they left God, they were no longer chosen or His children. As Jesus said, they were not Abraham’s sons unless they did as Abraham did. It was God’s faithful remnant that was to keep the feasts in all generations, not the unfaithful. When the kingdom of priests was transferred from Israel by the flesh to the followers of Christ, they were to inherit together with Christ the task of safeguarding God’s culture and representing its meaning: to explain the Exodus, Moses, the sanctuary, and the rituals. All of these became the calling of the followers of Christ, to guard and explain the law and even the feasts.

When the Jews by flesh rejected Christ, they could no longer do this.

Although God told them to keep them in all generations, this was not to be if they were unfaithful. The feasts were taken from them when they were unfaithful. When they were disobedient during the 40 years in the wilderness, they were not permitted to keep them together in the face of their opposition.

“Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward …When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood” ( Isa 1:2-4 & 12 -15).

So those Jewish hands full of blood ought not to keep it. Remember what they said: “When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children” (Mat 27:24-25)    

Not just Not just Christ’s blood is put on them, but Christ also said: “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” (Mat 23:35-36).

The Jews reject Christ, and of their feasts God says, “My soul hateth.” So the Jews have since Christ’s day discouraged the true heirs of God’s promises from keeping them, while insisting on keeping them themselves with blood on their hands.

God does not say they should keep the feasts as a holy law regardless of what they do. Rather, He says it is in vain and a provocation when it is done in rebellion. Rejecting Christ was a rebellion against God, and thus their feasts and sabbath observance became an abomination.  

Of the lost tribes of Israel, who were the first to rebel against God and who were never allowed back into the land after the Babylonian captivity, the following is said: “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts” (Hos 2:11).

It did not matter that they were descendants of Jacob; infidelity and holiness do not mix. What God said in Egypt no longer applied to them.

God addressed this once again to the prophet Haggai. He said: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Ask now the priests concerning the law, saying, If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No. Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the LORD; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean” (Hag 2:11-14).

Keeping God’s holy feasts and sabbaths does not make the Jews holy. Holiness does not transfer; uncleanness does. So when a rebellious Jew keeps God’s holy times, he defiles his observance rather than the observance sanctifying him.

God had said: “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them. And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God” (Eze 20:12 & 20:20).

This does not mean that someone becomes holy by keeping the Sabbath. The holiness of the sabbath is a seal upon a faithful heart, but the sabbath itself cannot make anyone holy. The Sabbath is a sign of obedience and of taking God’s commands seriously. But it is the Lord who sanctifies, not the sabbath. When the sabbath is kept while the heart is in defiance, it becomes desecrated, and those keeping it do not become holy.

The point is further explained in Ezekiel when God says: “Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness” (Eze 20:21).

God’s sabbath became polluted. It was not just plain broken.

God explains: “Moreover this they have done unto me: they have defiled my sanctuary in the same day, and have profaned my sabbaths. For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house” (Eze 23:38-39).

So they came to God’s house on the sabbath, as required, yet they were ungodly and did evil, and thus their behavior polluted both God’s sanctuary and the Sabbath. This is the crime of Jews today as well. They blaspheme God and Christ while claiming to honor God. “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD” ( Jer 7:9-11).

The great delusion a Jew can have is to think they can reject Christ, the prophet and Messiah, their Lord and their redemption, spit on and mock Him, yet still come and tread God’s courts and sabbaths without profaning them.

Is it possible for a Jew to keep the sabbath without Christ?

The Bible is clear: it was Christ’s breath that gave life to the first man, Adam. He was the beginning of creation, the One by whom the world was made. It was Christ who worked and rested on the sabbath. Refusing to acknowledge their life-giver and lawgiver is doing the opposite of what the sabbath commandment requires, for it calls us to acknowledge Him who created man by resting as a memorial of His work. Before they knew that this commandment spoke of Christ, they could keep it in the name of Yehovah and honor Christ before His incarnation. But after Christ came and revealed Himself to them, they would desecrate the sabbath unless they received Him and gave Him glory, as “the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath” (Mar 2:28).

“If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin” (Joh 15:22).

It is Christ who sanctifies. As written in Ezekiel, “Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD that sanctify them.”

I am YEHOVAH, that sanctifies them. Jesus is Yehovah, and He can only sanctify those who come to Him, and thus the sabbath blessing can only be given through sabbath observance in Christ, not outside of Christ.

The sabbath observance of the Jews who reject Christ is therefore not sanctifying them. Rather, it is kept in rebellion and not in obedience. The rightful guardians of the sabbath are, therefore, as with the feasts, the followers of Christ. The faithful Jewish remnant grafted together with the pagan converts to God’s culture and atonement.

The Jews are desecrating and misrepresenting God’s feasts and sabbath, portraying them as the exclusive right of those who reject Christ and accept their interpretation of these holy times as a symbol of Jewish excellence as God’s chosen kingdom of priests, rather than as belonging to Christ. It is an antichrist religion. It takes from the heir and gives it to the “husbandmen”: “But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.” (Mat 21:37-41)

Because of all of this, the Jewish by flesh is not the chosen advocate for God’s times. “Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off” (Nah 1:15).

Only through Christ is there peace; the wicked are cut off, and the good tidings and the gospel come with Him. Those who bear this message shall keep the solemn feasts and perform the vows.

The Sabbath and feasts belong to Christ.

Christ did not treat the feasts as if they belonged to those Jews who rejected Him. He treated them as His own and as belonging to those who followed Him. Jesus died on Passover day and rose on the Feast of Firstfruits. He asked His disciples to wait and prepare for the Feast of Weeks, and on that day, Shavuot, He poured out the Holy Spirit as promised, on His holy day. He claimed the feasts for Himself and His followers.

Christ fulfilled the symbols of the law, told His people to keep them, and blessed them on the same day. Those Jews who kept the feast without Christ were not blessed that day; only those who did so in Christ were. Christ then went to the sanctuary in heaven to minister on behalf of His people on earth.

There, He will perform the work the high priest did on Yom Kippur. On the Feast of Trumpets, the feast prophesying His return, He will gather the fruit of His work: His people. Christ shows no inclination that these feasts and times belong to “the Jews” or to the past. He fulfills them and continues to do so because it is His gathering and His temple’s. Those who steal these things from Christ are the unfaithful “husbandmen.”

To His followers, He said: “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day” (Mat 24:20). Here again, Christ shows no intention that His sabbath is to be taken from His followers. It is His, and theirs.

Christ kept the Sabbath holy every week of His life, as recorded in scripture and confirmed by His own words, in which He said He kept God’s law. In the Acts of the Apostles, we see Christ’s followers, Jews and pagans alike, keeping the Sabbath at least 80 times!  In addition, we see them respecting God’s feasts.

The rejection of the sabbath among Christians came later, after “ravenous wolves” came “among them”, and was not part of the early church. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.” (Act 20:28-31)  

Rome and the Jews, although enemies, ripped the culture of Christ from Christ, placing Him alongside idols and His culture alongside those who rejected Him. Both took part in destroying God’s truth by deceiving people into thinking Christ can be separated from His sabbath and law.

In return, the Jews who rejected Christ got traditions without God’s Spirit and God. When they called, He would not hear.

And the pagan Roman Christians got the name of Christ without blessings and without understanding salvation correctly.

The winner of this was “the dragon,” and he left both parties with “a name” but without the One behind it. The only ones to expose his lies and deceptions, and those he could not control, were those who continued to keep Christ, the law, and the culture testifying of Christ together in tight unity. And because they kept Christ together with His law and culture, the devil was especially angry with them: “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:15-17).

They are the ones who correctly represent Christ and the culture described in the Bible. They are the kingdom of priests; they understand Moses, Abraham, and Christ. Because they guard the truth in its right context, unlike pagan Christianity and Christless Judaism, they are especially attacked by both pagan Christians and Jews, as well as by the dragon. They are surrounded by apostate religion on all sides.

Only by targeting them can the dragon, or Satan, target God and the truth. If Satan desires to destroy the truth, he has to attack those who preserve it. The others have already been deceived into helping Satan’s agenda of destroying man’s understanding of God and the plan of salvation.

Since Christ was murdered, Jews and Rome have cooperated in one thing despite being natural contenders: scattering God’s people and the truth. It was always a joint effort, from Pilate, who did their bidding and crucified Christ, to our own day, where this collaboration reaches its climax in the battle of Armageddon.