The End from the Beginning

My wife shared a dream that she had the other night. In the later part of the dream, we were preaching together. I was trying to explain from Genesis through Revelation how everything fits together to give a whole picture. She would fill in for when I was looking up Scripture references with a "holiness message." The two worked side by side, though slightly different subjects. She kept hearing that I was at an ultimate moment to begin to share the holiness of God, and I continued to press forward to express the whole of the message. She mentioned that there was a battle: do we stop because we know that the people can only handle so much and speak to them about God and His holiness, or should we continue to express the whole picture so they can essentially take home the leftovers and feed from it for the next few days?

The dream got me thinking. I don't typically speak in a way to expound a certain text. As much as I love to hear teachers express the depths of this or that passage, I am more of one that finds beauty in how this text is a part of the whole, and here is how it all fits together. I'm not sure what exactly that means for me, but I do know that it seems like it gets me in trouble sometimes...

T. Austin Sparks had said that if we want to know the end, we should look for it in the beginning. God somehow in His genius (if there only were a bigger word than that!) is able to express the end from the beginning. He is able to expound to us something that we should be looking for at the end from the beginning. The book of Genesis and the book of Acts are expressions of God's ultimate plans of redemption. From there, we read the expression, "the Law and the Prophets." This was an idiom to say, "from Genesis through Revelation," basically meaning the whole Bible.

A lot of times we find ourselves captivated by this or that speculative kind of teaching. It might be end times related (some of the craziest ideas come from that), or it might be the notion that the 10 tribes of Northern Israel (Ephraim) were "lost." Then people want to go hunt them down to come to a conclusion that we're Israeli no matter where we were born. Even the rapper Chingy has had the "epiphany" that he is somehow of one of the lost tribes.

How do we keep from such foolishness? How do we keep from such nonsense as the prosperity gospel? How do we discern truth when all about us are chaotic statements and truisms (cliches)?

It takes a couple things. It is expressed in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 that it takes a love of the truth. But what is truth? Know this: the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth that will lead us into "all truth." We must love the Holy Spirit and what it would teach us. That being said, it also takes discernment to know what is being spoken by the Holy Sprit and what is being spoken from our own arrogance or possibly even demonic voices. That is where the next thing comes in: we must have a solid foundation of the "whole counsel of God."

What is that whole counsel of God? It is the whole picture from Genesis through Revelation. However, contrary to saying that it means we know how it all fits together, we need to be able to see the heart, intention, and character of God from Genesis through Revelation. It all expresses Him, and any other foundation which is Christ is a false foundation.

While considering these things in my heart, I came to realize how much I actually do love the Law and the Prophets. Not as the idiom of the whole Bible only, but even the literal Law and Prophets. My favorite Old Testament books are Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, and Zechariah. How ridiculous is that? I might be the only person I've ever met that "rejoices" each time that Leviticus comes around for my daily reading...

Yet, it is these very books - the five books of Moses - that give us the basis for all of Scriptural understanding. Every statement in the New Testament has its origin from the five books of Moses. It all filters from that foundation. Christ is as the heart of the books of Moses, and if we cannot recognize Him there then we cannot recognize Him. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Any other depiction of Christ is not truth. It is from that understanding of Christ in the Old Testament - as expressed through the truth of the Holy Spirit - that we have come to a place where we cannot be deceived. Nothing can fool you if you see Christ through everything.

I think this might be why I am so bent on expressing the entire Bible every time I speak... There is something that is expressed in seeing Jesus in even Leviticus - that He is our sacrifice and offering, whether burnt offering, peace offering, wave offering, meal offering, or otherwise. When you can go from seeing Jesus in the books of Moses to expressing Him in the prophetic Scriptures and eschatology, you are beginning to lay down the foundation necessary for the Church to be built upon. This is beautiful, and I think it might even be the "beauty of holiness."

The Beauty of Holiness

I woke up this morning with a phrase in my heart: the beauty of holiness. Then I opened up my Bible to the Psalm of the day (Psalm 29 for the 29th day of September). "Ascribe to the Lord, O mighty ones, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness."

Ultimately, I have very little understanding of this. What I do know is this: the Greeks worshipped the holiness of beauty, whereas the Jews found beauty in holiness. The Greeks found beauty as something to prize and adorn. But how do we define beauty? Is beauty objective?

I can't fathom that beauty would be objective. Actually, I assume that it is not. In the Greek form of beauty, we aren't going to be able to define what beautiful truly is. I like brunettes, but does that mean that blondes are not beautiful? Obviously it would be absurd to say that. But why would it be absurd? In the Greek mindset, beauty is skin deep. Beauty is the ultimate, and never the penultimate. The absolute end to humanity is to strive to be beautiful. Whatever that means, that is one of our primary objectives in life. If we are naturally beautiful, then we have been blessed by the gods.

There is another way to look at it. The Hebrews saw it that there is beauty in holiness. The phrase is actually, "the beauty of holiness." Beauty does not come from appearance, but from substance. A sunset is not beautiful because of the colors, nor the blend of those colors. A sunset is beautiful because of what it is: a reflection of the Divine glory (Psalm 19:1). Peter tells wives to not adorn themselves like the pagans do. You don't need all of that make-up and jewelry. Put on the beauty of holiness. What does that beauty look like?

"Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of old who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear," 1 Peter 3:3-6.

Dear brethren, this is not a text for women only, but for us who are the Bride of Christ as well. It is as much for we men to gain learning of how we ought to obey Christ as it is for wives to obey their husbands. I'm not going to get into that now, and I'll instead focus upon what it says for we who are Christ's Bride. What is the 'beauty of our inner self?' Peter defines it as a gentle and quiet spirit. But gentleness and quietness don't mean timidity, shyness, or weakness. You can be gentle and yet be strong. You can be quiet and yet make powerful statement.

This is the beauty of holiness. In the Old Testament, Divine holiness and beauty are encountered in the sanctuary. But now there is no Temple built with human hands - we are living stones built up together for God. We are the Temple. God dwells in us. The Divine holiness and beauty are not found by going to a sanctuary, but rather found in the day to day interactions between the saints. When we behold one another's faces, we are beholding the very image and glory of God. In my life, and in my character, and in my conduct, I display Christ. When I don't, it is known by all who see me. This is part of what it means to be community. I need the brethren to tell me in love when I am in fault.

"Worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness." Isn't what is truly being asked here is to worship Him in spirit and truth? We cannot do this in our own strength and ability, but instead through the truth of our relationship unto Him and unto those other believers He has placed around us. We worship in the Spirit that God has sealed us with. Our worship is not our own, but ultimately stimulated by Him. As John puts it, "He has loved us first..."

While I sought to understand the phrase, "the beauty of holiness," I am actually coming to the idea that maybe what I need to understand is beauty. Beauty itself is not something external, but rather internal. The scandal of beauty is that we don't "see" it, but intuit it. Some of the women that I know that are not physically attractive are some of the most beautiful women after you get to know them and their heart. I noticed in high school that the more I got to know the girls I was crushing on, the more attractive they became.

To some, our beauty is actually an affront. The character that we live from is something to despise. Gentleness and quietness are things that the world sees as weak and foolish. They don't see the strength in weakness. They don't see the statement in quietness. They don't see the authority in gentleness. They don't see the beauty of holiness.

We ought to be of a different caliber. Our hearts and lives covet the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We don't desire the strength of the world, but rather the adoration of our Husband. Christ Jesus is the one we are submissive to. Because He had the servant heart displayed manifestly unto the world, we too display that servant heart. It is grotesque when the Body will then take a servant's heart and use it as a term meaning that we are to abuse our brethren.

The beauty of holiness is the beauty of God with us. It is Christ in us - the hope of glory.

Eschatology 101

Eschatology 101

T. Justin Comer

Introduction

I. Summary of theocracy

-The main theme of the Bible

-A clash between darkness and light

-Who will rule over this cosmos?

-A coming kingdom

-Eschatology explains how and why God is now able to dwell on earth.

II. Nation state versus Redeemed Israel

The current state of Israel is not the redeemed Israel spoken of in prophecy. Instead, it is the Israel that is under God’s judgment, and they will continue to be until that final restoration unto glory.

-Israel’s final redemption comes with world peace

            +Isaiah 35:10, Joel 2:19,

-Israel’s final redemption means they believe in the Lord their God

            +Isaiah 10:20, 48:8-11, 52:6, Jeremiah 31:1, Ezekiel 34:30-31, Hosea 2:7, Zechariah 8:8,

-Israel’s final redemption happens at Christ’s return

            +Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 16:4-5, 33:17-18, Ezekiel 34:23-24, Hosea 3:4-5, Zechariah 9:16,

-Ezekiel 22:19-22

            +Current Israel is fulfillment of prophecy, but not promise.

            +Isaiah 11:11, 63:18,

III. Summary of Principalities and Powers

-One government/influence over all nations

            +Genesis 11, Revelation 13:3, Luke 4:5-7, Daniel 10:13,

-Antichrist Kingdom

            +Daniel 2, Revelation 17:9-11, Daniel 7:1-5, Revelation 13:1-2, Isaiah 14:12-14, Ezekiel 28:11-19, Zechariah 1:19, Revelation 17-19, Genesis 11:2, Psalm 109:16-20,

-Defeat only by God’s wisdom

            +Cross

                        -1 Corinthians 18-2:8, Psalm 82:5,

            +Ephesians 3:10

                        -Revelation 12:11, Deuteronomy 32:21,

IV. Israel’s purpose

-Covenant

            +The covenant is an eternal covenant. The eternal covenant is not necessarily with Israel, but with all of God’s elect. God has chosen a specific people for Him to put His name upon, and all other nations must come unto them in order to worship the Lord. The covenant unfolds throughout the Scripture gaining more and more detail, until finally it culminates in the man Christ Jesus – the true Israel and firstfruit from the dead.

            +Genesis 9:25-27, 12:2-3, 15:1-21, 22:18, 25:23, 26:4, 28:14, 35:11, 48:19, Deuteronomy 4:1, 5:3, 6:25, 10:12-13, 11:26-28, 16:19-20, 26:17-18, 29:9, Joshua 1:5, 2:9, Psalm 105:8, Romans 11:28-29,

-Center of nations

            +God has chosen a specific place (Zion) for His rule. Israel will be heralded as the center of all nations when Christ sets up His literal Kingdom and rule on the earth.

            +Ezekiel 5:5, Deuteronomy 28:1, 28:13, 32:8-9,

-God’s nation among nations

            +The purpose for Israel is this very thing: it is God’s nation among all nations. That has a couple implications: priesthood, theocracy, display of God’s character, and His witness unto the four corners of the earth.

            +Deuteronomy 4:34, Zechariah 8:6, Deuteronomy 7:6, Isaiah 51:4a,

V. Tribulation

-Seven years

            +Daniel 9:27,

            +The number 7 is vitally important to the Scriptures. There were 7 days of creation; some of the rabbis have speculated the world is on a 7000 yearlong clock, the last 1000 years being the reign of Messiah. Joshua marched around Jericho for 7 days, 7 times on the seventh day. When you offer a sin offering, you pour out the blood 7 times upon the altar. The number 7 speaks of perfection, not merely completion. For the age to end with a 7 year Tribulation seems perfectly legitimate and absolutely patterned.

-Final judgment

            +There are a lot more Scriptures than I put here. Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding needed to be displayed to other places before it became repetitive. To answer the question of how we know that this is the final judgment and that there is no more judgment after this, we simply need to ask “why?” Why is God sending the Tribulation? It is to redeem a people that have rejected Him, and to establish His literal Kingdom upon this earth. If His people are no longer disobedient, and the world is in peace, then why would there need to be another judgment upon the earth? The Judgment Seat comes after the 1000-year reign of Christ, after certain peoples and nations gather again against Jerusalem led by Satan Himself (Revelation 20:7 and onward)

            +Isaiah 51:11, Daniel 9:24-27,

-Christ returns at end

            +Daniel 9:24 (with respect to Ezekiel 45:17), Ezekiel 34:23-24, Daniel 2:34,

VI. Beginning of Seven Years (first 3 ½ years)

-Covenant/treaty made

            +This is one of the most powerful, yet subtle, understandings. There simply are not very many Scriptures to indicate a covenant or treaty to be made. The point isn’t the treaty made with the Antichrist, but instead is that Israel trusts in the arm of the flesh. Instead of trusting in their God, they look to “Egypt” to protect them.

            +Deuteronomy 23:6, Isaiah 28:15, 30:1, Daniel 9:27,

-Peace and Security

            +Isaiah 30:2-5 (note in Bible: If Egypt’s help is Israel’s shame and disgrace, how much more the Antichrist’s?), Jeremiah 6:14, Daniel 8:25 (when they feel secure),

            +I think that the best thing to note is that Jesus tells us to watch; Paul and Peter also both talk about the Day of the Lord coming like a thief. To those that are not watching, they will be taken by surprise. Why? For those that are the people of God, they will not expect sudden calamity. Those that are not of the Lord will not find anything strange or ‘unnatural’ signs to clue them in.

-Trusting in man/arm of the flesh

            +Isaiah 31:1, 31:3, 57:11-13, Jeremiah 17:5-8,

-Temple and Sacrifices

            +What does God think about the sacrifices that Israel will be offering during the first 3 ½ years of the Tribulation?

            +Deuteronomy 32:17, Psalm 40:6, 51:16-17, Isaiah 1:11, 66:3-4, Daniel 8:11 (there must be a third temple for them to be brought low), Amos 5:22,

VII. Middle of Seven Years (somewhere around 1,260-1,290 days before Jesus’ return)

-Covenant broken

            +Isaiah 24:5, Daniel 9:27, Isaiah 28:18, 33:8, Daniel 11:30-32, 12:7,

-Antichrist

            +King of the North

                        -Not so much about specific verses that say the King of the North is the Antichrist, but that the King of the North is typically always the one to come against Israel and Jerusalem

                        -Jeremiah 1:13b-14, 6:1, 6:22, 10:22, 13:20, Ezekiel 26:7, Daniel 11:28,

            ++Isaiah 19:4, Daniel 7:8, Jeremiah 48:25, Daniel 7:24-25, 8:23-25, 11:21, Micah 5-6, Jeremiah 51:25 & Zechariah 4:7, Matthew 4:8 (in reference to Revelation 13:2), Matthew 24:24, Luke 19:43-44, 2 Thessalonians 2:4, Revelation 13:1-8 (Isaiah 27:1 mentions the piercing of the Leviathan, a type of antichrist {beast from the sea}),

-Abomination of Desolation

            +Psalm 74:7-8, 79:1, Jeremiah 7:30, 51:51, Daniel 9:27, 11:31, Matthew 24:15, Ezekiel 7:24b, 8:3, Daniel 8:11, 9:26-27, Matthew 24:15, Luke 21:20, Revelation 13:14-15,

VIII. Jacob’s Trouble

-Jeremiah 30:7

            +No time worse

                        -Daniel 12:1, Deuteronomy 28:53, 28:62-63, 29:22-28, Psalm 9:13-14, 42:3, 44:9-11, 83:4, 88:13-18, 102:1-11, Isaiah 1:25, 3:18-26, 7:17, 13:12, 24:6, Jeremiah 9:25-26, Ezekiel 5:12, 7:25-26, Joel 1:2-3, Matthew 24:21, Luke 21:22-24,

-Antichrist Wars with the Saints

            +Daniel 7:21, 7:25, Revelation 13:7, Psalm 79:2, Daniel 8:10, 11:33-35, Luke 21:16-17,

-Israel’s flight

            +Amos 9: , Deuteronomy 4:26-27-31, Jeremiah 31:31-37, Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 28:20, 28:25, 32:26-27, Isaiah 5:13, 6:13, 22:1-3, 48:21, 59:9-13, Jeremiah 12:4, Ezekiel 6:8, 20:33-35, 34: 4-6, 36:19-20, Amos 5:18, 9:1-4, Zechariah 2:6, 14:2, Matthew 12:30, Luke 22:31-32, Revelation 12:6,

-Strength and Power of Israel Broken

            +The strength and power of Israel is their pride. God must break it off of them if the strength and pride of all other nations is to be broken off as well.

            +Deuteronomy 32:36, Psalm 102:23, Isaiah 2:17-18, 3:22, 22:8-11, 23:9, Ezekiel 7:24a, Daniel 12:7, Leviticus 26:19, Zechariah 13:8-9, Luke 21:31,

-Refuge in wilderness

            +Ezekiel 20:33-35, Genesis 32:30, Isaiah 28:11, Jeremiah 5:18, 31:2, Amos 9:8-10, Zechariah 10:9, Matthew 24:45 (in reference to Revelation 12:6), Revelation 12:6, 12:13-14,

-Our witness to the Jews/wrestle principalities

            +Daniel 11:35-40, Psalm 14:7, Romans 11:25-26, Psalm 53:6, Isaiah 14:32, 40:9-11, 58:1, Jeremiah 49:12, Matthew 10:1, 17:20-21, 25:14-30 (parable of the talents – the talents are the Jewish people coming into our hands, according to context of Matthew 24:45-46), Matthew 25:40, Luke 21:14-15, 1 Corinthians 1:26-31, 2:6-8, Ephesians 3:10-11, Revelation 12:11, 12:17,

IX. Restoration

-Gog and Magog/Antichrist war

            +Revelation 19: , Ezekiel 38-39, Zech 12, 14, Psalm 33:10-11, 48:4-7, 74:13-14, 75:8, Isaiah 8:9-10, Isaiah 13:4, 18:6 (Revelation 19:17-18, Ezekiel 39:4), Isaiah 27:1 (Revelation 19:12-21), Isaiah 29:3 (Luke 21:20), Isaiah 29:5-8, 31:4, 31:8, Jeremiah 7:33, Joel 2:20, 3:1-3, Zechariah 12:3, 12:9, Matthew 24:28 (in reference to Revelation 19:17-18), 2 Thessalonians 2:8, Revelation 14:14-20, 19:11-21,

-Return of Christ/Establishment of the Branch

            +Deuteronomy 18:15, Psalm 2:6-9, 80:15-17, Isaiah 4:2-6, 9:6-7, 11:4, Zech 12:10, Isaiah 31:6, 41:2, 42:1-4, 66:18, Ezekiel 34:22-24, 37:23-24, Daniel 7:13-14, Amos 9:11, Zechariah 3:8-9, 6:13, Malachi 3:1-4, Matthew 24:27, Luke 1:32-33, Luke 21:27, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Revelation 11:15,

-Judgment of Nations

            +Joel 3:1-3, Obadiah 15, Micah 4:3, Matthew 13:41-42, Revelation 11:18,

-Gathered from Nations

            +Psalm 107:2-3, 111:9, Isaiah 11:12, 14:1, 35:10, 43:5-7, 54:6-7, Jeremiah 3:18, 12:15-17, 30:8-9, 31:8, 32:37-40, Ezekiel 11:16-17, 20:41-43, 28:25-26, 34:13-16, 36:24-30, 39:25, Zechariah 10:10, Matthew 8:11-12, 24:31,

-Full Redemption

            +Romans 11:26, Isaiah 27:9, Deuteronomy 12:2-3, 30:1-6, Psalm 50:15, 66:12, Isaiah 12:3 (John 7:37-38), Isaiah 30:19-22, 32:15, 45:17, Jeremiah 31:31-37, 32:8, Ezekiel 11:18-21, Obadiah 17, Zephaniah 3:11-13, Zechariah 9:11-12 (in reference to Matthew 26:28 as the Covenant), Zechariah 12:10-13:2, Ephesians 1:14,

-In One Day

            +Isaiah 10:17, 10:20-23, 66:8-9, Ezekiel 36:33-36 (on the day), Zechariah 3:9, 9:16,

-Principalities and Powers Defeated

            +Revelation 20:1-5, Isaiah 24:21-22, Psalm 2, Ezekiel 28:17, Matthew 8:29,

-Veil that Covers Nations

            +The veil that covers the nations is their pride. It is ultimately put there by demons. The Church must wrestle those demonic powers to overcome them and break off the veil that blinds Israel, so that at Israel’s redemption the veil will be broken off of the nations.

            +Isaiah 25:7, 54:3 (Genesis 9:27), Ezekiel 28:25, 35:23, 36:36, Daniel 7:11-12,

-Jesus Rules from Jerusalem and Zion

            +Isaiah 2, Zechariah 14:16, Deuteronomy 11:12, 15:6, Psalm 48:1-3, 50:2, 65:1-3, 99:1-2, 102:21-22, 110:1-2, Isaiah 24:23, Jeremiah 31:5, Joel 2:32, Micah 4:1-2, Zechariah 8:1-3,

-Jeremiah 23:7-8

            +Deuteronomy 7:14, Psalm 37:9-11, Isaiah 31:5, 16:14-15, Jeremiah 16:14-15,

X. 1000 year reign

-World peace

            +Isaiah 2:4, 60:17b, Daniel 7:21-22, Joel 3:10 (in reference to Isaiah 2:4)?, Joel 3:17, Micah 4:3, Zechariah 9:10, 14:11,

-Israel as Priests

            +Genesis 33:10, Deuteronomy 18:2, Exodus 19:6, Deuteronomy 4:6, 17:8-13, Joshua 4:24, Psalm 18:43, Isaiah 12:4, 14:2b, 55:5, 60:1-3, 60:12, Ezekiel 37:26-28, Zechariah 3:4 (Joshua being a symbol of priestly Israel), Zechariah 8:13, 8:23,

-Redemption of Nations

            +Deuteronomy 32:43, Psalm 9:20, 22:27-28, 47:7-8, 79:10, Isaiah 52:15, Psalm 86:9, 94:10, 96:7-9, 98:2-3, Isaiah 2:2-3, 10:13-14, 18:7, 26:9b, 45:22-24, 51:4-5, 56:4-8, Ezekiel 37:28, Daniel 7:14, 7:27, Amos 9:12, Zechariah 2:11, 8:20-22, 14:16, Malachi 1:11, 1:14, Romans 11:11-15,

-Church as Spiritual Rulers

            +Isaiah 32:1, Jeremiah 23:4, Daniel 7:18, Zechariah 14:5b, John 1:51 (with reference to Zechariah 3:8-10 & Genesis 28:12), Romans 8:18-21,

-First Resurrection

            +Revelation 20:4-6, Psalm 17:15, Daniel 12:13, 1 Corinthians 15:23, 15:42-44, 15:50-53, Philippians 3:10-11, 3:20-21, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, Revelation 20:4-6,

Hebrew or Greek?

I have been realizing more and more lately how different my perception is from many others. I don't say this to toot my own horn, nor to shame anyone else. When you don't watch television, you don't listen to the radio, you don't care the opinion or way or thinking of others, and your sole desire is to know how God sees things, you start to change your opinion on how to view. I want to write briefly on the Hebraic perception versus the Greek perception in the Bible. The contrast can be found in the difference between western and eastern thought. More specifically, the differences between Hebrew and Greek. Here are a few:

Abstract vs. Concrete

To define my terms, abstract thought is a relationship to the world through the mind. Concrete thought is a relationship to the world through the senses. For example, when we look at words like faith, hope, love, or blessing, what is it that we think of? These are all abstract ideas. They are Greek thoughts. The Hebrew was able to think abstractly, but typically that abstract thought related back to a tangible sense.

What are these concepts in the Hebrew concrete thought? Faith is the Hebrew word amuna. It comes from the word aman, or as we would transliterate another form of that word, amen. Aman has the idea of support. When you grow grapes, the vine needs to be lifted up and put on a support, like a wire or fence. That is the idea of aman. Amuna is used in relation to covenant. Because I know of God’s faithfulness and that He will not lie, I can trust that His promises will come true. I put faith in Him the same way that I trust that the grape vine will be supported by the fence.

Ancient Hebrew was written in a pictograph form. The aleph was an ox head, and represented strength. The mem was water, and represented either water or blood. The nun was a sprout, and represented continuation or an heir. The hey was a man with his arms raised up, which could mean worship, beholding, or to reveal. Together, we have a strong blood from the worshiping heir (or son). That is Jesus dying upon the cross. Jesus said that a good work is to believe in Him whom the Father has sent (John 6:29).

The Hebrew word for hope is tiqvah. Tiqva literally means “a cord,” but figuratively means to hope or expect. The tav is two sticks put together to form a cross, and represents a mark, a sign, or a monument. The quph is a picture of the sun at the horizon, and represents a circle or time. The vav is a tent peg that means to secure, hook, or add. We saw in the last word that the hey is a man with his arms raised to represent worship, beholding, or revealing. Together, we have another picture of Jesus: the cross at the appointed time (or as Paul puts it, the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4)) secures worship or revealing. There are really multiple ways to put the words together, all of which seem to give the same message, but slightly different perspectives. That is hope.

To bless literally means to bend the knee. It has the connotation that when you bring gifts before the king, you bend the knee and bow down before him. Likewise, to bless is to “bend the knee” bringing spiritual gifts.

The vast contrast in concrete and abstract thought is seen plainly in just these words. Imagine applying that to a worldview. You no longer just see the Hebrew words different, in which we either need to look up the Hebrew concrete understanding, or we can do the better thing in wrestling with these words based on how Scripture employs them, but you also see that the world itself is not abstract. The things that God has made bring us order and peace, whereas the things that man has created for convenience and luxury bring us chaos and contention.

  

Appearance vs. Functional Description

When we read our Old Testaments, we need to understand that the descriptions are not given to tell us what an object looks like. The descriptions are to tell us what the object was used for. An example would be Noah’s ark. If you were to take the measurements given for Noah’ ark seriously, you would find that it was in the shape of a box. I have no difficulty with believing the numbers given, but what was being described was not a box. Instead, what was being described was a massive boat. What is the function, or purpose, of that boat? It was built to carry many, many, many animals and creatures to survive a worldwide flood.

If we think that the description of something is for its appearance, then we have misunderstood what is being spoken. In Hebrew, the word ayil is used to mean both deer and oak tree. In our Greek ways of thinking, we would describe these two things as completely different. Yet, in the Hebrew thought, they have the same function, and therefore are given the same word to describe them. The word ayil is actually defined as “a strong leader,” but we translate it as deer or oak tree not understanding the Hebrew mindset.

Simply put, the deer stag is a very strong animal, and is considered the leader of the animals in the forest. Likewise, the oak tree is the hardest of wood, and is also considered the “leader,” or “strength” of the forest. Psalm 29:9 is translated by the KJV as, “The voice of the Lord makes the deer to calve.” Yet, the NIV translates this same verse as, “The voice of the Lord twists the oaks.” Learning that ayil is properly defined as “a strong leader,” the verse should actually be translated as, “The voice of the Lord makes the strong leaders to turn.”

 Because Hebrew thought does not typically describe appearance, but instead describes function, there are very few Hebrew adjectives. In fact, when you learn Hebrew, you learn the verb participles, which is a verb used as an adjective. The reason for this is simple: Hebrew thought is more action and function oriented than appearance.

This comes in handy when we read passages like 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul is describing love. Notice that in the passage Paul does not describe necessarily what love looks like, but instead what love acts like:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Paul describes how love functions. We might be able to wiggle our way into saying that this is what love looks like, but once we understand that it is Hebrew to speak about function instead of appearance, we must admit that that is indeed what Paul is doing here. And why should we be surprised? He himself claimed that he was “a Hebrew of the Hebrews,” Philippians 3:5.

Impersonal vs. Personal Description

A Greek thinker has no difficulty to describe an object according to the object. What this would mean is that we say, “The pencil is…” This is similar to describing the object’s appearance, but it doesn’t have to be an appearance. When we describe a person, we can say that this person is compassionate, or they are an angry person, etc. It is different in the Hebrew perspective. The Greek would say, “The pencil is…” but the Hebrew would say, “I write with the pencil.” Hebrews describe things in relation to self.

In Hebrew, there is no word for “is.” You will not find the word in the Hebrew Old Testament. It is true to say that when we translate it to English that the word “is” appears. That is how we make the sentence to make sense. But the Hebrew when describing God will speak of God as, “My God,” or, “God is merciful to me.” There is a relationship between the speaker and the object being spoken of. The main point is that when we speak of Paul as an Hebrew, we need to have the understanding that he thinks differently. Once again, this does not diminish in any way that Hebrews can relate an object to itself. The certainly can and could.

There are examples in our New Testaments where we read statements like, “God is love.” This is a statement where God is being described according to Himself. But it is much more common to find statements like, “You have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” You can see in this that Paul is not relating the Spirit according to how we know Him through revelation of Himself, but rather we know God in His revelation to us, and through us. It is personal, not impersonal.

Passive vs. Active Nouns

Greek nouns refer to a person, place, or thing. Hebrew nouns refer to an action of a person, place, or thing. This comes from two different things. First, most of the Hebrew nouns come from a verb. For example, BRK is the verb to kneel, or to bless. From that, we get the noun berak, which is the knee. Our knee is the place where the leg bends and allows us to kneel. Similarly, the word berakah means, “gift.” We can describe it as, “that which is brought with a bent knee.”

The other place that this comes into play can be described with the understanding of a mountain. The Hebrews did not see the mountains as pieces of land that was elevated. They saw them in action. The earth rose up and was exalted. The high places were those places that lifted themselves up toward the heavens. It is action packed instead of description oriented. This is another way of seeing “appearance vs. function.”

Time is a Continuum, and Everything is Interwoven

Time is a funny thing. We need to wrestle with the Hebrew concept of time. For starters, the Hebrews saw time likened to being in front or behind us. We would say in our Greek culture that the future is in front of us because we are moving toward it. The Hebrews would say that the future was behind us because we cannot see it. We can see the events of the past, but unless we are prophets, we cannot see the events of the future. This one statement alone shows us that we have the wrong perception of time.

The modern Western world views time as linear: it has a beginning and an end. It doesn’t matter how long ago the beginning was, nor does it matter when the end will come. Every Western thinker believes that there was a beginning and an end. We see time as a progression, and therefore we from start to finish. Somewhere in the past man arose. According to the Bible, it was God that made man. Somewhere toward the “end of the age” God will destroy the “heaven and the earth” and make a “New Heaven and New Earth.” So our Western Christianity sees a start with Genesis 1:1 and an end with Armageddon; depending on whether we believe there will be a 1000-year reign of Christ or not, it might come sooner rather than later.

Between the beginning and the end have been all sorts of events. According to Biblical history and not secular history, there has been a worldwide flood, there has been a bottlenecking of humanity because of that flood, a dispersal from Babel, the formulation of nations, an Exodus of the nation Israel out of Egypt, the rise and fall of Israel as a nation, Babylonian captivity, re-gathering of Israel, the advent of Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D, and then the last 2000 years of history from that time. It is all a linear progression from day one to now.

In fact, this linear timeline can be used to describe days, months, years, and etc. We can ascribe to the days hours, and to those hours minutes, and to those minutes seconds. We can then see a progression of second after second to make minutes, and eventually we can see the days passing by. Seasons also come and go. Years pass by with the months, where January is the start of the year, and December is the end of the year.

There is another option. We can see it easiest with this last paragraph. There is “circular” time. Think of a clock where the hands continue to pass by the numbers, but the clock continues to have the same numbers. It is in the shape of a circle because the time repeats itself. You will come back around to 12 o’clock again. Our seasons will go from winter to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall, and fall goes back to winter.

Days from the Hebrew perspective are not seen as 24-hour intervals that we measure, but instead of “evening and morning.” There is a repetition, a cycle. This pattern was established in the beginning. In the Hebrew mind, timelessness is not to be “without time” in the Greek sense, but instead to be without cycles and patterns. In the New Heaven and New Earth, there will be no more darkness. There will be no more sea. There will be no more cold. There will be no more sun, moon, or stars, which were given for signs and seasons, therefore resulting in there will be no more seasons. Time ceases, not because there is a lack in the progression of actions, but because there are no more cycles and repetitions.

When we read Genesis 1:1, we see “in the beginning,” or “when this present age started.” Before this present age was another age. That age before this one cannot be known or understood through the lens of this age. It was completely different. I don’t hold to the idea of a world where the angels fell, but I do hold to a time before this time. In fact, we can even say that the age we are currently in is the not the same age as was experienced by Adam before the Fall. After sin entered the world, the entire cosmos was altered and shifted. Now everything moans and groans.

There was another age that started with the Flood. God cleansed the earth of the wickedness of man, but it did not rid the earth of sin. From that end, which was in itself also a beginning, to the present time, we have been in what Paul calls, “this present evil age.” We will continue in this age until the “new heaven and new earth.” Paul referred to that time as, “life from the dead (Romans 11:15),” a “resurrection from the dead (1 Corinthians 15),” a “glory (Colossians 3:4),” and “salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:9).” It is actually possible to form an argument that Paul would even assert that there started a new era since the resurrection of Christ.

I said earlier that the ages cannot be understood from one to the next. The Bible records of this present age, which is from Genesis 1:1 through to the “New Heaven and New Earth.” But there are other “eras” within that time frame. What happened before Genesis 1:1 is a contradiction in terms. What will happen after Revelation 20 is a contradiction in terms. When we have come to a place of no cycles, how can we fathom time? It is true that the Greek idea of time will continue onward, but that in no way eliminates the notion that circular time will cease to exist.

It is also important to notice that even though I'm saying time is circular, I'm not saying that there is no progression. Time progresses, and God does indeed move from one point in time to another. When the cycle reaches around, we are not in the same place as before. There is a progression, even though I'm expressing time as a circle. Time repeats in patterns and cycles, but it isn't an exact repetition. 

In conclusion, this is only a brief introduction to a different way of perceiving. There is a lot more to be able to say about the way that the Hebrews viewed things such as Hebrew anatomy, the Hebraic way of discipleship, the Hebraic way of debating, etc. For now, I hope this helps in opening up the Scriptures in a new sort of light.

Do we need blood to be atoned for?

I've been listening to some Dr. Michael Brown lectures on "answering Jewish objections." The first couple were fabulous, but then we hit this point where it seems like the main point for every message is to talk about how repentance is not enough and we need blood sacrifices or there is no remission of sin. Of course, Dr. Brown is saying that we rely on the blood of Jesus, but it has gotten me thinking. Do we need the blood? If so, why do we need the blood?

A simple reading of the Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) that sacrifices and offerings are necessary to "draw near to God." The first chapter of Leviticus is about the burnt offering. Out of everything that could be spoken of, this is the first one. Why? Because it is the blood that takes away sin, for "the life is in the blood." In order for the priests to be consecrated (Leviticus 8), there needed to be blood sacrifices. In order to consecrate the things of the tabernacle, and even the tabernacle itself, there needed to be sacrifices (Exodus 40:29).

Obviously blood atonement is a huge factor of the Old Testament. The High Priest needed to offer a sacrifice for himself and for the congregation of Israel on the Day of Atonement. What Dr. Brown was attempting to do was show that in exile, there is no way to have remission of sins. Prayer isn't good enough: you're under judgment. It is upon the restoration of Israel from exile that they start to rebuild the Temple and offer sacrifices again. Why? If prayer was enough, then why did the generation of Nehemiah and Ezra need to start offering sacrifices again?

But what got me thinking wasn't so much the necessity of blood atonement. What caught me was that in the many statements being made, the point being argued was that God looked forward to an ultimate sacrifice. We presently look back to Jesus the Messiah, but they previously looked forward to the Messiah. I'm not sure that I truly agree with this. It's nice; it's cliched; it's glib. Ultimately, what I have a problem with is not so much about the blood atonement. What I have a problem with is that God had established this covenant with them. If you walk in the ways that He has ordained in the Law, then you were righteous. That's it. There wasn't anything outside of that that was necessary. That was the covenant that God had set up.

So to argue the Jewish people about whether they need blood sacrifices in order to be blameless is pretty well missing the point. The question is not whether prayer suffices. Lets say it does! The question to ask is when God changed His covenant. As soon as you start talking about a change in the 'eternal covenant,' you are coming to a place where it gets very sticky very quickly. What exactly is the eternal covenant? Has that covenant ever been changed?

It says in Galatians 3:8 that Abraham believed in the Gospel. But Jesus hadn't died! Does this mean that Abraham believed that God would send a man named Jesus that would die upon a cross to take away his sin and pave the path for him to enter heaven? Certainly not. For Abraham to believe the Gospel is explained in the rest of the verse. He believed God when He said, "In you shall all nations be blessed." That was the Gospel. Where is it mentioned about blood, or the Messiah, or a cross, or repentance? The point isn't about any of that stuff. There is an eternal covenant that the animal sacrifices and the Levitical Law was only a shadow of.

The cross wasn't necessarily part of that eternal covenant either. What I'm trying to get at is that Jesus fulfilled all of the sacrifices. He didn't just fulfill the blood sacrifices, but even the meal offering, the offering of firstfruits, the peace offering (which is also a blood sacrifice), and even the sin and trespass offerings. Jesus is the fulfillment of them all, or the fulfillment of none. He is the eternal covenant because it is in Him, not just His blood (although it is extremely important), that we find all of these sacrifices and offerings fulfilled.

He is our High Priest. He is our offering. He is our sacrifice. He is our Passover Lamb. He is our Firstfruit (the feast). He is our Unleavened Bread - the Word of Truth. It was upon Pentecost (Feast of Weeks) that the Spirit was poured out. Guess who's Spirit that was! It is upon the Last Trump that Jesus will return (Feast of Trumpets). He is going to judge the nations as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:32; Day of Atonement). He will then tabernacle with us for 1000 years (Feast of Tabernacles).

In fact, it is mentioned in Zechariah 14:16 that any nation that does not come up to the Feast of Tabernacles to celebrate when Jesus returns will have no rain. There is a judgment given to those nations that will not come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.

Are you starting to see my point? Yes, blood is necessary. Yes, without the blood there is no remission of sins. But if we solely base Jesus on a blood atonement, then we lose the holism. We lose the extravagance. Why is it that we can pray and not need to offer sacrifices anymore? Why is it that God sees repentance as enough? Because Jesus has taken upon Himself the fulfillment of that eternal covenant. The covenant was not made with us that we have to do something. Even salvation itself is a work of the Spirit!

Back in Genesis 15, God establishes a covenant with Abram. Abram offers these sacrifices to God, he lays them in halves opposite one another to make a pathway in which you must walk through the sacrifices. The context is that if you wanted to covenant with someone, you would do this and one person would stand on one side, the other person would stand on the other side, and then you would both walk to the middle in order to make the pact. You are essentially making the statement, "Let it be unto me like these sacrifices if I break my covenant." But when you read Genesis 15, God walks through the sacrifices while Abram is just waking up. God walks through the whole thing. It is saying, "Abram, you offered these sacrifices, but it won't be about you. I will do this because I have established my covenant. Let it be unto me like these sacrifices if I don't fulfill my covenant with you. You aren't held responsible by any means."

God has taken upon Himself the eternal covenant. It isn't about us. It is about Him. It is about His faithfulness.

In Revelation 6:6, the claim is made that there will be famine in the last days. But an angel calls out, "Do not hurt the oil and the wine..." Why? These are representations of the Spirit and the Covenant. The wine is the wine of the Covenant, which is to say Christ. The oil is the anointing of the Spirit, which is to say the Holy Spirit. Many believe that the Holy Spirit will be taken out of the earth during the time of the Tribulation. This cannot be so. God says do not take these out. He desires that there be some who are saved. How can they be saved if there is no Spirit? How can they be saved if He removes the covenant?

It is eternal - stems from the foundations of the world to the consummation of the age. The covenant is not that Jesus must die upon a cross, but that God will provide the Lamb (Genesis 22:8). Though during the time before Jesus' death and resurrection the sacrifices were ordained of God for the remission of sins, now God has ordained a different covenant. You aren't considered righteous because of what you perform, but instead because of what you are. Because God has now written the Law upon your heart, and has transformed you in the very deeps of who you are (put truth in the inner parts - Psalm 51:6).

Why does David say in Psalm 51:16 that God does not desire sacrifice or burnt offering? The answer is found in the next verse: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." The point is not that the sacrifices have been abolished, but instead that God wants to make our lives a sacrifice. He wants to do such a work in us that we are a priesthood. We are the sacrifice and the altar. Jesus alone is the one to fulfill that, but it is through Him that we are now made like Him. We are now transformed to being the sacrifice and altar - true priestliness.

In being the sacrifice and altar ourselves (Romans 12:1-2), we are no longer obligated to offer sacrifices. We have the blood poured out once and for all by our great High Priest. He is the ultimate fulfillment of all oblations and sacrifices. Now we go and do the same by pouring ourselves out like drink offerings to anyone and everyone that we know are in need. This is the eternal covenant. This is why we no longer need to offer sacrifices.

If we're witnessing to the Jews, and this comes up, how do we respond? How should we tell them that their prayer is not enough? How do we know that our prayer is enough? It is solely based upon the resurrection reality. Because we have been raised from the dead - something that you will know whether indeed it has or has not happened to you - we know that our prayers are answered. Resurrection does not mean that we are somehow now holier than thou, but in contrast would indicate a life of meekness.

Our righteous deeds are not something manifest to us. We live and move and have our being in simply doing good works. You don't need to ask me in order for me to do something for you. Typically, it seems like I end up buying groceries, sending money, encouraging and edifying, promoting and glorying in, and providing for any and every need that I am able without being asked. We know that so and so doesn't have much money, so we provide them food. We know that so and so is a single mom with 3 kids, so we buy school supplies, or pay the bills, or donate a gas card. We know so and so is entering into a new phase of life, so we encourage them however the Spirit leads.

Why do we need the blood of Messiah? We need the blood of Messiah because we need His Spirit poured out as a drink offering. We need the blood of Messiah because we need His Unleavened Bread - the Word of Truth - as a living reality within us (Psalm 51:6). We need the blood of Messiah because we need the incense, the sin offering, the burnt offering, the peace offering, the drink offering, the meal offering, and even the priestly functions that I haven't mentioned. We need the blood of Messiah because we need Him to fulfill all of the Law and Prophets. We cannot do this on our own, and so we look to Him to do it in us, through us, for us, and by us.

The blood is as important as every other aspect of the Law. For, "To sin in one aspect is to transgress the whole Law," James 2:10. We aren't under the Law in the sense that we are obligated to offer sacrifices. We are under a new Law. We are under the Law of Grace, which is in all aspects more difficult to follow than the written Law. God expects much more of us. These Jews that live more devoutly than we have even considered possible - it is in regard to them that Jesus says, "Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

What On Earth Is About To Happen For Heaven's Sake?

A few years ago, God started to open up to me the mystery of what is to happen in the End Times. This was what I wrote about 4 years ago. My view has changed and adapted slightly since then, and I wouldn't word things the same way as I had before, but it is an interesting read anyway:


            The Lord has been revealing to me different things about Israel and the Church. I’m sure by now that you have noticed the way that I speak about these things is very unique. I do know of others who see the same way, but most people have never heard of them. The way that I view both the Church’s role in the earth and Israel’s role in the earth are the exact same way that I view Christ’s role on the earth.

            When Christ came to die, it was to be a propitiation for the entire world. He is the sacrifice of atonement, in which even the Gentiles have salvation. The Church is His Body. They should be fulfilling the same role that He had 2000 years ago. Israel is still God’s chosen nation, and there are many prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled concerning them, not the least of which is that “they shall bless all the nations of the earth.”

            I believe that there is going to be a cosmic drama to be played out, very possibly in our very generation. When you start to see and understand the immensity of this drama, you start to stagger under the revelation. How did we miss this? How is it that so many believers don’t know of the role of Israel in the last days? And how is it that the majority of the Church doesn’t know its own role in the last days?

            When you start to see the vastitude of this, you start to realize that we have been play-acting. The majority of the Church is out of the will of God. We have been the new Israel, and not in the good way, writ large. We have taken upon ourselves our own ideologies and interpretations of the Scriptures. We’ve given ourselves a comfortable Gospel that requires nothing. And all of this is in the exact proportion to how little we consider Israel. This is all in the exact degree to how much or how little we truly care and understand about the promises to them.

            We see time and again in the Prophets that Israel is the key to the redemption and the blessing of all the nations, and in turn is the key to the glory of God. Look at Isaiah 66. God says that He will cleanse them in a day. In a day! He will put a new heart within them, and they will stagger the nations, because their transformation to redemption will be so absolute and so utter that in a day the nation of Israel will be born. Our ideologies of salvation being a process and it takes time to be holy are false. I’ve seen it with my own eyes that after 48 hours a man would stop his drinking, smoking, cursing, fooling with women, and grab hold of his Bible and read almost non-stop all the days of the week. And God says, “I’ll do better than that; I’ll redeem all of Israel, all of the Jews, to the same extent in a day.”

            Guess whom the key to that transformed Israel is. It is we. The Church, which is mostly Gentile, is the very instrument that God will use to redeem Israel, and Israel is the key for the nations in God’s cosmic redemption. I am getting ahead of myself.

            Paul told us that he would have that we are not ignorant of this mystery, lest we be wise in our own conceit. We have been ignorant. What has happened? We’ve become wise in our own conceit; exactly like he told us would happen. We have come to a place where people think that we, as the Church, are the new Israel. We are the new vehicle that will be employed to bring God’s glory to the nations. We think that we are the spiritual Israel. God has not birthed these thoughts. He still remembers His prophesies.

            My question, even before we begin to really dive into the depths, is whether or not you are willing to suffer for Israel’s sake. If the nations shall rage against Israel, as it has been written that they will, and if we are to oppose our own nationality for the sake of Israel, then we must also suffer with them. Are we willing? Or is there some secret spot in our hearts that would say, “They don’t deserve it. They abandoned God”? Is there some sort of Anglo-Saxon or anti-Semitic root within us that would cause for us to oppose Israel with the nations, because they crucified the Lord Jesus?

            It is interesting how this will reveal our secret hearts. God will elect whom He will elect. He is not democratic. This is a theocracy. He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy, and judgment upon whom He will have judgment. Esau He has hated, but Jacob He has loved, and who will tell Him He’s wrong?

            If you are willing to hear me out, then I hope that God would bless you. Paul said, “I would have it that you are not ignorant of this mystery.” In Romans 9-11, you have Paul making statements directed at Israel. The commentaries are full of insight for Romans 1-8, and Romans 12-16. Yet, Romans 9-11 have very few insights and words. They are often misinterpreted and misquoted. Why? It is not that this is a mystery in the sense that it is something mystical or majestic, but instead that it is hidden. And God has not desired to reveal it. It is His prerogative. But the time is come that He has spoken into the hearts of some to speak forth this understanding. Please be patient, and read with open hearts, because I fear how this might be taken if it is placed through our spiritual filters and theological biases.

            One of the passages of Scripture that show Jesus’ ministry to mankind is Isaiah 53. I want to use this to show His ministry, the Church’s ministry, and also Israel’s ministry. The Lord willing, I hope to relate a lot of Scriptures to this.

            “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on his the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the laughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grace with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, through he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, for he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Jesus our Lord

            It is a strange thing to me to consider Jesus in context to this chapter. He is, in Himself, the very prophetic display of Israel’s sifting through the nations, and the Church’s response. It is a strange thing to me that those people who should have understood and seen the Lord upon that cross were the very ones who were employing His death. What a remark this is to us, who think ourselves to understand grace and mercy, that we might be the ones who employ and justify ourselves in the persecution of world Jewry.

            This synonym, or real life display, is what we should expect to see in Israel. It is something that will shock us. We all have our hidden agendas, and truth be told, we seem to have a false piety that would expose that we believe we deserve the mercy we’ve been shown. Those who love God for His mercy and grace will be the same who cannot extend mercy to the Jews in plight.

            Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? It is a strange thought when you consider the message of the apostles. A.W. Tozer writes in his book Paths to Power (pg 7), “To carry on the work of a man who was known to have died – to have died as criminals die – and more than that to persuade others that this man had risen from the dead and that He was the Son of God and Savior.”

            How ridiculous it must have sounded (and still sounds) to hear 120 people bursting forth crying out in all sorts of languages about Jesus who is the Messiah, and how He rose from the grave and commands everyone everywhere to repent. Who could believe such a message? Who would even be able to fathom such a thing? It is insulting to the intellect and exhaustive to human wisdom.

            Then, to go even further and say that we also must be born again would be something to mock. Who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The question seems to answer itself: not many. How fraudulent and a disgrace it is to those of this world, especially those who are heavily influencing and influenced by the world system and wisdom.

            In Jesus Christ, we have the full revelation of the person of God, and in Jesus Christ, we see the full revelation of human hatred of that God. It is a requirement of God that we would understand that those who crucified the Lord Jesus are one and the same with ourselves. The principalities and powers are the ones who have set up the world system, and it is by their doing that the Lord was martyred. Though it is true to say that it was God the Father’s will for Jesus to die upon the cross, it is not fair to then discount our own sinful nature and our own inward hatred of God and the things of God.

            We must acknowledge the same sin in ourselves as what was displayed by the Jews and the Romans. We must take upon our own shoulders the guilt and blame of killing the Lord because He has revealed to us our secret hearts and shown us the ways of God. There is a unique parallel between our hearts and the hearts of those who lived 2000 years ago, because the condition of man is still the same. We have not evolved into some sort of better man, but instead have only continued to prove our depravity.

            “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.” The Land had been bare of any kind of prophetic voice for 400 years before John the Baptist came. Jesus was soon to follow the ministry of John the Baptist, and the ground was still dry. The religious society was as hard and fallowed as ever. Yet, out of this ground was to come a break in the ground and a small sprout of life. That life would then be a tender shoot, or a full bloom, that would bring forth a plentiful and beautiful field. From where did the water come? From where did the seed come?

            The seed itself is Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter whether we take this verse to mean that there was no prophetic voice for 400 years, or if we look into the history of Israel to find that the ground has always been dry. From Egypt, Israel has never truly accepted the Lord their God. Though there have been times of repentance, it has not been but a short period of time and the repentance seems to fade. This seed is God Himself, because “the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.”

            God Himself had made a promise to Israel, and it was God Himself who would bring forth that seed to be the Messiah. God will hold to His word. Even when He changes His mind, He still holds to His word, and in fact does something different at the same time as fulfilling the old word that has been changed, and thus brings even greater glory to His name. God doesn’t give up. He doesn’t change His mind. His gifts and callings, which He promised to Israel, in this case of the Messiah, are irrevocable.

            “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” When Saul became king, he was picked out of the crowd for being the tallest man. He was the easiest to spot, and towered over all others. Jesus was not so. He was the average-Joe, so to speak. People even mocked and giggled when hearing of Him by asking, “Can anything good come out of Galilee?” What was it that drew you to Him? Was it His great reputation, or was it the Father’s sovereignty? Nowhere in the ministry of Jesus did He use any tactic or method to draw men to Himself, but the Father, and the revelation that comes from the Father of who Jesus is, gave all.

            This is especially important to understand for us who are called to be light unto the world. We do not draw men to Jesus. The Father that is in Heaven draws them. There is also no way in human possibility to fancy Jesus up so that people would be attracted to Him. If we are fancying Him up, most likely, we are preaching another Jesus, another Gospel. God is who He is. He draws men because He is God, not because He has something that men want.

            “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.” We know that it says in John 1, “He went to that which was His own, and His own received Him not.” He was a man who was bent on doing the will of the Father, no matter what the price was. To live was to suffer. He must have been torn through and through with sufferings when looking upon the people and seeing them as “sheep without a shepherd.” He must have been stricken to the heart most severely when He would beg and plead with the Pharisees, but they only got worse in their sins.

            We also know from John 1 that Jesus has been with the Father from the very beginning. We can see in Genesis one that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” In these two verses we have the trinity. We have God, the Spirit, and the Light that “is the light of all men.”

            If Jesus was with God in the beginning, then we can deduce that He has always been acquainted with sorrows. Jesus has always had to suffer, because He longs to be with His creation, and His creation has been in a state of rebellion since the fall. One of the characteristics of God is, in fact, that He desires to suffer with His people. Yes He suffered for them, but He also suffers with and because of them.

            Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. What agony must the Lord have faced every time He spoke and people would then turn away? How grieved must He have been when He asked his 12 disciples, “Do you want to leave too,” John 6:67? How few there were who actually esteemed him. The majority of Israel did not even consider Him as a possibility to be their Messiah, and they still do not consider Him.

            This goes in with the last statement about being a man of sorrows. I have to think that Gethsemane was a time where Jesus asked, “Take this cup from me,” because He was looking at the reaction of the people. He could see that they didn’t understand. They didn’t want Him. They didn’t desire for God to save them. They were, and still are, their own messiahs. Jesus would have went forward asking if there was another way, but the Father had destined it to be the only way.

            “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted.” From the time Jesus started His ministry to the time He died upon that tree, and even all through the book of Acts, the majority of the Jewish society scoffed at Him and considered Him “stricken.” They figured God was cursing him when He died upon the cross. Why else would God allow such a righteous man to die?

            They are blind to the reality. This is why the statements were made at the cross that if Jesus were who He says He is, then lets see Him bring Himself down from the cross. We can see in this ultimate drama the heart of God in Christ who would hold nothing against His people by praying, “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do.” The heart of man is also exposed, especially in the Jews who deny depravity or wickedness or sin in them, by their fierce anger and hatred for the Son of God. They didn’t just have a little bitterness because He called them out on their sins. They despised Him. They absolutely loathed, hated, gruesomely demoralized, viciously abominated and execrated Him.

            “But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds, we are healed.” I listened to a message by Paul Washer titled He Drank Your Hell. I think the title alone is enough to settle upon. He took upon Himself all of our sin, all of our transgression, all of our iniquity, and all of our condemnation.

            “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” What is interesting is that the only apostle that saw Jesus die was John, the brother of James. Every one else had run away. Even when Jesus had died, Mary, Martha, Mary the mother of Jesus, and John all went away.

            None of them had stayed with Him in heart. All had turned away. The evidence that they turned away in their hearts, even upon watching His death, was that no one believed He had risen from the dead. He was abandoned.

            “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth.” Isn’t it an amazing statement to consider that Jesus never once complained? He never grumbled. He took on this torture with joy. He knew what it entailed, and He did not shrink from it. Because of His submission even unto death, He was granted to be called the Lamb who is worthy to open to seals in Revelation 5. He was the Lamb that was silent, so now He is the Lamb of all authority.

            It says something about the nature of God. He was silent. Really consider this verse. When men are falsely accused, they blurt out their innocence. Paul and Silas experienced this. When they were imprisoned, it was a false accusation, and a false incarceration. Yet, they didn’t speak up. They were silent. They rejoiced in God within the jail. What is it about silence that is such an articulation of otherworldliness? What does silence in the midst of adversity speak that is so shocking?

            We have the very wisdom of God being displayed. This is something that is too holy to ignore. It is too sacred to pass over. This question of why was He silent and what does it mean is a burning bush for us. The wisdom of this world must defend self. Yet, the wisdom and character of God lets God defend. It doesn’t trust in self. As it is written, “Cursed be the man who trusts in man.”

            God Himself will be our deliverer, or we won’t have a deliverer. It is that simple. This is the wisdom that Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego held to. God will deliver us, but even if He doesn’t, we still won’t bow the knee. We won’t worship your system. We won’t be bought over with your wisdom. We won’t indulge ourselves with your values. Our trust is in the Lord, and He is our High Tower. Even if He doesn’t deliver us and we die at the hands of the wicked, we know our eternal destiny. We know in whom we have believed, and He is able to save to the uttermost.

            When we are not silent in our extremedies, or maybe a better way to put it is if we are complaining or defending self, then we are not truly trusting in the Lord. All of our acknowledgment of His Lordship is in vain. We might have the right words and the correct doctrines, but without the actuality in our personal lives, we are bankrupt and our so-called spirituality is null and void.

            “By oppression and judgment He was taken away. And who can speak of His descendants? For He was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgression of my people he was stricken.” It is interesting that one of the things that is pointed out is the oppression and judgment. This is actually something that symbolizes the principalities and powers of darkness. They’re whole system is governed on threat, intimidation, and scare tactics. The fact that Jesus was taken away by these very things displays to us that those who slew Jesus were indeed the spiritual forces at work in the world, not Jews.

            He was a eunuch for God, for “who can speak of His descendants?” He spoke once on how some people are born eunuchs and others are eunuchs by choice. He was one by choice. It helped Him to better serve His Father. He was undefiled by idols for His Bride. This is the definition of being a eunich: a virgin in spirit.

            The ideology of being a eunuch for God doesn’t mean that we don’t marry. It is a spiritual thing. Some people are born eunuchs; some are eunuchs by choice. God is coming back for a pure and spotless Bride. Have we been tainted by idols? Have we given ourselves over to doctrines without applying them into our own personal lives? Have we been more prone to enjoying a nice service with a few songs and a prayer and a sermon than to enjoying the Holy Spirit in silence? This concept of being a spiritual eunuch is not something that is favorably taught or learned today.

            It speaks of a suffering for the glory of God, and that suffering is, by nature, painful. We must undergo disconnect of some sort. We’ll be mocked and humiliated. We’ll be scorned. Those who don’t understand will constantly be pleading with us to go back to church, join our small group, bow to our system, take hold of the traditions of men again, eat with us though our hearts are not with you, lets have a laugh about it. In a sense, we are suffering for the glory of God so that we might not be impure before Him. In another sense, we are suffering for the sake of those immediately around us so that they have an alternative lifestyle presented before them. Though there is much ridicule, it is the very heart of God that we suffer for the sake of others, as Christ did.

            “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.” I find it most interesting that Isaiah prophesies that His grave would be a rich man’s tomb. He was put in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb (Mark 15:43). Joseph of Arimathea was a “prominent member of the Council.” He was a rich man. He died the death of murderers and thieves, and was buried in a rich man’s tomb, just like Isaiah prophesied hundreds of years before.

            “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand.” Notice that Jesus obeyed God’s will, even in becoming sin for our sakes. Was Jesus sinful? Did He somehow become the object of sin itself? No. It was imputed to Him the same way that the goat in the Old Testament would have sin imputed to it and then sent away into the wilderness to die.

            Jesus was, in the exact same way as that goat, led outside the city, the sins were imputed to Him, the Father, for the sins of the people, crushed him, and therefore He was made the guilt offering. Jesus was the fulfillment of even our offerings before the Lord.

            “After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.” The point of the beginning of this verse? Jesus was raised from the grave. He saw the light of life and was satisfied. The resurrection has come. There is now freedom from death, sin, judgment, and self. By being raised from the dead, Jesus has broken the chains that bind us. We are invited to participate in that death burial and resurrection for our own freedom. This is how He justifies many.

            “Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors, for He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isn’t it interesting how the chapter ends with “therefore,” he is pronounced as ruler? “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against His Anointed One… The One in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them… I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill… You are my son; today I have become your Father,” Psalm 2:1-7.

            Jesus is pronounce King and supreme Ruler to rule and reign and judge with righteousness all of the nations and kingdoms of the earth. He is also given all authority, even above the angels, to judge them, and the gods of this earth who are the principalities and powers of darkness. The reign of Satan is over. It isn’t coming to an end; it has already ended. The only thing that the enemy can do now is to deceive His people.

The Church

            The rulers of this age (i.e. the kingdom of darkness) should be in fear and dread of every member of the Body of Christ. We tear down strongholds, build up cities, come against demonic forces, and push back the kingdom of darkness. The sad reality is that this is not true about us. For the most part, we have not been pushing back the kingdom of darkness, but have instead been tolerant and acceptant of it.

            We can see in Isaiah 53 our role on the earth, both to this world and to the fallen angels. God has placed the responsibility of being a light to the world, and therefore to the principalities and powers of darkness. “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” This very first verse is a key place to begin. It is upon the Church that God has made known the mysteries of Christ. Who can believe our message? Who can understand our message? The fact that God would even ask this question would beg the answer: not many.

            I know that I am repeating myself here. I said the same thing about Christ. I want to ask the question, which I’ve already answered, of what the Gospel really is. What does it mean to evangelize? My belief falls around that evangelism itself is living out a lifestyle that is counter to what this world presents. We should be living as though we are in heaven. The government of God should govern our actions and our lives, and therefore we ought to be displaying before all men a lifestyle that is completely opposite of what they experience and know.

            Our daily lives should be the revealing of the arm of the Lord. Our witnessing, when in words, should be a direct reflection of who we are. It is in that reflection that we have authority and power. Because the Gospel we preach is not in word only, but in demonstration and in power of the Holy Spirit, our testimony demands the attention of our hearers.

            I would like now to establish the question of who our hearers are. Romans 1:16 tells us that the Gospel should go, “to the Jew first, and then also to the Greek.” Why do we need to go to the Jew first? The ministry of Paul certainly portrays this belief. Yet, why would God have us to go to the Jews before the other Gentiles?

            The Jew is the ultimate challenge for the Christian. The truth of the matter is that if you don’t go to the Jew first, you don’t go to him at all. We know that it says in Romans 11:28 that the Jews are the enemies of the Gospel for our sakes. What does that mean?

            Deuteronomy 32:7-9 says, “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

            What does this mean? Notice in verse 8 that God says, “when I separated the sons of Adam, I set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” Paul speaks on this, briefly, in Acts 17:26-27. “God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation (their nation’s boundary lines), that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not far from every one o us.”

            What I’m trying to set up before you is something that is foreign to our modern teaching and understanding entirely. I believe that God says His people Israel are the epicenter of the world. The nations, and all the population of the world, are in direct proportion to Israel’s population and dispersion. They were called to be a nation of priests to all nations. Remember that “the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable,” Romans 11:29. God has called His people to a certain destiny, and they will fulfill it, or God is not God.

            Who do we witness to? “…to the Jew first, and then to the Greek.” Why would God set it up this way? As I began to say earlier, the Jew is the ultimate challenge for the Christian. Why and how is the Jew so challenging that it is an ultimate requirement? To be very blunt, the Jew is at the forefront of the whole world system and the wisdom of that world. Who else, but the Jews, have given us men such as Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg, most of the banking presidents and lead CEO’s of major businesses throughout the world, weapons specialists and military tactic geniuses, corporate industry of modern times, and much, much more?

            When we witness to the Jew, we don’t merely bring a small thing. These are the men and women who have designed our modern times. To bring the Gospel to the modern Jew is to bring a world-view that is totally opposite and threatening of their mode of being, as well as all that they hold dear to and stand for. By God sending us to the Jew first, He is sending us to Pharaoh. He is sending us to the center of all filth and perversity in this world. He is sending us to the very kingdom of darkness.

            And how will you witness to them? Will you go and give them the 4 Spiritual Laws or 5 Things God Wants You to Know? Will you present to them clichés such as John 3:16 and God loves you and are you a believer? Will you ask them if they have repented? Are you going to give them some sort of quick truism that sounded good to you, but has barely any kind of weight or substance to it? Let me see you go to the highly intellectual men and women of this day and age and tell them 4 Spiritual Laws.

            Paul warns us that they are an enemy for our sakes, and yet also told us to go to them first. Even if we didn’t have the history of 2000 years worth of burning down their synagogues and force conversion and slaughtering and genocide, they would still be the enemies of the Gospel for our sakes. They are the supreme humanists. There is good in men, and if you come to a Jew who has never even raised his voice at his wife to tell him that he needs to repent and believe in this name that has only been a stumbling block for his people, he will utterly tear you apart until you have nothing but a whimper left to blurb out in defense.

            God also says, through Paul, that “all Israel shall be saved.” How shall they be saved if we can’t witness to them? I guess they’ll have to see in us something that is worth noting. We are going to need to be a tender shoot out of dry ground. We are going to need to be the light to the world. We are going to need to reflect the character of Jesus Christ and God the Father. We are going to need to be able to reach out to them, when no one else in this world will reach out to them.

            Anti-Semitism is on the rise. You can especially look at the Middle East. That which God has predestined to fulfill prophecy is what is most vile and hated. The Jews are despised, and even Jerusalem is chosen as the epicenter of disdain. The Middle East has chosen such hatred for the Jew and for Jerusalem that I have to wonder if it is God’s doing. If not, then I wonder if there is something in man that would intuit that Israel is everything to God. If you can destroy Israel, then you can destroy the plans of God.

            “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.” Without the Church of Jesus Christ upon the earth, there will be no message from heaven. In today’s world, even with the Church there is no word from heaven. We live in the days that Amos spoke of, “The days are coming when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.”

            We hear all sorts of words. We hear words from Scripture, words about God, words about us, words about marriage, words about raising kids, words about sin, words about deliverance, words about spiritual gifts, but where are the words of God? The entire world is waiting for us to hear what the voice of Heaven is beckoning. They are dry and very hard. It takes a word from God Himself, not merely the Word of God (i.e. the Bible). Only He can break up the fallowed ground.

            A word must come forth from the Church, which this word will be a representation of the Church itself that was born out of the Spirit. To grow up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground, is to present to Israel and the principalities and powers of darkness the authority and very word and Spirit of the Lord.

            What would this be composed of? What is the word of God? What is it that we need to speak? I cannot tell you. There isn’t a formula. There isn’t a method. If you are looking for storing up words and formulas and methods, then you will fall infinitely short. God must give you the word in the moment.

            I can tell you, however, that the word will be a complete representation of who you are. The word will be of mercy, love, kindness, gentleness, patience, humility, joy, peace, faith, and self-control. How can you extend these things if you yourself do not have it? The Jew will press and push your buttons to truly test whether you have these fruits, or if it is all a forgery. Either you will be directed and guided by the Holy Spirit entirely, or you won’t have anything to speak or display.

            It is in this giving of us to Israel, when they don’t deserve it, that will be the total and utter display of the manifold wisdom of God. I’m sure most of you have passed over Ephesians 3 time and again, as I have, without ever even realizing what it says. We are to “make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God,” Ephesians 3:8-9.

            What a massive statement! The fact that this is a mystery doesn’t mean that it is mysterious or mystical or anything. It is hidden. God Himself must reveal this mystery, or it won’t be seen. Paul tells us in Romans 11:25 that he “would have us that we are not ignorant of this mystery, lest we become wise in our own conceit.” We have been ignorant. We have become wise. Once again, I’m repeating myself, but you can bear to hear it again. From whom have you heard these things? And how could you possibly understand at first glance? The magnanimity of these statements needs to be drawn out, and entire seminars can be produced from each paragraph of this writing.

            “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Tell me, when has Israel ever been attracted to the Church? At what time have we even attracted the world? There are various times throughout history that revivals broke out, and many people of the world flocked to see what God was doing. But for the most part, we have completely matched this.

            Sometimes that is to our glory, and other times that is to our shame. When we are living a life that demands repentance from those who see us, their denial is our glory. What I mean to say is that the people of the world should see God in us, and because they hated Him, they hate us. Usually people see judgment, hypocrisy, condemnation, and wickedness when they look upon us.

            It is natural for people to look at us and not be attracted to our congregations. What is not natural is for people to hate us because of how ungodly we are. Jesus told us that if they hated Him, they would hate us. For the sake of tolerance, we have embraced the world around us, and we have done away with godly living, so that now people might find us a bit more “attractive.” It is happening nationwide, and it is interdenominational.

            One of the main scandals of the Gospel is that men are drawn to the Church, but it is completely counter their nature. God draws men to Himself, though men want nothing to do with God. When men come, when they repent, it is not because of how attractive we are, nor is it how attractive God is, but it is completely from the grace and mercy of God that they come. When He is beckoning them, they see His beauty, and are drawn. When He is not beckoning, they renounce and scorn. God desires it to be so.

            “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” For the exact same reasons Christ suffered this, we should be. We present the Gospel to our friends and families, only to be turned away. Especially for our Jewish brothers and sisters, it is most difficult to witness to those immediately around us.

            I said of Israel that there is something in man that they would intuit that God is with Israel, and if you get rid of Israel, then you foil the plans of God. The hatred of Jews stems from an ultimate hatred of God. In the same way, the hatred of Christians stems from a hatred of God. The men of this world are adamant because they want to be gods unto themselves. Everything we stand for, even by claiming Christianity without walking it out, is a direct offense to the system of this world.

            The principalities and powers of darkness have so dominated this world that the men of it intuit very easily that we are the enemy. We are despised and rejected because we bare witness to something that they hate. We are a people of sorrows because we can see the truth, and our friends and families deny our very lives in order to hide themselves from the truth. How can we not be broken? How can we not agonize?

            “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted.” Here we have the main heart of my message for the Church. What does it mean that we, as the Church, have taken up their infirmities? This is yet a future event. I believe it signifies that we will take upon ourselves the infirmities of Israel.

            I’m not a believer in the pre-tribulation rapture. I have this opinion because of what the prophets have to say. If you will look upon Ezekiel 20:33-35, “As I live, says the Lord, surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you; and I will bring you out from the peoples, and will gather you out of the countries in which you are scattered with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead with you face to face.”

            Amos 9:9 says, “For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve,” emphasis mine. Ezekiel 37:11 states, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them: this is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up out from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken and I have done it.”

            This last bit from Ezekiel 37 has not happened. The Israelites don’t know the Lord their God. It insists that there will be another expulsion from the land, which Ezekiel 22:17-22 also supports. The valley of dry bones is the whole house of Israel. Who is the son of man? The son of man is the Church. It is by their prophesying and their ushering the word of the Lord forth that will raise the House of Israel back to a final restoration. We will be the instrument of God to raise Israel from it’s grave.

            How does this happen? They, in the tribulation, will be expelled from the land, cast out into the nations, flee to the wilderness places, and find themselves in hiding. If the Church is raptured, they will have no hope. The end time fury upon the chosen people of God by the principalities and powers of the air will wipe out even 2/3 of the Jewish people according to Zechariah.

            It will be the Church that takes the Jewish people in, cares for them, gives them sanctuary in the wilderness, and through them, the Lord will plead with His people face to face. We will suffer with the Jewish people so that in the carrying of their sorrows, we might take up their infirmities.

            You can turn to Psalm 102 and see the same thing. I believe this is a prophetic Psalm about a future judgment upon Israel. You can read in verse 3, “For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned like an hearth. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones adhere to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the housetop. Mine enemies reproach me all the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, because of your (God’s) indignation and wrath; for you have lifted me up, and cast me down.”

            This could easily be a scene from the Nazi Holocaust. “My days are like a shadow that declines, and I am withered like grass.” Isn’t it interesting that such language is being used as to describe something similar to Dachau or Auschwitz? I might be playing with the text, but if you continue onward, you find that the Psalmist declares that the Lord will arise, have mercy upon His people, and the nations will fear the name of the Lord.

            It is in the redemption of Israel that all nations shall be blessed. What argument can they present that would allow them to continue in their sins? Could you imagine a nation of Pauls going to Iraq and telling the Islamic people, “I know that we used to testify that a good Iraqi is a dead Iraqi, but we have been reborn.” Could you imagine the response to the call to put away Islam, put away Hinduism, put away Bhuddism? How do you argue? When the people of Israel have been completely reborn in a day, how do you say that it doesn’t matter? It is in that day that all the nations shall fear.

            But what is the agent for Israel’s redemption? In verse 14 of Psalm 102, we read that God’s servants take pleasure in her (Israel’s) stones and favor the dust thereof. Who are the servants? Who else could it be but the Church? Because we extend mercy, they will be redeemed. Because we take note of her and suffer with her, she will be born again, and born again in a day.

            This is actually the set time to favor Zion. We read in the next verse (verse 15) that this is so. We know that the Church is Zion, and it is actually when the servants of God favor Israel that it is the set time to favor the Church. Once again, who are the servants? It can’t be Israel. From the immediate context of the Psalm, Israel is undergoing chastisement and judgment from God. They are the objects of wrath. Therefore, there must be an outside servant of God, namely the Church.

            “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Unless we are willing to suffer with them and show them love by speaking the words of God to them as the Spirit gives utterance, the Jewish people have no hope. We are to be recognized with them in their persecutions. We are to care for them and show them love that goes beyond human capabilities, even to the point of gladly supplying their needs when all they will do is complain.

            The Church in her state right now is not ready for this. She cannot be to Israel what she must because she is not even to herself what she must be. Community is not an option. It is only in that kind of setting that we will have ourselves hammered out and beaten thin. No other solution is available.

            The very suffering for the sake of Israel will be their peace and healing. We will die for their sakes. We will suffer for their sakes. By our crushing, they will be delivered. We have not shown them this kind of love, which only God can give. Because we have not shown them love, they have not been driven to jealousy. It will be in the end times, and through an end time Church, that God will employ a speaking to His people that will constitute them to either accept Him as their God, or reject them, and thus be destroyed by the sword.

            Read Romans 11:11. “Through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.” This is something that has been provided by God. It is a way to escape our pride. Our salvation is for something greater than ourselves. Though the mercy we have received is a wonderful thing, God has designed it that we would not be stuck in our pride, but would see that our salvation goes beyond us. It is to drive the Jew to jealousy. What kind of a testimony do we need to bring that would provoke them to jealousy?

            Look a little further down in your Bible to Romans 11:25. What is this fullness of the Gentiles? I believe it is maturity. It constitutes a coming of age throughout the entire Church. Israel is waiting, though they don’t know it, for our maturity to be made full. When we reach that point of maturity that we can display the Kingdom of God to Israel, then the end will come.

            In fact, read the next verse. “There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” Is it possible that this deliverer, and possibly Zion itself, is the Church? I believe it is this display of the Gospel through the entire Body, as well as through the sent vessels to preach to Israel that will drive the Jew to jealousy.

            If we are to try and “win them” on human terms, we will always fall short. The Jew is the supreme example of human ingenuity. The very thing that will drive them to jealousy is what we, as Christians, should hold to as the dearest doctrine of the faith: resurrection. When they see us Gentiles displaying to them the resurrection that was promised to them, they will be jealous. In seeing the very face of God in our faces, it will be the ultimate display of their God to them, and it is this display that all of Heaven, Israel, and Creation waits.

            “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” It will be in the very display of our Christ-likeness that the Jewish people will come to God. It is also in that very acceptance of suffering that the principalities and powers will have no dominion or authority. How can they temp or threaten us? We care not even for our own lives! In this one article, we will be the deliverers of the Jewish people, and also the conquerors of Satan by the grace and glory of God in us. It will be Christ in us, the hope of glory.

            “By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.” Are you willing to suffer this? Is it even an option?

            It is one thing to say that you would be willing, if the Lord called you of course, to go to the mission field. What about suffering for as long as it takes under the judgment and hatred of the Jewish people until they are brought into a place of repentance and brokenness before God? Would you be okay with that? Because that is precisely what the Lord is calling His Church to be.

            We are not to be murmuring, complaining, retaliating, oppressing, or judging any one. Out of love we should bless those who persecute us. We should pray for those who harm us. We should act in love toward those who despise us. We aren’t to “tolerate” them; we are to love them. And you cannot love them if you do not like them. In disliking them you open the door to arguments, pride, disdain, bitterness, contrition, and the list goes on.

            Romans 10:14 says, “How, then, shall they call on Him whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” From this one verse, we can deduce that it is more than a proclamation that needs to go forth. They need to hear more than words.

            If all we are to do is proclaim something, there will be no life from the dead. Our preaching needs to be something apostolic. It is an event that creates faith. By our very words and testimony, the power of God is displayed in full view, and therefore, it is a word that even imparts faith. Because it is in demonstration and in power of the Spirit, the Jews must listen. They must respond.

            Our very words will be such a critical thing. When they are words from Heaven, of God, they will impart faith to the hearer, and that faith will be what saves them. How can they call upon the one whom they have not heard? They haven’t heard of this Christ. They might have heard of an almost infinite other Christs, but they haven’t heard of their Messiah. And how can they hear unless someone preaches? But how can that one preach unless he is sent? If he is sent forth, as Moses was sent forth, it is in the complete fullness of God, and therefore with the manifest wisdom of God. That is to say, in the manifest character of God.

            This is what will free them. The bonds of Satan cannot hold them any longer when the wisdom of God is displayed. The wisdom of God is inseparable from the character of God. To show one is to show the other. From that display, darkness must flee, and freedom is pronounced over the hearer. But who is sufficient for these things?

            Now you can understand why Paul cries out, “Who is sufficient for these things?” You, of all people, are going to be the chosen vessel that God uses to witness to Israel? You are the one who is spiritual enough to tear down strongholds and impart faith by your very speaking? You are the one who can prophesy to these dry bones? Now you see why Ezekiel even had to say, “You know Lord.” To prophesy to these bones that they would rise from the dead was beyond his faith.

            Nevertheless, all Israel shall be saved. It is because of this depth of insight that Paul would start in chapter 9 of Romans with, “I could wish myself accursed for my brethren in the flesh’ sake,” and end with joyful and highest praise. Can you understand why Paul shouts, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever”?

            “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.” What could be the offspring of the Church? It is the redemption of Israel. Through our going down, we are brought up to a place to rule and reign in heavenly places with Christ. In our bearing our cross, we are raised again to new life, for God will “prolong our days.”

            “Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” This, to me, speaks of some will rule over 5 cities, and some will rule over 10. It is the Church going into the entire world from Zion during the Millennial Kingdom. Because we poured ourselves out, God establishes us up.

            We were faithful in a little, so God puts us over much. Because we didn’t despise the least of these His brethren, He grants us to rule and reign forever. By our surrender of ourselves we are granted authority in ourselves. It is His authority, but it is our authority. In the same way that anyone who had the signet ring of the king had the authority of the king, we have our own authorities through Him. If the King establishes a noble, then those under the noble will have to submit to his authority. Likewise, we will either be granted with an eternal reward of ruling and reigning, or we will lose our rewards, but keep our souls.

            It is this very thing, the fullness of the Gentiles, which will constitute our ruling and reigning. Let us consider again Ephesians 3. It is from this display of the wisdom of God to the principalities and powers of the air that Paul continues and says, “that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend, with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes all knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God.”

            I must wonder if the comprehension of God is directly linked to this one thing: displaying the manifest wisdom of God. I wonder if God has so chosen to give us revelation according to our willingness to obey Him. This would seem to be plausible. If that is the case, then those who will be granted to rule and reign, for they will have to teach, are those who are brought into a depth of maturity.

            Everything seems to line up with this one truth: neither Israel nor the Church can see the glory of God independent of the other. They are both subject to each other. Without Israel, and the test that it gives, the Church will never have the motive to grow up. She will never have the desire to reach a place of maturity in God. And likewise, the Jew will never have the motive to give up their humanism without the Church. It is by our display, even as Gentiles, which will drive them to surrendering before God.

Israel – the Blessing to the Nations

            When most Christians think about Israel, they think of a desert. They think of an old people who are forsaken of God. To most, Israel is completely absent from their daily thinking, and most of their theology. Anyone who wants to be seriously listened to will have some sort of something to say about Israel, but it is almost always the cheapest of human compassion and sentiment because, “They are still His chosen nation.” There are various places in Scripture that would tell us this, but what idea I get from the Bible about Israel is that it will take a lot more than sentimentality and human love to “win” them to Christ.

            “As far as the Gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account,” Romans 11:25. What was the Holy Spirit, through Paul, saying? He was telling us, and still is telling us, that Israel is the antidote to the Church for lethargy. When the Church is lethargic, lazy, slothful, full of envy, worldy and carnal, sexually immoral, full hatred and greed, and being lovers of self more than lovers of God, then you can almost guarantee they have ignored Israel. They are the enemies of the Gospel for our sakes. It is in the Jewish people that God has perfectly worked out the plan to keep us in spiritual shape.

            “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” How many people in the Christian faith know this? Who do you hear teach and preach of a future restoration of Israel by God using the Church as a focal point? Who do you hear teach and preach about Israel at all? Have you ever heard a message from Romans 11? There is much there that needs to be understood.

            In our ignorance, and much to our shame, we have neglected Israel, and therefore neglected God’s plan. We’ve been more focused on our communities and cities than the Jewish people, and the reason is because we simply did not know any better. I am not going to condemn or blame any person or group. This is something that has been lost to our faith, and therefore needs to be restored.

            I will admit, however, that Paul was extremely correct in saying that when we neglect so great a mystery, we will become wise in our own conceit. We have ignorantly gone through the nations believing that we are the salvation of them. Our opinion is that the Church is the instrument that God will use to redeem the nations. This cannot be further from the truth. It is, and always has been, God’s plan and purpose for Israel to be the redeeming agent for the nations. The mostly Gentile Church may indeed facilitate a gathering from all nations to create a people of God, but the actual task of transforming and redeeming the nations is for Israel (note Isaiah 2:3-5; Genesis 12:2-3).

            “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” As far as the lackluster-ness of Israel, at what point in their history have they ever been the apple of the eyes of the nations? Israel has always had a bloody history. There have always been wars and rumors of wars. For almost 3000 years they were in exile with only a few times that they had come back to the land. The Israelites have been hated and despised by all nations for the very reason that the principalities and powers mark every Christian.

            It is necessary to note that the principalities and powers are predicated upon certain wisdom, and God has another (Ephesians 3:10). A synonym for wisdom in this case would be value system. For us, as the Church, to display the value system of God, we oppose the principalities and powers of the air. Israel, by their very history, is a threat to the principalities and powers. This isn’t some sort of Jewish mysticism. There are true demonic forces at work that despise the people of God, even when the people of God are not following God. It is what they inherently are, and what they have been promised and called to be.

            “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” To destroy Israel would be to foil every plan of God made from the beginning. The demonic powers know this very well. They know the promises that have been given to Israel: “God’s word shall go forth out of Zion,” “nations and tongues with gather to Israel to see His glory,” “they shall declare His glory among the nations,” “violence shall no more be heard in the land,” “the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their head,” “I will also give you for a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation unto the ends of the earth,” and all of these verses are only from Isaiah!

            Is it any wonder they would be opposed? The problem isn’t that Israel is not this; the problem is that God is God. If God is indeed God, then He will need to fulfill each and every promise He has made to Israel. If He cannot redeem them, what kind of a God is He? If He cannot save them from their destruction, what kind of a God is He? If He cannot even fulfill His own word and promise, then He is no God at all.

            When dealing with the promises to Israel, we are dealing with the very glory of God. It is only from a Church that has been so liberated and freed from their own human conceptions that can truly be to Israel the redeeming agent that it needs to be. When the rest of the world despises and rejects Israel, we must acknowledge and love them. We will bear our crosses, possibly even to our deaths, by suffering with Israel. Most likely, our suffering will be at the hands of the Jews. The very people who we love and serve will be the instrument of wrath and execution, just as it was with Jesus.

            To tap into this kind of reality, and to genuinely live by it, is not only life from the dead, but a manifestation of the wisdom of God. It displays the very character of God. How can the demonic forces say any longer, “Jesus we know, and Paul we know, but who are you?” By acknowledging Israel, and by bearing their suffering with them, when there is no immediate blessing to you, you bear witness and usher forth another wisdom. It is by that very action of suffering for the betterment of another, and most likely to your own degradation and belittlement, that will inevitably usher forth the glory of God and the manifest wisdom of God (which is His glory and character).

            “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Once again in Romans 11, it says “Because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring! For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel shall be saved,” Romans 11:11-26.

            How great and glorious these words are. “What will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” This life from the dead is not their own. Nor is it the life to the Gentile Church. It is a life to the nations. It is in this that they will fulfill their destiny. Against such testimony, there will be nothing but judgment. In fact, remember that in Revelation 12, the dragon, which is Satan, pursues the woman, who is Israel. Then, in chapter 13, which I suspect chapters 12 and 13 are almost simultaneous with one another, there is the beast that rises up from the sea. This beast is “given power to make war with the saints, and overcome them.”

            You ask, “What does that mean?” It means exactly as it says. There will be a day that Satan Himself will be able to overcome the saints of God. It will be in our desperate condition and ultimate suffering as to be overcome by Satan that we should overcome him. That is to say, by being overcome by Satan, Christ made a full display and mockery of Satan. For, if the principalities and powers had known the end result, they would not have crucified the Lord. It was by the humbling of Him to be overcome by Satan that Christ had the ultimate victory. In the same way, by our humility to be overcome by Satan, we will have the ultimate victory.

            This is the end time prophecy given by the very mouth of Jesus to John. God has told us through the prophets, as well as in our New Testaments, that He will sift Israel through all nations. It will be in this sifting that 2/3 of Israel will be slain. They will flee to the wilderness places, and there God will plead with them face-to-face through the Church. While this is taking place, the Church will also experience an end time rage from the powers of darkness, and they will overcome the saints. It will be by our submission to the overcoming of the evil one that will loose the scales from the eyes of the Jewish people, and they will cry out to the Lord God of their forefathers. They will see in that moment the God whom they have despised and rejected and hardened their necks to ever since they left Egypt. God will redeem all of Israel in a day. It will be with such groanings and cryings that each household will need to be separated, and even husband and wife will need to be apart, for the shame and humiliation that will be placed upon them will cause for such deep repentance and uncontrollable shakings and weepings that the Jewish people will come back to God in the land and be ashamed of himself. At that time, the nations will look and say, “Behold, isn’t this that was a wasteland and desolate place? It is now as the Garden of Eden!” Israel will then be a light to the nations, that they may be God’s salvation unto the ends of the earth.

            Yet, how can this happen if we are unwilling to reach out in compassion? To what end will become Israel if the Church is unwilling to be God’s salvation to the Jews? If we refuse to be overcome by Satan, then we will of necessity lose our own salvations. The test of true faith and apostolic conversion is the test that Jesus told us would be employed: mainly, did you love the least of these His brethren? If we refuse to be to Israel what He requires, then He will refuse to be to us what we require. If we will not be the tool of salvation for Israel, then Christ will deny us salvation before His Father. This was the difference between the sheep and goats. The sheep would do all that God has spoken and follow Him wherever He may go. The goats still hold to the value system of the world, and are therefore denying the very power of God though they claim the doctrines of the faith.

            “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers in silent, so he did not open his mouth.” This crushing, oppression, and affliction are both divine judgment, and also divine redemption. It is by God pursuing them in fury poured out that they will be saved.

            “For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, ‘Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings,’” Jeremiah 4:3-4. “Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings who sit upon David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, says the Lord; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them,” Jeremiah 13:13-14.

            “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries to which I have driven them out, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. And I will set up shepherds over them who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, says the Lord. Behold the days come, says the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS,” Jeremiah 23:1-6.

            This is talking of a time where Israel has been brought back into the Land; they know the Lord their God, and the Messiah (Jesus) shall rule and reign over them. He shall be their righteous King. He shall take that seat upon which God promised David that his seed shall rein forever. “They shall be my people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto me with their whole heart,” Jeremiah 24:7.

            Can you see how the Old Testament is full of this? I haven’t even gotten into the “minor” prophets. It is sad when the Church can read the Old Testament and think that when it says God, it really only means Jesus, and when it says Israel, it really means the Church. Both are mentioned in the Old Testament, and these are promises that God made to Israel.

            “By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.” I see this verse as being more literal than metaphoric. It is because of the sins of Israel that Israel will be taken away in judgment. They will be cut off from the land of the living, from merchandise and homes, from the world and society, from entertainment and luxury, from comfort, and from family.

            The Nazi Holocaust is a slight representation of what we can expect as a yet future event. The end time ferocity against Israel will constitute an epic drama in which all the nations of the earth will be involved. Israel doesn’t stand a chance, except that God Himself shall be their deliverer.

            “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.” This is another statement of how the nations and people of the world will lash out with a fury and hatred that cannot be categorized, and seemingly for no reason. If you have the chance, I would advise that you pick up a book that would allow you to study the Rape of Nanking. During WW2, the Japanese invaded China. When they had gotten to the capitol city, Nanking, they utterly destroyed it. Some of the acts that were done to the Chinese people were barbaric. Some of the less gruesome acts were taking the men out to the river and using them as bayonet practice, raping women to death, nailing women to walls and cutting their breasts off, and hanging men in the streets by their tongues.

            This horrendous slaughter only lasted a couple weeks. If my memory serves me correctly, more people died in 12 days by the Japanese soldiers than Japanese citizens died during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This beastly outrage is only a sign of what is capable when men are taken captive by the fury of the principalities and powers. If the “gods” of this age could cause such horrendous scenes to take place over mere national pride, what then is possible during the end time onslaught against God and His people (both Jew and Gentile)?

            Yet, I do believe that this is God’s final chastisement for the sin of His people. They aren’t without blame. In fact, the Jews that were treated the worst during the Nazi time were the orthodox. Is it possible that the Jews have held to their false system and their god in which they’ve made unto themselves that Jehovah has poured out wrath and fury against them? If this is the case, then so it shall be in the end. God Himself shall be the cause and the constituting agent. It shall be the wrath of God against His people for their sins and for their rebellion that will annihilate this people.

            Let us not forget that when we read of God’s speaking to Babylon, He holds it against them for mistreating His people. Though they were the agent of judgment, God still expected Babylon to not overdo it. So it will be in the end. Whether we are speaking of nations or the prinicipalities and powers, God will hold a standard. If we mistreat the Jews, or execute something rash, or only enjoy being the instrument of God’s judgment too much, then we will find ourselves being judged by God for our wickedness.

            “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge of my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.” The end of this tribulation will be the mark of the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom, and it will be during that time that Israel will bless all the nations of the earth. The word will go forth from Zion, and all the nations will come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices. Any nation that does not come to Jerusalem will be cut off from the land, and in the final judgment, the dark ruler of the age will be damned, and all the nations will stand on trial to be asked this one thing: did you care for the least of these my brethren?

            “Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” This does not describe Israel at this moment. It must be future. Israel in her present condition is just as avid and hateful against other people and nationalities as all other nations. It will be when they are brought low that they will have the cry of the poor blind beggar, “Son of David, have mercy upon me.” In receiving their sight again (Luke 18), they will be able to show mercy. They will be able to extend grace. They will be able to extend love.

            In that condition after being humbled and delivered, Israel will be established as the Nation of nations. It will be exulted and promoted. God has made this a promise, not only here, but also in other places. Therefore, let it be so as He has spoken.

Conclusion: Agony and Ecstasy of Paul in Romans

            Look through the entire book of Romans. From the very beginning all through to the very end Paul is speaking about Judaism. I had been taught differently, and when I first started to see what I’m describing in this chapter I resisted it. I didn’t want to hear about mercy being extended to those who don’t deserve it. I didn’t want to hear about the Jew being the one to be the deliverer to the nations. I was too jealous for the Church. I was too jealous for my own glory.

            I say this to say that Paul is not speaking out of his Jewish heritage. Paul’s view isn’t some sort of Jewish Zionism. Paul had an apostolic way of viewing that has been lost to us in the modern day Church. I, as a Gentile, have been brought to this understanding by the grace and mercy of God. Though I opposed it at the first, I now embrace it because for the Jew to receive mercy at our persecution will mean that we, even us Gentiles and non-Jews, will receive a higher degree of glory. We will be exalted to a higher place than we would ever have received independent of the Jew.

            “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God (which He had promised before by His prophets in the Holy Scriptures),” Romans 1:1-2. We can’t even get beyond the first two verses before needing to stop and consider what Paul is saying. It is no wonder that people like myself would continually miss this understanding and not have the knowledge of God’s redeeming purposes for Israel. I can’t even read correctly.

            What is the gospel of God that the prophets spoke of? First, we know that they spoke against all humanity, for “there is no one righteous, no not even one.” They spoke about the condition of man and the anatomy of sin, for “the heart is deceitfully wicked, who can know it?” They spoke about a coming Messiah who would be the seed of David. They spoke of this Messiah as one who would even bring salvation to the Gentiles. They spoke of an end-time wrath of God that would be poured out upon the Jews, and except God had prepared a people to deliver Israel, all Israel would have died. They spoke of Israel being redeemed. All Israel is to know the Lord their God. They spoke of Israel judging the nations. It will be according to the testimony of Israel to the nations that will determine that nations destiny, for “any nation that does not come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices will be cut off from the land of the living.” Finally, they spoke on God Himself being with and in His people, both Jew and Gentile, and the throne of David being established and occupied by Messiah forever.

            With this being within the first two verses, it is already setting the scene for the rest of the book of Romans. Paul continues with, “…concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; by whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among the nations, for His name.”

            Jump down to verse 16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes; to the Jew first, and then to the Greek.” Once again, Paul brings the perspective back to Judaism. My question at first was whether this verse really meant to the Jew first, and then to the Greek, or if it only meant that God reached out to the Jew first, and now He is reaching out to the Greek. I was taught the latter. Yet, it seems as though the entire ministry of Paul revolved around the former. Even though he was the apostle to the Gentiles, Paul preached in the synagogues first.

            Look into Romans 2:28-29, “For he is not a Jew who is on outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision in that of the heart, in the Spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Here Paul establishes true Judaism and false Judaism. We have been called into the true, and even as Gentiles, God has made us Jewish. The next 6 chapters are establishing true and false Judaism.

            The whole of Romans 3 can be summed up in the single verse, “Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the Law,” Romans 3:28. We have such marvelous statements throughout Romans 3 that really show forth that salvation is by grace, not of works, lest any man should boast. If the Law could bring salvation, then Jesus died in vain. And if we could achieve righteousness by our good works, then the resurrection from the dead is made void. But God, who is rich in mercy and the justifier of the wicked, has made a way that all men stand damned before Him unless that work of grace, which is of God, works in them to save them.

            So then, is salvation only to the Jews? God forbid. Salvation is to both Jew and Gentile by the same means. All have sinned, and all fall short of the glory of God, and all are saved by the same means, mainly the calling upon the name of the Lord. We are justified by faith, and it is the same kind of faith that Abraham exercised.

            “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness,” Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6. What is this belief? What is this kind of faith? Remember that Abraham left kindred and home. He forsook all riches to go as a nomad to the land that God would show him. This faith in God was something that went beyond statement. Our faith in Jesus Christ must do likewise to the point where we can claim the same faith of leaving family, kindred, tribe, people, home, riches, etcetera. Are we pilgrims and strangers? Are we looking unto a place where God will show us? Are we nomads and vagabonds in this world looking forward to that place that God will take us where the land is flowing with milk and honey? That is faith. That is believing in God. Unless we move away from the things of this world, and move forward to following Christ to that place where He will show us, we are ipso facto not in the faith.

            “If they who are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of no effect,” Romans 4:14. “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Romans 5:1. Once again, this is Paul establishing the false Judaism and true Judaism. The false follows the letter of the law. Salvation is null and void of faith.

            “Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life,” Romans 5:18. “Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,” Romans 6:4-5. Here is the true Judaism of God. When I spoke earlier of the Hebraic faith, this is it. Paul establishes to us true and false religion. False Judaism follows the letter of the Law, and likewise false Christianity. True Judaism, which is the ultimate intent of God, is this resurrection life. The ultimate goal of God is to have a corporate Body that can display this resurrection to the world and to the principalities and powers of the air.

            Now, Romans 7 must be viewed in context of Romans 6 and 8. Paul makes statements like, “For he that is dead is freed from sin. Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

            Then, we reach Romans 7, and Paul starts backpedaling. “For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do,” Romans 7:19. What happened? Continue reading. The last verse of the chapter is, “I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So, then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

            The whole point of Romans 7 is the same as what the apostle John says in 1 John 2:1-2, “My little children, these things I write to you, that you would not sin. But if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

            I emphasized the word if. The whole point is not that when you sin, like so many misquote, but if you sin, then you repent. If you sin, have faith that God has made a way for there to be reconciliation and redemption. If you sin, know that it is not you, but your sinful nature. You are no longer governed by the flesh, but now by the Spirit. This is the whole point. It is possible to live completely free from sin. However, God has made a way through His Son that you would be forgiven now and forever.

            This is the true Judaism: resurrection. But what does that really mean? For us who have been fed that all we need to do is have a bit more morale, this is a foreign concept. It would seem as though God has been showing me time and again that we teach that there is no hope. You can never escape your sin; you’ll never be holy as God is holy. You’ll never be completely righteous. You’ll never be completely blameless. You’ll never be completely free from sin.

            If this is true, then Jesus died in vain. He was raised from the dead to no avail. He ascended to the right hand of the Father without receiving His full reward (the salvation of His people, Jew and Gentile). For us to believe that God cannot save to the uttermost, our belief is detrimental to salvation entirely. How can we be saved if it is not utter? How can we call it redemption if it is not an entire work? How can we call it a complete work if the whole point is that it is impossible to be saved?

            I’ve already spoken on this, but it is so crucial to the faith. If there is no resurrection from the dead, and therefore no more sin within our bodies, our testimony is null and void. We cannot claim this true Judaism. We cannot claim Christianity. The whole point is that it is either every aspect of your life has been buried with Christ, and raised by the glory of the Father, or you haven’t died nor been raised at all. Resurrection is something that is so dire and so ultimate that to it cannot be truly understood.

            It isn’t something that we can study out. Unless the Holy Spirit reveals, it will forever be a theory or doctrine, but will never be an actuality in our lives. As long as we cannot apprehend the depths of God in resurrection and His glory to raise us, even us, from the dead, we will never be able to perceive nor apprehend the depths of God and the riches of God in all other areas of religion. Our ideologies of the demonic forces will be something of superstition and “knowing they’re there,” but never really being able to wrestle or understand what their purpose is. We will be able to understand that God has made us a light to the world, but we will never be able to comprehend what exactly that constitutes. We will be able to read our Bibles, talk about the Scripture, fellowship together, delight in the things of God, and even have some measure of strength in the Lord, but we will never come to fullness. We will have a form of godliness, but deny the very power thereof, simply because we can’t understand the ultimate and total requirement of God for salvation.

            It isn’t until we really wrestle with this concept that our Christian lives will take on a new life. If we are willing to go with the flow, stop asking questions, accept that this is the way its always been, deny our gifts and callings for the sake of “unity,” not make a nuisance of ourselves by speaking the truth in love, and abandoning the biblical concept of salvation and deliverance, then we will always be groping for something more, and never being able to find it. It all revolved around this: being to Israel what we are called to be, which is a resurrected people. We need to display the true Judaism of God to the Jews. Nothing else drives them to jealousy.

            Because we have missed it in this area, we will miss it in every other area. The main question that seems to be asked to me is, “How is that possible? When does man stop being man?” Oh ye of little faith! It is because you can’t believe that it is possible that you will never be saved! It is because you don’t believe that God is God and can move in this kind of powerful way that you will never see the true and deepest revelation of God, and therefore of yourself. It is because you place too much a gaze upon man that you will never find deliverance to the uttermost, nor salvation in the innermost parts. Ye of little faith; you thought that this was something that would take place in heaven. God invites you to repent and believe now. When is man no longer man? He is no longer man when it is the Holy Spirit.

            From this revelation, Paul ends this glorious statement on resurrection by saying, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I say the truth in Christ; I lie not; my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

            Can you see how strange this is? Paul goes from one extreme to the other. He states that nothing can separate you from the love of Christ, and then in the same breath tells us that he wishes himself accursed for his brethren’s sake. It has always been taught to me that these two chapters are separate. Paul ends Romans 8, and then starts a new topic. Romans 9 is something that is supposed to be viewed in light of Romans 9. There is no connection between Romans 8 and 9.

            Nothing could be further from the truth! Because of this revelation of resurrection, and because we know that Christ came to give this gift while we were still yet sinners, it is blatantly obvious that nothing could separate us from the love of Christ. This, in turn, immediately turns our hearts to His chosen people Israel. What about them? If so great a salvation is come to the Gentiles, what about His people? This is the apostolic perception. It is because of his apostleship that Paul is wishing himself accursed, not because of his Judaism.

            He is asking the right questions. When one statement is made, it leads to this, then an answer is found, and we must ask then something else. Because the prophets presented the gospel of God, we need to examine what they taught. If that is what they taught, then why is Judaism so opposite of what they preach? If the Jewish people are living a false Judaism, then what is the true? If the true is resurrection and it is come to the Gentiles, then what about Israel? What hope do they have?

            And here we find the meat and potatoes of Paul’s message to the Romans. I have been quoting from Romans 11 the most up until this small exposition, but now I hope you can see why. The entire book of Romans is saturated and enriched with the Jew. This is the point of the entire epistle.

            I want to give a brief overview of these next 3 chapters, and then we’ll dive into them more thoroughly. Paul starts with this morbid plea for his brethren’s sake, and ends in Romans 11 with a joyful exclamation that goes beyond our categories of worship. Such joyful praise has not been uttered in such a profound way in all other places in Scripture. Paul “out-praises” David, if I can use such terminology. Within these three chapters, Paul concludes the true and false Judaisms, shows forth the hidden heart of most Gentiles by pointing the finger and saying, “Why do you care that they are going to be brought back in mercy?”, speaks on apostolic preaching, a brief and profound explanation of our grafting into the House of Israel, and the final salvation and restoration of Israel to bring about the redemption of the nations and usher forth the end of the age.

            How do we even begin? It is almost necessary to sit back and prepare our minds to hear such a glorious statement that is hidden within these verses. Paul starts by explaining his agony. It is Israel, “to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all.”

            This is review, but it bears repeating. God has given these promises and gifts and callings and glory to the Jews. We as Gentiles, though it is God’s delight, were not the original beneficiaries.

            “Not as though the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all Israel who are of Israel. Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children, but, ‘In Isaac shall God’s seed be called.’ That is, they who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise, ‘At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son.’ And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father, Isaac (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calls), it was said to her, ‘The elder shall serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.’”

            This is our conclusion to the true and false Judaisms. Because it is not of the flesh, but of the promise, those who act like Abraham are those who are Jewish. Those who believe in God, even Christ, are those who are of the true Judaism of God. This is why Paul goes on in asking, “Is there unrighteousness with God?” Romans 9:14. Those who are Jacob are even being cast out for the sake of those who might be of Esau. Those who are of Abraham’s seed, but do not share in Abraham’s belief in God, are cast out of the House of Israel, and now salvation has come to the Gentiles. We who are non-Jews can claim Judaism, because it is of the promise, not of the heritage.

            Is God unrighteous? Did He create a flawed system that those who are called to experience this salvation are now those who will be damned? God forbid! “For He said to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and compassion on whom I will have compassion.’”

            The elder shall serve the younger. It was stated in the beginning, and so it shall be at the end. Even when that younger is undeserving, and completely insultive, the elder (us Gentiles) shall serve the younger.

            Who are you that would complain against God? Are His ways not perfect? Is He not love? What is it to you if He would so desire to create an entire people to be damned so that the rest of the world might experience salvation? But praise God, for He has made a way of salvation for His people. “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved,” Romans 11:25-26.

            “The Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; but Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For, they stumbled at the stumbling stone,” Romans 9:30-32.

            “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them witness that they have zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God,” Romans 10:1-4. Paul is making the statement that anyone who has spoken to a Jew knows. They don’t believe in sin. Sure, there are others who are wicked, but they are a self-righteous people. The Jew is of perfect morale. In fact, they have such an evolved state of humanity, that when God speaks to the Jew, the Jew has to correct God. That is why Moses told God not to kill the people Israel. Moses, as a Jew, knew better than God.

            If we present to them the gospel of God by quoting their own Scriptures and saying, “All our righteous deeds are filthy rags before God,” they will claim we are misinterpreting the Scripture. Human depravity is a “Christian doctrine.” Absolute corruption through and through is a Gentile belief. The Jew has a higher understanding than us non-Jews. And thus, they are ignorant of God’s righteousness and hold to their own righteousness.

            “But what does it say? The word is near you, even in your moth, and in your heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach: that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the death, then you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whosoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed.’ For there is no difference between Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” Romans 10:8-13.

            This interprets itself. I want to stress that these verses are to the Jew. Yet, Paul says, “There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.” Why? God is not only God over Israel, but over the whole world. All is under His Lordship, and therefore, there are neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female in Christ. He is the one Head. It is His Body. Thus, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

            “How, then, shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they are sent? But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah said, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’ So, then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God,” Romans 10:14-17.

            This is an apostolic preaching. It is more than a mere speaking a word. It is more than a simple opening of a Bible. This is a sent word, which means a given word. The very word that is spoken or preached is straight from the mouth of God. It isn’t that God has been speaking to my heart, so this is what I’ll speak. It is that God Himself speaks through a man, and every word, every sentence, every paragraph is established by God. That kind of word is what this world longs for. Amos 8:11 tells us of a time when there will be a famine of the very words of God. They were in this time when Jesus came. We are in this time now.

            What is it about this word that is different than any other kind of word? “So, then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” According to this verse, if I understand it correctly, faith is actually produced in the hearer. It isn’t that the hearer has to decide whether they believe or not, but that faith is imparted by the word. Why? The very word itself will be a cross experience. The man speaking will need to obey the Lord and place himself with his chin out, and nothing to stand on. Unless God be the one to hold that man or woman speaking, there will be nothing but humiliation and mocking to be the end result. Because the person speaking is bearing a cross, the speaking transmits the very life of God. It is a representation of the death, burial, and resurrection in the very speaking. To witness that kind of a speaking is to witness an event that produces faith in the hearer.

            The entire chapter of Romans 11 is now about to be stated: “But I say, did not Israel know? First Moses said, ‘I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you,’ Deuteronomy 32:21. But Isaiah is very bold, and said, ‘I was found by them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me,’ Isaiah 65:1; Isaiah 42:6-7. But to Israel he said, ‘All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and contrary people,’ Isaiah 65:2.”

            Let us go through the 11^th chapter. God has reserved some of Israel by election (Romans 11:4; 7). “Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid; but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them were the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness? For if the casting aside of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own conceit: that blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved,” Romans 11:11-12; 15; 25-26.

            “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are believed for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable. For as you in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief, even so have they also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all,” Romans 11:28-32.

            Did you get it? Did you see it? Through Christ’s death, salvation has come to the world. Through our death, salvation shall come to the Jews (Romans 11:30-31). Through their death, God will have mercy upon all. That means all the nations, peoples, kindred, tongues, tribes, and nomads. Everyone will have the choice to receive mercy, or parish. It will not be forced, as our salvation was not forced. Yet, it will be the supreme act of either forsaking God, or repentance unto salvation.

            Is it any wonder why Paul ends this statement with, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God”? And then, Romans 12 starts with, “Therefore, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The rest of the book of Romans is the result of this mystery. If this is truth, then how shall we act? What are the practical implications? Paul gives a thorough and ultimate display of true and false Judaism, the mystery of Israel and the Church, and how then we shall live in light of this mystery. No stone is left unturned. Because of the calling of God, lay down your life. Give yourself to His purposes. Accept this teaching, which is profitable to your salvation.

            The first part of Romans 12 talks about being sober in our thoughts considering ourselves. Why? Because there is so much at stake, we need to consider ourselves only of one body. We aren’t individuals anymore. We bring something to the table that some one else might not bring. And this is the spiritual gift: the people. What one might have, another lacks. What gift God might have placed in one, it will edify all. When we are living the life that God has given us, and when we stop our super-Christian mentality of “these are apostles and prophets,” then we will see the glory of God in His Church. His spiritual gifts that He gives are the people who have these different callings and giftings by the Holy Spirit. Each person is precious.

            This is why we are to act accordingly. The rest of Romans 12 is an obvious display of how we ought to live and act and conduct ourselves, both is spirit and in truth. These statements by Paul aren’t really profound, nor do they need to be examined one by one. They just are, simply because that’s what the Holy Spirit in us desires for us to be.

            When we enter into chapter 13, however, we see something that isn’t so obvious. Most people read this text as simply meaning that we are to obey the laws and government and our bosses. God has given authority to certain men over us, and we need to respect that authority. This is true, but it still misses the fullness of what God, through Paul, is trying to say.

            “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.” As it says in the NIV, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” A brief history lesson in ancient Roman custom and law and we learn that the Jews had authority. So did the rich. There were certain social authorities established by the Roman government. These authorities bowed the knee to the great authority, which is to say Ceasar, but these smaller authorities are not exempt.

            While I read this first part of Romans 13, I can’t help but think about these Gentile believers who are now going to the synagogues with the Jewish believers. They are now gathering amongst the Jews, and indeed being baptized, or Mikveh, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Mikveh was a practice by the Jews to make clean by the washing of water. This is where our idea of baptism comes from, and this is why Jesus tells us to be baptized and believe (Paul speaks of it also in Romans 6).

            So, then, what if Paul really is telling these first century believers who gather at the synagogues to submit to the Jewish authority? Why would that be such a spot of irritation? We, who have been freed from the law, and who are raised from this dead thing, are now supposed to submit to it? We have to condescend to their level? Who do you think you are? Why should I have to submit to the Jewish authority? They don’t even know Christ!

            Yet, this exposes the very reason why we need to submit: first of all, for our sakes, and second of all for their sakes. There is something deep within our souls that seems to utterly reject this. We don’t want to. And any excuse that we can conjure up as to why we shouldn’t have to submit to the authority of the synagogue and the Jewish rabbis and hierarchy is good enough. Yet, this still begs the question of what this looks like. We know that the works of the law are dead, so then where do we find life in them?

            This is where we are brought to Christ. He fulfilled the Law. He lived by it, and did not break even one jot or tittle of it. He followed even the punctuation marks. He shows us the completion of it. He shows us what was intended from the start, and in that, we see the way to live. We don’t break these laws, and we follow the 613 laws set out in the Torah the same way that Christ did. It will upset men and women. It will cause for chafing, but it is the true representation of Christ.

            This is why we submit. There is something deep within us that needs to be purged out. There is something deep within the Jew that needs to be exposed. By our very nature and acts, they will be jealous. This is what will bring them to Christ: their jealousy of our understanding as well as our ability to walk out the Law in completion.

            The rest of chapter 13 is an outworking of this. We love one another with a genuine love. We put on Christ as a outer garment, and we live in that reality. We live as though we really believe that Jesus will return soon. We live as though we really believe that there will be a judgment and that Christ really will come like a thief in the night.

            Chapter 14 is more outworking of the beginning of chapter 13. Paul not only speaks of the Jew who has not yet believed, but also to the Christian brother or sister who is weak in faith. What is it to you if certain foods be clean or uncean? If it is unclean to one, it is unclean to you. Do not eat or drink anything unclean in their presence. This shouldn’t be difficult, and yet we seem to have this mindset of being better than the other. Because we know that all things have been made clean, now we’re at a higher spirituality than those who worry about clean and unclean.

            This should not be so. We should eat and drink to the glory of God. In all things, whether eating or drinking, whether breathing or naturally living, whether giving or receiving, whether living or dying, we should do all to the glory of God. This means, in love, we eat, drink, and be merry with the saints. We are respectful to those around us, whether saved or unsaved. Whether Jewish unbeliever, who is ignorant of the Gospel, or fellow coheir of salvation who knows God, we do all things in love for them, and therefore in love for God. “Whatever is not of faith is sin,” Romans 14:23, and, “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves,” Romans 15:1.

            Now lets backtrack just a little. When we are to submit to authorities, this isn’t only the Jewish authority. I’m sure that all of us know this. Yet, let me put it in writing so that people might not think that I’m just trying to be fanciful with my writings. Thinkin about submission to authority as submission to the Jew is a whole new thought. That is why I spend so much time and energy on it. Yet, let us not neglect so great a command as submitting to those who are over us, whether government, or teacher, or boss, or manager, or law, or parent, or master. God, who works with the free will of men to display His absolute sovereignty, establishes all.