Are the Jews still God's "chosen people"?
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!
God has NEVER said that He would cast off His chosen people. In fact, the Scriptures say just the opposite. Some within and outside of the Christian churches claim that the Christian Church has replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, but I challenge anyone to prove this to me from the Scriptures, in context!
God Himself spoke through the prophet Isaiah;
ISAIAH 11:11-16
11 It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathros and Cush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath and the islands of the sea.
12 He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the Earth.
13 Also the envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west; together they shall plunder the people of the East; they shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab; and the people of Ammon shall obey them.
15 The Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt; with His mighty wind He will shake His fist over the River, and strike it in the seven streams, and make men cross over dry-shod.
16 There will be a highway for the remnant of His people who will be left from Assyria, as it was for Israel in the day that he came up from the land of Egypt.
Note that God says in verse 11 that God will set His hand the second time to recover the remnant
of His people scattered over the Earth. And there have been only two times in history where
Israel and Judah have been driven from the land that God promised them.
But first, a little historical background.
King Solomon had excessively taxed all of Israel during his reign in order to finance his lavish building projects and lifestyle. His subjects had borne this heavy burden for 40 years, and with the death of Solomon they saw an opportunity to try to obtain relief through a petition to his son Rehoboam who had succeeded him to the throne (1 Kings, chapter 12).
However, God had already told Solomon that because of his sins of worshiping other gods because of the persuasion of his many wives in direct disobedience to the Law of Moses, He would tear the kingdom away from his son but would leave his son a remnant to rule over in order to keep His promise to David that there would remain kings from David's lineage until the promised Messiah came.
As Scripture relates;
1 KINGS 11:1-13
1 But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites—
2 from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, “You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.
3 And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.
4 For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not fully follow the Lord, as did his father David.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people of Ammon.
8 And he did likewise for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9 So the Lord became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice,
10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord had commanded.
11 Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.
12 Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
13 However I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”
God had also previously prophesied that Jeroboam the son of Nebat, Solomon's servant, would rule over the ten tribes that would be torn from his son. Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, who in turn fled to Egypt.
NOTE: The tribe of Benjamin had pretty much been absorbed by Judah, therefore God told Solomon that his son would have one tribe to rule instead of two.
The stage was now set.
Scripture records;
1 KINGS 12:1-19
1 And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone to Shechem to make him king.
2 So it happened, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard it (he was still in Egypt, for he had fled from the presence of King Solomon and had been dwelling in Egypt),
3 that they sent and called him. Then Jeroboam and the whole assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying,
4 “Your father made our yoke heavy; now therefore, lighten the burdensome service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, and we will serve you.”
5 So he said to them, “Depart for three days, then come back to me.” And the people departed.
6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who stood before his father Solomon while he still lived, and he said, “How do you advise me to answer these people?”
7 And they spoke to him, saying, “If you will be a servant to these people today, and serve them, and answer them, and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.”
8 But he rejected the advice which the elders had given him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.
9 And he said to them, “What advice do you give? How should we answer this people who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Lighten the yoke which your father put on us’?”
10 Then the young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, “Thus you should speak to this people who have spoken to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter on us’— thus you shall say to them: ‘My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s waist!
11 And now, whereas my father put a heavy yoke on you, I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!’ ”
12 So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had directed, saying, “Come back to me the third day.”
13 Then the king answered the people roughly, and rejected the advice which the elders had given him;
14 and he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges!”
15 So the king did not listen to the people; for the turn of events was from the Lord, that He might fulfill His word, which the Lord had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
16 Now when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying: “What share have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Now, see to your own house, O David!” So Israel departed to their tents.
17 But Rehoboam reigned over the children of Israel who dwelt in the cities of Judah.
18 Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was in charge of the revenue; but all Israel stoned him with stones, and he died. Therefore King Rehoboam mounted his chariot in haste to flee to Jerusalem.
19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
Apparently Rehoboam didn't learn too easily. When the 10 tribes turned away from him, he arrogantly sent his tax collector to get the taxes that his father Solomon had previously collected year by year. The people in turn stoned the tax collector to death, causing Rehoboam to flee in fear for his life.
I wonder what happened to his ‘friends’ who had given him the poisonous counsel that caused the rebellion?
The 10 tribes of Israel seceded from Judah in 931 B.C.
In 723 B.C. the Northern Kingdom of Israel was completely destroyed by king Sargon II of Assyria, and it's inhabitants deported to Assyria.
This was the first dispersal of the Kingdom of Israel (the Northern Kingdom in this instance.)
The first dispersal of Judah came in 586 B.C. when king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and burned the Temple. He then deported all of Judah to Babylon for 70 years during the reign of king Zedekiah because of their sins;
2 KINGS 25:1-21
1 Now it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and encamped against it; and they built a siege wall against it all around.
2 So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
3 By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
4 Then the city wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled at night by way of the gate between two walls, which was by the king’s garden, even though the Chaldeans were still encamped all around against the city. And the king went by way of the plain.
5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his army was scattered from him.
6 So they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they pronounced judgment on him.
7 Then they killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, put out the eyes of Zedekiah, bound him with bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon.
8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month (which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.
9 He burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire.
10 And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around.
11 Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who remained in the city and the defectors who had deserted to the king of Babylon, with the rest of the multitude.
12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vinedressers and farmers.
13 The bronze pillars that were in the house of the Lord, and the carts and the bronze Sea that were in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried their bronze to Babylon.
14 They also took away the pots, the shovels, the trimmers, the spoons, and all the bronze utensils with which the priests ministered.
15 The firepans and the basins, the things of solid gold and solid silver, the captain of the guard took away.
16 The two pillars, one Sea, and the carts, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord, the bronze of all these articles was beyond measure.
17 The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital on it was of bronze. The height of the capital was three cubits, and the network and pomegranates all around the capital were all of bronze. The second pillar was the same, with a network.
18 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.
19 He also took out of the city an officer who had charge of the men of war, five men of the king’s close associates who were found in the city, the chief recruiting officer of the army, who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.
20 So Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, took these and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.
21 Then the king of Babylon struck them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive from its own land.
Therefore all 12 tribes of Israel were scattered the first time, although on separate occasions.
I have already proven in a previous study ( What happened to the 10 ‘lost’ tribes?) that a remnant of the ten "lost" tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel returned to Judah when the Jews returned from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem in 516 B.C.
Thus Israel became united again but under the title of ‘Judah’.
The second scattering of Israel was in 70 A.D. when the Roman X and XIII legions under general Titus destroyed Jerusalem, burned the Temple, and either killed the inhabitants of Judea (Judah), sold them as slaves, or scattered them across the face of the Earth. Thus the Jews were dispersed the second time.
For 1, 878 years after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and Judea the Jews wandered
the Earth without a land to call home until the Holocaust forced them to return to the land
promised by God to Abraham and his descendants, there to resurrect the ancient State of
Israel in May of 1948.
So what we see as the State of Israel today is the beginning of the fulfillment of God's promise to gather them back to the land for the second time as he prophesied through Isaiah 11:11-16 as shown in this study.
NUMBERS 23:19
19 “God is not a man, that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should repent. Has He
said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
Even before the tribe of Judah was deported to Babylon in 586 B.C., the Lord promised concerning His people Israel as a whole;
JEREMIAH 31:31-37
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
35 Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the Moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (the Lord of hosts is His name):
36 “If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
37 Thus says the Lord: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the Earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.
God has promised that as long as the sun shines and the Moon and the stars exist, Israel will continue to be His chosen people.
The sun still shines, and the Moon and stars still give their light, so even now the Jews are still the chosen people of the Lord. He has never abandoned them, and by His own word, neither will He ever abandon them for anyone else.
Even when the Northern Kingdom of Israel had already been destroyed for 137 years and Judah was about to be sent to Babylon for 70 years for their sins, the Lord never forsook them.
As He told the prophet Jeremiah;
JEREMIAH 51:5
5 “For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, the Lord of hosts, though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.”
When the Jews wandered the Earth after 70 A.D., they lost all hope for a return to their homeland. Rejected and persecuted in all of the nations in which they tried to settle and assimilate, the Jewish people have long borne the derisive title of "The Wandering Jew".
But even before they went to Babylon, God, foreseeing what was to happen gave them hope when he said through His prophet Ezekiel who had already been deported to Babylon;
EZEKIEL 37:1-28
1 The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.
2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry.
3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”
4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!
5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.
6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” ’ ”
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone.
8 Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.
9 Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” ’ ”
10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
11 Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’
12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves.
14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’ ”
15 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
16 “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’
17 Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand.
18 “And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’—
19 say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand.” ’
20 And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.
21 “Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land;
22 and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.
23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
24 “David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them.
25 Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
28 The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” ’ ”
Note that in verses 16-19 that God says that Israel and Judah will no more be two separate kingdoms, but they will be one people again.
Today no Jew knows what tribe they are from, as the genealogical records were destroyed by the Romans when they destroyed Jerusalem. Some may claim to know, but there is no proof to back their claims. Thus they are truly one people again, as God prophesied.
And just as God prophesied and promised through both Ezekiel and Jeremiah, in these Last Days the Jewish people have been returned to the Land of Israel, gathered for the second time, and they will never again be driven from it, nor will God ever forsake them.
Therefore those who say that the Jews are no longer God's chosen people are ignorant of the Scriptures, and of God's great promises to His people.
And those who teach such need to remember the apostle James' warning of;
JAMES 3:1
1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.
In other words, those of us who are called to be teachers and preachers of God's Word will receive a stricter judgment from the Lord, for we will be judged as to the accuracy of our teachings! And woe to us if we teach errors!
And we Christians would do well to remember the apostle Paul's warning of;
ROMANS 11:1-27
1 I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying,
3 “Lord, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life”?
4 But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
5 Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6 And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
7 What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded.
8 Just as it is written: “God has given them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, to this very day.”
9 And David says: “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a recompense to them.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, And bow down their back always.”
11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.
12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry,
14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them.
15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
16 For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree,
18 do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.
19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.”
20 Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.
21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.
22 Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
23 And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”
The fact that most Jews do not believe that Jesus (Yeshua ben Joseph) is the promised Messiah is well-known, despite the evidence in both Scripture and history to prove that He was who He said He was.
Isaiah speaks of this when he prophesied;
ISAIAH 8:13-14
13 The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.
14 He will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Christians have been adopted by God into His family as were the Jews through Abraham, fulfilling His promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations. How dare anyone say that God has cast away the Jewish people in favor of the Christians?
Paul compares the Gentile Christians as wild olive tree branches that have been grafted by
God into a cultivated tree, meaning that God has accepted the Gentiles through faith in
Jesus Christ into His family so that Christians are one people with the believing Jews in His
sight.
As Jesus Himself said concerning the Gentiles;
JOHN 10:11-16
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.
13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.
15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will
hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.
The promises contained in Scripture were to the Jews but God through His mercy and
grace has extended those promises to believing Gentiles through His Son Jesus Christ. And
as Paul warns, just as God didn't spare the Jews who did not believe, neither will he spare
the Gentile believers if they exalt themselves against the Jews.
Therefore just as God adopted the Jews as His chosen people, the believing Gentiles have also been adopted by God to be His chosen people as well. Thus we are, as Jesus promised, one fold with one Shepherd.
By this very fact the believing Gentiles need to honor the Jews as brethren in the Lord, and
the Jews need to understand that God has granted the Gentiles access to the same salvation
as the believing Jews.
Therefore we all need to remember the following:
JOEL 2:28-32
28 “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.
29 And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
32 And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.
ROMANS 10:12-13
12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
2 PETER 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is
longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to
repentance.
Jews and Gentiles are equal in His sight, all being sinners in need of salvation. And just because the Gentiles are saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, does that make the Christians better or more righteous than the believing Jews?
Are we not ALL sinners saved through faith, and the mercy and grace of God? If so, how do we then put differences between ourselves deeming one to be greater or holier than another? Dare we set ourselves as judges of these things?
To the Jewish people reading this:
The Torah defined what was considered to be sin in the eyes of God. Those laws are still effective, meaning the things defined by Torah as sin are still considered sin by God. But the works required by Torah to cover sin (sacrifices and offerings) were taken away in Jesus Christ at His death, for the works required by Torah were insufficient for salvation, because Torah requires that all 613 commandments be followed flawlessly all the days of your life!
No man can possibly follow all 613 laws without fail. God planned this, so that Man could not attain salvation by his own works, but by the grace and mercy of God alone. One law of salvation for all mankind.
The sacrifices required by Torah could never take away sin, they could only cover them. It also put the fathers in obedience to the commandments of Torah, which in God's eyes was counted as righteousness, just as the obedience of Abraham was counted as righteousness in His sight long before Torah was given to Moses.
But the very fact that Torah put impossible conditions on Man in order to attain salvation, what is impossible for Man is possible for God. Only God could follow all 613 commandments of Torah without fail, and this He did through Jesus Christ His Son.
And by the fact that God fulfilled the requirements of works required by Torah, therefore it gave Him the right to remove the covenant of Torah and replace it with a better covenant, one which could bring salvation to Man, namely the B'rit Hadashah (the New Testament).
Did He not say through Jeremiah that He would do this?
JEREMIAH 31:31-33
31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—
32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Note carefully several things here.
First, God says that He will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah. This covenant
would be different from Torah, which the fathers received upon coming out of Egypt. That
covenant was written on stone tablets, and was placed in the Ark of the Testimony, and was
a physical reminder of the covenant that God made with His people.
Next, he says this new covenant will consist of a spiritual law, one which will not have a physical reminder like Torah, but will consist of laws which will be written in the heart, and in the spirit. This is fulfilled in the B'rit Hadashah, in which God is pleased to dwell within the heart of Man, those who have been cleansed of their sins by the blood sacrifice of His Son.
I know that some will take offense at what I am about to say, but please, carefully consider
what I say first?
With the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, the thick woven veil separating the entrance to the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was torn from top to bottom. This veil had been a physical representation and reminder of the barrier of sin which had separated God from Man since the time of Adam.
The fact that this veil still existed even after the sacrifices required by Torah shows that the sacrifices were not enough to remove sin, but could only defer them until the true sacrifice would come which COULD remove sin.
The tearing of the veil from top to bottom (the veil was thickly woven, and the fact that it was torn from top to bottom shows that men could not have torn it) indicated that the barrier of sin had finally been removed, and Man could now freely enter the presence of God without a priest as intercessor.
However, the fathers didn't understand this, and continued the animal sacrifices which could never atone for sin, and after the atoning death of Messiah were an abomination to God, and an insult to Messiah who had paid for Man's sin with His life.
Therefore, in 70 A.D. God in His wrath allowed the Roman X and XIII legions under General Titus to destroy the Temple, the city, and Judea (Judah) as a nation.
Why? Several reasons....
First, there was no longer a need for the Temple. The promised new covenant had been put
in place with the atoning death of Messiah, and God now dwelt within the hearts of
believers in His Son. And just as the promised new covenant no longer required a physical
reminder of His laws, God no longer needed a Temple as a physical reminder of His
presence. Each believer in Messiah was now a living Temple, in which He is pleased to
dwell.
This brings an interesting point to mind. There is a strong drive in Israel to build the Third
Temple, and according to prophecies in the B'rit Hadashah (the New Testament), it will be
built. Yet when Messiah returns, He will not come to the Temple. As Zechariah says;
ZECHARIAH 14:1-5
1 Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst.
2 For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle.
4 And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.
5 Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to
Azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of
Judah. Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with You.
Point of curiosity.
When Messiah returns, He will stand on the Mount of Olives, rather than come to the rebuilt Temple. Why not come to the Temple, unless there is no longer a need for a physical Temple?
Hold that thought for a moment.
The second reason was that the genealogical records were destroyed by the Romans, so that
no one can claim to be Messiah, for no Jew knows what tribe they are from. If nothing else,
this alone should indicate that Messiah has already come as promised.
The biggest stumblingblock to Israel today is their perception of the person of the Messiah. The ancient prophecies clearly state that he would come from the line of David, yet no Jew today knows what tribe they are from, nor can they prove their lineage.
This brings up another point of curiosity. If the lineage of Jews today is determined
through the mother, (based on the idea that while the lineage of the mother is known, the
paternal lineage of the father is not), why does Torah account a man's lineage through the
line of his father? Does Torah state Messiah would be the son of David, or the son of
David's wife?
Something else to consider. I have shown in the quote from Zechariah above that when Messiah returns, He will not come to the rebuilt Temple, but will instead stand on the Mount of Olives. Yet Malachi in one of his last prophecies in 400 B.C. stated;
MALACHI 3:1
1 “Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord,
whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in
whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts.
If the Messiah is to stand on the Mount of Olives when He returns, how could He fulfill the prophecy of suddenly coming to His Temple, unless He already fulfilled it by coming to the Second Temple in the form of Jesus Christ?
I have proven through a previous study (How do we know that Jesus is the promised Messiah?) that Jesus Christ appeared in Judea at exactly the time prophesied by the prophets Daniel and Malachi, and that He fulfilled the prophecies of Daniel and Malachi concerning Him. Those of you reading this might take a look at the study, I think you'll find it quite interesting.
BOTTOM LINE:
The prophesied End Times are upon us, and prophecies made hundreds and in some cases thousands of years ago are being fulfilled today. Even people who don't believe in God are coming to the conclusion that we are reaching some sort of a climax in history.
I have proven from Scripture that the Jews are and always will be God's chosen people. There are some who believe that the Christians have replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, but again I have proven from Scripture that this is not true. Those who teach and preach such are ignorant of the Scriptures, and should not teach and preach of things of which they know nothing about.
God in His mercy has adopted believing Gentiles into His family through faith in Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah. Many Jews do not believe that He was the promised Messiah for various reasons, but I have found that they usually don't know the Scriptures concerning Him very well, creating confusion.
God had already prophesied through Jeremiah that He would create a new covenant with Israel, one unlike the covenant of the Law that He gave to Moses when Israel came out of Egypt. It would be a law written in their hearts through His Spirit, not on tablets of stone. And to this day, there is neither Temple or Ark of the Covenant to remind Israel of the Law as was during the time when the Law was still in effect, as there is no longer a need for these things.
And just as God made one Law for both Jew and Gentile during the time of Moses, even so He has made one law for both Jew and Gentile through His Son Jesus Christ. God fulfilled the Old Covenant Law through Jesus Christ, and as prophesied He has created a new law, different from the Law of Moses, one which does not need physical reminders, for it is written in our hearts.
God through His New Covenant has provided a way for Gentiles to be adopted into His family as He adopted the Jews through Abraham. The Jews cannot rely on their ancestry alone to gain access to Heaven, for Scripture is rife with examples of Jews being condemned by God, and being told that they would not enter His rest (Heaven).
Both Jew and Gentile must deal with the person of Jesus Christ, His Son, for we will all stand before Him at the Judgment. And if He is indeed the Messiah, the Savior of the world, it is only by His permission alone that we will gain access to Heaven, and that only by following His commandments under the New Covenant (New Testament).
For if the 613 commandments of Moses were to be followed to the letter, how much more the commandments given directly by God through His Son Jesus Christ? Our eternal destination depends on whether Jesus is truly who he claimed Himself to be.
If He is indeed the Messiah, and He has replaced the Law of Moses with the New Covenant, then the Old Covenant is dead and God will not allow anyone into Heaven who follows the Old Covenant.
Therefore to Jew and Gentile both, it is imperative that you know for certain the truth concerning Jesus Christ. Your eternal destination, be it in Heaven or the Lake of Fire depends on it.
Questions? Comments? E-mail: watchmen_777@yahoo.com