Return to Archive | Return to WebGrace.net | Return to e-Grace.net

Christian Chronicles, June 2000 - Volume 3, Issue 55

| The Editor's Pen | Perspectives: The River Israel | Mid-East Update | Fruit of the Vine | Samson and Company
| A History and a Promise | The Many Kings of the Jews | Israel is Distinct From the Church |

The Editor's Pen

Most new Christians turn first of all to the New Testament to learn the great doctrines of their faith. This is appropriate. It is very difficult for a young Christian to understand the true significance of the Old Testament without a solid foundation in New Testament truth. For so very much of the Old Testament is a foreshadowing of some New Testament truth.

Perspectives: The River Israel

Adam and Eve were the fountainhead of what would eventually become a great river of humanity. Their descendants were at first a mere trickle, Cain and Abel, and then Cain and Seth. Jewish tradition has it that Adam and Eve had many sons and more than a hundred daughters. By the time of the Great Flood, great nations had formed (Gen 4:16-24) and artisans and craftsmen of many types were found. We do not know how many people there were, but we do know that many hundreds of years of producing offspring were involved in the pre-flood world, so that there were almost surely many millions of people on the earth when those waters came. All except one line of men from the seed of Adam, through Seth (and only one line of Seth’s), were destroyed in the Flood. We tend to consider that judgment far more lightly than we ought.

After the Flood, Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth began the slow process of repopulating the earth. Since the word “begot” does not necessarily mean “became the father of,” but in many cases is used to mean “became the ancestor of,” we cannot know how many generations of men there were between Noah and Abram. We may infer, however, that there were many unnamed descendants among many generations, for the earth was very heavily populated again by the time Abram was called.

What began as a couple of drops (Adam and Eve) multiplied into a great river. That river flowed over the face of the earth, creating a sea of humanity. It was then dried up until it again became a tiny trickle, with only Noah, his wife and sons and their wives surviving. And then it became a great river again, flowing once more over the earth. Just as Eve was the mother of the whole race of mankind, so also did Noah’s wife become the matriarch of the entire race of men, through the offspring of her three sons. How very odd that she should remain unnamed until this day.

When the river of humanity became great again, God drew off from it a single tiny tributary. One soul with his wife, Abram and Sarai, began a new stream of humanity. Two streams, actually, for Abram bore Ishmael through Hagar, Sarai’s handmaiden, and then Isaac, through Sarai. Ishmael would father sons who would become the patriarchs of the modern Arab peoples, while Isaac would also bear two sons, each of whom would become patriarchal to very distinct lines of descendants. Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael were descended through the line of Shem, so that they were all related, but Isaac’s and Ishmael’s descendants would become bitter enemies. Even today, the struggles between the Arabs and the Jews reflect the earlier struggles between those two half-brothers.

Isaac bore two sons, Jacob and Esau, each of whom had sons of their own. The story of Israel in the Bible is the story of the descendants of Abraham, through Isaac, and then through his son Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. Jacob’s wives bore twelve sons, each of whom became the patriarch of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Returning now to the imagery of a great river of humanity, we see that there was a great river, from which God drew off a single stream through Abraham. That river branched in Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac’s stream branched into the lines of Jacob and Esau. Jacob’s line was called Israel. Though it was further divided into twelve separate streams, those twelve flowed together in the Word of God, their waters mingling often, yet remaining distinct.

Ten branches of the “River Israel” broke free of the banks and became separate, dividing the nation into two nations, Israel and Judah, both of which were eventually overrun by the great gentile “River Humanity,” as the Jews were carried away captive and spread all over the earth, mingled again with the wtaers of the great sea of humanity.

Still, the promises of God are that He will yet divide the waters again, returning “River Israel” to her proper channels, separating her again from the waters of the great sea of mankind. How wise is our God, who is able to distinguish waters from waters?

Mid-East Update

September 13, 2000. That is the date on which final negotiations are to be completed in the ongoing peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Other deadlines have come and gone, but both Prime Minister Barak of Israel and Yasser Arafat of Palestine are determined to join President Clinton of the U.S. in a concerted effort to meet this one.

There are a few issues yet to be decided. Among them is the status of Jerusalem. Obviously, Israel wishes to keep that city as her capital city. It has been nearly three decades since she moved the capitol from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The Palestinians feel that they have a vested right to at least a part of the city, since an important Moslem mosque is situated there. If there is to be any final agreement, the question of Jerusalem will have to be settled. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which either side will concede at all on this issue.

Yet, we know that it will be settled and that peace will be agreed upon. Furthermore, we know that it will be a settlement in which all of Israel’s contiguous neighbors will be satisfied. Thus, it appears that Israel will make a significant concession regarding the status of this holy city.

With less than three months remaining, it seems doubtful that both the Israelis and the Palestinians will be able to resolve this and other disturbing issues. Every Christian ought to be vitally interested in the ongoing negotiations, praying daily and fervently that Israel will stand strong against all demands that she relinquish even a square inch of her capital city.

While an agreement would serve to hasten the date of a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty, which would in turn bring the day of the rapture of the Church nearer, there are greater issues at stake here than the hope and comfort of the Church. Though it is proper to petition our Father for an early rapture, it is hardly proper to pray that Israel would compromise in any way that diminishes the gift of land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac and David. Rather than giving up land, Israel ought to be looking to God in faith, taking back all the land that is promised to her. We may know that she will not do so, that she will compromise for the sake of a false peace, but our hearts ought to rebel against the very notion of it.

Fruit of the Vine

Israel ought to have spent much more time and energy seeking converts among the Gentiles than they did. The first of the Jewish prophets to seek fruit among the Gentiles was Jonah, and he had to be forced to do so. So desperately did Jonah run from his mission to Nineveh that it took his being swallowed by a whale to persuade him that he could not hide from God.

On the other hand, so much of the emphasis of the Law of Moses was upon the separation of Israel from the Gentile nations that it is somewhat understandable that they would shy away from contact with them. Still, the contact that they had with the Gentiles almost invariably led to some new apostasy of the nation of Israel rather than to the conversion of the Gentiles.

How strange then that today it is the Gentiles who seek to convert the Jews to a saving knowledge of and faith in their own Messiah. There is not greater honor for a Gentile Christian than to be God’s instrument in the salvation of a Jewish person. Let us all remember the tiny nation of Israel in our daily prayers, that God might soon restore her to the land, sitting as King upon the throne of David, that all Israel might be saved. Let us seek our fruit where we may find it, but among the Jews first.

Samson and Company

Every Christian, even small children know the story of Samson and Delilah. Most know that Samson pulled down the pillars of the Temple of Dagon, the fish-god. It is surprising, however, to realize how few people know anything of the period in which he lived, the time of the judges of Israel.

It was a unique time in the life of Israel. Joshua had died after leading Israel in her conquest of Canaan. No clear leader had emerged to take his place. Israel had no king to whom the people might look to lead them in their military struggles. To use a modern term, there was a leadership vacuum. The Israelis asked God who should lead them, and God appointed the tribe of Judah, who asked for and received the assistance of the tribe of Simeon. It was at this time that the Israelis first captured the city of Jerusalem, the mountain stronghold that would be the center of the world’s contentions ever after.

Immediately thereafter, however, the Israelis became disobedient and idolatrous. God, therefore, raised up judges who were charged with the responsibility of settling disputes and ensuring that the Law of Moses was properly enforced. Samson was the last of twelve men and one woman who served as God’s representatives, or judges, among the Jews.

While the period of the judges stretched from around 1400 B.C. to about 1100 B.C., there were times when more than one judge ruled over Israel. In most cases, a tribesman was elevated to the office during a particular incident or period of apostasy or idolatry, to restore order and ensure that Moses’ Law was adhered to.

Among the famous people who lived and ruled during the period of the judges was not only Samson, but also Gideon, Jephthah, and Ehud. The book of Ruth describes life during the first half of the period of the judges. Deborah, a prophetess, served as the fourth of the thirteen judges, and the fifth was Barak, a man who shares the name of the current Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak. Samson ruled for forty years, during the oppression by the Philistines.

A History and a Promise

Many centuries after the great Flood, the earth was again inhabited by many tribes of men. Nations and city-states arose everywhere men settled. The age of hunter-gatherers had long since passed. Agriculture was well-established, and camel caravans carried commerce from region to region. In Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of humanity, the nation of Chaldea had arisen, and Ur was its chief city. Men of great wealth, measured primarily in land and cattle, servants and treasure, lived there. These men, often the elders, would gather in the gates of the city at evening to discuss affairs of state. The elders of the land determined the laws by which Chaldea was governed, though the ultimate rule came at the hands of despotic kings.

Among the great men of Ur was a man named Abram (Gen 11:31), a wealthy man, one of wisdom and discretion. He had vast holdings and many cattle, and was surely well-respected among his peers. Abram certainly enjoyed his social standing, though he probably looked askance at some of the primitive religious notions that were prevalent in Chaldea. These were a pagan people, barbaric in their practices, serving many and varied gods, not knowing the one true God whom Abram served. Abram’s ancestors are traced in the Bible all the way back to Adam, through faithful Seth.

While Abram probably made the requisite sacrifices for his sins, and for the sins of his family, his knowledge of God would have been severely limited. There were no Scriptures in his day. There would not be for hundreds of years, until after the captivity and enslavement of his descendants in Egypt and their liberation at the hand of Moses by the power of God more than four hundred years later. Abram knew God, but in a very limited way. What theological understanding existed in Abram’s day was passed down from generation to generation, from Adam, through Noah, to Abram.

Surely, one of the great disappointments in Abram’s life was that his wife had borne no children (Gen 16:1). He may not have brooded over the problem, but it must have gnawed at his subconscious mind, sticking there through the years of his life, increasing the stress over what should happen to his material wealth when he died. He certainly did not want Sarai to marry some other man and transfer all those holdings to a stranger.

The tower at Babel had come and gone, and men were all over the face of the earth. One fine day Abram was going about his usual business when God Himself spoke to him. God said to Abram, “Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12: 1-3). It must have struck Abram as odd that God would say such a thing, knowing that Sarai was barren. Already old, she had borne no children, and it seemed certain that she would not bear any in the future. How then did God expect to make a great nation of Abram? Indeed, it was later said that many nations would spring from him. One sprang from Isaac, and many more from Ishmael, Abram’s seed through Hagar.

We all know the story. Sarai did indeed bear a son in her old age, Isaac. Isaac went on to have two sons of his own, Jacob and Esau. And Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, had twelve sons. Israel’s sons became the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. Those twelve sons of Jacob (Israel) fathered many children, and their children bore many more, until Abram truly did become the father of a great nation. Israel is a nation, but more, Israel is a family. All of Israel is descended from Abram and Sarai, through Isaac, and then through Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel.

But before his son was born, Abram led his family into Canaan, the land that God had promised him, and dwelt there for many years. However, a severe famine in the land later drove Abram into Egypt, where he sought food (Gen 12:9-20). He lived there for some time, and then returned to Canaan, where Isaac was eventually born. Sarai died in Canaan, and Abram, whose name had long been changed to Abraham, sought a bride for his son Isaac (Gen 24). Some time after Isaac wed, Abraham remarried also. He lived thirty-eight years after Sarah’s death, and then he died.

Isaac lived a full life, dying only after his his daughter-in-law Rachel had died. Isaac had dwelt for much of his adult life outside the land of Canaan (where he was a stranger — Gen 37:1), but his son Jacob returned to dwell in Canaan after Isaac’s death. There he lived for some years, even after one of his sons, Joseph, had been sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. Another famine arose, and Jacob and his sons and their families all wound up back in Egypt, again in search of food. This time they stayed in Egypt for many years. At first, they lived as welcome guests in Egypt, but that Pharaoh died and a new Pharaoh arose who eventually made them captives there and enslaved them.

Israel multiplied and grew while they were captive in Egypt. They grew from a family of twelve children and their respective families into a number approaching two million! They had grown from a relatively small family into a great nation, though they remained in slavery. God’s promise to make of Abram a great nation seemed a cruel joke. Though they were indeed a populous people, they were great only in number. As a nation, they suffered under the cruel hand of a Gentile king. Their humble existence seemed as pointless to them as their prospects seemed hopeless. But God had great plans for these humble people.

In due time, God raised up a deliverer for His chosen people. He called upon Moses. Some forty years after he was first called, Moses went to Pharoah and demanded that the Israelis be freed. God’s chosen people had a mission, and it could not be fulfilled while they remained slaves in Egypt. Pharoah balked, but eventually relented after Moses called down the final plague in which the first-born in all the land of Egypt were slain (Ex 12:29-36).

All of Israel left Egypt, crossing the Red Sea on dry land as Moses parted its waters. They would wander in the desert wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula for forty years. Many people wonder even today why God made them wander so long in such an inhospitable place, having nothing but manna to eat, and having to strike a rock for their water. Had they not suffered long enough in Egypt? Why would God punish them any further by keeping them out of the Promised Land? God had His reasons.

In the first place, no sooner had they departed Egypt under such miraculous circumstances than they melted down their gold jewelry and made a golden calf which they worshipped. God was not unjustified in keeping them in Sinai. But He did not keep them there to punish them. Those forty years in the wilderness were not to be considered a punishment, but a time of preparation.

The religion of the Jews had been one of very loose structure heretofore. In fact, it was no more structured than it had been when Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden of Eden. There was no priesthood yet. The only requirement in those days was blood sacrifice for sin, as had been the case since God made coats of skins for Adam and Eve. But the religion of the Jews was about to become a very rigidly structured and complex system in which were many rituals and sacrifices and restrictions and requirements. It was during this time of wandering in the wilderness that Israel became familiar with the system of Law that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai.

We often think of Moses on the mountain as merely receiving the Ten Commandments. Well, he did indeed receive them there. But the Book of Hebrews (Heb 9-10) informs us that Moses saw and learned a great deal more than that during the time he spent atop the mountain. That fortunate soul was blessed to observe and examine the pattern of the tabernacle in heaven during those forty days on Mount Sinai. He came to understand how God’s justice was executed in heaven, so that he might be able to follow that pattern among God’s people on earth. While only ten commandments were carved into stone, there were a total of 613 individual precepts of law that Moses received on Sinai, and which he gave to the descendants of Israel when he came down from the mountain. During the next forty years, Israel would become familiar with every one of those laws. When they crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land after such a long and terrible absence from it, they would know and understand the many ways in which God had set them apart from the other peoples of the earth. The principle way in which Israel differed from the Gentile cities and nations is that their King was not a man, but God Himself. Nevertheless, it was the Law of Moses that set the Jews apart from the Gentiles. That was the purpose of the Law; that, and to instruct the Jews concerning the necessity of blood sacrifices to atone for their sins.

One of the most common misconceptions today about the laws that Moses received on Sinai is that God gave the Jews those laws so that they would know how they had to behave if they hoped to get to heaven. It simply is not so. The law was not given to the Jews so that they might become good enough to get into heaven on their own merit, but to show them graphically that they could not get there any other way than by the grace of God. It was by God’s mercy that the Jews got to heaven.

God knew that the Jews could not keep the Law He gave them. He knew it when He gave it to them. And so, when Moses received those 613 laws on Mount Sinai, among them were laws governing a complex system of blood sacrifices. The Law not only demanded righteousness; it also provided a means of atonement since the Jews would show themselves to be unrighteous. Had God expected Israel to be able to become “good,” there would have been no sacrifices at all. If they failed to become good enough, they simply would have gone to hell when they died. But the Law contained a whole system of sacrifices through which the Jews could atone for their sins. The Jews were not saved because they kept the ten commandments, but because they offered the ritual sacrifices every year that atoned for their sins. Yet, they weren’t truly saved by merely making the sacrifices, but because they believed the Word that God had given them through Moses concerning those sacrifices. It was not their works that saved them, but their faith, just as it is for us today. It was not because they made the requisite sacrifices, but because, if they had not believed, they would not have made those sacrifices. It was because they believed the Word of God that they made the sacrifices. The sacrifices themselves were merely the fruit of their faith, the outward evidence that they believed the promises of God, that He would save them if they did as they were instructed.

During the time when God was their King, the Jews were governed by priests and judges. Joshua led them across the Jordan in a manner similar to the way Moses had led them across the Red Sea. He led the conquest of Jericho, and he led them in their initial conquest of the land of Canaan. When Joshua died, there was not another individual leader among the Jews, but God was their King. And God led them through the men, and one woman, whom He established as the judges of Israel.

After a time, the Jews began to be dissatisfied with their government. They were jealous of the Gentile nations around them who had men as their kings. Israel, no longer desiring to have God as their King, demanded that a man be set up as their king. God raised up Saul first, and then David, and then Solomon, and then Solomon’s son, and so on. Or so it should have been. But when the Jews threw off the “yoke” of God and demanded that a man lead them, they entered into an apostasy that would, over the course of the next thousand years (roughly), deepen and broaden to such an extent that they would not recognize their own Messiah when He came to liberate them from the rule of a tyrannical Gentile nation. That is what happens when we set aside God’s Word in our lives.

It was only a couple of generations from the time when they demanded that a man be their king until their national unity was destroyed. The Northern tribes began to resent the favor that the king demonstrated toward the Southern tribes, while exacting taxes from them in the North to pay for that favor. Jeroboam exploited this dissension and the Northern ten tribes rebelled. Under Jereboam, they seceded from the South (1 Kings 12). This occurred in 931 B.C., and within a couple of hundred years, the northern ten tribes had been carried away captive by King Sennacherib of Assyria (2 Kings 17), and scattered all over the world. Less than a hundred years later, the Southern tribes were also delivered into the hand of a Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon (2 Kings 24-25). The faithlessness of the Jews led to their first dispersion. From that time forward until the Second Coming of Christ, the Jews would not again be sovereign in their own land. Though Cyrus of Persia would eventually restore the Southern tribes to the land, the Jews would always be under the heel of some Gentile king, until they were finally driven from the land again in their second dispersion in 70 A.D., under Roman Emperor Titus. And though Cyrus authorized the rebuilding of the Temple, it would not be until 445 B.C., under Artaxerxes of Persia, that the rebuilding of Jerusalem would be authorized. First the Babylonians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans; Israel will not have another king until their Savior and Messiah becomes their King, at some point in time yet future.

And so goes the history of Israel, the chosen people of God. Because they crucified their Messiah, many generations of Jews have suffered. Had they accepted Jesus at His first advent, He would have established His kingdom at that time, would have ruled for one thousand years, and the earth would have been in the eternal state for some one thousand years already by now. But they did not accept Him, and both Israel and the world have paid a heavy price for that rebellion, and the world will yet pay a much heavier price than it has paid to date (Mt 24: 21-22). And so shall the Jews also suffer terribly during “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer 30:7) which coincides with the Matthew reference.

From the time that Abram and Sarai left Ur and traveled to Canaan, the history of God’s chosen people has been a sad tapestry of cycles of faithfulness and rebellion; blessing and chastisement; failure, repentance and restoration. When Abram and Sarai left Canaan to go down into Egypt in search of food, Abram lapsed into faithlessness, declaring that Sarai was his sister so that he would not be slain. It was a time of peril for Abram, and he was surely glad to get back to the land that God promised him. Yet, when Abram again went south, to Gerar, he lapsed again in the same way before Abimelech, king of Gerar, declaring Sarah to be his sister rather than his wife. His faith was in his lies rather than in his God.

Isaac followed in his father’s footsteps, also at Gerar, declaring Rebekah to be his sister rather than his wife, again for the same reasons. Jacob and Rebekah lied to Isaac in gaining the inheritance for Jacob over Esau. Then, many years later, Jacob also fled Canaan in the face of a deepening drought and famine, again going down into Egypt in search of food, where his descendants served as slaves for four hundred thirty years (Ex 12:40).

The recurring faithlessness of Israel was clearly demonstrated in the fashioning of the golden calf (Ex 32:4), in Moses’ lapse in the striking of the rock (Num 20: 11-12), in the incident of the striking serpents (Num 21:5-9), and in many other ways. However, the faithfulness of God is also clearly portrayed in His restoration of Israel and their blessing subsequent to their every repentance. Though Israel has yet to realize the fullness of the promise concerning their glory in the land that God has given them, and though they remain even today in rebellion against Him, the promise still remains. Israel shall yet enjoy the blessing of living in a land of milk and honey under the administration of the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Prince of Peace Himself.

It is popular among many preachers today to use the lapses of Israel as illustrations of the lapses of Christians, warning Christians of the dangers of disobedience. In fact, this is a valid use of the Old Testament Scriptures. God is as faithful to chastise Christians today as He has shown Himself faithful to chastise Israel in the Old Testament period. We do find that Christians, as a body, are no more faithful than Israel was as a nation. We often look to the things of the world and place our hopes in them, and we shrink from our faith in the face of worldly perils. Israel sinned because they were members of a fallen race, even though they were especially chosen by God as His people. So also is the Church composed of fallen men and women, and we sin in many of the very same ways that Israel did. But just as God faithfully restored Israel every time they turned back to Him in faith, so also is He quick to restore us to all the blessings of fellowship with Him when we turn our minds and hearts back to Him in faith.

Just as Israel’s ultimate salvation, however, does not depend upon their faithfulness to God, but upon the faithfulness of God to His own Word, so also does our eternal salvation depend, not upon our good behavior or the steadfastness of our own faith, but upon the faithfulness of the God who saved us in the first place. The Old Testament Jews are God’s chosen people, and shall yet enjoy the great blessings that are promised to them. In like manner, the New Testament Church, composed of both Gentile and Jew, is God’s chosen people as well, though remaining distinct from Israel, and shall enjoy those blessings and that eternal inheritance that are promised to her.

Not one single promise that God made to Abram, to Isaac, to David or to the people of Israel as a whole shall fail. He will yet restore every Jew to the land that He promised to Abram so long ago, and shall Himself sit on David’s throne, ruling both them and all the world with righteousness and peace, glorifying both the Jews and Himself. And all of the promises that God has made to the Church shall also be fulfilled in every particular, up to and including our residence forever in our mansions in the New Jerusalem, where the streets are paved with gold, and where Jesus is Himself the light of that glorious city which even now He is building for us.

The Law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ. We see in the Jews’ failures and in God’s faithfulness a perfect illustration, not of the chastisement of God, but of the mercy of God. If God can keep His promises to Israel after the many examples of their faithlessness through their sacrifices, then our hopes are also assured. Just as Israel’s salvation does not depend upon their faithfulness, but upon God’s, so also does ours depend solely upon the sacrifice of Christ. Rather than a warning of condemnation, the sordid history of Israel is a beacon of hope for all sinners today.

The Many Kings of the Jews

Israel had nineteen kings in nine dynasties, over a span of some 210 years. Judah had nineteen kings also, all descended from David, who served over a period of 345 years. The first of the kings of the united kingdom was Saul. One hundred nineteen years after Saul’s coronation, the kingdom was divided into the northern ten tribes, ruled first by Jereboam the First, and Judah, ruled first by Rheoboam. From about 1050 B.C. until around 586 B.C., the Jews lived under the rule of a human monarch. Prior to Saul, God Himself was their king, but the Jews wanted to be like the other nations, the Gentile nations around them who established human dynasties. They no longer wished to be like God, but like their Gentile counterparts.

From the call of Abram, through the captivity in Egypt, during the conquest of Canaan, all through the time of the judges, Israel vacillated between faithfulness and apostasy, between worship of the one true God and the idolatry of her neighbors. But when she cast off her God as King, she entered a period of rebellion that would see her characterized by apostasy under wicked kings until the captivities, first of the northern ten tribes in 722 B.C., and then of Judah and Benjamin in 586 B.C. To be sure, there were good kings thrown into the mix, such as David and Solomon, but wicked men such as Ahab were the norm. The period of the kings is indeed a sad tapestry of rebellion and chastisement followed by brief times of repentance and obedience. It was her failure to observe the Law of Moses that led to the captivities of Israel and Judah.

Following the reign of the kings, and following after the captivities, Israel fell ever deeper into apostasy, adhering more and more strictly to the letter of the Law, but ignoring altogether its spirit. By the time her Messiah had come, she was so far gone that she did not know Him. Or, if she did, was so wicked as to think that she could permanently overthrow His kingdom. The crucifixion made it appear that she had succeeded, but the resurrection offers the assurance that Israel’s Messiah will yet sit upon David’s throne, once again establishing a theocracy in the nation of Israel. There will be judges in Israel again, and the period of the kings will be seen as the rebellious time that it truly was. Let us pray ever more fervently, “Thy kingdom come!”

Israel is Distinct From the Church

Return to Archive | Return to WebGrace.net | Return to e-Grace.net