Are the present-day people who identify themselves
as “Jews” still special in some way in the New Covenant Era?
► [Jesus said] “Hear
another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a
hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to
vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he
sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And
the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.
Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to
them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my
son.’ But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This
is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him
and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard
comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?”
They [the chief priests and the
elders of the people] said to Him,
“He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other
vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons….”
“Therefore I say to you,
the kingdom of God will be taken from you and
given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.” (Matthew 21.33-43)
► And Jesus answered and spoke to them again
by parables and said: “The kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who
arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who
were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come.
Again, he sent out other servants, saying,
‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and
fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.”’ But
they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his
business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed
them. But when the king heard
about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those
murderers, and burned up their city.
Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready,
but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the
highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ So those servants
went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad
and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.” (Matthew
22.1-10)
► “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments
of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we
would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
"Therefore you are witnesses against
yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then,
the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, brood of vipers! How can
you escape the condemnation of Gehenna?
Therefore, indeed, I send you
prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and
some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to
city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the
blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you
murdered between the temple and the altar. Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon THIS
GENERATION.” (Matthew 23.29-36)
► Now as He [Jesus] drew near, He saw the city [Jerusalem]
and wept over It, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your
day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your
eyes.
For
days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you,
surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children
within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon
another, because you did
not know the time of your visitation.”
(Luke
19:41-44)
--------------------------------------------------------
► For Moses
truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet
like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says
to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that
Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ (Acts
3.22-23)
► Harmonize
the above verses with: Deuteronomy
28.15, 47-63 and Malachi
4:4-5
Comments: The
Scriptures above make clear that Old Covenant Israel came to an end, and that the
Lord passed His Covenant-Kingdom on to another people: Christ
followers, both Gentile and Jew. Those wild, “unclean” Gentile people were
being brought into God’s House (Eph.2:11-13, 19 / 2nd Cor.6:11-16 / 1st Cor.3:16-17,
6:19 / 1st Peter 2:4-10), and were being tamed, domesticated and
cultivated (Isaiah 11:7 / Acts 10:9-35 / Romans 11.17-24).
In
other words, presently the wolf (the Gentiles) is lying down with the lamb (the
Jews):
“The wolf (Gentiles) also
shall dwell with the lamb (Jews),
The leopard (Gentiles) shall
lie down with the young goat (Jews),
The calf (Jews) and the
young lion (Gentiles) and the fatling
together;
And a little child shall lead them.
The cow (Jews) and the
bear (Gentiles) shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion (Gentiles) shall
eat straw like the ox (Jews).
The nursing child shall play by the
cobra’s hole,
And the weaned child shall put his hand in
the viper’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My
holy mountain,
For the Earth shall be full of the
knowledge of YHWH
As the waters cover the sea.
And in that day there shall be a
Root of Jesse,
Who shall stand as a banner to the people;
For the Gentiles shall seek Him,
And His resting place shall be glorious.”
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…
He will set up a banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of Israel.”
- Isaiah 11:1-12
Those
people within O.C. Israel who had been given “ears to hear” and “eyes to see”
continued to be part of the Covenant; these were the chosen “remnant” that Paul
speaks of in Romans 10-11, and those Isaiah shows above.
In other words, they were still
connected to The Vine (i.e. Jesus), which had always been standing with its
roots firmly founded in promises/covenants to Adam, Noah, Abraham and David.
Those Covenants were irrevocable promises (Galatians 3.15-18) that weren’t
contingent on obedience, quite unlike the Mosaic Covenant to called-out Israel
that was; and it was so by YHWH’s design.
In Deuteronomy 28 Moses spells
out the curses of what would happen to the Mosaic Covenant and the people
swearing to uphold it if they were unfaithful to YHWH. The upshot is that
they would ultimately be “torn out of the land” (vs.63), and that unites
with what Jesus says in the former verses above, and how Malachi ends the final
Old Covenant Revelation with the warning to Israel to “remember the Law…with
the statues and judgments” (i.e. Deuteronomy and specifically chapter 28)
because the coming of the “great and dreadful day of YHWH” is coming
when “Elijah” (John the Baptister) appears.
All of this comports with the
destruction of the Temple spoken of in Matthew 24, and with all the NT phrases
like "this generation", "the last days", the "time is
short", "the end of the age", the “fullness of time”, and what
we know historically happened to Jerusalem in 70 A.D. In other words,
Mosaic Old Covenant Jews no longer exist and have been scattered to the wind (Psalm
1:4-5), but true, transcendent Israel still exists; it just has been remodeled
/ transformed / made new.
The widespread popular
understanding of Romans 11 and modern Israel
Now,
further down this tunnel, this brings us to the question of Romans 11:25-27
where it is popularly taught that Paul speaks there about Israel having some
far-in-the-future collective blindness, but that they will one day come out of
that fog, by God’s grace, and have some type of mass conversion, again,
sometime soon or perhaps in the far future at the “end times”.
I hope you see that this popular
rendering of what Paul is prophesying about is “out of place” and doesn’t
harmonize whatsoever with the motifs and verses I’ve printed out above.
Because, naturally, if the Mosaic Old Covenant is obsolete, which it is
(Hebrews 8:7-13), and O.C. Israelites no longer exist, as Jesus said, and true
Jews are now following Messiah in the New Covenant, then who exactly is this
future “Israel” that Paul is (supposedly) talking about anyway?
So
first, and most importantly, we need to turn our focus quickly to consider the
current, present-day “Jews”.
Who defines who a Jew is?
To
call yourself a Jew does not make you one, and to do so without the
authorization nor definition of Yahweh only compounds ones sin. To
be, or become a Jew was never based on a blood-line, it was always based on
a covenant-line. Anyone could become a Jew, and anyone
who was a Jew could cease being a Jew. Just as Christians in the New
Covenant can. It was certainly much more difficult to stop being so in the OC
than in the New, but it was possible.
So, these folks (wherever they
live) who currently identify themselves “Jews” are not a people in ceremonial, covenant
worship with YHWH (which, again, is what made someone “Israel” in the first
place, not genetics or lineage) but sadly, these modern “Jews” are adherents to
the Talmud – yes, even the “Orthodox” Jews – which is nothing more than
esoteric commentaries on life and “Jewish” traditions and laws that were written down centuries after the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 AD, and have very little to do with the Torah of the Old
Covenant Scripture. The idea that present-day “Jews” obey and study Old Testament
Scripture is merely a Christian Dispensational myth that continues to live on,
uninvestigated due to sentimental ideas of a “chosen” race and romanticized
ideas of the end times connected to the city of Jerusalem. (Books to read on this: Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition by Neusner, a Talmudist
“Jew”, and The Judeo-Christian Tradition:
A Guide for the Perplexed by North)
In other words, these modern,
post 70AD "Jews" are imposters and posers that have commandeered the
name that only God can give, and are using it, well, in high-handed sinfulness.
This obviously poses some questions and problems, but more on that later.
1st Century Jewish Jealousy
and Blindness
Next,
for clarity, I think we need to consider what it was that Paul (and Moses)
stated would be the reason to spark Israel’s conversion to Jesus in the first
place? Moses (Deuteronomy 32:21; Romans 10:19) and Paul both say that the
catalyst to start the mass conversion of Israel will be Israel’s jealousy of
the conversion of Gentiles (Rom 10.19, 11.11).
Now, let’s be honest, that’s not
a problem – nor will be – for the modern, Talmudic-Mishnah “Jew”, and has not
been for 2000 years! But rather, what really gets a modern adherent to
Judiasm (Talmudism) angry is when one of their own Talmudist “Jews” convert to
Jesus; it’s certainly not when a “Gentile” does! They could care less!!
But they would have cared during Paul's time. This
shows strong internal evidence – meaning Scripture explaining Scripture – that
the meaning of Romans 11:25-27 “future Jewish conversion” is set in Paul’s
time, BUT it is in the near future to him.
Next, marry this idea to the
fact that the Scriptures always connect the “blindness” of the Jews to the
direct hearing, reading and studying of Scripture and never to a satanic book like
the Talmud. Time and time again, Jesus and Paul refer to a blindness or
deafness of the Israelites as they are listening and reading the
expounding of the Scriptures and how they simply don’t “get it”
and actually cannot (for a short time).
Just read Paul in Acts 13.13-48,
28.17-29, and Jesus (Matt.13.13-17, John 12.37-43). That period of
time was characterized by Jewish blindness and deafness! Throughout
Jesus’ ministry that’s all you read about: either physical or spiritual
blindness. Blindness here, blindness there, blindness – say it with me –
everywhere! You have blind “guides” leading blind people (Matthew
15:12-15), and blind hearts and eyes (John 12:35-40) all over the land of
Israel.
Now, I ain’t no college
professor, but I’m guessing here that God is dropping hints to direct us to
some truth that He’s endeavoring to communicate to us, and it’s a bit more than
just “Wow, look at all the miracles Jesus did! Cool! He sure is nice to them-there
blind people!”
Nope. When taking Scripture
expounding Scripture, what I’m convinced of is that Paul is speaking in Romans
11 about a unique blindness that had been brought upon the very keepers of the
Oracles of God (Romans 3:2) of his day whereupon
the vast majority of Israel had been rendered blind and unable to understand
the very Treasure they had been given to guard and obey. I do not believe
he is referring to some future Talmudist “Jews” who are, along with all people,
fallen in mankind’s universal, dead-in-sin general blindness. Nor do I
believe Paul is saying that the future, non-covenant, imposter, Talmudist “Jew”
is blind in some other special way just because he states he is a “Jew”. This
very idea of a unique blindness to first-century Israel is specifically stated
by Paul in 2nd Corinthians 3.14-16 when he writes that his
fellow Israelites living in that day are THE
blind ones.
“For until this day the same
veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this
day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart [children of
Israel, vs13]. Nevertheless
when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.”
And
again, by Paul in Acts 28.24-28, showing a blaring, neon-sign, characteristic
of the blind hearts of Israel during that period of time:
"And some [leaders of the
Jews in Rome] were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. So when they did not agree
among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word: “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah
the prophet to our fathers, saying: ‘Go to this people and say: “Hearing you will hear, and shall not
understand; and seeing you will see, and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are
hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and
hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
so that I should heal them.’ Therefore
let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!”
This
again shows strong internal Scriptural evidence that
what Paul is talking about in Romans 11 is that the apostles and the
unbelieving Jews at that time were in an unique situation after the
resurrection of Christ, and until the Temple’s destruction (40 years, or The
Last Days), when that symbol of the Mosaic Old Covenant would be destroyed and
the New Covenant is ushered in.
So what determines
who is a Jew?
To
look at it from another angle, we can see that Paul could identify the “Israel”
he was referring to in Romans 11 because those people observed the Torah laws
of sacrifice and were circumcised, and that was the identifying “mark” of an
Israelite so that everyone knew exactly who they were and who the Israel Paul
was referring to.
Today there is no such mark for
us to have the certainty that Paul did. Christians are the Israelites now
(Galatians 3:7-9; Romans 2:28-29), so how are we to identify this “Israel” that
Paul is (supposedly) referring to? What is the standard, the identifier,
that God is using so we’ll all know, here in the future, who the “Israelites” he
is speaking about are? How? Because they have a supposed “Jewish”
last name? Or, that they paid for a DNA test that “proves” they are of
Abraham’s blood? Or maybe because they live in Palestine? Or
perhaps because they are a cultic practitioner of the Talmud? I’ve
already spoken above how these marks don’t make you a Jew, so none of these are
“Israel”, and besides, by some of these criteria even Ivanka Trump Kushner is
Jewish, and so is Madonna! Do you see the problem?
“Well”, you may say, “only
Christ knows who the Israelites are that will convert to Jesus.” But
that only strengthens my point. Paul certainly has no doubts as
to who they are and how to identify them, but we today have nothing, zip,
zilch, nada. Doesn’t that raise some questions in your mind? If it
does not, I believe it should.
This all circles back around to
the Biblical, defining fact that the true Israelite is someone who has had a
spiritual, heart conversion to new life following in the faith of Abraham that
trusted in Messiah Jesus. There are no other Jews now than those who
follow and obey the risen Galilean.
Therefore,
I conclude that Paul, in Romans 11:25-27, must be speaking a prophetic word
concerning his time before
the End of the Age / Latter or Last Days (i.e. Old Covenant), and not some
futuristic 3,000 or 7,000 years after him when some people calling themselves
“Jews” will somehow be even more fantastically blind than they were in the
first century!
Rather, we see in the New Testament
writings, and historical documents, that priests and OC Israelites of all
stripes – the Remnant – clamored in and signed-up to follow the Greater Moses
into the new Promised Land along with the Gentiles and forsook “Egypt, and thus
Romans 11 WAS fulfilled in that day.
The followers of the demonic Talmud
need the King’s pardon and salvation just as equally as all the human race
does, and Talmudists and/or persons with old “jewish” last names aren’t in a
special, heavenly category here or in the future plans of Almighty God.
