I’m sure you’ve
noticed in this recent conflict between Israel and Hamas how polarizing the
nation of Israel is. People are either
strongly for Israel or against it. For
few other conflicts in the world do you get such large demonstrations
everywhere as there were recently. Why
is this? Why does Israel make people so upset? And of course the Muslim world is constantly
angry at Israel, and constantly plotting its destruction. Why is this?
The Bible
says that Jesus himself is going to return there, on the Mt. of Olives, in the
same way that he left to go into heaven.
As it says in Acts 1:11: “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you
into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into
heaven.” And when he returns, you'll
be with him—if you're a believer. As it
says in Zech 14: "And in that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
which is in front of Jerusalem on the east.... The LORD my God will come; all the holy ones will be with you [Jerusalem]….
And the LORD will be king over all the earth" (Zech. 14:4,5,9).
God is
restoring Israel to prepare for the return of Jesus to Jerusalem. This means, obviously, that the nation of
Israel is very important to Christians.
In fact, you could say that Israel is both our past and our future. What do I mean by that?
Christianity
began as a Jewish Messianic movement, started among the Jews by Jews. As Jesus himself put it, “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). Jesus himself is Jewish. The disciples are Jewish. Most of our Bible was originally written in
Hebrew. Our faith was originally a
branch of Judaism. The disciples of
Jesus at first preached the gospel only to Jews (“Those who were dispersed …made
their way …speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone,” Acts
11:19). That’s where the gospel came
from. It was completely Jewish.
That means
that without an understanding of our Jewish roots, we can’t understand our
faith. What is Messiah? Messiah is a Jewish idea. What is salvation? It’s a Jewish idea. What is paradise? What is Gehenna? What is the Holy Spirit? Without some Jewish background, the meaning
even of the words in our Bibles can’t be understood properly. Without that background, our faith can mean
anything anyone wants it to mean.
And unfortunately
that’s exactly what happened in history.
When the Church rejected the Jewish roots of our faith, people
interpreted the Bible any way they wanted to.
And the Church went swinging way off into false teaching and destructive
actions: the Crusades, the Inquisition,
forced conversions, the violent subjugation of Central and South America, colonialism. Christianity became a religion of power, a tool
of conquest rather than a message of love and personal salvation. The Church got lost because it rejected the
Jewish background of our faith. Without
that Jewish background, Christianity is no longer Christian.
So
originally, Christianity was completely Jewish.
That’s our past. What about the
future?
The Bible
says that the Jewish people will repent and accept Jesus when he returns: “And
then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes
of the Land will beat (the breast in mourning), and they will see the Son of Man
coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30). This will not be the “tribes of the earth” as
often translated, but the “tribes of the
Land,” the Land of Israel. How do I
know that?
Because Jesus is referring here to Zech. 12, when the
inhabitants of Jerusalem will mourn at the return of Jesus (“And I will pour out on the house of David
and on the one living in Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication and they
will look to me whom they pierced and they will beat the beast over him as the
wailing over an only son and will make a bitter outcry over him as the making
of a bitter outcry over a firstborn,” Zech. 12:10). This is when Israel will repent and receive
Jesus. This is why Israel has been
regathered from the nations: to prepare
for the return of Jesus and the salvation of the Jewish nation.
Then, when
he comes, together we will reign with him for a thousand years: Jewish believers in Jesus and Gentile
believers in Jesus. This will, after
all, be the kingdom of a Jewish Messiah, not an American president. Right?
The Bible says that Jesus will come back in just the same way that he
went: he’ll still be Jewish.
And during
that time, the Bible says that we will all celebrate the Feast of
Tabernacles. Zech. 14:16: “And it
will be that everyone who remains from all the nations who will come against
Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship before the King, the LORD of hosts,
and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.”
This is talking about all the believers in Jesus from all the
nations of the world who will live with Jesus in his Messianic kingdom. At that time, everyone, including Gentile
believers, will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
This verse, by the way, is what started the
modern international celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, in
1980. Merla Watson, a Christian from
Canada, was reading her Bible and saw in Zechariah that we will celebrate the
Feast in the future with Jesus. So, she
thought, maybe we should start practicing for this now, and the modern
celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles was born. Today, thousands of Christians from all over
the world come up to Jerusalem every year to celebrate the Feast. It’s the biggest tourism event in Israel
every year. People come from all over
the world to participate.
So if the
Bible says that we will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in the Messianic
kingdom, does that mean we will also celebrate other Jewish festivals when
Jesus returns? The Bible doesn’t say
directly. But at his last Passover with
his disciples, Jesus said, “But I say to
you, I will certainly not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until
that day when I will drink it new with you in the kingdom of my Father” (Matt.
26:29). It certainly sounds like he’s
referring to the celebration of Passover in the Messianic kingdom.
And what
about after the Millennium, in the New Heavens and the New Earth? The Bible says we will live in the New
Jerusalem, not the new Paris or the new Tokyo.
It will be a Jewish city with the Jewish God, the God of Israel,
reigning there.
The only way
to enter that city, according to the book of Revelation, will be through twelve
gates, each of which will have on it the name of one of the twelve tribes of
Israel: “The city had a broad and high wall with twelve gates and twelve
messengers at the gates. And names were
written on them which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel”
(Rev. 21:12). Even in the New Heavens
and the New Earth, Israel will still be important!
Christianity
is Jewish from the beginning to the end.
So then why are we a part of it, who are not Jewish?
When
Christianity first got started, it was a natural assumption that to worship the
true God of Israel, to be a follower of the Jewish Messiah, Gentile believers should
become Jews: they should convert to
Judaism to be Christians. Makes sense, right? After all, Israel at the time was the only
nation to worship the God of Israel. As
some said at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15: “But some from the sect of the Pharisees who
believed stood up, saying, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to command
them to observe the Law of Moses’” (Acts 15:5). But the Council
didn’t go along with this point of view.
They decided that Gentile believers in Jesus do not need to
become Jewish first. Why not?
First Peter
told of his experience at Caesarea (Acts 15:7-11). When he preached the gospel to Gentiles at
the house of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit descended on them even though they were
not Jewish and were not yet even baptized.
God obviously accepted them just the way they were. Paul also told of his experiences with
Gentile believers (Acts 15:12).
Finally James,
the brother of Jesus, proposed a decision based on Amos 9:11-12. “And with this the words of the
prophets agree, as it is written: ‘After
these things I will return and rebuild the tent of David that is fallen, and I
will rebuild its ruins and restore it’” (Acts 15:15,16). What is the tent of David? It’s talking about the royal line of David that
had fallen in Old Testament times, but is now restored in the Messiah.
Acts
15:17: “so that the rest of mankind will seek the Lord, and all the nations
(the Gentiles) for whom my name has been named over them,’ says the Lord who
does these things.” This is often
translated, ‘who are called by my name’; but that’s not what it says. It says “for
whom my name has been named over them.”
What’s this talking about? When
do people have the name of the Lord spoken over them? At baptism.
That’s exactly what Peter did to the Gentiles at Caesarea after the Holy
Spirit fell on them. They were baptized
in the name of Jesus. The name of Jesus
was spoken over them in baptism while they were still Gentiles. So what does this prophecy mean? The royal line of David has been restored in
Jesus so that the Gentiles can seek the Lord, be saved, and be baptized. James saw this verse in Amos as a
confirmation of what Peter and Paul had already done: accepting Gentiles as believers in Jesus without
requiring them to convert to Judaism. God
had another plan for the Gentiles.
So what is God’s
plan for Gentiles? It goes all the way
back to Abraham. Do you remember when
God said to Abraham, “All the families of
the earth will be blessed by you.” How could that happen? How could Abraham, a shepherd in the Middle
East, bless all the families of the earth?
Abraham was the ancestor of the Israelites, of the Jewish people. How could other nations be blessed by
him?
The same
promise was passed down to his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. To Isaac it was said: “…and
by your seed all the nations of the earth will bless themselves” (Gen.
26:4). To Jacob it was said: “…and
all the families of the earth will be blessed by you and your seed” (Gen.
28:14). But at the time of Jacob’s
death, or just before his death, something very important happened. This blessing wasn’t passed down to all his
sons. It was only passed down to one of
them: to Ephraim.
In a
deathbed blessing, Jacob said to Joseph’s sons, “his younger brother (Ephraim) will be greater than he (than Manasseh),
and his seed will be the fullness of the nations [melo ha-goyim]” (Gen.
48:19). This is different than the
promise we heard before. This says that Ephraim’s
seed will be “the fullness of the nations,” melo ha-goyim in Hebrew. Unfortunately, this is often translated ‘a
multitude of nations,’ but that’s not what it says in Hebrew, and hides the
true meaning. Jacob clearly said that the
descendants of Ephraim will become the Gentile nations of the earth. But how could that be? How could the tribe of Ephraim fill all the
Gentile nations of the earth?
After Solomon
sinned because of his wives, his kingdom was divided. The two tribes in the south, Judah and
Benjamin, became the Kingdom of Judah. This
kingdom was ruled by a descendant of David.
But the ten tribes in the north became the Kingdom of Israel, also known
as Ephraim.
Jeroboam,
the first ruler of the northern kingdom, led them into apostasy by having them worship
golden calves at Dan and Bethel. You can
still the foundation of the temple for the golden calf at Dan. Then Ahab and Jezebel led them into the
worship of Baal. And it got worse and
worse, until finally God exiled them from the Land, but only after many
warnings from the prophets.
One of the
prophets that warned them about their sin was Hosea. He compared their worship of other gods to
prostitution: “…for surely the Land commits harlotry from no longer following after the
LORD” (Hosea 1:2). This is talking
about the worship of other gods. This
made God so angry, that if they didn’t stop he said, “…and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel”
(Hos. 1:4). And again in Hosea 1:6: “…for I
will no longer have compassion on the house of Israel, for I will surely take
them away (into exile).”
Finally God
said, “…for you are not my people, and I am
not I Am to you” (Hos. 1:9). This is
the most extreme thing that God could say.
This verse is often described as God divorcing Israel. Israel, the northern kingdom, would no longer
be God’s people. He would no longer be I
Am to them. Because of this, God’s
protection was removed, and Israel was conquered by the Assyrians and taken
away and scattered among the nations.
And unlike Judah in its time of exile, most of the ten northern tribes never
returned.
This led to
their being referred to as the Ten Lost Tribes.
Some small groups did maintain a sense of Israelite identity until
today, but many others intermarried, and have long since completely lost any
memory and any outward trace of Israelite identity. They just mixed among the nations. And because of this, every person alive today
is descended at least in some small part from the Ten Tribes.
This is how they
fulfilled the prophecy of melo ha-goyim. Ephraim today has become the fullness of the
Gentiles. And this is the way the Jewish
rabbis also see them: technically,
according to Jewish Law, the Ten Tribes, even those who maintained their
identity, are no longer bound by the Law of Moses. They are completely cut off. They have become Gentiles. If they want to be considered Jewish, they must
be converted to Judaism. So when some of
the descendants of the Ten Tribes have recently been brought back to Israel,
they have had to go through a conversion ceremony because they had been
completely cut off by God.
Because of Ephraim,
the seed of Abraham has been spread literally throughout the entire world. Ephraim has indeed become the “fullness of the nations.” This means that you, too, are descended in
some small way from Ephraim. Yet the
Jewish hope is that the Lost Tribes will one day be restored. Why is there this hope of restoration? Because in the very place that God cut them
off, he also prophesied their restoration:
Hosea
1:10: “and the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sand of the sea
that is not measured and is not numbered, and it will be that in the place that
it is said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it will be said to them, ‘You are
sons of the living God.’” But wait a
minute! Ephraim was totally cut off, divorced
from God. According to Biblical law, a
divorced woman can never be restored to the former relationship. Do you know that verse?
Deut.
24:1: “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds
no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes
her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his
house...” That’s what God did to
Ephraim, to the northern kingdom. He
divorced her and sent her out from the Land.
Deut. 24:2,4: “and
she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man's wife.... her first husband
who sent her away may not return to take her to be his wife after she was
defiled, for it is an abomination before the LORD.” This means that Ephraim can never again come
under the Law of Moses. He cannot enter
again into his first covenant which he left to serve other gods. So how can Ephraim be restored to God? Only by a new covenant with a new
spouse: Jesus.
Hosea
1:11: “and the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel will be gathered together
and they will appoint one leader for themselves, and they will go up from the
land, for great is the day of Jezreel.” Who
is this one leader? The Messiah. And what does it mean, “they will go up from the land”?
The resurrection of the righteous, which will take place right after all
Israel is saved at the coming of the Messiah.
So here, too, we see the reconciliation of the Jewish people and the
Gentile believers in Jesus (Judah and Israel coming together), on the basis of
one leader, the Messiah, which means the salvation of the Jewish people just
before the resurrection and the coming of the Messiah.
And what is “the day of Jezreel”? Jezreel is another name for the valley of
Megiddo, also known as the valley of Armageddon (Rev. 16:16): the place of assembly for the final war
against Jerusalem. God will show himself
mighty by completely destroying the armies that will come up against
Jerusalem.
Have you
ever heard this interpretation of Hosea before?
Probably not. But Paul did. In Romans 9, Paul is not only thinking
of this passage in Hosea, he directly quotes from it: “Us whom he also called, not only from the
Jews but also from the Gentiles, as he also says in Hosea: ‘I will call the one who is not my people,
‘My people,’ and her who is not loved, ‘Beloved’ (Hosea 2:23). And it will be in the place that it was said
to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called sons of the living
God (Hosea 1:10)” (Rom. 9:24-26). Paul
directly states here that he considers the Gentile believers in Jesus to be the
fulfillment of this verse in Hosea, the fulfillment of the restoration of
Ephraim.
Peter was also
familiar with this same prophecy, and applied it in the same way. Writing to Gentile believers, he said, “You who once were not a people, but now are
the people of God, those who had not been shown mercy, but now have been shown
mercy” (1 Pet. 2:10). He’s quoting
the same verse in Hosea, and applying it to Gentiles—to us. This was obviously a teaching that all the
apostles understood, a basic part of the gospel message.
We
fulfill this verse. We are the
scattered, cut off seed of Ephraim that is being restored to God and restored
to Israel in the Messiah. This is also what
Paul was talking about in Rom 11:25: “For I do not want you to be ignorant,
brothers, of this mystery that you may not be wise in your own sight, for the hardening
of a part of Israel has taken place until the time when the fullness of the nations comes in.” Do you recognize that phrase, “fullness of the nations”? It’s the melo
hagoyim of Jacob way back in the book of Genesis. It’s Ephraim scattered among the
nations. But now Ephraim—we—are coming
in. We are being restored to God through
the New Covenant, through Jesus. While this
is happening, a part of Israel is hardened.
But once the fullness of the nations, melo hagoyim, has all come in, the hardening of Israel will be
removed, and the Jewish people will accept their Messiah. In this way, all Israel will be saved. And that’s exactly what he says in the next
verse.
Rom.
11:26: “And in this way all Israel will be saved: just as it is written, ‘The deliverer will
come because of Zion, he will cause godlessness to turn away from Jacob.’” Once the fullness of the nations has come in,
the deliverer will come. Who’s
that?? Jesus will return and “cause godlessness to turn away from Jacob.”
When Jesus returns, the Jewish
people will turn back to the living God and accept Jesus as their Messiah. And then all Israel will be saved!
Yes, we are
part of the incredible story of Israel!
We, like long lost sheep, are being restored to Israel and to Israel’s
God!
Paul also
mentions this in Eph. 2:12-19, while talking again to Gentiles: “Remember
that you were at that time without Messiah, alienated from the citizenship of
Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and in the
world without God.” What’s this
talking about? Before we became
believers, we were not only cut off from God, we were also cut off from Israel,
even hostile to Israel, as so much of the world is. We were cut off from the covenants of promise. Which covenants are they?
The covenant
with Abraham is a covenant of promise (Gal. 3:16-22). Remember God’s promise to Abraham, that all
the families of the earth will be blessed by him? That’s a promise, a promise that is being
fulfilled in Jesus. God’s covenant with
David is also a covenant of promise, that one of David’s descendents would rule
on the throne of Israel forever. What
other covenant of promise is there? The
New Covenant in Messiah is also a covenant of promise: it has the promise of eternal life, the
promise of forgiveness of all our sins.
We were cut off from all these things.
But now we are included in all these covenants of promise through Jesus.
Eph. 2:13,14: “But
now, in Messiah Jesus, you who once were far away [the Gentiles] were made near
by the blood of Messiah. For he himself
[Jesus] is our peace, who made both [Jews and Gentiles who believe in him] one
and destroyed the dividing wall of the fence, the hostility between the two, in
his flesh...” What does he mean,
the “dividing wall of the fence”?
In the
ancient Temple, there was a stone fence that divided the areas where Gentiles
could go from the areas where only the Jews could go. Only the Jews could go into the inner courts
of the Temple. This fence Paul uses as a
symbol of the division between Jews and Gentiles, the hostility between Jews
and Gentiles. But now, in Messiah Jesus,
this fence is broken down. Now, in
Jesus, we who are Gentiles have accepted our Jewish brothers and sisters in the
faith—we are not hostile to them anymore.
And that means that now we have access to the inner courts of the Temple,
to worship God in Spirit and in truth.
When did he
destroy this dividing wall? Eph. 2:15,16: “when
he made the law of commandments in ordinances [the Law of Moses] ineffective that
in himself [in Messiah] he may create out of the two one new man [made up of Jewish
and Gentile believers], making peace, and may reconcile both in one body to God
by means of the cross, abolishing the hostility between the two in him.” The Law of Moses is powerless compared to the
new, better Law of Messiah, a law no longer written on tablets of stone, but on
our hearts. Now we willingly follow God,
not because we have to, but because we want to.
And through Messiah, through the cross, Jewish and Gentile believers in
Jesus have become one. The hostility
between Jew and Gentile has been removed.
Eph. 2:17,18: “And
when he [Messiah] came, he preached good news of ‘peace to you who were far
away [the Gentiles] and peace to those who were near [the Jews]’ (Isa. 57:19),’
for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.” The gospel is for both Jews and Gentiles, and
through it, we both have access to the Father God through the Holy Spirit. So what’s the result of all of this?
Eph. 2:19: “So,
therefore, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are
fellow-citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God.” Fellow-citizens of what? Before we were cut off from Israel but now
we’re not. So that means we’re citizens
of Israel: our citizenship has been
restored. This is not talking about the
current earthly nation of Israel. If you
go to Israel and try to claim your citizenship, they will reject you. But it’s talking about the spiritual, saved
Israel, which includes our Jewish brothers and sisters in Messiah, and all rest
of the nation of Israel when they finally accept Jesus, when we will be with
them in the kingdom of the Messiah. But
for now the fullness of the nations (melo
hagoyim) is still coming in, though the salvation of Israel is drawing
closer every day.
So what is
God’s plan for the Gentiles? To deliver
us from our alienation from and hatred of Israel. Because in fact, spiritually speaking, we are
Ephraim. We are the Ten Lost
Tribes. We need to wake up to our true
identity. But we can’t go back to the
way it was before. We can’t go back to
the Law of Moses that our distant ancestors broke and rejected so badly that
God had to throw them out of Israel and cut them off from being his people. But God has a plan of salvation for us. And that salvation is in Jesus, the Jewish
Messiah. Through Jesus, we can be
restored to God. Through Jesus, we can
be restored to Israel, and to citizenship in Israel. Through Jesus, we can be restored to all the
covenants of promise and to our calling.
Amen?
Let’s
pray: Father God, I pray that you would
help us get hold of this teaching from your Word. Help us understand our true identity in you
and our true calling in you. Help us to
understand what the apostles taught about us as Gentile believers, and how we
can be restored to Israel through Jesus.
Father, increase our love for Israel and our understanding of how we fit
into your plan and into your world. And
it’s in the name of Jesus our Messiah that we pray.
