The King of Israel

"Our New Covenant stands upon the Old. Without the Old, it would not exist."

THE APOSTLE PAUL cried out for Israel to the church at Rome. See here the irony, that it was to Rome he penned his words. “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (Romans 11:1).” Rome would form the Catholic church, in another generation, worship dedicated to the story of Jesus Christ, God who’d called Paul while he headed out to murder Christians. Rome, in that day, however, was all about control. They had controlled the Jewish people for quite some time, as seen in the stories of the gospels. It was the government of Rome that hung Jesus on the cross, when the Jewish people insisted. It was Rome which Jesus prophesied would tear down the temple forever (Luke 21:6).

See, now, other Jewish persecution in the Crusades where men believed it was their duty to conquer Jerusalem and so they murdered Arabs and Jews together, while clothed in armor and having a cross hung on their chests. Jesus had become solely Christian and not the heritage which God the Father spent thousands of years protecting … LOVING … in order to keep His promise to beloved Abraham. Read Paul’s words about this from Romans 10. “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 (Verse 12).” NO DIFFERENCE it says and so some put up another dividing wall. “But,” you say, “Paul cried out, ‘Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved (Verse 1).’” You can’t see it? NOT SAVED FROM BEING A JEW. That isn’t what he said. NOT THEIR CULTURE ERASED because there is now no need for it.

Jesus is a Jew. FOREVER A JEW. When you meet Him, and I hope you meet Him, you will see that He is God, you will find out that He is human flesh glorified, and you will be staring into the eyes of the Jewish King of the Jewish people. The King of Israel. We, the Gentile church, have smudged the Jewishness out of Him and become fools. We have elevated our modern culture into something greater than what the Old Testament reveals. “Look, even Paul became Christian,” we’ve said, “and Peter was told to ‘Take and eat’ of foods forbidden to the Jews.” Then there’s, “We’re under a New Covenant. God did away with the Old.”

What did Paul say earlier in his letter to Rome, speaking about Abraham?

“How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised (Romans 4:10-11).”

God’s promises to Abraham were made before the Law came into being, and they had no end in the fulfillment of it or else we are not all children of Abraham (Romans 4:11). Minister Rick Renner did an interesting teaching on Paul being called to the Gentiles and not to the Jews. He pointed out that Paul constantly tried to teach his people, the Jews, but every time he did there was extreme persecution. They simply would not hear him. On the other hand, we read about Peter as a minister to the Jews, from the words of Paul. Peter had success there. But there came this moment for Paul, when he had to walk in what the Spirit had asked of him. Minister Renner says, one day, Paul simply left the synagogue, where he had traveled, and went next door to the house of a prominent Gentile. Literally, he went to the neighbor’s house and there dedicated himself fully to teaching people who knew nothing about the Jews, Jewish culture, or a Jewish Messiah.

But he did not cease being a Jew, nor loving his people, Jesus’ people, the Jews. For here he is in Romans sharing his heart’s desire. Romans 11:2: “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.” HE HATH NOT. Hear now the words of the psalms:

“LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves? They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict THINE HERITAGE.” (Psalms 94:3-5)

“For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake HIS INHERITANCE.” (Psalms 94:14)

He will not afflict HIS HERITAGE. He will not forsake HIS INHERITANCE. God has not cast away HIS PEOPLE. Old Testament has been spoken in the New, and we must honor it by tearing down our Gentile Jesus idols. He isn’t British nor American, African nor Latin. He isn’t Australian, Asian, nor Arabic, although they are His brothers. Our New Covenant stands upon the Old. Without the Old, it would not exist. Jesus FULFILLED the Law in what was an amazing God-only-can-do-it point in time. Thousands of prophesies came together into fulfillment when He hung on the cross. No other man could bring them together in perfection that way. Only God alone. God who created the Jewish people then become one of them, not to exclude us or to replace the Jews, but to INCLUDE us, grafting us onto the Jewish tree. It is more true that we have become Jews than the lie that Jesus is no longer one.

What brings this up? The promise of salvation which the apostle Paul mentions as his heart’s cry. He wanted them to be saved. Not to destroy them, but, turning back again in Paul’s letter to Rome, in Romans 3, he says, “What ADVANTAGE then hath the Jew? or what PROFIT is there of circumcision? MUCH EVERY WAY: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God (Verses 1-2).” But because he is a Jew, there is an ADVANTAGE to being a Jew, and a PROFIT IN EVERY WAY.

If we, the wild branches, were grafted in, “how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree (Romans 11:24)?”

Salvation is not a dividing line which eliminates the Jews. It is not a point at which God no longer delights in them as HIS HERITAGE. It does not cause Jehovah to stop being Jehovah to them, nor has He stopped hearing their prayers. This is our foolishness, which we have preached. See their place in John’s Revelation. It is the New Jerusalem which descends from heaven bedecked as a bride. It is the 12 tribes of Israel that are named as its gates and foundations. It is the 12 tribes of Israel which make up the 144,000 in Revelation 7. These are future tense and eternal. They have a covenant with the God who made them which we, in our limited knowledge, have cancelled. The Christian church does not replace the Jewish nation. We are CHRIST-ians because they are JEWS.

“And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.” (Romans 11:23)

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.” (Romans 11:25-28)

LISTEN TO "Jerusalem of Gold" by Shulem

Image by Pexels from Pixabay


----------
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com