Today

"So much of what is future tense in the Scripture writings is past tense to us today."

WE PUT EVERYTHNG future tense. What Jesus prophesied. What Paul spoke. The Revelation of John. And by making so many things in the future, we fail to see Truth. I refer again to the “end times” movie I watched in my youth. The chapter in John’s Revelation which they used to make the movie has been fulfilled in the Jews. It isn’t future tense.

So much of what is future tense in the Scripture writings is past tense to us today. Paul’s comments about the Jews in Romans 9 and Romans 10 have been fulfilled as he describes in Romans 11. Two world wars, the death of millions of Jews, and the forming of their own nation have altered them forever. One Rebbe said, “Every Jew today is a miracle.” Today, they know G_d’s redemption.

“For salvation is of the Jews.” (John 4:22)

“Yet they are still greatly loved by God because their ancestors were divinely chosen to be his. And when God chooses someone and graciously imparts gifts to him, they are never rescinded." (Romans 11:28-29, TPT)

We’re looking back at what the apostles looked ahead toward, believing in its happening. The persecution they heard of in Matthew 24, which was prophesied OF THE JEWS, they experienced in the creation of the church. They had to stop doing the sacrifices of the Law, WHILE THE TEMPLE WAS STILL STANDING. In the face of centuries of Old Covenant Law, they quit practicing it. For this, they suffered. For us, it isn’t the same. We cannot compare ourselves to the apostles in Acts. Nor to the Jews. We’ve done this on steroids. But we are Gentiles. Even those raised Gentile, with certain ancestry, must take this in. God has grafted us in, taken our wild olive tree limbs and made them part of the Jewish Root, who is Christ (Romans 11:24). Not to their death. This IS what Paul said, but he said it looking ahead in time to what we look backwards at.

We must remember, at all times, when we read His writings, that He was a Jew, a former Pharisee, and a Roman (being born in Rome), writing to the Gentiles. So what he said was for their understanding. Minister Rick Renner gives an excellent teaching on the ministry of the apostle Paul, how hard he pursued the Jews, desiring their salvation, and how much persecution he suffered for it. It was when he turned his work toward the Gentiles that all the pieces of his calling fell in place.

We’ve taken his instructions out-of-place. And Gentiled a Jewish gospel. Gentiled Jesus, for the most part, too. He is all things Jew. He called Abraham. He promised him he would be a nation, many nations. He wrote the Old Covenant Law, then He was born a child of Abraham, a son of David, and fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17). Fulfilled. He removed the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13) but fulfilled the blessings. He is Israel’s salvation, words of the Torah they confess. And it is with the mouth that confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:10), whether they call Him Jesus, Hashem, Adonai, or any other of the many names we, Gentiles, have taken as our own.

Our understanding of the Word of God comes only from the Holy Spirit, so to read it with our human thinking and reason it out will always lead us astray. To know Him eliminates misunderstanding. I know when I read a verse or hear a teaching that makes my loving God sound harsh, angry, and punishing that I need revelation because that is not who He is. So, too, must be our mindset of its prophecies. They are meant to bring exhortation, edification, and comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3). God is not fear (2 Timothy 1:7). God’s reason for the prophecy and His timing of it, then, must be His and not ours. We submit to Him, making Him Lord, and this means giving Him our human thinking and all that we’ve assumed.

Because a lot of it is wrong.

Illustration by Annie Spratt on Unsplash


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