from ANALYZING Scofield
Christians do the Jews a great wrong when they suggest that they will have a second chance or that being fleshly children of Abraham can bring salvation. The Jewish people suffered the worst destruction ever brought upon any people in A.D. 70 because they refused to believe the Scriptures that plainly prophesied of the coming of the Messiah. They knew when he was to come because of Daniel 9, but since he did not meet their preconceived ideas of what they expected Messiah to be, they crucified him and suffered the loss of everything. All those who refuse to believe God's more sure word of prophecy concerning Christ's Second Coming, are headed for everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord when he shall come to be glorified in his saints.
[SIZE=+2]THE REAL ISRAEL:[/SIZE]
The Teaching of Romans 11
by CHARLES GILBERT WESTON
Moses gave a great prophecy of Christ, one like himself who would give to Israel all of God's word. If any man would not hear that prophet, God would require it of him. Peter quotes it as in fulfillment in this age, "And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." (Ac 3:22-23.) lsrael is the people from among whom they are to be destroyed. If the Apostles were here today, who would believe them?
The name Israel has several usages. To many, it has only one meaning. The first Bible usage is in Ge 32:24-29. Jacob was in a tight spot. He was on his way home with his wives, his children and his flocks -- a helpless little group moving along. His brother, Esau, who had sworn to kill him for cheating him, was coming to meet him with four hundred men. Jacob sent his family ahead, group by group, in a way calculated to soften Esau's heart. He stayed behind to pray and found himself wrestling with an angel of the Lord. As dawn came, the angel said, "Let me go."
Jacob said, "I will not let you go except you bless me."
The angel asked his name. Jacob told him his name, which means supplanter, one who supersedes another by trickery or treachery. The angel said, "Thy name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel -- an overcomer, for as a prince thou hast power with God and with men and hast prevailed." The angel blest him there.
He had left Esau as Jacob, the cheat. He met him as Israel, a prince with God. Esau came peacefully, and they met as brothers. The angel of the Lord gave Jacob his own name. In Isa 49:3-4, Israel is the name of Christ, the one who overcame and purchased our salvation and brings us unto this experience to be called Israel, also to be overcomers.
Jacob's flesh descendants are called the children of Israel.
When the kingdom was divided the northern nation was called Israel; the southern nation was Judah.
The name Israel can also be applied to rank sinners. (Nu 25:6-14)
The godly Remnant within Israel was the true Israel. Elijah cried out to God that he alone was left serving God, and the Lord said, "l have seven thousand who have never bowed the knee to Baal." They were his true people who had resisted the temptation to bow to the idol and were overcomers. The rest had all failed. God had given them the name as something to live up to.
Apostate Israel is still called Israel even though they forfeited the right to use it. In Isaiah 1:2-4, the Lord grieves, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth ... I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they have gone away backward." He still calls them Israel showing them the terrible depths to which they have sunk. Their descendants crucified Christ.
God left a Remnant of true overcomers and a remnant of the apostate Israel. Some say, "You can't find that in the New Testament." Oh yes, you can. Look at John 7:19-20: "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me? The people said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?" See John 8:32, 41, 44a: "I know that ye are Abraham's seed: but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They said, Abraham is our father. Jesus said, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. They said, We be not born of fornication: we have one father, even God ... [Jesus said] Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do."
There are two Israels mentioned. "Israel which followed after the law of righteousness hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but by the works of the law." (Ro 9:31-32.) Israel which followed after the law is the very opposite of the elect Remnant of grace. (Ro 11:5, 7-10) "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it; and the rest were blinded." Ro 11:7, 16b, 17a. "If the root be holy, so are the branches, and if some of the branches be broken off...."
Natural branches were broken off and wild olives were grafted in. One must identify the broken branches as a group. "Well, because of unbelief they were broken off." (Ro 11:20.) The Israel of God is noted in Hosea: "In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God." (Hos 1:10; 2:23.) "I say to them which were not my people, thou art my people, and they say, Thou art my God." The prophecies of Hosea identified by Paul show the true Israel is the Church at Ro 9:22-26. Notice Peter's use of Joel 2:32 as to where salvation is found: "In Zion and Jerusalem shall be deliverance ... and in the Remnant whom the Lord shall call."
Did the Remnant of Israel lose the name Israel by being true to God'? Not according to the prophets. (lsa 54:1-13; Gal 4:22-30; 6:16; with Ro 9:22-26.) "Ye in time past were not the people of God ... but now have obtained mercy ... are now THE people of God." Not A people. (1Pe 2:10a)
Is there any hope for the broken off branches? Yes, indeed. The hope they rejected in unbelief is still offered to whosoever will. If they will believe in that Rock of safety, a true foundation stone, (Isa 28:16); he who died for them, (Isa 53), he who came at the appointed time, (Da 9); then they will come out of carnal Israel into the salvation and glory and life of the Israel of God, into the living Body and Church of Christ that is New Covenant Israel.
The present and closing age of grace will soon make an end of this opportunity of salvation, and sadly many of Christ-rejecting Israel will have waited too long. (Mt 8:10-12; Lk 13:25-29) "There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." Does this sound like setting up a kingdom? But look at this verse: "So all Israel shall be saved." "Yes, look, which Israel is that?" The Bible is very explicit, that out of old Israel only a Remnant would be saved. (Isa 10:22-23; cf. 5:1-14; Ro 9:27; Mt 23:32-38 and 8:10-12.) The same Old Testament tells of the "All Israel" that is saved. (Isa 45:17, 25) It is "in the Lord." Isaiah points out the one as descending into hell, the other "IN THE LORD." SAVED. Has the word of God been ineffective? The answer is NO. There are two Israels; the one foreknown of God before the foundation of the world is the one God has always been pointing to by promise, by typology, by prophecy, in song, poetry, prose, with its gates open by day and night for whosoever will. Let the weary and thirsty come and drink of eternal mercy, love and life. Amen. Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:29)
But the prophet said the nation of Israel would be restored. That is true, read about it in Ezekiel 34. It tells of Christ coming to the lost sheep of the house of Israel in a great gathering, sifting and restoration. He gathers the wheat into his garner and the chaff goes into the fire. It was a great restoration, (Isa 53:6) and reformation. (Heb 8:613; 9:10-15; Mal 3: I-3, 16-18 and Jn 1: 11-13. ) The New Covenant was the charter of the restoration, because the nation was lost under the Old. (Jer 31:31-32; cf. Dt 28:15) But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of thy God to observe to do all his commandments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee." Did you ever read these curses and terrible, awesome judgments in Dt 28? Even so, they broke his Old Covenant and they rejected the New. "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer 8:20.) Heart breaking words about Israel apart from Christ.
The proud Pharisees were well acquainted with the term all Israel. They were quite sure that it meant the natural descendants of Abraham through Jacob, that is, themselves. The warnings of Scripture were not for them. They had no need to be saved or born again. They had Abraham as their father. (Lk 3:7-9; Jn 8:39-48) The all Israel of lsa 45:25, "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified." "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord," Isa 54:13 is the same as that in Ro 11:26-27. Pertaining to it Paul quotes Isa 59:20-21: "All Israel shall be saved." "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my Covenant with them," and Paul paraphrases the obvious, "When I shall take away their sins." Isaiah is telling of what happened at the first coming of Christ. Peter preaching to the Jews in the temple declares the fulfillment of the same prophecy at Ac 3:25-26. Isaiah spoke of the new Israel upon whom God poured out his Holy Spirit and in whom Christ had planted God's word. (Cf. Isa 60:21 and 61:1-3.) The Deliverer certainly cleansed New Covenant Israel of all sins for only thus could they be filled with God's Spirit.
When quoting, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance," (Ro 11:29) some intonate this as a final dictum meaning, "even though they are enemies, God called Israel his people so they still are and cannot be lost." Actually, it would rather mean, If God called you, then make sure you work out your calling, for God will certainly have an accounting with you. But read 1Sa 2:30; Jer 18:1-12: "They said ... we will walk after our own devices," 19:1-11 and Ro 11:22. "Behold the goodness and severity of God: on them that fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, IF thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." These references should sober our thinking. See also Heb 2:1-3.
They are not all Israel who are of Israel. Neither are they Israel because they are children of Abraham for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. They of the promise are counted for the seed. If you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. In Christ all the families of the earth shall be blest. We are not children by a fluke, but we are heirs by immediate translation. The true Israel is not the type but the reality--the Church of Jesus Christ. They of the flesh do not serve God in Christ Jesus or obey his words.
Paul is talking to his Gentile brothers in Galatians, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was are the children of promise." Isaac was the Covenant one. lshmael in despising Isaac was cast out of the fellowship. Paul gives teaching of Christ by type found in Ge 21:1-12; Gal 4:19-31. Two women, two sons, two Jerusalems, two peoples. Hagar and Ishmael represented carnal Israel; Sarah and Isaac represented Christians. Nevertheless, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son, (the Jews) the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." Apostate Israel even though they crucified the Lord of Glory is still called Israel and in Isaiah 1:9-10, they are called Sodom and Gomorrah. But Isaiah says, "Though the number of them be as the sand of the sea a remnant shall be saved." (Isa 8:14; 28:16)
cont......
Christians do the Jews a great wrong when they suggest that they will have a second chance or that being fleshly children of Abraham can bring salvation. The Jewish people suffered the worst destruction ever brought upon any people in A.D. 70 because they refused to believe the Scriptures that plainly prophesied of the coming of the Messiah. They knew when he was to come because of Daniel 9, but since he did not meet their preconceived ideas of what they expected Messiah to be, they crucified him and suffered the loss of everything. All those who refuse to believe God's more sure word of prophecy concerning Christ's Second Coming, are headed for everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord when he shall come to be glorified in his saints.
[SIZE=+2]THE REAL ISRAEL:[/SIZE]
The Teaching of Romans 11
by CHARLES GILBERT WESTON
Moses gave a great prophecy of Christ, one like himself who would give to Israel all of God's word. If any man would not hear that prophet, God would require it of him. Peter quotes it as in fulfillment in this age, "And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people." (Ac 3:22-23.) lsrael is the people from among whom they are to be destroyed. If the Apostles were here today, who would believe them?
The name Israel has several usages. To many, it has only one meaning. The first Bible usage is in Ge 32:24-29. Jacob was in a tight spot. He was on his way home with his wives, his children and his flocks -- a helpless little group moving along. His brother, Esau, who had sworn to kill him for cheating him, was coming to meet him with four hundred men. Jacob sent his family ahead, group by group, in a way calculated to soften Esau's heart. He stayed behind to pray and found himself wrestling with an angel of the Lord. As dawn came, the angel said, "Let me go."
Jacob said, "I will not let you go except you bless me."
The angel asked his name. Jacob told him his name, which means supplanter, one who supersedes another by trickery or treachery. The angel said, "Thy name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel -- an overcomer, for as a prince thou hast power with God and with men and hast prevailed." The angel blest him there.
He had left Esau as Jacob, the cheat. He met him as Israel, a prince with God. Esau came peacefully, and they met as brothers. The angel of the Lord gave Jacob his own name. In Isa 49:3-4, Israel is the name of Christ, the one who overcame and purchased our salvation and brings us unto this experience to be called Israel, also to be overcomers.
Jacob's flesh descendants are called the children of Israel.
When the kingdom was divided the northern nation was called Israel; the southern nation was Judah.
The name Israel can also be applied to rank sinners. (Nu 25:6-14)
The godly Remnant within Israel was the true Israel. Elijah cried out to God that he alone was left serving God, and the Lord said, "l have seven thousand who have never bowed the knee to Baal." They were his true people who had resisted the temptation to bow to the idol and were overcomers. The rest had all failed. God had given them the name as something to live up to.
Apostate Israel is still called Israel even though they forfeited the right to use it. In Isaiah 1:2-4, the Lord grieves, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth ... I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they have gone away backward." He still calls them Israel showing them the terrible depths to which they have sunk. Their descendants crucified Christ.
God left a Remnant of true overcomers and a remnant of the apostate Israel. Some say, "You can't find that in the New Testament." Oh yes, you can. Look at John 7:19-20: "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law? Why go ye about to kill me? The people said, Thou hast a devil: who goeth about to kill thee?" See John 8:32, 41, 44a: "I know that ye are Abraham's seed: but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen with my Father: ye do that which ye have seen with your father. They said, Abraham is our father. Jesus said, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. They said, We be not born of fornication: we have one father, even God ... [Jesus said] Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do."
There are two Israels mentioned. "Israel which followed after the law of righteousness hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but by the works of the law." (Ro 9:31-32.) Israel which followed after the law is the very opposite of the elect Remnant of grace. (Ro 11:5, 7-10) "Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it; and the rest were blinded." Ro 11:7, 16b, 17a. "If the root be holy, so are the branches, and if some of the branches be broken off...."
Natural branches were broken off and wild olives were grafted in. One must identify the broken branches as a group. "Well, because of unbelief they were broken off." (Ro 11:20.) The Israel of God is noted in Hosea: "In the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God." (Hos 1:10; 2:23.) "I say to them which were not my people, thou art my people, and they say, Thou art my God." The prophecies of Hosea identified by Paul show the true Israel is the Church at Ro 9:22-26. Notice Peter's use of Joel 2:32 as to where salvation is found: "In Zion and Jerusalem shall be deliverance ... and in the Remnant whom the Lord shall call."
Did the Remnant of Israel lose the name Israel by being true to God'? Not according to the prophets. (lsa 54:1-13; Gal 4:22-30; 6:16; with Ro 9:22-26.) "Ye in time past were not the people of God ... but now have obtained mercy ... are now THE people of God." Not A people. (1Pe 2:10a)
Is there any hope for the broken off branches? Yes, indeed. The hope they rejected in unbelief is still offered to whosoever will. If they will believe in that Rock of safety, a true foundation stone, (Isa 28:16); he who died for them, (Isa 53), he who came at the appointed time, (Da 9); then they will come out of carnal Israel into the salvation and glory and life of the Israel of God, into the living Body and Church of Christ that is New Covenant Israel.
The present and closing age of grace will soon make an end of this opportunity of salvation, and sadly many of Christ-rejecting Israel will have waited too long. (Mt 8:10-12; Lk 13:25-29) "There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." Does this sound like setting up a kingdom? But look at this verse: "So all Israel shall be saved." "Yes, look, which Israel is that?" The Bible is very explicit, that out of old Israel only a Remnant would be saved. (Isa 10:22-23; cf. 5:1-14; Ro 9:27; Mt 23:32-38 and 8:10-12.) The same Old Testament tells of the "All Israel" that is saved. (Isa 45:17, 25) It is "in the Lord." Isaiah points out the one as descending into hell, the other "IN THE LORD." SAVED. Has the word of God been ineffective? The answer is NO. There are two Israels; the one foreknown of God before the foundation of the world is the one God has always been pointing to by promise, by typology, by prophecy, in song, poetry, prose, with its gates open by day and night for whosoever will. Let the weary and thirsty come and drink of eternal mercy, love and life. Amen. Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. (Gal 3:29)
But the prophet said the nation of Israel would be restored. That is true, read about it in Ezekiel 34. It tells of Christ coming to the lost sheep of the house of Israel in a great gathering, sifting and restoration. He gathers the wheat into his garner and the chaff goes into the fire. It was a great restoration, (Isa 53:6) and reformation. (Heb 8:613; 9:10-15; Mal 3: I-3, 16-18 and Jn 1: 11-13. ) The New Covenant was the charter of the restoration, because the nation was lost under the Old. (Jer 31:31-32; cf. Dt 28:15) But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of thy God to observe to do all his commandments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee." Did you ever read these curses and terrible, awesome judgments in Dt 28? Even so, they broke his Old Covenant and they rejected the New. "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." (Jer 8:20.) Heart breaking words about Israel apart from Christ.
The proud Pharisees were well acquainted with the term all Israel. They were quite sure that it meant the natural descendants of Abraham through Jacob, that is, themselves. The warnings of Scripture were not for them. They had no need to be saved or born again. They had Abraham as their father. (Lk 3:7-9; Jn 8:39-48) The all Israel of lsa 45:25, "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified." "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord," Isa 54:13 is the same as that in Ro 11:26-27. Pertaining to it Paul quotes Isa 59:20-21: "All Israel shall be saved." "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my Covenant with them," and Paul paraphrases the obvious, "When I shall take away their sins." Isaiah is telling of what happened at the first coming of Christ. Peter preaching to the Jews in the temple declares the fulfillment of the same prophecy at Ac 3:25-26. Isaiah spoke of the new Israel upon whom God poured out his Holy Spirit and in whom Christ had planted God's word. (Cf. Isa 60:21 and 61:1-3.) The Deliverer certainly cleansed New Covenant Israel of all sins for only thus could they be filled with God's Spirit.
When quoting, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance," (Ro 11:29) some intonate this as a final dictum meaning, "even though they are enemies, God called Israel his people so they still are and cannot be lost." Actually, it would rather mean, If God called you, then make sure you work out your calling, for God will certainly have an accounting with you. But read 1Sa 2:30; Jer 18:1-12: "They said ... we will walk after our own devices," 19:1-11 and Ro 11:22. "Behold the goodness and severity of God: on them that fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, IF thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." These references should sober our thinking. See also Heb 2:1-3.
They are not all Israel who are of Israel. Neither are they Israel because they are children of Abraham for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. They of the promise are counted for the seed. If you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. In Christ all the families of the earth shall be blest. We are not children by a fluke, but we are heirs by immediate translation. The true Israel is not the type but the reality--the Church of Jesus Christ. They of the flesh do not serve God in Christ Jesus or obey his words.
Paul is talking to his Gentile brothers in Galatians, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was are the children of promise." Isaac was the Covenant one. lshmael in despising Isaac was cast out of the fellowship. Paul gives teaching of Christ by type found in Ge 21:1-12; Gal 4:19-31. Two women, two sons, two Jerusalems, two peoples. Hagar and Ishmael represented carnal Israel; Sarah and Isaac represented Christians. Nevertheless, "Cast out the bondwoman and her son, (the Jews) the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman." Apostate Israel even though they crucified the Lord of Glory is still called Israel and in Isaiah 1:9-10, they are called Sodom and Gomorrah. But Isaiah says, "Though the number of them be as the sand of the sea a remnant shall be saved." (Isa 8:14; 28:16)
cont......
