the mystery of israel and the church

8/6/2019 The Mystery of Israel and the Church

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The Mystery of Israel and the ChurchBy: Art Katz

Author's Preface

We are going to be taxed to the uttermost in order to stay with God in the extraordinary complexity and

richness of the subject of the mystery of Israel and the Church, and we need to ask the Lord to escort us on

a journey, by the Spirit of the Lord. Can we safely trust Him? Even if He will bewilder us before we have an

understanding?

The Church needs to have a proper attitude toward the mysteries of God, a sense of reverence and

appreciation for them, and a desire that they be revealed, because that revelation should influence everything

that we are about in God. God is jealous over His mysteries, and He is not going to allow them to be

mishandled, trifled with, or rudely examined by those who do not have a right disposition of spirit towardthem. Paul is not interested in promulgating a mystery in order that we should have our curiosity aroused,

but in order that the mystery might be effectually fulfilled and administered through the Church. We need to

have a revelation of the mysteries of God, to embrace and experience them, or we will be unfitted to be the

Church in its full apostolic constituency that alone is able to fulfill these mysteries. Mysteries are reserved

for holy apostles and prophets, and they must come to us through them; then the teachers can follow to sift,

refine and show the application.

With the introduction of this subject of the Church's role in the mystery of the restoration of Israel, the whole

faith comes into a new and intensive focus. That is what it did for me. I had been a believer for twenty-five

years, and I am Jewish, but that did not automatically give me any necessary insight into the mystery of

Israel. When the insight came, in a moment of God's choosing, in a season of death and humiliation, all of

my cherished pieces of knowledge and understanding of apostolic and prophetic things came together,

bringing coherence and cohesiveness to my understanding of the faith. When God inserted this key, it all

came together.

In Amos 9:14, and elsewhere in Scripture, God says,

I will restore the captivity of My people Israel [1], and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live inthem...

For a long time I used to think that these Scriptures referred to the cities of antiquity, the ancient cities, but

now I believe that God is referring to the present-day cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, etc. Jerusalem itself

shall be built upon its own rubble 'as unto the Lord,' which its present building programs are not doing. But

future, millennial Israel will be built 'as unto the Lord.' He will call them by a new name; He will give them a

crown, and they will be a diadem in His hand, and they will be called the ministers of the Lord:

In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew saying, "Let us go with

you, for we have heard that God is with you" (Zech. 8:23).

It will be a nation of "Pauls" released to the nations, fulfilling what Paul said:


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For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the

dead (Rom. 11:15).

They will be a nation of priests, finally coming into their irrevocable call, and being to the nations what God

intended for them from the first. It is the function of priests to teach the people the difference between the

sacred and the profane. We need priests who will plead, teach and persuade, under the anointing of God, to

save men from the wisdom of this world, and the things that disfigure mankind and rob them of reflecting

God's image. We have no idea how the world will be transfigured by the release of a nation of priests, and aswe shall see, the Church is at the heart of that release in the wisdom and mystery of God.

The author is sensibly aware that the contents of this book are not conducive to an easy, systematic

exegesis of this mystery. The subject matter has been compiled and collated from spoken messages on a

theme that is so all-encompassing and so interwoven with the great doctrines of the faith that one has rather

to be apprehended by its message than to seek to rationally understand the divine intention. It is with this in

view that I commend this first attempt at expressing this most holy mystery.

Art Katz

Laporte, MN

USA

December 2003

[1] The present, political state of Israel is indeed, and in every way, the nation of prophecy, but not yet thenation of promise. This text anticipates the millennial restoration of Israel, and we need to understand the

distinction.

Introduction

If the Church, particularly the Church of the Last Days, is indifferent to the theme and mystery of Israel, orrejects it, and chooses not to be an agent in its fulfillment, it loses its validity as Church. The issue of Israel

and the Jew is the foremost and central factor of God's end-time activity in the earth. The scriptures are full of

references to this; for example, in Romans 11:25, the apostle Paul writes, "For I do not want you, brethren,

to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation [conceits]," and we need,

therefore, to be alerted that there is something intended here for our consideration, the absence of which will

condemn us to a much less glorious place in our earthly sojourn. That is the nature of the mystery in God's

own wisdom. We are not saying that the Church would cease to hold services and conferences, but it would

disqualify itself as an apostolic[1] entity, and it is only as an apostolic entity that the predominantly GentileChurch can succeed in moving the Jew to jealousy in the Last Days.

We need to understand that there is a controversy over Israel and the Church, where many say that the

Church today is Israel, thereby dissolving the unique difference between the Church and Israel. Thismisconception robs God, therefore, of the glory that comes from the reciprocal relationship between the two.

We need to be watchful of this tendency. In a sense, it is true that the Church has been grafted into Israel's

tree, and we have become, so to speak, the Israel of God. And yes, we have come into theircommonwealth,

but that does not mean that the Church is Israel. There is yet a distinct, national destiny for that nation,

obtained primarily through the instrumentality of the Church at the end of the age, the obtaining of which, we

believe, ushers in the Lord's own Kingdom. If we blur these distinctions, we lose the glory of the reciprocal

relationship between Israel and the Church. We have to be jealous over this unique God-given difference, or

we will find ourselves, ironically, in opposition to God.

God's jealousy for the Church does not eliminate the distinctiveness of Israel as a special nation. She has a

yet unfulfilled and God-given call for a unique ministry in the world as a nation among nations. A promise was

made to Abraham that "in you [your seed] all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3f.).

Israel has a purpose that yet remains to be fulfilled as a 'kingdom of priests' (Exodus 19:6) and a 'light to the

nations' (Isaiah 42:6). Her strategic position is not confined to her past; nor has the Church absorbed it. It is

a vast conceit and mistake of the Church to see Israel only as a 'type' or a 'shadow,' and itself exclusively as


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the substance. That is one of the conceits about which Paul warned us in Romans 11:25. We may often find

rich sermon illustrations in Israel's history, but that is not the primary purpose in God's giving of those

scriptures; we rob God of His literal meaning, and that is what many have blindly done. Many see God's

dealings with Israel only as instruction, and yet completely ignore the fact that she still has a future destiny

as a nation.

The Church desperately needs to see Israel and the Jew as God Himself perceives them, and not as we

would desire to see them, which is too often from a sentimental perspective. We need to see the nation asthe prophet Ezekiel had to see her, namely, in the 'valley of dry bones' (Ezek. 37). Every valley, as we know,

is a place of depression, and if we do not have a stomach for the depressing, or unhappy aspect of truth, we

will find ourselves necessarily cut off from any kind of redemptive use in God. We have got to see as God

sees before we can speak as He speaks. In fact, as we shall see from the same Ezekiel 37 passage, our

corporate speaking as the prophetic 'son of man' company, in the mystery of God, at the end of the age, is

the whole issue of Israel's salvation and her resurrection from the 'dead.' The nation, Israel, is moving toward

that death even now, and does not understand the scenario that they themselves are fulfilling in their own

apostasy and alienation from God.

The subject of Israel calls for everything we are in God: mind, body, spirit and soul, as Paul concludes in

Romans 12:1-2,

I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holysacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to

this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God

is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

If we are not yet persuaded that we are living in the Last Days, then this remarkable drama will persuade us.

God's dealing with Israel is the focus of His Last Days' attention. It becomes, therefore, the issue of the

Church, and actually separates, in a sense, the true Church from that which is essentially false. In other

words, Israel becomes God's 'litmus test' for the Church. The Church that is authentically true takes a stand

for the Jew, for whom a Gentile should ordinarily have no natural affinity, especially in the face of peril and

death. In fact, the mandate to the Jew cannot be performed on the basis of natural affinity, and that is the

whole point. Sentimental and religious obligation, or whatever else presently motivates us to come to the aid

of the Jew, will not suffice here, only the uttermost spiritual authenticity. Overflowing, true faith and true love

of an abounding kind by the Church will be the requisite of God in our role toward that people. It will requirean uttermost preparation because we are confronted with a mandate that is demanding to the uttermost.

The outworking of this mystery is the concluding, historical act of God by which human history itself ends

and the millennial age commences. Everything, as we see it, hinges on the whole issue of Israel's

restoration. And the remarkable thing is that the Church, which is God's agent to restore them to their God,

is predominantly a Gentile Church. That is to say, there is no natural reason why a Gentile should have any

interest in this people, who, in their stubbornness, have given God all kinds of fits, and even to this day

deport themselves in a way that does not honor God, but defames His name, even in the land of Israel. Yet

their redemption is central to the purposes and wisdom of God! That is why Paul uses the word 'mystery.' It

is something that has been concealed in times past, but is now being revealed, and which defies all rational

understanding. It is as if God had gone out of His way to choose the most unlikely factors to succeed in His

own coming as a King. He will first be King over that restored nation before the "law can go forth out of Zionand the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem" (Isa. 2:3) to all nations. And He will do it in a way that seems

impossibly hopeless with an Israel who has no willingness to be chosen, a nation which has no apparent

interest in fulfilling its own destiny; in fact, she does not even care to consider it (Is. 1:3 and Is. 42:24-25)!

And the principal agent, in the wisdom of God, in bringing this about is a predominantly Gentile Church!

It is a remarkable divine strategy of God; and in order for it to succeed, the Church itself will become

transfigured. The crisis of Israel constitutes the Church's ultimate challenge, and compels the Church to a

place of ultimacy in a way it would never otherwise have considered Him. The centrality of the Cross needs

necessarily to be restored, along with the primacy of the Holy Spirit, the issue of true relationship of the

saints, as also the issue of truth itself. The only explanation of a Church willing to embrace a calling so

demanding as this is that the issue is not Israel alone, per se, but the glory of God that is obtained only

through Israel's redemption.

Of all the things God could have chosen to promote His glory in the Last Days, He chooses the most

untoward and difficult things, things that are so contrary to success, and He makes that His choice. The


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11:33 - 36).

In the wisdom and mystery of God, there is a reciprocal relationship and connection between the two that is

so profound, so inextricable, that neither the Church nor Israel will ever come to their ultimate fulfillment

independent of the other. God has locked us in, the one with the other. In fact, the issue of Israel, rightly

apprehended, becomes a vital hermeneutic or interpretative key to all the faith. The issue of Israel requires a

radical ecclesiology (a view of the Church); it requires a radical eschatology (a view of the Last Days); it

requires a radical pneumatology (a view of the Holy Spirit), all of which, in the absence of the mystery, havebeen reduced, denigrated and cheapened in our superficially charismatic generation.

The scriptures in Romans chapters 9-11 are terse, compact and intense, and put a great demand upon us to

draw out the meaning of them, which is not the least of God's purposes for giving them in the first place. God

wants us to be students of the Word; He wants us to draw out His intended meaning by the operation of His

Spirit and by our dependency upon Him. So much, if not everything in God, is the issue of revelation, and

revelation is the issue of the Spirit, and God is not going to give revelation to independent, arrogant

personalities, to those who want knowledge for the purpose of flaunting or exhibiting it. The revelations of

God are precious, but they are requiring, therefore, we need to approach these chapters in Paul's letter to

the Romans with humility, a right disposition of heart.

Paul's Pan of Praise

As mentioned, chapter 11 of Romans is the conclusion of Paul's enormous statement on Israel and the

Church, and it ends with a remarkable flow of praise. Paul's words bear such weight and content that he

does not have to look for any kind of rhetorical device to make his communication more impressive. The

words speak for themselves. When Paul becomes profuse, we need to know that something has burst in his

understanding, for which reason he cannot contain himself:

What is Paul celebrating and what he is so rapturous about? Evidently, Paul, in reviewing this great mystery,

cannot contain himself any longer. He breaks out, "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and

knowledge of God!" Something has broken upon his consciousness that even language strains to express.

We need to ask ourselves, "Why have we not become equally as rapturous?" Until we break forth in this kind

of exclamation, we have not yet seen what Paul has seen. Until we do, we can assure you, our perception of

ourselves as the Church will be transfigured. Paul has caught a glimpse of the wisdom of God, not only with

regard to Israel, but even more so with regard to the Church's relationship to Israel, which is the only way tosee the Church in its deepest and fullest identity.

The identity of the Church, we believe, cannot be known in any deeply authentic way except in conjunction

with its relationship to Israel. The same thing is equally true for Israel; her identity cannot be realized

independent of that of the Church! The issue, however, is much more than Israel's deliverance and restoration

to the Land after millennia of apostasy and alienation from God. As great an event as that will be, more

importantly, Israel's return or acceptance will be, as Paul says in this very chapter, life from the dead (Rom.

11:15). Can you conceive of a phrase that is more potent than that? As an essential aspect of the Second

Advent, it is as great a miracle in its historical significance as the very resurrection of the Lord Jesus

Himself! That is why Paul uses the language of death and resurrection. He is not a man to merely adopt the

language of resurrection as a metaphor to make a point. The restoration of Israel will be just as great an

event in magnitude as the resurrection of the Lord Himself, and it will come about by exactly the same

power. Present-day Israel, therefore, and unbeknownst to herself, is on her way unto 'death.' This is not byaccident. God's very design is that the nation, or as we shall see, a surviving remnant of that nation, be

raised from the 'dead' in a quite literal way, in order that their return might be openly displayed as 'life from

the dead.'

To Him be the Glory

When Paul ends his great doxology with, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him

be the glory forever. Amen" (Rom. 11:36), we need to pause, because it is a divinely inspired pronouncement

that speaks volumes. It gives us an entry and glimpse into the genius of what the apostolic distinctive itself

is. We need to desire, to seek and to rescue this distinctive, or we will have no Church worthy of that word.

Until that word glory has a place in us in the same measure as it had in Paul, there will be no possibility of

our walking in apostolic understanding. The hallmark of a true apostle is this issue of the glory of God. If wehad to just pick one thing from all that we could say about Paul: his remarkable erudition, his deep

knowledge of the mysteries of God, his selfless service, his labors, his fasting, his counsel or his writing, it


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would, of necessity, have to be his profound and intense jealousy for the glory of God. The apostolic genius,

or mindset, is Christ fully formed in a man whose whole life has been given over, who has counted all things

as dung, including his own Jewish brilliance and natural abilities, that he may gain Christ. Even this phrase,

"For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things," is an accurate statement of Paul's own life. In

other words, Paul's fascination and preoccupation with the subject of Israel is not due to his being Jewish,

but due to his profound apostolic jealousy for the glory of God. God has revealed to him that the issue of

Israel is designed to reveal that glory. Paul chooses Israel because God desires to be known as the God of

Israel. The question at the end of the age is, "Will we be willing to choose what God chooses, though all theworld be offended at God's choice?"

The Wisdom of God as Mystery

A mystery can only be understood by being revealed, but will God reveal His mysteries to Gentile hearts that

are contemptuous of Israel or who have no delight in seeing her future restoration? What would one say of a

Church that is indifferent to the subject of Israel? Would that indifference not constitute the very conceit of

which Paul warned? Can a Church that is conceited yet be the Church in any true way? Or, if the Church is

the Body of Christ, of which He is the Head, and therefore shows forth the character of Him who is the Head,

namely, the humility of God, can it be the Church and be conceited at the same time? It can conduct

services and be known as, and called a church, but can it be authentically the Church, especially at the

consummation of this age?

Conceit is a deadly thing, and a synonym for conceit is pretension. In fact, could there be any greater

pretension than for the Church to think that it itself is Israel, and see itself as replacing Israel, because it

believes that Israel is finished? Once it takes to itself the identity of Israel, it is not too far from taking on

another identity and presumption, namely, that it is the Kingdom. Then, it does not have to wait for the

coming of the King, because it sees itself, as the Church, as being already 'the Kingdom come.' If we allow

the leaven of conceit to blind us to this one mystery, then we set in motion a series of things that actually

disfigures us to the degree that we are not the Church anymore, and puts us, ironically, in opposition to the

very purposes of God Himself, even ostensibly in God's own name! We become so conceited that we are

blinded to our error and condition.

In His great wisdom, God takes the most foolish, the most despicable and the most distasteful thing to the

Church, which is the unsaved Jew, and makes him a major key to the Church's sanity and character. Andthe Church, composed essentially of Gentiles, likewise the most foolish, the most despicable and the most

distasteful thing to an unsaved Jew, is the instrumentality and the chosen agency of God for Israel's

deliverance and restoration in the Last Days. This is at the heart of the mystery, namely, that God must

choose, and has chosen, the foolish and least likely thing, humanly speaking.

From the Jewish perspective, Gentiles are to be despised and looked upon with contempt, as being morally

less than what Jews are, and historically, they have every reason to harbor this attitude. Through the ages, it

has been Gentiles who have inflicted suffering of every kind upon them, even in the name of Christ: the

Crusaders with the white crosses on their tunics, the Spanish Inquisition, the forced conversions under

Catholicism, the expulsions, the pogroms, the Holocaust. We have no idea how horrendous the Christian

Church's relationship with the Jew has been through the ages. There is nothing more repelling and more

repugnant to the Jew than the name of Christ, because it was in that name that they have been historicallypersecuted, driven out, hunted down and burned at the stake. With that history of violence and bloodshed,

however, it is still the Church whom God has chosen to be the agent of Israel's earthly deliverance in her final

time of chastisement known as the Time of Jacob's Trouble (Jeremiah 30 & 31). But as we shall see, it is a

Church, then, of a particular and peculiar kind.

The issue of Israel, and the need for the Church to identify with that people, itself brings the whole issue of

the Last Days before the Church. What kind of a Church will we choose to be? Do we want to succeed on

the denominational, institutional model, or do we go for the heavenly and authentic thing? Will we stand for

God and His purposes, even though it brings hostility against us? If we are neutral, or worse, indifferent to

God's purposes for Israel, we nullify ourselves as the Church toward the Jew. It is much more than the issue

of an ethnic nation; it is rightly the issue of the faith which, in turn, is the issue of God!

This is how important the subject of Israel is. It is just as wrong, however, to regard Israel from a sentimental

view as from a view that totally rejects it. Both views are wrong. There is only one view that is right, namely,

the apostolic view of the mystery as Paul saw it, and which needs again to be communicated, understood

and received. The strains and the pressures of the Last Days, as they will come upon the Church with regard


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to Israel, cannot be sustained on the basis of human sentiment. No natural affinity for Jews, or Israel, will

have the strength to carry the weight that God will ask us to bear; therefore, no other attitude towards Israel

will suffice than that which is apostolic.

Somehow, as we have said, the failure to understand this mystery opens us to a particular conceit. It has

been our observation that the Church at large, particularly in its charismatic forms, is largely conceited,

puffed up, inflated and more or less views the faith in a self-centered, self-aggrandizing way, for the benefit

that can be derived out of it for oneself. Such a disposition condemns us to conceit over this mystery as wellas conceit overall the mysteries of the faith. Ignorance of this one comprehensive mystery is a guarantee for

the Church to become inflated in its estimation of itself. Conceit is antithetical to the Kingdom and to the

character of God. God's counter-provision as antidote is the mystery of Israel. Mystery is something that has

to be given to those who will receive it, who are contrite and broken in spirit. Only a heart with such a

disposition can apprehend and be apprehended by this mystery.

In the wisdom of God, the Church will never be the Church in the apostolic and prophetic stature and fullness

of God's intention, independent of the mandate that God has exclusively reserved for it with regard to His

people Israel. God chose an obdurate and resistant people, the Jew, who is symbolically a statement of all

mankind. In fact, Paul calls them "the enemies of the gospel" and then he adds, for your sake (Rom. 11:28).

The Church needs to hear that. Have you witnessed to a Jew lately? They are unsparingly sharp and critical.

They can see right through our shallow and comical tele-evangelists while we continue to dote and palpitate

over them, even sending our contributions in to support them.

The Jewish apostle Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, to communicate this mystery, because in the

process of taking up its mandate of being Israel's earthly 'deliverer,' the Church attains its eschatological

fullness as the Church. And it attains that fullness because the mandate is so ultimately requiring, so

extraordinarily sacrificial, and makes such an ultimate demand. Jews are tough and resistant, but in the very

act of being faithful to God's requirement toward Israel, the Church demonstrates what has always been its

calling. But the Church cannot fulfill its mandate and requirement except it comes to full apostolic and

prophetic stature in itself, which is to say, authentic, through and through.

Moving Israel to Jealousy

Every card is stacked against the Church if we are to move the Jew to jealousy in the Last Days. Every

historical thing is against us, yet Paul tells us that "salvation has come to the Gentiles, [so as] to makethem jealous (Romans 11:11)." What kind of a Church can conceivably move Israel to jealousy? You will

have to be an extraordinary saint not to join the increasing chorus of anti-Semitic hatred that already is

becoming global in a soon-coming time. And, except that we are extraordinary saints that can love a people

who are unlovely and antagonistic, we will be swept up together with the world in its opposition to this people.

We are moving, clearly, toward a radical conclusion of the age. Centrifugal factors and forces are tirelessly

working to polarize and to radicalize, and we are daily allowing ourselves to be brought to the one ground or

the other. There are decisions being made, of which we might not even be aware, that are fraught with

significance in that they are either moving us more radically toward God or more radically away from God.

We will either end up apostate or apostolic, for there will be no neutral ground. The word 'apostate' is not

limited to men with fists clenched in anger at God, but includes the countless millions found in church pews,

mindlessly singing choruses and hymns.Paul continues with the mystery,

...that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and

thus all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25-26a).

This 'fullness of the Gentiles' is not so much the designation of a time frame, but the fulfillment of an event, or

the consummation of the Church's missionary objective in the world. God is waiting for a certain number of

believers from all nations of both a qualitative and quantitative kind. To believe that the Church has the

responsibility to save nations, per se, is naive and conceited. The Church's mission task is no more than to

"save from among the Gentiles a people for His name" (Acts 15:14). The evangelization of the nations, per se,

will become Israel's task when she becomes the first nation saved and restored to a relationship with God.

Israel's restoration, therefore, waits on something outside of herself, namely, a certain fullness of Gentiles

from among the nations. How many of us in our missionary endeavors link the two things together? "Whenthe fullness of the Gentiles comes in," something is released that has been held in abeyance that means

deliverance for Israel. Israel is not itself the agent of her own deliverance and restoration, nor can she be.


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Something has to happen to effect her restoration, and which must come from outside of her. We are

suggesting that it comes when a certain requirement has been met by a Church come of age, releasing the

Deliverer who comes out of Zion.

whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by

the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time (Acts 3:21).

And thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, 'The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will

remove ungodliness from Jacob' (Romans 11:26).

This phrase, 'just as it is written,' brings in a whole new issue, namely, the fulfillment of God's Word. As

remarkable as Israel's restoration back to God will be, it is not the primary issue. A God who has given a

word and a promise, and cannot, or will not fulfill it, is no longer God as God. God's name and character,

therefore, are at stake! When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, God is released, and Jacob is acted

upon.

God is going to restore to Himself, and to their Land, a people who have been thousands of years in

apostasy. They stoned the prophets that were sent to them; they crucified the Lord of Glory. They have

supplied the world with the likes of Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, and have given us a present-day Israel

that is utterly secular, and who trusts wholly in the arm of her own flesh. Can such a nation be restored? Can

God pull it off? Yes, He is going to pull it off, not in a corner, but before the face of all nations. That means

there will no longer be the option of Islam or Hinduism, or whatever other deception one chooses to embrace.God will have revealed Himself exclusively as the God of Israel, the God of the patriarchs, and the God of His

Word, and He will save His ancient people out of 'death' and extremity supernaturally. The nations that

observe both the 'death' of Israel and her restoration unto life will be without excuse as to who God, in fact,

really is. After that, anyone who still insists on worshipping Allah, or another, will have judged themselves

eternally.

God is letting this one issue be the eternal factor. Everything comes to a head in a point of time, exposing

who, in fact, we are, and where we are in God, as revealed in our response, of all things, to world Jewry in

that moment of historical extremity. It is one thing to think ourselves spiritual, but when the 'fat is in the fire,'

what is revealed, in that hour, is the statement of where we are in God. The Church has a responsibility not

to miss its mandate, for if they will not extend mercy to the Jews in the time of Jacob's trouble, neither will

the Jews obtain it.

Chapter 2 - The Heart Cry of Paul

By and large, chapters 9 through 11 of Paul's letter to the Romans bewilder commentators and theologians.

They do not know how or why these chapters were included, or whether or not they are just a parenthesis

that is to be circumvented and leaped over. Everything from chapters 1 through 8, however, is preparation for

chapters 9 through 11, and everything that follows in chapters 12 through 16 is the practical outworking of

what went before chapters 9, 10 and 11. In fact, the very first verse of chapter 12 begins by saying:

I urge [plead with] you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living

and holy sacrifice...(Parenthesis and emphasis mine, here and throughout).

This implies that chapters 9 through 11 are not going to be fulfilled short of that kind of ultimate and

sacrificial living on the part of the saints who take the text seriously.

Chapter 9 begins with a great cry to which there is no comparison, except the cry of Moses, who was,

himself, also willing to be blotted out for this same people:

For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my

kinsmen according to the flesh (Rom. 9:3).

That cry has a very important application for today, especially with regard to the popular 'two-covenant theory'

that is currently being promulgated, which teaches that either God is finished with Israel, and that we, as the

Church, are the inheritors of their promises, or, equally deceptive, that God has another covenant for Israel,

and that we need not occupy ourselves with it. By implication, therefore, we, as the Church, have the new

covenant, while Israel has its own covenant, called the old covenant. For the


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Church to hold this view with regard to Israel is to thereby absolve itself from all obligation and responsibility

toward the Jew. It believes that God will magically do His independent and sovereign will toward the Jew at

the end of the age without any participation by the Church at all. And the Church, therefore, believes and

acts as though their beliefs and actions will have no bearing on the unfolding of the events in these Last

Days, or as many believe, the Church will not even be present in the earth at that time.[2]

This is, in our estimation, a tragic view, and it is certainly not God's way. In the subsequent chapters of this

book, we are going to see that the Church is the explicit agent, chosen of God, to obtain the restoration ofIsrael to their God and to their Land in the Last Days. When you see the magnitude of this, knowing Israel's

historical opposition to the gospel and their Messiah, you begin to realize that it will require a Church of an

ultimate kind. In fact, it has got to be a Church that, to some significant degree, even takes Paul's own heart

cry, stated above, as its own. A Church that merely gives mental assent to the significance of Israel, but has

not the heart for that people, which Paul exhibits in his cry, cannot possibly succeed in being the instrument

of God for their salvation.

In Christ

How does Paul come to this disposition of heart and spirit? How does he have such a compassion and

attitude toward the Jew? From where does he get his great concern for their eternal salvation, so much so

that he is willing himself to be cut off from Christ, thus losing his own salvation, and willing to bearsubstitutionally their judgment, as Christ Himself before him, if only they could be saved? The answer lies

solely, we believe, in Paul's union with Christ. It is certainly not his intrinsic Jewishness by birth that

explains this compassionate disposition. Paul writes,

I am telling the truth in Christ, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 9:1).

Twice in his very first statement, and without a self-conscious design to impress anyone, he reveals his

secret, namely, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit. This is the beauty of an apostolic man. He is making a

statement of such a strenuous and ultimate kind, that someone would be tempted to dismiss it as Paul in

his ethnic Jewishness identifying with his own nation. But, if so, it would have the effect of absolving Gentile

believers from needing to have a corresponding disposition when they themselves are not ethnically Jewish.

Indeed, Paul's basis for the depth of his compassion is not his natural identification with this people, but, as

we have said, his union with Christ. It is precisely this basis that needs to be ours as well. In fact, the whole

challenge of these scriptures is to compel us to that relationship with Christ, which, otherwise, we might nothave earnestly enough sought.

To be in Christ, both in your emotions and will, even to the point of being considered an anathema, means to

be devoid of any self-concern, even concern for your eternal destiny. There is no way to come to that place,

except by a complete separation at the Cross. In the last analysis, and whenever we scratch deeply enough,

every issue of the faith is always the issue of the Cross. We need to be discerning and recognize that this

issue is implicit right here from the beginning of chapter 9 of Romans. And if this is true for the apostle, then

it has got to be true for the whole apostolic people that Israel will meet in the wilderness places as they are

sifted through the nations at the end of the age (Amos 9:9). As we shall see, Jews are once again going to

be dispersed throughout the world, and they have got to see believers of this separated kind, because to see

this kind of believer is to see Christ! It is this recognition that brings them into the bond of the covenant. As

we shall see, it is in the wilderness of the nations that they will meet with Him face to face (Ezekiel 20:35).

So, it is not by natural sentiment that Paul expresses himself; he speaks as a man in Christ. In fact, the

phrase 'in Christ' is one of Paul's favorite phrases. And it is not a mindless phrase; it is a statement that is

the foundation of Paul's whole apostolic life. There is a way to be 'in Christ' that God has made available by

our identification with Him in his death and resurrection that He intends as the root principle of the

authentically spiritual life. On the other hand, there is a kind of Christianity in which we can embrace

principles, quote Scripture, and invoke choruses, but we are living our lives essentially in ourselves and

through ourselves; we are living a Christian life naturally. It has become a Christian form, even culture, and

perhaps that is what has prevailed in Christendom in recent generations, and particularly now. And every

great move of God has always been a cry to bring people out of a Christianity that had degenerated into a

mere culture, and to bring it back again into its vital power, by living in His life.

If Paul spoke as a man in Christ, then there is hope for us, and that we too can speak as Paul, we can live

as Paul; we too can be in Christ, and have the mind of Christ and the character of Christ, and the ability and

the strength of Christ. The genius of the faith is that God has intentionally called us to things that are


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patently beyond ourselves.

In a word, we will never be God's salvific agency to Israel in the Last Days except on the basis of being 'in

Christ.' God is concerned for Israel's restoration, but He is also concerned for the Church's transfiguration! He

is not content that we should be mere 'respectable' Christians. He gave His life for more than that; His call to

us is to be formed in Him, and to be Christ-like, particularly in the Last Days when men's hearts will fail them

for fear when they see the things that are coming upon the earth. We will need to be islands of sanity,

people of such faith that we are not at all moved, depressed or defeated by external circumstances; that wewill be in a place in Christ that is triumphant. And when crisis-ridden Jews see this demonstration before

their eyes, they will be arrested!

There is a yet greater mystery of which what we have been saying is only the beginning and the paradigm,

namely, the reconciling of all things unto Himself, both in heaven and on earth. The work of the Cross was

the work of atonement, of oneness with God and reconciliation: ourselves with God, ourselves with ourselves,

and the Jew and the Gentile as one new man. This is the model for all the world, and then for all things, both

in heaven and earth, to be reconciled unto Him. This is God's full 'Salvation History.'

Paul speaks in Christ as a man whose whole being is renewed and illumined, and a man who at the very

time of writing is conscious of being under the direct operation of God's Spirit. This is God's own cry. It is not

as a natural man, but as a spiritual man; it is not as a Jew, but as an Israelite indeed in whom there is no

guile; it is as an inspired apostle that he speaks. And it is as an inspired apostolic people that God would

have us to speak, and to be and to have our being. Our whole vision for the faith and for the Church needs to

be greatly enlarged, and brought back to God's original intention, because it has degenerated, more than we

realize, into a mere Sunday culture.

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit

(Rom. 9:1).

Who would ever think that the apostle would, or even could, lie? How would you like to live like that, not just

with regard to the Jews, but in everything? In fact, if we do not live like that consistently before the advent of

the Last Days' trials of the Jews, then be assured, we are not going to find it when the Last Days are upon

us. Conscience is a mechanism that God has implanted in mankind as a device to keep us from the evil that

would otherwise consume us. We need to be brought to a place in God, where our consciences are so

sensitive, that a wrong word, a wrong look, a gesture, a thought or disposition of spirit stops us immediately.

That I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart (Rom. 9:2).

This implies that the rejection of Christ has grievous consequences, and unquestionably, Paul is looking, as

Jesus did when He wept over Jerusalem, to the future of what that rejection would mean.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my

kinsmen according to the flesh...(Rom. 9:3).

These are the same brethren who said of Paul that he was not fit to live, and who vowed neither to eat nor

drink until Paul was dead. To have this kind of a sensitive and tender regard for the same people who are out

for your life is a remarkable thing. It is a revelation of the extraordinary Christ-likeness of Paul, and this kind

of character is what God is after in the whole of His people, His Church. The point is that we cannot dismiss

this, saying that this is just some Jew pleading for his own; this is the apostolic man whose proximity to the

heart of God and whose knowledge of God are so deep that he is expressing God's own heart! And if the

apostles and the prophets are the foundation of the Church, and if the Church is built on that foundation, God

can reasonably expect that we too should see as Paul sees, cry as Paul cries, take Paul's apostolic heart

for our own, in having as much privileged access to God as Paul himself had!

My kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites...(verses 3b-4a).

There is a difference between Israelites and Israel, because later we are going to read that not all Israel is

Israel, though all are Israelites. One is a physical, generic and ethnic description, and the other is a spiritual

statement. Not every Israelite is the 'Israel of God,' but every Israelite is an ethnic Jew making up the past

and present nation of Israel.

Israel's Privileges

...to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law

and the temple service and the promises... (Rom. 9:4).

This is a people who are not only missing their salvation, but also their call and the privileges that belong to

them alone. In their rejection of Christ, they are acting contrary to every advantage to which God has


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uniquely called them as a nation from among all nations. This reference to 'sons' goes back to Exodus 4:23

where Moses was commanded by God to say to Pharaoh, "Let My son go that he may serve Me." God was

speaking of Israel as an entire people, and the privilege was to have God as Father.

...And the glory...

In Israel's Old Testament experience, the glory of God was not an abstract figure of speech, but a visual and

experienced phenomenon. Whenever they saw the glory, they fell on their faces and cried out, "The Lord, He

is God; the Lord, He is God." The fire that fell was the glory of God. At other times the glory filled the templein such a way that the priests had to come out, unable to minister. The mountain that was wreathed with fire,

the cloud by day and the fire by night, which were continually with them for forty years, were also visible

manifestations of His glory. Glory and presence are one and the same thing. For us it is all too often

hypothetical and an allusion to something theoretical, but never actual. It is for that reason we do not have a

jealousy for the glory of God. We tend to think of the glory of God as some kind of an abstraction, some kind

of ethereal thing that is not visible or demonstrable. God wants, however, to fill His house with His glory, and

we can probably say that it is the absence of any sense of God's glory that accounts for the shallow

condition of the Church today. There simply is no fear of God, because the glory also inspires the fear.

...Whose are the fathers...

What a distinguished lineage of men like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with whom we have a continuum-men

who knew God and walked with God!

...And from whom is the Christ...

Paul cannot resist bringing in this last great glory, namely, the coming of the Messiah out of Israel.

...According to the flesh...

That is to say, Jewish flesh.

...who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen (Rom. 9:5).

Everything has been rejected. In fact, if they had properly esteemed, maintained and kept their adoption as

sons, the priestly service, the covenants and the promises, then they would have likely been prepared for,

and been able to recognize, their Messiah. The Messiah's coming revealed the covenantal failure that had

had a much longer history. The sin of Israel's rejection of her Messiah and the bringing of Him to death,

awesome though it is, is not so much the sin in itself as it is a final statement of a much longer history of

apostasy and alienation from God. The apostasy of Israel had its final crystallization and expression in the

tragic rejection of Messiah unto death, which was the final statement, the culmination of their long history of

turning their backs on their adoption as sons, the priestly service, the covenants and the promises. Paul's

great sorrow and unceasing grief are the whole recognition of that.

The theme of this letter, then, begins with Paul stricken in his grief, and if he did not begin in that way, then

it is safe to say that nothing else would have followed. Paul as the quintessential apostolic man is the

pattern for the entire Church. God is calling the Church to an apostolic stature and mode of being, and this

grief, as it hurts the honor of God, over Israel's apostasy is one of the deepest expressions of it. Paul is not a

man debating in his mind the things that might bless the Church two thousand years later; he is a man who

is being utterly unselfconscious, and it is this very thing that truly reveals the depth of his union with Christ.

By every logical reasoning, the man who was the principal persecutor of the Jewish believers would have

carried out that same hostility, not now against the Church, but against his own unbelieving kinsmen. In hisnatural humanity, he would have retaliated against them in kind, in the way that they were against him, but

we see the profound transformation of the man. Likewise, the issue of the Jew is God's provision for the

transformation of the Church, and we will not obtain it independent of Israel. It is clear that there is a

sanctification that works continually, but the depth of it is reserved for that final relationship with Israel and

the Church's own conscious, willful preparation and anticipation of that relationship.

[2] A booklet is being prepared to elaborate our position on the issue of the time of the Church's rapture(Author).

Chapter 3 - Israel and the Election of God

From verse 6 of Romans chapter 9, Paul rolls up his sleeves and begins to dig into the great issues that are


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raised by Israel's rejection of her Messiah. The fact that Israel could reject her own promised Messiah and

Deliverer according to her own scriptures has got to be one of the greatest anomalies and contradictions of

the history of mankind. That God Himself foresaw, even ordained it, is staggering in its proportions. Even

more significant is the question of God's apparent failure: How could God and His Word fail?

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from

Israel; neither are they all children because they are Abraham's descendants, but: "Through Isaac

your descendants will be named." That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God,

but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is a word of promise: "At thistime I will come, and Sarah shall have a son" (Rom. 9: 6-9).

The same apostolic man whose heart is grieved over Israel and its lost condition, and who wishes that he

himself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his Jewish kinsmen, is as grieved over the

question of God's honor and the truth of His word. Paul's jealousy for the glory of God, His name, His honor

and His faithfulness to His word makes him to grieve over the unsaved condition of his kinsmen; this is the

apostolic heart. He is grieved that Israel's failure to recognize their Messiah would appear to be a demerit

against God; and that the people who were appointed and called sons, and who were given the privileges of

adoption, the covenants, the promises, the glory and the ministry of the Temple, are bringing, by their

unbelief, a reproach against God and a blasphemy against His name.

But if God's word fails, then God is no longer God; for God is eminently the God of the word, the God of the

word of the covenant, and the God of the word of promise. If He cannot keep the word that He Himself gave,

then that is the end of God as God. This is the great enigma. How could God's word have failed? Can God

fail? Can God's word fail? These are the great, theological problems that Paul had to answer for the Church

in Rome and, by extension, all the churches in every generation. He is thrust, therefore, into an uncanny and

precarious place, and has got to wrestle his way through.

The Israel of God

Paul begins to answer them by showing that the failure is not with God's word. God's word will succeed. The

fact that the nation rejected the Messiah is not the statement of the failure of God's word. It shows, rather,

that not all the nation was Israel. It is more than the issue of being naturally Israel and being descended from

Abraham. Ishmael was also a son, but it does not make him the 'Israel of God.' As Paul says in verse 8,

...it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God (Rom. 9:8).

A Jew may be a physical descendant of Abraham, but that does not automatically make him a candidate for

glory. The fact that Israel has rejected the Messiah shows that they were not among the elect; it was just as

much a statement then as it is now. If a Jew or a Gentile is unregenerate, he is neither the child of promise,

nor the descendant of Isaac. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul uses the phrase 'the Israel of God' (Galatians

6:16) to indicate something beyond, or other than, just ethnic Jews.

Paul continues to probe deeper into an unfolding of the genius of God in all of this. What seems to be

disappointment and failure on God's part is shown by Paul to be the revelation of God's glory. In the

outworking of His whole redemptive purpose, there always seems to be two tracks, as has been suggested

historically through the choosing of Jacob and the rejection of Esau, or the choosing of Isaac and the

rejection of Ishmael. It is the true, the chosen and the called, as opposed to that which appears to be all the

above, but is rejected of God. It is no coincidence that the thing rejected by God often seems to have all the

right credentials. But from the beginning of His whole salvation history, God is showing that He will choose

whom He will choose; it is not our democratic notions of what we think is fair. God's whole intention through

Israel is to show mankind that He is God, sovereignly God!

Mankind is so stubborn and self-willed in his own categories that nothing less than what God will actually

demonstrate at the end of the age, in the choosing and sifting of the Israel of God, will reveal how much God

is God, even to the nominally Christian nations.

I AM WHO I AM

When Moses asked God to name Himself to the people of Israel, God replied,

"I am who I am," and "...The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." This is My name forever, and this is My memorial name

to all generations" (Exodus 3:14a, 15b).

'I am who I am' is also taken to mean, 'I will be who I will be,' which is to say, 'I will do what I will do' because


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because of Him who calls, it was said to her, "The older will serve the younger" (Rom. 9:11b-12).

Not only is God repudiating conventional Jewish wisdom, but also His own ordinance, because in Hebraic

life, the first-born is rightly the inheritor:

Just as it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What shall we say then? There is no injustice

with God, is there? May it never be! (Rom. 9:13-14).

God has a preference that is not affected by what either of these two men did. The choice was God's beforethey were capable of doing anything. How should we understand that? God has made a choice, but the

choice is not predicated upon performance, which is the very basis upon how we esteem men. But God is

not God on that basis. God has spoken, therefore, let every mouth be stopped. God has called. God has

chosen. That is the issue.

And this is from the very inception of Israel's history and the bringing forth of a Jacob who, however intense

he was in wanting the spiritual inheritance and blessing, could not obtain it by his natural birthright. He

obtained it only by the forfeiture of his strength when he wrestled with the angel of God and was made lame.

Only then did he become Israel. Only the lame find favor with God, not man in his works, nor man in his sap

and in his humanity. God works through the weakness of men, indeed, His strength is made perfect in

weakness. The great principles of the faith that are described in the New Testament are already explicated in

the Old, for He is the same God. The issue of Israel, therefore, is the issue of God as nothing else is

calculated to reveal Him. It is not because of Israel's qualification or their deserving, but because of God'schoosing.

So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy

(Rom. 9:16).

Man is so triumphant in his flesh and egoism that God, in wanting to make His point, has chosen to

demonstrate Himself in His dealings with Israel, a people who exemplify man in the flesh. Jacob is the

quintessence of the man of flesh, even in his spiritual aspiration, and therefore he requires the most

strenuous dealing in order that, at the end of the age and for all eternity, all creation will know that God is

God. Israel is chosen to reveal Him as His witness people, not in their success, but eminently in their failure.

That lesson is so eternally necessary for all mankind that God does not think it too elaborate to use Israel as

an illustration throughout her whole painful history. She will be saved by the mercy of God through a Churchwho themselves have been dealt with by God. It is only by Israel's shameful rejection of her Messiah that the

questions revealing the deeper mystery are opened, and that is true for all of us. It is in the failure, the

disappointment and the thing that defies what we had hoped for, even spiritually, that the greater thing is

opened.

The Judgment and Mercy of God

Paul is negotiating through very difficult statements, but that is his great task. His reasoning, interpretation

and use of Old Testament scriptures sometimes seems arbitrary, or he will quote the Old Testament from

the Septuagint, the Greek rendering, which often 'seems' not even quite accurate, but he will bend it to make

a point that he is seeking with complete confidence that this is God's perspective. He is handling

extraordinary concepts that have to do with God's judgment and His mercy that, on the face of it, seem to

present an image of God as being ruthless. It would appear that God created a certain people as vessels for

destruction and others for mercy in order that His glory might be revealed. What kind of a God is it who

makes men His device to reveal what He wants to reveal about Himself in a seemingly cruel manner? How

do we reconcile that with a God whom we know is 'just and righteous altogether?'

God is mercy, and He manifests what and who He is in His acts. God does what He is. That is not always

true for us! We can put on a nice face and be cordial and polite while all the time our hearts are set on

something else. But God is One, inseparable and indivisible, much the same as the seamless garment that

Jesus wore. He is one through and through. He is mercy, and we know it because He demonstrates it, and

that is how we know what He is in Himself. When the Church is like that, we will have 'arrived.' When the

world sees what we as the Church do and are, and that those are one and the same because there is no

disparity or contradiction between our words, our conduct and our character, then we will have come to the

place that God is after.

The Name of God


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For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power

in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." (Rom. 9:17).

This is more than a mere vocalization. Jesus said in John 17, "I have revealed Your name." It is a form of

language unique to the scriptures, but it is getting at something that we, as modern people, have lost sight

of. God is jealous for His name. A name is indicative of the character of the one who bears it. To proclaim

His name, therefore, is to let the earth and the nations know who God, in fact, is. His name is in keeping

with what He is in Himself. Jesus was saying, "I have set You forth as God. I am showing people who andwhat the Father is by the way in which I have deported Myself." We read that God raised Pharaoh up that He

might bring him down. The judgments on Egypt were horrendous. God displayed His power to deliver His

people from a Pharaoh king that would not let them go, "that he [Israel] might serve Me" (Exodus 4:23b). To

serve God is to proclaim His name throughout the earth.

So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me

then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man,

who answers back to God? (Rom. 9:18-20a).

Paul construes raising a question about God as being the same as answering back to God. Do we realize

how often our raising a question to God is a form of rebellion rather than a request for information? We are

really provoking God, if not mocking Him. What we are saying is that His way does not make sense to us.

The greatest surrender and submission to God is to not raise the question at all, but to simply submit to the

truth of God as it pleases Him to express it. In this instance, to raise a question is itself a statement ofrebellion, where no question ought to have been raised at all, because God is God and "Who are you, O

man?"

These questions are implying that no one has a legitimate argument with God. After all, He has got the

power, and though we do not agree and do not really like what He chooses and what He has mercy on, who

has an argument with Him? It is striking a note of contempt and saying, "If I could, I would really take issue,

but since He is God and I cannot really battle with Him, I will just surrender." But it is surrender with

clenched teeth, a begrudging condescension, and not the surrender of a sweet-spirited yielding before a God

who alone is right.

The Holy Spirit is giving Paul the quintessence of man in his naked rebellion against God, summed up in the

terseness of this question, "Who is He then that we should argue against Him?" In an imagined statement it

bespeaks the condition of man, not only in the time of Paul, but for all generations.Who are you, O man, who answers back to God? (Rom. 9:20a).

What an affront! It is a remarkable impertinence to answer back to God.

The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? (Rom. 9:20b).

Yes, it will, if it is yet carnal!

Or does not the potter have the right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for

honorable use, and another for common use? (Rom. 9:21).

If the potter makes something from the clay, but it does not come out right, then he is free to smash it and

to rework it. It is his prerogative, and we do not argue with a potter. Just to be, and not to be productive, is a

great stigma of shame in our performance and production-oriented world. It is because we are unwilling to

bear that shame that we, as the clay, take ourselves off the shelf and do our own thing. We end up formingour own image of God and performing our own functions instead of bearing the suffering of waiting. 3

The Revelation of God's Glory

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with

much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make

known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory (Rom.

9:22-23).

What do you think of a God who, in order to make His power and glory known, will demonstrate something

through wrath and judgment? What if God is that God, then what? Is He still your God? What if God would

go so far as to employ wrath and judgment to make His power, His name and His glory known? Paul raises

this very question. What if He is not the God you would like Him to be, and He would go so far as to employwrath to bring His purposes to pass? We are not playing with a little, chintzy word here. Biblical wrath or the

judgment of God is devastating, and what if He will go so far as to employ it to make His power known, since

that is the revelation of His glory? Paul's question is a weighted and calculated offense against our religious


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sensibilities with regard to how we would like God to be and to be known.

If we have a problem with the wrath of God, we need to see it as it was demonstrated at the Cross. The

Cross is the final statement of God in His wrath, and the ultimate contradiction of all religious categories.

The wrath of God for the sins of mankind was visited upon Jesus in utter devastation, so much so, that He

could hardly be recognized as a man. When you see that 16th century, glorious Holy Spirit masterpiece, The

Isenheim Altar,4 painted by Grnewald, you would think you were looking at an animal more than a man.

The figure of Christ looks so deranged; the body is so elongated, so grotesque and broken that you wonderwhether it is a man or some groveling beast. Will God go that far? What if God, in order to show His glory,

will manifest His wrath and His judgment? What if it is the only way and the most profound way that God

reveals His glory, will you surrender to that? The fact that Israel could not surrender to that revelation has left

them without God for two thousand years and more, because they could not buy the fact that that wretched

piece of humanity was the Son of God, suffering the judgment of God as God. The greatest revelation of God,

however, is precisely where we least expect it to be, and it comes in the manner in which we least think it

will come. It is God's calculated stroke against man's religious imaginings, daring to make God in his own

image. God calls it idolatry, and the end of it is death. It is the most deplorable of sins, and in order to break

into that, God has got, for our sake, to reveal Himself through wrath.

Israel is going to be brought into this final revelation of God, whom they have forsaken and rejected for

millennia, through their own Last Days' judgment. God's wrath is the ultimate statement of His love andmercy. The greatest love toward God is to love Him in His judgments and, moreover, to love His judgments.

It is not a mere tolerating or bearing of them like castor oil that somehow must be swallowed down. The

most distasteful and most painful thing, and the thing most calculated against our own religiosity is the most

precious and deepest revelation of God. We should not despise the chastening of the Lord, but rather

esteem it. It is only out of the fires of judgment that we will recognize the goodness of God in the severity.

...He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which

He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He called, not from among Jews only, but also

from among Gentiles (Rom. 9:23-24).

To miss the words 'for glory' is to miss everything, because it shows that He is not just arbitrarily doing these

things in order to announce the fact that He is God. The ultimate issue is the issue of His glory. He is not an

egoistic who needs to be glorified, but the truth is rather that mankind is the beneficiary of a God who is

glorified. The world is dying for the lack of the visible demonstration of God's glory. Drug addiction, sexualmolestation and every corrupt thing that mankind is doing have their origin in the vacuum of the absence of

God's visible glory. He is not just a God jealous over His own delight in His glory, but He recognizes that it is

an ultimately redemptive thing, even for all of His creation.

It is no accident that in the messianic and millennial era, the glory of the Lord, the true knowledge of Him,

will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9b). And there is nothing that will bring the revelation

of that glory better than a wrath and judgment that precedes this mercy. It is a judgment that we will find, in

every case, totally deserved. The retribution of God against Israel is not an arbitrary matter, but will be in

exact proportion to Israel's sins, whose sins are mounting every day.

God's mercy is His glory, but it is a mercy that cannot be revealed except it first be preceded by judgment.

Only then does it become mercy. As we will see, the last acts against the present political state of Israel willbe violent; but what concludes it is the totally undeserved mercy that will bring them back from the places to

which they will have been brought as captive. In the absence of any hope in themselves, God Himself

supernaturally and powerfully restores a surviving remnant of Israel in His mercy. The brokenness and

repentance that will follow has no basis for description or comparison. The depth of their coming down before

God at the revelation of that kindness, out of hopeless despair, will result in a new name for them. They will

become His ministers and be honored above every nation on the earth. They will no longer remember fear

and terror or any such thing, for God will wipe away every tear.

God'sChoice

God is inextricably drawn into the life of the nation, Israel. But what was His whole purpose in choosing

Israel? What are they chosen for? Why should He be required to choose at all? Why did He not just

somehow demonstrate His salvational principles and make them available on an equal basis to whomsoever

will among all the nations? Why was He required, by the very necessity of the thing, to choose a nation and

set that nation before all othernations? Even Israel, who is the chosen nation, does not understand it, and is


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offended by their being that choice. They would rather be just like everybody else, but God's love for mankind

will not allow them that condescension.

Israel was chosen to be God's witness nation because God is faced with the problem of communicating

heavenly reality and truth to people on the earth, and it cannot be communicated as abstract principle. It has

got to be made incarnate, embodied and exemplified by the acts of a people relating to the truth and reality

of God. That should not be so foreign an idea to us as believers because we also are called to be witnesses

unto Him, to show forth His, rather than our own virtue. How a person or nation acts in response to God andHis requirements, and how God deals with them, is the revelation of God, both in judgment and in mercy.

That is why there are some vessels fitted for wrath and some for mercy, but in Israel's case, they are fitted

for both, though they do not seem to understand or be aware of it.

Even Isaiah chapter 53 is interpreted traditionally by Jews in saying that the Suffering Servant is not Jesus,

but the nation, Israel. In fact, it may well be that one of the principal ways in which Israel will finally surrender

to the truth of God about the character of their Messiah King, in His humility and willingness to suffer

humiliation, is to experience it themselves. Out of their experience, they will catch a glimpse of the Suffering

Servant, the Lord Himself, and catch the revelation of what they failed to recognize two thousand years ago.

They did not recognize God then, because a Suffering Messiah was not part of their religious concept of who

God is, and yet God chose to reveal Himself in the witness of this very same Servant.

At this present time, in the dispensation of the Gentiles, it is the Gentile Church that is called to reveal the

Lord, because what is the Church but the Body of the Head? It was a Gentile, Simon from Cyrene, of low

public esteem, who bore the Cross. This is very appropriate because the Church, also, is called to be a lowly

entity, an object of derision and contempt in the world in every generation, especially in the time of Israel's

soon-coming suffering. That is why a Church that is full of swagger and believes they 'have it all together'

nullifies and disqualifies itself as being the witness of the Lord to Israel in the Last Days.

3 See the author's audio tape message "The Potter"

4 See our audio tape "The Crucified God"

Chapter 4 - Israel and the Nations

We need to open our spirits and catch the flavor and sense of this mystery. God, in His wisdom, has chosen

a nation to be central to all nations. This is not an unusual concept in the economy of God. Israel herself had

twelve tribes, and God did not think it extravagant that one of the twelve, Levi, should have no other function

but to be priests to the other eleven. In exactly the same way, and by the same principle, the entire nation of

Israel is to be a nation of priests unto the world (Exodus 19:6). We know that the gifts and the calling of God

are irrevocable (Rom. 11:29); and when God makes a promise, establishes a covenant, or declares

something, then we need to know that it is irrevocable.

Some biblical scholars suggest that the number of nations that proliferate today is the result of man's

rebellion against God. We can see everywhere around us the splintering of national entities into sub-entities

based on ethnic and religious lines. When the smoke clears from the devastation and destruction at the end

of the age from the consequence and outcome of man's own inordinate ambition for nationhood, rivalry,

sovereignty and pomp, we will find a vast reduction to the over two hundred nations that now exist. It is clear

that God intended a definite number of nations at the first, in proportion to the number of the sons of Israel:

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men,

He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah's

portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance (Deut. 32:8-9).

Acts 17:26-27 seems to substantiate that:

And He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined theirappointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they

might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us:


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The nations must not think they can go on in an autonomous existence independent of the nation, Israel.

God has made a provision to keep nations in certain boundaries and relationships that would keep them

sane and healthy, with God the recognized Head over all, rather than them imposing themselves on one

another by the use of violence. There is a place for legitimacy of nations, but only within a certain

comprehensive structure that God Himself provided, namely, the centrality of Israel to all nations. The

greatest tragedies that have afflicted mankind through history have come out of the rebellion of nations in

their own independent determination to rule themselves, to their own self-aggrandizement, without regard to

that nation which God intended as central. There will be no peace until that pattern is established on earth,which, in fact, marks the beginning of the Millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ (Rev. 20:6).

The Millennium begins when Israel is restored to her God-appointed place in Him, and indeed, the nations

will finally come up to Jerusalem on the Feast of Tabernacles to pay homage to God, whose sanctuary and

dwelling place will be with the people Israel (Zech.14:16). The law must go forth out of Zion and the word of

the Lord out of Jerusalem or there never will be a turning of swords into plowshares (Micah 4: 2-3). God is so

in earnest about this that He says that the nation that will not honor Israel will suffer a curse (Zech.14:17).

He will take from them rain and bring upon them the consequences of judgment if they still stubbornly refuse

to submit to God's design and intention. The rebellion of mankind is deep-seated against God, and it is no

more clearly reflected and revealed than in mankind's opposition to the nation that He has chosen. God's

choice is the revelation of Himself as God, and it is a choice that is exactly the antithesis of man's. It is His

choice, however, that will prevail, to the everlasting praise of His glory.

Nations cannot be related to God and recognize the boundaries and purposes of God independent of their

recognition of, and their submission to, the centrality of Israel for all nations. The greatest drama of the Last

Days, now already in process of coming to the fore in world history, is the attempted annihilation of Israel by

the nations in order to remove God's very provision for their relatedness to Him. To remain, as a nation,

outside of that relationship with Israel is to be outside of God.

Has God Rejected Israel?

With this in view, Paul finds himself having to answer a question raised by the believers in Rome, "Is God

finished with Israel?"

I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! I too am an Israelite, a

descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom. 11:1).

Paul gives his own faith in God as the evidence that God is not finished with Israel. In a very real sense, Paul

is in himself the very personification of that nation, all the more in his militant opposition to the faith followed

by his radical conversion. We have in him an exact pattern of what the future of the nation itself is. He is in

himself already explicating and setting forth Israel's own destiny and apostolate to the nations, namely, to be

a blessing to all the families of the earth. This temporary setting aside of the Jew by God, however, is not

some arbitrary decision independent of the judgment that Israel has incurred upon herself:

Just as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to

this very day (Rom. 11:8).

Their blindness is a judgment,5 particularly over the issue of the rejection of their Messiah. It was not somemomentary failure at a historical point in time; it was rather the culmination of a long history of apostasy and

alienation from God that had become so deep-seated that when very God came in the person of Jesus ofNazareth as the fulfillment of their own scriptures and expectation, He simply could not be recognized. He

was rejected, despised and brought to the place of death, albeit the instrumentality of that death was the

Roman authorities. Their blindness was, and still is, the consequence of their own sin and must be judged

by a righteous God.

God'sCosmic Purposes

The whole of this mystery is predicated on God's unswerving principle of death and resurrection. The glory of

resurrection (the mercy of God) can only issue out of 'death,' so, in order to demonstrate His mercy as His

final testimony before all nations (Ezekiel 39:7), a surviving remnant of the nation of Israel is scheduled for

death and resurrection. We have known the resurrection phenomenon as individuals, but God intends it for

Israel as a national demonstration. They will, and must, pass through death in their experience, without the

comforting knowledge that it will result in resurrection (Ezekiel 37), for how else is death, death? Unless thistakes place, there will be no consummation of the age; there will be no return of the Lord, and there will be

no establishment of His kingdom. For His kingdom, by necessity, is the kingdom of David, the kingdom


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promised to Israel. It is not a kingdom for Israel's exclusive gratification, but a kingdom that will bless the

nations through the nation that God has appointed and chosen to be central to all nations. We need,

therefore, to have a sense of God's cosmic design for the nations, understanding that Israel is central to

God's redemptive dealing with all the nations. Our view of redemption must be elevated from personal

salvation to national salvation.

But the reader may ask, "Why should Israel be so central to us as the modern Church, since it was not

central to generations of saints before, who were quite spiritual, yet did not recognize the centrality ofIsrael?" The answer lies primarily in the fact that these are the Last Days, and the Church that is impervious,

or indifferent, to the purposes of God for the Last Days is, ipso facto, not the Church. In fact, reference to

Israel is conspicuously absent from current teaching in the Church. It is simply outside their consciousness.

The Church has a lot of great things to say, but in these Last Days, they are missing the focus of God that

compels the Church to be Church.

Israel's final redemption is the final consummating event of God that concludes this age. Any preoccupation

with prophets and prophetic things that omits reference to the great, epochal event that is yet future, namely,

the restoration of Israel to her God after thousands of years of apostasy and alienation from God is also, by

that definition, not prophetic. In fact, our continuing lament and criticism of the present celebration of

prophets is that there is, even among them, for the most part, an absence of any significant reference to

Israel and the Church's relationship to Israel. This is the most momentous thing that is before us historically,

yet there is so little awareness or preparation that we cannot conceive of the fact that there should be a

prophetic upsurge and this theme be absent. The very conspicuous absence of the theme makes us suspect

whether indeed what is being celebrated is truly prophetic.

A serious hour has come, and we have to prepare ourselves, both spiritually and physically, in a way that we

would not have ever conceived or bothered about before. We would have been content to be merely

charismatic or evangelical, because that was sufficient for our purposes, but now a purpose has come to our

attention that is His purpose, and it is an ultimate purpose. God is setting the stage, and Israel is appointed

by God to be the nexus of His whole design for the government of the nations.

The Government of God

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the

throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will

have no end (Luke 1:32-33).

If that God, and that King, can reign over that stiff-necked people, a people whose last national statement

towards God was, "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15f), then what do you think will be the disposition

of other nations? If God can possess Israel, a people who, in all their unbelief and opposition to Him, have

blasphemed His name in the nations, then He will have all the nations. It is going to take a final breakdown of

Israel's last rebellion and self-will. There is no other way, but they will be grateful later.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His

shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of

Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David

and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on

and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this (Isaiah 9:6-7).

We are brought right into the whole reason why a Child is born and a Son is given, namely, that the

government will rest on His shoulders. It is the rule of God going forth in His own character, that is to say, in

the meekness of the Lamb. The rod of iron speaks of an absolute uncompromising stance, but it will be in

the gentleness of the Lamb. It is the glorious benevolence of God! It is His great wisdom going out to the

nations that will keep them from their own violence, hatred and perversion.

Is our government, then, upon His shoulder? How shall it come to the nations if it has not yet first come to

the Church? Are there pockets of rebellion, self-will and independence of spirit to be found in the very

congregations of God? Are we more ruled by convenience than we think? For example, are we saying, "Did

you like the service? Do you like the pastor? Do you like the program, the worship?" If we do not like it, we

find an alternative down the street. We should rather be asking the Lord where He would have us to be

planted, and to suffer with that people, in that place.6It says in Isaiah 2,

Now it will come about in the last days, the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established


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as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it

(Is. 2:2).

This is highly symbolic language. The word 'mountain' always refers to rule and government. However mighty

the nations think they are, there will come a time when they will humble themselves and stream to Israel.

Can you imagine the proud nations, who are now devouring one another, being broken and submitting to God

and God's choice? This is future. In the Last Days it shall come to pass.

And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to thehouse of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His

paths" (Is. 2:3a).

That is what government is. It is not bureaucracy; it is not shuffling papers, or men stuffing their pockets with

political gain. The purpose of government is to teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His

paths. It is the righteousness of God as it pertains to the relationships of a moral mankind on earth.

For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge

between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords

into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift

the mystery of israel and the church

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