(Romans 9:4-5) “The people of Israel, Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”
Anti-Semitism once again rears its ugly head within the leadership of wider Christendom with the appointment of Rev. Professor Dr Jerry Pillay, general secretary-elect of the World Council of Churches. According to a report in All Israel News online it stated…
“The newly elected leader of the World Council of Churches, a fellowship of 352 churches from more than 120 countries, has been caustic in his references to the Jewish state, comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to “apartheid.” As the former general secretary of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa back in 2016 also spoke of the “exclusionary and violent character of the Israeli Zionist project.” Having Pillay in such a so called prestigious and influential position as the WCC’s leadership should raise concerns for Christians from all backgrounds.
Has the Church not learned by now that anti-Semitism does not mix well with the teachings of Jesus? And that anti-Zionism often masks an underlying anti-Semitism? This is all the more true for Pillay, the dean of the University of Pretoria, who really should know better. After all, as a black South African, he understands the true nature of apartheid, and how evil it is. Blacks under South African apartheid had no equal rights, at all…
…Within days of the announcement that Pillay would lead the WCC, the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, of more than 10,000 congregations and communities, voted to declare Israel an apartheid state and to establish a Nakba Remembrance Day. The PCUSA also passed two other resolutions highly critical of Israel at the religious body’s 225th General Assembly.” Within days of the announcement that Pillay would lead the WCC, the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America, of more than 10,000 congregations and communities, voted to declare Israel an apartheid state and to establish a Nakba Remembrance Day. The PCUSA also passed two other resolutions highly critical of Israel at the religious body’s 225th General Assembly.”
Once again the WCC by endorsing this ‘Reverend Professor’ with his anti-Semitic views are complicit in the ongoing “Israel bashing” within wider Christendom and in the main line news media, not to mention the Presbyterian denomination also ‘bagging’ the Israelis God given inheritance to the whole land of Israel. The Christian Church owes a great debt to Israel. As the apostle Paul writes; “Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”
While the apostle Paul was called to be an apostle to the Gentile nations he still recognised that God had not finished with Israel as a nation to which the law and the prophets testify in the Old Testament scriptures and which the New Testament affirms in Romans chapters 9-11. The New Covenant, cut in the blood of the Messiah our Lord Jesus, was not made with the Gentile Church but with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah (Jeremiah 31:31-37). Gentile believers in the Messiah are the ‘wild uncultivated olive branches’ spiritually grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel represented metaphorically in scripture by the cultivated Olive Tree. The root of “the Olive Tree” Israel is the Messiah Himself, the true vine and the source and the sustainer of the spiritual nourishment needed to bear spiritual fruit for God by both the natural believing branches (Jews) and the engrafted believing branches (Gentiles) (Romans 11:15-24) (John 15:1-8). If the Olive tree is gone so are the branches!
When you read the whole of the New Testament, especially the letters of the apostle Paul, it is clear that the early Assembly (Church) of New Covenant believers did not see the Church as a separate entity from the nation of Israel but sharing in the blessings of the New Covenant made with Israel whereby both believing Jews and Gentiles were made one new man in the Messiah with the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile demolished (Ephesians 2:11-22). What is a fact is that God created the Jewish nation to be His own possession and set apart from the pagan world with its idolatry, being the worship of idols, which according to scripture is the worship of demons (Deuteronomy 32:16-17) (Psalm 106:36-37) (1 Corinthians 10:20).
Israel were ordained by God to be a nation of priests or a royal priesthood, a holy nation set apart to God for His glory and that through them He might reveal Himself to the whole Gentile world. As God spoke through His servant Moses; “Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine. And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites” (Exodus 19:5-6).
Now we know from the Bible and from history that Israel was not successful in fulfilling their God ordained purpose and were scattered throughout the pagan gentile world. Because of this fact replacement theology has been around since the time of Paul who writing to the assembly in Rome was seeking to rectify an emerging form this false theology. When we read Acts Chapter 15 we see James and the other apostles recognizing from the scriptures that at Pentecost David’s fallen Tent, being Israel, had been restored spiritually and that gentile believers were now included, and that this union of Jews and Gentile New Covenant believers was the Royal priesthood resurrected and the Israel of God (Acts 15:16-18) (Amos 9:11-12) (1 Peter 2:9) (Revelation 1:6) (Revelation 5:10).
There was no indication at all that the apostles meeting at Jerusalem saw the Church as a separate entity from Israel but as Israel spiritually restored with Gentile believers partakers of the same covenant blessings made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and ratified by the Messiah’s shed blood who Himself was Jewish (Galatians 3:14). Let’s face it, the Lord Jesus was Jewish, the prophets and apostles were all Jewish. The whole Bible is Jewish and needs to be understood with the Jewish way of understanding, not with the gentile way of understanding.
On the day of Pentecost Israel were spiritually restored but the restoration was a partial spiritual restoration. At the end of this age Israel will be completely restored spiritually and nationally because God never goes back on His covenants (Psalm 105:8). At that time God will reap a harvest of souls both Jews and Gentiles (Joel 2:28-32) (Acts 2:17-21).
When Peter addressed the crowds on the day of Pentecost he said “this is like that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (This is what the Greek text says). It was a partial fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy as there were no wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, fire and vapours of smoke. The sun was not turned to darkness and the moon turned to blood at Pentecost which will happen at the Second Coming of the Messiah our Lord Jesus at the very end of this present age to which the scriptures testify (Isaiah 24:23) (Matthew 24:29) (Revelation 6:12). Immediately after this time of great tribulation the rapture and resurrection will occur at the return of the Lord Jesus to earth (Matthew 24:29-31).
In 1948 after almost 2,000 years of exile, Israel was restored nationally. It was a partial national restoration as the Jewish people do not have all of the land allotted to them by God. In the Millennial Messianic kingdom they will “possess their possession” from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates and everything in between including Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and much of Syria up to the River Euphrates (Obadiah 1:17) (Genesis 15:17-21).
God gave the whole land of Israel to the decedents of Isaac and Jacob and not to the descendants of Ishmael and Esau, the fathers of the Arab nations (Genesis 17:18-22). The land of Israel was given to the Jewish people (Israelites as I prefer to call them Biblically) to be for them “an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:7). God promised through the prophets that Israel would be restored nationally at the end of this present age and that after they were resettled in the Land they would experience their complete spiritual restoration after they have passed through the Time of Jacob’s Trouble which is yet to come and which they will be saved out of (Jeremiah 30:1-9) (Ezekiel 37:1-14).
Israel as a nation may be strangers and aliens to their own covenants of promise and living like the other Gentile nations, but God remembers His covenant and because the Messiah has shed His blood as the Passover Lamb, and as the perfect embodiment of what Israel was to be, He has completely and forever atoned and redeemed His people from their sins. A remnant of New Covenant believers, both in Israel and by extension and inclusion within Christendom, will come forth to be one flock under one shepherd co-reigning in the Messianic kingdom with the Messiah our Lord Jesus sitting on the throne of David, ruling from Jerusalem and sitting in the Millennial temple from where He will rule the nations with a rod of iron! In that day His law (the Torah) will be the only law by which all of the surviving Nations must submit or reap the consequences (Zechariah 14:16-21) (Isaiah 2:2-3).
Gentile New Covenant believers spiritually grafted into Israel owe a great debt to the Jewish people because “Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”
As for the ‘very Reverend Professor’ Dr Jerry Pillay, general secretary-elect of the World Council of Churches and that whole organization, and every other organization denomination and professing Christian that advocate replacement theology and dismiss God’s covenant promises to Israel, insisting calling the land ‘Palestine,’ and rally around the flag of the so called ‘Palestinian cause,’ will find themselves arguing with God!
