The Jewish question

Contents

Chapter. Page.

I. The Question Solved 1

II. "For I am also an Israelite" _ 12

Chapter II

The first answer to the important question "Hath God cast away His people?" is the great Apostle to the Gentiles. We read in the first verse, "For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people whom He f oreknew." The Holy Spirit points then first of all to the Apostle and puts him before us as a proof that God has not completely and finally rejected Israel. It is a significant fact that in each of the three chapters which compose the dispensational part of Romans the Apostle Paul stands in the foreground. "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great grief and uninterrupted pain in my heart, for I have wished, I myself, to be a curse from the Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to flesh." Thus the ninth chapter begins and in the tenth we read of his prayer for Israel, not his prayer alone but surely the prayer of the

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Holy Spirit. "Brethren, the delight of my heart and my supplication which I address to God for them is for salvation" (x:l). In our chapter, besides mentioning himself in the beginning, he says : "For I speak to you, Gentiles, inasmuch as I am Apostle of the Gentiles. I glorify my ministry; if by any means I shall provoke to jealousy them which are my flesh and shall save some from among them" (verses 13, 14) . The instrument used to make known the mystery of God and the unsearchable riches among the Gentiles declares his great love for his kinsmen and prays for their salvation. While Gentiles, the nations' receive blessings, Israel is still "beloved for the Father's sake" and not forgotten.

But why is Paul personally mentioned immediately after the question concerning Israel's position? It is generally said that by referring to himself he wishes to prove that it is possible for an Israelite to accept the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved; he, an Israelite full of hatred against the Christ, had been saved, and this proves that God has not cast away His people. However, the question before us is not whether an individual Jew can be saved or cannot be saved; it is a national question with which we have to deal.

Besides this, the possibility of the salvation of Jews had been fully demonstrated on the day of Pentecost. The three thousand who believed on that day were all Jews, as well as the thousands who believed after the memorable day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We have therefore to look for a deeper meaning of PauFs name in the beginning of this chapter.

The key to this deeper meaning is the fact that the Holy Spirit makes the conversion of Saul of Tarsus not alone very prominent, but also speaks of that event as a pattern. He has given us three lengthy accounts of it in the Book of Acts (chapters ix, xxii and xxvi). In First Timothy we read: "But for this reason mercy was shown me, that in me the first, Jesus Christ might display the whole long suffering, for a delineation of those that should hereafter believe on Him to eternal life" (1 Tim. i:16). And again it is written: "And last of all He was seen of me also as of one born out of due time" (literally "an abortion") (1 Cor. xv :2). These are inspired statements which tell us we have to seek for a deeper significance of the conversion of him who calls himself "a Hebrew of the Hebrews" (Phil, iii :5) . It has often been remarked that Saul's conversion is the model conversion and

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the different steps are reproduced in every genuine conversion. But this is far from being correct. Saul of Tarsus' conversion was an altogether unique one. There has, up to this time, never been a conversion like this one. Never again were the heavens opened and a light shone brighter than the sun; never again did a sinner, such a blind persecutor, behold Jesus in glory and hear His voice, and never again was one called in such a way "to be an elect vessel" and to bear the Name of the Lord "before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel." His conversion is certainly not a pattern or outline of every other conversion and yet it is a delineation, a hypotyposis.

All the great men of the Old Testament, priests, prophets and kings, were in their lives and experiences patterns, types. The great Apostle to the Gentiles, making known the salvation to the nations, himself a Jew, is no less a type. His wonderful conversion is typical of the future conversion of the nation to whom he belonged according to the flesh. What God did in his case He can and will do for Israel in a future day. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus is the type and earnest of Israel's conversion. In this light the full meaning of the quoted passages from the first Epistle of Timothy and Corinthians can be easily understood. In Saul's conversion Christ showed mercy "the first" or "as a first one." There are others to whom that mercy is to be shown and to whom mercy will come under the same circumstances and by the same heavenly manifestation of the glorified Son of Man, and the people to whom this will happen is Israel. When we read of Paul that he saw the Lord as one born out of due season, it is the same thought which underlies this statement. The untimely birth, before the time, suggests another birth time as well as another birth, the birth of the nation, when Israel, the remnant of His people, will be born again by looking upon Him in glory, whom they have pierced.

The comparison of Saul's conversion with the future conversion of Israel as revealed in the prophetic Word is extremely striking. The delineation is perfect.

1. Saul of Tarsus in unbelief typifies the state of Israel as a nation throughout this present age. He was a learned Pharisee, a fierce persecutor, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, blind and unbelieving. Such is Israel, another unbelieving Saul, and, like him, zealous for God without knowledge.

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2. The opened heavens, the vision and voice of the glorified Jesus, by which Saul of Tarsus was arrested in his career, are typical of the coming day when the heavens will be opened again and the Lord Jesus Christ will be manifested in power and in glory. At His second visible and glorious coming the remnant of Israel will behold Him and learn by His glorious appearing that Jesus is their Messiah and King (Zechariah xii: 10-14, Matthew xxiv:29, 30, Revel. i:7). The opened heavens, the great light flashing forth, the vision and voice of Jesus, the prostrate Saul there on the road to Damascus, was but a little sample of what God will do for the remnant of His earthly people and how they shall at last know Him and receive Him.

3. Paul's service to nations and kings foreshadows Israel's coming ministry to the nations of the earth. All nations are yet to know the glory of the Lord, but world conversion is only possible after Israel is converted. Through Israel all the nations of the earth will at last be blessed.

These three great facts seen in the conversion of Saul, typifying Israel's unbelief, the manner and result of their conversion, we shall follow throughout the chapter and learn from the Scriptures some of the revealed details. We understand therefore why the Holy Spirit puts the Apostle Paul immediately after the question of the chapter is asked. What manifestation of the grace and wisdom of God ! The instrument chosen to reveal the mysteries hidden in former ages and to complete the Word of God, the one to whom is given the full knowledge of the Gospel of Grace to be preached among the Gentiles, while Israel is set aside for a time, is also made a type, a pattern of what Israel is to be and to receive in the future, when God will arise and have mercy upon Zion.

The Remnant — Israel's Apostasy Not Complete*

Chapter III

The second answer to the important question and argument that God has not cast away His people Israel is continued in verses 2-6. "God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Know ye not what the Scripture says in the history of Elias, how he pleads with God against Israel ? Lord, they have killed Thy prophets, they have dug down Thine altars ; and I have been left alone and they seek my life." But what says the divine answer to him ? "I have left to Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Thus, then, in the present time also there has been a remnant according to election of grace. But if by grace, it is no more of works; since otherwise grace is no more grace."

It is historical evidence which is placed in these words before us. The Holy Spirit reaches back into the history of the nation and calls our attention to an important episode. The prophet Elijah lived in a time when almost everything among the professing people of God was being swept away into the apostasy. A great reformation took place; God had answered the call of Elijah on Mount Carmel by fire, and when the fire of the Lord consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench, and when all the people saw, they cried out : "Jehovah is God ! Jehovah is God !" The prophets of Baal were slain there and then. The Lord also graciously opened the heavens and there was an abundance of rain. All this has a typical and dispensational meaning, which we cannot follow in detail at this time. The wonderful manifestation of the Lord out of the opened heavens, however, did not turn the people from the path of apostasy. A little while later Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, "So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time" (1 Kings xix:2). Elijah, in the weakness of the flesh, fails and flees. We find him a day's journey in the wilderness. There we see him under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he might die, and said: It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life ; for I am not better than my Fathers.

But the Lord meets His servant. "What doest thou here, Elijah?" "And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword ; and I, even I only, am left ; and they seek my life to take it away." Twice he repeats this wonderful tale, born of a discouraged and unbelieving heart. But now comes the answer of the Lord to him. He tells him how mistaken he is about being left alone, the only Israelite who has not fallen away. "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal and every mouth which hath not kissed him." The Lord had a remnant, a faithful remnant, among His people even at the time of their great apostasy. This is the thought and argument here. The apostasy of Israel is never a complete apostasy. The Lord has always a remnant faithful to Him and the covenants among them. In this respect the difference of the apostasy of Israel and the predicted apostasy of Gentile Christendom is very marked. One of Israel's race has expressed it very pointedly in the following words:*

*Adolph Saphir.

"The apostasy of Israel is not as the apostasy of Christendom. The apostasy of Christendom is incurable, but the apostasy of Israel is curable. Although Israel have rejected Jesus, they do not wish to reject God; they still believe in His Word; they still invoke His holy name. They still remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. They still, as the Apostle Paul says, have a zeal for God, although it is not according to knowledge. The children of Israel are like the brethren of Joseph. After they had sold Joseph into Egypt, they returned to their father Jacob, and then for a number of years their conduct was less blamable than it had been before. They seemed to have been anxious to please their father Jacob, and to walk before him in the right path. Still, there was upon their hearts the blood-guiltiness, in that they had delivered their brother Joseph into the hands of their enemies. And so it is with Israel now. There is still a godly remnant among them. There is still the fear of God and the acknowledgment of God before their eyes. Whereas, what is the history of apostate Christendom, as it is presented to us in the Scriptures, and the beginnings of which we can see already? First, people do not believe in Jesus as an atonement. They begin with that. They do not like the blood of Jesus. They like the character of Jesus very well. Then they give up Jesus too. Then they give up the Father too, and do not believe in creation. And then they become agnostics, and say they know nothing about it — whether there is a God or not — the worst thing that this world has ever seen, and the most insulting to God. And then they give up morality, as necessarily they must give it up; and then they fall into the most abject pessimism, and look upon man as a flower of the field, which is to-day and to-morrow is cast into the oven. This is the downward career of the Gentile apostasy. But in the Jewish apostasy there is still kept the connecting link, the golden thread — a spark dying, yet not dead, of a belief in God, however unenlightened, and in a f uture."

The Lord always has a remnant among His people and that remnant is the sign and evidence that He hath not cast away His people.

We shall, however, show what we have to understand by "remnant ;" and the remnant that has been, and will yet be called, we hope to investigate more fully.

The question concerning the remnant is a most interesting one. That the Lord has such a remnant according to the election of grace among His people, is, as we have stated before, an evidence that He hath not cast them away. There is a double remnant which is to be considered. The remnant which has been in the beginning of this dispensation and the remnant whicn wih yet be called for a definite work ana testimony at the time when Israel's Hope will appear and the glorious promises made to the nation find their fulfillment. Between these two remnants, a remnant at the beginning of the present age and a remnant at the end, stands another fact — the fact that the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ is composed of believing Jews and Gentiles and that through the preaching of the Gospel of Grace, not alone sinners of the Gentiles are added to that body, but also Jews who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. As soon, then, as a Jew believes he ceases to be a Jew. His Hope is no longer national and earthly, but heavenly; he belongs no longer to the earthly Jerusalem, but to the heavenly; he has, like the believing Gentile, nothing to do with the law, its ordinances and ceremonies. It is impossible to speak of a remnant of Israel at this time, which is saved by Grace and which holds a specific national Jewish position in the earth. When the Holy Spirit gave the full revelation concerning the church, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, we do not read anything whatever about the believing Jew, who, as it is being claimed, "should not sever his connection with the nation," and who should still continue in keeping Jewish laws and feast days.

All national distinctions cease in that body, and to preach that the believing Jew should continue to keep the seventh day, practice circumcision, keep the Passover and other feast days, is not alone nowhere taught in the Epistles, but such teaching is unscriptural and brings in a sad and confusing mixture which destroys the simplicity of the Gospel. Now in the beginning of this present age there certainly was such a Jewish-Christian remnant in existence. To this the words of the apostle refer us. "Thus, then, in the present time there has been a remnant according to the election of Grace." That remnant of Jewish believers is seen in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts. The three thousand saved on the day of Pentecost were all Jews. Soon there was a very strong assembly composed of Jewish believers in Jerusalem, who were faithful witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ and who bore a faithful testimony in Jerusalem, which was fast ripening for the great judgment. Not alone in Jerusalem, but also in other parts of the land, Jews became believers and formed Jewish-Christian synagogues. When Paul went to Jerusalem the elders of the Jewish- Christian assembly said to him: "Thou seest, brother, how many myriads there are of the Jews who have believed, and are all zealous for the law. And they have been informed concerning thee that thou teachest all the Jews among the nations apostasy from Moses, saying that they should not circumcise their children, nor walk in the customs" (Acts xxi:21).

Paul's Gospel certainly teaches this, and it was the hour of his failure when he went back to the ceremonial law. But the passage tells us that there were myriads of believers, all Jews who continued in the observance of the law. They went to the temple to pray, kept the different feasts — in one word, they continued in all the Jewish customs. God's mercy was still lingering over Jerusalem. These Hebrew-Christian believers had hopes that the nation would yet receive their testimony and accept Him whom they had rejected. They were persecuted, beaten, some killed, their goods spoiled, cast out of the synagogue and the temple, and still they continued in their faithful testimony. It was a transition period, passing out of the old into the new. For a time such an attitude of Jewish believers was undoubtedly justified. But then the Holy Spirit addressed an Epistle to these Hebrews, and that Epistle gives us not only a true insight into their condition and danger, their steadfastness and faithfulness, but it also reveals how the Holy Spirit shows them the better things of the new covenant. No one can read the Epistle to the Hebrews without being convinced that in this wonderful commentary to the levitical institutions, showing the fulfillment in Him who is a better priest, a priest after the order of Melchizedek, the Spirit of God aims at this very fact, that all ceremonies, all levitical observances, are to be discontinued. They were all the shadows of better things. In the end of the Epistle He speaks that Word which showed these Hebrew believers their true position, "Let us go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach" (Hebr. xiii:13). At last Jerusalem fell. The temple was destroyed. The people were scattered. It was therefore made impossible for Jewish believers to continue in the position which they held for years. Jewish-Christian assemblies in their peculiar national character ceased in their existence. While in the beginning of this dispensation it was "to the

Jew first," that order was stopped with the full rejection of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews.

However, the existence of a remnant of believers among the nation, the myriads who had accepted the Lord as their Saviour and the Hope of Israel, was a definite proof that God had not completely cast away His people. It was proof that He was ready to deal with them according to His infinite mercy.

A Jewish remnant in the sense of the apostolic days is no longer possible. To teach that such a remnant is to be gathered now and to attempt the formation of Jewish national assemblies of believing Hebrews, who continue as Jews though trusting in Christ, practicing circumcision, fasts and other Jewish customs, is confusing and mars completely the doctrines of Grace and that revelation of all revelations, the church, which is His Body. We repeat it once more, the believing Jew at this time is not "gentilized," as has been pressed so much from certain sides, but he becomes a member of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and has with every other believer a heavenly hope, a heavenly destiny. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes to take His own unto Himself, every believing Jew, saved by Grace, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

A fact in this connection must not be overlooked. The Lord has put His hand throughout this Christian dispensation, in every century, upon hundreds and thousands of Jews, and through His Grace they have been saved, not a few of them in a most remarkable way. The past century, the nineteenth, has had more witnesses in this respect than any other. Some of the best teachers, expositors of the Scriptures, were converted Hebrews. We mention Adolf Saphir, Dr. Edersheim, Neander, Cassel, Gottheil and Rabinowitz. Some of them were led out of the deepest darkness with thousands of others whose names are not so universally known. This, too, is an evidence that blindness has happened only in part to Israel.

But there is yet to be a Jewish remnant, a strong and mighty witness that God hath not cast away His people. This future remnant of believing Hebrews will be called as soon as the church is complete and removed from the earth.* This remnant to be called

*If it were true and scriptural that the Church is to pass through the great tribulation, it would also be perfectly in order to have a Jewish national assembly of Hebrew believers now. Indeed the estabthrough Grace corresponds to the remnant of the beginning of this age.

Their Gospel will be the Gospel of the Kingdom, "the Kingdom of the Heavens is at hand." It will emanate from Jerusalem and will be declared among all nations (Matt. xxiv:14). Of this remnant, suffering and persecuted, we read in the Olivet discourse of our Lord. The Old Testament Scriptures are full with prophecies concerning the faithful remnant of the endtime. The Book of Psalms can be best understood in the light of a believing remnant of Jews, suffering in the midst of the ungodly nation and delivered by the coming of the King out of the opened heavens. The 144,000 sealed in Revelation vii are all Israelites and the company out of all nations and tongues, who come out of the great tribulation, and are seen as overcomers in the second half of this chapter, are the fruits of the witness and labors of this Jewish remnant. That they do not belong to the church is evident from the scope of the Book of Revelation. The church is seen in glory

lishment of such would then be very desirable and would be a most definite mark of the endtime. On the other hand, it would produce two testimonies, a fact that cannot be harmonized with any of God's dispensational teachings.

in the crowned twenty-four elders in chapters iv and v. Only after the church is in the presence of the Lord can the remnant be called and sealed and begin its peculiar testimony. Now this fact that God has had a Remnant and will yet call such a remnant proves that He hath not cast away His people.

Israel's Apostasy and Blindness Not Permanent.

Chapter IV

The next answer to the question of Romans xi and argument of Israel's position in God's purposes is taken from the Old Testament Scriptures.

"What is it then? What Israel seeks for, that he has not obtained ; but the election has obtained, and the rest have been blinded, according as it is written, God has given to them a spirit of slumber, eyes not to see, and ears not to hear, unto this day. And David says, Let their table be for a snare, and for a gin, and for a falltrap, and for a recompense to them ; let their eyes be darkened not to see, and bow down their back alway" (verses 7-10).

It is here where commentaries have their say about the blindness of Israel and how God has completely given up the Jews. What a strange way some persons have in interpreting the Word of God. Some labor to prove that in the beginning of this chapter Paul means the "spiritual Israel" — the church —

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and not the literal Israel, but when the same expositors reach the verses which are before us now, they are quite correct and orthodox in saying it is the literal Israel. Such method of Bible exposition has done great harm in confusing Christian believers, besides being dishonoring to God's Word. When the apostle speaks here of the election he means the believing part of the nation at all times, the remnant past, the remnant future, and all those who believe now in the Lord Jesus Christ. When he speaks of the rest being blinded he means the remainder of the nation, which is unbelieving. As they refused Him who spake, judicial blindness was put upon them. Now this judicial blindness must not be looked upon in a way as some have done, and then by inference to build upon it such abominable doctrines as universal salvation. They reason God blinded them and they are not responsible for what they cannot see. God will have mercy upon them all, and all Jews will be saved at last, all who died with this judicial blindness upon them. We shall take up this phase of error later in our exposition.

The judicial blindness is certainly not to be understood that every Jew is born with this blindness upon him. Far be this thought! Every generation of Jews, in refusing the light which shines for all, in sharing the sin of their fathers in rejecting their Messiah, in continuing in their evil ways of unbelief, is put under the sentence of this judicial blindness. The Jew may see if he so chooses and he may refuse the light. God declared in His Word beforehand what would happen to them in this respect.

Before us are three quotations from the Old Testament Scriptures. The Hebrews divide the Old Testament into three parts: The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Holy Spirit here quotes from each of these divisions. The passages quoted prove that such a judicial blindness was to come upon them according to God's sovereign dealings. Now the most significant fact is that in none of these passages to which the Holy Spirit calls our attention the teaching is advanced that this blindness is to be permanent and final. There is no prophecy in the Scriptures which declares that the present blinded condition of Israel is their permanent and final condition.

The three quotations from the Old Testament Scriptures teach us much on these lines. The first is taken from the Book of Deuteronomy, "Yet the Lord hath given you an

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heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day" (Deut. xxix:4). It is well known how the whole future of Israel is predicted through Moses in the closing chapters of the last Book which he wrote by divine inspiration. Their whole history is outlined. They were to be a people blinded, forsaking God, to be scattered in consequence of it into the corners of the earth. Their whole career of decline and apostasy is prophetically revealed. But alongside of all these prophecies of what should befall them, which were so literally fulfilled, we find prophecies relating to their restoration and future blessing. There is not a word anywhere in the writings of Moses which declares that God would ever leave them under the curse and in the condition into which He in His governmental dealings had to put them.

If we turn to the prophets, we find that Isaiah xxix:10 is quoted: "For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes ; the prophets and your rulers, the seers, hath He covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee, and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed." How all this has been fulfilled in the judicial blindness, which has come upon Israel ! Eyes and they see not and ears and they hear not; they read their own Scriptures and worship the law as the very breath of God and still they see not Him who is the End of the Law ; nor do they hear His voice as He speaks in the Book. Their own Scriptures are indeed a sealed Book to them. But is this condition to prevail forever? Is there no hope for a change ? Does Isaiah or any other prophet utter nothing but curse and blindness upon a disobedient people, for whom there is no hope? It is far different. Not alone does Isaiah and the rest of God's prophets reveal that the apostasy and judgment of Israel is only temporary, but their writings are full of glorious visions of that which is yet in store for this nation. It is true a Christian exposition of the Scriptures, lacking the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit has made sad havoc with these visions. These visions of a glorious future are almost universally applied to the church, and the blindness and curses left to the Jews. Such unreasonable method of Bible interpretation still upheld results in the greatest confusion.