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Israel and Judah,, final

When the state of Israel was established in 1948, many Christians hailed it as the fulfillment of prophecy. Truly, it did fulfill prophecy, but, as so often happens with prophecy, it was fulfilled in a way that the Church as a whole did not expect. Just as Christ’s first coming happened in a way that blindsided the people, so also has it happened again.

Few blind people are aware of their own blindness. They become aware of it only after the light of truth dispels the darkness so that they can see clearly. Passages of Scripture that plainly teach the truth remain elusive to the majority, even when those passages speak openly and plainly.

For example, Paul teaches plainly in Galatians 4 that the earthly Jerusalem is the Old Covenant and allegorically comparable to Hagar, whose fleshly children will not be inheritors with the children of the New Covenant. Yet the vast majority of evangelicals and Pentecostal believers continue to teach that the earthly Jerusalem is called to be the capital of Christ’s Kingdom and that her children are the chosen ones.

How can there be such blindness in the face of Paul’s plain teaching?

Isaac’s Blindness

In the story of Jacob and Esau, we read how Isaac was blind in his later years (Genesis 27:1) and how Jacob took advantage of that blindness to steal his father’s blessing. It was a classic case of identity theft. Isaac questioned Jacob because the voice was slightly different from Esau’s. We read in Genesis 27:24 how Jacob lied,

²⁴ And he [Isaac] said, “Are you really my son Esau?” And he [Jacob] said, “I am.”

It was because Jacob defrauded his father—in the name of fulfilling prophecy—that the blessing had to be dismantled at some point in history, in spite of the fact that Esau was not called to receive the birthright. Although the prophecy specified that Esau (“the older”) would serve Jacob (“the younger”), one cannot force prophecy to be fulfilled through such deception—not even when it appears that the prophecy is about to fail. One must have faith that God is able to fulfill His word without help from the flesh.

Isaac must have recognized this, because he told Esau, “when thou shalt have the dominion, thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck” (Genesis 27:40 KJV). Nonetheless, in his wisdom he decided to let God handle the problem in His own time and manner. As it turned out, God waited thousands of years until the year 1948.

In essence, God waited until the Church became old and blind, starting about the 1850’s, with the rise of Darby and then Scofield, his successor. They popularized a new teaching on eschatology, which incorporated the Jewish teaching on Zionism. This created an expectation in the Church that the Jews would return to the Holy Land to fulfill the prophecies about Israel. Their fundamental error was in failing to distinguish between Judah (“Jews”) and Israel (“lost tribes”). In addition, they interpreted the “return” of Israel in an Old Covenant manner, totally ignoring Hebrews 11:10-15, where we learn of the New Covenant way in which this was to be fulfilled. Abraham sought a heavenly country, not the old land of Canaan, and we, as Abraham’s children, are to carry the same vision.

But God blinded the Church in order to set the stage for another round of identity theft. Esau’s descendants (Edom/Idumea) had converted to Judaism in 126 B.C., as virtually all historians agree. After a few centuries the Edomites were so fully integrated with the Judah remnant that they lost their original identity. The result was that the Jews then had two sets of prophecy to fulfill—that of Judah, as per Jeremiah 19, and that of Edom, as per Malachi 1:1-4, Isaiah 34, and the book of Obadiah.

What the two had in common was that both were headed for destruction.

The justice of the law in Exodus 21:24 says, “eye for eye,” which sets forth the principle that the judgment must be equal to the crime (sin). So when Jacob took advantage of his father’s blindness to steal the birthright, God used the same principle in reverse. He used Darby and Scofield to blind the Church so that the Edomite branch of Jewry—that is, the Zionists—could take back the birthright by deceit in 1948.

Conditions for a Lawful “Return”

The law of Tribulation in Leviticus 26 speaks of divine judgment upon Israel. It speaks of captivity as well, where God might expel them from the land for their lawlessness. God would not allow them to return until they acknowledged their sin and agreed that God’s judgment was righteous and well-deserved. Leviticus 26:40-42 says,

⁴⁰ If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me— ⁴¹ I also was acting with hostility against them to bring them into the land of their enemies—or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they then make amends for their iniquity, ⁴² then I will remember My covenant with Jacob.. with Isaac, and … with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

It was because of their hostility toward God that they were exiled to Babylon six centuries before Christ. However,, God allowed them to return after Daniel confessed their iniquity and hostility against God in his lengthy prayer in Daniel 9. God’s purpose was to allow the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem.

However, the religious leaders became hostile to Jesus and rejected Him as the Messiah-King. So after a 40-year probationary period, God used the Roman army to exile them once again. Jesus told a parable about this, concluding in Matthew 22:7,

⁷ But the king [God] was enraged, and he sent his [Roman] armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city [Jerusalem] on fire.

Zionism is a lawless attempt to end the exile without repenting to fulfill the conditions set forth in the law. The Jews were not allowed to return as Judahites, because this was forbidden in the law. Instead, God allowed the Zionists to return as Edomites, in order to correct the injustice that Jacob had perpetrated upon Esau in Genesis 27. For this reason, the Jewish state (from God’s perspective) is neither Israel nor Judah. It is a prophetic manifestation of Esau-Edom, which was given the birthright in 1948 and which thus took upon itself the birthright name, Israel.

The nation, therefore, has the legal right to the name Israel, but this is not a permanent situation. Once they have proven themselves to be unworthy of the birthright, God will destroy Jerusalem and the state as a whole, and then the birthright will go to the true Israelites who recognize that “God rules” and who are loyal to Messiah ben Joseph.

Loyalties

When Christ came the first time, the requirement was to be loyal to the One whom God had sent to represent Him in the earth. Jesus Christ came through the tribe of Judah and the lineage of David to claim His throne as Messiah ben Judah. The common people would have accepted Him, for they saw His works, but in the end their loyalty was to their religious leaders, not to God Himself. So the conflict has continued to this day.

Now, as Christ prepares to come again, it is the responsibility of Christians to proclaim their loyalty to Messiah ben Joseph. Those who are loyal to Edom are the equivalent of those who remained loyal to the temple priests who rejected Christ and crucified Him (Acts 7:52). This is the primary issue today as God distinguishes between the Church and the overcomers.

Keep in mind that Jacob was not born with the name Israel. The name was given to him as a testimony of his revelation of the sovereignty of God (“God rules”). Only the remnant of grace thereafter were true Israelites by God’s definition, even though the name was usually applied to the entire nation—including unbelievers.

As believers in Christ as Messiah ben Judah, we believe in His mission to die for sin and to be raised for our justification. But as believers in Christ as Messiah ben Joseph, we go a step further, believing in His present mission to establish His Kingdom, to receive the birthright from God’s hand, and to receive the birthright name, Israel.