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CHAPTER ONE

ISRAEL, ZION

JEWRY, GENTILES

AND GOD

 

A BRILLIANT B'NAI BRITH COMPOSITION

THAT STILL NEEDS A CORE

News 468

The Australian, October 29, 2013

See Appendix to this Chapter here.

See also Department of Bible ... Vol. 2,  Ch. 1,   Ch. 10, and Vol. 3. Ch. 10

AN INTRODUCTION

An interesting and in some ways brilliant article appeared in The Australian on Tuesday, October 29th. 2013. It came as an edited version of a speech recently made in a B'nai Brith gathering in Jerusalem. It was strikingly entitled: STILL UNFORGIVEN FOR WRONGS SUFFERED.

ON THE FRONT  PAGE IN LARGE LETTERS, IT HAS THIS:

"WHEN WILL THE JEWS BE FORGIVEN THE HOLOCAUST. NEVER."

The address was made in Jerusalem at the B'nai Brith World Centre. Included were these words.

"It is vain to suppose we can thereby undo the twisted logic of being unforgiven for the Holocaust, unforgiven for who we are perceived to be, unforgiven for what has been visited on us — a perpetuity of being unforgiven, which, whatever its political effect, has a psychological cause, and so would not vanish tomorrow if Israel gave to its neighbours every blade of contested grass, and every wealthy Jew turned himself overnight into a pauper. For don’t forget that being a light unto nations itself incurs the charge of spiritual arrogance."

 

A CRUCIAL ERROR AT THE OUTSET

DOES NOT OBLITERATE

THE SPEAKER'S JUST DENUNCIATION

OF MANY ANTI-SEMITIC THINGS

It is here that what in this article is frequently well-phrased, ironically astute and realistically sound fails to score. Indeed it opens up what is not only a vulnerability for the beloved Jewish race, which God has not at all forgotten (Isaiah 44:21-22, 49:14-26, 51:18-23^*1), but one which has for many - in parallel with a basically similar equivalent for many nations amongst the Gentiles - the potential for calamity indeed. Israel, to be sure WILL be delivered, as that Bible which is the word of God repeatedly affirms; but many are the deviations it has made in its spectacular history, and until this one is fixed, it is not man who is the main danger for it, but the Lord Himself. It is not merely an action that is in view; but so far, for the nation, it is effectively an inaction: no repentance concerning Jesus Christ has as  yet come to it. It will; it has not yet; and in the interim is and has been, suffering.

This is an affair with God (Zechariah 11:9-12, Isaiah 50, 51:17-52:3, Micah 5:1-5). To be sure, It is no worse than it is for many others among the Gentile peoples; but it is as unnecessary, with this ray of celestial light upon it. There is a foretold time when it will come, this repentance for its prime step into the domain of the grievous, forsaking their own mercy. It is to be one in great depth and bitterness of heart (Zechariah 12:10-13:1), but until that time, there is a different oppression: it is that of Israel upon itself, leaving the grace offered.

It is grossly extended by odious assault, and God will deal with that, as He has dealt with it before (cf. Isaiah 51:21-23). Specialist bodies in maltreating the Jews,  like USSR and Germany have suffered immensely, and in this, not without cause! Humiliation has come like a tempest. But this is part only. The depths lie with God, according to the covenant. Like lung cancer, it underlies the condition of Israel, and what is in systematic collision, cannot be healed until that collision ceases. Busybodies who attack the smitten, invite divine wrath as unruly assailants, Jew-baiters, Jew-bashers, irresponsible haters make their own collisions with rampant results from above (cf. Jeremiah 30:16).

There IS assurance as in Ezekiel 36-39,  Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32, Joel 3, Habakkuk 3, Isaiah 49, that despite their fateful and potentially fatal error concerning their place, and that of the date-predicted  Messiah, Jesus Christ^*1A, there is to be a solution which is the only one available. There is to be as in Zechariah 12-13, a massive, nation embracing return to that self-same Lord whom they pierced, and to the eye of new faith, it is He who will be adopted, the One who chose to come in the format of man in their own race, as promised to Abraham (Genesis 12), and to be a blessing to the entire world. This does not mean that other unconditional promises as in Genesis 17:7-8, are voided. The two remain as uttered, and both will be fulfilled, one already, the other on the brink of fulfilment. Indeed, when that comes, the power of God toward Israel will again be  literally out of this world: but it will operate in it! Indeed, Micah 7:15 spells it out, in terms of power and impact, a resurgence of divine deliverance comparable with the Exodus, which is to come, as also in Isaiah 66 and Deuteronomy 32:28ff..

So we shall come to the heights and the depths in due course.  Meantime, before we consider some of the excellent features of this article, as it seeks to sum up some of the sumptuous and evil ways that many Gentiles have adopted towards the Jewish people, let us pursue the place that needs significant attention.

 
"For don't forget," Jacobson advises above, "that being a light unto nations itself incurs the charge of spiritual arrogance." That is what we have just found, and on which this initial comment has been made. Let us pursue it a little now.

While the idea of being a "light to the nations" (Isaiah 49:6, 42:6) emphatically never referred to the Jews, but to an Israel in whom God was well pleased^*1B,

(unlike the position described pithily in Isaiah 65:13-15, as one of gloom and horror for Israel, while the true servants of God BY CONTRAST rejoice in their finding the Lord),

that is, to the crucified Messiah, who alone being sinless, could bear sin other than His own:  there is a problem for such Jews as are maintaining such a position for the nation. It is flat contradiction to apportion, such a post and light for themselves, such a bundle of characteristics and functions as that! It is not so much arrogance, as error. It is replacement of Christ by a nation. It is passing a sublime threshold. It is missing the entire point of their repudiation for a time, for a reason, in terms of this very thing: they rejected the Redeemer, and acted in their own interests in unbelief, but could not, any more than anyone else can, perform the functions of the Lord, try as they might!

In essence, the position continues, gaunt and grim,  the initial misconception that brought ruin on Israel, through the displacement of Christ (Micah 5:1-5).  For many in Israel, just as then it was a physical displacement, so now it is a conceptual one. Since God is a Spirit, the two are intertwined.

As such, this misconception becomes one of the most primary grounds for negative response, when Jews or any other people in this way or that, on secular premises, genetic or other, embrace it. Pride can lead to such fall as in the end, may  leave mediocrity better placed than what has great attainments - as does Israel. It is not a baseless pride which can obtrude; Israel was given a place of leadership, as a praise-and-pronouncement station for the Almighty, and in this faithfully gave the Old Testament scriptures to the world. The nation was greatly used though it greatly abused that privilege, not once, but in many rules and reigns. Its crescendo not only summed it up, but cast the nation down.

In the loss of sight in sentencing the Messiah, as in Micah 5:1ff., it lost that place as confirmed in Isaiah 65:13-15 and Zechariah 11. It is therefore understandable that some residue of this position might endure; but then it was never an elevation of the nation as such (cf. Isaiah 19), but rather of the Lord whom they were privileged to present, to make HIM a praise and themselves a testimony by presenting what He has to say, and living with and by it (Deuteronomy 4, 12).

These topics, whether of Israel as a criterion once chosen to display the things of the Lord to His only glory, or of those to follow, who took up and sometimes cast down this same Lord, again for their own preferred imaginations, Gentile nations, remain central to both, and to Israel with a definitional distinction which teaches the world, for each prophecy is being fulfilled, or has been, as the time approaches for judgment on all the nations.

Patent to the eye here are two holes. One is that into which the cross could be jolted home, and the other is the result not of this only, but of the entirety of what reached crescendo in the cross, namely centuries of escalating error, disobedience, such as Christ signalised as witnessed in Matthew 23:32-36. That left a hole in the testimonial world,  although only that for the privileged post of an ambassador, not that of an intrinsically exalted people. It was fulfilled in the Gentile world, It is not that it was fulfilled WITH it, for most have abused it as did Israel earlier, but it was there for it to fill (as in Romans 11, Isaiah 65:13-15). What DID fulfil this testimonial function was of course the Christian Church^*1C, in early deposits from individual people in Israel, spreading to many nations, with Jewish apostles but augmenting international constitution (cf. Galatians 3:26-29). This is expressed in Romans 11, as in Isaiah 65:13-15 in that amazing liturgy of substitution.

This disjunction from Israel is not permanent. That nation, as noted in Zechariah 12, Micah 7, Isaiah 51, 66, Deuteronomy 32, Jeremiah 30,33, with its history unique,  in large measure is to come back to the Lord and His Messiah, and disjoin from the lamentable crassness shown obymany peoples as in Psalm 2; but until this comes (as in Isaiah 32:17, Romans 11:25ff.), the position for it is perilous. The developing Gentile world, itself a failure (as in Matthew 24, Luke 21) faces its own concurrent calamities.

Thus while the concept of some kind of superiority in the Jews in terms of tutelage may have had some bearing on the Gentile reaction to them  as a people, that cruelty and hatred is not at all justified. If a Headmaster canes a student, is the entire assembly to kick and stone that student! or does it not as it does so, whoever is involved, become ready for a caning itself! Who, in such an affair, can outdo whom in hypocrisy! There is much ugliness in all of this which no beautician but truth can heal; and this demands repentance on all sides. Indeed, as Christ indicated (Luke that nation 13:1-3), without this the prognosis is this: perishing!

 The same fault can be found in many manifestations. Thus, take Gentile Churches: if any exalts itself, and takes some of the express burden of the Almighty, and sets some of His unique glory on itseslf, to make of itself a teacher in its own rite (not right), there is the same elevation that predicably brings abasement (asin Revelation 18-19). Nor is it limited to any one. The lesson must be learned by all, secular or religious; and that is the beginning of which salvation is the end.

No ambassador for the Lord has ever had anything more than the presentation joy, for it is not oneself, one's Church, one's nation, one's race, which is paramount or to share the glory (Isaiah 42:8), but as it humbles itself as a servant, so it exalts Him whom it serves, both being apt and appropriate. It is however frequently fouled by pride, stricken by self-exaltation or fooled by false teaching, impertinently adding churchcraft to commission till an evil synthesis demands separation from them (as in Romans 16:17, Revelation 18:4).

For the servant the role is never more exalted than to exalt and glorify the Lord; anything better is alas, nothing other than a misstatement of a privilege.

Thus, on the negative side,  for those at any time appointed, any subsequent  endeavour in thought among them, whether it be on the part of some of the Jewish race, or for that matter Gentile peoples,  to replace the Messiah, which has been at the heart of the Jewish national profile, whether with themselves or their thoughts, is certainly a pre-occupation inducing negative response. Again, this is virtually tantamount to the parallel fault in the case of the Pope, seeking a scripturally denied (Matthew 23:8-10) pre-eminence among the bishops. It IS reprehensible; yet it is not a reason to kill, but for enlightenment. Too high becomes too low; and he who exalts himself will be abased. Not Zionism only, IF and when it includes any such element, but all the isms which enshrine this error, are in the same position, including the racism concept of Hitler.

ZIONISM AS the desire to return to Israel and rebuild is by no means amiss but singularly apparent in positive looking passages in the Old Testament^*2; and indeed it is only then that this predicted striking conversion is to occur, as the nation re-assembles as in Ezekiel 37 and Zechariah. It operates in both places in terms of return to the Messiah (Zech. 12:10, Ezekiel 37:24). It involves the washing of repentance (as in Zech. 13:1, and Ezekiel 36:22-25). Yet when and if any approach includes any concept of being what belongs only to the Messiah, a light to the Gentiles, or through their own character or attainments, there is a conceptual cancer and a spiritual peril which can scarcely be exaggerated.

What then ? To be sure, Israel DID HAVE a posting to lead (Isaiah 43:21), but not because of superiority (Deuteronomy 7:6-22, Isaiah 30:8-11). Rather was it because of a licence to transmit the truth of God from an established base. What the Lord premised and promised to Abraham, this He WOULD fulfil (Deuteronomy 7:8). As to its transmitting licence, for a time it has lost this at the spiritual level as in Isaiah 65, Micah 5, Zechariah 11; but there were still left other unconditional promises of God as in Genesis 17 and Ezekiel 37, indeed in Isaiah 42.

At first, they drew near to God (Deuteronomy 4:6ff., 7:6-11),  which opens up when the divine privilege from sheer grace is in view;  but their distancing from this privilege  more than cancelled that wonder; though it did not remove the love of God and the promised restoration to come as in Romans 11, Ezekiel 36-9, Micah 7, Joel 3. God is very stable, very sure, utterly reliable, never turning from His word (cf. Matthew 5:17-20, Isaiah 34, 59:21, Psalm 119). His patience is neither foolish nor vain, but a wonder. His is a creative love, and what it makes, it knows. When it is made in His own image, spiritually in scope and option, then He knows this too, though many seem to act as if He forgot. It is then they who are doing the forgetting.

The consideration of biblical point and prophecy in this field is continued in the last section.

 

WELL-SPOKEN THINGS, NOT TO DISMISS

IN A FIT OF USEFUL FORGETFULNESS

Now let us return to some of the excellent and at times exquisite, and in no small measure justified thoughts of the speaker noted at the first, at the B'nai Brith centre in Jerusalem.

The basic concept is this, that the hatred of Jews, or more particularly, their aggregation in Zionism, is something of a convenient psychic purge. With reasons of many kinds going back, there is now what can  appear in the guise of a justification so irrational and pungent, that there is an ever-ready basis for assault on the standing of Zionism. Start now with Denial of the Holocaust (an anti-evidential scoop of the ages), and then with this left lingering, create an advance on the anti-Semitism which gnarls the oak, by making the Jewish people responsible for all this talk of the holocaust,  like tipping over tea in a drawing room.

It is as if they say or intimate a certain outrage: Did you HAVE to do that! However, not eyebrows but arms are raised in this non-select international setting, and there is the feeling: There they go again, causing trouble. Hideous as is this distortion, pure imbalance and psychic tilt move many to add to the ghoulish events in the Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, this signature of elemental fraud, instead of pity.

He adds the point that anti-Semitism is a no-no, a term now so flavoured that to bring it up is to bring down trouble on your head. People DO not have it in mind as acceptable; it comes to be viewed by some very much as just a growl: about all this talk of the holocaust and sundries! Anyway, it might upset the Arabs who have oil!... as if that fluid had anything to do with the function of truth!

So if you speak of anti-Zionism, you are led on to anti-Semitism, the catch-phrase, and from this to being a speaker of unpleasant and unsocial words, of being partisan, taking a posture, stance,  stand, and being therefore objectionable for everybody knows... Jews! one might add,  are they not a chief problem in getting oil, getting peace, and getting on with it ! But with what! Self-absorption in centralised greed, uncontrolled and unprincipled subversion of fact for convenience! . Did not Bevan of the U K from his high post make a similar point shortly after World War II. They needed the oil, so that they would have to be careful about arousing Arab hostility. Alas, they were more than careful, some of the once renowned British Navy actively with all but inconceivable brutality, preventing unseaworthy hulks transporting would-be Jewish remnants from the European slaughter, back to their once appointed home!

That has been appointed internationally in 1917 in the Balfour Declaration, from Britain, re-affirmed by the League of nations as the 1920s came into place, only to be betrayed by the gift of some 73% of that same Palestine to the land of Jordan, which was enough for the 'Palestinians' had they not misused that privilege, using citizenship there to assail Israel (that is, the almost 27% of it left to it), and almost occasioning civil war in Jordan itself). Home ? forget it, said the ships, though it must be acknowledged that it was earlier Britain which both liberated the land of the Turkish invasion, and had made the offer in 1917, on which so much depended, as the Lord by these and other means, prepared the promised return for Israel to its land.

Let us then look at some of the ideas, but beyond them to what is given far too little emphasis in this B'nai Brith survey, to what is in fact swept aside too readily. What is this ? it is the contribution to this negative attitude to Zion, by many to Jews, made through the murder of Jesus Christ. Too obvious, is the dismissive approach to this point by the speaker concerned; but the simple can be profound, though of course here, not a justification for the attitude, rather a stimulus. As Christ was and is forgiving (though by no means forgetful in His dealings with the facts of heart and mind to be treated), so must be His disciples. Mercy is the coin of charity.

Thus, while this feature and focus, the crucifixion of Christ by ancient Israel,  is no justification for making an anti-Semitic stand in the least, since that was a nation, and this is a race; and since it is at the strictly religious level unsound, since this death, though vile as a national act, was in terms of the divine strategy in love to save man, it has given a certain dissaviour to Zion. Passion  ? yes. But righteously so ? There is no attestation of that at the time of the Lord on this earth, but of self-interest, hypocrisy towards their own religion, imagined self-interest exposed before the contemporary authorities, and intemperate passion for their traditions.

Many a people has been no better, in Europe not least, many as hypocritical, as self-advancing, as thankless for divine grace given. Indeed, many of these have been persecuting Christians, just like ancient Israel (Saul, who became Paul,  a supreme example as in Acts, at the first); and peoples failing to treasure what they had in Christ, whilst moving to horrors of heart almost unimaginable, have followed the lead of Israel in mind at least, and in force!  Will  all then be subjected to the same  impact of horror or hatred or contempt ? It is easier, however, to refer back to One, since He being God in the flesh, made an account which nothing could even begin to settle but repentance, as described to come, in Zechariah 12:10- 13:1.

God indeed WARNS peoples not to add  to His divine judgment on Israel the nation, which has proceeded precisely as divinely specified in the Old Testament, and in  accord with the New (as in Romans 11). In Isaiah 51:21-23, you see the position with the utmost clarity.  The case is shown by Israel having had to drink a cup (of bitterness, woe and judgment for its treachery over centuries, culminating in the crucifixion cf. Micah 5); but in time, it is so no longer. What then instead ? THAT cup of sorrow and suffering will be passed on. But to whom ?

 Nations have said, LIE DOWN, while we walk on you!  Now, we read, the case is to be inverted. The cup that Israel had to take will be transferred to the inveterate, intemperate, persecutory nations themselves! Germany has had experience in this field, since 1932, especially in 1944-48. So have others.  Much more of this rebuke is to come (as in Ezekiel 38-39, Micah 7). But for the present, let us consider the psychic and spiritual and moral ingredients that go with anti-Semitism but more especially anti-Zionism, and cover it more fully.

 

THE DEPRAVED DELIGHTS OF ANTI-ZIONISM

In the B'na Brith address in Jerusalem, the point is made that Jews tend to be hated, or anti-Zionism tends to be strong, because firstly, the Jews  were deeply involved in the appearance of Christianity, so that this becomes an indirect hate; and then because of their actual nature, different and specialised, and then because of their being a guilt-stimulus, leading to hatred because they make some feel bad, who do not want to do so, so producing resentment as an underlying ground for further detestation.

While there is something in this, there is a decided failure to realise the extent of the abomination felt by many for the killing of Christ. This aspect is dismissed somewhat airily in the article, and the passing over the EXTREME negative present in the relationship of the State of Israel in Christ's day, to HIMSELF, and to His continuance in the land, as if it were too simple to be an actual basic cause, is too superficial.

While it is true, and even needs emphasising that it was Jews who constituted the early congregation of the Christian Church in large measure and Jewish apostles who were appointed, so that it is true that Jews play a large part at the human level in the commencement of the Christian Church, this was not a national action, but its very opposite. Persecution by Jews is strongly noted as a norm by Paul, as he sought to present the Gospel in Europe (cf. I Thessalonians 2:14-16)^*2A. A growing and abiding sense of hostility occurred in many for many reasons  as this paragon, this Prince, this peace-bringing wonder, this bridge to the Father in heaven, this Saviour, was seen THROUGH THE JEWISH PEOPLE, as Israel, to have removed the greatest  wonder this world has ever seen. Such was (and is) He, in power, in purity, in prophecy, realistic and straightforward testimony not only to God, but to a most gracious way to find Him.

That He constituted this salvation IN Himself in coming, in being slain, in rising,  did nothing to mitigate the sense of shame, that for many covered the state of Israel, and in some, not realising to the full that this great parade and portent IN His death, fulfilled a calling that led to His coming, a sense no less of resentment.

HOW COULD THEY! was a consideration. While Christians are  to forgive, a  sense of the shame of it all was  not without foundation, whether explicit or implicit. WHO ELSE has such an opportunity!

Now it is customary in much guilt, for people to seek to blame others (often for something else, but to fuse or confuse the issues)  for something to be used as a  foil, an alternative, so that the blame could attach to others, instead of to the actual one at fault. Blame shifting and blame sifting is an art form, in which many excel! LOOK AT YOU!  is its cry.

Thus many could attack Jerusalem or Israel the nation, for doing what they did to Christ (even though it was all in fact in great detail predicted and part of the predicted divine plan of salvation, as in II Cor. 2:8, Isaiah 53:7-10). Such attack was by no means because they themselves would have done any differently in the same place, but because it is morally convenient, all but conventional indeed, to shift blame, and seek by pointing to someone else, to remove attention to one's own faults. It is horrible but it is common.

Thus there is in this no justification for people having any such underlying resentment for Israel on the score of its ludicrous sacrifice of Christ; and many Christians may feel a  pity for Israel,  as does the present writer, that it was shown up so vilely, when the evil actions of many nations towards both Jews and Christians, those actually Christians constituting the "body of Christ" are conveniently buried. The truth is often buried alongside the victims, whether of the Romanist Inquisition, of the latter day Hitler, of the USSR, the Communist regime in China. Indeed, notably on the part of some, even at a distance seemingly involved in the same kind of practice, even the holocaust even in its entirety may be buried,  in a sort of pandemic lie.

But it may yield a sop to an injured conscience, that they reject the Christ themselves, and so inherit the same result, except like the nation of Israel, they repent. Indeed, John 3:36 is the nether side of John 3:16-18, and you see this same transition as you move through the horror of the first part of Psalm 69, to the middle section. The tenderness of the mercy which led to the coming of Christ is likewise the measure of the horror which He bore and which when He is negated, brings the fire of the wrath of God which was there in the first place because of the subtle manifestations and murderous inclinations of sin.

In fact,  there  are many clear-cut grounds for the psychic elevation which some seem to feel in condemning Zion, or Israel, or Jews. As  to "Jews" that is totally illicit. Christ was a Jew. The apostles were Jews. The State's folly has to be  weighed with the Jewish initiatives following Christ in spreading the Christian faith and bearing the contumely and shame associated with doing so, which many modern nations are far from showing heart or courage to do.  However, when it comes to Israel, the earthly Zion, then there is a different  story: not in terms of legitimacy but the psychology of guilt and its illicit transference among mere men, from the one to the other. It resembles a sort of desperation, as if one were trying to avoid the plague, noting zealously other cases with some sense of hope of one's own well-being. It is scarcely laudable, for it is a device of bedevilment in many.

 

10 POINTS FOR EXPOSURE IN THE ANTI-ZIONIST WORLD

Thus by the anti-Christian heart (which may have a convenient pro-Christian tongue, filled with hypocrisy and self-deceit), Zion may be condemned for a spread of ill-assorted but with frequently found human inconsistency, synthesised dynamics in the heart

	1) They may be regarded as odious for having been different, and powerful, and having and showing the God of glory and power in action in multitudes of events of which the Exodus was one, and the entry into Canaan was another. This may institute fear in the ungodly heart, deep-down, where  truth may lie bound and gagged, and the issuance from the corruption  is anti-Zionism. Let this people of strange power  NEVER be  allowed to use it or show it again: this may become a kind of psychic slogan, whether verbalised or merely felt. The world is not safe when they are about, the cry may continue. (This is simply an extension of the loathing of God and His ways, in so far as they are contrary to the vices of man, and can bring on judgment for them.)
	2) Hatred may arise from their having brought explicit glory to God in their earlier days, and at various times since, in stupendous actions that shame unbelief, which being inconvenient to that same unbelief, whether explicit or suppressed, can and do bring aversion on the part of many. (It is rather like the emotions often evoked by the performance of an advanced student in a mediocre class!). Thus Jewry can be therapeutically despised, a species of devious psychic catharsis. That is, it is a sort of soul-elevating sacrament of negativity and self-affirmation.
	3) Jews, when in a Zionist context, can be hated partly because of fear they will challenge the merely secular, partly because they were once an empire in Maccabean times, and there is concern at recrudescence, especially where Arab oil makes such developments seem unprofitable to the miserably minded; and partly because many, with a certain odium through their voluntary exclusion of God in themselves, seem to need to have something else or more visible  to hate, harass or criticise. Jews, when in a Zionist context, can be hated partly because of fear they will challenge the merely secular, partly because they were once an empire in Maccabean times, and there is concern at recrudescence, especially where Arab oil makes such developments seem unprofitable to the miserably minded; and partly because many, with a certain odium through their voluntary exclusion of God in themselves, seem to need to have something to hate.
	4) They can be despised as an  antidote to any admiration which might be felt for them, as in 2). Pushing something down can tend to elevate by reaction!
	5) Israel has multiple points of contact BOTH with biblical times in the Old Testament, and in the New. As to the former,  this occurred when the mercies of God and His judgments were strongly exhibited, bringing God very near to the human heart way beyond philosophy, in practical, intimate and striking action; and with New Testament times, when some were significantly placed in the Christian Church, at the time of its foundation in the name of the Christ, the rush of realism following the incarnation and its exposition in the life of Jesus Christ made an awesome cocktail which many found difficult to ignore. Just as many received and believed the testimony in, through and by Christ,  finding no other way to deal with the data (as illustrated in John 6), so the nearness as of a volcano, could inspire horror and hatred in turn, in the relentlessly resistant heart, of which both Israel and the nations housed a myriad of examples. Further, in New Testament times, this advent and action not only related - as persons, not nation! - to the very foundation of the Church on Christ, the Jew, but it did so in a schema, like an opera, which started long ago, had a program, as in the music, and then presented a performance not susceptible to anything but a hefty covering of the ears. All this had come into this race by the promise to Abraham which God had poured Him (as also in Romans 4), and even though the nation killed the One so  selectively given first of all to them (Matthew 15:21-28), thus annulling any sense of affinity at that level! yet from its emissaries in the Church, it became a housing for a spreading attestation moving throughout the civilised world. The very energy of spread, the dynamic of the dealings äs in Acts, began a surge in testimony which resulted for the rearguard against it, in a tendency to a psychic surge to spoil, soil, dismember and dispossess it (cf. Acts 17:6-9).
	not least through the apostle Paul and his associates.
	6) Put these elements together, though in highly different quarters, yet with relationship to the supernatural, both in assault and exaltation, and you have a general sense of what the worldling hates and the formalist cannot abide. It is a sense of THE Almighty, not in some dream of various unauthenticated religions, musing and meandering, but in ACTION, with GROUNDS, LOGICAL ATTESTATION, and HISTORICAL expression. Moreover, it is not a tribal matter, or a racial, but has in it the criticisms of God, the disciplines as well as the dynamic, and fits the human case in its overall dealings, as a matchbox fits the matches, assembled neatly within it, and as love matches the beloved, in its zeal, reality and undisguised fervour, in its care and concern, thrust and tenderness, amid exigencies and tests, triumphs and sorrows. Such a display, whether past in Israel, before its final fall, or present in the Church, many of them  falling as foretold has the intimacies of truth, the rigours of reality and the suppressed awe of the outrageous wrath both of the devil and the ungodly when that spirit moves them. It is now hitting the Church more and more, for its current testimony, and Israel for its past and prospective one, for the latter is at the heart of much 'hatred', a fear and a rebellion as in Psalm 2.
	7) Add then  to that, that the emphasis on sin, which is present both in the Old Testament, the bud for the perfume of the sacrifice of Christ in the New, and in the New, the bloom and fulfilment of what  went before, is an  intense one. It is found in both of these Testaments, being one in concept, as in prediction-plus-fulfilment: and then what ? Then, you gain a notion of the self-respecting mind which likes to delete the fear of failure, like a student removing red marks, with liquid paper, on his examination paper. It cannot stand evidence, whether it be  in the discipline and deliverance so frequently promised to Israel, complete in the end for its remnant (as in Isaiah 11, Ezekiel 37, Micah 7), a matter of foreboding, for the end MATTERS! or else  in the Christian Church, that still functional REMNANT that continues operate, in the Gospel and in the word of God faithfully taught, not in nostrums and restless ideas, but in text and in fact. This, like Zion, Israel and especially Jerusalem a marked body in the testament of Christ, for restoration to Israel when the time of the Gentiles is OVER, with this return of the Jew to Jerusalem, an index to the  return of Jesus Christ Himself,  in judgment (Luke 21:24), has become for many a focus for obsessive hatred. For them, it MUST be ploughed under whether by hidden dealings in the dark, or by open sequestration, murder,  devastation of churches and assaults on notable Christians. Any testimony is to be tiraded against, any fortress of fact assaulted; neither equity nor kindness, mercy nor truth is to be considered. Such is the bait to evil, and the blight of the possessed. Jerusalem with the Jews back in it, no more trodden under the Gentile feet, precisely as Jesus Christ predicted, for many it is just too much: this is the singular tower of testimony which aches in the unbelieving heart. It MUST be assaulted, taken over, argued into the loss of Jewish control, or else the word of God clearly works, though millenia pass, and the Lord shows that He can discipline a people who once were His ambassadors, and still bring them back, and use them indirectly, pending their repentance. Here is a satanic element in the pride of the devil, mirrored in that of mankind in his OWN power and control and grab for the universe as if it had no owner, Maker and controller! It certainly is a big prize, and vast are the investments to secure it. Removing Jerusalem from the Jews and the Christian Church from its moorings are the two most obvious ways of doing this, and the appeal is enormous, though by no means always with understanding, for the devil is a vast deceiver-betrayer, and routinely deceives even his own disciples. With a desire to be boss, he comes, and often such are his ingratiates, for whom there is much ambition to be the ultimate, the controller, maybe festooned with pleasure, arising like a vast breaker, to smash into the sea (making much foam but little difference), in the absence of the true, self-attesting God. Are not such steps focussed at length in Revelation 13, 17, and the divine discipline on a vast deception within Christendom in Revelation 18-19, leading on in its overthrow to the Lord's own return!
	It is necessary to see the coherence of the entirety, the better to assess the strength of any one element in the ceaseless desire to overthrow, casting hatred and contumely or armies, one or th eother or as in the Middle East, both together, at any apt target.
	The devil is desperate (Revelation 12:12), and his desperation is showing on multiple fronts, in  all kinds of effrontery, especially as predicted within the bounds of the ostensible Christian Church, those apostate bodies which collectively make a New Christ,  New Gospel and use a New Spirit, just as Paul indicated in II Corinthians 10:12 - 11:15, there noting that the devil can manage to present himself as an angel of light! Indeed, so he does, whether in dark dealings to subvert churches from within, or Zion from without, whether the butt be a holy nation (II Peter 2:9), or a restored nation as in Zechariah 12, either being seen as fodder for the insatiable appetite of that evil spirit. This is to overthrow what stands in the way of his assuming total power, using poor deluded apostates, or maligning disciples in his cast for control. They become as little more than drones, sent forth in his dynamic of deception, to gain power, that he might then use it for himself. Many imagine  such power for themselves, or for "the human race," little realising that the satanic propaganda is but camouflage: for the part of those subverted and subversive, like Judas is not admirable, and is merely that of the deceived, who are used as means to the devilish ends which hate God and hallow deception. 8) If sin is offensive, and its extermination or alteration in definition is imperative for the imperial lust of mankind, then the case is not different in the case of pardon. This is a categorical thrust for Israel, which is bereft without it and ready for restoration when it gains it,  as in Ezekiel 36ff., and Zechariah 12 and Deuteronomy 30-33, and it has no future without it, and a vast restoration in the very heart and hearth with it, just as it is for Gentiles, in the Church where it remains central. Whether for Israel or the Church, such matters are intolerable to the ungodly mind; or at least need re-definition till it can be brought under human control! Pardon! to many in this world the very concept from the divine is offensive to the self-acclaimed moral wonders of this world,  the more in those who begin to sense some of the coalescing, between Israel on the brink now of it, and the Church attesting it for themselves as for Israel to come. Pardon from God! they have their own ways, as recently put in Australia, when offence was to become an intolerable thing between people, whatever the reason, cause or intention, so that rational reality would have been subordinated to cultural control. This nation missed that fate of irreligious humanism by a small margin. It is not only in the Middle East or amid Israel, Zion, the Jews that the pressure works, and the truth irks, but whether there is loot for the lordship of ANYTHING BUT GOD! Of this, Israel back in the flesh, in the nation, is one outstanding illustration, and as such it should be seen. Pardon from God becomes a horror to the non-helpless, non-repentant, and Israel reeks of its need, and its testimony in the Old Testament, as does the Church which has found the ultimate ground and basis for it, as outlined in the Psalms, prophets and Isaiah in particular, and found in the crucified Messiah as constantly predicted.
	Jewishness reminds of this; the Jewish extremities and past seekings for the Lord hold a threat of return to the power which accompanies it, and the prophecies are not unclear  about what is to be. Hence abhorrence of simple divine pardon has a part in the movement towards alienation from God (as in Ephesians 4:17-19), in the refusal to have ANY submissive relationship  to His grace, goodness and government. It wants power, possession and control of the universe, all to itself. 9) This,  after all, whether to be found a the foretold and coming repentance in Israel, or in the maturing testimony of the Christian Church, in the One of whom Isaiah wrote, in Chapter 9, is what this world wants for itself, so wanting deletion, diversion or dispossession of everything which stands or might stand for such a thing. It is not pardon but power which is desired by such a contingent, amid mankind. It is the Messiah Himself, the Son which was given to Israel, when none of hers could stand (as in Isaiah 51:20), of whom it is written that the Government shall be upon HIS shoulder, even He who is the Prince of Peace, and unlike Israel, the source of that peace, whose place comes where Israel has no place (as again, in Isaiah 41:28 - 42:9), of the increase of whose kingdom there shall be no end (Isaiah 9:1-7), of the guilt-bearing of whose sacrifice (Isaiah 53), as sinless, there is no end of results! It is HE who is in the way, whether in the living Church of the living God, or in the nation which has had such an amazing history of nearness to God, and has such restoration so clearly and so often predicted, in repentance back to become partner of the church, when the same Messiah is seen in a different way, for what He is. It is He, whether directly or indirectly, which is the obstacle, from which this world wants a cleansing, whether in national emblem, from the past, foretold for the future, or in international Gospel. Whether it be Arabs, or Palestinians or church-subversion, or slaughter of Christians, or bombardment of Israel's land, there is the evidence of obsessive hatred. When it comes to engendered feelings and reactions to Jewry, but especially to  Zion, where the very concept of organisation tends to accentuate, through its greater amplification of the thing, the Jewishness and all it has  contained or to which related: there is the parallel reaction to the power of God, not far away, which can thrust into evidence, and will do so, as appointed in its time. All this must be warded off by those who reject Christ, His majesty, deity, mission, commission and compassion, His salvation, whether received now or to be received in time to come.
	Pardon is one of the elements in the whole which is despised, free, gracious, unearned, non-meritorious pardon. Many are the religions which directly or indirectly WILL NOT TAKE IT! Power is one of the elements held as a substitute!
	Consider again. Proceed to the frequently focussed biblical stress at various stages and in various developments, on pardon, and there is offence again. To need PARDON from God or anyone else is contrary to the pride-psychic syndrome, and would reduce all to a level of guilty sinners needing God, which would be intolerable to the arrogant, the self-possessed and the exalted in spirit. It destroys the self-exaltation of man, and his exultation in himself, his world, his future, äs he tries to turn the degeneration of the genome into its opposite, by a species of academic black magic, to which Stephen  Jay Gould gave such interesting testimony, and Professor Sanders of Cornell, such notable exhibition*2B.
	10) Back of it all, however, is the intensity that is in view. Did Israel the nation actually remove the physical presence of a tender, a grand, a great and superbly wrought, a touching, a merciful work of God, where exposed to the light of common day, He could be inspected for authenticity and power, truth and goodness: did they crucify their King, who is also the King of the whole earth! (Jeremiah 10:10, Psalm 16:17, 2, 72): what were  they thinking of! THEY are to blame. They had it all and they let it go! Such is the reaction of many, whether in conscious or suppressed mode, as they squirm in their own sin, and look for surrogates to condemn! Even unbelievers might have some element of this sort of  fractiousness  as noted earlier, especially if unaware of the point of I Cor. 2:8. Then again,  there are those who think it unwise to TOUCH anything at all near to anything to do with God, and resent the Jewish national nearness and reaction as too dangerous and too badly handled both.

Now let us revert to the Isaiah 49 passage about a light to the Gentiles, to the nations in some more textual detail, to gain a broader coverage. This has been mentioned in the above, but now it needs more specific attention.

 

THE DANGEROUS DABBLING

IN THE PREREQUISITES OF THE MESSIAH

IS NOT ONLY A DANGER FOR ISRAEL,

BUT FOR MANY OTHERS AS WELL

Above noted, in the B'nai Brith address,  was a reference to Israel and arrogance attributable in any pose or posture on its part,  as "a light to the nations." This phrase is used in Isaiah 49 of One

	Who will bring Jacob back to the Lord, so that Israel will be gathered to Him.
	Who will not only call the elect in Israel but do the same throughout the whole world.
	Who will be despised by the Jewish nation (which is in view as a target), indeed as historically the case, "abhorred by the nation"), so that kings will arise and worship.
	Who will BE the covenant (as also in Isaiah 42:6), constituting therefore the word of God to man, even that to restore the earth.
	Who will say to the prisoners (as in Isaiah 61), Go forth!

Thus has the Lord comforted His people (Isaiah 49:13).

It is emphatically presented by God that HE REFUSES UTTERLY to share His glory with another - and that includes individual, nation or world, angel or devil (Isaiah 42:8). None is licensed to play such a role, but at best to present the role of God in such gifts for such a presence of glory in His own goodness.

NO ONE can stand in an equality with God in any of His elements of deity, such as the salvation in His name (Isaiah 43:10-11) and the redemption noted, which being His and unique, do not lend themselves to personal appropriation, as if of oneself! As receptors ? yes, the noted gifts are to be received. As donors ? No! THAT is precisely and eternally the work of God. They are simply given (Ephesians 2, Romans 6:23, James 1:17, Psalm 51:1-12, 31:1-3). They are equally simply to be received. Take it or leave it, one and all, it is done freely as a donation from deity because of His own deeds (as in Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Psalm 16, Psalm 40), or not at all (Ephesians 2, Isaiah 55, Romans 10).

NONE OTHER is the light of this world, the Saviour from sin (Isaiah 43:8-10 cf. 52:10-15, 53:6), who lacking it is free to bear it; and it is He as God (cf. Psalm 45) who is sent (Isaiah 48:16, 9:7, Father sending Son); and He has no deputies, only ambassadors, soldiers, disciples. Trifling with this is as trivial as making a pet of a 3 foot long scorpion (which apparently is something that once existed!).

Rejection of the One who being Deity, can constitute salvation,  covenant, turning point of history, ground of blessing for Jacob and Israel, sin-bearer as in Isaiah 53, and hence the sinless Saviour who otherwise would have to pay in death for his own sins: this, it is one thing.

Yet to do so in terms of one's own self or nation, or notion, as surrogate, not only to reject but to replace! This savours of a tormenting human failing, both with the explicitly religious and what is tantamount with aspiring secularism. It is the implacable presentation to substitute, to replace, to thrust aside as in Psalm 2! and this ultimately devastating results, as that Psalm proceeds to detail, cautioning expressly and gravely the 'judges of the earth,' who dabble in insurrection!

Here lies always the twist: God has said but I will do otherwise, think otherwise, devise otherwise, set store in my own ideas, and this, whether they be infinitely different (as at Eden, and Calvary), or just slightly so.

In fact,  ANY derangement of the position, power, purity, promise and premise of deity is quite fatal; it becomes like impersonating your boss. It may be innocent in conscious conception,  like some twisted anti-Semitism (though that is hard to believe, yet it is all too possible); but the outcome brings dramatic grief and is both sad to the uttermost, and perilous to the same degree.

If therefore there are errors of a profound character in the frequently found attitudes of many Gentiles to Israel, for which they bring their own divine retribution upon themselves, and this is so; yet there is also a crucial error for Israel itself to discover, as in both Testaments in due time, they will, as God performs His own enlightening operation on them (Romans 11:25ff., Zechariah 12:10ff.).

For this, for failure here, at the national level, if not in concept, then in action, they have already suffered prodigiously. Yet the world is asking for no less a rebuke at its own hand, as in one congregation of nations, it proceeds to what is indeed an arrogance of displacement of God, by their puny works. Works! Such as they are, these are enabled only by the power of God in making a logical universe susceptible to such investigation, and a logical brain ready to attend to the thoughts of the mind of man, and available to his hand. There will thus be two consignments among mankind, delivered from the curse, and both by the Messiah who DID come at the PREDICTED DATE^*1, and did save and sends, publishes, remits His salvation to Jew and to Gentile alike (Galatians 3), without differentiation in this focal feature.

Thus are found those whether Jew or Gentile in race and place, who KNOW Him and RECEIVE Him, not abhorring Him when He came, or if so repenting as others must of having neglected His grace and place, with a surge of rejoicing in His salvation for the one part or for the other (as in Deuteronomy 32, Isaiah 66).

But what is the criterion as to the level of eminence, priority of place and the sole earning power of redemption and basis for grace ? 

It is the Messiah, Jesus Christ, whose name is above every name that could be named, within the Trinity, in this world or the next (Ephesians 1:17-21Philippians 2:1-12, Isaiah 53:12, Psalm 45, 72). It is with Him as it was in the predictions concerning Him. As to those to be saved by Him (by His stripes healed), "ON HIM WAS LAID THE INIQUITY OF US ALL." There is no other; there is no other God; there is no other salvation as Isaiah 43-46 continually attests, as if to overcome the hardness of heart which intemperately may refuse to listen.

When, now,  His life is ransom for yours, where is being a light to the world ? It is the light of HIS countenance which matters (Psalm 45) and not the beauty of reflected holiness. Where did David find redress either for sin exceptional or more normal, as in Psalm 51 ? Was it in being a light ! or receiving pardon from the One and only who is ? As in Psalm 32, there is only one to exalt, and there is no arrogance in that! Such is the nature of the prayer of Nehemiah in Ch. 9, where shame of face and disillusion with any of the goods of self or nation are in view, and to God only is grace and merit to be accorded. 

Indeed, "they and our fathers acted proudly, hardened their necks, and did not heed Your commandments. They refused to obey ..."  Even after that, and prodigious mercies shown, "they were disobedient and rebelled against You, cast Your law behind their backs and killed Your prophets, who testified against hem, to turn them to Yourself..."

How the Lord abased any false conception of individual or national eminence, for the Lord is ONE, and there is no other God, nor is there any comparison. If Amos 9:6-10 does not remove any opportunity for self-trust as a paragon or parade (rather than a people to PARADE as provided, for the Lord and HIS praise), then one could try Ezekiel 16:44-56.

"Behold, every one that uses proverbs shall use this proverb against you, saying,
As is the mother, so is her daughter.

"You art your mother’s daughter, who loves her husband and her children;
and you are the sister of your sisters, who loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.
And your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters
that dwell at your left hand: and your younger sister,
who dwells at your right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

"Yet you have not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations:
but, as if that were a very little thing,
you wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways. 

"As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom your sister hath not done,
she nor her daughters,
as you have done, you and your daughters. 

"Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread,
and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters,
neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me:
therefore I took them away as I saw good.
 

"Neither has Samaria committed half of your sins;
but you have multiplied your abominations more than they,
and have justified your sisters in all your abominations
which you hast done.

"You also, who have judged your sisters, bear your own shame
for your sins that you have committed more abominable than they:
they are more righteous than you: yea, be  confounded also,
and bear your shame,
in that you hast justified your sisters.

"When I shall bring again their captivity,
the captivity of Sodom and her daughters,
and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters,
then will I bring again the captivity of your captives in the midst of them:
That you may bear your own shame,
and may be confounded in all that you hast done,
in that you are a comfort to them.

"When your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, 
return to their former estate, and Samaria
and her daughters return to their former estate,
then you and your daughters shall return to your former estate."

Again, in Jeremiah 1:5-8, we read this of the prophet's mission.

 "For you art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language,
but to the house of Israel:
Not to many people of a strange speech and of a hard language,
whose words you cannot understand.
Surely, had I sent you to them, they would have hearkened to you. 
But the house of Israel will not hearken to you;
for they will not hearken unto Me:
for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.
Behold, I have made your face strong against their faces ..."

Moreover, in Isaiah 30:8-11, there is an assessment not to be sought after! Write this in a book for ever! comes the divine condemnation; so that whether for Jew or Gentile, there is nothing to lean on but the Messiah, altogether, only and always, source both of grace and place, whether for person or people.

The same is true, in essence, in the Gentile world, as shown by Paul in Ephesians 2, and 4:17-19. IF you are not in the Lord with His mercies, you are merely facing judgment. If you are, then you HAVE faced your own sinfulness and that of any body created, and you have repented and have what ?

You have precisely nothing to offer in eminence, but only through grace, being brought at a price, except your lives, your bodies as a living sacrifice to Him, each person as one so bought. It is this which the Lord made so clear, so often to Israel, who so often so disappointed Him (Deuteronomy 1:27, Isaiah 43:1-15). 

When Tyre exalted itself, the question arose: Will you still say you are god when I slay you ? (Ezekiel 28:9).

When Israel exalted itself, breaking commands or ignoring Messiah alike, then it suffered; and the results need to be considered in their cause and consequence (Micah  5:15,). The reception of the Messiah was not good, even judgmental said the prophecy of Micah. Judgmental! It is worse... He, the Judge of Israel came to be born in Bethlehem, and what did the people manage nationally, in homage ?

It was this. They struck Him, not with hands but with a rod on the cheek! Abhorrence presented itself (Isaiah 49:7), scorn and contempt, and death were added.  THEREFORE He shall give them up, says the Lord in Micah 5:3. For how long ? It is statedly UNTIL the time that she who is in labour has given birth... It is until the land again is found, the foundering restored, the scattered being brought back, as in Ezekiel 37, their sins flushed out as in Ezekiel 47.

Where is there self-exaltation greater than exalting oneself, one's nation or one's ideas above the presentation of the Lord's Christ! or making Him optional, or irrelevant, or making oneself or one's appointee to serve His purpose ? The Gentiles are doing it. Israel did it; and the relevant point here is just this: It has not yet AS A NATION repented, and all the humanitarian wonders in the world (it has done much here that is truly admirable, and ethics have in much been shown, as has intelligence in estimable measure, as has industry in the returned people, indeed I am a lover of Israel) ... will not save it.

Neither this nor that nor anything else but He to whom it belongs (Ezekiel 21:27) can be appointed or anointed it to continue where the Messiah has been displaced; and stand. It has been tried; it is being tried; it will be tried to the uttermost, only to fall (as in II Thessalonians 1 and 2:4-10). Yet as to the One anointed of God, sent from heaven (John 17, Isaiah 48:15ff., Psalm 45), He CANNOT be replaced, for there is one God and one date predicted^*1when this ONE GOD came by appointment, and was removed by violence, as also appointed by Him who from all time, knew and foreknew the hearts of men.

Israel is no worse; it is no better; it is one of the range of sinners who need one of the available Saviour-group, which is just ONE^*2C (Acts 3:12-19). Lose that, and lifting oneself to the skies, and crying out that one's merit be observed, will not lift one off the ground of truth by one inch, but merely contrive to continue the fall... UNTIL, as in Isaiah 52:15, as in Micah 5:5, as in Romans 11:25, the eyes are opened and the reality is revisited and faith receives ransom and truth has a heyday in the land. The prognosis is excellent (as in Micah 7, Ezekiel 36-39), but the need is for action ... NOW.

THE DELIGHT OF HAVING FOUNDATIONS

Does this mean however that all the differentials of faithfulness and obedience, insight, foresight, application, concentration and goodwill are of no account ? Not at all. Read Matthew 25:31ff.,  and find the way the Lord acts. WITHOUT FOUNDATION, you have nothing, whatever you do (cf. Isaiah 51:1-6). It is like building on an earthquake zone dirt without permission, authority or wisdom, in the midst of a radioactive atmosphere. You can put up the most magnificent structures, including expensive paintings in a sunlit studio, but they fall because unfounded, open to lethal assault; it is for that reason, they are confounded, despite their potential value.

Build without the foundation of God in your life, as your authority, Lord, Creator, Redeemer, in your own unveiled strength and initiative, and it is in vain (Matthew 7:15ff.). Imagined foundations appeal to the inward eye, but do not serve their foundational function. They are no adequate base.

Like people in delirium, the world acts as if it had founded itself, as if the thought of man, after the event, managed or contrived to do it; for without thought, thought has no basis. Eternity is the only option, that is rational, empirically testable, logically apt. It is as if non-thought in the world of nothingness tired of not doing things and composing itself from nothing, decided to make something of itself, and placing itself in non-space and non-time and non-being in a thing called a singularity, made a singular indeed production, although there was nothing there to do it, or with which to do it. Fantasy has its reward, when its ludicrous imaginations dream their way into classrooms of science, palaces of actuality in thought!

The only singularity to the point, logically, empirically, is that of the adequacy of the God who thinks, creates, is not nothing, made time, is there from eternity, is basis for power, directed energy and mind, spirit and their intertwining. There is, as He declares so often, no other God. He is not a collection of bits from what was not there; but the maker of diversities from what is there, and of their point, prognosis and position.

So would nothing let man take over; and given fairy tale origin in a highly organised pre-universe, make it from what arrived by courier post from nothing! its father... and then let man take over. This is definably irrational. It is not even controversial, but magical.

Such accounts to get a free universe may appeal to the grasping or the confused. Nevertheless, fiction does not engender facts. These remain. Our God remains (Zech. 9:7). God who made human wisdom and imagination, foresight and technology, unparalleled by anything man made, and likewise constructed man's freedom to be pathetic or bathetic with it, or to love, hate or show mercy and all the spirit which is needed to do so with understanding: He does not ignore facts, even when man does.

These, they continue to operate however childish or even pseudo-sophisticated dreams may be set on the stage of human culture, and endowed with a spurious dignity, as for example those spuriously engendered by Marx and Freud, two lost Jews of enormous fame and folly^*3.

But that is not all.

Thus in Matthew 25, the goats are remembered only for misdeeds (25:41ff.), whereas the sheep are remembered for their good (25:34ff.). Acting the goat is epitomised in ignoring your Maker, seeking to re-make Him or yourself. It has no good prognosis.

But the works of the sheep, born into the fold, or taken into it, these are scrupulously examined in great detail. Music requires the right tuning for the prepared radio to relate to it; and what lacks it, does not sound what is prepared and sufficient to be heard. In its place, the imagination may play; but it does not produce anything musical, only illusions which dazzle or delight, attract or intrigue, befoul morbidly or hypnotise in their sheer folly and loathing. In one sense, if you try to compose for and by yourself, nation, hope, dream and ignore the Maker of your power to do so, then you may satisfy yourself that it is music, but in the end you simply 'face the music'. Presumption and pride are not detachable.

The Lord has given astonishing liberty to go with love, and which enables it; but ignoring foundations is like jumping over the moon, and then to awake to reality. A superficial thrill does nothing to move in the required manner. Such flights of fancy are aborted in fact.

What then ? Does, again, this mean that the love of the Lord for Israel has faded ? True, He has excoriated them, for killing an employer is one thing, killing the Prince of peace and Majesty of power, when able to do so, only because He was incarnate in a human form for human sinners to bring to them free relief and redemption, that is a surpassing thing. Such enterprise did not achieve reward, and its spiritual impact was left with Israel for millenia, in the spiritual realm, like a pulsing and destructive wavelength. Nevertheless,  He loves them yet. He PRAYED to the Father to forgive those who were actively involved in the murder at the time:

"Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!" (Luke  23:34).

"I have inscribed you on My hands!" He tells them

       "Can a woman forget her nursing child ?" He asks (49:15).

She just may; but not He! He will even DEFEND such a child as this (Isaiah 49:25ff.). 

Even when

"I gave My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard," (Isaiah 50:6),

yet He calls them saying,

"For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will  comfort all her waste places ...
My righteousness is near, My salvation has  gone forth ..."

He is going to judge the peoples, and not leave Israel to their mere deserts at His own hand.

"Awake!" He calls to it in its condign desolation (Isaiah 51:5,9). Is it not to Israel, His once so holy people, select for a salvation enterprise, with real estate for the purpose composed, constrained and ordered, a capital site indeed for the centre and its transformation in due course when the Messiah came (Isaiah 53, 63), the assigned site for the crucifixion, where was presented the sight for the eyes of the spirit and the peace of the mind, through His sin-bearing exploit!  Is it not "Jerusalem"  which is addressed in this way: you have  "sold yourselves for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money" ! As WHAT did they sell themselves ? as sinners unmet by national covenant ? Far from it.

We are explicitly dealing with a DIVORCEE from God, one removed from a prior relationship aptly called a spiritual marriage! Where is the certificate of your mother's divorce! the Lord thunders to it (50:1). LOOK, He challenges to the rock which begot you, to Abraham your history, for the Lord will comfort Zion (51:1-2). What is lost ? Zion. What is to be comforted  ? Zion. What is in view ? the married, consigned, covenantal people who breached covenant. Who is that ? Have you not heard, one might apply, of Israel who alone in all history amid all nations is in this double dealing condition before God, in this precise situation!

Now as to the 'Church', it is as a stated entity what is already redeemed, and it does not sell itself (Isaiah 50:1), as a definable entity, as an image, which is vested with the spiritual reality concerned. That would be simple repetitive contradiction. Is the 'Church'  a captive daughter ? Is it not free (II Corinthians 3:17) and notable for this same fact (John 8:33-36, Isaiah 61:1-3)! Yes, they are indeed the sojourners in Egypt, later liberated and confronted with a far greater liberation than they had ever known (Isaiah 51:10). Again, in Isaiah 42:18ff., is it the Church of Jesus Christ which is so blind that it has the very essence of incomparable blindness! or is it Israel which BY NOT FINDING THE LORD and so becoming a part of the Church, even when Christ personally came to it with prodigious works, has such all but incredible blindness as to qualify in this sense as such a dunce of voluntary blindness!

When indeed, the Messiah is the commanding figure as revealed in His (then) coming works in Isaiah 42, that blessed One who being despised and abhorred (Isaiah 53, 49:7), is nevertheless so rejected that in the time to come God will "bring the blind by a way they did not know" (49:16), are we really speaking of a select spiritual crew, enlightened in contrast to the world, and blessed of the Lord ? It is Israel alone which is  indeed a blind servant requiring such special treatment! It is the one of Egyptian fame, and fame for deliverance, who divorced from the Lord is in incomparable evils for specifiable reasons, in a very chequered history! Is Israel then, so described, with such a history, such an individual fault line, so accurately and uniquely specified, something else of a different history, a different status, a different position, in utter contrast ?

To ask is to answer. It is AS ISRAEL they have this portentous blindness! that alone fits the context without an extravaganza of self-contradiction, definitional denial and ludicrous comedy of gaucherie^*3A. If you choose something as symbol, is it the most ill-fitting thing that you select; and do you deny the normal import of the name is securing this comedy!

In any given context, it is necessary to void oneself of rubbish, contrary to context, whistled up like wild dogs from the wilderness, to consume the communication with mere cacophony, when the teaching is so beautifully precise and profoundly wonderful. Whether with universes, or with biblical text and context, massaging what is not there and contrary to what is there, is mere rebellion, intrusion, making over the painting of another. And this painting ? who is its maestro! That is the point: it is the LORD!

Israel the nation ? They are not forgotten. Yet as His salvation is to one and to all, and it is too little for Him  to redeem the elect in  Israel, and He is to be a light also to the Gentiles as a result of this fact (Isaiah 49:6), marvellous are His varied provisions,  in spiritual terms, as for one,  so for all;  and again, as for some in this way, so for others according to the promise concerned:  but to  all there is given ONE premiss, that of the Gospel for their souls, and His salvation for their lives (Isaiah 51:6). Israel forgotten ? He has NOT forgotten Israel at ALL, having for them the coming national event of Zechariah 12:10ff., hidden in His scarified hand;  and within that, the glory of restoration in pardon with their God, IN HIM whom they slew, by the love of the One the nation "abhorred" (Isaiah 49:7).

Back in place (Luke 21:24), surrounded and pounded (Luke with Zechariah 12-13 and Ezekiel 36-39), they are a testimony equipped with identikit, as was the Saviour Himself, and as HIS testimony was the power that brought salvation, so theirs is the fulfilment of both His power and His discipline, precisely as ordained and spelled out so very much in advance, in time and in detail. It has all happened: the exaltation as His messenger, the deprecation as disobedient, the severance in testimonial position as His testimony, the replacement for a time in this by Gentiles, the restoration of Israel to its land, still unbelieving (as in Zechariah 12:1-9), amid supernaturally sustained victories, precisely as predicted. The scientific mind in the scientific method can rejoice in such constancy, consistency both in terminology and in terms of history. The empirical, the logical, the defined, the definitive, it is all there as in any thesis, but here, history is a lecturer without want or blackboard. The blackboard then ? It is the world.

What then are we told in Isaiah 52! To Egypt His people, primary focus, had gone, and harsh was the misrule over them (Isaiah 52:4); but even so, even after so long a time and so much, how beautiful upon the mountains is better news. Indeed, it is so good, even glorious, that even the  feet of the one who brings it are given beauty because of the message they bear! (52:7).  The LORD is going to bring back fallen, depleted, imperilled, punished and lapsed Zion (52:8), now in worse plight than in the just cited Egyptian sojourn! Attributed to "My people" in 51:5-10, that sojourn is part of their history, of their identification, and as Zion are they brought back (51:8). They are brought backs so that "Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place - Jerusalem." AGAIN, it will be inhabited as of yore; it will be so in HER OWN place, as identified; it will be in the place named again, as her own, with a dash before it for the unwilling to believe, Jerusalem.

Zion is not a new thing; it is one harassed, hounded, impounded, dispersed, distributed, comforted, brought back, and with this is their other heritage, for the remnant, the blessing to  ALL nations, including therefore their own.

 Indeed, Israel the "forsaken"  is so in the full scope of time, "but for a moment"; for the chosen of the land will find this, that " with great mercies I will gather you!"  Like a widow (54:4), she will come, back to her husband, the one who is Redeemer and the God of the whole earth (Isaiah 50:5 and Jeremiah 10:10 cf. Hosea 1, 3). Newly back, indeed, from its dispersion (cf. Ezekiel 38), and with its wall notable (as in Micah 7:11, and as now), its national and partly grouped enemies came in a surging onrush to be met to their devastation by the Lord, not with pardon but with power, not with relief but with ruin, not with kindness but with that destruction reserved for the murderous military machinery of invaders.

Again is her place to be found! Her husband of yore is not dead, but alive (Psalm 22, 69, 102), and she needs to find Him! not walk in unwise weeds of mourning...

He has a provision rich and glorious, and most willingly forgives as Micah 7:18-19 depicts,  in the prophecy so long before declared. In fact,  He even  DELIGHTS in showing mercy! It is nothing on His side which makes a marring; and as to that, it was His own countenance that was marred (Isaiah 52:14) by what became in this, "not My people." So we see in Hosea 1:9,11, the movement from excision, to the stunningly wonderful overthrow of this temporary exclusion. It comes,   in the mercy of God, when faith in the Messiah arrives (Isaiah 32:1-8,15-20), so that once more, they become what they were, what Isaiah 49:6 calls " the preserved ones"  in Israel (cf. Isaiah 11:10-11), who along with Gentiles, come in heart to the same Saviour.

Indeed, in another sense the Gentiles were not My people - in their case they did not know Him at all, as Ephesians declares, without hope, covenant or God in the world! In the end, for the divorcee as for the never found, there is the same home, and Paul pertinently stresses this very point (Romans 9:24-29). It is a matter of one Gospel, two charges finding it - that indirect, through the Old Testament, rich in prediction of it and a prelude in mercy and sacrifice and truth and morality, and that direct. Neither is to be elevated in this consummation, above the other.

Both have come, each in its own setting; and for each all is to be fulfilled precisely as stated. It is not a matter of imagery; we know imagery without getting lost in the hands of a good author, as to what illustrates and what is the principle in view. If you go to primary school, that becomes a fact with implications, but if you went direct from private tuition to secondary, that is a distinguishing fact. There is no point, indeed only confusion, in pretence that they are the same. The OUTCOME may be; but the income has certain specialised features, in this case promises and express developments. A short-circuit finishes a matter quickly; but it ignores the system. Ignoring can then become just a form of ignorance. It is necessary rightly to divide the word of God; not sever some of it.

What then are we finding in Isaiah 52 and 11, for example ? These, they are even all whom He has called and who will come home to Him, where the waters of life are not, even these, befouled and the life-giving stream surges (Ezekiel 47).  Many are preserved for a time; but some for eternity!

These are those who, together with Gentiles now balmed in the blessing as appointed through Abraham for the world, are brought back both in spirit and in land, as a testimonial of the pardoning grace and verbal reliability of the God, who appointed Jerusalem as the site for salvation and vindication! It is best not to ignore appointments with God. The Messiah will indeed bring them back as in Micah 7:11-12^*4, so in Isaiah 11:11, "a second time." Concerning their woes, there is this systematic duplication: out once, and back, out again, and back again!

 Who are those appointed for this restoration from dispersion ? Not the Gentiles as in Isaiah 11:10, but Israel as in 11:11-12. It is the "outcasts of Israel" who come back, those already Israel, definitively, who come back to what was already Zion before they left it. It is those who as already people of Israel were cast out, and who now come back. There are of course none such on this earth, but that nation now called as it was before called, Israel.

Together with the Gentiles of Isaiah 11:10, they make up the full quota of the nations. All are involved, each in his own situation, each eventually by grace alone, to his site and situation as the Lord appoints, in the one grace give to one and to all from the only One who has it to give, and achieved redemption by which to donate it!  Just as the Lord takes the plan to the Gentiles, in initial composition (Isaiah 11:9-10), so "it shall come to pass in that {Messianic} day that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time, to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathros and Cush ... and the islands of the sea."

Two things He will then do:

1) " He will set up a banner for the nations," and

2) He will "gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."

No more in Jewish particularity, will Ephraim have envy, no more will Judah suffer adversaries. In fact, in the geographical redispositions, "the Lord will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt..."

International means of peace will blend with national changes, and the coming millenium will  flourish under direct rule of the great Shepherd, as in Psalm 72, Isaiah 11 and 65, 32 and Psalm 2, there with the authority strongly focussed, lest any become lost in poetry; for though their is then vast happiness, it is not without the power of God present, till the very earth goes to its appointed place, as all do, whether back to Israel, or to their senses, or on to heaven or to hell. It is no use to tell God to change His symphony into separate pieces. When God is at work, take it from His mouth, as Satan had to do, and will have to do again (cf. Matthew 4). In this felicity of composition, Paul rightly glories (Romans 11:30-36).

So to many in Israel in one vast begetting (Zechariah 12, Romans 11, Isaiah 66:5-13), as earlier in one sudden beginning (Isaiah 52-53 announces the basis, the application and the impact), does the Gospel come; and as to this, it is  for one as for all. In Isaiah 53 we find,  indeed, that whoever makes of His soul an offering for sin^*5, the life of the Messiah for His pardon, as of yore with the  sacrificial lamb, now with the Lamb of God, that person becomes one of Christ's  children, though physically He had none of His own on this earth, being cut off (Isaiah 53:8-10). It is not a matter of your soul or the national soul as an offering for sin, for either yourself or for others; it is HIS life, so RECEIVED. Reception of the revelation has always been the key. Reception of the redeemer by faith is what opens the door. HE IS the door (John 10:9), and on passing through by faith, you are always His own (John 10:27-28), with everlasting joy on your head (as in parallel in Isaiah 51:11). That is the way of it with the "ransomed of the Lord."

Here is the love-letter written in blood, making animal sacrifices obsolete (Isaiah 65:3), and one complete Gospel  available for all mankind (Isaiah 49:6, 42:6),  for God SO LOVED the world, that with NO intention to make His coming a judgment, but rather that the world might be saved, He gave, sent, signified and consummated the gift of His only begotten Son (John 3:15-18).

Love! It is the other way, and it is so in place both of self-sufficiency and violence, vileness and hatred. It is crucially, foundationally and operationally the love of God: it is not that we loved Him which is the basis and function of foundation, but that "He loved us and set His Son to be the propitiation for our sins," I John 4:10, cf. Jeremiah 31:18ff., Ezekiel 20.

It is the only way that ever has worked, or can work; for we are not made for wreckage and lust, but for productivity, perception, profundity, the knowledge of God, to know Him, and for the love of one another and peace in truth (Jeremiah 9:23-24, Leviticus 19:18). Again, there is no other way to do it!

You have to trust God, receive His redemption in His appointed, anointed Messiah, believe and rely on Him, and live in, with and through Him. There is no other God. There is no other way.

NOTES

*1

Isaiah 51 has an interesting contribution to make in the disseverance of Israel the nation, from Israel as the Lord who did what Israel the nation failed to do, and also could not do, died to save sinners, and Israel which some want at times to make into the Christian Church, as it can be, for metaphors are always available (cf. Galatians 6:16).

In Isaiah 49:3, after discovering, or rather exhibiting so clearly the inadequacy of any but the Messiah for reliable service at crucial levels overall (Isaiah 41:28 - 41:4), while He is eminently even delightfully apt, and again disqualifying any in Israel to meet her needs (as in 51:18-20, followed by the eminently and lavishly triumphant Messiah, through the vale of intensive suffering, with the magnificence of the results, in 52-55), we find an obtrusive fact. While none in Israel among her sons, could take the required step, or even be resourceful, faithful and adequate, while failure was repeatedly exposed, yet there is one. Here is AN ISRAEL, here is One that is different.  Thus, to this utter wonder, sent from God in the first place (as in Isaiah 48:154ff.), God the Sent, there is this statement made, in contrast to those simple descendants of Israel: "You are My servant, an Israel in whom  I will be glorified."

ALL the rest could not stand (cf. Isaiah 51!8ff.), but THIS Israel, this One who really wrestled into His mission with utter distinction (cf. Psalm 40:1-3), this is the substitute, the necessary alternate. Here is the One who counts, who completes the works who prevails! THIS is an Israel to whom He speaks personally, YOU are an Israel in whom I WILL be glorified. THIS is the Israel without whom s salvation God would never have created the universe or the human race in it (Isaiah 51:16, cf.  49:2), whose mouth He has made a sharp sword (cf. Revelation 19).

The term "Israel" however has the primary norm of being the nation so called in distinction from every other nation on earth,

	whose history, travails, deliverances in particular impasses by divine and miraculous means are rehearsed as at a family picnic,
	whose loss through chronic, idolatrous folly is accompanied by specific judgment, and then with comforting amid the desolations, as on Jerusalem, so afflicted for such reasons, and to be restored despite them.
	And why ? It is
	because of foretold mercy (as in Hosea, Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32),
	for God delights in mercy and they will mourn for their sins.

Such will be their action and disposition when the Spirit is poured out upon them (Zechariah 12-13), and with this theirs will be military victories of enormity by all ordinary means (Zechariah 12), over appalling masses of malignants (Ezekiel 38ff.), set to make her succumb in battle, based on greed; and in the crescendo the military losses amid utter humiliation and bloodshed will be vast on the assailants (Isaiah 66, Micah 7). Indeed, upon the return of Israel to its own land (Luke 21:24ff.), Jerusalem no more trodden down by other nations, and as Christ's return itself comes near, the times of the Gentiles are filled up.

Their Jerusalem, yes that very one, returned in its place (the repetition is delightful in Zech. 12:6, where at that point unconverted Jews are foreseen as in triumphant military battle, on return to their land), will become an historical focus of the God who made history; for as it had been the general site or centre of the ministry, death and bodily resurrection of Christ, a site of no mean significance,  so will it focus the unrelenting reality of what God would do, has done and accomplished not in poetical or symbolic terms, but in a body prepared, both for incarnation and for execution, in a world of many sorrows, where His transcendent actions are wrought in real time on a real earth with real results and real places of real importance. It is all grounded, just as the birth was grounded, and the bodily resurrection not confounded, but consummated at a place, in a region, for a purpose, and for transmission in accord with Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, in its spiritual significance to all peoples as part of Genesis 12 provided.

Thus, as history comes near the Lord's return time (Zechariah 14),  the  regrouping of Israel will be source for  shame on the part of those who gratuitously afflicted here in the meantime (Isaiah 51:21-23, Micah 7), and yes and at the crisis point, it will mean ruin for the intransigent in their unflagging efforts to ruin here. A man  may compete with a man; to compete with God is like an ant competing with the rock which crushes it (cf. Matthew 21:44).

Very well: THAT is the norm, that particular 'Israel', that of history and continuity of definition on such terms, which being unique, is contradistinctive of all else, except when metaphor is demonstrably in place.

Thus in this particular and normative case, in Isaiah 51, we have the rehearsal of definitive ingredients for its name as a nation, and then with this, certain further information.

There is a continuity of the Lord's care for this nation which alone was once in potential, housed in Abraham OUTSIDE the land, then entered INSIDE it, and then was removed FROM it, and is to return as such to it. The context is cohesive and not here subject to intrusion. It would be quite difficult to make it, in this Chapter of Isaiah any more definitive. What then of it ? It is to be given a relaxation of all that it had suffered, and in the process, the means in view bring a cup, not to Christ at this point, but to the very other nations who so gracelessly, during the time of its divine discipline, have been afflicting it, saying to it, Lie down, so that we might make of you a walk-over!

THAT cup, or horror, will pass on to them, as in Micah 7, in the military deliverance moved by the Lord for them, just  as He had moved for them in the case of the deliverance from slavery in Egypt (Micah 7:14ff. makes this explicit). The events are to be comparable in selective deliverance. Moreover, when Israel DOES come back to the land given in unqualified promise (Genesis 17:7-8), and restored in faithfulness (Ezekiel 36:22-29), then it will at first still be unconverted to the Messiah whom it as a nation, once slew. It will be given military triumphs when threatened BEFORE that, being Israel, not here a church of some kind, specifically NOT yet reconciled to the Lord and so unavailable for metaphorical marvels!

It is only then, later on, that this conversion comes as also in Romans 7:25ff..

Isaiah 51 shows before the Messianic Messiah comes for His vast task of salvation, as Isaiah 66 shows after it, the restoration of life to Israel in its own place, of salvation coming for any, and the culmination in the removal of the very  earth itself, all faithfulness to promise shown, all fulfilment of premiss complete, nothing lacking, all as foretold, to the last detail, jot and tittle; and in the grandest manner, salvation from sin, the one and the other. Of what does it remind one ? it is like a general who having told his troops the plan of battle and the procedures for one and for all, AFTER the battle, as in methods within it, is not so blinded by ultimate triumph as to short-change his troops. Every last provision is faithfully made; AND the ultimate result is powerfully fulfilled no less.

With God, nothing is impossible; and faithfulness is not only possible, but certain. His very NAME is faithful (Revelation 19:11). FAITHFUL HE IS CALLED, AND FAITHFUL HE IS. The great things of the law were to be done, but also the more minor, till the sacrificially significant acts all replaced by His own, one single act in its life context, the shadows of symbolism were replaced. Whether as thus fulfilled or in eschatological emplacement,  ALL to the least, is part of His testimony, is to be fulfilled.

as history comes near the Lord's return time (Zechariah 14),  and whose regrouping will be with shame on the part of those who gratuitously afflicted here in the meantime (Isaiah 51:21-23, Micah 7), and yes and at the crisis point, ruin for the intransigent.

*1A

See for example:

Christ the Citadel ... Ch.  2,

The Christian Prescription Ch.  2,

Highway of Holiness Chs.      4,   7,

Mini-Messages with Maxi-Impact Ch.   10,  

SMR pp.  886-900,  pp. 943-946, pp. 959ff..
 

Cf. SMR Ch. 9,

The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.   2,  

A Spiritual Potpourri  18.

*1B

You find the same thing in Isaiah 41:27-29, where Israel can offer none to do the job, to be the light, to have the effect, indeed to constitute the salvation, so that as a result, the Lord provides BY CONTRAST someone not of this nation or domain.

Here instead of finding nothing worthy, the Lord finds one eminently worthy, stunningly so. In contrast to such failure in Israel, there is now to be seen another prince of God (Isaiah 42:1ff.), another Israel, an effectual one, one in whom the Lord is well pleased (Isaiah 42:1), in whom in fact His soul delights!

This is an entirely different and utterly differential field. Here is the One in whom, so  far from being absent, there is a presence, on whom the Lord has put His Spirit. It is not only that in this One,  HE is well-pleased (as in Isaiah 42:1ff.), but this is the One elect, who will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. Not only will He bring it to their inter-relationships (as in Isaiah 11 and Psalm 72), but to their relationship with God Himself (as in Isaiah 52-53), by meeting justice for them, in the pangs of horror and in the power of life outreaching death, even death for sin, and this vicariously for their account!. It is He who in Person constitutes a covenant to the people (Isaiah 42:6). To remove any filament of confusion, the Lord makes it clear once more: HE WILL NOT SHARE HIS GLORY WITH ANOTHER (42:8). This is the One and it is He Himself, as in Isaiah 48:15ff.. As in Psalm 40, He sends His own, and as to the One so sent, He delights to come, even in body prepared.

You have a parallel again in Isaiah 51:19-22, where in its spoliation and disaster Israel has none to offer for deliverance, redemption. So in Isaiah 52 the Lord again prepares the way for what works, what is effectual, what is deity, what is the sin-bearer, and as such needs no blemish of its own, seen in the figure in 52:12-53:12, abhorred of the nation (Isaiah 49:7). So far from BEING the nation, He is despised and afflicted, crucified (Psalm 22) BY the nation; and the labour of His soul will be appointed to those who HAVE believed the report (as in Isaiah 53:1,10)*. The suffering of Israel has been excruciating; but is underlying cause continues. Other nations have frequently invented new depths of horror in their afflictions for it, or extermination rites or racial follies; but their infections are tolerated for a time, before their own rebuke is made plain, as the protection of the Almighty, though in mercy not utterly removed, does not operate as it would (cf. Jeremiah 30:11-17). Thus is the position UNTIL the Spirit being poured forth, they come back to their own Messiah, who is for them, who is for all who come to Him (Isaiah 32:17, Romans 11:25).

*1C

This is as in Acts 15:16-17. James points out in this statement that the Christian Church now fulfils the testimonial function of Israel, in AGREEMENT with Amos 9:11-12. The noted challenge and exclusion considered above in Isaiah 65:13-15, made that clear from the day of Isaiah, in the most profound terms. A testimonial body now! of what ? what is to be the position, since the nation abhorred the Messiah when He came. Indeed, as there shown, Israel was NEVER the actual light to the nations, but it was the Messiah who was this, and at length we have considered the perils of such a profound error.

God does not change; He does not divinely deceive with a nullification by legalistic means of what He has asserted or promised; such is to invade the moral premises of God, as well as to ignore what the Lord already has said in the Old Testament. When Christ declared that not a jot or tittle of the law would pass till all was FULFILLED, it was in truth,

	since the LORD IS THE TRUTH,
	(not as a waiver of His promises, but as an insurance for the integrity of His dealings).
	It is not a matter of literal or not (we all can use imagery and that has its own canons of interpretation as often noted on this site, with a good writer making it clear when and what is so being used);
	but of true or false.
	God is never false, but faithful, and has exalted His word above all His name (Psalm 138:2).

The Messiah in Isaiah 49:6, then, is certainly the uniquely defined person who IS God and became man, as demonstrated above, and this repeatedly. But this does not mean that the appearance of God as man is excuse for the error of some of the Jewish race, including the nation in the day of Christ, of putting Israel in the place which is for Him alone, as if the coming of the judge and exponent, fulfilment and salvation serves as obliterative of the divine memory, which like all that is His own, is in fact infinite, unlimited (Psalm 145:3).  Incarnation is not an amnesiac proposition, but one embracive. Indeed, as in Isaiah 43:10-11, the ONLY SAVIOUR is God Himself! Forget  that and it is yourself who is the unfortunate spiritual amnesiac! (Jeremiah 2:32, 18:6-15). It is not the divine but the human who would make God forget His unconditional promises, as deep as His heart and more sure than astronomical regularity (as in Jeremiah 30 and 32).

To think otherwise is not only insulting to God, exalting to man, a contradiction of His express word, often repeated, but gratuitous and an invasion of grace by presumption. It is difficult to state it clearly enough, but this will just suffice.

We need not surge like a runaway steam-engine, captivated by its own noise and fuss into crossing a bridge that is not there, and start making runaway remarks as if the incarnation ends the call of Israel. Rather is it the opportunity for the called nation of Israel to show its unbelief so that of necessity and as predicted (Micah 5:1-4), it quits its testimonial calling, renegs on its undertakings and comes to the predicted exile in store for it on such conduct (as in Leviticus 26). WHEN that happened, THEN so did the job of such testimony as in Amos 9:11-12, and Romans 11 go to the Christians, Gentile nations and not that of Israel; and so James remarks.

SOMEONE has to continue; or to use Paul's word in Romans, Israel THEN was cut out of the tree of faith and the Gentiles were grafted in. If THEY did the same as Israel, even those Gentile bodies who believing entered into the kingdom among them, then THEY TOO would be removed. One such removal HAD alreeady happened and would be remedies; the other is in store as applicable, for there is no difference in penalty here.

The ways of God are not for tradition, or extradition,  but for truth. As Amos 9:13-15 goes on after the item of 9:11-12,  to note together with Romans 11:12 and 24, this by no means excludes the restoration of Israel, nor cuts off their return. On the contrary, it is a prelude to the greatest restoration of all time, for any nation!

"Behold," God goes on to way after Amos 9:11-12, which "agree" with the testimonial task being taken over by the Christian Church, "the days are coming... when the ploughman will overtake the reaper... I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; they will plant vineyards and drink wine from them: they will also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them, says the LORD your God."

The agreement of Amos 9:11-12 at the level of the testimonial Gentile take-over, in terms of the Christians while the nation of Israel fell into entire disrepute spiritually not only does not make Israel suddenly to become an illustration of divine fickleness, but is occasion for the demonstration of divine faithfulness as dramatically and divinely stated from the mouth of God in Ezekiel 36:22-24.

His name! Since  God is faithful to the point of crucifixion rather than move one inch from truth, even for mercy, which He displayed only through paying the cost which truth required, His name is indeed to be preserved from unverified assault steps, and unclean attribution. As in Ezekiel 36:22ff, this He WILL NOT HAVE, not for one moment. Faithful is He in undertaking, in consultation, in reliability; for His words (as in Proverbs 8:8), are not twisted, but clear to the one who understands. Not one of His words fall to the ground, for even with Samuel, God made it so, as for the prophetic power.

Thus Amos 9 as James points out, attests the coming supervention of the Christian Church for a testimonial and when Israel returns (as predicted in Amos 9:13-15, so emphatically), there will be a restoration to go with this that is glorious, Paul attesting just the same in Romans: not as a possibility but a certainty, that fallen nation coming right back into its own tree, as an exhibition of life from the dead. One must be alert: they WERE as a nation alive, they were then cut off as dead, and as dead for this severance cause, they are then to resume their place in the tree. That is the case with the nation which goes by the name of Israel from the day of Abraham to the present, with a history so specific that it is like an atomic particle, moving in its own terms, unconfusable.

It is in. It is out. Then to the faith which it rejected in the fulfilment in Jesus Christ of the predictions of the Messiah, it comes back to them, revoking its denunciation, receiving back Him on whom it had stumbled.  indeed then there is as a result of this event, this recurrence, this restoration, this repentance of this people in the way described, one Church, the very one ENVISAGED in outline in the Old Testament (as in Isaiah 66). It is then that  where Jew and Gentile would co-ordinate and co-operate in unison with staggering unity of purpose and content. This is the consistent attestation of the word of God (cf. SMR Appendix B) and the set of volumes on Israel (Israel Pentad). But let us not confuse the outcome, the result with the cause. This is the result: their coming back to the Lord and to the land from the multitude of nations of their dispersion, is the prelude. Their investment again in that very tree of faith from which they were cut out, this is the result.

The Lord then will indeed as in Romans 11:26, citing Isaiah 59:20-21, turn away ungodliness from Jacob, His covenant undoubtedly ensuring He will take away their sins, even those of Jacob, Israel, the remnant that is His, which comes home so suddenly to the faith as in Romans 11:25. It cannot come back to it sooner than Paul declares during the mandated period of blindness; nor can it wait any longer. It is blind UNTIL that time. It is open-eyed then; and not before. It is a unique entity, has in its setting an indissoluble name, an unconfusable history and appointments, as for doctor or dentist, which is to be fulfilled, with  the 'chair' in which it is to sit, appointed with all else.

That, it is the drill for it as divinely declared. Who is man that he should deny it! or persecute because of it, or take issue with God, as if a free agent ? Who is a free agent who obeys the Lord, and why He asks, do you call Me Lord, Lord and not do the things that I say. The case concerning the recent Presbyterian move in Scotland is no small one, but dismal and grievous (cf. Psalm 83:1-3!), sad and one of drastic declension. To this we return shortly, but it would cut off Israel from its sacredly plighted return to its land, certainly convenient, as the nations have judged these last hundred years so often; but not true.

Is Israel then to be forsaken ? Yes, by many, but not by the Lord! THAT, it is the difference which counts for its forthcoming history.

In no part then of the New Testament is there even the slightest suggestion that God would waive His word, but the contrary is with vast emphasis, to the uttermost detail, confirmed (Matthew 5:17-20). Israel as in Ezekiel 36-37, is indeed to be brought back from its international dispersal, to its land, the body which awakened to God, broke with God, was broken for the breach, and then comes back to its place, both spiritual and terrestrial. Than that in Ezekiel as always, nothing could be clearer.

We must make the point, contrary to the appalling error of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland recently, in joining with some equally deluded Presbyterians in the USA, who went further and sought to attack Israeli firms which were and apparently are still doing so in certain areas of that Palestine donated to their return by the League of Nations. If some 77% of this internationally allotted territory for its homeland was wrested from it, and given to Jordan, this does not improve things, rather attesting an almost comic blindness to the injustice done, and the harassment perpetrated against Israel. Is it not enough that it should, in these terms, be robbed of so much, and yet even that far beyond half of its appointed zone taken from it, there should also be this hammering for more and ore, yes even when Gaza and the Sinai were freely returned to the aggressors in war and in concept, moving repeatedly against them.

Worse, such moves in Scotland, as reported concerning the very nature of Israel, make a false dichotomy, as if the New Testament were in some way contrary to the Old (cf. Whole Counsel ), and that we must start with it to find out, unfettered by its text,  the whole meaning of the Old, as if God could contradict Himself and go against the clear announcements at one time, because He felt like making quite contrary ones at another time. What sort of a dreamer is this inventing ? It is placing highly 'modern' ethics, in ludicrous degradation, in the very mind of God! It is making God as if one to blather and blither, rather than being eternal, speak truth. If advanced revelation comes, as it does in the New Testament, it is not from someone in a Junior College in the USA, a teacher making discoveries, or as speaker, breaching obvious truth as a teaching mode. Some things have to wait, Christ made clear, people concerned not being ready; they were not instead, blathered out, though wrong! If truth takes time, let it; it is the coin of divine commerce as clearly as is mercy and pardon.

God very simply is not like that. He is not at all like that. He is distinctively to the highest degree, the contrary of it.  Certainly the New Testament brings out features not fully realised in the some parts of the Old Testament, and shows them in their full light. This is like Primary and Secondary School. Good teaching knows how to make things simple, not wrong, successive, not abortive; and truth does not lie.

Accordingly,  since the commerce of God is with truth, HE does not deny His own word, or make void His own promises, or disdain His own premises. Christ quoted the Old Testament sharply to the devil, and that ended the matter. This was because there is no revisionism with God. China may make a revisionism of Marxism^*3, wrong from the start in its practice, to the uttermost point of mockery; but that is of a word in this world. This is from beyond it, from the Founder and Maker of the same. The word of God however endures for ever as Peter points out, along with Isaiah (Isaiah 40:8, I Peter 1:24).

In expanding therefore certain Old Testament concepts, the New Testament is not remanding them. It extends and does not delete. Concessions for a time for the wayward may occur; but these can cease. Declarations of God, who is never wayward, do NOT alter, and strong is He who executes His word as in Joel (2:11). God has power and has no need, information and is its source, and so has no lack, and has control, so that there is no opening. Moreover, He has no desire to deny Himself, the truth, nor as Paul points out, is there anything that would in God as He is, even permit a lie. Since He knows all, to say what is not true in one setting, before denying in another, would have to be a lie. He is never embarrassed by faults, since He has none. One of the greatest aspects of God is this, His heart, His entire worthiness, faithfulness, unblemishable truth, delight in mercy, not subterfuge or definitional tantrums. Truth and not tantrums, this is the way; and well they do who seek to follow Him, by faith, even in this also.

What then ? It is because He foreknew all and has everlasting strength that this is so. He neither weakly melts into a sticky residue in promises, nor into an evanescent seedy mess of premisses, nor turns from them, nor ignores them, nor grows out of them, nor lies to man to help him along. Such premises as in the case of the study of the book of Daniel, were indeed attributed to God in His word by Liberals, to their vast stain and dishonour. There is no need to return to that ignorant bash that afflicted much of Christendom, making trash out of truth, in the Liberal era, where many both gratuitously and outrageously were pouring human duplicity into the divine glory! Enough: that is another religion, when it reaches such depths.

Thus when in Ezekiel 36-37, a repentant Israel is returned, its unique history on display, to its land from its predicted dispersion, to find there the Christ in its time as in Zechariah 12:10-13:1, then to change the motif to some imaginative and confusedly inadequate twist to truth, into something which does not meet the requirements of definition inherent in the context, is mere rejection of the word of God. Indeed, it is like the work of tradition as found in Mark 7:7ff., in Israel.

That is not to say that some confusion on a point negates an individual's Christian standing. It is however to note that when you attribute negation of promises to God, and re-invent His word, and make of Him One who is unreliable, who does not do what He says, who yet exalts His word above all His name, you enter into a promiscuous area, even arena, where presumption can bring a fall such as many who did violence to the word of God in the past,  have felt (cf. Jeremiah 23:16-32).

Textual fidelity is a watchword of all of this web work, since it is from God Himself that it is taken, whether in Matthew 5, Joel 2:11, Isaiah 59, Psalm 119, Isaiah 34. God is not a man that He should repent of His WORD. The case is shut, once opened. To violate His diction is bad; to transform it is worse, for it is then a matter of principle, not a slip in practice. Micah 7 shows the way as so often does so much in the Old Testament, with which the New Testament is utterly in concord. What then does it show ? It shows the rejected rejecters of the word of God are coming back in the very face of just such opposition as the Presbyterian Church of Scotland is making, when it dares to make the New Testament a site for denial of the Old. Those rejected rejecters are unique, and to Israel the nation returned when the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, this place is given. No more will Jerusalem, to be destroyed (Matthew 24:1), then be trodden down in this way; and this unique situation is in turn a testimony to the near   return of the Lord (Luke 21:24ff.). It is not wise to ignore such testimony; for each must give an account, and to ignore what is given is the way of destruction and disaster.

The New Testament  IS a standard; but then the word of God is ALL profitable for rebuke, reproof as is now required, and instruction (II Timothy 3:17, Isaiah 34:16), wherever it is. Israel's promises as to the fathers are to be fulfilled as Micah 7 reminds us in no small or unimpressive detail, after the conflagration restoring Israel by divine power to its land, is over.

In reality, God knows what He is doing, and truth is its name, with mercy and understanding, love and wonder. One promise is not disposed to maltreat another; but they blend as sun and rain, both ministers of prosperity and joy, seen in their entirety, all true, the New adding to the Old, yet not as an enemy. Rather in  joy of exuberance, here it is in extending what is given, and consummating what is provided. Inventing instead, clashes by distortions becomes a sport for the unwise; and faithfulness being one of the major features of God, who exalts word to the heavens, and articulates it in reliability, the expansion of concepts in the New Testament as occurs at times, in delightful ways, presents no excuse for manhandling what God has said. It is necessary to remember of the word of God, that hammer that breaks rock, in whose hand it is placed. It is not in the hands of any body, Church or other, to wield; for GOD wields it and broken is what insists on being under its force (Jeremiah 23:29, Isaiah 10:15).

THIS sort of thing, it  is not New Testament exegesis, but Old Testament distortion, and abuse of New Testament beauty of truth, of the complementarity of each Testament as testimony to the beauty of the mouth of the Messiah, never whispering false nothings to the bride as in the Song of Solomon, but speaking as always, the truth.

It expands as marriage continues; it is never abortive.

*2

See for example Jeremiah 30:8-24, where the definition of Israel as a people of the Lord who fell but are to be restored is precise and plural. In the "latter days" we do indeed "consider it," as in 21 and 24. "He who scattered Israel will gather him," indeed (Isaiah 31:10), and as likewise in Ezekiel 36-39,  where the same relationship to the Messiah is to be found (cf. Ezekiel 37:24) for the decisively defined people, so sacredly called, so devastatingly rebuked, so spread amid the nations, so recalled and cleansed (cf. Ezekiel 36:22), in Him is there peace, and their peace in particular, as it always was (pre-incarnate or in the incarnation or beckoning yet). It is always He (cf. Hebrews 13:8), Isaiah 45:22-23 with Philippians 2:10-11). There is no other God and to Him ALONE is this bowing of the knee by all occur, and it is the Messiah likewise, one God.

This is the realm of the Messiah as in Jeremiah 23:5, and of restoration as in Jeremiah 31:20-22.

 

*2A

I Thessalonians 2:14-16 shows just how strong was the resistance, resentment and obstruction from many Jewish religious sources; indeed Paul himself in the days of his life as Saul, was notable for dragging people to prison for their faith! It is instructive to hear the account in the above epistle.

"For you, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which are in Judaea  in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:  Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they do not please God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."

Alas, a small fire in a select valley for a strong reason, this last like a whirling wind, can blow far and its embers can lead to a vast devastation.

*2B

See Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming Chs. 4-6, and Waiting for Wonder Appendix, for example.

*2C

See in The Site, numbers 89-92.

Entitled THE JUST ONE,

this is based on Acts 3:14

A series of three sermons

*3

Spiritual Refreshings Ch.  9, incl. End-note 1 (esp. programmatic psychology and its ilk), Marvels of Predestination and the Ways of Will Ch.  7,  including *1; News 80, 44, 97, 98;  SMR 4;
Repent or Perish Ch.   7, Extension 1 ; The True God has Go ... Ch.   2,

See also SMR Index under Freud and Jung.

*3A

You see the same sort of specious comedy in naturalism when it finds such things as Professor Dawkins of Oxford described, saying: Oh yes, evolution has been observed. It is just what we have never been there when it happened (Why Note Believe ? Ch. 12, esp. at *4, which expands this point and its basis). There is a type of blindness that cannot see whata is there, and a type which can see what admittedly is not. Both become evacuees from truth in their respective fields, whatever may have been the intention..

*4

See for example, Why Not Believe ? Chs.   3 and   6.
 

*5

See Bible Translation 3, n. 20.