“But if a revelation is made to another who is seated, the first one must keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted.” (1Co14:30,31)
Journal,
In the above Scripture, Paul explains how prophetic exhortations were to take place in the assembly of the early believers. What many don’t realize is that the apostle has the Scriptures in view. It should be understood in this sense:
‘If a revelation from the Scriptures is made to another, let the first one listen. For all of you can prophesy (share a revelation from the Scriptures), so that all may learn and all may be exhorted.’
The early believers were well-instructed in that all true revelations from God, must have their resting place in the sacred writings.
Jesus said,
“‘These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” (Luk 24:44-45)
This helps us understand what Paul had in mind when he said that Bible teachers must never exceed what had been written by the prophets.
“Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that in us you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other.” (1Co 4:6)
The Bible of the early Christians
The Bible of the early Church was the same Bible used by the nation of Israel. The earliest believers simply studied Moses and the prophets. They did this in light of the new covenant.
You can imagine the activity of the Holy Spirit among the early believers in helping them draw from the sacred writings of Moses and the prophets.
Thus you have the adage, ‘The new is hidden in the old, and the old is revealed in the new.’ The theology of the early Church did not have the complexities that later came to dominate the Christian faith. Neither the apostles or the early Hebrew believers ever departed from the ancient creed of Israel.
Paul said,
“Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” (1Co8:6. Paul is reflecting on the Schema of Israel. Cf. Deu6:4)
The tale of two people
The Church has long grappled with the issue of her relationship to a people known as Jews. The issue is not put to rest by quoting a Scripture such as,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendents, heirs according to promise.” (Gal. 3:28,29)
This particular Scripture has to do with our salvation in Christ. It was never intended as an answer for the issue of the relationship of the Church and the Jewish people.
To properly address the question of the Church and the Jew, we must also couple redemption history with another statement found in the New Testament:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Any study of redemption that ignores God’s love for the world will result in a distorted view of our salvation in Christ, and a distorted view of the Church’s relationship with the Jewish people.
Regardless of how little we may understand this, the record is clear. Adam’s life and nature became corrupted when he forsook God’s word. Sin is not simply something that men do. Sin is a principle of evil at work in the fallen race. This principle of evil passed from the generations of Adam until now. Sin includes every human on planet earth.
The man called Abraham
Here we leap across history and find a man called Abraham. Abraham is so important to the work of redemption that new covenant believers are called ‘the children of Abraham’.
“And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” (Gal 3:29)
Through Abraham we have the history of a people who will include Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Peter, James, John, Paul, and so on. (Yes, our very apostles were from the stock of Abraham.)
But God did not set aside the Abraham people because they were superior to any other people. Moses addressed this:
“It is not because your righteousness that the Lord our God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.”
He went on to say,
“You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.” (Cf. Deu8,9)
So, why did the Lord choose this people? The answer is, “For God so loved the world.”
From this people would come the Messiah. From this people would come a fledgling Church that would fill the earth with righteous fruit.
Everything God did in former times had the fall of Adam in view. Everything God does in redemptive history has the cross of Jesus Christ in view.
The sacred oracles
Paul asks the question;
“Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?” (Rom3:1)
He then says,
“Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.”
Being entrusted with the oracles of God meant that to the Abraham family alone God entrusted the writing of His sacred oracles. (This is one reason that the Koran cannot have been of God.)
These divine oracles were intended for all of humanity. In fact no other people group could ever produce such a book. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation is the only book under heaven that can give a record of history before it happens.
The world would not have known where and when the Messiah would be born had it not been for the prophet Micah and Daniel. Men from the east would not have journeyed so far to find the infant Jesus, had they not studied these ancient oracles.
A book of deliverance and salvation
The book spoke of the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.
The prophet said,
“On that day the deaf will hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. The afflicted also will increase their gladness in the Lord, and the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa29:18,19)
Notice that it is the needy of mankind who will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. This reaches back to the truth we must not forget;
“For God so loved the world.”
Someone asked Paul that since that the Jews had largely rejected Jesus as the Messiah, does that not place the Gentiles before the Jews. After all the Gentiles were entering the Church in a large measure.
His response was,
“Not at all; for we have already charged that both the Jews and the Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, `There is none righteous, not even one, etc.” (Rom3:9,10)
Israel missed her appointment
Moses had much to say about this people who would take up the name ‘Jew’. For example he said,
“Would that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would discern their future!”
Moses reaches across history, and speaks of their scorning the Rock of their salvation; that they would be scattered among the nations. Then he says,
“In the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice.” (Deu4:30)
Now listen to Jesus:
“He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another…
“… because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” (Luk 19:41-44)
Israel coming to faith
The Jewish people need a Savior just as does all of humanity. Moses knew this. Peter knew this.
One day the Jewish people are going to look at the nail pierced hands of Jesus and ask,
“What are those wounds between your arms [hands]?”
The Lord will respond,
“Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” (Zech. 13:6)
The prophet Isaiah lays out how Israel would reject her Savior. In Isaiah 53, we hear,
“But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell on Him, and by His scourging we are healed.”
Isaiah goes on to say,
“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of. He us all to fall on Him.” (Isa53)
The mystery solved
The gospel began in the temple complex in Jerusalem. The Jews were given first rights. Yet through the years, Gentiles have entered the Church by droves and the Jews by trickles.
Is this how salvation history was purposed to work?
Paul said to the Gentiles believers,
“I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery so that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written…
“The Deliver will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” (Rom11:25,26)
Paul says, after the gospel has penetrated all the nations and the full measure of salvation has been preached among the Gentiles, an interesting thing will happen. The nation of Israel will turn to Jesus with a full heart. Thus he says,
“[Then] all Israel will be saved.” [When Paul uses the term ‘Israel’, he speaks of a nation group.]
Keep in mind what Jesus said as He wept over Jerusalem,
“From now on you will not see Me until you say, `Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.'” (Mat23:39)
Jesus was weeping over a physical Jerusalem. This can only be fulfilled in a physical Jerusalem.
With this the prophets agree
God speaks through Hosea in saying,
“I will go away and return to My place until the acknowledge their guilt and seek My face.” (Hosea 5:15)
What guilt must they acknowledge? They must acknowledge that the Man of the cross was and is the true Messiah of Israel.
At some near point in redemption history the nations are going to make a collective stand against Jerusalem. It is in this time frame that the Spirit of grace will once again be poured out on Jerusalem.
“And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” (Zech12:9)
Listen further – Zechariah 12:10 says,
“I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.”
The greatest revelation of all is that they will know that Jesus Christ is Yahweh incarnate.
The Lord spoke through the prophet:
“They will look on Me whom they have pierced.”
Hosea also lays out the great substitution doctrine of Christ:
“Come, let us return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him. So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His goings forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth” (Hosea6:1-3)
A beloved enemy
So again, what relationship does the Church have with the physical race of Abraham? Paul said,
“From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.” (Rom11:28)
But how can we the Church have a beloved enemy? Strange isn’t it.
What other reason can there be for this strange attraction Christians have for the Jews? And I might add, vice versa. Did you know that more Jews have converted to Christianity in the last half of this past century than in all the former nineteen centuries put together?
What did Moses say in this regard?
“When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.” (Deu4:30,31)
Paul gets very specific in saying that the Jews will be given a covenant of forgiveness at the second coming. He says their acceptance will be life from the dead.
“They did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles [all the nations], to make them jealous.” (Rom 11:11)
Such a mystery. And to think that we are at this moment seeing redemption prophecy fulfilled.
Oh yes, it began in Jerusalem and it will end in Jerusalem.
Listen to Mark Lowery as he sings, ‘Mary did you know’
In Christ always,
Buddy
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