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God’s Purpose with the Jews

FIRST ARTICLE

GOD has not yet done with the Jews. They are his nation, though dyed in iniquity and scattered among the Gentiles in disgrace. “God hath not cast away his people whom he foreknew (or knew beforetime) “This is Paul’s testimony, (Rom. 11:1) which is but a re-echo of the divine declaration placed on record ages before: “Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered you, yet will I not make a full end of you, but will correct thee in measure.” (Jer. 30:11.) Their prolonged national adversity, therefore, is no token of divine abandonment, but the very reverse, on the principle supplied in Amos (chap. 3:2.) “You only have I known of all the families of the earth, THEREFORE will I punish you for all your iniquities.” The national tribulation, rightly interpreted, is a guarantee of the national election, and a pledge of national restitution under the promises made through the prophets, which we shall presently consider.
There be many which look upon the Jews as an abandoned race, finally and for ever dissevered from special divine regard and degraded to the level of the uncovenanted and accursed Gentiles among whom they are dispersed. Many do this from a sincere but perverted conscience, created within them as the result of partial information and indiscriminating contemplation of certain apostolic statements. Ignorant of those future national movements and national blessings which come within the scope of God’s purposes prophetically and apostolically declared, they cannot see but that the abrogation of “the middle wall of partition” between Jew and Gentile in the matter of individual salvation, involves the divine repudiation of the national relationship which he established in former days between himself and the Jews: and equally unacquainted with the fact that “salvation is of the Jews,” (John 4:22.) and is to the very end to be developed like a kernel from their midst, they naturally feel the doctrine of Jewish restoration to be a spiritual anomaly which they reject altogether. How ill advised they are, we shall presently see.
It is evident from the proposition demonstrated in our last article concerning Christ’s future occupancy of David’s throne, that the restoration of the ancient kingdom of Israel is necessitated as a logical sequence thereto. Wemean that if there were no other testimony in the whole of the Bible, the restoration of the Jews could be deduced from the simple statement that Jesus is to ascend the throne of his father David, since that throne comprises the Jews as its fundamental element. But the grounds of the belief are not restricted to this inferential kind of evidence. The Bible is luminous from beginning to end with the glory of a purpose which involves the blessing of universal man. The glory commences to glow in the promises made to Abraham, wherein is covenanted the blessing of all nations IN Abraham and IN his seed at a time when Abraham occupies the promised land with a seed numerous as the stars of the sky. But the specific and indisputable testimony may be said to commence with the declaration of Moses. “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me; UNTO HIM YE SHALL HEARKEN” (Deut. 18:15.) This statement was addressed to Israel after the flesh; this will not be disputed. It was an intimation concerning themselves; this will not be disputed in view of the emphasis on the pronoun “THEE” as applied to those whom he was addressing. It concerned them as a nation, and not as scattered individuals. This is evident from several considerations. It was not fulfilled to the generation who heard the words; therefore it was not addressed to them as individuals but as constituents of the national “THEE” which has survived the vicissitudes of all ages since then, and lives in its scattered modern representatives. The prophet was to be “like unto Moses.” Moses was a national lawgiver, and not an individual moral preceptor; therefore the second Moses must bear a like relationship to the nation addressed in the pronoun “THEE.” Who is this “prophet like unto Moses?” No New Testament reader will hesitate to answer. The point is set authoritatively at rest in the following quotation from a discourse by Peter to the Jews shortly after Pentecost.

“GOD SHALL SEND JESUS CHRIST who before was preached unto you whom the heavens must receive UNTIL the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken to all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.” (Acts 3:20–22.)

Jesus, then, is “the prophet like unto Moses.” This is an important conclusion as throwing light on the future of Israel; because the statement is that Israel shall “HEAR HIM” in his capacity as a national leader like Moses,—that as a nation, they will one day put themselves submissively under his direction. It is superfluous to say that this has never come to pass. “Jesus came to his own, but his own received him not.” (John 1:11.) He came to look after the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. 10.), but they knew him not, and in ignorance that he was indeed “that prophet,” they put him to death; and he departed, leaving them with the words “Ye shall not see me henceforth UNTIL THE TIME COME THAT YE SHALL SAY, BLESSED IS HE THAT COMETH IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.” (Matt. 23:39.) Ever since, during a long period of eighteen centuries, in the midst of the bitterest adversity, the Jews have been the malignant rejectors of Jesus, and at the present time, show no signs of relaxing the asperity of their opposition. With the blindness of the undestroyed vail which Moses symbolically assumed on coming down from the mount, they cling to a system which though divinely originated, was but representative and provisional; and with an almost incomprehensible infatuation, reject that of which their first dispensation was but the shadowy typification. Obviously then, in no sense has the prediction of Moses been fulfilled. Nationally, Israel continues to follow Moses, and boast in him, and continues to be unbelieving in the prophet like unto him. But God’s purpose will be carried out. The time will come when they shall say “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The prophecy under consideration not only predicts the national acceptance of Jesus as lawgiver and king, but indicates the inexorable stringency of his regime when established. “It shall come to pass that that soul which shall not hear that prophet shall be cut off from the people.” There is no such indi vidual adjudication now and never has been. The hard-hearted Jew blasphemes the name of Jesus and goes scot free, and instead of being “cut off from the people,” he continues prosperously connected with the unbelieving and corrupt mass of the nation. Most obviously, the time contemplated in the prediction of Moses is yet future, when the nation recognising Jesus, will be established in their land under his judicial administration, and subjected to a discipline which with more unyielding severity than the law of Moses itself, will infallibly destroy every rebel and extirpate every germ of disaffection.
Peter connects the inauguration of this, with the coming again of Jesus at “the times of restitution spoken by all the holy prophets.” His words are “He shall send Jesus Christ unto you * * * For Moses truly said unto the fathers, a prophet &c.” He makes the second coming of Christ to the Jews the fulfilment of what Moses said about the prophet like unto himself. This is strictly in harmony with the obvious facts of the case; for the words of Moses have not yet had their fulfilment; and if they are to be fulfilled at all. it must be in connection with a future manifestation of the Prophet; and when more appropriate than at the times of restitution of all things spoken by the prophets? whereof we shall see a little more by and bye. That this is the time when the Jews are to receive the Messiah and submit to him is further evident from the words of Zechariah (chap. 12:10) where it is said, “They shall look upon me whom they have peirced, and mourn for him as one mourneth for his firstborn.”
Taking a step forward in the progress of the specific evidence of God’s purpose with the Jews, we come to the prediction of the present national ruin recorded in Leviticus 26:31.

“I will make your cities waste and bring your sanctuaries into desolation And I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours; and I will bring your land into desolation and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste * * * and they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ land.

This gloomy picture is relieved by the prospect of ultimate restitution put in the form of a hypothesis, and afterwards prophetically foretold

“If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers with their trespass which they have trespased against me; if their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land.”

That this remembrance of covenant obligations results in the execution of them, is more evident from a further prediction by Moses, recorded in Deut. 30:3, 9.

“The Lord thy God will turn thy captivity and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee * * * The Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land for good, for the Lord thy God will again rejoice over thee for good as he rejoiced over thy fathers, if that thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God,” &c.

It may be objected that these predictions of national restoration are contingent upon national repentance and reformation; and prove nothing apart from the likelihood of reformation or otherwise. This is true, and the objection would be a fatal one if we were without testimony as to the fate of the contingency, that is, if we were left without information as to whether or not the nation would reform; but we are not without information. We do not require to go out of Moses to get the point conclusively settled. In the very same chapter from which the above quotation is made, we read (verse 6, ) “and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” The prophets who succeeded Moses threw great light on this point. They tell us with great clearness and amplitude of expression that one of the most notable features of God’s purpose with the Jews is to reclaim them from their present state of perversity and unbelief, and beget in them nationally that state of mind which is becoming and essential in a people holding such a close relationship to God. Listen, for instance, to the declaration by the hand of the prophet Ezekiel:—

“I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness and all your idols will I cleanse you, and a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them, and ye shall dwell in the land that I gave unto your fathers, and ye shall be my people and I will be your God.” (chap. 36.)

The result of this divinely induced change is indicated in the following testimony from the same chapter:—

“Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and ye shall loath yourselves in your own sight for your own iniquities and your abominations.

But while the restoration of the Jews to their own land is accompanied by the most thorough national renovation, yet it is obvious that the one is not the result of the other. That is, God will not restore Israel in consideration of Israel’s righteousness, This is obvious from the twice repeated statement of the Almighty through Ezekiel, “Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God. Be it known unto you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel.” The consideration which prompts Jehovah to the work of restoration is set forth in the following words:—

“I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine own holy name’s sake which ye have profaned among the heathen whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them. And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.” (Ezek. 36:22, 23.)

The strength of this motive on the part of God is apparent in the prophetic song of Moses in which the destinies of the nation were pourtrayed for the national remembrance:

“I will heap mischief upon them. I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction * * I said I would scatter them into corners; I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men WERE IT NOT THAT I FEARED THE WRATH OF THE ENEMY, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this.” (Deut. 32:23–27.)

To prevent this triumph of boasting, judgment is to fall upon the enemy and salvation to come to Israel.

“To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their (the enemy’s) foot shall slide in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and all things that shall come upon them make haste. For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone and that there is none shut up or left * * Rejoice O ye nations with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries AND WILL BE MERCIFUL UNTO HIS LAND AND TO HIS PEOPLE.” (verses 35, 36, 43.)

God cannot brook the triumph of the heathen, which involves his own defame and the insensate boast of the ignorant and the foolish. Therefore he proposes the reclamation of his ancient people that through their national restitution by the hands of Christ whom he has raised up for the purpose (Isaiah 49:6.), his name in the full plenitude of its multiform significance may become known and revered over all the earth. There may appear to be a little contradiction between this view and the aspect of the case put forward in the earlier quotations from Moses, in which the recovery of Israel from judicial disaster is made to depend upon their recognition of God’s justice in punishing them, and their full resolution to amend their ways. In reality: however, there is none. The restoration is a foregone conclusion in the divine mind for reasons already indicated; but the restoration will not be carried out in violation of God’s righteous laws. He does all things in righteousness, order, and peace, and will not restore a nation in wickedness to prosperity. Hence in the second instance, the execution of the purpose will be strictly subjected to the conditions indicated in the first announcement. No rebrobate Jew will enter the land of promise to participate in the blessings of Messiah’s reign. The whole nation will be subjected to an ordeal of discipline which will effectuate the work of purification, and realize the statement by Isaiah “Thy people shall be all righteous.” But more of this in our next.

EDITOR.

Oct. 17th, 1864.

. Vol. 1: The Christadelphian