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THE ENSIGN MESSAGE

ISRAEL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

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It is impossible to truly understand the  Bible – or any part of it – without understanding that the Anglo-Saxon-Germanic and Scandinavian peoples  of  today are the Israel of the Bible.  The  Bible  speaks  always and only to Israel ; and to claim its benefits for yourself, you must start by putting yourself in the ranks of Israel. Even the  major  churches  show  some  dim  awareness of this fact although they won’t admit  it. For example, the  Episcopal  Church  won ‘t admit  that  we  are Israel – but read their Book of Common Prayer, throughout, it speaks always from the standpoint of Israel. To get out of the embarrassment of this inconsistency, most churches  teach  substantially this:

“Although God ‘s promises to Israel were absolute and uncond itional, God welshed on those promises, and has given them to the church, instead ” – although they don’t express this quite so frankly. If their doctrine were true , they wouldn ‘t have much of a religion – if Israel couldn’t trust God ‘s word, who else could?  But it is NOT true – God never welshed on a promise ; every promise He ever made to Israel He has fulfilled and is today fulfilling, to Israel and to no one else.

Then the churches say, “Well, we are only Gentiles; but we have become spiritual Israel.” Now that is a most remarkable statement. The people of Israel were never, at any time, a group of people who all held the same religious belief -at the best, there were always many apostates and idolaters among them, and during much of their history nearly the entire nation became apostates.The great prophet Elijah found that in the whole nation of Israel there remained only 7,000 still loyal to God. But the Bible never says that they ceased to be Israel, when it is denouncing them for their apostasy. Israel was purely a racial group, all the same race, despite the apostasy of some of them from the true religion. Therefore, the only way anyone could become a “spiritual Israelite ” would have to be the same process by which they could become a “spiritual negro” or “spiritual mongolian” – something one could never do. You can be an Israelite only by birth,  by inheritance.

We have before presented evidence that t he Israelites exist today under name of the Celto-Anglo- Saxon, Scandinavian and Germanic peoples, and that God ‘s promises to Israel have been actually fulfilled to them. But many churches teach that the New Testament has done away with the promises and prophecies concerning  Israel  and that  Christ  started a new religion, having discarded Israel. This is positively not true; the whole  Bible is  consistent from beginning to end. There is as much “Christianity” in the Old Testament  as   in   the   New – though

it is harder to  understand ,  because: it  is  presented in the forms of prophecy, ritual and symbols Now, we want to show you that the New Testament , like the Old, is an Israel book.

We know the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John deal with the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus taught always the truths pertaining to Israel. In Mark 12:28-29, a scribe asked Jesus which was  the  greatest  commandment  of all; and we  read in verse 29, “Jesus answered him,  The  first  of  all the commandments {is}:Hear, O ISRAEL: The Lord our God is one Lord.” Jesus regarded His whole ministry as being primarily to Israel; for in Matthew 15:24, Jesus said, “I am not sent but unto the  lost sheep of the House  of Israel,” Again , when Jesus sent out His 12 disciples to teach the people , we read in Matthew 10:5-6 “These twelve  Jesus  sent  forth, and commanded them, saying,  Go not  into the  way of the Gentiles, and into  any  city  of  the Samaritans  enter ye   not;  but  go,  rather,  to  the lost sheep of the House of ISRAEL” Again , in Matthew 19:27-28 , Peter asked Jesus what reward would be given to those who had given up all to follow Him; and Jesus replied to Peter in verse 28, “Verily I say   unto  you   that  ye   who  have  followed Me, in   the   regeneration,   when   the   Son   of  man shall  sit  on  the  throne  of  His   glory,   ye  also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the  twelve Tribes of Israel”.  Note  that  carefully  He  didn’t say  that they would become heads of the Uniting, Episcopal and Baptist Churches etc, but that they would become  rulers  and judges  over  the  12 tribes of Israel. This is not something of the past, which God had to discard as a failure; this is Jesus Christ’s prophecy of what was so eternally true that it would still be in effect in the Millennium when He comes back to rule the earth in person. Also, many of the parables  used  by  Jesus  Christ  concerned   Israel  so Jesus Christ testified, in the Gospels, that God has not changed  His mind  concerning His people  Israel.

Surely, no other, authority as great as that of Jesus Christ can be found, to testify of what is truly Christian. Yet there are still many people who mistakenly believe that the Apostle Paul changed all this, threw out not only all the Old Testament but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, and set up a new religion. Paul would be the last person in all the world  to  try  such a  thing. Paul makes it clear, in nearly every Epistle he wrote, that he is writing TO and writing ABOUT Israel – although some of this has been hidden by mistranslations in the King James Version of the Bible. Let’s review  some of them.

First , let’s take the epistle to the Romans – so­ called. To whom does Paul address it? Chapter 1, verse 7 says, “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called (to be) saints” shows that it is addressed to those persons  in  Rome  who  are  “called saints” Yes, we know that your King James Version says “called to be saints,” but you will notice that the words  “to be”  are  in  brackets,  which  shows  that these two words were not  in  the  original writing, but that  the translators added them, in  order to make it correspond with what the translators thought Paul should have said. But let’s take Paul at his own word, what he actually did write instead of what somebody else substituted.

Remember that Paul was a very well educated man, who knew the Scriptures well. Paul knew that a saint” was not somebody who would be named as such by the church in the dark ages, several centuries after Paul wrote, because the so-called saint had done some deed of piety. Do you know who ALL of the saints are? Paul knew – for he knew the Psalms. In the first place, what does “saint” mean? It means “set apart” or consecrated to the service of God. It is used in the Bible almost exclusively of people as members of a class, rather than as of individuals. It is- used to describe the status of God’s people Israel. Therefore, Psalm 148:14 tells us who ALL of God’s saints are – not just some of them, but ALL of them. It says, “He also  exalteth  the  horn  of  His  people,  the praise of  all  his  saints, (even)  of  the  Children   of Israel, a people  near  unto Him”.  Paul  knew this, so when he addressed any of his epistles to “saints,” you  know that Paul was writing to  Israelites.

So in the Epistle to the Romans, is wrongly named in your Bible (for Paul) didn’t call it that, but the translators. In this book Paul says he is writing “To all that  be  in  Rome,  beloved  of  God, called  saints.”

Since ALL of the saints are Israelites according to the Bible, which Paul knew very well, we know that he was not writing to just Romans in general. Nero, for example, was a Roman – in fact, Nero was emperor at the time he wrote this epistle – and we may be sure that Paul never considered Nero a saint. And these saints are also identified as “called.Paul knew whom God called; Isaiah 41:8-9 told it: “But thou ISRAEL, { art} My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham My friend { Thou} whom  I  have taken from  the   ends   of   the earth, and called thee from the  chief  men thereof,  and  said   unto  thee,  Thou  { art }  My servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away.” And  Isaiah 51:2 says,      “Look    unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah {who } bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.” Paul well knew that God had called and predestined His people Israel to be the people who are consecrated to His service – which is just what the word “saint” means . Therefore, in Romans 8:30, Paul says, “Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called;  and  whom He called, them He  justified; and whom  He justified,   them He also   glorified”

Similarly, Paul writes to the saints in various other cities. I Corinthians 1: 2, 11 Corinthians 1:1, Ephesians 1:1-4, Philippians 1:1, Colossians 1:2, and 24- 26, and Philemon verse 5, all these clearly state that Paul was writing to those who are the saints in those various cities. Paul knew that the saints, the  Israelites,  were the people to whom God ‘s message was addressed, the people in whom it must take root, that they should be called to His service as God had declared from the beginning. Therefore, it was to them, that Paul wrote, and  not  to the  “Gentiles” in general.

Do not be misled by bad translations, for example where you read in Romans 1:13, “That I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other gentiles, ” for Paul actually wrote “even as among other nations.” Paul had made converts who lived among other nations, both in Greece and in Syria and in Asia Minor. You must carefully judge from the general context in which the term occurs, whether the particular nation of which he speaks is an Israel nation or a non-Israel nation. If it is a non-Israel nation, then the common term “gentile” may as well be used even though inaccurately – because we are accustomed to it.

Again, this is consistent with what Paul wrote to  the “Saints” in the city of Corinth: for in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, he writes, “Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, that all  our  fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat (food ); and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” Paul could not have truthfully told gentiles that their fathers, like his, had all passed through the Red Sea with Moses, and had all been protected by the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and had all eaten the manna and had all drunk  of  the water which pou red out of the rock in answer to Moses’ prayer. Only to ISRAELITES could he have said this with the slightest spark of  truth.

Not even the prophets of the Old Testament were more firmly convinced of the great and continuing destiny of Israel than was Paul. We know that many have been taught in churches that Paul threw all this into the rubbish-heap and sta,rted a new religion without Israel in it. Where they get that idea we certainly don’t know. Listen to this, from the Epistle to the Romans, and see if you can find anything here to show, that Paul thought that Israel was all through: In Romans 9:4-5 Paul speaks of the “Israelites; to whom { pertaineth } the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service (of God), and the promises; whose (are) the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ (came).” You have been taught that gentiles are “adopted” as the children of God; but did you notice that Paul says that it is the “Israelites to whom pertain the adoption?” How could Paul make it any plainer than this, which is in Romans 11:1-2,“I say, then, hath God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also  am  an  Israelite,  of  the  seed  of  Abraham, (of) the tribe of Benjamin.  God  hath not  cast away His people whom He foreknew. ” Remember what he says about those whom God foreknew? “For whom He did  foreknow,  He also did predestinate (to be) conformed to the image of His Son, Moreover, whom He did predestinate,  them  He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified;   and  whom  He  justi fied   them  He  also glorified. ” Rom. 8:29-30). Since God’s People Israel are those whom He foreknew, then this is written about them. Some see that in the New Testament, the writings of Paul very clearly constitute Israel books, just as much so as the Old Testament.

God is always consistent with His own truth; so it is also true  that  the  New Testament  proclaims God’s eternal unchanging love for His, people, Israel. We have been examining the New Testament to prove this. We saw that the  four Gospels  record the words of Jesus Christ, and that He strongly emphasised that He was sent primarily to the lost sheep of  the House of Israel; and that in His parables, He taught the truth of Israel’s continued place in God’s plan. Then we examined the various Epistles of Paul;  and we saw that he wrote to “the saints” – and we know from Psalm 148: 14 that ALL of God’s saints are His people Israel. He reminded “the saints” at Corinth that their fathers, like his, passed through the Red Sea with Moses and ate the manna and drank of the water which poured out of the rock in answer to Moses’ prayer – something that couldn’t be said of  “gentiles.”

Now let’s look at the writings of the other Apostles in the New Testament. What about James? This could not be to the Jews, for they were not of any of the Tribes of Israel, and also they were not “scattered abroad” when James wrote, nor for ten  years thereafter – they were still collected together in Palestine. It could not even be the people of the Kingdom of Judah,  for  they were  never  more  than the 3 Tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, and James  is speaking to the “TWELVE Tribes scattered abroad”. But we know that the Assyrians took into captivity  first all the people of the ten northern  Tribes  who made  up the  Kingdom  of  Israel,  then  the Assyrians under King Sennacherib invaded the southern Kingdom of Judah and deported 200, 150 of its people in the same captivity with the ten Tribes, and finally, we know from, historical sources that,  upon  the  fall of Babylon, the Tribes of Israel, by that time known as “Scythians”, swooped down on Babylon  and  carried off most of the people of Judah, Benjamin and Levi who were captives at  Babylon,  leaving  behind  just the relatively few who returned to Palestine with Ezra and Nehemiah. So when James wrote his  Epistle,  in AD 60, the Twelve Tribes were scattered abroad, by that time known as the Angli, the Saxones, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, and the Royal Scyths, already moving on their long march into their predestined homes in Europe. It was to them  that James was writing  .

And what about Peter? The First Epistle of Peter leaves no doubt that he was writing to Israelites. The first verse is badly mistranslated. Instead of “the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia as your King James Version reads, the actual wording in the Greek is “to the exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. ” Pontus, Galatia and Cappadocia are the eastern part of modern Turkey, and we know that the Scythian tribes of Israel did occupy this region before they moved out on their long journey into Europe. They were exiles from their original homeland in Palestine; they were dispersed over a wide region . Finally, to clinch the matter, Peter identified them in the second verse as Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father.” But who were God’s elect?” In Isaiah 45:4, God speaks of “Israel Mine elect.” And as to the foreknowledge of God, remember that in Romans 11:2 Paul confirms that “God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew.” “Elect” is but another word for “Chosen,” and in Deuteronomy 7:6 the people of Israel are told that “The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself,  above  all  the  people  who   {are}  upon the face of  the  earth.”

 But let’s look further into what Peter has to say. In I Peter 2:9 he says to these “exiles” of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, etc, “But ye {are} a chosen  race, a  royal priesthood,   an  holy  nation, a peculiar people (people of his own):  that  ye should  show forth the  praises  of    him   who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.” We know that your King James Version  Bible  says  “chosen  generation,”  but that is a mistranslation , for the word in the Greek is genos meaning a race, not a generation. This could not describe anyone but Israel. The chosen race is Israel, this is confirmed in Isaiah 44: 1 , “Yet now hear, O Jacob, My Servant; and Israel, whom  I have chosen.” Also in Deuteronomy 7:6 it says: “The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself, above all the people who { are} upon the face of the earth.” Next, “royal priesthood,  an holy nation,”  this also can  only  be Israel, for Exodus 19:6 tells the people of Israel “Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” A peculiar people is another identifying mark of Israel, for Deuteronomy 14:2 says, “For thou {are} an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.”And finally, “That show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His light” is another identifying Israel: for in Isaiah 43:21 , “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall  show forth my praise.”

The epistle to the Hebrews as indicated in its title, is written to, as well as written about, the Hebrews, the Israelites. We have covered enough to show that the New Testament and the Old Testament are just the two sides of the same coin – which has the same value whichever side you look at. If this was not so, we could not have confidence in either one of them : for truth must always be consistent with itself. Jesus Christ came not to take back God’s promise and nullify the prophecies, but rather, as Paul said in Romans 15:8, “Now I  say  that Jesus  Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises {made} unto the fathers.” All that had been promised to Abraham and Moses was to be made good.

Therefore, never let anyone tell you that the two halves of the Bible are inconsistent,  and  that  to accept one you must reject the other. No, the Bible is all one book; it tells of God’s putting His sons and daughters on earth as His chosen people, Israel, and the great destiny He set for them; it tells of His foreknowledge of their imperfections and  sins,  and His provision from before the foundation of the world of the Redeemer who would  save His people.


A  DUTCHMAN,  MORZER  BRUYNS,  SPEAKING  OF THE  FRISIAN

people of  Holland, made this statement:

” Fries  or  Fryske  comes  from Fariesaka.

Now,  Fara is the  Frisian word for  generation  or offspring.  

Fariesaka means  Fara-Issachar,  or  offspring  of Issachar.”

It might just as well be Fara-Isaka or offspring from the Saka, Sons of Isaac.  In either  case  Fryske  means  offspring  from Israel.

 

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