Andrew Isker examines 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16, arguing that while ancient Israel opposed Christ leading to Jerusalem's 70 AD destruction, labeling all modern Jews as enemies of mankind is inconsistent without a futurist soteriology. He distinguishes between the faithful remnant preserved for the Messiah and those who rejected the apostles' ministry, noting Jesus' warning that "sons of the kingdom" would be cast out while Gentiles enter. Ultimately, the discussion asserts the Old Covenant is done away with, establishing the Church as the true Israel built on Christ, the cornerstone. [Automatically generated summary]
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Preserving Tribes for the Messiah00:09:17
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To get a clear understanding of the Jew Gentile issue in the New Testament, You have to understand Christ's earthly ministry within the context of the Old Covenant.
There is a reason the eternal second person of the Trinity entered human history and took on flesh in Israel.
There is a reason that he was born a Jew.
There is a reason that he was not born in Rome or China in the first century.
The purpose of the Old Covenant was to bring the promised seed, the seed of the woman from Genesis 3 that would crush the serpent's head.
God continued that promise to Abraham.
Telling him, in your seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed.
The promised seed would come through his line.
God promised that it would continue through Isaac, then through Jacob.
And in Jacob's sons, this nation was formed through which the promised seed would arrive.
This was their primary reason for existence.
This is why God, despite Israel's constant rebellion and unbelief, painstakingly preserved them.
They were called as a nation to be priests to all the other nations.
Serving as mediators between the nations of the world and God.
This was a ministry that they consistently failed to achieve, but nevertheless, God was gracious, and the fulfillment of ministering to the nations of the world was the seed coming through them.
of Old Testament history led to this culmination in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Here we are.
What was the point of Israel?
Yeah.
What was the point of Israel?
What is the purpose of Israel in the Bible?
Why Israel is a good question.
And why so much patience with God?
Certainly, we can say that it's true to his eternal nature, his character.
He is a God who is slow to anger, long suffering, kind, merciful, upholding faithfulness to the thousandth generation of those who fear him.
But the problem is that.
An argument could be made that throughout the history of Israel under the Old Covenant, few feared the Lord, that many died out in unbelief.
On that note, it's worth mentioning we were talking offline, and I thought it was helpful the old pejorative replacement theology.
You had a really good point.
You said, well, if we want to talk about replacement theology, then I guess God was a proponent of replacement theology during the 40 years of Israel's wandering in the desert.
He replaced that generation.
The entire generation.
Wiped them out.
Save Caleb and Joshua.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or, I mean, other instances throughout Israel's history during the exile, right?
They come in, Israel is kicked out of the land, and many of them, perhaps even the majority of them, are killed or sent into exile, sent away from the land, sent into a kind of quasi slavery, right?
You look at that.
All right, is when God is destroying the wicked in Israel, right?
Is that replacement?
Right?
Is that what's happening?
Because in the new covenant, the same thing happens, right?
You have the wicked that are destroyed that reject Christ and reject the Holy Spirit, reject his church, and God comes in judgment.
Christ comes in judgment in 70 AD and destroys Jerusalem and Judea, right?
But the faithful Jews that clung to Christ, right, the remnant of Israel, they're preserved, right?
So they're not being replaced.
And the question of who is all Israel.
That is being saved, right?
Did those who fell in the wilderness, right?
That sinful and wicked generation, right?
Were they all Israel?
Right.
No.
Are the ones that are destroyed in the judgment from Babylon, right?
Are they part of all Israel?
No.
No, they're not.
The faithful remnant is the all Israel, right?
Not all, Paul says this in Romans, not all Israel is of Israel.
The ones of faith, the children of faith are all Israel that are saved.
Right.
Yeah, to quote Romans 11, like all Israel will be saved.
And then say that that has to indicate a future spiritual revival among Israel and that it has to be universal.
It has to be each and every individual person in the modern nation state of Israel coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
Paul doesn't even think that in Romans 9, two chapters earlier, he's saying that not all Israel is of Israel.
I want more of Israel to be of Israel, the true Israel, but he's saying that there are wicked apostate people that have rejected their God.
They're cut out of the covenant completely.
And the branches are burned.
That's what happened in the wilderness in Exodus.
That's what happened in the exile.
That's what happened periodically throughout Israel's history the apostate branches are cut off, and if they're not grafted back in in faith, they're burned.
Right.
And so, one of the great purposes of God preserving this people for as long as He did was to bring about the messianic promises, to bring about the seed, singular seed, who is Christ.
And it makes perfect sense and biblical sense.
That shortly after, within one generation of Christ being born and finishing his earthly work in his life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, that Israel would be done.
Yeah, as a particular nation, as a particular people, and within the particular covenantal framework that God had set up.
Right?
If you think, if you ask this question, what is the purpose of?
Of Israel throughout the Old Covenant.
Why do they exist?
Well, God tells Abraham, right in you right, shall the seed come.
Right in in you.
This, this is where this chosen seed in genesis 3 right, the seed that would crush the head of the serpent.
Right, who's it going to come through?
What line?
Right, there's all these different lines and family trees, already by the time of Abraham.
Where's it going to come?
It's going to come through him and then through I, in Isaac shall your seed be named, and all the way down to Jacob.
And so you see this, right, the tribes of Israel, and from the get-go, Jacob's sons, many of them are very wicked.
I mean, so wicked that you have the proto-seed, right, Joseph.
They drive him out, right?
They try to murder him, and only his one brother saves his life.
They drive him out and sell him to slavery in Egypt, right?
And that's, of course, right, this typological picture of Christ, right?
He is the true Joseph that his brothers have rejected.
And so it's these people, right, these, this particular nation that is preserved throughout this time by God sovereignly to bring about ultimately the Messiah, the son, Jesus Christ, who would be born of a woman and take away sin.
And so all throughout that time, they had to be preserved.
Even, right, you look at in the book of Judges, one of the tribes, right, all 12 tribes had to be preserved.
One of the tribes almost was completely wiped out, the tribe of Benjamin.
And you look at it and you think, At the very end, there's only a handful that remain, like 700 that remain.
And there's this big question.
It's like, well, we can't have this heritage wiped out.
We need to get them wives and repopulate the tribe of Benjamin.
And that's a major theme at the very end of the book of Judges.
And the reason for that is, right, you need to preserve these tribes so that this promise could be fulfilled of the Messiah.
That's why they had to continue to exist all throughout this time.
And so the whole history of Israel is a history of rebellion against God, of rejecting their God from even from Genesis, but also in Exodus, right?
They're constantly rebelling and turning away from him and clinging to idols instead of him.
And God judges them, but then he's also very gracious and he restores them.
This continual process of them sinning against him, him bringing judgment, forcing them to repent, and then him restoring them.
That process played out over and over and over and over again in their history.
God's Cycle of Judgment and Grace00:13:40
And the question is, What for?
Why is the majority of this Bible, like, I mean, you almost have it here, you're in Matthew, but this much of the Bible, what's the point of all of that?
It's this history to bring us to Jesus.
And so, if that's their purpose as a people, if that's why they're set apart, that's why they're chosen, is to be the people from whom Jesus comes, once Jesus has come, then what?
Talk to us a little bit about the Gospel of Matthew, a little bit about just, well, The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit versus the blasphemy of the Son of Man, the unforgivable sin.
And then also the idea of narrow is the way, few ever find it.
Narrow is the gate, hard, difficult is the way.
So, it's a difficult path.
It's a narrow gate.
Few ever find it.
And yet, Jesus says something completely contrary to that in the same breath.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, first, the unforgivable sin, right?
So, this is one, right?
Sometimes you'll hear many people like to preach on this, and you'll have sweet, wonderful Christian people who will be racked with conscience, right?
They will say, well, Pastor, right?
I just read this in Matthew that there's a sin that I could commit.
That God would not forgive me for that.
And, but you preach that all our sins are forgiven in Christ if we confess our sin, where he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
So is there, like, what is it?
We're not told what the one is.
What is this one sin that I could do?
What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
Have I blasphemed the Holy Spirit?
Is God not going to forgive me for this sin?
And, you know, sometimes you'll get these complex theological answers where people will try to concoct some sort of theory.
To explain how there's this really special sin that you can commit, but don't worry, you haven't done it.
But if you read it in the first century context, in the context of Jesus' ministry, and in the context of all the things we've been talking about in this series, right, well, what happens in the history of Israel?
If this is Jesus preaching to Israel and not just to your sweet evangelical grandmother who's worried she might have blasphemed the Holy Spirit, if he's preaching to Israel, like, look what he says, right?
If you blaspheme the Son of Man, That will be forgiven you.
So, what does Israel do?
They literally blaspheme the Son of Man.
They call him a glutton and a drunkard, and they have him executed without cause.
And he says, even if you do that, I will forgive you.
I will forgive you your sins.
And what happens?
He sends the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
3,000 in Israel that very first day are saved.
Many thousands after that come into the church.
And these are all, almost all of them, Jews.
Israel is being forgiven.
of the sin of blaspheming the Son of Man.
But what happens?
Pentecost comes.
The Holy Spirit comes to the church.
He comes and he begins through the church doing the same things that Jesus did.
You see this in the book of Acts, right?
All the same signs that Jesus did, right?
What are the point of all the signs, the miracles and wonders that Jesus did?
It wasn't just to be like, oh, that's really cool.
Jesus is great.
It was, here are these signs.
Here's this power I have been given from God.
You need to listen to what I say.
You need to listen to what I say because of these signs.
It's a gracious act of God for him to do that, to accompany his words with signs that we would listen to him.
Well, the Holy Spirit does the same thing via the apostles and via other Christians when the Spirit comes upon them, that they heal the sick, they give sight to the blind, they heal the dead, they speak in other tongues.
All of these things begin happening.
And the point of it isn't just, oh, look at these cool superpowers that the apostles have.
It's that these men have the same authority that Jesus had.
These men have Christ's authority to speak on his behalf.
You need to listen to them.
And so they begin preaching in Israel.
The Spirit is preaching in Israel.
And what do they do?
They blaspheme them.
They drive them out of the synagogues.
They beat them.
They torture them.
They martyr them like Stephen.
And what does Jesus say?
If you do that, you won't be forgiven.
In Israel, in the law of Moses, For a capital punishment to be carried out, what did you need?
You needed two or three witnesses.
So if you have the witness of the son and then the witness of the Holy Spirit, now you have two witnesses and capital punishment can be carried out.
And that is what happened in 70 AD.
There's 40 years they're given to repent, the same stretch of time as that generation in Exodus, right?
For 40 years.
I mean, this is Psalm 95.
For 40 years, I've put up with this wicked generation.
And the same thing.
I mean, that phrase, this generation, this generation, this generation, Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew.
uses it over and over and over again.
And I mean, it's that same language from Psalm 95, right?
Well, 40 years later from when Jesus is saying this stuff, right, judgment does come.
The capital punishment is carried out, right?
The blasphemy against the Son is forgiven, but not the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
And the capital punishment that is deserved for blasphemy is carried out corporately for all of Israel.
Right.
And then going even deeper, so that's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, speaking within the context of Israel within the first century, that they rejected the Son and then they rejected the ministry of the resurrected Christ by virtue of the Holy Spirit filling the apostles.
And so they blasphemed both.
And that generation, those who blasphemed the Spirit, that there was not another chance at redemption, that they were rejected by God.
And yet at the same time, those who were true Israel, according to the promise, Among Israel, according to the flesh, they did repent leading up to 8070 and were grafted in as the natural branches, joining the wild olive shoot, those branches which had already been added into the true tree and the root being, of course, Christ.
Well, what about the idea of, you know, that narrow is the way, you know, narrow is the gate, difficult is the way, few ever find it?
A lot of evangelicals today would pair that up.
Cross reference that with Matthew 7.
Many will say on that day, Lord, Lord, we did this in your name, that in your name, depart from me.
He'll respond, Depart from me, for I never knew you.
A lot of people hold it just intuitively as a portion of their theology that hell will far outpopulate heaven in the final analysis.
Now, Charles Spurgeon, a Baptist, did not actually believe that.
He believed that heaven would far outpopulate hell, that he said, I cannot see that.
That God would allow his adversary, the devil, to get the final laugh.
And so, you know, but what does that mean within the context?
Again, understanding the teachings of Jesus within the context of that first generation of Israel.
What did he mean by that?
Yeah, so you look, I mean, you look at the Sermon on the Mount, right?
The first question you should ask is who is he preaching this to?
Right?
There is a particular audience that he is preaching this to.
Even, right, the broader picture, and maybe we'll get to this a little bit later, but the broader picture of the book of The Gospel of Matthew is that Christ is living out through the story of Matthew, the experience, right?
Typologically, the history of Israel.
So, like the first example, Matthew 4, Jesus goes where?
He's baptized in the Jordan River.
He crosses the Jordan River, but Israel crosses the Jordan, of course, but also crosses the Red Sea.
And immediately after they cross the Red Sea, where do they go?
They go into the wilderness.
Well, what does Jesus do?
He's baptized in the Jordan.
And he goes out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan for 40 days instead of 40 years.
And immediately after that, what does he do?
Goes to a high mountain and begins preaching on the law.
Well, what is that?
That is Moses on Mount Sinai.
And the whole Sermon on the Mount is this discourse on the law.
And so, who is he preaching to?
He's preaching to Israel in particular.
So, he says to them, right, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.
And those who enter it by it are many.
But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
So he says that, he uses that word many, right?
Many, right?
To the people he's talking to directly, right?
Many go to the wide gates and few go to the narrow gate, right?
That is what he says.
But then, right, just a few paragraphs later in chapter 8, right, after Jesus heals a centurion's servant, So, a Gentile, Roman.
So, the audience is a little bit different here.
He's not talking to Jews in Israel.
He's talking to a Roman centurion.
And what does he say?
Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.
Matthew in chapter 8, verse 10 says, Jesus heard that he marveled at this guy.
He's marveling, like, whoa, I have not seen faith like this in all of Israel.
I tell you, Many, right?
Literally, exact same Greek word.
Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness.
In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The sons of the kingdom being the sons of the kingdom according to the flesh, the nation of Israel.
So, this whole idea that, you know, well, heaven is not.
What's Jesus talking about there?
One is like, It sounds like supersessionism to me.
Yes.
So the idea that heaven is going to be the frozen chosen, that it's just you and a few.
A tiny few people.
Yeah, you and a few other guys who had perfect doctrine.
We passed our theology tests.
Right.
And everybody else is going to go to hell, that hell is going to completely dwarf the population of heaven.
It's going to be far exceeding it.
That's not what Jesus is saying.
He's saying to Israel, and particularly that generation, the generation that would crucify him.
He's saying, Few of you, few of you, Israelites according to the flesh, few of you are Israelites according to the Spirit, according to the promise.
And so only a few of you will make it through the narrow gate, who is Himself.
It's me.
He's the narrow gate.
He's the way, the truth, and the life, the door.
The rest of you, you're going through the wide gate.
But the rest of you are going through the wide gate.
You will reject me and reject the Spirit, blaspheme the Son, but also then blaspheme the Spirit as He ministers through the apostles.
Teaching all the very same things that I said.
You'll have two chances.
You'll deny them both and you'll be not denied by my father.
But then when he shifts audiences and begins speaking to the Gentiles and the Romans, this Roman centurion in specific, he says, Many, but not many sons of the kingdom in the physical sense, aka Jews, but many from east and west.
So many outside of Israel, many Gentiles will actually come and they will.
Line the table, fill in the seats at the table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
So, this idea that few people throughout all of church history will be saved is not what Jesus is saying.
Many actually will be saved, but predominantly among the Gentiles.
And so there's no reason to think that in the final analysis that more people might actually believe in Jesus.
That's not to say that right now.
If we stopped right now, if history ends today.
My bet is that hell would far outpopulate heaven.
But if you give it some time and the mustard seed continues to grow into a larger and larger tree and the leaven continues to work through more and more of the whole batch of dough, and you take that with Being not only the Great Commission, but the cultural mandate to be fruitful multiplies.
So, just the idea that as time goes on, you also have just a greater overall population of human beings.
So, if 75% of the population is regenerate and saved a thousand years from now, and the total population is 10 times or 100 times what it currently is, just in terms of humanity, then the redeemed would far outnumber the reprobate.
So, at this time, we would say, yeah, there probably are more people in hell.
Exclusive Covenant Theology Series00:03:15
Yeah.
But God's plan is not done yet.
It's really, in many ways, we could say that we're still just getting started.
But with Israel, the big picture was Jesus was not prophesying a fatalistic statement for all peoples and all times.
He was not saying throughout the entire course of human history, few people will believe the gospel.
Yeah, I mean, you see that.
He was saying, in this time, among these people, the Jews, few of you will receive me as your Messiah.
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Yeah, he's preaching to Israel specifically there.
And yeah, because he's not contradicting himself.
by saying what he said to the Gentile.
The Gentile is the counterexample to this, that there will be many.
And it's not a coincidence that he's saying this to a Gentile who, what does he say about him?
This Roman centurion.
I have not seen it.
He doesn't just say, wow, you have great faith, but he uses it to knock Israel.
That's amazing you have such great faith because you're a Gentile and you don't know that much about God's word.
He marvels at this.
Gentile Faith Surpasses Israel's00:04:25
He marvels that here's this Gentile far from the kingdom.
In a geographic sense is much closer to it than the sons of the kingdom right, and he marvels at this.
And this you, you see elsewhere in, in Matthew's Gospel and the other Gospels, when Jesus encounters Gentiles and in the book of Acts, when Gentile god-fearers are encountered right, they way outclass in terms of faith the, the Jews right, consistently and and it's like right, you until you like, notice that, right until you see that and you're, you're looking for it, You just pass right over that,
that they intentionally point out, the gospel writers intentionally are pointing out the Spirit of God and inspiring, is intentionally pointing out that it's the Gentiles who have this amazing, strong faith and Israel does not at all.
They will not listen.
So right here, this point is, I think, a major one in showing this distinction that Jesus has come to Israel and Israel does not want him every time he bumps into a Gentile.
In the Gospels, or every time that the apostles pump into Gentiles, they're like, Wow, yeah, tell me about this.
Can you heal my servant?
I know you can.
Just say the word and it's going to happen.
Whatever he says, whatever you say, I'll do it.
Israel comes, right, and he comes to Israel and he's performing all these signs and wonders and miracles.
And they're like, In the Gospel of John, yeah, that was pretty cool, but we're going to need to see some more evidence.
You need to do a couple more signs.
Well, that's one of their better responses.
There are other times where they say, By Beelzebub.
Casting out demons.
Yeah.
Oh, you could do that?
Well, it must be by the power of demons.
You're using demonic power to cast out demons.
You're the son of Satan, not God.
And this same principle that we're espousing is also expressed by Christ in the parable of the wedding banquet.
And that the servants of the king are sent out to invite all these people.
And there are the first wave, the people who were initially invited, the rightful.
Citizens of the kingdom in every human respect.
And they're invited, but they all make excuses.
I'm not going to come.
I'm not going to come.
I'm busy.
I got to shampoo my hair, mow the lawn.
And so then the servants return and they report to the king and say, You know, we went out and gave the invitation to all the people that you named, and yet they refused.
And then he sends them out and says, Well, then forget them, but go beyond them to all these people who were not initially invited, that were not initially citizens of my kingdom.
But now the invitation extends to them.
And they're the ones who come.
And so the final picture is not a wedding banquet with five people, you know, and that the vast majority are outside where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.
No, the vast majority of Israel, according to the flesh, is outside where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But the wedding banquet is actually full.
And it's full because the initial individuals who were invited by the king to the wedding banquet reject the king's offer.
And thereby are rejected by the king.
And the invitation then passes them over and extends to those who were not the natural citizens, aka the Gentiles, and they receive the invitation with gladness, and a great many of them come in.
And so, my point is, you know, as we're talking about this, the theme that you begin to see throughout Israel again and again and again, I think James B. Jordan actually talks about this also.
He says that Israel, the whole purpose of Israel was to bring about the seed, the Messiah, the Messianic.
Prophecies fulfilled, which was always to bless all the nations through you, through your seed, Abraham's seed.
All the families of the earth would be blessed.
And so that was the primary point to bring about Christ who would save not just Israel, but all the nations.
But then, secondarily, as an example, James B. Jordan talks about he says that another purpose of Israel is that it would stand as a profound example to showcase.
Israel Killed Jesus Yet Remains Regenerate00:14:54
The mercy and kindness of God.
So, like, think of Pharaoh.
So, in Romans chapter 9, the apostle Paul, you know, says, speaking on God's behalf, for this reason I raised you up that I might display my power.
Think about that for a moment.
How does God show off?
I mean, if you're infinite, then you don't have any legitimate enemy.
You can never really showcase your true fighting power and strength because You know, with just the tip of your finger, your opponent is immediately rendered unconscious, you know, or struck dead.
And so it's just one word, and it's all right.
So, how does you know, like, I mean, still to this day, we take great encouragement and hope and thinking that we serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who sent 10 plagues to Egypt.
Well, it's wonderful that we're able to speak of the 10 plagues of Egypt rather than the one, yeah.
Um, and the reality is, uh, That verse in Romans 9 where he says, For this reason I raised you up.
I raised Pharaoh up.
It's almost like a picture.
Imagine that God, with one hand, is holding Pharaoh up so that with the other, he can actually show off his right hook, but actually show off 10 punches instead of just one.
And the only way that he can get to 10 punches is with his other hand, he has to hold Pharaoh up because Pharaoh doesn't have the fortitude to withstand even one blow of God, much less 10.
And so God is in his sovereign power.
He is bringing down his power on Egypt and Pharaoh and simultaneously propping up his opponent so that he can show more of his power and his faithfulness to his people.
Well, likewise, in the same way that God supernaturally hardened Pharaoh's heart, Pharaoh consciously chose in human agency to harden his own heart, and yet God also sovereign, both are true.
God hardens Pharaoh's heart supernaturally in order to prop him up so that he might display.
His power.
Well, in the same way, I would say, we're in a similar way.
God also wanted to display not only his power and his judgments, which are terrible and awesome, but he also wanted to display his mercy, his slowness to anger, his kindness and grace.
So, what did he do with that?
Well, in the case of displaying his judgment and power, he selected Egypt and Pharaoh.
In terms of showing off how much mercy he has in the tank, he chose Israel and he sustained Israel with one hand for.
1500 years, give or take.
And with the other, he lavished on them century after century after century, generation after generation after generation, loving kindness.
Israel, the point is, Israel does not stand in the Bible as an example of what it is to follow God faithfully.
They serve, apart from being the avenue, the agency by which God would bring the Messiah into the world, the seed.
Beyond that, outside of that, one of Israel's only primary purposes throughout the Old Testament is to serve as a powerful, profound demonstration of just how merciful God is.
Israel does not show the faithfulness of Israel.
It shows.
How patient God could be with arguably one of the most stiff necked people on the planet.
I mean, Jonah goes to Nineveh.
They have Christian nationalism in like 15 minutes.
The whole nation is wearing sackcloth and fasting and repenting.
And then Jesus, and for anyone who would say it's pretense, Jesus later says that the men of Nineveh will rise up and judge this wicked generation of Israelites, meaning that these guys, many of them, were actually regenerate.
At the preaching of Jonah, they repented.
And they will rise up at the end and judge.
That's right.
Who?
This generation.
That's right.
So you see outbreaks of just incredible repentance and salvation among all these other nations, among the Samaritans, among the Ninevites, but like again and again and again with Ruth, you know, some of the profound things.
The Queen of Sheba comes up to Solomon to learn.
Nebuchadnezzar converts in the end.
Yeah.
The Babylonian king, he's brought low and humbled and converts.
And then there's Israel.
And Israel receives more revelation.
More grace, more kindness, more prophets, more signs, more wonders, more evidence than anyone else.
In the same way that God had to supernaturally harden the heart of Pharaoh so that he could show his right hook 10 plagues instead of just one, God also supernaturally, I believe, hardened Israel's heart so that he could show just how gracious he is.
Israel was a supernaturally stupid people, a supernaturally stiff necked, rebellious.
Hardhearted, unbelieving people.
Egypt wouldn't have done what Israel did.
Assyria wouldn't have done.
Only Israel.
Yeah, only Israel.
That's Paul's argument.
I mean, that's why he invokes Pharaoh in Romans 9, he's making this argument because the question of that book is, right?
Well, the argument Paul's making is, I am sending my grace to the Gentiles.
I'm hardening my people's hearts, right?
So much so that they're going to kill Jesus to bring about the salvation of the world.
Right.
This is what happens.
So the question then is, well, is God being unjust, right, by hardening their hearts?
Right.
Is God, right, guilty of sin?
Is God doing something bad?
By no means.
By doing this?
And Paul says, no.
Right.
Does the clay have the right to say to the maker, why have you made me this way?
Right.
Right.
That Paul is defending the justice of God with the example of Israel.
Right.
Here and why Israel was so bad and so bad that why that.
That particular generation was so bad that they killed Jesus and they rejected the Spirit, right?
Why is that happening?
Well, God has hardened their hearts, right?
And the hope at the end is that it's a partial hardening, right?
That that hardening will come off and that many of the remnant will be grafted back in.
And they were, yeah, and that happened in 8070, and now it's done.
One verse, maybe you can help me on the reference, I think it's.
First Thessalonians 2.15.
It might be second Thessalonians to fit.
But it's Paul is speaking about the Jews, and he says, you know, that they killed the prophets and Jesus and the apostles.
And then finally he says, and they oppose all mankind.
Yeah.
So these people, the Jews, are the enemies, Paul essentially says, the enemies of the world, of every people on the planet.
They are that hostile.
And yet, here's the deal.
You and I, and this is where we have to be consistent.
Yeah.
Right?
Because some of, if you're not careful, and this is why the Bible matters, the Bible matters for every reason under the sun.
Of course.
But this is one more reason why the Bible matters.
Because what we'll hear sometimes from guys who are, you know, well, let's just say they don't have an Israeli flag in their bio on Twitter.
They're not huge fans.
Neither are we, you know, but for maybe different reasons.
But some of the guys who are anti Israel.
I don't think they're necessarily anti Semitic because that has to mean something, right?
Anti Semitic these days is like saying racist.
But it's an intentionally vague word that you smear people with.
Right.
People would say that you and I are anti Semitic and we would say, get lost.
No, you're wrong.
But for guys who are accused as being anti Semitic, some of them might actually be, some of them might not.
But this is one conflation, a misunderstanding that I've noticed.
They'll say, well, we don't like the Jews and they're talking about today.
Yeah.
Modern Jews today, like Ben Shapiro or John the Baptist.
Because they killed Jesus.
And what you and I would say, you know, and they would point to a verse like this.
Is it 1 Thessalonians?
1 Thessalonians 2, you know, 13 to.
You want to read it just real quick?
I'll read it here.
Okay.
We'll start in verse 14.
For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews.
Who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out and displeased God and opposed all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, says always to fill up the measure of their sins.
But wrath has come upon them at last.
Yes.
So there you have it.
You have the Holy Spirit inspired text saying that the Jews have opposed all mankind.
They're the enemies of the world, the entire world.
And yet, here's the point.
And it answers the question like, who killed Jesus?
Right.
Not Rome, not me.
I mean, yes, Yes, Rome, yes, me, but ultimately, this is real.
Well, and with that, you know, sidebar, with that, I preached to my church recently.
I said, look, all these statements are biblically true.
Who killed Jesus?
You.
Your sin is what made it necessary that he should die.
Who killed Jesus?
The Father.
He was pleased to crush him before the foundations of the world.
Who killed Jesus?
Well, Jesus said, no one takes my life, but I lay it down freely.
So Jesus killed Jesus.
The Father killed Jesus.
You and your sin killed Jesus.
Who killed Jesus?
Pilate.
Ultimately, he tried to wash his hands in innocence, but he made the decision.
He was up for re election, wanted to please the Jews.
So Pilate killed Jesus.
Who killed Jesus?
The Romans, who literally drove the nails through his hands and pierced his side.
The Romans killed Jesus.
And then lastly, who killed Jesus?
The Jews, who were crying out and crucified.
And so my point is I told my congregation, all of those statements are biblically true.
But only one of those statements is being threatened to become illegal.
Yeah.
So that's the one I'll keep saying.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
But on this point, yeah.
My point on this is just to say that some of Guys who are anti Israel, they would say, Well, I don't like the Jews because they killed Jesus.
But what they're saying is, I don't like the Jews today.
Today, the modern state of Israel.
I don't like Ben Shapiro because Ben Shapiro killed Jesus.
Right, exactly.
It's like, no, no.
And this is where we have to be consistent.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
So, what we would say is that that generation of Israel, they did kill Jesus.
Yeah.
And they were judged severely for it.
And in the final, you know, in the bottom of the ninth, many did actually repent and the natural branches were grafted back in.
And then the covenant, the old covenant is completely done away with.
And we don't have any.
Real substantial genetic proof.
I mean, you have a passing of a couple hundred years before the Talmud even comes into play and all these different things.
I mean, Titus destroyed the temple, which also had all the birth records and documents and all these things.
God sovereignly saw fit to not only wrap up the covenant, but in his providence, to wrap up any evidence of a genetic continuation, of a covenantal continuation, at any level.
And so God is saying with finality, it's done.
The only third temple there will ever be will be the church of Jesus Christ.
That is built with living stones around the whole world, with Christ as the cornerstone, the prophets and the law as the prophets and the apostles as the foundation, and you and I, New Testament saints, living stones being joined together, and Christ is there in our midst.
And so that's what we believe.
And so, all that being said, my point is this idea of the Jews opposing all mankind.
I don't think that it's consistent to say, well, the Bible says so.
So, modern Jews today are that.
You can't say that.
What you can say, you have to pick a lane.
And the lane that we have picked, For biblical reasons.
So, this is what I want the listener to understand this isn't just me and Iskar noticing that we went down the rabbi hole, you know, on 4chan, you know, and just got, you know, black pilled on the Jews, you know, and, you know, and this is, that's not what this is.
This is from biblical convictions.
Yeah.
From biblical convictions, we have determined from the scripture that this was always God's plan, that he has done with Israel according to the flesh and has been for 19 and a half centuries.
And so, all that being said, Who killed Jesus?
Well, a group of people who no longer exist.
Who opposed all mankind, enemies of all mankind?
A group of people that no longer exist.
And yet, the final thing I'll say is and yet, anyone today, whether they're descendants of Abraham or not, and we would lean towards the not factor, but whether they're descendants of Abraham or not,
anyone today who is an unbeliever who rejects Christ, whether they be Islamic or whether they be Jews or Hindus or Buddhists or atheists or agnostics or whatever it may be, Anyone who rejects Christ today and has a particular hostility towards the Christian faith and the work and person of Jesus Christ does have the potential.
It's not written in the stars that it always must be, but they do have the potential in real human history in various times and to various degrees to be enemies of all mankind, to be enemies of humanity, enemies of everything that's good in this world, everything that's Christ centered.
And so I would say.
That not all but some modern Jews today, insofar as they've been shaped by the worldview of Talmudic Judaism, which is uniquely hostile towards Christ and embraced secularism, embraced perversion, and certain things that are against Christ and his way, then yes, I think there are some Jews today that have been particularly hostile and at enmity with all mankind, but not because of the same people in 1 Thessalonians.
Yeah, I don't think they have a.
I don't, yeah, and that's the thing.
Like if you, if I'm saying, we said this in the previous episode, that if those categories, those old covenant categories of Jew and Gentile no longer exist, those are no longer operative thing.
They did, it's not a thing anymore.
Viewing Israel Without Extreme Bias00:04:04
Then, then this, right?
This can't be people today.
Right.
You can't, you have to pick a lane.
Yeah.
I can't say that that doesn't exist, but in some certain kind of sense, they still do and they're still guilty.
Right.
No, you have to either say these are actually.
The direct descendants of Abraham, and there are still promises held out in their future.
And so, therefore, if we're Christians and we love God and we want to see his promises fulfilled, we should do something in a tangible way to preserve their lineage so that they're not wiped off the face of the map, whether that's giving billions of dollars or whatever, funding the Iron Dome or this or that or the other.
And also, they are particularly pernicious towards the Christian worldview and they're enemies of all mankind.
You either have to pick that lane.
Or you can say, no, these, we don't have to give billions of dollars.
This is not the descendants of Abraham, both genetically and covenantally.
This has been rolled up as a garment and done away with.
The church is true Israel.
So this is just a group of people.
They are a nation, a modern nation, but they are a nation, just like Brazil or China or anyone else.
And so then how should we regard them?
Well, if it makes sense politically because they have American interest and help us as an ally to support them in a mitigated, responsible way, then fine.
If they're working towards our detriment and we're helping them at the cost of our own citizens, then that's not fine.
And so that, you don't, my point is, you don't have to be, you don't have to take it to level 11 to still have a coherent worldview, biblically grounded, and say, yeah, I don't think Israel is our greatest ally.
I think if you do take the futurist view of Romans 11, Though, and you're saying that there is still this covenant, and you're saying this, right?
There still is this covenantal category, there still is this distinct, you know, ethno religious group, and that's the same people that are in the old covenant.
Then you read 1 Thessalonians and what it says here, you're saying that that applies just as much to every Jewish person today.
That's the flip side of the coin.
You're absolutely right.
Because so we're saying, all right, we need to be consistent.
Yeah.
Well, those who disagree and take a different stance, so do they.
Yeah.
Then they need to be able to say with a straight face, right?
100% boldness that if If the Jews in Romans 11 are the same people living in Israel and also dispersed, many living in America, and they still haven't repented, they're still Jews, they still haven't embraced the Bible.
But you have to say they're enemies of all mankind.
They're enemies of all mankind.
I don't think that.
I don't think that.
We have actually, and that's the funny thing, that's the irony here is we actually have, I believe, the least anti Semitic view.
We actually have the more charitable view because we're saying, hey, look, some of them.
Have been particularly hostile towards Western civilization and the Christian worldview.
And it's an opposing religion that is going to naturally be hostile to us, even if it's friendly at certain times.
Like we have noticed.
We have noticed.
But it's actually those who would disagree with us who they can't just say some, they have to say all of them.
All of them, by virtue of being the Jews, they are currently still underneath this partial hardening.
And they are still, just the way the apostle described them in his day, that is still at heart who they are today.
They are the enemies of all mankind.
They are a threat to everyone.
We should preserve them, send them billions of dollars, and also they're the worst people on the planet.
Yeah, that's what you're saying.
That's not my position.
Yeah, it's not mine either.
But if you're consistent, or if that's your futurist view, whether it's reformed futurism regarding Romans 11 or whether it's dispensational futurism, you got to say that.
You need to be consistent.
You need to say one day they'll be saved and it'll be life from the dead.
Meanwhile, currently today, they are the worst people of all humanity.
Well, thanks for tuning in.
God bless you, and we'll see you in the next episode.