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ISRAEL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
By
Bertrand L. Comparet
It is impossible to truly understand the Bible, or any
part of it, without understanding the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Scandinavian
people of today are the Israel of the Bible. The Bible speaks always and
only to Israel. 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 this book it always
speaks 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 unconditional, God welshed on those
promises and has given them to the church instead." However, 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 Yahweh's word, who else could? But,
it is not true; Yahweh never welshed on a promise. Every promise He ever
made to Israel, He has fulfilled and is today fulfilling the promises to Israel
and to no one else.
Then the churches say, we are only Gentiles, but we have
become spiritual Israel. Now this 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.
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 men still loyal to Yahweh. But, the Bible never says they ceased to
be Israel, when it was denouncing them for their apostasy. Israel always was
purely a racial group, all of 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 he could become a
spiritual Negro or a spiritual Mongolian, something no one could ever do. You
can be an Israelite only by birth, by inheritance.
In many previous lessons, I have presented the evidence
that the Israelites exist today under the name of the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian
and Germanic people and that Yahweh's promises to Israel have been actually
fulfilled to them. Many churches teach the New Testament has done away with all
of this, it threw all of Yahweh's promises and prophecies about Israel into the
rubbish can and started a new religion with Israel left out of it. This is
positively not true; the whole Bible is consistent from beginning to end. I have
often told you that 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, rituals and symbols. Now I want to show you the New Testament like the
Old, is an Israel book.
The four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, deal
with the life and ministry of Yahshua the Christ. Yahshua always taught the
truths pertaining to Israel. In Mark 12:28-29, a scribe asked Yahshua
which was the greatest commandment of all. We read, "Yahshua answered him,
The first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel, Yahweh our God is
one God.'"
Yahshua regarded His whole ministry as being primarily to
Israel. In Matthew 15:24 Yahshua said, "I am not sent but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." When Yahshua sent out His 12
disciples to teach the people, we read in Matthew 10:5-6, "These 12
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."
In Matthew 19:27-28 Peter asked Yahshua what
reward would be given to those who had given up all to follow Him. Yahshua
replied to Peter, "Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed Me,
in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye
also shall sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel."
Note this carefully; He didn't say that they would become heads of the
Methodist, Episcopal or Baptist churches, but that they would become rulers and
judges over the 12 tribes of Israel. This is not something of the past, which
Yahweh had to discard as a failure. This is Yahshua the 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 Yahshua concerned Israel, as Yahshua testified in the gospels.
Surely, no other authority as great as that of Yahshua
can be found, to testify what is truly Christian. Yet, there are still many
people who mistakenly believe that the apostle Paul changed all of this. They
believe that he threw out not only all of the Old Testament but also the
teachings of Yahshua and set up a new religion. Paul would be the last person in
the world to try such a thing! Paul makes it clear, in nearly every epistle he
wrote, he is writing to and about Israel, although some of this has been
hidden by mistranslation in the King James Bible. Let's review some of them.
First, let's take the so-called Epistle to the Romans. To
whom does Paul address it? A roman 1:7 shows that it is addressed to
those persons in Rome who are called saints. Yes, I know that your King James
Bible says called to be saints. But, you will notice that the words to be
are in italic type, which shows that these two words were not in the original
writing. 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 for it.
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
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 because he knew the Psalms. In the first place,
what does saint mean? It means set apart or consecrated to the service of
Yahweh. It is used in the Bible almost exclusively of people as members of a
class, rather than as individuals, it is used to describe the status of Yahweh's
people Israel.
Therefore Psalm 148:14 tells us who all of
Yahweh'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 them, so when
he addressed any of his epistles to saints, you know Paul was writing to
Israelites.
In the Epistle to the Romans, as it is wrongly named in
your Bible (for Paul didn't call it that, but the translators did), Paul says he
is writing, "To all that be in Rome, beloved of Yahweh, 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 Roman. In fact, Nero was emperor at
the time Paul wrote this epistle and we may be sure that Paul never considered
Nero a saint. These saints are also identified as called. Paul knew whom Yahweh
had called. Isaiah 41:8-9 tells us, "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." Isaiah 51:2 instructs us, "Look unto Abraham your
father and unto Sarah that bore you; for I called him alone and blessed
him and increased him." Paul well knew that Yahweh 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, He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also
glorified."
Similarly, Paul writes to the saints in various other
cities. I Corinthians 1:2, II
Corinthians 1:1, Ephesians 1:1, Philippians 1:1, Colossians
1:2, 24-26, and Philemon verse 5, all these clearly state 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 Yahweh's message was
addressed. The people in whom the message must take root, that they should be
called to His service as Yahweh had declared from the beginning. Therefore, it
was to them that Paul wrote and not to the Gentiles in general.
Let's examine the Epistle to the Romans still more
closely. Romans are generally regarded as supremely the book written to the
Gentiles. It might surprise you to know that there is no such word as Gentile in
the Bible in its original language. Oh yes, I know that you can find it in the
King James Bible, also in the less accurate of the modern English translations.
It was never in the original languages and has been put in by the translators.
Neither Hebrew nor Greek has such a word as Gentile, nor any word, which is
equivalent to it. The word Gentile comes from the Latin word gentilis, which
means, one who is not a Roman citizen. If you were to use the word accurately,
you would have to say that Yahshua and all of His disciples were Gentiles, for
none of them were Roman citizens. Paul was the only one of the apostles who was
a Gentile, for Paul was a Roman citizen. But what does the Bible say in the
original languages in which it was written?
In the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew,
whenever you see the word Gentile in your English Bible, the Hebrew used the
word goy if it was in the singular, or the plural form of it, goyim. This word
means precisely nation and nothing else. Remember Yahweh told Abraham in Genesis
17:6 "I will make nations of thee". In the Hebrew Yahweh said,
"I will make goyim of thee". It would have been utterly too silly to
translate this, I will make Gentiles of your descendants. The translators
translated it correctly here as nations. You remember when the twins, Jacob and
Esau were still in the womb of Rebekah their mother, they struggled together and
she prayed to Yahweh to tell her why this was so and Yahweh answered her,
"Two nations are in thy womb." In the Hebrew original this says,
"Two goyim are in thy womb." Certainly Yahweh never told her that two
Gentiles are in thy womb. Here the translators had to translate it correctly as
nations. But, this is exactly the same word which they translate Gentiles in
many other places.
The New Testament which most of you have was translated
from manuscripts written in the Greek language. Whenever in your New Testament
you see the word Gentile, the word in the Greek was ethnos. Ethnos means
nation, just as the Hebrew word goy does. In many places, it would have been
silly to translate it Gentile, so the translators had to use the correct word
nation. For example in Luke 7:1-10 we read that a certain Roman officer,
a centurion, had a servant who was dying. The centurion asked some elders of the
Jews to intercede for him with Yahshua and ask Him to heal his servant. The Jews
did urge Yahshua to do this for the centurion saying, "that he was worthy
for whom He should do this, for he loveth our ethnos and he hath built us a
synagogue." Surely no Jew would have praised the centurion for loving the
Gentiles, nor would he have built a synagogue for Gentiles. So, they had to
translate this one correctly as nation not Gentile. Everywhere you see the word
Gentile in the New Testament, it is the same word ethnos in the Greek. This word
ethnos has no pagan, or non-Israel, nor even non-Greek connotation. The Greeks
distinguished between Greeks and Barbarians, which all educated men like Paul
knew. So he said in Romans 1:14, "I am debtor both to the Greeks and
to the Barbarians." So just remember that Paul never once wrote Gentile in
all his writings, he only wrote ethnos, which means nation. Therefore, do not be
misled by the translation where you read in Romans 1:13, "That I
might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles". Paul
actually wrote, "even as among other nations." Paul had made converts
who lived among other nations, both in Greece, 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.
For further proof Paul was not writing to Gentiles in the
Epistle to the Romans, note how Paul tells these saints in Rome to whom he
writes in Romans chapter 4, "Abraham is our father, as pertaining to
the flesh," and "Abraham, who is the father of us all." Certainly
he could not have told any Gentile that Abraham was his father, as pertaining to
the flesh!
This is consistent with what Paul wrote to the Saints in
the city of Corinth. In I Corinthians 10:1-4 he writes, "Moreover,
brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers
were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto
Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and
did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock
which 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 poured 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. I
know that you have been taught, in your churches, that Paul threw all this into
the rubbish heap and started a new religion without Israel in it. Where they get
that idea I 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 Gentiles are adopted as the children
of Yahweh. However, did you notice Paul says it is the Israelites to whom
pertaineth the adoption? How could Paul make it any clearer than this, which is
in Romans 11:1-2? "I say then, hath Yahweh cast away His people?
Yahweh forbid! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe
of Benjamin. Yahweh hath not cast away His people which He foreknew!"
Remember what he says about those whom Yahweh 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 justified, them He also glorified."
Since Yahweh's people Israel are those He foreknew, then this is written about
them.
We see that in the New Testament, the writings of Paul
very clearly constitute Israel books, just as much so as the Old Testament. But
what of the other books in the New Testament, which were not written by Paul,
are they also Israel books?
Now let's look at the writing of the other apostles in
the New Testament. What about James? James addresses his epistle to the twelve
tribes scattered abroad. 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. 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 that the 3 tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi. James is speaking
to the twelve tribes scattered abroad. We know that the Assyrians first
took into captivity 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. We know from historical sources, 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. They left behind just the relatively few who returned to
Palestine with Ezra and Nehemiah. So when James wrote his epistle in 60 A.D.,
the twelve tribes were scattered abroad. By that time they were known as the
Angli, Saxons, Ostrogoths, Visigoths and the Royal Scyths, already moving on
their long march into their predestined homes in Europe. It was to them James
was writing.
What about Peter? The First Epistle of Peter leaves no
doubt he was writing to the Israelites. The first verse is badly mistranslated,
instead of, "To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia," as your King James Bible reads, the actual
wording in the Greek is, "To the exiles of the dispersion in Pontus,
Galatia etc.". 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.
The Israelites were exiles from their original homeland
in Palestine and 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 Yahweh, the Father." But who were Yahweh's elect? In Isaiah
45:4, Yahweh speaks of "Israel Mine elect". As to the
foreknowledge of Yahweh, remember that in Romans 11:2, Paul confirms that
"Yahweh hath not cast away His people which He foreknew". Elect is but
another word for chosen. In Deuteronomy 7:6 the people of Israel are
told, "Yahweh, your God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto
Himself above all the people that are upon the face of the earth".
Let's look further into what Peter has to say. In I
Peter 2:9, he says to these exiles of the dispersion on Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, etc., "But ye are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, an holy
nation, a peculiar people: that ye should show forth the praise of Him
who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."
I know that the King James Bible says a chosen generation, but this is a
mistranslation, for the word in the Greek is genos, meaning a race, not
a generation. This couldn't describe anyone but Israel, as the chosen
race is Israel.
Among many other places we find it in Isaiah 44:1,
"Yet now hear O Jacob My servant; and Israel whom I have chosen."
Deuteronomy 7:6 continues, "Yahweh thy God hath chosen thee
to be a special people unto Himself above all the people that are upon the face
of the earth. * * A 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 art an holy people unto Yahweh thy God and Yahweh hath chosen thee to be
a peculiar people unto Himself above all the nations that are upon the
earth." Finally, "that ye should show forth the praise of Him who
called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" is another identifying
mark of Israel. In Isaiah 43:21 Yahweh says, "This people have I
formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise."
I have skipped over the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is
not signed, but is usually credited to Paul. I can't imagine anyone disputing
that this book, as indicated by its title, is written to, as well as written
about the Hebrews, the Israelites. Probably we need not say more about it here.
If I were to start in on that book, it alone would take several lessons to
cover. I will go into that some other time.
What of the little understood Book of Revelation? It is
too clear for any possible doubt that his book is written in symbols and is not
to be taken literally. You must understand the symbols used in order to know the
great realities for which they stand; these symbols are in general Israel
symbols. Hence it can be understood only by those who can recognize the Israel
basis of the symbols. This is also a book about which whole volumes have been
written. It is too long for me to take up as just a subdivision of our present
theme of Israel in the New Testament.
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 were not so, we could not have
confidence in either one of them. Truth must always be consistent with itself.
Yahshua came not to take back Yahweh's promises and nullify the prophecies but
rather, as Paul said in Romans 15:8, "Now I say that Yahshua was a
minister of the circumcision, for the truth of Yahweh, to confirm the
promises made unto the fathers."
All that had been promised to Abraham and Moses was to be
made good. Likewise, these promises to Abraham and Moses included the basis for
Christianity. In fact Moses was a Christian, does that startle you, when you
remember that Moses died more than 1,400 years before Christ was born? Yet the
New Testament tells us that Moses was a Christian. Hebrews 11:24-26 says,
"By faith, Moses when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of
Yahweh than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: esteeming the
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasure of Egypt, for he had
respect unto the recompense of the reward."
It is certain that he could not have esteemed the
reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, unless he truly
understood what all the rituals he taught the people really meant, that they
talked of the coming Redeemer. So it is that Hebrews 10:1 speaks of the
law having a shadow of the good things to come. The Book of Hebrews explains how
the rituals were only symbols of the coming of Christ and His sacrifice for us.
Therefore, never let anyone tell you that the two halves
of the Bible are inconsistent and to accept one you must reject the other. No,
the Bible is all one book, it tells of Yahweh'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. Both Old and New Testaments are Christian books and both of
them are Israel books. |