It is impossible to truly understand the Bible, or any part of it, without understanding that 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 welched 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 welched 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. 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 God. 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 broadcasts, I have presented the evidence that the Israelites exist today under the name of the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and Germanic people 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 all of this, that it threw all of God'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, ritual and symbols. Now, I want to show you that 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 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. We read, "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. 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 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.'"
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, "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 that carefully. He didn't say that they would become heads of the Methodist, Episcopal and Baptist churches, 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.
Surely, no other authority as great as that of Jesus Christ 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, threw out not only all of the Old Testament but also the teachings of Jesus Christ 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, that he is writing TO and ABOUT ISRAEL. Although some of this has been hidden by mistranslation in the King James version of the Bible. Let's review some of them.
First, let's take the so called Epistle to the Romans. To whom does Paul address it? Romans 1:7 shows that it is addressed to those persons in Rome who are "called saints". Yes, I know that your King James version 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, 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 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 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 them, 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, as it is wrongly named in your Bible (for Paul didn't call it that, but the translators did), 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 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 God had 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.'" Isaiah 51:2 states, "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 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, 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 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 the message 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. In my next broadcast, we will consider this point, as we continue with the proof that the New Testament is as much an Israel Book as is the Old Testament.