Subject:
������� Was Jesus Christ a Jew? ‑ Dr. Wesley A. Swift
�� Date:
������� Sat, 4 Aug 2001 11:35:38 ‑0700
�� From:
������ "Bob Jones" <[email protected]>
���� To:
������ "Willie Martin" <[email protected]>
�Was Jesus Christ a Jew?
������������������� Dr. Wesley A. Swift
Tonight we are speaking on a subject which the Church must learn
to understand. There are
many people who are under a strange delusion, finding themselves
serving a fake set of ideas,
which are very disturbing to them in the light of what they know
and see round about. There are
many who have been told that Jesus Christ is a Jew, and therefore
The Most High and Savior of
their Christian faith comes out of a race which hates Christianity,
does all that it can to destroy it,
and is now working insidiously all over the United States to get the
Bible and prayer out of our
schools, and to take the Name of Jesus Christ out of every phase of
our national life.
Now this is hard for some people to understand. They ask, How
could Jesus be a Jew, with all
Jews fighting everything that relates to Christianity and His Name?
Of course the great confusion
that exists in the minds of many is in the fact that they have been
ill‑informed concerning who the
house of Israel actually is, and they do not know that there is a vast
distinction between the house
of Israel (the descendants of Abraham) and the people called Jews
today. But we can establish for
you clearly apart from these phases of identity that Jesus Christ is
not a Jew, or else all the
foundations of Christianity have been wasted upon something that
is fatuous and that has no
foundation whatsoever. We will also establish this very clearly for
you on the basis of Christ's
time, as well as facts which are self‑evident as key points within
the faith of Christianity.
I tell you that I am not following the Jew: I am following the
Incarnate Revelation of The Most
High. Before you ask me, Is Jesus Christ a Jew? I ask you this
question: Is Yahweh a Jew? We
have Jesus' own words in Matt. 23:33 in which He turned and told
the Jews that they are serpents
and a generation of vipers. He was not talking about the symbol of
Lucifer's kingdom. He said
they are Lucifer's descendants. I want to emphasize the fact that
one of the first things that Jesus
did in that conversation was to deny any family relationship. (This
is also one of the important
records of the book of John.) He denied any relationship with them,
and in the instance when they
were creating great pressures upon Him, Jesus made this
statement: "I am of My Father, and you
are of your father." Therefore, I want to point out something that is
most significant concerning
Christ. First, let us go to Isaiah 7:14, and read what it says about His
birth. "Therefore Yahweh
Himself the Eternal One shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and bear a Son, and
shall call His Name Immanuel" (which is "Yahweh with us ").
For further revelation on this subject we turn to Isaiah 9:6.
(Remember, Isaiah is an Israelite but he
is not a Jew.) It reads: "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is
given: and the government
shall be upon His Shoulder." Who is He? "His Name shall be called
Wonderful, Counselor, The
Mighty,Yahweh, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." They
are referring to the fact that
He is The Everlasting Father, that He Is The Prince of Peace; and in
this identification, His
Embodiment as Messiah would be the Embodiment of the Life of
Yahweh.
Now let us for a moment recognize that it was not until the violation
of Divine law by Lucifer and
his intermingling of nefarious forces with the races (before the
coming of your Race) that there
ever existed a Jew upon the face of the earth. It is also noted that
these unassimilable forces are
referred to in the Old Testament as Jehudi, which word is
translated Jews. We realize that the
Bible (the King James version) which we have, like the Vulgate,
had also been guided in its
translation by a great number of Jews who, professing to be
Hebrew and Greek scholars, thought
to cover up many phrases that related to the identity of Christ and
words referring to them and
their own relationship to world situations; but they were unable to
efface the most important
phrases concerning Christ and Who He was.
Therefore we have these facts in writings of the Apostle Paul who,
without question, is the greatest
authority of the New Testament outside of the declarations which
Jesus Himself made. We believe
the doctrine of the Church is founded upon the contents of the
writings of the Apostle Paul and
the Words of Jesus. Their premise was also that the continuity of
The Scripture meant that the
Word of Yahweh of the Old Testament continued in the
development of the truths of the new.
In the book of Colossians we discover that this revelation means
that Yahweh is both Spirit and
Soul, and can be embodied; so Spirit, Soul, and Body is the fullness
of Yahweh, and you are in His
image, and you are also Spirit, soul, and body. The body of the Man
Christ Jesus was the image of
the Invisible Yahweh. We want you to know that this was the
revelation of Eternal Deity and
regarding Christ, we read these words in the first chapter of
Colossians: "Who is the Image (or
Body) of the Invisible Yahweh, the firstborn (begotten before) of
every creature. "Then Paul tells
you here in the book of Ephesians as well, that by Him were all
things created, that is by Jesus
Christ. "For by Him were all things created that are in the heavens,
by Him were all things created
that are in earth, visible and invisible (that means spiritual or
material), whether they be thrones,
or dominions, or principalities, or powers: AII things were created
by Him and for Him: And He is
before all things, and by Him all things consist." If we did not have
anything to talk about, we
would say that this was proof conclusively that Jesus Christ could
not be a Jew, because He was
before any Jew existed. He was before all things, and by Him all
things consist. We point also to
this: "He is the Head of the body, the Church, Who is the beginning,
the first born from the dead,
that in all things He might have the preeminence." (Colossians
chapter 1) It pleases the
Administering Spirit that His Embodiment will be the fullness of all
in all. That is in your Bible,
and these are the facts concerning the Person of Christ. He is the
Author, the Creator, the Maker,
the Producer of the universe; and the embodiment of all this in the
physical body was His purpose.
I think it very important, then, that we also turn to things that are
most significant in this
prophecy. It is no wonder the enemy, the higher critics, the forces
of darkness want to do away
with any super‑element in our faith. If you could destroy that
super‑element, you might destroy
the whole foundation of Christianity, and you might challenge the
Being of Christ Himself. So in
this instance they try to do away with, and they would like to take
out of the story, the prophecies
of Isaiah that a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son. They want to
change it today to "a young
woman". I can assure you that the text said a virgin, and this was
the intent. This fact is brought
forth as one of the mysteries known back in the days, of Enoch.
After his heavenly experience,
Enoch also included in his revelation "The Pillars of Enoch" that
Yahweh Himself would come
forth through a virgin in a body, the fullness of Deity, the fullness of
Divine Creative Power.
Now we turn to the record in Chapter 1 of Matthew concerning the
genealogy of Christ, and this is
"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ" He is referred to here
as "the Son of David, the Son
of Abraham". David was not a Jew; he came out of Jesse. You will
discover that he is out of
Ephraim and actually out of Joseph. David was given a royal line
over Judah, but not one drop of
the blood of David is in the veins of Jesus.
We discover the fact in the book of Luke that Mary was of the house
of Levi. The house of Levi
was not Jew. The house of Levi could never be called Jews by
anybody, nor could Judah be called
Jewish, nor can you call the other ten tribes Jews by any stretch of
the imagination, for they were
not identified with the Kingdom of Judah. Jews are trying to
identify themselves with the house of
Abraham by saying they are Judeans, and that they descended
from Judah. They only dwelt in the
land of Judea, but they were never citizens of the house of
Abraham, nor did they come through
Judah.
We read the whole genealogy in the book of Matthew from the days
of Abraham on down "... and
Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; and Jacob begat
Joseph the husband of Mary",
and it was Mary of whom Christ was born. So it would not make any
difference in all the
genealogy of the house of Joseph, as far as the blood stream of
Christ was concerned, for Joseph
was not the father of Jesus Christ. He was only the adopted foster
father, and thus added a
rightful title as foster father to Jesus. (The Jerusalem Bible footnote
(Matt. 1:1) says "... Joseph
legally the father of Jesus ".) But Jesus held the title by His right as
King of Kings and proved
that in His Own conversation with the people of Jerusalem, as we
will introduce to you.
In the Bible we have no genealogy as to who Mary is. Mary is the
only physical embodiment and
contact of Christ. Here in Matthew it says: "... Mary, of whom was
born Jesus, Who is called
Christ". Nowhere in the genealogy, if you go back to the Old
Testament, was the mother ever
mentioned. It always tells which father begat whom down through
all time. Why was the mother
mentioned here? Why did it not mention the mother down through
all this course? Because one of
the facts of this time in history was that the Virgin Mary was the
mother of Christ and His only
physical contact on earth. Was she a jewess? Absolutely not!
Mary is of the house of Levi, so by no stretch of imagination could
she be called a jewess. Levi
was given for the true priesthood from the days of Aaron right on
down to the present time; the
ministry was called the ministry of Yahweh "forever" . Let us turn
back to the hour of the birth of
Christ. This was in the days of Herod the King of Judea, and there
was a certain priest named
Zacharias (his wife was Elisabeth of the daughters of Aaron). John
the Baptist was born of
Elisabeth, and Christ came forth from the womb of Mary. Now
Elisabeth and Mary were cousins,
one family, one household. In Luke 1:36 we read (as the angel
addresses Mary): "And, behold, thy
cousin Elisabeth hath also conceived a son in her old age." Now
this will help us to understand.
The priesthood of Aaron was continued in the Levitical priesthood.
This proves Mary was of the
household of Levi.
We bring to your attention, for we have the evidence referred to
time after time, that the Body of
Christ was born of Incorruptible Seed. If you want to go back in the
miracle pattern of religious
philosophy, you will discover that as far as Adam is concerned he
was the issue of Yahweh; he was
His life, he was the Seed which He begat in the earth for
establishing the Race from which would
come His Kingdom.
As we called to your attention before, in the sixth day (era) Yahweh
created and consummated
through these geological ages of His time, the making of
everything in the universe. He had even
made man. "Male and female made He them", but on the eighth day
He said, "there is no
Adamite to till the soil", and He brought forth Adam, the very issue
out of Himself. Do you know
what the Apostle Paul tells us in Corinthians concerning Jesus?
This was the Body of Yahweh, the
second Adam; and as Adam is the issue of Yahweh, so Christ is the
second Adam. But He was also
the firstborn of every creature, because He was before all things,
and by Him all things consist.
Jesus began to preach one day, and He challenged the people: "Do
you know before Abraham
was, I was?" If, then, He was before Abraham, those who think the
Jews started with Abraham
would be forced to conclude that Jesus (having been before
Abraham) could not have been a
relative of the Jews. When Abraham went out on the plains of
Moreh, he met an unknown
personage; the one whom He met for the first time was called
Melchizedek, the great mystery title
of the eternal priesthood of the Eternal Yahweh. The Apostle Paul
tells you in the 7th chapter of
the book of Hebrews who Melchizedek was: He was without
beginning of days, or end of life, the
Eternal Priest and King forever. There is only one individual without
beginning of days or end of
life; and He, my friends, is Jesus Christ. John was exiled to the Isle
of Patmos for the testimony of
Jesus Christ. Suppose I introduce you to the fact that, according to
the book of Revelation, while
he was there and while he was meditating, Yahweh appeared
before him? He heard the sound of a
trumpet; and as he turned, he beheld the beautiful spectacle of
radiant Majesty and Light. He saw
Deity standing before him; he threw himself to the ground; he
heard the words: "I am Alpha and
Omega; I am . The Ever‑Living Yahweh." John says he trembled
before the symbol of Majesty.
The voice said, John stand upon your feet. You walked with Me
along the shores of Galilee; I am
Jesus. And he beheld and knew that The EverLiving was the Very
One with Whom he had walked.
"Fear not. I hold the keys of death and the grave. Stand upon your
feet." Do you suppose that
The Almighty Yahweh is a Jew? Yahweh save the world!
When Christ was twelve years old, He, His mother and Joseph (His
foster father) went down to
Jerusalem. He became separated from them. Do you know where
they found Him? In the temple,
confounding the wise men and the scribes; He knew more than
they did. He was expounding to
them the mysteries of the Scriptures, for He has put them together.
From that time on, Christ was
busy on these things. Oh, you say, He was working in the carpenter
shop? He lived in the City of
Nazareth? Not very much. You want me to prove that to you?
Joseph of Arimathea owned the tin
mines of Cornwall in Britain and, being of the true stock of the
Kingdom of Israel, he was one of
the most powerful members of the Sanhedrin. His ships ploughed
up and down the coasts of
Europe, through the Pillars of Hercules, and in the Mediterranean.
Joseph was a good man; he
laid Jesus in his tomb. This is a matter of history. You can go to
Rome today and see where
Joseph paid constant duty from one country to another.
Suppose I tell you that all during his youth, up to the time He was
30 years old, He was in
Europe? Jesus was here, and He was there; He was preaching. You
say, You cannot prove that.
Yes, I can prove it. I am going to show you something here that you
will remember. In Luke we
have the story of how Christ was baptized, and after Lucifer
assaulted Him with temptation, He
was away for awhile. After He returned to the City of Nazareth, He
went down to the temple to
preach. When He stood up with authority and power (for He had the
symbol of authority; they
had handed Him the scroll) and He talked, the people said, Who is
this? Is this Joseph's son? Is
this Joseph of Nazareth's boy; or who is this? Now, my friends, if
Jesus had been constantly in
attendance here, if He had been growing up here since He was
twelve years old, they would not
have guessed or pondered who this was who stood up to preach.
I will show you something significant. If you turn to 1 Timothy 3:16
you will read these words
concerning Jesus: "And without controversy great is the mystery
of Godliness, Yahweh was
manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the nations, believed on
in the world, received up into glory. "If Yahweh was manifest in the
flesh, He was justified in the
Spirit, and He preached unto the Nations ‑ when did He do that? He
did that before He
commenced the three year ministry which was to be historic, that
went up to His crucifixion. Now
I can prove to you that over here in the records, We have Christ as
He returns from having been
in a far country. As He arrives at the seat of Customs of the local
government, they want to collect
taxes from Him. Jesus turns to His disciples, saving, Of whom do
the kings collect taxes, of their
own or of strangers? (Here was, King Herod collecting taxes from
Jesus) Jesus, not to argue with
them, said, Go down and catch a fish. They brought a fish to Him,
and He said, Take the money
out of its mouth. They found there the golden coin with which to
pay the taxes.
What I want to point out to you is that Jesus Christ had been
outside the country and had returned
at this instance. He had been preaching in a far country, and the
records show that He paid taxes
and paid customs. The Jews recognized He was a stranger. More
than that, in another instance we
can show you something which is significant to this pattern. You
remember, in the book of John
there are many mysteries; they are only mysteries because the
Church never applied itself to these
many things, and these are also correlated with evidence that we
discover all through the writings
of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but especially in John are these things
made known. I read here in
John concerning that which Jesus was speaking that the Jews, the
Pharisees, the chief priests, and
the officers came to take Him. The high priests in the time of Christ
were fatuous, and came in the
line of the Canaanites. They were not the true seed of Israel. That is
why Jesus told them: "I am of
My Father, and you are of your father. "
In John chapter 7, He tells the chief priests and officers that came
to take Him, I am going to be
here a little while, and I am going into the Spirit whence I have
come. "You shall seek me, and
shall not find me; for where I am going you cannot come." So it is
obvious: Where Jesus was going,
the Jews could not go. Yes, He was going to heaven. Well, then, the
Jews could not get there.
The Jews said, "Where will He go that we can not find Him? Will He
go to the dispersed among
the nations? Will He go there and teach them?" The priests and
Pharisees asked the officers,
"Why have you not seized Him? Why did you not bring Him?" And
the officers answered, "Never
spake man like this man". Then spake the Pharisees, "Are ye also
deceived? Have any of the
rulers or the Pharisees believed on Him?" Nicodemus (who visited
Christ by night) stepped up.
"Now listen: The Law does not judge any man before it hears him."
They said to him: "Oh, are
you also one of His disciples? No prophet comes out of Galilee."
The Jews said He was not a Jew;
they said He was a Galilean.
Now, remember, the Galileans were not jews. You say, prove that.
All right, let's turn to the sixth
chapter of John. Jesus Christ had twelve disciples. One of them
was a Jew; that was Judas
Iscariot. All the rest came out of Galilee, out of the household of His
selection. He asked them a
question concerning His identity, and Simon Peter said: "Master,
where shall we go? Thou hast
the words of eternal life. We believe and are sure that Thou art the
Christ. " That means the
Embodiment of Yahweh, the Very Son, the Embodiment of The
Most High.
Jesus said: "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a
devil?" While that may be just a
name you call somebody, to Christ it was a generation of Lucifer.
Jesus turned to the Jews on
Solomon's porch, and said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father ye will
do. I am from above,‑ I am of Yahweh, and ye are of the devil. I am
Yahweh's offspring, and ye
are the devil's offspring. "You say, is that in the Bible? That is in the
book of John, which you
have. John also says: "He spake of Judas Iscariot, ... for he it was
that should betray him."
In John 7:1 we read: "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee ‑
For he would not walk in jewry,
because the Jews sought to kill Him. "You understand that in
Galilee He would not be among the
Jews. The brethren of Jesus, the friends of Jesus, and the
Galileans (the people of the community
where Christ lived) went down to Jerusalem; but there, no man
dared speak openly of Him for
fear of the Jews. Let us turn to the words of Jesus in the eighth
chapter of John. He makes the
declaration concerning His purpose. He went over to the temple
and all the people came, and He
taught them, saying: "I bear record of Myself, and My record is true.
"The Pharisees said: "Your
record is not true." So we have the Jew Pharisees denying Christ.
He said: "I know whence I came
and whither I go, but you cannot tell whence I come, and whither I
go." They asked, "Where is
your Father?" Then Jesus said: "If ye had known Me, ye should
have known My Father also."
These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as He taught in the
temple. And no man laid hands on
Him. For His hour was not yet come. Then Jesus said, "I go My way
and ye shall seek Me and die
in your sins. Whither I go, ye cannot come ... And He said, ye are
from beneath: I am from above; ye
are of this world, I am not of this world."
So Jesus said, You are of a different race, a different origin, a
different background. Let me tell
you about the whole Race of Israel. Turn to John 17. John records
that Jesus praised the Father,
and in this declaration, the Man Christ Jesus in the body is
unveiling for posterity facts
concerning the Eternal Spirit: "I have manifested Thy Name unto
the men which Thou gavest Me
out of the world. Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me,‑ and
they have kept Thy Word .... I
pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them whom Thou
hast given Me,‑ for they are
Thine ... and Thine are Mine."
Jesus said, I pray for those whom thou hast given Me. I have given
them Thy Word, because they
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that
you take them out of the
world, but keep them in it, and protect them from evil. "I am not of
the world." He was the
Almighty Ever‑Living One from heaven. That is why one of the
mysteries you find in the book of
Hebrews is quite clear. He said your Race was a Race of strangers
and pilgrims here. Yahweh put a
gracious forgetfulness over you, so you would do the job which
you were sent to do.
No Israelite was related to a Jew; and if he married one, he could
not enter the temple, nor could his
posterity.
You say, I thought Jesus was a Jew. No; Jesus could not be a Jew!
If He was The Almighty
Yahweh, if He was Holy Seed, if He was Incorruptible Seed, if He
was before all things, that would
be impossible.
In John chapter 12 the Pharisees said, We have got to do
something about this man. Perceive ye
how ye prevail nothing ever since He raised Lazarus from the
dead? Many knew of this miracle.
People all over the world were learning about the fact that Jesus
had raised Lazarus from the
dead, and they had gone after Him.
Now great nations sent ambassadors and messengers, and certain
Greeks who were important
people came to worship Jesus. They said to Philip of Bethsaida,
"Sir, we would see Jesus." Then
Philip and Andrew and the others came to Him saying, Men are
coming from these lands and
places and they want to see you. Jesus answered: "The hour is
come that the Incarnate Revelation
of Yahweh should be glorified."
The Pharisees said, We had better stop Him; the whole world is
coming out to see Him. And
therefore we have the testimony of this impact, where the chief
priests consulted how they might
put Lazarus to death in order to stop acceptance of the truth.
Yahweh walked among them as The
Messiah. He raised a man from the dead and they were so filled
with hatred and jealousy that they
wanted to put him to death again! Don't talk about brotherhood to
me! I don't want any part of them!