A Passion for Life, Israel and

the Coming Inheritance.

 

 

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Part 1

 

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Part 2

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

1. “There is a Book which is different from all other books - the writings of Moses and the prophets, evangelists, and apostles, commonly called the Book, or Bible.

 

 

2. There is a Nation different from all other nations, a peculiar people with a history wonderful from its beginning hitherto - the Jews, or the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

 

3. There is a Man different from all other men, the Man Christ Jesus - Son of the Virgin Mary, of the seed of Abraham, the King of the Jews, and Light of the Gentiles, the Lord from heaven, and the Son of the Most High, blessed for ever.

 

 

To these three I would add one more fundamental fact: There is a Land different from all other lands, which, hke the Book, and the Nation, and the Man Christ Jesus, concerns the whole of humanity – “Palestine”, “The Holy Land”, or “The Land”, as it is sometimes emphatically called in the Bible to distinguish it from all other lands - the cradle of God’s self-revelation and the centre of God’s governmental dealings with all the nations of the earth.

 

 

These four - the wonderful Book, the peculiar Nation, the glorious Man who is the sum and substance of the Book and the true centre and culmination of the history of the People, and the Land, the home of the Nation, where the Divine thoughts revealed in the Book found their human form of expression so as to be intelligible to all nations of the earth, and where in the fulness of time the Eternal Word himself became flesh and dwelt among men, and which he forever consecrated with his soul’s travail and atoning death and glorious resurrection, and from which he ascended - all these.”

 

 

- DR. ADOLPH SAPHIR.

 

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* NOTE.  It is probable that the passing of the Dome of the Rock out of the hands of the Moslems will be one of the marks of the ending of “the times of the Gentiles

 

 

Israel’s Distinctive Blessedness in the Millennium.*

by

James Stephens, M.A.

* Mr Stephens, was for 46 years pastor at Highgate Road Chapel, North London.  This tract was published in the October/December, 1996 issue of Watching and Waiting.  The message was given by Mr. Stephens at the S. G. A. T. Conference on 25th March, 1926.

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While there may be a measure of blessedness in all nations during the millennial age, there will be a special and distinctive blessedness in the nation of Israel.  There will be in all nations the blessedness that will result from this - that Satan, who meanwhile, with marvellous effectiveness, deceiveth the nations, shall be bound and shut up in the abyss during the thousand years; that under the direct reign of Christ peace on earth shall be established and maintained; that wickedness will be summarily dealt with, and the righteous be upheld and made to flourish; that all political and social hindrances to the proclamation and to the prevailing of the Word of the Truth of the Gospel will be taken out of the way; and that the Holy Spirit of God will be present in extraordinary fullness of energy in all the earth.

The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, the knowledge of the excellencies of Him Who is over all blessed for ever, and Who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Israel will participate in this blessedness, and at the same time, will have a blessedness peculiarly its own.

The Lord’s Peculiar Treasure

Of the nation of Israel it will continue to be said during the whole of the thousand years, “The LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 14: 2).  The purpose which the Lord expressed in the day when He avouched Israel to be His peculiar people, will come to complete and abiding fulfilment, “The LORD hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as He bath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all His commandments; and to make thee high above all nations which He bath made, in praise, and in name, and in honour; and that thou mayest be an holy people unto the LORD thy God” (Deuteronomy 26:18-19).  Israel will be not only the Lord’s peculiar people, but His “peculiar treasure” (Psalm 135: 4).

The relationship between the Lord and His nation will be according to His Word, “I will betroth thee unto Me for ever" (Hosea 2:19). Israel will thus be held in distinguishing favour. It is true that it will be in millennial days, even as it is now, that individuals of all nations who, through faith in Jesus, shall be brought under the cover and value of His finished work, and into experience of new life will be collectively “a peculiar people,” or otherwise, a people for God’s own possession; but it does not appear that any one nation besides Israel, will as a nation be the Lord’s peculiar people.  It may well be that the great majority of the individuals of every other nation will have saving faith in Christ, while that will be, universally, outward acknowledgement of the true God; but it is not possible to say that any one nation will be, in its entirety, as the nation of Israel will be in its entirety, a people “holy unto the LORD

We read of some members of other nations who will yield feigned obedience; and at the close of the millennium, when Satan is temporarily loosed, there will be nations deceived by him as will Israel in no wise be.  It is written, “All Israel shall be saved,” that is, the entire nation, as it will be in the opening days of the millennium, will be converted and forgiven and made regenerate; and it would appear that this astounding work of grace will keep repeating itself in the case of each succeeding generation.  Israel, in its successive generations, will continue to be the Lord’s peculiar treasure in which His delight will be; and will be His betrothed.  “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them” (Jeremiah 32:39).  “In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory” (Isaiah 45:25).  “Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified” (Isaiah 60:21).

Practical Righteousness will Characterise Them

It will thus come to pass that practical righteousness, practical holiness, will characterise the entire national life of Israel.  No other nation will be in its entirety so characterised.  The keeping of the commandments of God will be the constant concern of the whole nation.  In all their governmental procedure, in all their civic and social arrangements, there will be an application of the principles of God - intelligent, unhesitating, whole-hearted.  “In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD ... yea, every pot in Jerusalem shall be holiness unto the LORD of Hosts” (Zechariah 14:20-21).

It is not, of course, that the nation will walk sinlessly and be without the need, all the time, of the cleansing Blood; but it is that it will be, distinctly and manifestly, a God-fearing nation, and that as compared with other nations it will be pre-eminently so.  To Israel will pertain this distinctive blessedness.

Unparalleled Prosperity Theirs

God will make manifest the blessedness that will be the portion of Israel through their being His peculiar people, by bestowing on them, in a distinguishing way, temporal and material prosperity.  While yet, in the far past, Israel was in Egypt, they were, we read, “fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them  This marked them as it did not mark the Egyptians, and was theirs as a distinctive favour from God.  And, similarly, it will happen to Israel throughout the millennium, above and beyond (one would gather) what will happen to any other nation.

God will keep on fulfilling His words: “I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it” (Ezekiel 36:10).  “Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit” (Isaiah 27: 6).  “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered” (Hosea 1: 10).  The LAND of Israel also shall be made a specially delightsome land.  “The LORD shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD” (Isaiah 51: 3). There shall be, and continue to be, outstanding national prosperity and glory for Israel, God’s holy nation, far exceeding the prosperity and glory under Solomon’s reign.

The Lord’s Presence

God will own Israel as His Own peculiar people by giving them to have throughout the millennium, in Jerusalem their capital, a supernatural manifestation indicative or expressive of His Own presence in their midst.  “The LORD will create upon every dwelling place (over the whole habitation) of Mount Zion, and upon (over) her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon (over) all the glory shall be a defence (spread a canopy).  And there shall be a tabernacle (pavilion) for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a (place of) refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain” (Isaiah 4:5-6).

It will be similar to what it was with Israel in the wilderness, on the coming out of Egypt: “The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night” (Exodus 13: 21-22).  In this it will be manifest to the world that “the LORD hath chosen Zion, He hath desired it for His habitation;” and that He hath said of it, “This is My rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it” (Psalm 132:13-14).  God’s dwelling in Zion will constitute for Israel distinctive blessedness.

No doubt, it will be in millennial days as it is in the present time, wherever, among all nations, believers will be gathered together in the Name of Christ He will be present in their midst - present spiritually.  Saints will then, as now, be “builded together for an habitation of God by the Spirit  But it will not be true of any nation as nation that God is among them in continuous manifest supernatural working.  The Lord Jesus Christ will not personally manifest Himself in the capital city of any nation as He will in the capital of Israel - at least from time to time.

Jerusalem, the Centre of Teaching

In consequence of this distinguishing favour to Jerusalem, distinctive blessedness of various kinds will be the portion of the nation of Israel.  (1) “Many peoples shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, for He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2: 3).  This will take place while yet “the Scripture of Truth” as we have it will abound in every land.

May not this mean that in Jerusalem, as in a Seat of Heavenly learning, there will be opening up of the spiritual import of Levitical law such as at present obtains but little among Gentile teachers; there will be an unfolding and explaining of the ways of God, especially as these ways have been, and will be expressed in His manifold and wonderful dealings with Israel; there will be taught in great wisdom the application of the laws and principles of God to actual, practical life in the multitudinous phases.  If it should be so, or if anything like this should be the case, then to Israel will pertain the blessedness of being made a blessing to other peoples.  The God Who said to Abraham, “I will bless thee,” and added, “I will make thee a blessing* is the God of Israel, Whom we expect to show the like distinguishing favour to His nation in the millennium.

[* NOTE. These prophecies imply the bodily presence of Abraham upon this earth after his resurrection.]

In that day it will be said, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee; and nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” (Isaiah 60:1,3).  Kings and nations shall appreciate and seek the light that will be shining in Zion.  And thus to Israel will belong the special happiness of being a benefit and a blessing to other nations, above what any other nation is to its fellow-nations.

Christ Will be King

(2) When Christ comes again it will be found to be, as God has predicatively said: “I have set My King upon My holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 16).  Christ will be King of Israel, sitting on the throne of His father David.  But “the Lord,” the King of Israel, “shall be King over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:9).  The centre and seat of government for Israel will be the centre and seat of government for the whole earth.

This will mean distinguishing honour for Israel above all nations, and honour that will have in it a distinctive blessedness for Israel.  “The LORD of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously” (Isaiah 24:23).  From thence, “He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples” (Isaiah 2: 4).  From thence, “He shall speak peace unto the nations” (Zechariah 9: 10).

While Christ will be present bodily, according as “His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives,” it is not to be understood that He will be present bodily all the time, or be bodily occupying a dwelling-house in Jerusalem.  The saints who shall have been raised at His coming, and who shall be ever with the Lord, shall be with Him in the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, let down from God out of heaven, not onto the earth, but unto a certain proximity to it, and so as to be just over the earthly Jerusalem.  Between the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem, there shall be for Christ and His risen saints very close and intimate connection, and there shall be on their part much coming and going.*

[* Hence the literal fulfilment and reality of Jacob’s dream at Bethel: “I will give you ... the land on which you are lying ... All peoples ON EARTH will be blessed through YOU ... I (the Lord) will bring you BACK TO THIS LAND ...” (Gen. 28: 13-15).]

In this way it will be possible for the risen saints of the heavenly city to reign with Christ over the earth: at the same time it will remain that the earthly centre and seat of Christ’s government over the earth will be Jerusalem, the capital of the nation of Israel.  There will be blessedness for Israel in Christ’s manifesting Himself in the glory of supreme governing power and authority in their midst.

Jerusalem, the Centre of Worship

(3) Jerusalem, in the midst of Israel, shall be throughout the millennium, a place and centre of worship above any city or place in the whole world.  There will be there, as nowhere else, worship after the order appointed in the days of Moses.

We are told in Ezekiel (chapters 40-44) that there shall be a restored temple, and restored sacrifices and a restored priesthood of the sons of Levi.  As to the restoration of the sacrifices, it will at once occur to the mind that this seems to be in conflict with the great statement concerning Christ’s sacrifice – “By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Hebrews 10: 14).  The apparent contrariety may disappear if we consider the future sacrifices, not as formerly, typically anticipative of the one great Sacrifice, but retrospectively, commemorative.  Whatever sacrificing God will have maintained in Jerusalem in the future, this will remain as a sure fact, that Christ, at His first coming, appeared “to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:26).

At the same time, this future sacrificing may, by way of memorial, vividly and impressively set forth the One Sacrifice so that IT will be remembered with fuller apprehension of its value and ever-renewed adoring gratitude.  Allowing for the restoration of sacrifices, the restoration of the priesthood presents no difficulty; for this is in line with what is said in 1 Chronicles 23:13, that “Aaron was separated, he and his sons for ever,” that is, as long as the nation as a nation should last.  The temple also, when it is restored, will be a house of prayer for all nations.

The great feasts of Israel will also again have place and be kept in Jerusalem; and they shall not be kept by Israel only, but other nations shall be Israel’s fellow-worshippers and fellow-celebrants.  “It shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem, shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.  And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain” (Zechariah 14:16-17).  When “the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains,” “all nations shall flow unto it  Nations shall flow, it may be in this sense - that great companies of every nation shall go up with gladness, or it might be, in this sense also, that nations will eagerly present themselves in Jerusalem in the person of officially-appointed responsible representatives.

We do not forget how, when the woman of Samaria said to Jesus, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain (Gerizim); and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship,” Jesus answered her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father ... the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship Him” (John 4: 20-24).

Our Lord’s words affirmed that all places, as well as Jerusalem, would be places of acceptable worship if only the worship were worship according to God’s mind.  This will, of course, hold good during the millennium.  At the same time, there will be superadded the call and the privilege for all nations to enter into association with the privileged Israel, in that city which the Lord shall account His earthly rest and dwelling-place, and where His visible glory shall be shining forth for the thousand years.

The Plenitude of the Holy Spirit

What a place of joyful worship that city of holiness and truth shall be in those days to come.  Besides the visible glory, there will be there in continuous plenitude of effusion the Holy Spirit in His mighty grace.  With one accord, all the lands shall “make a joyful noise unto the LORD,” shall “serve the LORD with gladness” and “come before His presence with singing,” shall “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” (Psalm 100).  Israel shall boast in God, and the nations shall join in this with Israel.  There will be a very exultation of worship, and at the same time worship that will be worship in spirit and in truth.  To Israel will be given the distinctive blessedness of having this in the midst.

We cannot tell how much it will mean for Israel to be, all through the millennium, God’s own peculiar treasure. As a bridegroom rejoiceth over a bride, so the Lord will rejoice over the nation.  Notwithstanding the excellency of distinguishing favour shown to Israel, and pre-eminence in experience of blessing, the nation will find the other nations - not moved with envy or jealousy (with some exception at the beginning and end of the millennium), but on the contrary, rejoicing in their joy.  Israel will be such a blessing to other nations, or the blessing of the nations will be so bound up with Israel’s blessing, that they will take pleasure in God’s great goodness to His peculiar people.

It is evident that there will also be this most wonderful happening, that Israel will not be lifted up in pride or arrogancy or national glorying because of all their marvellous prosperity and distinction.  There will be accorded to them this very great grace to keep saying, “God hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities: for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him  If they glory, their glorying will be all in the Lord.

When God makes of Israel His peculiar treasure, He will exhibit before the eyes of the nations THE EXCELLENCY OF GRACE.  What nation has sinned as Israel has?  What nation has provoked and dishonoured God as this one?  What nation has been obstinate, rebellious and apostatising as this one?  Has any nation sunk deeper in guilt?  When it is Israel that receives pardon of God it will be said, “Who is a pardoning God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage  And when God enters on taking continuous delight in Israel, will it not be as when He made of Saul the persecutor and blasphemer a saint and an apostle in whom the Lord glorified Himself.  Could grace further go?

Divine Grace, Faithfulness and Wisdom

When God makes of Israel His peculiar treasure He will exhibit before the eyes of all the PERFECTION OF FAITHFULNESS.  For in proceeding thus He will act in fulfilment of a covenant made thousands of years previously.  No lapse of time shall have made Him forgetful of that covenant, no ingratitude or wickedness on the apart of Israel shall have made Him alter or modify His purpose.  “Hath He said and shall He not do it

And when God makes of Israel His peculiar treasure it will be as if WISDOM IN ITS SUPREME WONDERFULNESS had come into evidence.  “Now, if the fall of them (Israel) be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them be the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness  “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!”

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SELECTED QUOTATIONS

 

 

1

 

“It is evident from Scripture that the Jews are determined, like their forefather Jacob, to seize their birthright by hook or by crook.  They, too, will live bitterly to repent their folly.  Our Lord told the Jews of His day: ‘I am come in my Father’s Name and ye receive Me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive  Their leaders will sell their souls for the bauble of power.  Daniel tells of a coming prince, probably the Antichrist, with whom they make a treaty for seven years.  But their ‘agreement with hell shall not stand  The treaty is soon broken, and the great tribulation follows to subdue the pride and smash the hardness of heart of stubborn Jewry.  It is only when the remnant repent and acknowledge their once crucified Messiah that He can and will restore the Kingdom, and Israel will dwell in safety and peace every man under his own vine and fig-tree.  No Peace Conference of the Allied Nations, or other man-made agreement, can ever fulfil God’s purposes and promises for Israel

 

- Mr. Samuel F. Hurnard.

 

2

 

Ancient and modern Jewish writers recognize a time of trouble before the beginning of the Messianic Age, to end with the complete overthrow of the Gentile world power.  Israel will pass through terrible distress under an invasion by Gog.  Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1508) speaks of the judgment of Dan. 7: 10, as “that punishment with which the Holy Blessed God shall visit the living nations at the time of the coming of our Messiah, when He shall restore the kingdom to the Jewish people  Early Jewish thought identified the Anti-Messiah with Gog or with Nero.

 

3

 

PRAYER FOR ISRAEL

 

1. Because of God’s command, with special promise of blessing.

Gen. 12: 3; Ps. 122: 6; Isa. 62: 6, 7.

 

2. Because Israel is still beloved by God for the fathers’ sakes. Rom. 11: 28; Jer. 31: 3.

 

3. Because it is God’s will that Israel shall be saved. 

Isa. 12: 1-6; Matt. 23: 37; Rom. 11: 23-32.

 

4. Because of the Tribulation testimony out of Israel after rapture [and resurrection].

Matt. 24: 9-14; Rev. 6: 9; 7: 1-8.

 

5. Because of the great multitude to be saved through their ministry.

Matt. 25: 40; Rom. 11: 25.

 

6. Because no Millennial blessings can come to the nations apart from Israel. 

Gen. 12: 3; Acts 15: 16, 17; Rom. 11: 11-15.

 

7. Because of Israel’s national awakening, with sorrow and distress, showing that their redemption draweth nigh. 

Dan. 12: 1; Matt. 24: 4-8; Luke 21: 24-31; (See Dan. 9: 1-22).

 

4

 

THE JEW FIRST

 

Why give the Gospel “to the Jew first?” (Rom. 1: 16).  Because judgment will begin with them – Indignation and wrath to the Jew first (Ron. 2: 6, 10).  It is an awful thought that the Jew will be the first to stand forward at the bar of God to be judged.

 

Is it not a reason then, why the Gospel should first be preached to the Jew?  They are ready to perish.  The cloud of indignation and wrath that is even now gathering above the lost will break first upon the head of the guilty, unhappy, unbelieving Israel.  And have you none of the bowels of Christ in you, that you will not run first to them that are in so sad a case?  In a hospital the kind physician runs first to the bed where the sick man lies who is nearest to death.  When a ship is sinking, and the gallant sailors have left the shore to save the sinking crew, do they not stretch out the arm of help first to those who are readiest to perish beneath the waves?  Shall we not do the same for the Jews?  The billows of God’s anger are ready to dash first over them.  Shall we not seek first to bring to them to the Rock that is higher than they?  Their case is more desperate than that of other men – shall we not bring the Good Physician to them?  The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first.

 

- ROBERT MURRAY M’CHANE.

 

5

 

The writer (J. C. Van Gelderen) in The Jewish Missionary Magazine quotes the only official statement ever issued by a Church that all Israel will one day be restored to God.  The Dutch Reformed Church has said:- “Israel sojourns amid the Gentiles as a sign and mirror of God’s judgment.  But the survival of this nation, as well as the adding of individuals from this people, is an omen and earnest of Israel’s ultimate acceptance.  God has yet a future for His ancient people.  It remains the people of promise and the people of Messiah

 

 

6

 

The Jewish Era gives a deeply significant quotation from a Jewish journal - The Jews in the News.  “The miseries that have plagued us for two thousand years have been marked signs of God’s disfavour.  All the curses that the prophets foretold would be our lot have come to pass in a most remarkably accurate manner.  However, these great men of God also point us to the way of our dilemma.  We must turn to the words of our holy prophets and study the current trend of events in the Jewish world in the light of the Word of God which they delivered unto us, for in no other way can a satisfactory solution be found to the present spiritual plight of Israel.

 

Back to the prophets!  They were our inspired spiritual giants.  They made the greatest contributions to our spiritual life, not our philosophers, our Talmudic scholars, etc.  The call of the prophets was to repentance and it is the crying need of the hour, for Israel has not kept faith.  With the thundering words of Isaiah we are exhorted, ‘Turn ye unto Him from whom the children of Israel have deeply revolted’ (Isaiah 31: 6).  By following the traditions of our elders and the course of self-righteousness we have been on the road to Gehenna.  We have plumbed the depths of spiritual decadence.  Hear O Israel, ‘repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord’

 

 

7

In one of the orthodox synagogues of Brooklyn, during certain days of repentance and prayer, Jews were seen lying on their faces before God, crying to Him for protection upon their persecuted brethren, especially in Russia.  One elderly Jew lifted up his hands towards heaven and in agony of soul, cried out:- “Oh, that Thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down … Lord  he said, “Send Messiah, and should Jesus of the Gentiles be the one, grant us a sign that we may be sure that it is really so, and forgive our guilt toward Him

 

 

 

8

 

THE CRY OF THE JEW

 

(Written by a Jew)

 

There is no face in pity bent

When by the way I fall,

No anxious, loving Shepherd comes

In answer to by call;

There are no tender eyes to seek,

No gentle arms to hold,

No nail-pierced hands to take me up

And bring me to the fold.

 

 

And when on naked, bleeding feet

To Calvary I go,

And stagger, crush’d, beneath the Cross

There’s none to heed or know;

There’s none to lift the cruel weight,

There’s none to even share –

O Thou Who climb’d the Hill before

Look down and help me bear.

 

 

 

9

 

HEBREW SIN

 

In an old volume there is a conversation between a Christian and a venerable Jewish rabbi.  The Christian asks why the Jews, if they are God’s people, have suffered so greatly throughout the many centuries of their history.  The rabbi replies that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,” and that Israel’s sufferings always came upon them from the hand of God.  “What was the cause of Israel’s captivity  “The Scriptures declare that it was due to the sin of idolatry  “Was that a very great sin  “It was the greatest they could commit,” answered the rabbi.  “Was that the reason the punishment was so fearful  “Undoubtedly  “After their return from the captivity did they go back into idolatry again  “No, never again,” said the rabbi.  “The description Josephus gives us of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans represents that destruction as more awful than the former, when Nebuchadnezzar took the city; and how the nation was driven out and scattered over all the world.  Is his account substantially correct  The rabbi admitted that it was.  “Was not that the greatest judgment that ever fell on your people  “It was  “Then the sin that called forth such a judgment must have been a very grave and terrible one, even greater than idolatery  “It would seem so  “What was that sin  The rabbi did not profess to know.  “If Jesus of Nazareth was truly their Messiah and the Son of God, and they rejected and crucified Him – would not that account for that catastrophe and the age-long rejection and affliction of that people since  The rabbi does not answer – have the leaders of Israel ever considered this unanswerable question?

 

R. H. BOLL.

 

 

 

10

 

Walking down a narrow alley in Jerusalem when I was last in the Holy City I heard a strange sound of men’s voices moaning in misery.  Coming round a corner I saw a long row of bearded men, their backs toward me and their faces pressed up against a wall made of huge stones each of which weighed many tons – a wall that towered high above the heads of all of us.  Swinging to and fro in anguish they intoned tormented prayers.

 

That wall of titanic hewn stones is all that is left visible of the foundation platform on which the Temple stood, the Temple to which in Jesus’ day at the Feast of Passover over a million worshippers came from all round the Mediterranean world, the Temple that was to them the pulsing heart that sent the life-blood through the widespread limbs of the nation; indeed, that made the Hebrew people a nation.

 

That Temple was utterly destroyed over eighteen centuries ago; but at this moment some of those men whom I saw on that day are praying there to God to restore the Temple, and are beating their foreheads against the stones now known all over the earth as the Wailing Wall.

 

- PROFESSOR BASIL MATTHEWS.

 

 

 

11

 

Hitler, who once controlled half the race - 8,000,000 Jews - embodies one world-plan of the end.  He said (Times, Feb, 25, 1941):- “By this war, not Aryan mankind but the Jew will be exterminated.  Only after the extermination of the parasites will the world know a long period of collaboration between nations, and therefore a period of true peace  The Jew, however he may reject Calvary, by his own existence proves vicarious atonement which God wrote on the bedrock of his history.  In Isaac alone, Abraham’s only son, the whole of Jewry was enwrapped; and the annihilating knife (Gen. 22: 10) was lifted above him.  No Jew would ever have existed, and no Jew would exist today, had not Isaac been replaced by a ram in the burnt-offering on Mount Moriah.  So it is solely due to the Lamb, whom the ram foreshadowed, that Israel cannot and will not be annihilated today.*

 

[* Support whole-heartedly today (as of primary importance), all those regenerate souls who are seeking to carry the Gospel message to Jews scattered throughout the world.]

 

 

12

 

Trusting and Toiling gives a lovely parallel between the Passover and Calvary.  “Who could have imagined that the death of a little lamb should become the means of freedom for a nation and transform it from abject slaves into a people of the free.  That is the extraordinary wisdom of God.  Thus the nation of Israel was born that night, and thus the sinner, long held in bondage, is effectively freed and brought into the liberty of the children of God through the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Could such a Passover be ever forgotten?  ‘In time to come’ it would have to be told to the enquiring children, and as long as Israel exists the memory of that glorious event shall be perpetuated.  In like manner the redeemed soul will never forget the wonders of salvation.  The memory of it will live even over death, for in heaven the great multitude surrounding the Throne will sing ‘the song of Moses and the Lamb, saying Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty’.”

 

 

13

 

THE JEW

 

Who taught you tender Bible tales

Of honey-lands of milk and wine?

Of happy, peaceful Palestine?

Of Jordan’s holy harvest vales?

 

 

Who gave your patient Christ?  I say

Who gave your Christian creed?

Yea, Yea,

Who gave your very God to you?

The Jew! the Jew! the hated Jew!

 

- C. H. MILLER.

 

 

14

 

Every orthodox Jew repeats daily the thirteen articles of faith which include this statement:- “I believe in the coming of the Messiah.  Though He tarry, yet will I wait for Him

 

 

 

15

 

ISRAEL

 

 

 

They are the tribes of sorrow and for ages have been fed

 

On brackish desert-wells of hate and exile’s bitter bread.

 

They builded up fair cities with no threshold of their own,

 

They gave their sigh to Nineveh, to Babylon their moan:

 

And have they not had tears enough, this people shrunk with chains?

 

Must there be more Assyrias, must there be other Spains?

 

- Edwin Markham.

 

 

16

 

PALESTINE IN THE CHRISTIAN ERA

 

At a time when the fate of Palestine seems to rest with the United Nations of the world, it should be interesting to review the story of this land as it unfolds from A.D. 70 when the Roman legions destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and Palestine lost its independent status never since regained.  Here is the outline.

 

636 - Wrested from Eastern Roman Empire by Moslems.  Began four centuries of Mohammedan rule, mixed population.

 

1099 - Crusaders captured Jerusalem.  Within 100 years Moslem rule restored, which held out against several crusades of the 12th century.

 

1244 - Egypt, allied with Mongolian invaders gain control, lasting till early 16th century.

 

1516 - Sultan of Turkey assumed control after defeating Mohammedans.  Turkey held control until defeat in First World War.

 

1917 - Balfour Declaration, November 2.  Palestine to become “national home for the Jewish people

 

1919 - Supreme Allied Council approved declaration as basis of British mandate.  At same time gave 1,000,000 square miles as free territory to Arabs.

 

1921 - Arab delegation to Peace Conference lays claim to Palestine. ‑Prophecy Monthly

 

 

17

 

ISRAEL’S CLAIM TO JERUSALEM

 

(This claim has been issued by the Israel Office of Information)

 

JERUSALEM is a Holy City for half the human race - Jews, Christians and Moslems.  But for the Jews alone, Jerusalem is not only a Holy City, but a national centre - the core of their history for the last three thousand years.

 

It was the capital of their first and second commonwealths, the object of their prayers during the centuries of their dispersion.  They returned to it uninterruptedly through the ages until by the middle of the nineteenth century they formed the majority of its population and began to build a new Jerusalem outside the confining walls of the Old City.

 

The New City of Jerusalem, founded ninety years ago by Jews and developed by them ever since, is in every sense a Jewish city.  Almost all its 100,000 residents are Jews.  No less than Tel-Aviv or Haifa, it is an organic part of the community of Israel.  The Jews of Jerusalem are firmly resolved to remain citizens of Israel.

 

International supervision of the Holy Places and of the right of access to them can be assured without the imposition of an international regime upon the whole of the Jerusalem area.  The Government of Israel has pledged itself, in the words of President Weizmann, “to grant the supervision of the Holy Places to those who hold them sacred, and to encourage and accept the fullest international safeguards and controls for their immunity and protection

 

 

18

 

ISRAEL

 

So we read how the earth will be changed when the Kingdom comes.  “The Spirit shall be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest” (Isa. 32: 15).  Already it is forecast in Palestine.  Technion Yearbook says:- “Israel is destined to be a rich industrial and commercial oasis in the virtual desert of the Levant.  It is destined to become a great cultural centre.  Israel is the one nation born into the scientific age.  Science is the ingredient in its life which offers the most brilliant promise.  That Israel will distinguish itself in the study of archaeology, history, ethnology, is inevitable

 

 

19

 

“Always the Jew has felt that he must have a reason for continuing to live, a destiny, whether divinely appointed, as held by the prophets, or the natural product of an inherent, ineradicable folk-genius, as is now recently and popularly maintained.  The world’s Jewish problem has been altogether different.  It has been how to rid itself of the Jew.  To the world the Jew has always been a source of discomfort, of irritation, a mote in the eye, a small, floating body, never, stable, never fixed, but moving rapidly about, here and there, in the great, hulking carcass of the world, never soluble, never assimilable, never understanding, never removable, and always disturbing, aggravating and seemingly threatening.  Forced from one spot the Jew cropped up in another, equally irritating there, largely because the world assumed and expected that he would irritate, largely perhaps because the world was always over-conscious of the Jew.  So the world sought to rid itself of the Jew, this strange, foreign body, as, though quite inexplicably, it seems to have regarded him.

 

 

Probably never before in all his long history has the Jew been so deeply conscious of himself and of the problem which he presents to himself and to the world, and likewise never as actively eager for a final, permanent solution thereof, if permanent solution there be.  And, strangely enough, Israel seems more and more ready and eager to accept for itself one of the solutions which the hostile, irritated world without has proposed, viz., that of voluntary withdrawal, or self-imposed isolation, of conscious and purposed separatism, so complete as is humanly and practically possible, of racial nationalism, secular, racial nationalism, national existence, and national statehood.

 

 

I choose the old, hard, exacting, but true and eternal solution of the Jewish problem; and, choosing it, I hear the eternal message of the great prophet ringing in my ears, with its evangel of hope and deliverance and attainment:- “Behold, days are coming, saith the Lord, when I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel.  I will put My law in their inward parts and upon their heart will I write it

 

- DR. JULIAN MORGENSTERN, in The American Hebrew.

 

 

20

 

“Up to the time of the dissolution of their national independence, agriculture and handicraft were their chief occupations; only later, in consequence of their dispersion and the narrow limits prescribed for their activity, they became a people of traders and usurers which took the place of the old Phoenicians.  Handicrafts were so much developed, and held in such esteem, that towns were celebrated for skill and success in some branch.  The Jews were in those days anything but a nation of mere buyers and sellers.  In the sixty-three works of which the Talmud consists, there is scarcely a word in honour of trade; but much pointing out the dangers of money making.  Professional usury was contrary to the spirit of Judaism; for the Talmud places usurers on a level with gamblers, and declares both criminals unfit to bear witness in a court of law

 

PROFESSOR FRANK DELITZSCH.

 

 

21

 

It is extraordinary how indestructible is the Jew.  Six times have they been brought to the verge of annihilation.

 

 

1. By the Pharaoh of Egypt.  B.C. 1775

 

2. By the Assyrians.  B.C. 1571

 

3. By Nebuchadnezzar.   B.C. 588

 

4. By Haman.  B.C. 510

 

5. By Antiochus Epiphanes.  A.D. 170

 

6. By Titus.  A.D. 70

 

 

Yet the race survives this 3,800 years of deadly history.  The seventh and last attempt, made by the whole world, will be countered by Armageddon.

 

 

22

 

It is extraordinary how indestructible is the Jew.  Six times have they been brought to the verge of annihilation.

 

 

1. By the Pharaoh of Egypt.  B.C. 1775

 

2. By the Assyrians.  B.C. 1571

 

3. By Nebuchadnezzar.   B.C. 588

 

4. By Haman.  B.C. 510

 

5. By Antiochus Epiphanes.  A.D. 170

 

6. By Titus.  A.D. 70

 

 

Yet the race survives this 3,800 years of deadly history.  The seventh and last attempt, made by the whole world, will be countered by Armageddon.

 

 

23

 

The Nobel prizes are considered to be the highest awards attainable in the World.  These honours are conferred on those who have really achieved great things in science, literature, and the cause of world peace.  It is interesting to notice that twenty-two Jews have received Nobel Prizes since their inception. … They are the following : Bayer - chemistry, 1905; Michelson - physics, 1907; Ehrlich - medicine, 1908; Lippmann - physics, 1908; Metchnikofi - medicine, 1908; Heyse - literature, 1910; Wallach - chemistry, 1910; Asser - peace, 1911; Fried - peace, 1911; Barany - medicine, 1914; Wilstaetter - chemistry, 1915; Haber – chemistry, 1918; Einstein - physics, 1921; Bohr - physics, 1922; Meyerhoff - medicine, 1922; Franck - Physics, 1925; Hertz - physics, 1925; Bergson - literature, 1928; Landsteiner - medicine, 1930; Warburg - medicine, 1931; Loewi - medicine 1936; Ossietsky - peace, 1936.  It is interesting to note that fourteen of these Jews were German Jews and four more Austrian Jews which is practically the same thing.  The other four come one each from Russia, Holland, Denmark, and Prussia.

 

 

The agony of Israel is that we bear ourselves for the most part as if there were nothing to safeguard, nothing more to cherish, nothing left to preserve, and as if there were to be no future - this the end.  Religion!  Are we not becoming its destroyers rather than its guardians?  There is something which calls itself religion current in certain smug circles of Jewish life here and in other lands.  For the most part it is nothing more than a poor pulseless imitation or simulation of a decorously unvital mysticism.  And save for this there is little, if any, so-called religion in the household of Israel - orthodoxy being almost as dead as reform.

 

RABBI STEPHEN WISE.

 

 

24

 

If we look into their long past history, truly God has given us a record of what the gospel was as the power of salvation among the Jews.  The first fourteen Bishops of the Jerusalem Church were all converted Jews. Hegesippus, the historian of the second century, was a converted Jew.  Nicholas de Lyra, in the fifteenth century, was a converted Jew.  Cardinal Ximenes, compiler of the Complutensian Polyglot in 15I7, was a converted Jew.  Neander, the Church historian, in 1813, was a converted Jew.  Bishop Helmuth, of Huron, son of a rich banker who endowed Christian education, was a converted Jew.  Bishop Schereschewsky, a most distinguished missionary, in China, of the American Episcopal Church, a translator, and the inventor of a Chinese typewriter, was a converted Jew.  Ginsberg, the great Hebraist; Edersheim and Adolph Saphir, commentators; De Costa and Capadose of Amsterdam, the one a poet, the other a physician; Moses Margoliouth, one of the great founders of the British Museum, all were converted Jews; Mendelssohn, Halevey, Mayerbee, Offenbach, Rubenstein, were all musicians who bowed their knees before the Lord Jesus Christ, and were all converted Jews; and so the Herschells, astronomers.

 

- S. M. ZWEMER. D.D.

 

 

25

 

That Jews are for the most part converted by Pre- millennial Christians was clearly seen years ago by Andrew A. Bonar and Robert Murray McCheyne, who were appointed to examine into the matter of the Jewish evangelization, and reported:-  A missionary to the Jews ought to be well grounded in prophecy, and he should be one who fully and thoroughly accepts the principle of literal interpretation, both in order to give him hope and perseverance, and in order to fit him for reasoning with the Jews.  To the same effect the Bishop of Ripon, England, more than half a century ago stated that there were then among the clergy of the Church of England more than three hundred presbyters and four bishops who were converted Jews, every one of whom was brought to the reception of the truth under the influence of Christian teaching according to the literal interpretation of the prophecies.  And what was true then is still true to-day.  It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a converted Jew who is not a Pre-millennialist himself, and converted by Pre-millennial teaching.

 

- M. A. HOPKINS.

 

 

26

 

“Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing.  Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, as Judaism is incomplete without Christianity.  What has Rome to do with its completion, what with its commencement?  The Law was not thundered forth from the Capitolian Mount; the Divine Atonement was not fulfilled upon Mons Sacer.  No; the order of our priesthood comes directly from Jehovah, and the forms and ceremonies of His Church are the regulations of that supreme intelligence

 

- LORD BEACONSFIELD, in Sybil.

 

 

*       *       *

 

THE UNIQUE MAN

 

 

The challenge of Christ is inescapable.  One outstanding fact, among many, completely isolates Him.  It is this:- that one Man only in the history of the world has had explicit details given beforehand of his birth, life and death; that these details are in public documents given to the public centuries before he appeared, and that no one challenges, can challenge, that these documents were widely circulated long before his birth; and that anyone and everyone can compare for himself the actual records of his life with those old documents, and find that they match one another to a n icety.  The challenge of this pure miracle is that it has happened concerning one Man only in the whole history of the world.

 

But let us pause for a moment to see how a divine document can become an accomplished fact.  Dr. Cyrus Hamlin once in Constantinople, at the close of the Crimean War, met a Colonel in the Turkish Army who called on him.  “I have come to ask you a question,” said the Colonel; “what proof can you give me that the Bible is the Word of God  Dr. Hamlin purposely avoided the question; but in the course of the conversation, he asked the Turk,- “Were you ever in Babylon  “Yes,” he answered; “I am very fond of sport, and I once spent a week shooting among the ruins.  But the curious thing was this.  The Arabs, whom I had engaged, absolutely refused to spend a night among the ruins.  No money, no threat, no argument, would persuade them. The sheik said:- ‘No mortal flesh dare stay in those ruins.  Ghosts and ghouls swarm out of the holes and caverns at night; and no Arab has ever seen the sun go down in Babylon  I had to give up all hope of sport amid the ruins at night  The moment the Colonel had ended, Dr. Hamlin opened the thirteenth of Isaiah, and read to him these words:- “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.  It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces” (Isa. 13: 19).  The Colonel listened, and then said:- “That’s it exactly; but you have been reading history  “No, I have not,” answered the doctor; “I have been reading words written five hundred years before Christ, when Babylon was in all her glory.  The Bible is the Word of God

 

Now we take up one of the old documents.  The Prophet Isaiah writes this:- “The Lord himself shall give you a sign: A VIRGIN SHALL CONCEIVE, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7: 14). Now see the words that God’s Angel spoke to the Virgin Mary:- “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also that which is to be born of thee shall be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1: 35); and the Apostle Matthew (1: 22) adds,- “All this came to pass, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child.”  The Lord will grant a ‘sign’ - that is, a miracle: the miracle shall be conception by a virgin: the birth shall be the birth of God - Immanuel, ‘God with us  There is the document in Isaiah, a book in every Jew’s hands long centuries before Jesus was born.

 

But we look again.  Where was this to take place?  Nothing is more dangerous to false prophecy than the fastening down of an event to a date or a place.  Here is another document:- “Thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, out of thee shall come forth one whose goings forth are from everlasting” (Mic. 5: 2).  Now what did the Rabbis say?  “And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, Herod inquired of them where the Christ should be born.  And they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea: for thus it is written,” and then they quote Micah.  Now look again.  Herod “sent them to Bethlehem; and lo, the star went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was” (Matt. 2: 9).  And who was the child?  “And it came to pass, while they were there, she brought forth her firstborn son” (Luke 2: 7), “and called his name Jesus” (Matt. 1: 25).  The documents exactly fit.  The Lord shall give a miracle; it shall be a virgin conception; the birth shall be in Bethlehem Ephrathah; and the child’s name shall be Immanuel, Jehovah-Jesus.

 

We turn now to another old document.  It is another fragment of Isaiah, and runs thus:- “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Isa. 61: 1).   Now the child Jesus had grown to man’s estate.  He is on the banks of the Jordan.  “And lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and [John] saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon [Jesus]” (Matt. 3: 16).  That was fulfilment number one - the anointing.  But look again.  Jesus stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth: He took the Book from the attendant, and read that passage in Isaiah; and then, amid a deadly hush, He said,- “To-day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4: 21).  Now the fulfilment is extraordinarily convincing because of fact unforeseen.  Israel was expecting a Messiah that would be a Napoleon.  They were looking for Jehovah’s Spirit to fall on Messiah as it did upon Samson.  “They bound Samson with two new ropes; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the ropes became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands dropped from off his hands.  And he smote a thousand men” (Judges 15: 14). Such was the anointing Israel expected in Messiah.  All passages in the old documents that told of Messiah’s anointing to preach to the poor, to quench no smoking flax, to ride on the meek and lowly ass, to suffer and die, were put on one side.  Had Jesus been a false Messiah, would He have thus gone against all the prejudices of His race?  But it tallies with the old documents.  “Jesus of NazarethPeter says, “whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost, went about doing good, and healing” (Acts 10: 38) - saving, not slaying; curing, not killing.

 

We turn to another ancient document.  It is one of David’s psalms; and it reveals someone - the someone who is Messiah - dying an awful death, under very peculiar circumstances.  This ancient document says:- “The assembly of evil-doers have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.  I may tell all my bones; they look and stare upon me” (Ps. 22: 16).  Now crucifixion in David’s time was unknown among the Jews: yet the piercing of hands and feet, together with the partial stripping – ‘telling all the bones’ - obviously means crucifixion: the crucified are pierced only in their hands and feet, and are stripped for exposure.  Would a false Messiah have chosen that passage for fulfilment?  But that old document goes into fuller, circumstantial details.  Immediately after the piercing and stripping, it says:- “They part my garments among them, and upon my vesture do they cast lots  Now hear the Apostle John.  “The soldiers therefore, when they had crucified Jesus” - that is, after piercing His hands and His feet – “took his garments, and made four parts” - divided them into four portions - “to every soldier a part; and also the coat” - the tunic or vesture: “now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.  They said therefore one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be.  These things therefore the soldiers did” (John 19: 23), as foretold centuries before.  Nay, this old document holds the very crucifixion cry, for the psalm opens with it – “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Ps. 22: 1).  So centuries later the Evangelist writes:- “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27: 46).  Not a jot or tittle of the psalm has miscarried: exactly as in the birth, and in the ministry, so also in the death - but more so - the ancient document is a photograph of the fact, fulfilled in flawless detail.

 

The last old document we select is once more from a psalm, and runs thus:-  “Thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol;     neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One” - the Messiah - “to see corruption” (Psalm 16: 10).  Here, therefore, is a point supremely critical for the revelation of the Messiah: resurrection [out] from the dead - without the slightest touch of decay: “Neither will thou suffer thine holy One to see corruption” - is the stupendous miracle that is finally to reveal the Lord.  This is simply impossible to a false Messiah.  Now we turn to   the Gospel document.  “And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and    came and rolled away the stone, and sat upon it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the watchers did quake, and became as dead men.  And the angel answered, and said unto the women, Fear not ye; He is not here; for He is risen, even as He said” (Matt. 28: 2).  The fact is established with ample evidence.  “He appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then He appeared to above five hundred brethren at once; then He appeared to James; then to all the apostles; and last of all He appeared me also” (1 Cor. 15: 5).  A scarred body, yet a germless body, leaving an empty tomb; living, eating, conversing, ascending; miraculously conceived, divinely anointed, crucified, incorrupt - the cycle is complete.

 

It is now possible to sum up with mathematical certainty.  In our hands are the ancient documents, written hundreds of years before Jesus was born.  They are publicly in everybody’s hands.  So are the facts of our Lord’s life recorded in the Gospels.  The two can be compared side by side.  The tallying of the Old documents with the new facts is provable by anyone at any time throughout all eternity.  Ours can only be the cry of Philip:-  “WE HAVE FOUND HIM OF WHOM THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS DID WRITE  “We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, CHRIST” (John 1: 41).

 

- D. M. PANTON.

*       *       *

 

 

THE WAILING WALL

 

By CLARENCE D. WISEMAN (1947)

 

 

In company with a group of British service men, I visited the Wailing Wall in Jerusalern,* on a Hebrew Holy Day.  The wall is about seventy-five feet long, and is held in highest veneration by pious Jews who believe it to be a surviving portion of their ancient temple.  Though not actually part of the temple, archaeologists say that it most certainly dates from the time of Herod, and probably was part of the wall that surrounded the temple area.

 

On this day hundreds of Hebrews were weeping pitifully at the sacred spot.  Women cried bitterly as they beat their foreheads against the stones.  I ran my fingers over the surface of one of the huge blocks from which the wall is constructed and found that it was worn quite smooth by the presence of a million hands and lips down through the long weary centuries since the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70.

 

The Wall is 156 feet long and 59 feet high, and is probably the only remaining portion of King Herod’s Temple.  The stones are massive; some of them measuring 16 feet by 13 feet, and the marks of Solomon’s masons are still to be seen.

 

In the interstices between the blocks of stone were little slips of paper bearing written prayers, placed there by simple souls who consider that if God should forget their spoken words He surely would not fail to remember their written petitions if left in such a holy place.  I also noticed a few rusty nails driven into the cracks many years ago by Jews who were bent on “fastening” their prayers in a sure place.  This custom is no longer observed, for the authorities have banned it lest it weakened the wall.

 

I saw many people kiss the stones passionately.  At one time, at the far end,  a man began to chant in a high-pitched monotone, and the crowd took up the refrain.  This went on for some time, and the atmosphere was so charged with a sorrowful sense of despair and frustration that it sent a chill through my soul.

 

Gathered from all nations, these Jews were lamenting the loss of their land and the destruction of their temple, pleading piteously to Jehovah for their restoration.  Women wept with honest tears – perhaps they were thinking of loved ones slain in the gettoes of Europe – who knows?  Little children stood by the wall and sighed.  Old men read aloud from their Bibles, swaying back and forth in short, jerky genuflections as they dolorously intoned the sacred words.

 

- The War Cry.

 

 

*       *       *

 

 

THE HOLY LAND OF THE FUTURE

 

 

The size of Palestine is about 12,000 square miles.  But the size of the land promised to Israel (Gen. 15: 18) is 200,000 square miles.  The size of England (alone) is 50,000 square miles.  In this 50,000 square miles there is a population of about 40 million.*  The land promised to Israel is four times as large, and therefore could sustain a population of at least 160 million people.  Dr. G. T. B. Davis, who has investigated on the spot, is our authority for saying that in the early days of Jewish colonization sixty acres of land were necessary to support a Jewish family.  Now, however, only five are necessary.  In a short time three will be sufficient.  Then when Ezekiel 36: 33-35 is fulfilled and, “The land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden” - it will be more fruitful than England at the present time and thus able to support a larger comparative population.  Ezekiel 48 makes it clear that the whole of the Promised Land will be populated.  According to the above figures if a Jewish family consisted of five persons then 200 million could be supported.  In the world to-day there are about 16 million Jews.  Therefore the Promised Land could hold ten times as many Jews as there are in the world to-day. 

 

The Religious Digest.

 

[* Note.  This tract was written in October, 1937.]

 

2

 

There is to be a competition for space in Palestine.  The boundaries of the new State will probably be defined after the lines of the Bible.  We do not anticipate a return of the whole Jewish people from the outside world, but it is already known that the territory which the new State will possess between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates River will hold 20,000,000 souls.

 

- DR. MAX NORDAU.

 

 

3

 

The orthodox Jews of Tangier interpret God’s promise for Israel’s restoration to include all Arabia for the Land of Promise, covering one hundred times the area of Palestine. 

 

- DR. S. M. ZWEMER.

 

4

 

What about Jerusalem and Palestine, now?  Here is a striking thing.  When I was in Jerusalem, I spoke to a Government engineer who was there at the time Lord Allenby conquered Jerusalem.  He told me that Palestine needed a harbour as trade had increased, and there was great congestion, since such a great number of Jews had come into the land.  Where they used to export about 25,000 boxes of oranges, they now export nearly 25 million boxes a year.  The British Government, in order to solve the great export problem, tried to sink a harbour, but had difficulty in finding a suitable place.  Gaza was tried, but the ground would not give; they then tried Joppa, but it was too dangerous a spot.  At last they were able to sink a harbour at Haifa, and it is now in existence, and sufficiently large to accommodate the biggest ships of the world.  A Jewish writer in a Hebrew paper in Jerusalem gave a hearty invitation to the Queen Mary to stay in the Jewish Harbour!  When this godly Government official told me that it was at the foot of Mount Carmel, in the Bay of Haifa, in the Mediterranean where they built it, it was an eye-opener to me.  I said to this official:- “Do you know as I read my Bible, I find God chose the place for that harbour 3,600 years ago  “Where?  I should like to see the passage?” said the officer.  So I took him to Gen. 49, where Jacob is seen as a prophet.  Before he died he called his sons and he blessed them, and gave to each son a portion.  He blessed Zebulun and said: “Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships” (v. 13).  The Hebrew word “haven of the sea” is “Chaifa”, and that is the name of the harbour, Haifa.  Is that not wonderful?  There was no harbour until the last few years in Zebulun, but now that land has that marvellous harbour!  “His border shall be unto Zidon

 

– MARK KAGAN.

 

5

 

Just after the disastrous earthquake in Palestine of July, 1927, many were interested to note a statement made by Professor Bailey Willis, the seismological expert of Standford University (U.S.A.) before the British Association at Leeds, England.  He said that the Holy Land may expect to suffer from earthquakes, that the area around Jerusalem is a region of potential earthquake danger, and that “a fault line along which earth slippage may occur passes directly under the Mount of Olives  It is impressive to set this statement alongside the inspired Word written by Zechariah (14: 4) five centuries before our Lord’s first earthly ministry.

 

6

 

On the banks of the rivers of Babylon our forefathers, exiled from Zion - virtually another name for Jerusalem and also a synonym for Palestine - solemnly swore: ‘If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning  With what tenacity have we clung to that oath throughout centuries of exile.  In joy and sorrow, in the house of the mourner, at the wedding feast, under the nuptial canopy, at the burial service, we have never ceased to remember Jerusalem.  In our prayers, private, public, thrice daily, and in the Grace after meals, we pray for Jerusalem.  The inspiring service of the Passover, held in every Jewish home throughout the world, and the solemnest service of the Synagogue on the Day of Atonement, both conclude with the exclamation, ‘Next year in Jerusalem’.  It is impossible to overstate the spiritual significance of Jerusalem to the Jews.  The Jewish mind is focussed on that magic name ‘Yerushalayim’, which never fails to stir the Jewish heart to the uttermost.  An Englishman could perhaps think of England without London, an Irishman of Ireland without Dublin, even a Greek of Greece without Athens, but to the Jews ‘Eretz Israel’, the land of Israel, without Jerusalem is unthinkable.

 

- DR. ISAAC HERTZOG, Chief Rabbi of Palestine.

 

 

7

 

“Lo, these shall come from far: and these from the land of Sinim [China]” (Isa. 49: 12).

 

A colony of people descended from some Israelitish settlers came to the Western Borderland of China several hundreds of years before the time of Christ.  The writer * for many years laboured as a missionary in West China.  In the course of his travels and explorations among various races living in the mountainous region between China proper and Tibet he found this interesting people.  To-day they are mostly known under the general name of Chiang-Min, though once known, at least in one region, as the Baelan-Min.  It was their Jewish-like appearance combined with their characteristic Old Testament religion that drew his attention markedly to them.  ‘Who indeed were they?’ he asked.  As their habits were studied, their traditions learned, their religious observances interpreted to him from one and another over a wide area, and as finally Christian converts came forward to corroborate what he discovered, their identity became undeniably established.  Charge was given him by an eminent Chiang Christian to tell the Western Churches of their presence in far West China.  This man fell a martyr to his faith in the summer of 1935.  To his help in securing introductions to Chiang leaders and priests of note, in our quest for independent information, much of this work is due.  This man was won by the reading of the Pentateuch.  At once he claimed its five books as the title-deeds of the immemorial religion of his people.  The resemblances of their ritual to the observances of the Tabernacle were too many and too intimate to be mistaken.  Besides, the religious conceptions in both were identical.  The sweet reasonableness of the Gospel in consummating the substance of the Messianic promise set forth in both, convinced him straightway of the truth of Christianity.

 

* China’s First Missionaries: Ancient Israelites, by Rev. T. Torrance, F.R.G.S. Thynne & Co., Ltd., Whitefriars Street, Fleet Street, London, E.C.4.

 

-The Bible League Quarterly.

 

 

8

 

Is it not a grand fulfilment of prophecy to see to-day how the Holy Land is being prepared for their occupation! In Isaiah 17: 10, we read that the land will be set with strange slips, so Israelite colonists have sent to America for 500,000 slips of vine with which to plant the land, and in The Morning Star for December 18th, 1894, we may read, “It is reported that these strange slips do far better than the Native slips  If we are to accept what Dr. K. Kellog says, it would appear that some of the descendants of the ten tribes can be found in Afghanistan, the Ameer of which said, in 1882, “O my tribesmen, it is known to you that you are a noble race, and that your pedigree is traced from Jacob the prophet,” and then followed a resume of their history from the Exodus to their last defeat by British arms.  There is also reason to believe that in Arabia are to be found remnants of the ten tribes.  Mr. Poole quotes the traveller Wolff, who had a conversation with a man named Moussa, of an Israelite tribe near Mecca.  “I asked himhe said, “Whose descendant are you  Moussa answered, “Come and I will show you,” and read from an Arabic Bible Jeremiah 35: 12-14.  He then went on, “Come, and you will find us 60,000 in number.  You see the words of the prophet are fulfilled

 

- LT. COL. G. F. POYNDER.

 

9

 

The British Academy sends its most cordial good wishes on the great occasion of the opening of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - an event fraught with happiest augury for the progress of human knowledge, and with historic significance as acclaiming the Holy City among the seats of modern learning and research.

 

The Fellows of the British Academy are proud that their illustrious President, the Earl of Balfour, is taking so privileged a part in inaugurating the University, and through him they desire to convey to the authorities their sincerest congratulations on the successful consummation of the efforts for its foundation.  They devoutly trust that before long the University may embrace within its activities the whole range of studies, scientific and humane.

 

May the Hebrew University of Jerusalem add new lustre to the enduring fame and immemorial glory of the Sacred City inestimably endeared to mankind!  Fostered by a succession of gifted teachers, may learning and arts of peace grow from strength to strength and flourish in the University - a Foundation of Peace in the City of Peace.

 

In fraternal comradeship with scholars and scientists throughout the world, may the Hebrew University of Jerusalem advance the welfare of the human race, and above all, through Knowledge, help forward the realization of the Psalmist’s praise of all-transcending Wisdom.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” - Address of the British Academy on the opening of the University of Jerusalem, April 1, 1925.

 

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, inaugurated by Lord Balfour in 1925, now has over 100 academic members on the staff, 100 technical and administrative assistants and nearly 700 undergraduate students.

 

 

*       *       *

 

 

THE CONFESSION OF A JEW*

 

* This confession of an unnamed Jew is a most wonderful forecast of the revelation which will break at last, like lightning, upon hunted Israel.  It is obtainable in tract form under the title of “Why Are We Jews in Goluth?”  from The Jewish Era, 404 N. Wesley Ave., Mount Morris, Illinois, U.S.A - ED., DAWN.

*       *       *

 

 

‘WE are not in Goluth because we have been such good and willing missionaries to the Gentiles.’  This farce has been spread among us Jews that we are missionaries of the faith of the one God among idolatrous Goyim. Gentiles do not set a foot in our synagogues, except in rare cases, and that for curiosity sake, to see how we perform our religious rituals; and when they come there, we do not often offer them a seat or welcome.  Yea, whenever one does venture within the holy precincts of our prayer-houses, we look at him as if he were a bit of poison who would make us Posul.

 

 

It must be some gross sin that drove us out of Erets Israel.  If the Most High had any intention of using us as His servants to the other peoples in the world, He would not have driven us wholesale out of the land of our Fathers.  He would have left us in the possession of the land, and selected a spiritual army to go out and conquer the nations for His faith.  But we have been sent as a body from our glorious land, driven by the sword of the enemy from our hearths, and drowned in rivers of blood.  And from that day on, we have known little but sorrow upon sorrow, as our own Moses foresaw: “The Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, a failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.”  No goodness on our part, no willingness to serve God in the capacity of missionaries among the nations would have been rewarded with such pay from the Almighty God.

 

 

Now, comes the great question: “Why are we then in exile If we ask the average of our people, the answer is: “We do not know.”  And truly, our trouble is of such long standing, and we have become so accustomed to our Exile, that very few, if any of us, have given any thought to the matter; and because we scarcely think about it any more, we have not searched out the cause of our estate of 2,000 years of misery.  The Rabbis, our leaders, generalize away the causes, by stating that our sins must be the reason, but they leave it there.  They do not search for these causes and look for any specific sin which might have aroused the fire of the Almighty. And yet it must be, it cannot be otherwise, that there is something outstanding in our national history that has caused the wrath of the Almighty to be provoked, and that with such terrible results.

 

 

Again, what did we do to our brother Joseph?  The finest boy of our father Jacob’s family!  Because he was a dreamer, we hated him, we intended to kill him, we threw him into a pit, and then sold him to Ishmaelites who in turn sold him to the Egyptians.  From this treatment of our brother Joseph comes the bitter cause and the weight of all our sorrows.  For all our captivities are but punishment for the treatment given to our own flesh and blood, our noblest blood.  Our tribal fathers charged each other:‑- “We are guilty concerning our brother; therefore is this distress come upon us And Reuben answered them, “Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child; and ye would not hear?  Therefore, behold, also, his blood is required(Gen. 42: 21, 22).

 

 

What about this present captivity of nearly two millenniums?  What brother did we betray to reap this long exile?  Whom did we see nearly two thousand years ago in the anguish of his soul?  And we would not hear! Whose blood was required then?  In all our history since the return from Babylon there is no other who could possibly be the one, but JESUS.  No other brother has so much reaped our hatred and malice as Jesus, no other have we sold to His enemies but Jesus, no other one have we seen in such anguish; no other one would we not listen to, but Jesus.  No other one’s blood has been required from us but HIS.  We threw Him to the Romans, those wild beasts of prey; we saw the anguish of His soul, and we would not hear!  That is why this present distress of 1900 years has been upon us.

 

 

Our fathers who perpetrated that crime against their own flesh and blood, called upon themselves and us the curse that Reuben said that our earlier fathers reaped when they had sold little Joseph: “His, blood be upon us and upon our children.”  It has indeed been so, the blood of Jesus has been required of us now for nearly two, thousand years.  We have bled for His blood in rivers.

 

We Jews must let our eyes be opened, that we may see the truth of these matters: We surrendered Jesus to be crucified, we stood at that ignoble tree and watched him in His pain, and our hearts remained stones, and have been stones ever since, so far as Jesus is concerned.  We slandered our own mother’s son, we cursed him, spit on him, we called out, when His name was mentioned: Yemach, Shemou.  And in the meantime we suffered, and suffered, and suffered, and we said to ourselves that we did not know why we suffered.  We blamed it to the intolerance, the stupidity, the blood-thirstiness, the Jew-hatred of the nations.  Indeed these are the second causes, but they are mere co-incidents.

 

Yet there is something miraculous in all this.  For it is a miracle of mercy that we are still in existence.  We, had we received our due reward, would have perished from the earth long before this.  If God had fully followed up His indignation for those wrongs, we would have sunk into the sea of oblivion.  Yet we are still here and still have precious promises of a great future.  What is the secret of this strange phenomenon: punished, but not perished?  For the continuation of existence we have to thank these very maltreated brethren!

 

It was Joseph who kept us alive when we almost starved in Canaan and furnished us a place of refuge in Goshen during the remainder of the famine. It was Moses, blessed Moses, who interfered when God wanted to destroy the people for their sins, and asked God to have mercy on us, and destroy him instead.  And so it was our greatest brother Jesus, Who, in His greatest agony cried out: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”  These maltreated, buy great souls, the finest of the wheat of Israel, have not done unto us according to our deserts.  They did not call the wrath of heaven upon us; just the opposite, they shielded us against the full wrath of a justly indignant God.  They prayed for us while we cursed them.  They loved us, while we hated them.  They even shed bitter tears for us.

 

And there came a day in Joseph’s life that he made himself known to our fathers, clothed with kingly robes and acting with the authority of a king.  And there will yet come a time when our people will see Messiah-King, Jesus, who was cut off.  For as our prophet Zacharia said:‑“They will see Me Whom they have pierced,” not on a cross, but as a King with authority and honour.  He will reveal Himself unto us and unto our children in his own appointed time.  He may even quote the words of Joseph:- “I am Jesus, your brother, whom you surrendered to the Romans.  Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you surrendered me to them: ‘FOR GOD DID SEND ME BEFORE YOU TO PRESERVE YOUR LIFE’

 

However, before this moment of revelation takes place in the future, we as individuals must acknowledge our grossest of all sins, and if we do, God will for Jesus’ sake pardon us, even now!

 

 

*       *       *

 

 

ISRAEL’S CRY

 

 

“We, Jewish students of the Wilna University, cannot be silent any more under the moral and physical tortures we suffer daily.  With deepest appreciation we recognize that there are professors who do not let us be robbed of our rights, and that a part of the Polish academic youth stands with us.  But our general situation is worse than ever.  Since the Bloody Monday (February 8) the anti-Semites have not rested.  Daily they push Jewish men and women students off their seats; some of the professors do not even permit us to stand, and force us to leave the halls.  Still harder are the conditions of our practical work in the laboratories and seminars.  As these are obligatory they put before us the alternatives either to accept the ghetto or to abandon our studies.  We have come to college to learn; every day lost is a hard blow.  But we will not sell our honour and our rights for any price.  We must therefore decide on a last despairing step: we will not take part in any practical work as long as our rights of equality are not fully reinstated

 

- Warsaw, March, 1937.

 

 

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“Fellow-citizens of Roumania, for centuries have we lived with you on this soil.  There have never been any differences of interests or ideals between us.  In time of peace we rejoiced with you over the fruits of our united labours; in time of war, we shed our blood with yours on the battlefield to secure our common rights.  During the past few years we have been the victims of a campaign of hatred and slander.  This campaign has been spread over the length and breadth of the land, among all sections of the people.

 

 

Old documents show that we have been domiciled for centuries in all districts of Roumania, some of which were formerly severed, but now have been re-united, thanks to our joint sacrifices.  We are not strangers.  We belong to the country just as our parents and grandparents did.  We are not enemies; we present no danger.  Had it been otherwise, then the law would have long ago exacted the severest punishment from us.

 

 

We do not bear the responsibility for the prevailing difficult conditions, for we have not brought them about. We have always been dutiful subjects, fully obedient to the laws, governments, and official authorities.  We have suffered with you from bad laws, and incompetent administrations, just as we have enjoyed with you the advantages bestowed by good laws, wise governments, and conscientious administrations.

 

 

Those who disregard the heavenly command, - ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’, cannot be propagators of religion, for neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament claim that that people should be exiled and despised who gave the world the Book of Love and Fraternity, the Bible

 

-The Central Council of Roumanian Jews.

 

 

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“Herr X had been living in a small village in Germany, the only Jew in the village; as representative of a business firm he earned ample for the support of his family.  He was happily married, with three children.  But the mother was a Christian and relatives of hers troubled her greatly, reproaching her again and again for having married a Jew.  Shortly after the beginning of the Third Reich Herr X was imprisoned, and for some weeks he was in a concentration camp.  No definite charge was brought against him.  On release, he went to Paris.  His wife and children wrote regularly to him.  His wife went to live with her mother, who had a small shop and was able to keep her.  Herr X showed me many of her letters.  The first ones were written in peace of mind, concerned with the care for them all.  But gradually there entered into them complaints about the children.  They were a burden; everybody reproached her for her Jewish children; difficulties were made for the children at school, and the other children made it impossible for them to go anywhere.  The next letters were worse still.  The wife would not leave her homeland, but she did not want to be burdened further with Jewish children.  Finally came a letter:- “Befreie mich von Deinen judischen Bastarden” - (‘Set me free from your Jewish bastards.’)

 

 

It was an easy matter to verify all the details in Germany.  They were entirely correct.

 

- DR. HANNA EISFELDER, formerly on the staff of the Municipal Child-Welfare Office in Berlin.

 

 

*       *       *

 

 

ISRAEL AND THE SON OF GOD

 

 

It is most wonderful to see the critical and supreme encounter between Christ and the official heads of God’s chosen people, officials who were acting, with unchallenged power and authority, on behalf of the only nation in the world that stood for Jehovah.  The nation that possessed the Temple, and the Priests of Jehovah, and a line of Prophets for centuries, was face to face with One claiming to fulfil all the prophecies of the Messiah who was to come; and we see the marvellous encounter, step by step and word for word, as Israel made official and (for two millenniums) final contact with the Son of God.

 

 

First we see the Court before which our Lord was brought.  The Sanhedrin, consisting of seventy leaders of Israel, stood for the seventy Elders whom Moses summoned (Num. 11: 6) at the command of God; and it consisted of three houses.  The first house, the House of Lawyers, with whom was the power of life and death, was dissolved with the coming of the Romans, who refused capital punishment to the Jews.  The second house was the House of the Chief Priests, consisting of the heads of the twenty-four priestly families, together with certain Temple officials, and presided over by the High Priest; and all its members were called ‘chief priests’. The third house was the House of the Elders, representatives of the leading Jewish families, together with Rabbis of note.  These two last houses - so often called in Scripture ‘the Chief Priests and Elders’ - constituted the Court before which our Lord was tried.

 

 

Now the lawlessness of the trial at once provides a startling background for the radiant form of Christ.  The Law decreed that no trial must occur before sunrise; the accused must have an advocate, and be allowed witnesses; and no death-sentence must be passed on the day of trial: here, the court sat before sunrise; the Accused was given no advocate, and allowed no witnesses; and the death sentence was passed on the day of trial.  No star-chamber was more lawless.

 

 

The heart of the whole scene at once reveals itself.  For the High Priest, after various suborned witnesses had failed to establish a case, conceives a master-question which, he believes, will compel the Prisoner to incriminate Himself.  It was a question which centred its whole weight on the heart of the claims of Christ: the High Priest had a perfect right to put it: it was, in his person, the whole of Israel cross-examining Jesus on the one vital point: it was, in the Law of Jehovah itself, a question of life and death.  Caiaphas puts the question:- ‘ART THOU THE SON OF GOD?’ (Luke 22: 70).

 

 

But the matter is still more momentous.  The High Priest, deliberately and of set purpose, puts our Lord under oath - which he had a perfect right to do as the official representative of Jehovah; and no oath was ever uttered under circumstances so solemn, or on a question of fact so momentous.  So also our Lord, who had been hitherto silent, instantly responds; and by doing so accepts the alternative of either the truth or perjury.  Four times Jesus had been silent - once earlier before Caiaphas, once before Herod, and twice before Pilate: now, when it is no longer a matter of false accusations, but the challenge of the greatest of all truths, He speaks. Caiaphas says:- I put you under oath – “by the living God” - the most solemn conceivable oath - “that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt. 26: 63).  The Law said:- “If anyone sin, in that he heareth the voice of adjuration” - he is put under oath – “if he do not utter it” - his witness – “then he shall bear his iniquity” (Lev. 5: 1) - silence is guilt.  So the High Priest, solemnly and officially, forces a confession, under oath, which will settle the controversy for ever: he directly charges home the fearful question, “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed

 

 

The answer of the Lord could not be more explicit.  “And Jesus said” - returning Messiah’s official answer to the official challenge of God’s People, and speaking to the official leaders of Israel – “I AM” (Mark 14: 62). Here, in court, at the critical moment, in response to the legal examination of the only body authorized by God to put the question, and under oath; knowing that He was pronouncing his own death sentence, by His answer; our Lord deliberately reaffirms the truth which is the one basis of the Christian Faith, a truth which revolutionizes all time and eternity: “I AM”.  And the Lord Jesus makes it still clearer by immediately appropriating to Himself prophecies of the triumphal return of the Messiah.  The prophecies ran thus:- “The Lord saith unto my lord, Sit thou at my right hand” (Ps. 110: 1); and in Daniel (7: 13) – “There came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man, that all the peoples, nations and languages should serve him Our Lord combines them both in what He now says of Himself.  “And ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven It is the plainest possible statement of the Divine Messiahship, and an indispensable basis of the new birth.  “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God” (1 John 4: 15).

 

 

The effect of our Lord’s utterance it is impossible to exaggerate.  “And the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What further need have we of witnesses?  Ye have heard THE BLASPHEMY The Jews had plainly asserted (John 10: 33) that in saying He was the Son of God - “Thou, being a man, makest thyself God”.  They now can scarcely trust their ears that He, so deeply humiliated and already death-sentenced, could make such an assertion.  We little realize the fearful issues at stake.  “And they all condemned him to be worthy of death”, and in passing the death-sentence on blasphemy, they were acting strictly according to the Law, if blasphemy had been committed.  “He that blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone him” (Lev. 24: 16).  So therefore if our Lord could have denied Caiaphas’ challenge; or if He could have so softened down the High Priest’s expressions – “Messiah, the Son of the Blessed” - that they should not imply Godhead; it would not only have saved His life to do so, but if He was not God, it was the only truthful, honourable, righteous answer to give.  On the contrary, the sole count on which our Lord was condemned was nothing witnessed against Him, but His own simple statement of the truth of His Deity.

 

 

So now we face the outstanding consequences in all their fearful import.  (1) The whole scene proves in what sense Caiaphas used the expression ‘the Son of God’, on his own testimony - he had it carefully in mind when he put his challenge; and therefore it equally proves in what sense our Lord also uses the expression, for He is deliberately answering him: both meant Godhead, or it would not have been blasphemy.  And (2) there is an even more fearful consequence.  If our Lord is not God, He was guilty of blasphemy; but, on the other hand, it equally follows that if He was not guilty of blasphemy, He is God, and therefore everyone to-day who either praises Him or disparages Him, but who at the same time denies His Deity, is doing exactly what the Sanhedrin did - charging Him with blasphemy; and, in consequence - since our Lord spoke the truth - is guilty of actual (though unintentional) blasphemy himself.

 

 

A symbolic action of the highest significance closes the scene.  The High Priest did that which was strictly forbidden to a priest - he rent his clothes.  The command to priests was:- “Neither rend your clothes, that ye die not, and the Lord be not wroth with all the congregation” (Lev. 10: 6): that is, it endangered the death-penalty.  The Old Testament symbolism depicted the High Priest’s robes as a picture of a perfect righteousness under the Law; and to tear up the robe was to despair of justification under Law, and to confess oneself a lost sinner.  This is exactly what Caiaphas unconsciously did; and what we all, sooner or later, must do; for Grace robes where Law makes naked.  Our very doubt was blasphemy, and our righteousness was tattered rags. But this is our salvation.  “HE hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, HE hath covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61: 10).

 

 

It is amazing to find Israel’s stubborn refusal of our Lord’s own testimony, no less stubborn nineteen centuries after.  “If we can imagine,” says Mr. C. G. Monteflore (Hibbert Journal, July, 1937), “that Christianity had, from the beginning, taken up a rigidly Unitarian position, if Jesus had only been regarded as the perfect man, the perfect teacher, the revealer of the inmost nature of God, it is doubtful whether any bitter antagonism from the side of the synagogue would have arisen or have continued.  The Divinity of Christ, and then the Trinity, were insuperable obstacles How our Lord could have been the perfect man, and much more the perfect teacher, and yet - according to the Sanhedrin itself - have been executed for blasphemy, is not explained: the assertion is (as we have seen) itself blasphemy.

 

 

And the iron hand of the Sanhedrin once more threatens the Holy Land.  Dr. W. M. Christie writes from Haifa to the British Weekly (Aug. 12, 1937):- “We cannot conceal that the present struggle is not only for the elimination of the ‘Arab’, but also of things Christian.  In this connection we were astounded a few days ago when we found in a Hebrew Prayer Book, printed in Jerusalem, two ancient prayers that had caused trouble with the Christians in past ages, and which had been toned down, are now reprinted in their most offensive forms.  The first of these is called ‘Birkath ham‑Minim’, and we translate: ‘And to the Minim (early Christians, especially Jewish) and to the slanderers, let there be no hope, and let all the insolent perish in a minute: and all thy enemies and all thy haters, let them be speedily cut off; and let the kingdom of wickedness be rooted out, broken, brought to shame, and humiliated, speedily in our days.  Blessed be Thou, 0 Lord, breaking enemies and humiliating the Christians.’  Now every Jew who reads or recites this prayer to-day has without the smallest doubt the thought in his mind that he is praying against the Christians

 

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