Chapter 8

 

In discussing the fact that the Israel people (along with Judah) had rejected the Word of the Lord and refused to hear Him, Paul tells us in Romans 9 and 10 that there has always been a “remnant of grace” who did hear. These did have faith in God and remained true to Him. This was possible only because God had sent forth His Word to us. The great example of this is found in the story of Moses at mount Sinai, where God spoke the law to the people. That story is recorded in Exodus 20:1-17, but Moses comments on it in Deuteronomy 4, saying,

³³ Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?

³⁶ Out of heaven He made thee to hear his voice, that He might instruct thee; and upon earth He showed thee His great fire; and thou heardest His words out of the mist of the fire.

Although all the people heard the voice of God, not all of them truly “heard” in the way that God intended. We read the people's reaction in Exodus 20:19,

¹⁹ And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

Hence, we read in Hebrews 12:19,

¹⁹ And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more.

The people as a whole refused to “hear” that which they had heard. This is why we read later in Psalm 95:7, 8 the words of David: “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart, as in the day of provocation.” The remnant of grace are the ones who open their hearts to receive the Word that is spoken. In Exodus 20 only Moses went up into the mount at that time to hear the law, while the rest “stood afar off.” Let us follow Moses' example, rather than reject the Word.

It is interesting that the Church today has some knowledge of the ten commandments—that portion of the law that Israel did hear at mount Sinai. But the Church has no knowledge of the rest of the law, because that is what Moses received by going up the mount with open ears. Hence, it is only the remnant of grace that has ears to hear every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Such people are not afraid of the fire of God in their lives, for they know that He is their loving Father, and His fiery disciplines are designed to bring us to maturity.

The Word is Nigh Thee

In Romans 10:5-8 we read,

⁵ For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law that the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

⁶ But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above);

⁷ Or Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead,)

⁸ But what saith it? The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach.

Paul is here referring to Moses' words in Deuteronomy 30:12-14. In other words, the Word has already been sent forth, and it remains for us to open our hearts to HEAR it even as Moses himself heard the Word. One does not need to go to heaven to hear the Word, for God came down to earth to give it to us. Nor do we have to die in order to hear the Word of God—we can hear it today. The word is nigh unto us, and this is the word of faith that Paul and others have preached:

⁹ That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

¹⁰ For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

¹¹ For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed [quoted from Isaiah 28:16].

At this point, Paul shifts his focus from the Word of faith itself to the fact that it is given not only to Israel but to the entire world. But even here, with the Word going forth to the entire world, only a remnant of grace truly hears at this present time. Only a remnant from each nation—never an entire nation—has ears to hear in this present time. The remnant is considered foolish and not a people or nation. But these are the ones through whom God works. Through this remnant, the voice of God is heard throughout all the earth, as Paul says in verse 18:

¹⁸ But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. [quoted from Psalm 19:4]

It may seem strange to us that Paul would quote Psalm 19:4 here, as it seems at first glance to be taken out of context. David was talking about the heavens declaring the glory of God. The sun, moon, and star constellations all speak His Word, and all men could hear the Word through these agencies. Nonetheless, only a few men actually did understand and know the God of heaven.

Even so, God has used the remnant as His spokesmen to bear witness to the truth of God. In the Old Testament, God had called Israel out of Egypt and had spoken the Word to them at Sinai, because they were called to be the remnant nation, the “church in the wilderness” that would bear witness to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, the nation of Israel also refused to hear (Exodus 20:19), so God worked through an even smaller remnant within Israel.

This smaller remnant, then, is the focus of Paul's attention in the next few verses from Romans 10:19 to 11:10. The argument is a bit complex, but he shows us the example of Elijah and the 7,000-man remnant of grace in the midst of the rest of Israel that was blinded. Hence, not only is the whole world blinded, but even the nation of Israel itself.

God seems to specialize in working with a small minority in order to make it understood that the plan of God is not accomplished by the strength of men, or by great numbers of people, or by military might. We see the same pattern in the formation of Gideon's army, where God brought it down from 32,000 to 10,000 to 300 men.

Not Enough to be a Blind Israelite

Paul introduces this section by asking the important question in verse 19:

¹⁹ But I say, Did not Israel know? First, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.

Notice that Paul does not immediately answer his own question. The answer does not actually come until the end of this section in 11:7, where he concludes with:

⁷ What then? Israel hath NOT obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election HATH obtained it, and the rest [of Israel] were blinded.

So to answer Paul's question, “Did not Israel know?” the answer is simply NO. They did not know, they did not understand, simply because they were blinded according to the word of Isaiah, wh ich Paul quotes. Being one of the blind Israelites is certainly not my goal. I would much prefer to be part of the remnant of grace that knows God and His plan for creation.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we must go back to the beginning of Paul's argument. Instead of immediately answering his own question, he tells us that God was going to provoke Israel to jealousy. How does this principle work, and how does it relate to the subject at hand?

The Law of God's Jealousy

Paul was referring to Deuteronomy 32:21, which is a part of the Song of Moses. The contents of this song are very important to us, because it is the song that the overcomers sing in Revelation 15:3. It tells the story of the plan of God, and the law of jealousy is an integral part of that great story. So let us quote this passage in Deuteronomy 32:16-21.

¹⁶ They [Israel] provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they Him to anger.

¹⁷ They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

¹⁸ Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten GOD that formed thee.

¹⁹ And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of His sons, and of His daughters.

²⁰ And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very froward [perverse] generation, children in whom there is no faith.

²¹ They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

Many times God tells us that He is a jealous God. (See Exodus 20:5; 34:14; Deuteronomy 4:24.) Since God married Israel at the foot of mount Sinai, God considered the nation to be His wife. But when God's wife played the harlot by going after foreign gods, they made God jealous. Israel made God jealous, so God made Israel jealous. He did this by favoring other nations, paying attention to them and treating them as if they were the chosen people. In doing so, He put Israel under their authority, as if to make other nations “chosen.” This plan was designed to make Israel jealous, so that they would repent of their sin.

The book of Judges records this tactic many times. Every time Israel followed after other gods, God put Israel into subjection to those other nations, one after another. Eventually, Israel would repent, and God then sent a deliverer to free them from their bondage.

But the apostasy finally became so great that God actually divorced Israel and sent her out of His house into captivity to the Assyrians from 745-721 BC. This was the end of the Old Covenant with the House of Israel. This was the problem that Paul was discussing in Romans 10 and 11. The remnant of the House of Judah living in the land of Palestine during Paul's day had not yet been cast out of the land. So Paul's main focus is on Israel, who had been cast off about 800 years earlier.

This was, of course, the ultimate act of a jealous God. He divorced Israel for her adultery (Jeremiah 3:8) and actually ended the marriage covenant He had made with her at mount Sinai. Then in Acts 2, beginning with the fulfillment of Pentecost—the anniversary of God's marriage with Israel under Moses—God began to woo other nations as if to search for another wife. This was done to make Israel jealous, as Paul tells us, and as Moses had prophesied in Deuteronomy 32. This tactic was so ingeniously subtle that most people have entirely misunderstood it.

According to the book of Hosea, when God cast off His people, Israel, He made them “not My people” (Hosea 1:9). Yet at the same time God made a promise that seemed totally impossible for Him to keep. It was the greatest riddle and mystery of all time. He said in the next verse,

¹⁰ . . . In the place where it was said unto them, ‘Ye are not My people,' there it shall be said unto them, ‘Ye are the sons of the living God.'

In Hosea 2:20-23 we read that God was going to “betroth thee unto Me” once again, and . . .

²³ I will say to them which were not My people, ‘Thou art My people,' and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God.'

Since the divine law forbids a man to remarry his ex-wife after she has remarried another man (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), it was unlawful for God to ever remarry Israel. But Paul gives us the answer in the New Testament. In Romans 7:1 & 2 he points out that death ends the marriage covenant.

¹ Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

² For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.

Paul is not saying that marriage covenants end ONLY in death, for even the divine law allowed divorce (Deut. 24), and God Himself divorced Israel (Jer. 3:8). Paul is simply telling us that the death of the husband also ends the marriage covenant. Jesus Christ was the Husband of Israel (Jeremiah 3:14), and when He died, the old covenant with Israel ended, for that was a marriage covenant. Judaism, which relies upon a continuing old covenant, pretends to have a continuing marital relationship with God, but they are merely “playing house.”

In 1 Corinthians 7:39 Paul mentions this principle again, adding that the widow is free to remarry after the death of her husband.

³⁹ The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

This is why Jesus had to die to remarry the House of Israel. He died and was raised again as a new creation (legally speaking). The law viewed Jesus as a new man. Hence, He is able to remarry Israel without violating the divine law. But first, Israel must leave her present lovers with whom she has been playing the harlot—depicted by Hosea's wife, Gomer (i.e., the Gimirri).

Who are the No-People?

Paul says that God will provoke Israel to jealousy by those who are “no people” and “a foolish nation.” Who are these? There are two primary answers to this question.

First, Israel as a whole after they were cast out were called “not My people.” In their blindness they would actually provoke themselves to jealousy in a strange twist of circumstances with help from the Jews. In these latter days of the pentecostal era, when the unbelieving Jews took on the name of Israel in 1948, it began to make Israelite Christians jealous of them. People wondered why and how God would favor unbelieving Jews more than the Christians. It is even accepted among some groups of Christians that the Jews are saved without Christ and only the “gentiles” are saved by Jesus Christ. It is also said that Jews are saved by law, while gentiles are saved by grace, by which th ey usually mean that Jews are saved by the old covenant, while the “gentiles” are saved by the New Covenant.

Such rank heresy is self-evident and needs no further refutation from us. But the point is that these doctrines are designed to provoke the true Israel people to jealousy and even anger (Romans 10:19), so that we awake to the fact that God does not look with favor upon those who hate Jesus Christ. Today, many Christians are beginning to say, “Hey, what about us? What are we, chopped liver? We're the ones who love Jesus Christ and want to follow Him!”

It will not be long before the huge body of Christians in the West will see their origins as ex-Israelites in the captivity. When this happens, they will receive a whole new motivation to carry out the great commission., for now they will know that they—not 144,000 Jews—are the real ones called to bring revival to the whole world. The “144,000” come from all twelve tribes of the dispersion.

The Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion

James wrote a letter “to the twelve tribes in the dispersion” (literal translation of James 1:1). These were not Jews, but Israelites of the dispersion. Likewise, Peter wrote a letter to those same tribes of the dispersion, even giving us their location. Rotherham's translation of 1 Peter 1:1 & 2 is clearer than the King James version:

¹ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ unto the chosen pilgrims of the dispersion throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia—

² Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father . . . .

Peter then told these dispersed Israelites in 1 Peter 2:9 & 10,

⁹ But ye are a chosen generation [race], a royal priesthood [kingdom of priests], a peculiar people . . . [quoted from Exodus 19:5, 6]

¹⁰ Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

Peter knew who they were, and he applied the Scriptures correctly. Any Bible map will show that these Israeltes were in the northern part of what is now called Turkey, not Palestine. The Gimirri-Israelites had migrated there from the east as “pilgrims” from the land between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, where the Assyrians had placed them 800 years earlier. Peter appeals to them as dispersed Israelites living among the nations:

¹¹ Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims [parepidemos, same word used in 1 Peter 1:1], abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;

¹² Having your conversation [or, “conduct”] honest among the Gentiles [ethnos, “nations”]; that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.

No doubt Peter had in mind the prophetic words of Ezekiel 36:17-22, which says,

¹⁷ Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings . . . .

¹⁹ And I scattered them among the heathen [goy, “nations”] and they were dispersed through the countries; according to their way and according to their doings I judged them.

²⁰ And when they entered unto the heathen [goy, “nations”] whither they went, they profaned My holy name, when they said to them [when the nations said to—or about—Israel], These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of His land.

Peter knew that these dispersed Israelites had been cast off because of their sin, and so he was concerned that they not continue to profane the name of Yahweh among the nations. Hence, he tells them to conduct themselves properly, because “the day of visitation” had arrived. Jesus Christ had now come to “sanctify My great name, which you have profaned among the nations” (Ezekiel 36:23). The promise was that God would sprinkle clean water upon them to heal them of their spiritual leprosy (Ezekiel 36:25; Leviticus 14:7), give them a new heart, and put His Spirit within them. This new work began on the day of Pentecost in 33 AD.

Peter was writing to Christian Israelites of the dispersion, to whom this promise had begun to see its fulfillment. These were the firstfruits of the promised national repentance, a greater work that was yet to come.

The gospel had taken root among them very early in Christian history, because God saw to it that these ex-Israelite no-people would receive the gospel first. Why? Because God intended that these same Israelites be His blind and deaf witnesses to the rest of the world.

Israel had been blind to who God was. Israel had been deaf to the voice of God. So God blinded and deafened Israel to who they were. Even the Jewish Encyclopedia says that the Sacae, or Scythians, are the lost ten tribes of Israel (Vol. 12, p. 250). Sir Henry Rawlinson, the great archeologist, tell us in his book, The Origin of the Nations that “We have reasonable grounds for regarding the GIMIRRI, or CIMMERIANS [Scythians] . . . and the SACAE of the Behistun Rock, nearly two centuries later, as identical with the BETH-KHUMREE of Samaria, or the Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.”

And so we see that God has fulfilled His Word in a most marvelous manner. He made Israel a no-people and blinded them to who they were (or used to be). Then He brought the gospel to them, yet left them blind and deaf to who they were. In this state they would be His witnesses and bring the light of God's Word to all the nations of the world.

This was to fulfill the Word to Isaiah, who prophesied that Israel was God's blind servant (Isaiah 42:19) who would be His witness (43:10) to all the earth. Isaiah 49 says:

³ And said unto me, Thou art My servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified . . . .

⁶ And He said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles [“nations”]; that thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth.

Who ever heard of a blind and deaf witness in a court of law? A witness can only testify that which he has seen or heard. And yet God has done so with Israel, and the gospel has gone forth into all the earth through the great missionary societies formed in the late 1700's. God has used the Israelite no-people to reach no-people in the rest of the world, so that all the other no-people who hear the gospel can be called the sons of the living God.

Dispersed Israel is the first answer to the question: Who are the no-people? In our next chapter we will give the second answer, or manner of fulfillment. We will show that the remnant of grace is also a no-people, called to provoke blind Israel to jealousy in a different way. It is important that we understand both levels of fulfillment in order to obtain a complete view of God's plan.