Romans (41): On Righteousness

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (41)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

 Has Israel Forfeited Its Future? (Part Six)

REJECTION: The Secret Ekklesia in God's Program
Romans 9-11

The Audio MP3 of this lecture is available via this link: http://www.bripodcasts.com/Romans/Lecture41.MP3


Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2018 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)
CAUTION: BRI Yeshiva notes are not available to the general public. They are not for distribution. They are not for reproduction. The notes may also bear little or no resemblance to the actual audio or video recorded BRI Yeshiva lecture.

"When one is frightened of the truth... then it is never the whole truth that one has an inkling of" -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Guess now who holds thee?" -
'Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang, -
"Not Death, but Love."
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We are presently completing our study of Romans 9 in respect to the thoughts of Rav Shaul relative to Israel's apparent forfeiture of its Messianic destiny and replacement by the universal Christian Church. We have seen that Replacement Theology is a diabolic heresy... actually, its not a heresy. Its beyond heresy. Rather, it's a demonic doctrine of the worst sort.  

There many churches and denominations which reflect Replacement Theological positions but none so vehemently expressed than by the SDA denomination. In an old issue of a Seventh Day Adventist These Times magazine (Nov 1975, pp 5-8) which I happen to have in my files, an article appears entitled Israel's Forfeited Future by Gerald Wheeler. I laughed when I first read this article and, while I do not wish to give offense to this particular author's emotional or perhaps intellectual sensitivities, I am laughing still.

It's introduced by a subheading which announces profoundly: "A serious examination of God's promises to ancient Israel reveals the glorious future that might have been" (emphasis mine). Of course, in accord with standard academic Adventist biblical ignorance this ungodly attempt at furthering their deficient view of Israel's rejection is best summed up in the following utterly crass notion by Wheeler which can be located on page 7: "Just because God announces His intentions does not mean that the prediction will automatically happen no matter what the response of His people may be" (again, emphasis mine).

Wheeler's entire argument constellates in typical Adventist fashion around the notion that human free will can, and does, undermine the immense powerful will of the Ruach HaKodesh in fact. This may well be a sincere Gentile view of "God-sort-of-Almighty" but it goes directly against, and challenges the tightly knit fabric of, the Jewish thoughtform in which the biblical revelation was bequeathed to humankind by our ever-loving Creative Infinitely Intelligent God. Rav Shaul grasped the intent of such imperious arguments against the will of a sovereign God who superintends the entirety of the universe without aid or helpful input from mere galactic earthlings and naked apes. Paul replies to these collective ignoramuses: "You [he who argues against the sovereignty of God in favour of humanistic views] will say then unto me [unto Paul], Why does He [God] yet find fault? [Paul responds] For who has resisted His will?" (Rom 9.19).

Great question! Yes, WHO has ever ultimately resisted the WILL of GOD? Listen! God has no enemies in a real sense. God is WAY ABOVE enemies. God has no equal among angels or men. Those who think of God to the contrary know NOTHING of the sacred Hebrew Scriptures. Even haSatan, the Dark Lord, is nothing more than God's plaything. He is strictly under the awesome authority and control of God (refer to the book of Job for clarification). There is no war going on between Christ and Satan. There is no "Great Controversy" between the two of them. As Yeshua's brother Yaakov once wrote: "You believe in God? You do well! The demons also believe and tremble, shuddering in terror and horror such as makes a man's hair stand on end and contract the surface of his skin" (James 2.19 Greek).

In this instance we find pointedly that the demonic powers and elemental spirits know their place and the supremely impressive authority of the Ground of All Being. Yes, even demons know who's BOSS.

GOD HAS ONLY ONE PLAN (OF WHICH WE ARE AWARE)
Remember this, if you remember anything at all! God's plan has always been a plan of salvation. That plan, purpose and INTENTION -- with absolutely no apologies to author Wheeler -- the INTENTION of God has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A plan or intention of God is thought out ahead of time, before it is executed, prior to its actual initiation. And God's intention and His acts are ONE AND THE SAME. For instance, sin is essential for salvation. With the human species of planet Earth God has no other plan. Without sin there would be no Saviour. Without enslavement there would be no Deliverer or Redeemer. Without transgression there could be no act of justification, or Grace imparted. Without the cross, Grace would be meaningless. Without darkness there would be no appreciation of light. Without estrangement there would be no possibility of reconciliation. Comments C.S. Lewis, "The glory of God, and, as our only means to glorifying him, the salvation of human souls, is the real business of life" (C.S. Lewis, Christian Reflections, 1967, 14).  

Adam's sin initiated the program of redemption. The program of redemption was thought out way back in eternity. God was not caught "flat-footed" in Eden (so to speak), by the sin that wrought havoc, and as a consequence brought a disaster of mammoth proportions to the world. Many years ago I was walking past a large and elevated Church of Christ signboard. It read "All Good Things Come From God." Looking up the unsteady ladder toward the very rotund pastor who was engaged in admiring his own artistic handiwork, I asked if only good things came from the Lord or could we expect bad things too. His reaction was one of astonishment. He replied that only good things came from God. All evil came from the devil. He was emphatic! "Only good, nothing bad!" This was an interesting comment for my Bible seemed to say something very different.

HAVE YOU EVER STUDIED GOD?
Many believers have read about God. Many have also attempted to know God through religious experiences. Some of us have even studied God. For those who have not actually studied GOD, note the following: In the Bible we find that ignorance and indifference come from God (Isaiah 29.10). The perverted spirit that caused the Egyptians to err came from God (Isaiah 19.14). The filthy lying spirit which came upon the prophets of Ahab came from God (1 Kings 22.23; see also 2 Chronicles 18.20-22). The deaf, dumb and blind are made or appointed by God (Exodus 4.11). The billions of Earthlings who are not constituted as "Firstfruits" have had their eyes purposely blinded by God so that they cannot at this time appreciate the Gospel, or the fact that Yeshua is LORD of ALL. These are absolute acts of Deity!

Moreover, Abraham's trial, the fiery holocaust on the "cities of the plain," the pestilence sent to punish King David, the evil spirit that dominated the mind of Saul -- even the horrendous bloody slaughter of the first born of Egypt are all expressly stated to have originated with the Lord's command and will! Anyone with a concordance of the Bible can look up every reference to "evil" and find out how many times it is associated with God for he is shown not only to send evil upon lands, peoples, and empires but causes it to come with horrifying affliction, wholesale pestilence and rapacious destruction with all its accompanied misery, tragedy and despair. The recognition that we serve a very WILD God is the beginning of wisdom and humility! Indeed, the sincere but actually thoughtless writer of the above article already quoted would immediately dismiss the fact that God is the Creator of evil. But the Bible -- in contradistinction to Wheeler's idol Ellen G. White -- insists the absolute opposite (see Isaiah 45.7 Hebrew).

The Lord uses (not merely utilises) Satan the Dark Lord as his prominent tool and instrument of destruction. Not only was Satan created a Waster and Destroyer (Isaiah 54.16 Hebrew) but he was created an Adversary from the very beginning (1 John 3.8; John 8.44). It is vital for a proper understanding of the Bible to read it through the eyes of the age (yes, even the primitive age) in which it was penned, not through eyes conditioned by 2000 years of church tradition shaped by western cultural values! Satan today is pictured by and large as the enemy of God, when in fact his hostility is directed toward Christians. This approach, in our view, to the origin of evil as enunciated by the SPIRIT OF GOD in Isaiah 45.7 satisfies every apparent contradiction concerning God and the purpose of evil. Please note one example which illustrates the point we wish to make, that of David sinning in numbering the nation of Israel. We read,  

"The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah" (2 Samuel 24.1). The same identical scene is again portrayed in another section of the Bible. "Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel" (1 Chronicles 21.1).

The solution is self-evident. God uses Satan as his primary agent (Angel, if you so wish) for evil. He is the servant of the LORD of all. Some few commentators and scholars recognise this principle as appearing throughout the entire record of Scripture, both Hebrew Scriptures as well as the Messianic Scriptures of the Yeshua School.

"In the older books of Hebrew literature... all acts of punishment, revenge... are performed by Jahveh himself, or by his angel at his direct command... The prophet Zechariah speaks of Satan as an angel whose office it is to accuse and to demand the punishment of the wicked. In the book of Job, where the most poetical and grandest picture of the Evil One is found, Satan appears as a malicious servant of God, who enjoys performing the functions of a tempter, torturer, and avenger... he is a subject of God and God's faithful servant" (Paul Carus, The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 1969, 70,71).

Satan appears casually in the presence of his Creator in Job, and appears in the same setting in the Apocalypse before God's throne accusing Christians "night and day" (Revelation 12.10). Would Satan, created evil in the first place by God, be able to exercise some "free will" to do good to people instead of harming them? The Bible nowhere tells us that demonic negative influences can ever accomplish such a thing. But a prime teaching of the "New" Testament is that we Christians ought to be resisting the dark forces and in so doing attaining to the very character of the Cosmic Christ which the LORD then could utilise to his glory, and for our eternal benefit. By overcoming the powers of darkness we might enter into God's GLORY and his LIGHT. Character can only be built by resisting Satan, the impulses of his world system, and the downward pulls of our human nature.

Make no mistake about it. Satan does obey God, but only in negative things. As intrinsic evil it is impossible for him to do anything that is beautiful in itself or that is inspirational and rightly mood elevating. To reiterate, Satan is not God's enemy. Rather, he is inherently hostile toward us, the people of the Lord, and the authentic Messianic Community of God. This is a fundamental principle overlooked or ignored by a paganistic and worldly Christendom at large.

But let's not deviate from Mr Wheeler of the Seventh Day Adventist Replacement Theology mind-set. He adds in the conclusion of his magazine article in These Times the following comments which need no explanation or further evidence of his unfortunate stunted and stultified education. (Emphasis is mine.)

"The Jews could have had an amazing and wonderful history. But God was never able to fulfill it..." (page 7).

"Finally Jesus had to abandon Israel to its self-chosen fate" (page 7).

Not understanding the Covenants God made with the patriarchs and Israel as a nation Wheeler states, "Scholars overlook a basic principle behind the promises made to the Hebrews -- they were conditional. Scripture clearly teaches [he means SDA theology teaches] that while God makes a promise, He cannot bring it to pass until certain conditions are met... One could cite endless illustrations of the conditional principle... We see then that just because God announces His intentions does not mean that the prediction will automatically happen, no matter what the response of His people may be. He is not trapped in His word" (page 8].

And then the classic devious satanic line: "When the Hebrew nation failed Him, the Lord found another people. He transferred the privileges and blessings of His chosen people to the Christian church (see Romans 9-11). The modern country of Israel is only another secular nation. Should it cease to exist, it would not affect God's prophecies to the church. THOSE WHO SEE ISRAEL OR THE MODERN JEWS AS DETERMINING LAST-DAY EVENTS ARE DOOMED TO DISAPPOINTMENT" (page 8].

Well may this representative speak of disappointment, for his church was birthed into disappointment way back in the days of the utterly uninspired 19th century Baptist William Miller's primitive ministry of so-called biblical chronology and date setting for the second Advent of Christ in 1844. They were wrong then and while they continue to reject an authentic grasp of the Covenants which God made with Israel -- ALL unconditional except for the Sinai Contract -- they are themselves "doomed to disappointment."

IS THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH TODAY THE REMNANT OF GOD?
In our last lecture I began with this statement:

The Lord Yeshua stated with power and authority: "I will build my Community of called-out ones [Gk., ekklesia, wrested as "church"] and the Gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16.18). The latter has been also translated in some versions as "and the Gates of Hell shall not eclipse it."

Yeshua did build that Community of Faith. The Yeshua-oriented Messianic Movement evolved eventually into a number of aberrant sectarian congregations ultimately emerging, after a series of divisions, conflict-filled councils and outright persecution, as the Roman Catholic Church -- an entirely new religious organisation under the emperor Constantine. Yet down through the years God has always maintained a remnant of commandment-observing, faith-filled adherents who remained loyal to the Lord Yeshua and associated Jewish thoughtform despite tsunamis of political peril, religious persecution, and threats of satanic extermination. That is western "Church History" of the first three and four centuries CE in a nutshell. Some nutshell!

What most western scholars fail to perceive at this juncture is that the original Messianic Community continued to flourish outside of, and parallel to, the new Roman Catholic Church of the fourth century.

Recall that God's remnant -- from the Scriptural point of view -- has always been a faithful remnant of Israel or one of Jewish extraction. Remember, the original Messianic Movement of Yeshua -- as God's faithful remnant (and based on the Essene/Qumran model) -- was entirely Jewish. As this movement grew, however, it began to flourish among the Gentiles until today in 2018 Christianity is the world's largest religion -- accounting for 2.2 billion adherents or 31% of the population of the planet.

Hardly a "remnant" by any standard... wouldn't you assess?

Let me say this: Many Christians are quite conversant with western ecclesiastical history and some of us can even be extremely communicative relative to certain chapters of our western Christian chronicles. But, take these same very capable students out of their western comfort zone and ask them to recount events and grant us an insight into the theology of the eastern church and they find they are entirely out of their depth. It's as if Egyptian, Assyrian, specific Russian, or even Ethiopian Christian history never occurred and so an intellectual response is usually in the presentation of a round and profound zero. And we are not even speaking yet of another Christian (really Messianic) movement that spread from the eastern empire into Europe and centered around the so-called "heresies" of the Waldenses, as a prime example, in the Middle Ages. It was gross ignorance such as this existing among western Christians that drove Jewish historian Hugh Schonfield into his despair and his final exit from the One Faith. (Among his notable works are The Original New Testament [1985]; History of Jewish Christianity From the First to the Twentieth Century [1936]; The Passover Plot [1965], etc).

The fact is that the Jewish-Christian connection to these "Messianic movements" of the Dark and Middle Ages have largely been overlooked and/or ignored by Christian authorities -- to be sure, this consideration would be the understatement of the current century. The fact is, that even rabbinical authorities have admitted to an overarching Jewish influence in the creation and emergence of a competitive Jewish Christianity during the first 1200 years or so of ecclesiastical history -- this Jewish Christianity considered as a collective outpouring of sectarian "heresies" by the Constantinian Church. The existence of such influential circles of Messianic Christian Faith stands in stark contrast to the powerful and often tyrannical dominance of the "historic" Catholic Faith.

Yet, strangely, very few scholars have ever attempted to explain their existence. Even more astonishing is the fact that they seem to be unaware of the Jewish-Christian revolutionaries who stood up defiantly against the might of the Holy Roman Empire (and its Roman Catholic overlords) and who through persecution and bloodshed and an intense love of truth managed to spread the Gospel of the Grace of God right throughout Europe including the British Isles.

The answer is very simple. Christ stated absolutely in emphatic terms that his Messianic Movement and Community of Faith would never perish -- no, not for a moment. And, we might also add, that this Community of Faith would not go into a final all-engulfing apostasy such as that which overwhelmed and consumed the Christian community under the volatile impact of a Babylonian "fifth-column" Simonite conspiracy centred in Rome. Christ and his original apostles both warned and predicted that a monumental crisis was soon to come upon God's people. God's authentic "Jewish remnant" (and circles of faith loyal to that same Jewish leadership) were -- during the rise of Constantine -- under the extreme pressure of being "edged out" of the circles of emerging Catholic faith all over the Mediterranean empire of Rome. This is a historical fact which is being presently uncovered by enthusiastic researchers of various biblical societies. Indeed, in our following lecture we shall take a glance at the hidden history of the Messianic Movement.

But we are again getting away from the specific contents of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians.

NO ANIMAL SACRIFICE EVER TOOK AWAY SIN
Now, as soon as I suggest that there are some Jews who have never been able to understand the Righteousness of God I will be accused of being anti-Semitic or some such other charge. (How I can be anti-myself is a concern!) But self-willed ignorance of God's righteousness is a virus that has been brought into the various circles of the modern Messianic Movement and is spreading like the plague -- so much so that one notable Messianic evangelist has written of the "Stone that was rejected" as not being Christ but rather is "the Mosaic law." I have written about this gentleman in my 22nd lecture in this series.

Paul experienced the same willful attitude and arrogance in respect of the Righteousness of God during his day and age in what is remarkably acknowledged to be the most decadent period of Jewish history -- the late Second Temple Period. He wrote, in summarising the reason national Israel failed to see any need for a suffering Messiah who would deliver the Chosen People from their guilt and sin:

"What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as it were by works. They stumbled over the "stumbling stone." As it is written:

"See? I lay in Zion a stone" -- this is the Messiah -- "that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

Paul is quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures -- specifically Isaiah 8.14 and 28.16!

He continues:

"Brothers! My heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them THAT THEY ARE ZEALOUS FOR GOD, but their zeal is not based on (right) knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. IT IS MESSIAH TO WHICH THE TORAH POINTED, so that there may be RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES" (Rom 9.30-10.4).

God knew when He gave the Torah to Israel that they would of necessity -- because they possessed human nature and the yetzer hara -- break that law. So, God instituted a system of animal sacrifice that most believers consider was initiated in order to make a provision for forgiveness of sins committed. Later, in God's administration of Israel under the law of Moses (the Sinai Covenant) and during the Babylonian period the LORD Himself admitted that He gave the Jewish people laws that were in the long run, "not good." Some reading this will almost vomit with anger and righteous indignation at such a charge at God (but I have not charged God with anything. Rather I am only repeating what God Himself stated to be a fact!). Please read God's WORD in His own Word.

"Because they [Israel] had not observed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were on the idols of their fathers, I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live; and I pronounced them unclean" (Ezekiel 20.24-26a).

The sacrificial system of Israel could ever only point toward the Messiah (who was to be GOD Himself!) and His perfect sacrifice ONCE FOR ALL for all humankind on the bloodied tree of Golgoleth. This is what the animal sacrificial system could not accomplish, as the unknown author of the circular Letter to the Hebrews insisted was the case.

Notice it now for if nothing else this letter reveals the arguments that were ensuing among the Jewish people about whether or not animal sacrifices were taking away sins -- arguments circulating just prior to the utter destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans and the subsequent abolishing of the entire sacrificial system of Moses.

"For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins... By that will" -- the will of God in Messiah -- "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Yeshua the Messiah once for all. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down [i.e.,satisfied] at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10.4,10-12).

I have Jewish brethren and others in the Messianic Movement who will argue the toss with me over this statement by the unknown author of Hebrews. They will insist that the Torah states explicitly that these animal sacrifices DID take away sin. After all it is written, they insist, in Leviticus. In Leviticus 4.20 does it not say...

"And he shall do with the bull as he did with the bull as a sin offering; thus he shall do with it. So the priest shall make ATONEMENT for them, and it [transgression and sin] shall be forgiven them."

Well, actually no, it doesn't say this at all. The word "atonement" in this passage in Hebrew is kaphar -- which does not mean "take away" but rather to "cover." It's the same word used to describe the idea of "pitch" covering the Ark of Noah (Gen 6.14). And so, all the shed blood of these poor animals accomplished merely to cover the sins from the sight of heaven. The sins however REMAINED for they were merely and only covered. They were NOT washed away and every rabbi worth his circumcision knows it.

Think about it! Men and women could not be seen to be in any way as righteous in the sight of God. Our English word "atonement" which scholars thought would be an excellent substitution for the Hebrew "kippur" and "kaphar" was a huge mistake. Why? It led Christians to the utterly absurd concept that atonement really stands for "at-one-ment" (at one with) God Almighty! Covering our sins cannot make us righteous in God's sight nor can it ever bring about a ONENESS and UNITY with God in the form alluded to by Our Lord Yeshua in the real Lord's Prayer of John 17!
 
Furthermore, animal sacrifices were not God's ultimate solution for the transgressions and sins of humanity. God's sacrifice of Himself as a human being was the only solution and it REMAINS the only solution for the entirety of the universe.

The tragedy of animal sacrifices pointed ever and only and always to the coming Messiah who would make the perfect sacrifice for sins.

What was the authentic purpose of the Torah? Why was it given to human beings represented by Israel? (Recall that the Israelites were expected to take the Torah to the Gentiles -- something that only occurred when the original Jewish Christians took the Gospel and the LIFE of Christ to the masses).

We shall pursue this line of theology in our next lecture in this series.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 41