The End of Israel – Part 3

The New Covenant era is the age of the occupation of earth by heaven. This is because of the link between the division of tongues at Babel and the conquest of tongues at Pentecost.

Read Part 1. Read Part 2.

The mystery of iniquity

It is no coincidence that the roots of Israel’s history quickly followed the scattering of the nations at the tower of Babel, and the end of Israel’s history quickly followed the sign of the “Babelic” tongues of Jews and Gentiles united in a single testimony by the Spirit of God. To claim that “Israel according to the flesh” still exists in God’s economy is to misunderstand the very essence of covenant history.

The “inclusiveness” of Babel was an act of spiritual harlotry. The setting apart of Israel was a remedial preparation for spiritual matrimony. The reason that Israel was prevented from intermarriage with the nations was not that intermarriage per se is an act of compromise. The Bible ends the way it does because history is the story of the rivalry between godless intermarriage and godly intermarriage.

As mentioned, Adam was to be an obedient priest (that is, a servant) before he could be qualified as a king. But that process would make him a priest-king, and thus a mediator between heaven (priesthood) and earth (kingdom). After the division of humanity into priestly and kingly lines in Genesis 4, a godless reunion through intermarriage resulted in the end of mediating sacrifices. As at the altar of Eden, kingdom usurped priesthood. Without atoning blood, there was only merciless (and exaggerated) vengeance, and the world was filled with violence.¹Critics of the Bible rarely read it as one book. A fact that they, and indeed, also many Christians, miss is that the “shall surely be put to death” sins in Leviticus were the same as the “in … Continue reading

The circumcision was a means of preventing such godless intermarriage. The division meant that Israel’s sacrifices on behalf of all nations would continue, despite whatever evil the nations were getting up to. Seventy Israelite elders represented the seventy nations listed in Genesis 10, dining with Yahweh on the mountain of God, and He did not lay His hand upon them (Exodus 24). The judgment of these seventy nations took place in the substitutionary slaying of seventy bulls in a bloody countdown over seven days at the Feast of Booths (Numbers 29:12-34). In this way, God could overlook the sins of the Gentiles. They were “covered,” for now.

But after the resurrection of Christ, God would no longer overlook the sins of the nations (Acts 17:30). The limited shema (“Hear O Israel”) had been changed into an unlimited Gospel (“Go and tell”). All nations are now commanded to “hear” because, since His ascension, all nations are under the rule of Christ. All men everywhere were now commanded to repent and believe because Israel’s work was no longer efficacious. As it was before the Flood, there was no more sacrifice for sin. Hebrews 10:26 warns Jewish Christians not to seek “covering” for sins in the blood of bulls and goats. Peter tells Jewish Christians that they could be “blameless” before God (having a good conscience) by receiving a righteousness apart from the Law (Romans 3:21). By a “once-for-all” baptism, they were now not only free from their continual (eternal?) moral and ceremonial obligations but were also “saved” (delivered) from the “once-for-all” curses that would soon come rushing “like a flood” upon Jerusalem to destroy the old order forever (Daniel 9:26; 1 Peter 3:21).

This brings us to the first-century culmination of the rivalry between godless and godly corporate “intermarriage” between the Jews and the Gentiles—the mystery of iniquity (2 Thessalonians 2:1-11) versus the mystery of the Gospel (Romans 16:25-27; Ephesians 3:1-6; Colossians 1:26-27). The mystery of the Gospel was the hidden, integrating work of the Spirit, pictured in the accouterments of the High Priest. In contrast, the mystery of iniquity was a counterfeit of this unity, which explains why one of the slurs used to expose Jerusalem in the Revelation (and in 1 Peter 5:13) was “Babylon.”

The removal of the circumcision in the cross of Christ had also removed the wall of enmity between Jew and Gentile. Since the mystery of the Gospel was the reunion of Jew and Gentile, the Satanic answer to this new development, the mystery of iniquity, was the subsequent godless “intermarriage” between the Herodian ruler of Israel (the “Adam of sin” who had enthroned himself in the Garden and whose voice was that of a god) and Roman state power.²For more discussion, see Altar of the Abyss. This is what is described in Revelation 13. Just as Saul was troubled by an evil spirit after the anointing of David, so rebellious Judaism became demonized after the Day of Pentecost. The prophecy describes this unholy “mixture” as a pact between the “Land beast” of Judaism and the “Sea beast” of Rome.

By the time the Revelation was written and published, Paul’s ministry of provocation had come to an end. Gentiles had repented and believed and jealous Jews had also repented and believed. Those Jews who remained in unbelief—or had ignored the apostles’ warnings about apostasy to Judaism (such as Hebrews 6:4-8)—had hardened their hearts like Pharaoh (Romans 9:17). This was the great “falling away” predicted by Paul, and the resulting sorceries were akin to the sin of Saul seeking a word from the witch of Endor, or the priests of Baal calling down fire from heaven. Revelation describes the spiritual warfare between the true Jews and the false Jews, but both hosts were now Jew-Gentile “hybrids.” This was the Jew-Gentile Church versus the Jew-Gentile conspiracy against the Church, and the completion of the Temple and the burning of Rome brought this spiritual war to its climax: a great tribulation of the saints.

When Jesus described the upheaval as birth pains (Matthew 24:8), He had in mind the rivalry between the true sons of Jacob (those who believed in Jesus) and the spiritual sons of Esau (those who followed the Edomite Herods). Since the true firstborn would inherit the nations, arguing for any continuing covenantal obligation or divine favor concerning the Jewish people is equivalent to claiming that a man can enter a second time into his mother’s womb (John 3:3-4). Jesus would soon come “like a thief” to steal back the kingdom promises from his older, godless, bloodthirsty, and unbelieving “brother.”

“The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (Romans 9:12-15)

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. (1 Thessalonians 5:1-4)

Indeed, the enigmatic “battle of Armageddon” in Revelation 16 is merely a clever allusion to the conflict between Joshua (Jeshua, a son of Jacob) and Amalek (a son of Esau) at the mountain of God, linking the first century rivalry between Herod and Jesus (the natural versus the spiritual) to the “war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16).³For more discussion, see Everlasting Arms. (Unfortunately, commentators have failed to realize that all of the prophets engaged in a very sophisticated form of meme warfare, and so they rarely get the finely-targeted, rapid-fire jokes that they made under inspiration at the expense of the wicked.)

The faithful testimony of the Apostolic Church gradually threshed first-century Israel to the point where a great percentage of the common population of Jerusalem was now Christian. As Jesus had commanded, those who believed His testimony left the city when it was first surrounded by Roman armies (Luke 21:20). Titus later besieged Jerusalem during the Passover when all of the Jewish leaders from across the empire (those who would have rejected the testimony of Paul) had gathered in the city. Passover was now (and remains) a high-handed act of rebellion against God, and the festive slaughter of millions of lambs was not only a public testimony that Jesus had been a false prophet, a false claim that His predictions of doom had been lies, but also coincided with a revived desire to slaughter the sons of God, this time with the blessing of Rome (Romans 8:36). These martyrs were the sacrificial “lambs” whom Jesus had commissioned Peter to feed (John 21:15-19). The Church had become an army of Abels, a fragrant New Covenant “cloud of martyrs” (Hebrews 12:1-4). Like the Herodian “Man of sin” in 2 Thessalonians, all mentions of “men” in Revelation refer to anti-Christian Jews, those Adams who were called to be “sons of God” but whose father was the devil, who, like Cain, slew their own Jewish-Christian brothers, and who like the sons of Seth, sought kingly might through godless “intermarriage,” in this case covenanting with Rome, a sycophantic statecraft concealed behind the priestly robes of purple and scarlet.

This ironic switch—those who said they were Jews but were not (Revelation 2:9)—perhaps explains Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:37-39: “For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” He was quoting Psalm 118:26, which would have been sung at the feast by these rebels. So this was not a promise of restoration, but of condemnation for a worship that was nothing but lip service (Genesis 11:1; Matthew 15:8). These Jewish men, women, and children would be clinging to animal sacrifices and singing of the predictions of the Christ even as He came again from heaven to destroy them and their Babelic “tower and city.” It was a terrible irony.⁴The same irony is found in the songs of the children at Jesus’ triumphal entry to Jerusalem (Matthew 21:16), which perhaps makes these two events bookends of judgment in the same way that the … Continue reading

The testimony of Jesus (Revelation 19:10), which was actually the combined legal witness of Moses and Elijah (the law and the prophets, Matthew 17:5; 22:40; Revelation 11:3-8), was rejected once and for all by the ruling class and its followers. The testimony of these “two witnesses” also allowed God to destroy Jerusalem with complete justification (Deuteronomy 17:6).

Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need?” (Mark 14:61-63)

The post-Pentecostal union of the Jew-Gentile “kings of the Land” (Revelation 1:5; 6:15; 16:14; 19:19) turned Jerusalem spiritually into “Egypt,” “Sodom,” and “Babylon.” When Jesus described His imminent return to judge Jerusalem and Rome in terms of the Great Flood, he was actually alluding to the end of the promises made to Abraham. That brings us to a discussion of contemporary Israel’s “divine” claim upon the land.

A heavenly country

The call of Abraham in Genesis 12 can only be understood in the context of Genesis 1-11. Sadly, few modern commentators consider the earlier chapters to be historical let alone relevant. So in most cases, consideration of the territorial claims of modern Jews is a boat set adrift from its moorings. Nobody understands where this divine strategy came from or where it was supposed to be going.

The significance of the Promised Land is rooted typologically in the necessity of the creation of dry land in Genesis 1. As mentioned, God works in fractals. The pattern of the physical creation in Genesis 1 is repeated in the description of the social order in Genesis 2, where the relationship of the mountain of Eden to the surrounding lands is an image of the relationship of the dry land to the surrounding seas. The pattern is repeated once again in the attempted establishment of the ethical order in Genesis 3. This physical-social-ethical construct was a temple fashioned according to the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit. It abides today in our understanding of Word, Sacrament, and Government.

But what is relevant here is that the entire book of Genesis is structured according to the same pattern. The promise of the possession of the land of Canaan appears at step 3, corresponding to Day 3 of the Creation Week. This means that the dividing of the waters on Day 2 corresponds (obviously) to the later events of the Great Flood. The dry land rises from the waters to bring forth fruit and to mediate between heaven and earth.

If we extrapolate even further, the eventual possession of the land of Canaan takes place at the third step of covenant history. Following the rise of Israel from the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan River, the Israelites finally “go up” to the Land.

All of this means that the promise and possession of the Land must be understood as only one step in a sequence of divine construction, a “forming” that anticipates a subsequent “filling.” The “ascension” of the land from the waters was followed by the creation of fruit-bearers. In Genesis 1, these “sacramental” plants were created before all other flora as a kind of “firstfruits.” As the divine Husbandman, God desires fruit—physical, social, and ethical/spiritual—and He will keep planting, keep pruning, and keep visiting “Adam” until He gets it.

The call of Abraham followed the compromise at Babel because humanity was already heading for another global judgment. The era from Adam to Noah concerned the actual dry land of the physical world, most likely a single continent referred to as Pangea. The judgment of the Great Flood was a “cutting off ” that turned that one “Adamic” continent into a bridal “many.” The scattering at Babel was the social equivalent, and the dry land was then occupied by the various nations to whom it had been allotted. But although the memory of the Flood was retained in the histories of over 500 cultures across the world, the Noahic order of tribal priest-kings became corrupt. There were righteous priest-kings such as Noah, Melchizedek, Job, and Jethro, but there were also unrighteous priest-kings such as Adonizedek. The only way to mitigate against another global destruction was to set up a sacrificial substitute. This is the origin of the understanding of Israel as the cultivated “Land” and the nations as the wild “Sea,” a factor that is crucial for interpreting the Revelation.

This is also why the prophetic passages of the Bible, including those in the New Testament, use “creation” language to describe local events. Just as “blameless” (unblemished) animals died on behalf of sinful humans, and Jesus would later die on behalf of the entire world, so Israel served as a sacrificial “image” of all nations.⁵For more discussion, see Michael Bull, Cosmic Language. As the postdiluvial land had been divided among the nations after the flood (Genesis 10:25, an event for which “Peleg” was likely named), so the land of Canaan was divided among the tribes of one nation (Joshua 14:5). Israel was a temporary model of the world, an effigy of the nations that would not only offer but also be offered on their behalf.

With this typological correspondence in mind, we can see that the call of Israel from among the other nations to dwell in the earthly country was the creation of a “firstfruits” in the same way that the Mosaic call of the Levites from among the other tribes created a “firstfruits” that would be lifted up with no earthly inheritance to possess, except—initially in symbol—a “heavenly country” comprised of “cities of sanctuary.”

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)

This “Russian doll” construct of image-within-image is actually a stepped ziggurat, a stairway to heaven, the true “Babel,” the gate of God. Covenant history is thus an ascent of increasing purity and access to the court of God as His “friends” in the same way that Moses and the seventy elders ascended Sinai and saw the Lord standing upon the crystal sea (Exodus 24:9-10). It seems that Abraham and his faithful descendants understood this, even if modern Jews do not.

Further evidence for this imaging of the dry land in the Land of Canaan is found in the fact that the story of Abram from his crafty rescuing of Sarai from a “serpentine” Pharaoh to his drinking of wine with the Noahic priest-king Melchizedek actually recapitulates the history from Adam in the Garden to Noah’s planting and enjoyment of what was presumably the first vineyard.⁶See Microcosmic Abram. The history of all nations now rested upon the “firstfruits” faith of a rich old man, but as the finest wine in God’s cellar, he was ready to be poured out as an offering for the sake of a new creation (2 Timothy 4:6).

This Abrahamic, substitutionary “social” microcosm of the “physical” world (with its land-fruits and womb-fruits) set apart by the circumcision was then called to maturity in Moses, where the focus turned to spiritual fruits—circumcision of heart. As in Eden, fruitfulness in the Land now depended upon obedience in the Garden-Sanctuary. Under the Law of Moses, Israel was made an example of, like a student singled out in a classroom, before all nations, a temporary object lesson, preserved in the Scriptures for all time, of both the goodness and the severity of God (Romans 11:22).

We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. (1 Corinthians 10:9-11)

This is why the final letters of the New Testament (especially the Revelation) make such a habit of alluding to Old Testament events to describe what was happening in “the last days” of the Old Covenant. Once we get a grip on this, the Revelation becomes the most practical and instructive book of the Bible.⁷Once again, for more discussion, see Michael Bull, Rescuing Revelation.

Thus, instead of an actual flood that would destroy all nations, God would bring the nations as a flood to judge Israel. As one man would die for the people, so one nation would die for all the others. This is why Daniel refers to the end of Israel as being like a flood (Daniel 9:26), and so does Jesus.

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:38-39)

What is overlooked in Jesus’ words is the fact that “eating and drinking” relate to the fruit of the land and “marrying and giving in marriage” relate to the fruit of the womb. This ties His prediction of the destruction of Israel not only to the promises made to Abraham but also to the curses upon Adam and Eve. As we trace this thread from the Olivet Discourse back to Genesis 3, we are given further insight not only into the necessity for the vocation of “natural” Israel but also why it became entirely obsolete.

Read Part 4.

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Art: Lesley Friedmann, Jacob’s Ladder (detail) 2017.