Israel in Prophecy — the Series Part 4

Israel in Prophecy — the Series

Who is Israel?

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Concerning Jerusalem, the prophet Zechariah wrote,

Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath…I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be a fruitful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain.…Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. Thus says the Lord of host: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight…behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness. (Zech 8:2-6)

The remnant who shall have old and young in the streets of Jerusalem is not the remnant of Israel that returned with Ezra, but the one part who shall have a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek 11:20). This remnant will have been refined as silver is refined and tested as gold is tested (Zech 13:9). This will be the remnant whose recovery causes Israel to forget the exodus from Egypt (Jer 16:14-15). This is the remnant that returns after the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh (Joel 2:28), the remnant that returns by a highway from Assyria (Isa 11:16), the remnant that is a third with Egypt and Assyria, south and north respectively (Isa 19:24). The nature of beasts, of the great predators, human nature will be changed when the present day prince of the power of the air is bound for a thousand years in the bottomless pit. Christ Jesus will then be the prince of the air: His nature will be broadcast or transmitted through the Holy Spirit having been poured out on all flesh. Thus, prophecies about entering into the rest of God will be physically fulfilled during the seventh day of a spiritual creation week; i.e., during Christ’s millennial reign. The weekly Sabbath is a type of this greater physical rest, which in turn is a type or foreshadowing of spiritual rest in the heavenly realm.

During the Millennium, all of humanity will become the spiritual nation of Israel in that they will have prevailed with God.

The prophet Zechariah went on to write: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built’” (Zech 8:9 emphasis added). These words of the Lord, delivered by Zechariah, were not for his day, but for the days when old and young were at peace in the streets of Jerusalem. The foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in Jerusalem by the remnant that returned with Sheshbazzar (Ezra 1:11), but the temple that was to be built wasn’t the work of their hands, or of Solomon’s hands, or even of the resurrected David’s hands. Rather, disciples are God’s temple, with God’s Spirit dwelling in them (1 Cor 3:16). This is the temple that is not built by human hands, nor built of dead sticks and stones, but built by the Lord from living stones (1 Pet 2:5). One temple that includes all flesh. Not many temples separated by circumcision or color or ancestry. This temple is the living Son of Man. Its head is the cornerstone, chosen and precious, but rejected by builders able only to work with dead stone and mortar.

`When the foundation for the rebuilt house of the Lord was laid, “many of the priests and Levites and heads of their fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice…though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout” (Ezra 3:12-13). The rebuilt house would not be the physically impressive structure that Solomon built. Again, the rebuilt house was a type of the spiritual house that would be built by a remnant returning to the Jerusalem above after a spiritual decree when out to reform the house of God from the word of God. The majority of the Reformers sought to reform the old church; they shouted for joy when their protests brought change to the old church. The Radicals, however, sought to reform the Church from the Bible, and thereby ignore the intervening centuries. Many of these Radicals died as did Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary (Luke 11:51). Their weeping was lost amidst the shouts of joy—the majority of the Protestant Reformers were as the circumcised nation was in the 1^st-Century CE. They had the Law, but they didn’t keep it. Tradition prevailed over text, for most Reformers resisted being baptized as adults. As a result, they never crossed over to the Land Beyond the River. They never crossed the Jordan; they never returned to the Jerusalem above; rather, they remained in Babylon, building there spiritual houses for themselves. Unfortunately, in the Land Beyond the River the Radicals left off building the temple and also built houses for themselves. Completion of the temple waited the restoration of all things.

The prophet Zechariah wrote,

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

behold your king is coming to you;

righteous and having salvation is he,

humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech 9:9).

In Hebraic poetry, concepts are coupled together, with the first presentation of the concept (Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!) being farther away or darker than its paired couplet (Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!). The poetry uses the central metaphor of night/day, darkness/light, death/life, physical/spiritual, visible/invisible. Thus, in the above poetic lines, Zion represents that which is farther away (or lifeless or visible) than its mated couplet, Jerusalem. Their king is coming to both Zion and Jerusalem. In the presentation of their king, He is first king (in the sense of being their sovereign), then is He is their Savior. As their Savior, He comes riding on a donkey as the High Priest does, but in the thought’s mated couplet, He rides on the unbroken descendant of an animal that might have carried the High Priest; He rides an animal that has never carried another. So the movement of the passage is from nation to city, or from physical to spiritual, followed by from Sovereign [physical rule] to High Priest [spiritual rule], then from physical High Priest to a High Priest unlike any other [or from other passages, a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek]. Jesus of Nazareth entered Jerusalem as the paschal Lamb of God on the 10^th of the first month on the colt of a donkey (John 12:14-15). He is the king of Israel (v. 13) that has come and still is to come. He is both Sovereign and High Priest, but His kingdom and priesthood is not of this world.

Again, the future king of Israel reigns over a kingdom that is not of this world (John 18:36). The Church universal is not an organization of this world. It is not the old church that Protestant Reformers reworked in the 16^th-Century to maintain continued political, and by extension, secular stability. It is, rather, a spiritual organization that is the Body of the Son of Man, and as such, it is mostly invisible at this time. What’s visible is the modified and reworked, recalibrated and modernized old church that remains headquartered in spiritual Babylon.

The prophet Zechariah writes after the remnant returned from Babylon to rebuild the house of God. He writes at a time when many shouted for joy, but what he writes is not a cause for joy:

Thus said the Lord my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, I have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them. For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, declares the Lord. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.” So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. In one month I destroyed three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And those who are left devour the flesh of one another.” And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all peoples. So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter. Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. Then the Lord said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs. (Zech 11:4-16 emphasis added)

A fulfillment of this prophecy occurred when Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, so a first fulfillment can be dated. All peoples lost favor with God prior to the Logos being born as the man Jesus. The remnant that had returned from Babylon was no exception, for none kept the Law (John 7:19). All despised the covenant—as a second-generation nation (meaning that the generation then alive had not returned to the Lord from a far country), no one kept the Law by faith. They kept the Law as a social expectation; the nation sought righteousness through works. Thus, the sheep that had been sold for slaughter when the nation crossed the Jordan on the 10^th day of the first month (Josh 4:19) and was penned in Judea were now given over to die or be destroyed or to devour each other, as the case might be. They were condemned to death under the Law…when the Lamb of God was sacrificed as Israel’s Passover offering, the nation as the firstborn son of God (Exod 4:22) was also sacrificed. The brotherhood between Judah and Israel ended. From henceforth, Judah pertained to the flesh, and the covenant made in the flesh (Gen 17:9-14). Israel was the nation that prevailed with God, the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy nation, the people of God’s own possession (1 Pet 2:9). Israel is the Church. And into the Church will come the remnant of Israel when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in (Rom 11:25-26).

The naming confusion is intentional, for the prophet Zechariah continues,

The burden of the word of the Lord concerning Israel: Thus declares the Lord, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him: “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all nations of the earth will gather against it. On that day, declares the Lord, I will strike every horse with panic, and its rider with madness. But for the sake of the house of Judah I will keep my eyes open, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. Then the clans of Judah shall say to themselves, ‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem have strength through the Lord of hosts, their God.’ (Zech 12:1-5 emphasis added)

The Jerusalem that is a cup of staggering is the Jerusalem above, and not yet the geographical city. The inhabitants of this Jerusalem above have recognizable strength through the Lord, their God. The passage indicates that this Jerusalem doesn’t share the same God that the clans of Judah have.

On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And they shall devour to the right and to the left all surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem. (Zech 12:6 emphasis added)

Two Jerusalems are present, one the place where Jerusalem is, the other is the one that will relocate there. One Jerusalem is the Jerusalem below, the other the Jerusalem above. And this Jerusalem above will again be inhabited in the Jerusalem below—all Israel will then be born of Spirit.

And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me [the Lord], on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. (Zech 12:7-10 emphasis added)

This day, when the Jerusalem above relocates to the Jerusalem below, will also include the resurrection of the saints. Thus, the entirety of the passage pertains to the Church when Christ Jesus returns as Lord of lords and King of kings. Until then there shall be enmity between the inhabitants of the Jerusalem above and the clans of Judah, for the bond of brotherhood has been broken—was broken at Calvary.

The Jerusalem of prophecy is the Jerusalem above. The Israel of prophecy is first the Church, the inhabitants of the Jerusalem above. But the Israel of prophecy also includes the clans of Judah and Benjamin, that portion of Israel the Lord left as an inheritance to King David. The Apostle Paul was of these clans.

(to be continued)