This section needs a bit of
background information in order to fully understand the Mystery of the Gospel.
Ezekiel 20:18-26
“But I said to their children
in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in
the statutes of your fathers, nor observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves
with their idols. I am the Lord your God: Walk
in My statutes, keep My judgments, and do them; hallow My Sabbaths, and they
will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your
God.’
“Notwithstanding, the children
rebelled against Me; they did not
walk in My statutes, and were not careful to observe My judgments, ‘which,
if a man does, he shall live by them’; but they profaned My Sabbaths. Then I said I would pour out My fury on them
and fulfill My anger against them in the wilderness. Nevertheless I withdrew My
hand and acted for My name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight
of the Gentiles, in whose sight I had brought them out. Also I raised My hand
in an oath to those in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the Gentiles and disperse them throughout
the countries, because they had not executed My judgments, but had despised My
statutes, profaned My Sabbaths, and their eyes were fixed on their fathers’
idols.
“Therefore I also gave them up
to statutes that were not good, and judgments
by which they could not live; and I pronounced
them unclean because of their ritual gifts, in that they caused all their
firstborn to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate and that
they might know that I am the Lord.” ’
YHWH told the Israelites in the wilderness
not to keep the laws of the nations, which is the laws, rules, and rituals of
those nations and defile them. Do follow after their idols and (false) gods. He
told them to walk in His Laws, keep His rules, and do them. Sanctify, as in set
apart, His Sabbath days because they are supposed to be a sign between Him and
them in order to know He is YHWH, their God.
These Israelites rebelled against
Him and did not walk in His Laws, and did not observe His rules, meaning they
chose death, not life. They disrespected His Sabbath days. It was because of
all this He scattered or dispersed them among the gentile nations throughout
all the countries. They despised or hated His given Law. So, we have seen the
prophecy about not keeping the Law of God, and we have now witnessed YHWH has
made it come true.
So, when and how did this happen?
1 Kings 12: 20-21
Now it came to pass when all
Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back, they sent for him and
called him to the congregation, and made him king over all Israel.
There was none who followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah
only. And when Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the
house of Judah with the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred and eighty thousand
chosen men who were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel,
that he might restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.
YHWH told Rehoboam not to attack
the Northern House of Israel and thus we ended up with two kingdoms. So now we
can see there are two Houses that make up all of Israel. This is extremely
important in overall biblical understanding. At this point, the northern House
chose to abandon their covenant with YHWH chase after and worship other (false)
gods, forcing Him to divorce the northern House due to adultery.
Jeremiah 3: 8
And I saw, when for all the
causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put
her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous
sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.
The House of Israel is again
distinguished from the House of Judah, and it is Israel who is said to have
been divorced, not all of Israel, and not the House of Judah. What happens when
a woman is divorced?
Deuteronomy 24:1-4
When a man takes a wife and
marries her, and it happens that she
finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her,
and he writes her a certificate of
divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends
her out of his house, when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife, if
the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it
in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who
took her as his wife, then her former
husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has
been defiled; for that is an
abomination before the Lord, and you shall not bring sin on the land which
the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
According to Jeremiah, YHWH gave the
House of Israel a certificate of divorce and according to Ezekiel, YHWH sent the
House of Israel out of His house (land of Israel). The House of Israel has went
into all these other nations and worshiped their gods, defiling themselves.
According to Deuteronomy, YHWH cannot take the House of Israel back. If He is a
just God, surely He would not hold Himself to a lower standard than He holds
us. So, if this is the case, and I do believe it is, then how is it possible
for the Northern House of Israel to return to YHWH?
We have already discovered that
the gospel message is the promises that accompany the guidelines YHWH gave to
Israel as well as Abraham. This group of people, the House of Israel, who chose
to disregard the Law God gave them, and chose death over life, were now the
only group of people in the history of the world who were banned from coming
to, or returning to God.
Hosea 1:6-7,9-11
And she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then God said to him:
“Call her name Lo-Ruhamah, For I will no
longer have mercy on the house of Israel, But I will utterly take them
away. Yet I will have mercy on the house
of Judah, Will save them by the Lord their God, And will not save them by
bow, Nor by sword or battle, By horses or horsemen.”
Then God said: “Call his name Lo-Ammi, For you are not My people, And I will not be your God. “Yet the number of the children of Israel Shall
be as the sand of the sea, Which cannot be measured or numbered. And it
shall come to pass In the place where it
was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘You are sons of the living God.’ Then
the children of Judah and the children
of Israel Shall be gathered together, And appoint for themselves one head; And
they shall come up out of the land, For great will be the day of Jezreel!
Paul seemed to understand it was
the House of Israel who make up these gentiles.
Romans 9:22-26
What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known,
endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and
that He might make known the riches of
His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
As He says also in Hosea: “I
will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not
beloved.” “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
Paul is quoting directly from
Hosea, and it is clear Hosea is referring to the House of Israel. We cannot change
the meaning of the text to fit a preconceived notion. If Paul quoted something
that directly referred to the House of Israel, we must understand he is also
referring to the House of Israel.
What YHWH is saying in this
passage is as follows. Israel will not receive any mercy from Me, but the House
of Judah will. Israel will be called not my people and I will not be their God.
But, at some point in the future, after Israel has spread out to the farthest
parts of the world and multiplied to more than the sands of the seas, they will
be called My people again.
This is the mystery of the Gospel
Paul talks about. How was God planning to bring back the House of Israel
without breaking His own Law?
Ephesians 6:17-20
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the
Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for
all the saints— and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open
my mouth boldly to make known the
mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I
may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
We can see here that there is at
minimum a mystery of the gospel that no one really understood. It wasn’t until
after the death of Christ when Paul finally understood how YHWH planned to
bring back the House of Israel. Before we get there, we have to consider what
Yeshua (Jesus) says, and we must understand that Yeshua is God in the flesh so
all scripture absolutely must bend to His words.
Matthew 15:24
But He answered and said, “I
was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
So, now we know Yeshua Himself
says He was only sent for one group of people, the only group of people who had
ever been banned from returning to YHWH. Yeshua came to set free the House of
Israel. They were under the bondage of sin. So, how did He do it? How did He
redeem the House of Israel?
Romans 7:2
For example, by law a married
woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to
him.
This is it! This is why Yeshua
had to die. This is the “riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He
had prepared beforehand for glory”. Yeshua had to die in order to release
Israel from being bound by the marriage law found in Deuteronomy 24. With His
death, all Israel can be reunited back together, which fits the prophecy of the
two sticks perfectly.
Ezekiel 37:16-19
“As for you, son of man, take a
stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For
Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel,
his companions.’ Then join them one to
another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand.
“And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, ‘Will you
not show us what you mean by these?’— say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“Surely I will take the stick of Joseph,
which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the
tribes of Israel, his companions; and I
will join them with it, with the
stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand.”
There are so many more verses,
prophecies, and parables I could add to this, but for now I simply wanted to
focus on the Gospel. If you are interested in seeing how many of the parables
relate to this check out “The
Parable of the Lost Son”.
Now, take all of that and look at
the letter from Peter.
1 Peter 1:1-2
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia,
and Bithynia, Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.
The first thing that should be
noted is who Peter is speaking to. This is a huge clue as to who the gentiles
really are. Peter specifically states he is speaking to the strangers, meaning
no natives to these places, who have been scattered into Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These are all within todays Turkey. These were
gentile nations who had a certain people scattered into them. We know the House
of Israel was scattered into the surrounding nations of the land of Israel. These
are those nations which are to the north of the land of Israel.
1 Peter 1:10-12
Of this salvation the prophets
have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of
Christ and the glories that would
follow. To them it was revealed
that, not to themselves, but to us they
were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through
those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into.
Okay, Peter was speaking to those
who were scattered within the gentile nations, and says the prophets have
searched meticulously through the scriptures about this salvation that would
come to these scattered peoples. They tried to find out when and how this would
take place. Even the angels of heaven desired to understand this mystery. This
is the mystery of the Gospel. Those divorced, scattered sheep of the House of
Israel would be saved and be brought back to YHWH through the death of Christ.
In conclusion, we can take away the
idea the gospel was given in the Old Testament, as well as the New. There was a
mystery concerning the Gospel that Paul seemed to figure out. There is a
prophecy concerning the Gospel and relates to the Two Houses. The gospel can be
followed. All in all, if nothing else, we should be able to take away the idea
that the gospel is more than simply the death, burial, and resurrection of
Christ.
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