Revelation 2:9 "... them which say they are Jews and are not...."
This lesson is to continue the commentary on the phrase "them which say they are Jews and are not." The religious doctrine of modern Judaism is that of the Pharisees of the New Testament
who were continually at odds with Christ and were indeed anti-Christ.[i]
Jesus said of this doctrine:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make
him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves, (Matthew 23:15).
This
is the doctrine practiced by those calling themselves Jews today. Jesus repeatedly condemned them for their hypocrisy,
(Matthew 23:13-29).[ii]
One among many examples of their hypocrisy is their customs in celebrating the
Passover. Since it is
forbidden that they have any leaven in their houses, they regularly have a mock
"sale" of their leaven to a non-Jew for the duration of the Passover. The Rabbi of
each congregation handles this sale. The sale is made with the understanding
that the leaven will be returned immediately after Passover.[iii]
Thus it is not necessary for them to actually get rid of the leaven, they
simply pretend that it does not belong to them by
"selling" it.
Besides these ridiculous pretenses there
is a much more serious spiritual dimension to modern orthodox Judaism. That is their use of magic and
witchcraft; they ceased to believe in One God and turned to many evil spirits.
The decay of
monotheism came about through the spread of Jewish mysticism (the cabbala) which developed in the
12th and 13th centuries, and by the late 16th
century had won an almost complete victory in virtually all the centres of
Judaism….but in
latter-day Jewish Orthodoxy, especially among the rabbis, the influence of the
cabbala has remained predominant….According to the cabbala, the universe is
ruled not by one god but by several deities, of various characters and
influences, emanated by a dim, distant First Cause. [iv]
The New Testament makes it abundantly
clear that the Church of Jesus Christ began with the ethnic Jews. Paul, whose ministry was to the
Gentiles, always began to preach the Gospel in the synagogues of the Jews. After that,
some of them believed and were cast out of the synagogues along with Paul.
Eusebius records that in the time of Trajan, (98-117 A.D), vast numbers of
Jews believed in Christ. Indeed, up to the time of Hadrian, (AD 117-138), the whole Church
consisted of Hebrew believers (3.36.35 and 4.3.5). These believing
Jews were the seed that produced the Christian Church; believing in Christ did not change
their physical blood nor their natural genes, but it did make them blood kin to
Christ, the only remaining Heir. Christ’s blood is the blood of the New
Covenant.
On the other hand, many unbelieving Jews
of that era were killed during the wars before and after the siege and fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. By some estimates, approximately
three million Jews were killed in these wars in Judea.[v]
But the colonies of Jews in other parts of the Empire did not escape. In
Alexandria, Egypt and in Cyrene thousands of Jews were killed as
well as great numbers in Babylonian Mesopotamia, (Eusebius, History 4.2). Under the
Emperor Hadrian, Rufus, the
governor of Judea destroyed unlimited numbers of Jews in the time of the revolt
of Bar Cochaba, a Jew (AD 135). At that time,
Hadrian decreed that Jews could not live in or near the City of Jerusalem,
(ibid. 4.6.4). With this decree, the
dispersion of the Jews was complete.
Since Bar Cochaba had ordered the persecution of Christians,
(ibid. 4.8.5), it was necessary that
those of Jewish descent make
the choice as to whether they would identify themselves as Christians, or as Jews. Those who believed
in Christ identified themselves as Christians in spite
of the threat of death. This, of course, did not change the makeup of their blood
nor their genes. Therefore, the genetic blood, the DNA of Abraham, is as likely to be in a Christian as in a
so-called Jew.
But the propaganda is widespread that
"the Jews are People of the Book," that is that they have preserved
the ancient Scriptures and hold them in reverence. This is simply a part of the
system of lies that is used to cover their actual identity. In fact, they
altered their Scriptures in accordance with their own traditions and eliminated
all that they could of the Old Testament that testified so powerfully to Christ. What they could not eliminate,
they reinterpreted to use for their own purposes. Justin, (the Martyr), who lived through the Bar
Cochaba revolt of 135 AD, wrote that the Jews had
actually cut some passages from the prophets out of their Scriptures, passages
which Justin had copies of at that time, (ibid. 4.18.7).
In fact, Judaism after 70 AD wrote the so-called “oral
law” in the Mishnah and their interpretation of the law in the
Talmudim which became their avowed authoritative scriptures. This document is brazenly anti-Christ and anti-Christian, cursing Christ and declaring that Christians are "heretics" and therefore should be killed.
For the full text of the Babylonian Talmud in English translation see www.comeandhear.com. This is the doctrine of the Pharisees, practiced today by Judaism.
For the full text of the Babylonian Talmud in English translation see www.comeandhear.com. This is the doctrine of the Pharisees, practiced today by Judaism.
[i]
The New Testament Pharisees taught that God gave Moses an “oral law” at the same time that He
gave the written law and that the “oral law” had been passed down orally to
their own time and that the “oral law” was the authoritative scripture. These
doctrines of the Pharisees were later embodied in the Talmud.
The source of authority
for all the practices of classical (and present day Orthodox) Judaism, the
determining base of its legal structure, is the Talmud, or, to be more precise,
the so-called Babylonian Talmud; while the rest of the Talmudic
literature (including the so-called Jerusalem or Palestinian Talmud) acts as a supplementary authority.
(Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, The Weight of Three Thousand Years, (London, Chicago,
Illinois, Pluto Press Reprint 1997, 39.)
[ii]
“A dominant feature of dispensations,
and of classical Judaism inasmuch as it is based on them, is deception
- deception primarily of God, if this word can be used for an imaginary being
so easily deceived by the rabbis, who consider themselves cleverer than him. No
greater contrast can be conceived than that between the God of the Bible…and of the God
of classical Judaism,” (ibid. 47).
[iii] “A dispensation was … devised, by which all those
substances are sold in a fictitious sale to a Gentile before the
festival and bought back automatically after it. The one thing that must be
done is to lock up the taboo substances for the duration of the festival. In
Israel this fictitious sale has been made more efficient. Religious Jews ‘sell’
their leavened substances to their local rabbis, who in turn ‘sell’ them to the
Chief Rabbis; the latter sell them to a Gentile, and by a special
dispensation this sale is presumed to include also the leavened substances of
non-practicing Jews,” (ibid. p. 45. See also Epstein, All About Jewish Holidays, 59).
[iv]
Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion,
32-3. See also my Commentary on Revelation 18:23, "Sorceries."
[v] Josephus' estimate was of 1,100,000 in Jerusalem alone, (Wars 6.9.3).
This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context. My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com or www.xulonpress.com. Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net
This lesson is an edited excerpt from my book Revelation In Context. My Book is available at the Living Word Bookstore in Shawnee, Oklahoma and is also available online at www.amazon.com or www.xulonpress.com. Free downloads are available at www.revelationincontext.sermon.net
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