"If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be
enough evidence to convict you?" These words have appeared on
posters outside many churches, and their implication is obvious. In
sermons and books and pamphlets we are constantly being reminded that
true Christianity means feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, the
children and the elderly, providing shelter for the homeless and so on.
The universal text might well be, "Faith without works is
dead." Not that there is anything to be said against such an
attitude, for the Bible makes it quite clear that we have a
responsibility for other people's welfare.
But there is also an aspect of the Christian faith which prompts the
question, "If you were brought to trial charged with being a
British Israelite, would you be able to present a good case in your own
defence?" The purpose of this booklet is to attempt to find
some kind of answer to this question.
In a way, of course, it is something that any British Israelite may
be called upon to do in his or her contact with people who do not
subscribe to our particular interpretation of the Scriptures. At this
point it would perhaps be as well to clarify that statement and the
question which preceded it. If what we believe is true, then all
Britons, (i.e. those of Celto-Anglo-Saxon descent) are, in fact, British
Israelites, whether they like it or not. However, while some accept this
statement as a true description of their identity, the vast majority do
not. To say this is not to be in any sense racist - it is simply a
statement of fact, based on Biblical and historical evidence.
Another point which needs some explanation is the phrase, "our
particular interpretation of the Scriptures." This is not meant
to imply that British Israel believers take the Scriptures and use them
to suit their own ideas, for that is the last thing that anyone should
do. British Israel, in fact, grew out of a very careful and detailed
study of the Scriptures and those who accept this belief seek to
emphasize an aspect of Biblical truth which is largely ignored by
theologians and preachers. It is a truth which has long been recognised,
albeit by a small minority of people, from at least the seventeenth
century onwards. These early exponents of British Israel truth had
nothing to go on except their Bibles and their knowledge of history, to
which was added a large measure of divine inspiration.
Those of us who accept the truth of all that comes under the heading
of British Israel must be prepared to face some searching questions and
probably the accusation of being nationalistic, jingoistic, racist or
whatever other epithet the world chooses to throw at us. It is therefore
a good thing to do some stock-taking of our beliefs, whether those
beliefs have been ours for many years or are but recently acquired.
Perhaps it would be best to begin by cleaning away some of the
misconceptions which people have about British Israel, if they have
actually heard of it, that is. If the topic comes up in conversation it
is likely to provoke a number of different reactions. Some will dismiss
it out of hand; others will be intrigued by the idea and want to hear
more; others may listen with interest and even be prepared to accept it
as a fact of history but will express the opinion that it has no
relevance to the modern world; yet others may say, "Oh yes, my
grandmother, (or great aunt or some other long dead relative) used to go
to meetings about that many years ago," implying that British
Israel went out with the bustle!
First of all, in spite of the name British Israel World Federation,
the movement is not a political association of Jews, world-wide, nor is
it a Society of the Friends of Israel, world-wide. In case you think
that is stating the obvious, I should like to mention two instances from
my own experience which led me to make this point. I happened to say to
a friend of mine that I should be away from home for a few days and she
quite naturally asked where I was going. When I replied that I was going
on a British Israel lecture tour her immediate reaction was to ask if I
had visited Israel. On another occasion a friend of mine was in the bank
on some business connected with her local branch of the B.I.W.F. The
counter clerk appeared to be having some problem in answering a query
from another customer on a matter to do with the State of Israel and was
clearly relieved to be able to say to him, "You'd better ask
this lady, she's something to do with Israel." These two
instances prompt the question, "How many more people are there
who think that British Israel has some connection with the Israeli
State?"
The second misconception is that British Israel teaches that the
British are a master race with a God-ordained right to rule the world.
Such an accusation might perhaps have been levelled at our Victorian
forbears with a certain amount of justification, although even then it
would have been far from the truth. Living as they did in the days when
the British Empire was at the height of its power and glory, the
Victorians were naturally attracted to some of the promises that were
made to Israel in Old Testament times, and were convinced that they were
witnessing the fulfilment of those promises. Israel, the Bible tells us,
would be a powerful nation whose name should be "great"; she
would control the gates of her enemies; she would be the head of a great
company of nations; she would colonise the waste places of the earth,
and so on. But there is another side to the coin which presents a very
different picture. There are other marks of Israel which make it clear
that with these privileges there would come also responsibilities.
Israel was to be the custodian of the Oracles of God; she would accept
the Lord's Messiah when He came; she would carry the gospel all over the
world; she would be charitable and compassionate; she would become the
refuge of the oppressed and the liberator of slaves; she would be gentle
and magnanimous in victory and bring glory to God. There is nothing here
to suggest a nation called to rule the world in any spirit of arrogance.
Certainly the Bible tells us that God selected the nation of Israel
for His purposes, but it was not because of any intrinsic superiority in
their nature or character, far from it. Time and again the people proved
to be quite unworthy of their high calling, in fact anything but a
master race. Yet, in spite of their weakness, their disobedience and
their infidelity, these were the people through whom God chose to work
out His plan for the world. Such privileges as He did grant them were
designed, not for the aggrandisement of Israel but to equip them to
carry out the work for which the nation was created. Israel's role,
which is by inheritance the role of Britain and her kindred nations, is
that of a servant nation, called into being to witness to God's truth,
to demonstrate the efficacy of His laws as the basis of national life,
and to bring the gospel of the kingdom to all the peoples of the world.
Not only is it erroneous to suggest that Israel was designed to be a
master race, but it must also be said that there is no implication in
British Israel teaching that because we are the people of God we are
always right. In Biblical times our ancestors were constantly in the
wrong and our more recent history presents a far from blameless record.
The treatment meted out to the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish; the
misery brought about by the Industrial Revolution, allowed to go
unremedied for far too long; incidents in our colonial history like the
massacre at Amritsar in India; religious persecution by both Roman
Catholics and Protestants; political and economic discrimination; all
these have left behind a legacy of hatred and bitterness and we are
still feeling the effects today. On the other hand, it is only fair to
point out that it was British Christians who took the lead in the
campaign to abolish slavery, and that it was believing Christians in our
own country who were in the forefront of all the great humanitarian
movements of the last two hundred years - men like Lord Shaftesbury, Dr.
Barnado and a host of others.
Another accusing finger that is often pointed at British-Israel is
that it is racist. The whole question of race leads to a great deal of
confusion in our modern world. On the one hand there are forces at work
attempting to bring about a one-world system of government, designed to
rule a human race which will be a conglomeration of all the existing
races. On the other hand there are forces at work among all kinds of
minority groups, firing them with the desire for a completely separate
and independent existence - Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians,
Armenians and Georgians in Russia; Maoris in New Zealand; Aboriginies in
Australia; Red Indians in Canada, Albanians in Yugoslavia; Basques in
Spain; even elements of the Welsh and the Scots in Great Britain. All
this is very different from God's idea of race as it is portrayed in the
Bible. It is true that He chose one man, Abraham, to be the founder of a
special nation, but it was to be a nation through which all the nations
of the earth should be blessed. Tyranny, oppression and hatred, all of
which are implicit in the word racism, have nothing whatever to do with
the blessing of the nations which is God's purpose for the whole of
mankind, of every nation and ethnic group. This theme of blessing for
all peoples begins with God's promise to Abraham and it ends in the Book
of Revelation. There we read of the angel showing St. John the river of
life with a tree growing beside it for the healing of the nations. The
Bible thus makes it quite clear that the different nations are part of
God's plan and purpose, but that in the end all should come under the
blessing of God, who is Lord of all the earth.
So much for what British-Israel is not. It is time now to be positive
about what we do believe. First of all we must assert our acceptance of
basic Christian doctrine. Again a personal experience will help to make
this point clear. A young man of my acquaintance went to a summer camp
run by a group of Christians. Rather to his own amazement, I think, he
came home a converted and committed Christian. Not long afterwards he
got to hear about British-Israel. One day when I was in conversation
with him he quite suddenly said to me, in a rather accusing tone,
"You're a British Israelite, aren't you?" Before I had time to
reply he went on to state that British Israel is not Christian. My
answer to that was to point out that in order to become a member of the
B.I.W.F. you had to sign a declaration of your belief in God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, your acceptance of Jesus Christ as your personal
saviour and your belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God.
"You could hardly be more Christian than that, could you?" I
concluded, and he has never mentioned the subject again. This incident
made me wonder how many more Christians have the same mistaken idea of
what we are.
All Christian doctrine is, or should be, based on the Bible and it is
when Christians stray away from the Bible that all kinds of erroneous
beliefs creep in. Strangely enough, there still seems to be among the
British people a residue of belief in sound Christian doctrine, based on
the Bible. This was made evident by the reaction to some of the Bishop
of Durham's more outrageous statements. While the Church remained silent
and the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to be drawn into any argument,
some M.P.'s demanded the removal from office of a bishop who, they said,
was undermining the religious beliefs of the British nation.
In these days, when so many people are busy propagating their own
ideas about the Christian faith, we need to emphasise as often and as
strongly as we can, at every opportunity, that the basis of our beliefs
is to be found in the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments.
Another vital article of our belief is that we look for the bodily
return of the Lord Jesus Christ to rule over His people Israel first and
finally over the whole earth. It is at this point that some of our
Christian friends begin to part company with us. Even if, in spite of
the Bishop of Durham, they accept the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection
as essential elements of the Christian faith, many will draw the line at
looking for the physical return of Jesus Christ to rule over a kingdom
on earth. Note that it will be a kingdom on earth, but not an earthly
kingdom in the usual sense of the word. For many Christians the Kingdom
of Jesus Christ is already here in the hearts and minds of all true
believers, a belief based on the words of Jesus Himself, "The
kingdom of God is within you." This spiritual rule of Christ is an
undoubted truth, but the Bible has a great deal to say about a literal
kingdom on earth. Every year at Christmas we hear again the words of the
angel's promise to Mary that her Son would sit upon the throne of His
ancestor David and that His Kingdom should have no end. Yet, during the
thirty or so years that Christ lived on earth that throne was
occupied by Idumaean usurpers and continued so for a further forty years
after the Crucifixion, until the terrible events of 70 A.D. The early
Christians had no difficulty in believing that the Lord's return was
imminent and they lived out their lives in the confident expectation of
its happening in their life-time. Now, two thousand years have gone by
and belief in that return has worn very thin, so thin, indeed, that many
of the Lord's own followers have given up believing in it altogether.
If we believe the words of the Bible, rather than the doubting words
of men, even if they are couched in religious terms by those who hold
high office in the Church, we know that that coming cannot be long
delayed. The signs of its approach are spelled out for us in St.
Matthew, chapter 24, St. Luke chapter 21 and in II Timothy chapter 3.
The words that we read there fit the age in which we live as they have
fitted no other age in history, for only in this century have all the
signs been apparent at the same time. Even so, we cannot assign an exact
date for the coming of the Kingdom, and it would be wrong for us to do
so, seeing that Jesus Himself said that only the Father knew. Our task
is to prepare ourselves and others to welcome the King when He comes.
The coming of that Kingdom, the nature of its constitution and the
character of its King are matters about which a great deal of
information is to be found in both the Old and New Testaments.
Certainly the events of the life of Jesus on earth are foretold with
great accuracy in the Old Testament. We are told who He would be (a rod
out of the stem of Jesse); where He would be born (in Bethlehem) and
that His mother would be a virgin, (whatever the Bishop of Durham may
say to the contrary). Isaiah foretold that He would heal all kinds of
diseases and in Psalm 22 there is a detailed description of the events
surrounding the Crucifixion. Yet the men who wrote these things lived
many centuries before they happened and the exact meaning of what they
wrote did not become apparent until the events they described actually
occurred. That, indeed, is the whole purpose of prophecy, not that we
should use it as a kind of crystal ball to enable us to see into
the future but that we should see the significance of current events as
they take place. The fact that so many of the things foretold by the
prophets have actually taken place are a guarantee that the rest will
follow in God's good time and on dates which we cannot foresee.
Although there are a number of prophecies in the Old Testament
concerning nations other than Israel, the Bible is primarily a book
about and for Israel and this is a point which is not generally
understood, even by Christian readers. Further confusion is caused by
the fact that many people are not aware of the difference between Israel
and Judah and the history of these two sections of God's people. To most
people the Jews are the chosen people, but this is a question which
needs considerable clarification. The problem of the Jews and the modern
Israeli state is a very urgent and potentially explosive one. Because of
the events of the twentieth century, especially prior to and during the
Second World War, it is difficult to arrive at an unbiased judgement for
the whole question is overcharged with very strong emotions. It will
therefore be worthwhile to spend a little time sorting out the facts,
shorn of the emotions which surround them.
When God first called Abram to be the founder of a great nation, his
family were known as Hebrews, after an ancestor of Abram's, called Eber.
Then in the time of Abraham's grandson the name Israel first appeared.
Originally it was a name given by God to Jacob personally and his
descendants were therefore called the children of Israel, or Israelites.
At Sinai these descendants of Jacob, loosely organised as twelve tribes,
were formally constituted as a nation under the direct rule of the Lord
Jehovah, with a code of laws to govern their individual and corporate
life. Eventually this nation of twelve tribes settled in the Promised
Land across the River Jordan. There they came under the rule of a series
of judges whose sole purpose was to administer the laws of God, given
through Moses at Sinai. Then, in the days of Samuel, who was both
prophet and judge, there arose a popular demand for a King. Samuel was
very reluctant to accede to this demand but when he received explicit
instructions from the Lord, he had no choice but to obey.
The first King, Saul, after a promising start, proved unsatisfactory
and was not allowed to found a dynasty. In any case, Saul was of the
tribe of Benjamin, and the sceptre, the sign of royal power, had long
before been promised to Judah. In the meantime God was preparing
His own candidate for the throne. He knew that the boy David had the
right lineage and the right qualities to be the founder of a royal line
which should occupy the throne of the Lord until, in due course, it
would be taken over by the greatest of all David's line, the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself.
When David eventually became King, even at that early stage in their
history, there was an obvious division among the children of Israel.
Only his own tribe of Judah and the smaller tribe of Benjamin who lived
in the same area acknowledged David as King and it was seven years
before the other tribes recognised him as their ruler. For a time the
whole twelve tribes nation was united under a King who was universally
loved and respected, and this happy state of affairs continued
throughout the reign of David's son, Solomon. After the death of Solomon
the division in the nation surfaced once more and the final rift took
place, a rift that will only be healed with the coming of the Kingdom of
Jesus Christ on earth. Following the division, the ten northern tribes
formed a separate Kingdom and retained the name of Israel. The two
southern tribes continued under the rule of David's descendants and came
to be known as Judah. Because of the wickedness of the people of Judah
God allowed them to be taken captive by the Babylonians and taken away
to live in a foreign land. Seventy years later a remnant of Judah was
allowed to return to Jerusalem and this remnant came to be called Jews,
a contraction of the name Judah. It therefore follows that it is quite
inaccurate to use the name of Jew for anyone who lived before the
Babylonian captivity.
It must also be stressed that after the return to Jerusalem an ever
increasing number of proselytes of many different races adopted the
faith of Judaism and began to call themselves Jews, although they were
not of the stock of Abraham. So the name Jew today has a religious
rather than a racial connotation. If we study the promises made to
Israel we read of many things which by no stretch of imagination could
be applied to modern Jewry.
When the Israeli state was set up in 1947 as a national home for
dispossessed Jews from many countries, it was hailed by some Bible
students as a fulfilment of God's promise to His ancient people. If this
were so then, quite apart from anything else, the Israeli state should
be showing signs of being a blessing to all nations. Instead, it is more
like a slow fuse which could lead to a mammoth explosion. That is not to
deny the contribution to art, medicine, music, science and so on that
has been made by individual Jews, but no one could claim that the
existence of the modern Israeli state has done the world any good at
all.
If God's promises, then, were not and are not fulfilled in the Jews,
what has happened to them? To suggest that God has forgotten His
promises would be a kind of blasphemy, implying that God has the same
frailties as human beings, who forget so easily. Neither could it be
said that God had deliberately broken His word, for that too would
belittle God and also be a kind of blasphemy. The only way out of the
dilemma was to say that God had neither forgotten nor broken His pledged
word but had simply transferred the promises to the new Israel, in other
words the Church. From the churchman's point of view it was a completely
satisfactory answer to the problem but it is based on a very inaccurate
reading of the Scriptures. Both historically and linguistically such a
notion is a serious misconception yet it is widely accepted among
today's Christians. God's promises were made to a nation and, by its
derivation a nation must consist of people of the same 'birth' or stock.
The Church is assuredly not that, for it draws its members from every
nation under the sun.
If neither the Jews nor the Church can qualify as recipients of God's
promises to His chosen people, and if, by His very nature God could
neither forget nor break His promises, then the only answer would be to
find the true descendants of the Israelites to whom the promises were
originally given. As we have already seen, there were two sections of
the original nation of Israel, the ten tribes northern Kingdom, which
kept the name of Israel, and the two tribes southern Kingdom which
became known as Judah. This latter Kingdom, again as we have already
seen, was taken into captivity and only a portion of its people
eventually returned to Jerusalem. But what of the far larger Kingdom of
Israel in the north?
It is a fact of history that these tribes were conquered by the
Assyrians about 150 years before Judah fell to the Babylonians. Israel
too was carried away into captivity by their conquerors along with some
people from Judah. In course of time the Assyrians were attacked and
beaten by the Babylonians and in the resulting chaos their Israelitish
captives simply disappeared, both from the Bible and from the history
books. According to the Chief Rabbi, in a letter written in 1918, the
ten tribes were scattered abroad and became absorbed among the nations,
from where they will be regathered when the Messiah comes to claim His
Kingdom.
This is the point at which British Israelites finally part company
with their fellow Christians. British Israelites believe that, far from
being absorbed among the nations, the descendants of the ten tribes kept
together in their various tribal groups and trekked right across Europe
until they eventually arrived in the "isles of the sea" which
would be their abiding home. Where the Bible narrative ends secular
history takes up the tale and there is abundant evidence from
archaeology, geography, heraldry, language and literature to prove the
truth of this teaching. To be sure, the Israelites lost all knowledge of
their identity and arrived in the British Isles under other names,
Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings and Normons. When they arrived, there
were already some of the tribe of Judah settled here, people who had
migrated from the Promised Land much earlier but the link between the
people of modern Britain and their remote ancestors in Israel and Judah
can be very effectively substantiated.
This aspect of British Israel teaching has given rise to the
criticism that the movement is far too much concerned with ancient
history when there are enough urgent problems in the contemporary world
awaiting a solution. Yet the present can only be properly understood in
the context of past events and the people who made them happen. This is
readily accepted in the field of medicine, particularly psychiatric
medicine. A psychiatrist will spend a great deal of time and energy
probing into his patient's past life, believing that many of the fears
and phobias and prejudices which hinder that patient from living life to
the full are caused by events long ago. The patient himself may have
forgotten all about them but they have sunk deep into his subconscious
mind and still influence his actions and reactions, without his being
aware that it is so. By bringing all these hidden memories to the
surface so that the patient can face them and so understand why he
behaves as he does, the psychiatrist can do much to help the patient to
live normally. Yet, with strange inconsistency, the idea of using the
same technique in the life of a nation is treated with scorn. If a
psychiatrist were examining the British people as a nation, there are
several questions he might well ask. For example, why have the British
people such a deep-rooted hatred of slavery and oppression and such a
passionate love of freedom? Why do they have an apparently inbred
respect for law and order? (The current outbreaks of violence and
lawlessness are essentially uncharacteristic of the British people.) Why
has the Bible loomed so large in British culture and thinking when two
thirds of it is a book about the ancient Israelites? These questions can
only be answered by reference to the Israelitish origin of the British
people. Their ancestors had a long experience of slavery in Egypt and
this accounts for their love of freedom; their Common Law is based upon
the laws God gave to His people at Sinai; and the language of the
Authorised Version of the Bible is directly related to the ancient
Hebrew in its structure and thought patterns so that the British people
are thoroughly at home with the writings of their remote ancestors.
Another indication of the unbroken continuity linking the people of
ancient Israel with the people of twentieth century Britain is to be
found in the throne. The nation and the throne have been bound together
for as long as there has been a royal house, and that goes right back to
the King David of the Bible. The Queen of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland is the only monarch whose ancestry can be traced back in an
unbroken line to a King who reigned three thousand years ago. As we go
into the 1990's the sovereignty of the Queen is under threat as Britain
is drawn ever closer into Europe, in spite of the bland assurances
handed out by pro-European politicians.
Another of our precious institutions under threat is the Church of
England which has for the last four hundred years supported and upheld
the monarchy. And Britain is the only country which has a national
church established by act of Parliament. Admittedly not everyone, not
even all Christians in the country, belong to it but the fact that it is
there is a guarantee of our religious liberty. Now that church is being
pushed firmly in the direction of Rome by the very men who should be
cherishing and upholding its right to remain independent of any
authority save that of Jesus Christ, who is its head and of the monarch,
who is its supreme governor in earthly terms.
A third British institution under threat is the Sabbath, something
again which is part of our Israelitish inheritance. The observance of
the Sabbath as a day of rest has all but disappeared in this country, as
more and more people find that they are expected to work on a Sunday or
are indeed willing to do so because of the higher rate of pay which
Sunday work brings. Those who are fortunate enough to be free on Sunday
seem to regard it as a chance to catch up on odd jobs in the house or
garden, or an opportunity to indulge in organised entertainment, or
simply a day to be got through somehow with the help of the Sunday paper
and the television until life can revert to normal on Monday. How
different all this is from the Sabbath appointed by God for the good of
his people, a day of rest and quietness and physical, mental and
spiritual refreshment.
So much for what we believe, although we have only considered
it in outline. We need also to ask ourselves why we believe it. As St.
Paul reminds us, we must be prepared to give a reasoned answer to anyone
who questions us about our faith. If there are not very good reasons for
believing everything that comes under the heading of British Israel,
then it is indeed merely an 'optional extra', interesting, maybe, and
all right for those who like that sort of thing.
First of all, it must be true because God is the same yesterday,
today and for ever. The God who called Abraham and promised him that he
would be the father of a great nation, could not, by His very nature,
either abandon His plan or change its direction. Therefore the nation
which He chose to be the channel of His blessing for all mankind must
still be in existence until that purpose is accomplished.
Secondly, if God promises anything He always has kept and always will
keep His word. Foremost among His promises is that Jesus Christ will
return to earth to reign as King. The whole story of the Bible is the
story of a people being prepared for that great event.
Thirdly, if it were not for that promise, we should have to accept
the worst prognostications of the scientists and ecologists concerning
the future of this planet. Many of them declare that we have already
reached the point of no return. That may well be true, but even if the
situation is not quite as bad as that we are certainly well on the way
towards it. We have already damaged or destroyed so much of God's
creation that only His creative and recreative power can put things
right. These are matters about which all thinking people are worried and
fearful and only the promise of the Lord's return can offer any positive
hope.
Lastly, British Israel teaching enables us to look beyond ourselves
to the community and the nation to which we belong. The poet Matthew
Arnold pictured human beings as a large number of separate islands, cut
off from one another by the "estranging sea" and living
alone. There is some truth in this, for we each have to experience our
own joys, bear our own pain and sorrow, face our own problems, "work
out our own salvation" as St. Paul said, and when the end comes
we must face death alone. The near presence of those we love and who
love us will certainly enhance the joy, ease the burden of pain and
suffering and provide help and support in times of danger and difficulty
but no one can bear these things for us.
The only burden which we can hand over entirely to someone else is
the burden of sin, for in dying on the Cross the Lord Jesus Christ took
that burden upon Himself for all who believe in Him. However, the
sacrifice of Jesus was not only the remedy for the individual sins of
every man and woman; He was the Lamb of God "who taketh away the
sins of the world" the collective sins of mankind. Another
poet, John Dunne, declared that no man is an island and this also has a
measure of truth in it. Although God made each one of us a unique
individual, He also placed us in families, communities and nations and
as members of these groups we are closely affected by what happens to
others, for we cannot isolate ourselves from them. The whole teaching of
Jesus Christ, especially in the parables, is about the Kingdom of Heaven
and a Kingdom is much more than a collection of separate individuals.
Its subjects are bound together by a community of interests and by their
common loyalty to their sovereign. So it will be when the Kingdom of
Heaven is established on earth.
That Kingdom in the beginning was synonymous with Israel, for that is
how the Lord God chose to work out His plan, and its final stages will
be worked out through Israel, for God is the same yesterday, today and
for ever. But God is also Lord of all the earth and all the people who
live on it. Although He selected one nation as His servant and
instrument, it was never His intention to exclude those who are not
literal descendants of Jacob-Israel. This was made clear to Abraham when
he was told that through his seed great blessing would come to all the
nations on earth. When Christ came to earth, died and rose again He 'opened
the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.' Certainly He
instructed His disciples to go first to the lost sheep of the House of
Israel, but first does not mean exclusively. At the end of man's long
journey from the Garden of Eden to the City of God there is a river and
growing beside it is a tree whose leaves are for the healing of the
nations - the nations, not some nations, or a few nations, or selected
nations but all nations.
If we believe the Bible as the inspired word of God then we must
believe that God's plan for the ultimate salvation and blessing of all
mankind will come to its glorious conclusion exactly as He intends.
Israel from the beginning had a vital part to play in that plan and
still has. To believe this is to know the truth of God, not merely to be
interested in an 'optional extra' for Israel must remain a nation
to the very end, until it has accomplished the purpose for which it was
formed.
