THE TRUE ISRAEL OF GOD - Part 3 - By Daniel J. Musokwa

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Paul here is thinking of Jesus as an olive tree and the Jews as His branches. But because of their unbelief they were broken off from the commonwealth of God (verse 20), but that we, though according to God we were wild branches from a wild olive of sin were grafted-in into the holy olive tree that is Jesus. 

So now according to the 17^th verse, we are sharing in the nourishing sap from the holy olive root. But verses 23-26 are very important here because the Holy Ghost says, through Paul, that “… if they (Israel) do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted back in, for God is able to graft them in again… and so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins”!”

Look at that! Oh, how we've always misquoted that verse to mean that all Israel will be saved regardless of their sins because they are God’s chosen people. But Paul, an Israelite of Israelites, of the tribe of Benjamin, strongly disagrees with that assessment! Paul said “if they do not persist in unbelief God will graft them back in… AND SO shall all Israel be saved! The conjunctive word “so” used in this verse (v26) is translated from the Greek word “houto” and Strong’s Concordance translates it as “in this way”.

It is a word which refers you to a preceding statement, and the precedent here is that ‘if Israel does not persist in their unbelief, then God would graft them back into the Olive tree… and “houto” shall all Israel be saved!” So all of Israel without exceptions MUST believe that Jesus is the Christ, then and only then would God graft them back into their original Olive tree AND ONLY IN THIS WAY (houto) must all Israel be saved! So there will be Jews who will never accept Jesus as the Messiah, their fate is already sealed together with the rest of Gentile unbelievers! God has NO preferential treatment for the Jews in this dispensation of the New Covenant; none whatsoever! They are just like the rest of humankind. Probably that sounds like blasphemy to most people, but it is very true. Why do you think Paul lamented about them:

Rom 9:1 I speak the truth in Christ-I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-

Rom 9:2-5 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

Rom 9:6-8 It is not as though God's word had failed. For NOT all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." In other words, it is NOT the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring.

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If salvation was automatic to the Jews, why would the Apostle Paul mourn and lament their unbelief? He wished that he himself were “cursed” and “cut off” from the Messiah on their behalf; please notice that this was and is the spiritual condition of Israel, cut off from Christ! These are not my words, but rather the words of Paul. In verses 6 to 8 he goes on to say that “not all who are descended from Israel (Jacob) are Israel.Nor because they are his natural descendants are they all Abraham’s children!” This is a very interesting observation by Paul.

TO BE CONTINUED>>> 

This series titled THE TRUE ISRAEL OF GOD by my brother and good friend Daniel J. Musokwa, General Overseer of New Testament Ministries Tanzania is not over yet, there's more to come, stay tuned. - Patrick G. Kamera.