Are the Jews of today the same Jews of the Bible?

Rabbi Matheus (00:00):
When we speak about political Israel, what are we referring to? How can I be sure that the Israel of today is the same Israel of the Bible? How can I be sure that the Jews of today are the same Jews that we read in the scriptures? And this is a very important question. It needs to be answered according to the truth. The argument is this. Hello, my name is Mateoski Marines and I’m a Messianic rabbi ordained by the UMJC, the Union of Messanic Jewish Congregations here in the United States and also by Nativia Bible Instruction Ministry and organization in Israel. I’m also a volunteer pastor here at the Gateway Center for Israel. Welcome to the Israel Masterclass and today we have a very special subject to cover, which is a question that is often asked by many Christians. And the topic of this class and this question is should Christians support political Israel?

(01:23):
And I’m sure if you’re a pastor, if you’re a leader, you were asked this question before and it’s very important for us as believers to know how to biblically answer this question correctly. So I would like to start by presenting to you what does the modern state of Israel represent when we say political Israel, what are we referring to? So the first thing that we need to know before talking about the state of Israel or the modern state of Israel is defining who is a Jew and that’s the $1 million question in the Jewish world. Who is a Jew? And it’s a very difficult question. It’s been asked by the rabbis for thousands of years, but for the sake of our time here and for the sake of the subject of the class, I will give you a shorter and very simple answer. So the Jewish people as the names say, it’s not only a religious group, it’s not only an ethnicity, it’s a people.

(02:32):
And these people were chosen by God in the person of Abraham that we read about in Genesis chapter 12. And through these people, God will reveal himself not only to this people, to Abraham and his descendants, but to the whole world. God will be manifested. God will reveal his character, his nature and his redemption, his plan of redemption through Christ, through the Messiah using these people. So these people we call today the Jewish people. And Abraham was called from Misopotamia and he was instructed by God to move to the region called Canaan back in those days or the levant. So Abraham was supposed to settle in that part of the world and that land actually was part of the covenant God made with Abraham and his descendants in Isaac. So it’s very important to remember that. So we say that the descendants of Abraham in Isaac and in Jacob today we call them the Jewish people.

(03:47):
And I’m not even entering in some of the details that people might ask, but what is the difference between the Israelite, Hebrews, Jews? Let’s just simplify for the sake of our class here that when we say Jew, we are referring to the general Jewish population, the descendants of Abraham through Jacob. So it’s a generalized term that we use today and it’s commonly understand as all the descendants from all the tribes. So when we say a Jew today, I’m not referring only to the descendants from the tribe of Judah. I’m referring to all the tribes, all the people, all the descendants of Jacob, the children of Israel. Okay? So let’s continue in remembering that the descendants of Jacob became the children of Israel because God in Genesis 32 changed the name of Jacob to Israel. Remember the passage and God told him because you have striven with God and with men and you have prevailed and therefore you shall be called Israel.

(04:55):
And by this name the descendants of Jacob, they are known until today, the children of Israel. We read it in the Bible and we have this descendants today.

(05:10):
When we speak about the Jewish population of today, because when we speak about the modern state of Israel, we also should understand that the modern state of Israel is composed by the Jewish people. So the Jewish people today, according to the Jewish agency for Israel and there is a very bright professor called Sergio de la Pergola, Dr. Sergio from the Jewish demographic department in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I’ve watched many lectures from Professor Sergio. And according to him, there is today in the world the Jewish population of today would be around 15.7 million Jews today. And from this population, I’m not even considering descendants of Jews because if we consider all the descendants of Jews and the possibility that they might be recognized as Jews by the other Jews, because today they are not recognized by the rabbinical courts, but there is a case going on, but that’s a subject for another masterclass.

(06:23):
So if we consider these descendants of the Jewish people that kept some traditions and some memory, this number 15.7 would go up to around 40 to 50 million. But let’s consider what we have today as the non-Jewish population in the world to be 15.7 million Jews. And only in Israel we have 7.2 million Jews living today in Israel and in the US we have 6.5 million Jews remembering that Jewish people make up less than 0.2% of the world’s population and the state of Israel occupies about 0.3% of the territory of the Middle East. So the territory of the state of Israel is about 0.3% of the whole Middle Eastern territory, okay? So just to give you an idea, you Americans, we can fit the whole modern state of Israel inside New Jersey. So that’s the situation. Well, now when we speak about political Israel, what are we referring to?

(07:45):
Political Israel, when we speak about political Israel, we are referring to the modern state of Israel established in 14th of May of 1948. It was actually voted in the UN, in the general assembly of the UN in November of 1947, where they came up with a plan to divide the region called Palestine into two states, a Jewish state and an Arabic state. So the Jewish people agreed with the idea with the plan, but the Arabs to this day never agreed, but less than one year later, the Jewish people in Israel declared their independence and they established their nation state in May of 1948. Now, the modern state of Israel should be understood as the contemporary framework through which the Jewish people were able to reorganize themselves, regather and function once again as a nation after almost 2000 years of diaspora of exile. So we need to understand that the nation state of Israel that was formed in 1948, it’s nothing more than the natural, the national or the political framework in which a nation in our days can exist.

(09:24):
The Jewish people regathered and reorganized themselves and they wanted to be a nation, politically organized as such, as a society, as a Jewish state. So the only way possible to do it in our days is to organize a nation state. So that’s what we refer to when we mention political Israel. So again, it’s the contemporary framework through which the Jewish people were able to reorganize and we gather and function once again, once again as a nation. In the modern world, the nation state is the primary form by which peoples exist politically. So it is how nations are recognized internationally. It’s how nations enter diplomatic relations with other nations and they establish governments, protect their citizens and organize their own society. Today, the modern state of Israel functions as a democracy. Actually it’s a parliamentary democracy with a prime minister, which currently is Benjamin Netanyahu and Netanyahu leads a coalition of right wing parties and we have also a president in the modern state of Israel.

(10:48):
Many people haven’t heard, but there is a president called Itzhak Herzog, but this position of president is more like a ceremonial head of state, but most of the decisions and the representations of Israel are made by the prime minister and Israel has regular elections. It’s the only democracy in the Middle East, by the way. It has regular elections. It has representatives from the other ethnic groups in Israel, such as the Arabs and other minorities. We have a multi-party system in Israel, like I said, with elections in an independent judiciary and a clear separation of powers. So it’s just like any other nation, free nation under democracy. So that’s how Israel, the state of Israel functions today. Now, to move forward in our class, so we established a little bit about who is the Jewish people, what is the modern state of Israel look like today?

(12:00):
And now you probably after hearing all of this, you probably heard the question, which is if the first question was a $1 million question, this question is the $2 million question is this, okay, I understand the state of Israel, it’s a nice place I even want to go there, se the places that Jesus walked, but how can I be sure that the Israel of today is the same Israel of the Bible? How can I be sure that the Jews of today are the same Jews that we read in the scriptures? Are the people of Israel the same Israel that we read in the Bible and this is a very important question and needs to be answered according to what we have according to the truth. So although it’s a very important question, the answer is very simple, very simple answer, very logic, very logic and very straightforward.

(13:14):
The argument is this, if the Jews of today, if the Jews that are today in the state of Israel, if the Jews that are today in other countries, the Jewish communities that we read about in the United States, in Latin America, in Europe, if the Jews of today are not the Jews of the Bible, if the Israel of today is not the Israel of the Bible, if the state of Israel of today is composed by people different from the Israel of the Bible, then God has failed to fulfill his promises. It’s that simple. If the Jews of today are not the legitimate continuation of the Israel we read in the Bible, then God has failed. God was not powerful enough to fulfill his promises to keep and preserve Israel as a people and as a nation. So what is at stake here for you pastors and leaders and theologians is the very nature of God.

(14:29):
It’s the very nature of God. It’s the very power of God to be faithful to the promises that he made to the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And just to make sure when the scripture speaks about Israel in the Bible, this is not a symbolic term. This is not a symbolic group. This is not a legary, an allegory of some form of a spiritual people in contrast to a real people. No, no, no, no. Israel in the Bible is a real people with lineage, with history, with memory and a covenantal identity, with roots in the patriarchs in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore, the survival of the Jewish people across centuries of exile dispersion and persecution is not a sociological phenomenon, but is a demonstration of God’s power to keep his promises. If the Israel of today is the Israel of the Bible, then God fulfilled his promises to keep Israel preserved as a nation throughout the centuries, like he promised, and we will read some of the scriptures now.

(16:02):
It’s very interesting when God reveals his nature to Moses in the burning bush, God was about to interfere in human history like never before when we read the book of Exodus, we see a different kind of acting. God is acting differently from the time he had a relationship with the patriarchs, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This time was different and God speaks exactly like that to Moses. He said, “I revealed myself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shadai, but by my name, you’d have hey, I was not known to them, but by my name I will be known to you and to the whole people of Israel whom I will take out of slavery and bring into the promised land.” So God was about in Exodus, God was about to interfere in human history like never before. God was by the patriarchs known by the creator of the universe, but now he’s about to go to descend and to interfere in human history, to deliver his people, to fulfill his promises.

(17:21):
And this revelation that God gave to Moses, he says something very, very special. He connects his identity and you know that a name reveals the essence of the person at least in the Hebrew Bible, in the Hebrew language, that’s the case. Every name reveals the nature of the being. So when God reveals his name, he says to Moses in Genesis 3:15 like this, say to the people of Israel, because Moses asked, when I go to the people of Israel, they will ask, “What is the name of the God that sent you to deliver us?” And Moses asked God this question, “What should I tell them?” So God answered Moses, say to the people of Israel, “The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations, this expression in Hebrew, God says, this will be my memorial forever.

(18:29):
This is the way I will be known in humanity. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” There is a link, an unbreakable link between God and the offspring of Jacob and the Jewish people and Israel and God’s nature and God’s essence is connected to the preservation, to the existence of the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, God reveals his name and that’s also a subject for another masterclass, but God’s name, if you try to translate the name of God with the four Hebrew letters, you nave, is something that will be translated as eternal.

(19:19):
The God that exists, he’s the source of existence, okay? He’s the source of reality. Everything comes from him. So another way of translating the holy name of God is the God who exists and he links this existence to the existence of the Jewish people. So I will be known forever as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If they exist, I exist. If I’m the God of everything, if I’m the God of reality that creates reality, space and time, they will continue to be people under the heavens. So it is very important for us to notice that. And if we also continue to read in the Torah on the Pintatek, we have in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse eight, the song of Moses and look what the spirit of God speaks to us through Moses Deronomy chapter 32, verse eight it says, “When the most high gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of their children of Israel.” Pay attention in how profound this verse is.

(20:45):
Moses is speaking here about Genesis 11 when God came down and divided the humanity in the event of the tower of Babel. The nations were born until then there was only one people, one language, one nation, but in Genesis 12, when God interfered and every time God interferes in history is something really dramatic. So now we’re having God interfering and dividing, creating the nations. He created the nations and the text says here that he designed the borders of these nations. According to what? According to the numbers of the children of Israel, but wait a minute Abraham was not chosen yet. There was no Jewish people. If Abraham was the first Jew, there was no Abraham in the tower of Babel. So how come God divided the nations according to the numbers of the children of Israel if there was no Israel? Because Israel already existed in God’s purpose.

(21:54):
The nation of Israel is the embodiment of a redemption plan that God had since the beginning of times. And Yeshua is part of this redemption plan, which belongs to the Jewish people. And Yeshua is the most beautiful expression of this link of this chain, of this governantal lineage of the people of Israel. So let’s continue, but the Lord’s portion is his people.

(22:32):
Jacob, he’s allotted heritage. So the people of Israel represent God’s heritage, God’s portion. He found him. He found Israel. He found him in a desert land and in the hallway waste of the wilderness, he encircled him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. What other nation has a relationship with the God created of the universe such as the people of Israel? That’s what the spirit of God wants to tell you and me today. You and I need to understand that the relationship that God has with the Jewish people is something very special and this relationship was formed so that the nations of the earth could be blessed. The very purpose of the chosen of Abraham and the formation of the Jewish people was so that the families of the earth would be blessed. So this is very special that God tells Israel that Israel, you are the apple of my eye.

(23:43):
And this word apple here in Hebrew in Delanomy chapter 32 verse 10 is not apple. It’s actually Eshaun. And Eshon in Hebrew means little men. So God is saying, “You are Israel, the little man in my eye, which means that when you are very close to someone, you can see your reflection in the other person eye and that’s the kind of relationship, that’s how close God is with the Jewish people.

(24:20):
And throughout the Bible, we see this time and time again that the Bible anchors Israel’s continuation in God’s faithfulness. So the preservation of the Jewish people is a sign of the faithfulness of God, the God who fulfills his promises. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not only the God creator of the universe, it’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And Jeremiah ties Israel’s national existence. Pay attention. Jeremiah ties Israel’s national existence to the fixed order of creation itself and promises that the Jewish people will return to their own country. If you read in Jeremiah chapter 31, this is a very important chapter to understand more about this faithfulness of God, this covenant that God has with Israel, including the new covenant. The new covenant was prophesied in Jeremiah chapter 31. So in Jeremiah 31:17, God says,” There is hope for your future Israel declares the Lord, and your children shall come back to their own territory.

(25:55):
“In Jeremiah 31:35, it says like this, ” Thus says the Lord, who gives the son for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night. “So God is calling as his witnesses the order of the cosmos, not only the sun and the moon, but the stars and all the beings, the celestial beings in the universe, the fixed order of the cosmos, God is calling all of this as his witnesses. And he says,” If this fixed order departs from before me declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever. Brothers and sisters, this is very important and this is fantastic.

(26:54):
I remember some time ago I was attending Bible college here in Dallas and this Bible college is till today known by its love for Israel and they have once a year, one day every year they have a special day called Blessed Israel Day where they used to invite Jewish believers to speak to the body of students. I was a student this year in this Bible college and the guest speaker invited was Rabbi Marty Waldman, a very good friend of mine to this day, a mentor, a teacher, a friend, and Marty was invited to speak in the Blessed Israel Day lecture. I went behind the stage and I met with him and I said, “Rabbi, what will be the topic of your sermon?” Because you see, the blessed Israel day was such an important day that every message that we had, every guest speaker used to bring an amazing, phenomenal message teaching.

(28:02):
So I was anxious. I was excited about Rabbi Marty’s message. And I asked him, “Rabbi, what will be your topic for today?” And he answered me, Mateos, my topic will be how to destroy Israel. I said, “What are you talking about? ” “Yes, my topic will be how to destroy Israel. “And then he pull out this text from Jeremiah 31. He said,” Mateos, it’s quite simple. If anyone could destroy this fixed order of the universe, everything functioning in their own time and space and everything working fine, all the galaxies and the Milky Way and the stars, they all have their orbit and they all … The laws of the universe, the laws of the cosmos, everything is so perfect. If somebody could destroy all of that, then he could destroy Israel because Israel would lose God’s protection. Israel would stop being a nation before God.

(29:03):
That’s what the prophet Jeremiah says and it was indeed an amazing message that Rabbi Marty brought. But the thing here, the bottom line is that this is very, very important. And if today you look up at your window here, if you’re in your office or in your church, look at the window. Is there a son? Is there a moon? Are there stars in the sky? If that’s the case, Israel is still a nation before God existing as a proof of God’s power and God’s faithfulness. That’s the message the prophet Jeremiah wants to teach us. And even in times of judgment, in times of exile, God declares that Israel will never be cut off. Israel will not cease to exist even And under judgment.

(30:03):
We can read about that in Leviticus chapter 26, verse 44. It says, “Yet in spite of all this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or uphold them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them.” So part of the covenant is to have the people of Israel preserved as we can see until today. Isaiah, the prophet reinforces this truth in deeply personal language portraying Israel as permanently engraved in God’s hand. Look at that Isaiah chapter 49, verse 15. “Can a woman forget her nursing child? Even this may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

(31:01):
Israel is part of God’s character. It’s something that God cannot forget. God cannot be unfaithful to himself if the continuation of the people of Israel is part of his character. If he told Moses that he will be forever known in the world as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and there is no more people of Isaac and Jacob, so he failed. He’s not God. He’s not faithful. If he is God, he is not a faithful God and God forbid. So if God is God and if he’s faithful to this day, Israel continue to exist. Israel never cease to be because Israel is a sign of God’s faithfulness. Israel is a sign of God’s existence.

(32:00):
There’s this famous rabbi that wrote in his book, The Kusari. It’s a very interesting book where this rabbi was trying to prove to a monarch the existence of God and his argument was quite simple. He said,” King, look at the Jews. If the Jews exist until today, there you have it because they have a God that promised to keep them in spite of all the persecution and all the exile and all the punishment and all the … They have a God and this God promised to keep them alive to preserve them so they will never completely assimilate, neither be cut off. So if they exist, God exists. This is very interesting. Now, if we move to the New Testament, this same theology, the same belief we can read and learn about in the New Testament, not only in the words of Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah, but also in the words of the apostles.

(33:11):
So we have a very special passage when Yeshua as a baby was being presented in the temple in Jerusalem in his 40th day. He was completing 40 days of existence and according to the law, he was supposed to be presented. And during his presentation, there was a righteous Jew called Shimon and Shimon received the revelation from God that he would not die until he sees the promised Messiah. So when Jesus was brought to the temple to be presented by his earthly father and his mother, God told this faithful, righteous Jew said, Go to the temple, you will see my salvation. And you can read about that in Luke chapter two, verse 27. And Simon Shimon came in the spirit into the temple and when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, Shimon took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.

(34:37):
For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all the nations, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. So that’s the nature of Jesus. This man was full of the Holy Spirit and he prophesied about Jesus’ nature, Jesus’ role, Jesus’ mission. He’s not only about to suffer and to be resurrected by the Father just to give us forgiveness of our sins, which of course is important. It’s part of his redemption plan and mission, but he’s not only that, he doesn’t came only to die and to be resurrected. He came as a light for revelation to the nations fulfilling the same promises given to Abraham.

(35:37):
But not only that, he is the glory for his people Israel. Jesus Yeshua is glory for Israel. Israel should not be ashamed of him. Jesus and his nature, his very nature, his glory for his people in Israel, because he fulfills the very promise that God gave our people in Abraham, in Isaac, in Jacob, that we are supposed to be a lie to the nations. We’re supposed to be a blessing to the families of the earth and Jesus as the biggest representative of our people. He came in the mission of Abraham. He didn’t come to abolish what God promised to Abraham or to King David or to Isaiah or to Ezekiel or to Jeremiah. He came as a fulfillment. He came to act in the same mission that Israel still has. That’s why the first words of the New Testament in the gospel of Matthew is what?

(36:36):
Book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Son of David, son of Abraham. That’s to make clear to all the readers that this Jesus is not an eti. He’s not someone that came without people, without a cause, without a lineage. He is a Jew. He’s from the tribe of Judah. He’s the son of David. He’s the son of Abraham. There is a link that connects Jesus to the Jewish people. And although many tried to break this link, this link was never broken. God never allowed this link to be broken. Jesus is still Jewish. He wasn’t Jewish. He is Jewish and he’s coming as the king of the Jews. He’s coming as the lion of the tribe of Judah because he’s the embodiment of his father and his father is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So Jesus comes in the same mission, the same anointing, the same nature as having a connection with the Jewish people that cannot be broken.

(37:48):
So if we fast forward now to the apostolic teachings, we have Paul. Paul writing after the resurrection of Yeshua, he addresses this question directly saying, “Has God rejected his people? ” By no means, God has not cast away his people whom he for knew. And Paul concludes with one of the greatest covenantal statements in the Bible about Israel. Romans 11:29, “For the gifts and the calling of God regarding the chosen of Israel, the choosing of Israel are irrevocable. They cannot be broken.” So to summarize this part of the lesson, if the Jewish people of today are not the Israel of the Bible, all of these promises that we just read have failed. And if those promises have failed, the reliability of God’s word itself collapses, including the very promises on which Christians depend for salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life. If God was not faithful to fulfill, to keep his promises to preserve the Jewish people and there is no Jewish people today and these people that are there in the state of Israel, they are not the real Jews.

(39:10):
So what reliability do we have? What hope can we have? What certainty can we have that he will fulfill his promises of future redemption to let his son come back as King Christian confidence in the gospel rests on the unshakeable conviction that God keeps his covenants. For this reason, the continued existence of the Jewish people visibly expressed today in the modern state of Israel should not be seen as a problem for Christians, neither for Christian theology, but as one of its strongest confirmations. The presence of the Jewish people today, we gathered in the modern state of Israel is a fulfillment of prophecies. It’s a living testimony of the existence and power of our God, of his faithfulness. I’m not saying that the modern state of Israel is the kingdom of God is flawless and perfect, far from that because it’s a human made political institution, but the only framework in which the Jewish people could organize themselves again after 2000 years as a nation, they’re following the only way possible to have a nation in our modern world is to have a modern state, a political state.

(40:44):
So of course it has flaws. Of course, it has imperfections because it’s a democracy. If there is democracy, there is potential for error, but we are talking about the people forming this nation. The people forming the nation are the Jewish people and they are the Jewish people that you read and I read in our Bibles because God is faithful. Now, let’s advance here and let’s talk about historical witnesses to the preservation of the Jewish people. So we read in the Bible that God promised to preserve his people and we have demographers attesting the numbers of Jews today in our world, the number of Jews today in Israel, but let’s say about other sources, not necessarily from Christian sources or theological sources, although we will cover some of it, but let’s see some sources that also attest to the preservation of the Jewish people throughout history because we know that from the destruction of the temple in the year 70CE to the Holocaust, the Jewish people survived without assimilation or extinction and this can be historically proved.

(42:05):
Now we can start by quoting some of the church fathers because they wrote about the Jewish people, not always in a positive way, but their writings can be used as a proof that the Jewish people were existing and were preserved during their times. So if we take Augustine of Hippo, which today would be modern day Algeria in the fourth century, okay Augustine, he argued that the Jews were preserved by God as a living witnesses. Even in disagreement with them, Augustine saw Augustine, he saw Jewish survival as providential, not accidential. So he writes in his book, City of God, he writes, “But the Jews who slew him and would not believe in him were dispersed through the lands so that indeed there is no place where they are not. ” Look at that and are thus by their own scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ.

(43:20):
So again, Augustine is confirming that the very existence of the Jewish people is a proof of the legitimacy of the scriptures. Let’s quote now Jerome. Jerome who translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek to Latin in the fourth century sea. So he openly acknowledged Christian dependence on Jewish preservation. Look at that. He acknowledged Christian dependence on Jewish preservation.

(43:56):
He says in his commentary of Isaiah, “The Jews are our librarians. The Jews are our librarians. They preserve the books from which we draw our faith.” Fast forward to the reformation, let’s quote Martin Luther in the 16th century, his early writings, because I know towards the end of his life he became a little anti-Jewish, but in the beginning, some of his first essays, there is one from 15:23 called that Jesus Christ was born a Jew. That Jesus Christ was born a Jew was the name of his essay and he says like this, “We are guests, we Christians are guests in the house of the Jews. The scriptures came to us through them. If the apostles who were Jews had treated us Gentiles as we treated the Jews, there would never have been a Christian among us.” So this is very important. He attests to the preservation of the Jewish people.

(45:00):
There is also actually little before the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain, it was very common to have these debates, theological debates and monarchs, Catholic monarchs would invite representatives from the Jewish community and representatives from the Christian communities to debate if Jesus was or not the Messiah, the promised Messiah. So this is very interesting because there was a very important debate called the Barcelona disputation in 1263 and this disputation was organized by King James, the first of arrogant in Spain to determine whether Jewish scriptures and rabbinic tradition proved that Jesus was the Messiah. So they invited as the Jewish representative Nachmanades, a very well known Jewish sage also known as Ramban, Ramban, Mushebanakhman, Musheban Nachman, Ramban, do not mistake by Ramban. Rambam is Maimonides. This is not Maimonides, Nachmanis. The Ramban represented the Jewish community and they invited a Catholic Jew, a Jew that had converted to Catholicism and his new name was, his Christian name was now Pablo Christiani.

(46:24):
It was a theologian, a Dominican priest. So the thing is that the very purpose of this debate of this disputation proves the point that Christian authorities believed that if Jesus was the Messiah, then Israel, the real historical Israel needs to be convinced. That’s why they were inviting the Jewish community and they considered the Jewish community in the 13th century to be the same Jews of the Bible. Okay You can read more about this Barcelona disputation. It’s a very interesting debate that I encourage you to study more about and we have also secular voices. We have writers such as William Shakespeare. He wrote about the Jews in his times. There’s a famous play that he wrote The Merchant of Venice and there is a Jewish character in this play called Shiloh the Jew. So you read and there’s a famous saying of Shiloch. He says, “If you precast, do we not bleed?” So Shakespeare is, he sees the Jews in his days in the 16th century, not as a vanished people, but as a living and enduring one.

(47:40):
George Washington, George Washington in the 18th century in his famous 1790 letter to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, he wrote, “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the goodwill of the other inhabitants.” So pay attention. This is George Washington. He’s recognizing the Jewish community of his days, not as a merely religion, not just a religion, but as a people. He calls them the stock of Abraham with the continuous identity. This is very important. And even Mark Twain, as secular as he was, but Mark Twain wrote in one of his articles that was published in Harper’s magazine in 1899, he wrote Concerning the Jews, that’s the name of the article. He wrote, “The Jews solve them all, beat them all, and it’s now what he always was. All things are moral but the Jew.” Okay.

(48:47):
Once more, we have this confirmation from secular sources, historical sources that the Jewish people never ceased to exist as a nation, even without their nation state, but they were never completely assimilated. They were never vanished and that’s a sign of God’s power. Now to conclude, to summarize our class, let’s state here that the modern state of Israel, brothers and sisters, leaders, pastors, the modern state of Israel should be understood as the modern expression of an ancient promise, a modern expression of an ancient promise. A scattered people preserved, regathered and restored to national existence after nearly 2000 years of exile. That’s how we should see the modern state of Israel, not perfect, but as being formed by the people of the book, the people of the Bible and that’s prophetic.

(50:01):
Jeremiah says that he who scattered Israel will gather him and that’s the fulfillment of this promises. More than seven million Jews reunited in Israel with their nation state, with loss, with a society, thriving society. This is a fulfillment of prophecy, but we need to understand that loving Israel does not mean uncritical politics nor blind endorsement of every decision made by its leaders. I need to make this point clear. This is not blind endorsement. No. There are mistakes. There are errors because it’s a manmade framework, but the existence of the state of Israel, it is fulfillment of prophecy and the people that we have there are the same Israel that we read in the Bible.

(51:03):
Recognizing the state of Israel as such does mean that God is still at work in history and that the Jewish people remain central to that history, to that redemption, to that plan. In the middle ages, we were persecuted because of our religion. In the 19th century and 20th century, we were persecuted because of our race. So they justify antisemitism in the past based on religion or theology. That’s the case with the Inquisition, the Middle Ages. And then in the 1920th century, the justification was science or pseudo science. So the Jews were a very lower race that needs to be vanished for the sake of mankind. That was the twisted mindset of the Nazi and they persecuted us because of our race. Today the persecution still exists. They don’t persecute us because of our race or not only because of our race, not only because of religion.

(52:11):
They persecute us today because of our nation state, because of the state of Israel. So that’s the new form of antisemitism. Like a virus, it mutates and it survives history by mutating. The new form of antisemitism, it’s called anti-Zionism. It’s this hate, unexplainable hate against the nation state of Israel and we should not allow that to be a reality in our circles, in our communities, in our theology or in our congregation. The modern state of Israel is where the people of Israel is politically, socially and nationally represented in our days. Therefore, it should be honored as such protected as such by all followers of Jesus. May we stand with Israel against all forms of antisemitism and anti-ionism. To stand with Israel is to love what God loves and to long for what he longs for. And I want to read with you the text from Isaiah chapter 62, verse one.

(53:30):
What does God long for? What should we long for?

(53:36):
For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent and for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch. That’s the call that we as believers need to have together with all of the other calling that we might have in the body of Christ, but we should all have this torch, this burning inside of us, this vision for Israel’s restoration because when Israel is restored, the world will be restored. When Israel receives Yeshua, reaches out her redemption, the church will reach out he redemption as well. Let’s not forget that was Jesus himself that connected his return to the redemption of Israel. In Matthew chapter 23, speaking for his people, he says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you will not see me again until you say.

(54:57):
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. He’s quoting from Psalm 118, and that’s a royal welcome. That’s a royal welcome. It’s a welcome kings. So he’s connecting his return. He said, “You will not see me again. I will not return to fulfill what I have to fulfill, to bring down the kingdom of God de facto. I will not come again until I’m received by my people as their king.” So Yeshua connects his redemption, his mission to the acceptance of the Jewish people regarding his role as king as savior. That’s why we need to fight antisemitism. That’s why we need to support the modern state of Israel because Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem. He’s not coming back to New York. He’s not coming back to Dallas. Some people wish he could, but he cannot. He has to go back to Jerusalem and he will be received not by other peoples, but he has to be received by his own people by the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

(56:05):
And may this be our posture as the church faithful to the Messiah, committed to the truth and steadfast in our love for the people of Israel and for their modern in gathering in the shape of the state of Israel, trusting fully in a God who keeps his promises across generations. May God bless us and thank you very much.