In order to really see what is happening to the churches it is helpful to study the Bible asking the question in our title: What Happened to Israel? According to what God plainly tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:11, the Old Testament Scriptures “are written for our admonition.” In other words, a key purpose of the Hebrew Scriptures is to admonish Christians in the “Church Age” about what happened between God and Israel, presumably so that the churches will not fall into the same condemnation that befell Israel.
So, what did happen to Israel? By the time we come to the end of the Hebrew writings God has stopped communicating truth to Israel through prophets at all. From the days of Malachi’s ministry to the coming of John the Baptist is a period of about four hundred years during which the voice of a prophet of God was not heard among the Jews. We must examine this more closely. In Malachi’s message to Israel, we have a revealing clue as to what had happened to Israel. Malachi confronts the Jews with their hard-heartedness regarding the truth. In doing so, he repeatedly uses a pattern to show them their terrible sin. It goes something like this:
After having revealed a controversy God has with them, Malachi confronts them with their response. God has said that He is seriously displeased with you about this...yet ye say. God speaks truth in its purest form. But the Jews constantly argued with His condemnation of their sins. They had come to the place of disregarding or redefining truth when it suited them. The truth itself was no longer sacred among them.
They had no qualms at all about calling God a liar when His controversies stung them forcefully. Four hundred years later, when Christ Himself came among them, they were highly indignant when He dared to suggest that their religious misinterpretations of God’s revealed truth were errant. Who was He to question them? They even accused Him of working with the Devil!
The seriousness of this reality can be seen, further, by looking at something remarkable in Romans 3:2, where speaking of the Jews, Paul says, “unto them were committed the oracles of God.”[1] In very specific terms God is saying that He had literally committed His own utterances of truth unto Israel. If God chooses to grant unto men His very own authoritative utterances of truth, those Scriptures must be guarded at all costs against personal interpretation[2] or the encroachment of error.
Yet, even in view of such clear revelation concerning how God’s words are to be revered and guarded, by the time Jesus came among the Jews they had been constantly redefining Scripture to tailor it to their own errant religious teachings. Much of this was codified in the rabbinical writings, which are still held as being as authoritative as the Scriptures themselves.[3] This high esteem of the traditions of the fathers calls to mind the Roman Catholic esteem for the dictates of popes given ex cathedra throughout history.
Furthermore, when Jesus specifically confronted them with this sin, they repeatedly argued with Him. Consider, for example Matthew 15:1-6, where the Lord condemns their rabbinic traditions strongly. Additionally, the entire twenty-third chapter of Matthew[4] records the Lord Jesus Christ’s open controversies with the Jewish religious leaders of the day. The chapter is literally filled with His condemnation of them for their constant redefining of God’s words! The danger I am seeking to get at is that this same pattern characterizes many in Christian circles in America, and is being exported to the mission fields of the world. But we must dig just a bit deeper.
Many pastors and teachers in twenty-first century churches seem to have a case of myopia when it comes to seeing clearly what really happened to Israel. The vast majority of these well-meaning men[5] suggest that the glaring error among the Jews, that one key thing that turned their hearts away from God, was idolatry. But the greatest controversy God had with His own people was not their idolatry. It was their readiness to redefine His revelation of truth so as to validate that they were, after all, “God’s people.”
Redefining truth so as to accommodate and advance dead religiousness is what ended up building a wall between them and the God of truth. Once truth is redefined so as to support error there is no going back. After all, the very truth that alone can correct the error has been utterly compromised through human tradition. As hinted at previously, no less than five times in the Gospels we find the Lord Jesus Christ plainly stating the grave danger of replacing God’s truth with human tradition. These human traditions were a religious growth[6] superimposed over biblical truth and holding as much authority among the teachers as the truth itself. They demanded adherence to the traditions, often at the expense of God’s truth altogether. This same error is transpiring in the churches today. And, as this destroyed the Jews’ relationship with the God of truth, so it is destroying the relationship of many in churches with the God of truth today.
My contention is that Israel’s relationship with God became deeply flawed through their redefinitions of truth through their traditions. If the churches in America in the present day continues in the path down which they are hurtling, God will be forced to set such churches aside, as He did with Israel. We need to be careful of holding to definitions of biblical truth and ways of doing things in the churches simply because “we have always thought of it this way” or “we have always done it this way.” I will have a great deal more to say about this as I proceed. This is merely an introduction to this troubling reality.
[1] Greek word for oracles literally means “utterances.” [2] 2 Peter 1:20- “...no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” The word ‘prophecy’ in this verse means: a discourse emanating from divine inspiration and declaring the purposes of God, according to Thayer. It is not referring to only those portions of Scripture dealing directly with what we think of as prophecy. [3] Please see the brief introduction to these writings here: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4354682/jewish/10-Sacred-Texts-of-Judaism.htm. Pay particular attention to the Mishnah and the Talmud. [4] It would be a blessing, indeed, if Matthew 23 were as highly valued among Christians as is Psalm 23! [5] Or, in some cases, surely, not so well-meaning men. [6] A kind of spiritual cancer.
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