Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 322A — What if the Jews Had Accepted Christ?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: John 1:11 discusses the fact that Christ did go to His own people. He was of the tribe of Judah. And they did not receive Him. And John the Baptist said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." And another thing he said was, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Let us say that the people of Judah at that time had a very repentant heart, and this includes their religious leadership, and were really in tune with God, and had been convicted of their sins and realized that Christ was the prophesied One all throughout the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi. Would that have marked the end of the world? And the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of being transformed into the church, would that have been the literal meaning of Heaven? Or, in capsule, what would their fate have been if, instead of murdering Him, they had received Him as the Savior?
HC: That's a very interesting question. And it's a very valuable question, also, to face because it might clear up some misunderstandings that some have regarding what the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven is.
The question really is this. Suppose that the Jews of Jesus' day had welcomed Jesus with open arms as the prophesied Messiah. Instead of turning on Him, instead of repudiating Him and eventually seeing to it that He was crucified, suppose they had really, as a nation, accepted Him as their Messiah? Would God then have ushered into existence the Kingdom of Heaven?
Actually, we have to face this question. On what basis can there be a Kingdom of Heaven that is populated by human beings? The only basis that this can exist on is if our sins have been paid for, if somehow we have equivalently or actually endured an eternity in hell, and now the demands of the law that declare that "the wages of sin is death" have all been taken care of, only then could we become a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.
CALLER: I do believe personally that at the cross Satan was defeated once and for all. Christ endured the temptation of Satan. Christ endured the temptation of the religious leadership and some of the people of His day, and didn't succumb to their temptation (Satan wanted signs). Well had these people that He went to accepted Him, do you think Satan and his angels at that time would have involved themselves in a war with Christ?
HC: No. You see, if the Jewish people had accepted Him, and if Christ had not gone to the cross, there would be no kingdom. There would be no Heaven for human beings. There would be no Messiah. Christ came to go to the cross. He came to be crucified. This was His purpose in coming.
Now we can hypothecate and say, "If the Jews had not crucified Him, then somebody else would have." Satan would have in some other fashion made sure that He had gone to the cross, because it was essential that Jesus went to the cross. He could not be a king. He could not establish His Kingdom unless He went to the cross. Only by going to the cross and paying for our sins, enduring the wrath of God on our behalf, can He be King over those who are redeemed.
CALLER: So what you're saying is that once Israel had fulfilled its role, the new body of Christ is the church. Now in James epistle, it is introduced with the naming of the twelve tribes, but no more in that epistle is there mention of the twelve or thirteen tribes. So some that it's really symbolizing the church. Do you agree with that?
HC: The question is raised, When James says in James 1:1, "James a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad greeting," is he referring to national Israel or is he referring to the body of believers which is called the church?"
I believe that he is speaking here of all believers We are the true Israel. We are the seed of Abraham. Anyone at all, according to Galatians 3, who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, is the true seed of Abraham. And we of course are scattered abroad. We are found in every nation of the world. And God writes to us in His Word.
And we have come into being because Christ went to the cross. Now why God chose the nation of Israel to crucify Him, that's another problem altogether. It was thoroughly anticipated in the Old Testament that the nation of Israel had rejected God consistently, throughout the Old Testament. And the unbelief that Jesus experienced when He came here was thoroughly anticipated in the Old Testament. There were no surprises of any kind in the conduct of the nation of Israel at the time that Jesus appeared amongst them.
Wonderfully, because of God's grace, and only because of God's grace a remnant chosen by grace from amongst the nation of Israel did turn to Him. We read about them when we read about the disciples, and the women who followed Him, and so on.
But because He was crucified, He became the King. Now the Old Testament church, the organized body of believers, the outward expression of the body of Christ in the Old Testament, was called the congregation or the assembly, or the nation of Israel, because it was totally identified with the nation of Israel. It was augmented by proselytes who became a part of the worship service by first being circumcised.
Now that came to an end when Christ went to the cross, because it was identified with the ceremonial law. But it picked up again under the leadership of the twelve apostles, and continued with national Israel, starting all over again with a remnant chosen by grace out of national Israel, but augmented by many Gentiles, so that throughout the New Testament period the congregation or the assembly, or Israel, if you will, really consists, to a far higher degree, of nations that have no blood descent from Abraham.