The Church —a  nation void of understanding . . .

Well did Moses prophecy of the church corporate in his song of departure: “I will provoke them [Israel] to jealously with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding.” Surely, the Church is no political nation, and surely Gentile Christianity has been a people devoid of understanding. They look back on 2000 years regarding it as a period of triumph when it should have been 2000 years of embarrassment at how they have corrupted the essence of God’s revelation. This article will show why Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity are so wholly different.

Moses’ long song of departure is a general chronology of all that will happen to Israel. It begins at Deuteronomy 32:2 and ends at verse 43. It makes it very clear at the end (in verses 39-40) that God will stand upon the earth. In between, Moses speaks at length of how Israel will provoke God with idols and with worshiping other gods. In verse 19 it reads: “And the LORD saw and was jealous; and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters, and said, I will turn away my face from them, and will show what will happen to them in the last days; for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom their is no faith.”

  They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have exasperated me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding. 22 For a fire hath been kindled out of my wrath, it shall burn to hell below; it shall devour the land, and the fruits of it; it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23 I will gather evils upon them, and will fight with my weapons against them. 24 They shall be consumed with hunger and the devouring of birds, and there shall be irremediable destruction: I will send forth against them the teeth of wild beasts, with the rage of serpents creeping on the ground. 25 Without, the sword shall bereave them of children, and terror shall issue out of the secret chambers; the young man shall perish with the virgin, the suckling with him who has grown old. 26 I said, I will scatter them, and I will cause their memorial to cease from among men; but I feared it might provoke the enemy, for their adversaries might misunderstand and say, ‘Our own high arm, and not the LORD, hath done all these things.’

Therefore God would not destroy us entirely. He declared he would repent himself (verse 36) when he sees how feeble we have become in his forsaking of us. Instead he declares to them (in verse 39) “See now that I am he” and the famous verses follow of God being on earth and lifting his hand to heaven.

The subtlety of prophetic context is amazing. Not only did the wording prepare our fathers for the advent of God among us, but now, in retrospect, we see how the LORD is calling out to us after so long a captivity and scattering to “See now that I, even I, am he”-- that Jesus is God with Us.

But to the direct point of this article: During this long captivity we have been provoked to jealousy by a people who are not a nation— in other words, the church or corporate Christianity. Christianity is not an ethnicity like Jewry. We are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We are Hebrews, the first surname our fathers bore (h’Ibri means “from the other side” implying Abram came from the other side of Jordan), an extended family. The Church exists in all lands. It is made up of all peoples and is a symbol that God would be known amongst the nations. The Gentiles have indeed called upon the God of Israel, but this article deals with the long history of the quirks of Gentile Christianity. For 2000 years of history has confirmed the prophecy that this is a “nation void of understanding.” 

Within this period Jews have become but a trickle of people calling upon the living God. Hundreds of millions of Gentiles embrace Christianity, calling upon God. But what have they turned God into, and what have they made of him in the last 2000 years? Have they called upon him in understanding? Have they taught him fully understanding? Or have they constructed their own doctrines and interpreted God with their own pagan heritage, preserving the name and origin of God as the God of Israel but adapting him and trying to understand him with their rationale?  It is the contention here that it is the latter. And though hundreds of thousands have truly believed and shall inherit the resurrection, the church corporate has been a ghastly quagmire of strange pagan influenced concepts. Altogether they cause Jews to wholly regard it as a separate religion with no affinity to Judaism. The result is that Jews cannot regard Jesus as the Messiah despite the prophecies that the Gentiles will seek the Messiah, and that the Messiah will be “cut off” for his people. 

Church and Gentile Christianity has built itself up into the absolute apex of God’s purpose and revelation when in fact according to prophecy it is the jerk interim. This is not made in the spirit of mock or used in carping criticism. When you see what follows in the history of Christianity, you will see why such a strong word as “jerk” is used.  Let us look at how clearly it has fulfilled the prophecy of Moses’ song of departure.

The first person to see a problem was apparently Paul. In Romans 10:19 he quotes the above reference in the Song of Moses, then the passage from Isaiah “I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me” before he proceeds to quote a scathing word from the LORD about us (Jews)-- and there have been many. We, Israel, have been even worse because we knew of God and yet went after sin. But one thing we didn’t do was make up complex genealogies for God, turn him into three parts (triad), give him a pedigree like Greek and Egyptian gods had, and invent a whole host of strange Gnostic concepts where salvation is dependent on theorem.

Paul’s quotation of Moses was an incredible insult upon the church which he probably did not openly intend to make. This can be said now because Paul had no idea of the duration of the corruption in Christianity-- nor how bad it would get. From what he saw he probably thought that the pagan Greeks and Romans had not known God until his preaching-- they had been “void of understanding” the existence of the true God because of their ignorance. He didn’t seem to imply that they would have problems (and make problems) understanding the very doctrines of God for so long to come. But the prophecy in the Song of Moses implies a lengthy duration:  “I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding.”

From there we go to such warnings as exist in Colossians. This book, believed to have been written by Paul’s disciples sometime after his death, contains a warning against things which were already happening. “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind . . .”

Regardless of such warnings the worshiping of angels and the praying to “saints” dominated Christianity for over a thousand years, and it is still a major factor in the Catholic superstition. These were merely the “christianizing” of Roman and Greek paganism with its patron deities, penates, and many household idols. But bizarre misunderstandings of actual Christian ritual crept in early. Transubstantiation is one. This is the belief that the wine and bread of the Eucharist actually becomes the blood and flesh of Jesus upon ingestion. This distorted belief became even more distorted before it reached the ears of Roman governors. Once it did, they were sure Christians were cannibals and atheists. It was their solemn duty to civilization to wipe out this bizarre cult. Thus, the major Christian persecutions ensued. Transubstantiation is still endorsed by Catholicism and, amazingly, Lutheranism.

The christianizing of paganism worked in the opposite direction as well-- the paganizing of Christianity.  An unusual mixture that produced much of Catholicism and eastern Orthodox. Asteroth had been called “Queen of Heaven” by the pagans. Hera was wife of Zeus and Queen of the gods. Not so surprisingly Mary began to figure in the Christian pantheon as a deity or demigod. She became “Queen of heaven” and Mother of God. Gross, to say the least. Many saints were incorporated into the divine sphere, just like the lesser Greek gods and demigods were satellites for the major Olympian gods. Mary and Jesus occupied the top, being surrounded by demigods now called saints. Apostles were a major part of that sphere, and certain saints just like their patron deity predecessors protected certain activities and patronized certain and specific areas of everyday life, like the kitchen, the field, animals, etc. Statues are still paraded around on saints’ days, carried upon a large platform just like in the days of Roman and Greek festivals when the idol was brought out and paraded around. 

To medieval Jews this was Christianity. It looked no different than paganism. Sometimes the rituals were so close to pagan rituals and festivals that names had merely been changed. Apollo was gone, so was Aphrodite. In their place were saints. Cold idols were dressed in different, less skimpy clothes, but idols they were. Demigods were no more, but man could still rise to be quasi divine by being an exceptionally good Christian. Heroes like Hercules had done so, but not by being a good Christian but by being a great humanistic mighty man. Now those exceptionally righteous became saints. They, too, received prayer from mortals.

But on top of them all was “God.” The God was the God of Israel, and Jesus was the “Son,” who, as far as Jews were concerned had been a carpenter in Nazareth long before. It must have been an interesting source of frustration to medieval Jews to walk about Europe and be confronted with statues of Jesus, Mary, and who knows else, all these Jews of 1000 or more years before. Apostle images were everywhere-- 12 Jews who lived a long time ago. Paul was being preached by all the clergy-- another Jew with ideas hard to understand. How bizarre in Jewish eyes! The whole world was changed in veneer and some practices; images in stone were different, but underneath it all it was remarkably the same as Greco-Roman paganism. The same name was even kept: Roman Catholic, the Universal Roman Religion of the Caesars and Empire. The difference now was that it was all cannibalized to hold biblical motifs, and the pantheon was replaced by Jews.  The supreme God was acknowledged to be the God of Israel. In fact, Christianity insisted there was no other God. Though they prayed to a myriad of forms, none would ever form an image of “God.” It was always Jesus and Mary.

We were scattered about the earth, strange outcasts amidst a former paganism dominated by the bible stories of God’s great doings. We were persecuted as “Christ killers,” even though that entire generation had perished long ago. All western religion came from our own background, though now it was twisted and perverse. The temple had long been destroyed, and we had been in captivity for over 1000 years. By the time of the Reformation, about 1400 years. Longer than any time before. No prophets. No continuing revelation. Scattering-- according to scripture a sign of God’s curse and not blessing.

“And it shall come to pass that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you; and ye shall be quickly removed from the land, into which ye go to inherit it. And the LORD thy God shall scatter thee among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other; and thou shalt there serve other gods, wood and stone, which thou hast not known, nor thy fathers. Moreover among those nations he will not give thee quiet, neither by any means shall the sole of thy foot have rest; and the LORD shall give thee there another and a misgiving heart, and failing eyes, and a wasting soul. And thy life shall be in suspense before thine eyes; and thou shalt be afraid by day and by night, and thou shalt have no assurance of thy life…”

Was this because of the direct word given to Moses by God on Horeb? He said he would raise up a prophet from amongst us, like Moses, born of our people. “The LORD thy God shall raise up to thee a prophet of thy brethren, like me; him shall ye hear: according to all things which thou didst desire of the LORD thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, We will not again hear the voice of the LORD thy God, and we will not anymore see this great fire, and so we shall not die. And the LORD said to me, They have spoken rightly all that they have said to thee. I will raise up to them a prophet of their brethren, like thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them as I shall command him. And whatever man shall not hearken to whatsoever words that prophet shall speak to them, I will take vengeance on him.”

Could all this persecution and scattering be the result of not hearkening unto “that prophet?” But how could Jesus be that prophet? After all, look at the nations and how idolatrous they are. True, it is now tailored to a Jewish motif . . .but look at it all!

Though there appears to be no record that Moses was overtly told by God that he would walk among us, this whole concept seemed ingrained in him. He spoke that his redeemer who was alive already and yet would “stand upon the earth” at the latter days to come. Because of this Moses would see the resurrection in which he would be able to see God with his own eyes. Yet he knew no creature could ever see God as he is. His song of departure also spoke of God declaring from the point of view of being on earth that he lives forever and that he will raise his hand to heaven. It was hardly subtle that God would walk among us.

Isaiah 49 is a blunt prophecy spoken from the point of view of the “prince of God” who would be raised up to gather Israel and yet Israel would not be completely gathered. And he said, It is too small a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. Thus saith the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the LORD that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee.

But we come again to Moses’ song of departure. “I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding.”

The Reformation brought with it something more tolerable to Jews: no idolatry of any kind. The Protestants had no statuary and condemned the Church of Rome for allowing itself to become so pagan and corrupt. But though Protestantism rebelled against the authority of Rome, it did not rebel against many of the tenets that Rome itself had inherited from the early church. The foremost was Trinity, the peculiar and very unbibilical view in a god who was a triad. Such a concept was well known in paganism, especially Egyptian and Roman religions. It is very possible that the Capitoline triad of Juno, Jupiter and Minerva served as the inspiration to mold God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost into one entity and yet keep them as separate entities fulfilling different aspects and functions. (See Echod)

Luther seemed a Godsend. He believed that reformation from Catholicism would revealed the truth of Christianity to Jews. When Jews didn’t convert, he became rancid against them. We were “vermin.” Not an endearing term. Was it just us “dirty Jews,” or were there things in Protestantism that seemed wholly unbiblical? Well, there was hardness on our parts, too, but Protestantism and Lutheranism were carrying over some peculiar ideas. God would not have us absorbed, and one of the worst carry-overs among Protestantism was the vulgar supersessionism which would have destroyed Israel as a people.

Hand in hand with this concept went the concept of the “Old Testament”. With the Scriptures accorded secondary status the idea of a Trinity went unchallenged. This was outright paganism to Jews. There’s an old joke about a Jew in Rome who gets run down outside of a church. People gather around and a priest comes running out concerned for his salvation and kneels beside him.  “My son, do you believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit?” The Jew looks up. “I’m dieing and he asks me riddles?” Rather New Testament commentaries should have been interpreted with Scripture to portray the undeniable fact that God is one and that he had walked among us as he swore he would.

Because Protestantism’s avid evangelizing a new form of Gnosticism emerged-- vain theorizing inspired by New Testament passages. Before Catholicism squelched it, Gnosticism had thrived amongst the Greek Christians through rationalizing Jesus with Greek concepts. The orthodox church attempted to fight it with Scripture, but soon Gnostics like Marcion did away with Scripture and relied on selective New Testament books and arguments. He created a sect of Christianity that lasted for a few hundred years. He advocated celibacy and other ideas based merely on passing comments by his favorite apostle, Paul. The new Protestantism would wipe out the paganism of Rome and its attraction to Mary and saints, but it carried over the concepts of Supersessionism and used it to anchor many unusual doctrines derived from a purely Pharisaic use of the New Testament. Oy.

A major confusing one was to do away with Israel as an entity. References to “true Israel” and “all Israel is not Israel” and “Israel of God” were taken out of their Hasidic sense and declared to be referring to the true Church. Many Gentile fundamentalists believe that any reference to Israel really refers to them now because Israel typified the Church in the “Old Testament.”

Jeremiah 23 makes it plain how the word of God is to be proclaimed, if one truly has it. None of the apostles asserted this for their own writings. They insisted that Scripture be used as the authority of the church. With time, however, that “nation void of understanding” turned the books it liked into the New Testament and ordained these as the words of God. For Protestantism, teachings largely derive in a Pharisaical manner from New Testament passages. Your personal acknowledgment of doctrines, often manmade and derived from expressions or even just a word in the New Testament, indicated whether you were saved or not.

So many teachings, often contradictory, have come from Protestantism that it is not possible to even touch on them all.

Yet God’s hand has not been hidden all this time. He is breaking up Gentile Christian Phariseeism to open the doors for Jews. Supersessionism is crumbling as a result. An adulation (not always good, of course) of Jews has emerged from many sects in Christianity. This often protects a growing Jewish Messianism from more fundamentalist supersessionists and missionaries who seek to stop the “Sabbath keepers.” Messianic Jewry is beginning to thrive. The hand of God is obvious, and it should cause chills upon the nations. He said he would restore Israel. This means the children of Jacob, the Hebrews. This means more than politics. He is restoring his soul to his people that we should not be void of understanding. God has plundered the nations and taken those who believed upon him. In the midst of their foolishness he has been gracious.

 Many of the fundamentalists are greeting many of the changes as signs of the last days’ apostasy they can’t even find in scripture (and which contradict the gospels and Isaiah 9). They wait eagerly for Christ to return, seeing all the immorality in the Church as a sign of his coming. “Liberals” are allowing anything. The church traditional, that “nation void of understanding,” is beset by many factions. Its eyes are off of a movement which is in God’s own hand: Messianic Jewry-- true Judaism.

Hard days come. Jewish believers are fighting being absorbed. But a strange thing has happened to mainstream Jewry. In only 40 years of secular liberalism we have arisen to “play,” to forget God’s moral codes, to forget our past, and to be worse in sin than the nations. One Reform rabbi even declares “there is no messiah,” thinking he looks quite the savant I suppose. But now a new generation is seeking God in substance, seeing how easily the old generation, steeped only in mere ritualistic traditions, went a whoring.  It is now that God is calling his people back. Messianic Jews must stopped preaching Gentile traditions, and start proclaiming the good news maintained in the first benediction of the Amidah. God has sent the Redeemer promised to us. God is one. He has walked among us. Jacob will believe this. Search the great vault of history and see how his word cannot be voided.

   Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD. For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us. In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of mankind, and of all the heathen, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.