AN ARTICLE ON JEWISH IDENTITY
by Peter John Brandal

June 28, 2015

When God promised Abraham that his descendants would possess all of the land from the Nile River in Egypt to Lebanon, and everything from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River, he could not have imagined that God’s promise to him would be delayed by a diaspora lasting nearly 4,000 years.

A dispersion of the twelve tribes of Israel sent Abraham’s progeny to the far corners of the Earth, and their journey through time would be marked by a level of ethnic hatred and religious persecution greater than that of any other tribe of humans in the past.

Under Roman rule, this same level of anti-Jew feeling would result in an expulsion of native Jews from their homeland of 3,000 years, and would sever them from it finally in the year 132 AD.

God’s promise to Abraham, and to his descendants, as glorious as it was, was meant only for a latter-day generation that would be born far into the distant future.

Many of the major and minor prophets foretold a re-gathering of the tribes to their promised birthright at the end of time, but the prophet Amos was especially descriptive in his words of prophecy for that long-awaited restoration of the Jewish people.

Except for the testimony of the early prophets, we would have no way of knowing the relevance of past or present day events affecting modern descendants of the most celebrated Hebrew patriarch.

What Amos prophesied, in fact, might be the most amazing in light of what we see happening in Israel today.

He wrote:

“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.” (Amos 9:13-15)

Today, a great battle is taking place over the air waves of our modern media disputing both the origin and ethnicity of those living in the state of Israel. Those opposed to the Jewish state ignore millennia of historical, archaeological, and literary evidence that defines a culture like no other in human history.

Each of the prophets who followed in the foot steps of Moses foretold the birth of a modern Hebrew nation, and they have been proven right — from the lips of Isaiah to the pen of the Apostle Paul.

Let us read the remarkable words of the prophet Isaiah:

“Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.” (Is 66:7-9)

It was in the midst of the Second World War that Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, decreed the birth of new Zion nearly six years to the day before it officially took its first breath in the Spring of 1948.

By rejecting the Balfour Declaration endorsed by Britain and the League of Nations, Ben-Gurion in 1942 struck the rock of Horeb in the desert of international politics to bring about the first Jewish state since King David ruled over Judah!

It was then that the words of Isaiah, and also the words of Jesus pointing to the “sorrow of birth pangs” in a future restoration of Jerusalem – had finally come to pass.

Today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defends his country as the one nation on Earth whose citizens are the re-gathered tribes of ancient Israel, previously scattered and persecuted, but held in memory by God.

This culmination of historic and recent events in the land of Palestine led to the birth of a tiny nation on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea under the most improbable of circumstances.

Israel’s many enemies include those allied against the Hebrew people during the biblical era, but her detractors are not confined to the surrounding Arab states.

Numerous non-regional political voices have now risen up in the form of a PR campaign whose objective is to move public opinion against the Jewish state — so that even Jewish identity itself is questioned.

You might think that such efforts are an attempt to improve the social and economic fortunes of everyone living in the Middle East, but that view is not supported by the evidence.

Many anti-Israel PR activities can be found in forums or websites disguised as Christian venues, but whose real purpose is to portay modern Israel as an “Antichrist state.”

Other PR efforts are less subtle and seek to dissolve the Jewish nation by any and every means possible.

These many voices promote the separation of Israel from its ancient capital city and are themselves agents of antichrist hoping to prevent the sovereign rule of Christ from Zion.

This flood of propaganda against Israel is aimed mostly at Christians in the USA, perhaps because Christians have been the greatest defender of an undivided Jerusalem.

The long-standing support of the Church has helped Israel maintain its military superiority in a region known for its many uncertain alliances.

Incredibly, President Obama’s efforts to defeat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu using his own political proxies during Israeli elections in 2016 revealed the first instance of a US President’s open contempt for the Jewish state.

In virtually every Internet venue in which issues affecting the state of Israel are discussed, PR agents can be found posing as Christians.

The portrayal of Zionist Jews as impostors who took land away from “palestinian” land owners in order to create a make-believe Jewish homeland is everywhere in social media.

The word “Zionist” is commonly used by propagandists as an epithet to condemn national Judaism in their satan-inspired attempt to divide Jerusalem.

The assertion that Israel is not actually a Jewish population relies on every conceivable distortion of history, science, and of course, the Bible.

These assertions may well be the “strong delusion” prophesied by the Apostle Paul in his letter to believers in Thessalonica, as such fallacies now sweep the globe.

We want to look at the rationale behind this contempt for the modern Hebrew nation, which is being blamed for all the unrest we see in today’s holy land.

First, let’s look at the biblical case for the idea that an ethnic Jew is not a real Jew, and what the Apostle Paul said about this in the book of Romans:

“For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter… ” (Romans 2:28,29)

This plainly makes the case that an ethnic Jew must accept Christ to be a saved Jew since without faith in the Messiah one remains an unbeliever.

And we know God has extended salvation to both unbelieving Jews and Gentiles since the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ shortly before the birth of the Church.

But Paul goes on to say in the same letter that God has blinded Israel for the purpose of bringing the Gospel to the gentiles only until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled, at which point something even more remarkable will happen: the eyes of ethnic Jews will be opened!

Let’s look at all the relevant portions of this passage:

“I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew…” (Rom 11:1,2)

Note that Paul here identifies himself as a Benjamite, referring to ethnic Jews as being God’s people and saying God had not rejected them. This passage clearly contradicts those who assert that Paul’s use of the word “Israel” is in reference to the Christian Church, or that the Church itself has become Israel.

Paul continues:

“What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day…I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles…”

According to the Apostle, God has purposely blinded the Jews so that unbelieving gentiles can receive the Gospel of Christ and be saved. He concludes his passage by prophesying the salvation of future Israel:

“Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?… FOR GOD IS ABLE TO GRAFT THEM IN AGAIN….

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, UNTIL THE FULLNESS OF THE GENTILES BE COME IN…

For if the first fruit (Jewish believers) be holy, the lump (all believers) is ALSO holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches…. For God hath concluded them ALL in unbelief, THAT HE MIGHT HAVE MERCY UPON ALL…

…SO ALL ISRAEL SHALL BE SAVED…For this is my covenant unto them, when I SHALL take away their sins.” (Romans 11:12-32)

This is indisputable proof that God will open the eyes of future Israel and save a remnant of ethnic Jews before Christ returns.

Note that gentile believers would not need to be grafted in again, this can only apply to unbelieving Jews.

The fact that most modern Jews remain in unbelief will not prevent their eyes from being opened once the times of the gentiles have been fulfilled, as Paul prophesied they will be.

“For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?” (Rom 11:24)

Those who deny God’s covenant promise to save future Israel say that national Israel is a nation of “false Jews” created by Satan to defraud the public. There is absolutely no scriptural support for that claim.

The rebirth of the modern Hebrew nation fulfills a number of Old Testament passages prophesying the return of the Jewish people to their promised homeland at the end of time. Not a single bible prophecy warns of a false Jewish state orchestrated by Lucifer.

We know that Jesus prophesied the rebirth of modern Israel in Matthew 24:32, and that is why the angel of the Lord spoke to me audibly in 2008 about a 1942 meeting of Zionists in New York City.

Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, proclaimed the opening of the gates of Palestine to reclaim the historic Jewish homeland and to mark the end of the Jewish diaspora.

Before this was spoken to me in the Spring of 2008, I had no knowledge whatsoever of this event in modern Jewish history!

What did God reveal about the end of time to the prophets of ancient Judea? Here are some key passages from scripture that reveal the significance of modern events:

“For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim: Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days.” (Hosea 3:4,5)

“I will bring you from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered — with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath.” (Ezekiel 20:34)

The modern Jewish nation was born in the midst of the Holocaust, which was a poignant example of “outpoured wrath” in fulfillment of this remarkable prophecy.

We can be sure that modern Israel is the regathering of those scattered throughout the earth in these last days to mark the return of Jacob to his ancestral homeland.

Zechariah is another prophet who foresaw a restored Israel in these last days:

“In that day will I make the chiefs of Judah like a big, blazing pot among [sticks of] wood and like a flaming torch among sheaves [of grain], and they shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left; and they of Jerusalem shall yet again dwell and sit securely in their own place, in Jerusalem.

In that day will the Lord guard and defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem… And it shall be in that day that I will make it My aim to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” (Zech 12:6-9)

This brings us to the false claim that Zionist Jews have no ancestral ties to Abraham, based in part on Arthur Koestler’s book, “The Thirteenth Tribe,” published in 1976.

Koestler was not anti-Semitic, but he believed there was evidence that Ashkenazi Jews living in modern Israel may have been descended from Khazarian converts of the Turkic Khazar Empire, to which many Jews had fled seeking refuge in the 8th century.

Koestler’s use of 1970’s technology for genetic mapping, however, would be considered primitive by today’s standards, and far more advanced tools for DNA research have come to a very different conclusion.

The latest Semitic blood and DNA analysis shows that, despite DNA admixture with local populations, genetic sampling from Ashkenazi, Caucasian, Middle Eastern, North African, and Sephardi Jews, are consistent with common Levantine ancestry, meaning that modern Jews have a unique genetic link to both one another and to the earliest known populations of Jews residing in the Middle East.

In a study titled, “No Evidence from Genome-Wide Data of a Khazar Origin for the Ashkenazi Jews,” we see scientific support for modern Jewish identity in the Middle East:

“…through integration of genotypes on newly collected samples with data from several of our past studies, we have assembled the largest data set available to date for assessment of Ashkenazi Jewish genetic origins.

This data set contains genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms in 1,774 samples from 106 Jewish and non-Jewish populations that span the possible regions of potential Ashkenazi ancestry: Europe, the Middle East, and the region historically associated with the Khazar Khaganate….

Employing a variety of standard techniques for the analysis of population-genetic structure, we find that Ashkenazi Jews share the greatest genetic ancestry with other Jewish populations, and among non-Jewish populations, with groups from Europe and the Middle East.

No particular similarity of Ashkenazi Jews with populations from the Caucasus is evident, particularly with the populations that most closely represent the Khazar region.

Thus, analysis of Ashkenazi Jews together with a large sample from the region of the Khazar Khaganate corroborates the earlier results that Ashkenazi Jews derive their ancestry primarily from populations of the Middle East and Europe, that they possess considerable shared ancestry with other Jewish populations, and that there is no indication of a significant genetic contribution either from within or from north of the Caucasus region.”

[STUDY LINK]

Here are two additional links with evidence that modern Jews have an ancestral link to ancient Jews in the Levant:

LINK A

LINK B

Although we as Christians know that faith in Jesus Christ is the key to eternal life, the restoration of ancient Judah and the salvation of a Jewish remnant cannot be overstated..

We know, as well, that it was God himself who used the Abrahamic blood-line to bring our Messiah into the world, and that the restoration (and preservation) of modern Israel is a direct fulfillment of bible prophecy.

Yet another refutation of Jewish identity claims the word “Jew” was invented during Hebrew-to-English translations in the 17th century. This is a ridiculously semantic argument that seeks to invalidate Semitic heritage based on the modern lexicon.

We should understand the origin of the word “Jew” if only because its use in scripture is so frequent, and because it identifies the progeny of Abraham and Christ himself.

The word “Jew” was derived from the name of Jacob’s fourth son, Judah (Hebrew: Yehudah) and might originally have referred only to one of his descendants.

However, in modern times, the word “Jew” has become a ubiquitous reference to all of Jacob’s descendants.

The fact that Judah fathered one of the twelve tribes of Israel is precisely why the word “Jew” (a Judahite) has relevance to modern Jewry.

The genealogical link between modern day Jews and their ancestor Judah, who himself was a son of Jacob, or Israel, is a matter of ancestry.

Judah, we should remember, was the particular tribe which gave birth to Christ, giving rise to the Messianic moniker, “Lion of Judah.”

Modern usage of this word also means anyone whose ancestral practice of Judaism (another reference to Judah) connects them to the Jewish faith.

Despite modern efforts to deny Jewish identity, Semitic heritage based on the practice of Judaism has endured for thousands of years.

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Various wars that took place between the tribes of Israel, as described in the book of Kings, marked a division between the tribes that located themselves north of Jerusalem and those that located themselves to the south.

While each tribe belonged to Israel, the northern 10 tribes were called by the name of Israel while the two southern tribes were called by the name of Judah.

All twelve tribes retained their historical lineage to Jacob (whose name had been changed to Israel), thus Judah (like each of the other tribes) also retained its ancestral link to Abraham through Jacob.

Another frequent criticism of Zionist Jews is often taken from the book of Revelation:

“Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.” (Rev 3:9)

Since we have already shown that modern Zionist Jews are the true progeny of the original 12 tribes, and that future Israel is to be saved according to the Apostle Paul in Romans, we want to know the identity of those who say they are Jews, but are not.

Who exactly is Jesus referring to in this passage?

If we think about Satan’s perspective on this question, it becomes obvious that in order to deny Jewish identity, he must enlist a proxy group to which Jewish identity (or its equivalent) can be attributed.

We see exactly that in those who practice the Islamic faith, asserting Abraham’s birthright through Ishmael in direct contradiction of the ancient Hebrew text.

A variety of other cult religions rely on similar fabrications, including Jehovah Witnesses and the Hebrew Roots Movement. Both of these groups claim to be true Jews.

A Christian perspective on Israel can only be demonstrated by active support of the Hebrew text, which asserts the role of the Jewish state in Bible prophecy.

Three main groups can be identified as those who say they are Jews, but are not:

1) Group one is a PR campaign of political activism funded by Marxists, often in the guise of Christian outreach in social media.

These groups use a variety of tactics to deny Jewish identity, but their main objective is to foster contempt for modern Israel.

Satan believes if he can divide or destroy Jerusalem, he can also prevent Christ from taking over the nations.

2) Group two is made up of pseudo-Christian cult groups who believe themselves to be true Jews based on racial attributes such as skin color.

An equivalent to the “black roots” movement is called “British Israel,” a cult group whose theology equates Jewish identity with British ancestry.

3) Group 3 is Islam, whose core teaching is that the birthright of Abraham was passed on to Ishmael based on the claim that Jews altered the original Hebrew text.

Muslims are taught that ethnic Jews were rejected by God and that only practitioners of Islam have a valid claim to Palestine. Despite the fact that Muslims do not use the word Jew to describe themselves, their belief that Isaac’s birthright has no historical validity evokes Jewish identity as the Revelation passage warns.

I will finally make mention of the charge that Israel is engaging in apartheid policies toward “palestinians,” Arabs who were displaced when Israel first marked out its national borders in 1947 and 1948.

The truth is that “palestinians” were migrant Arabs with ancestral ties to surrounding Arab countries, such as Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

Those same Arabs were invited to become Israeli citizens following the purchase of their homes in order to establish Israel’s national boundary.

Israel has the largest Arab population (22%) of any non-Arabic country in the world, a difficult statistic to explain by those who claim the Jewish state is apartheid. Not a single Arab country today has a Jewish population of more than 1%.

More than one million Jews were forcibly expelled from surrounding Arab nations as an act of retribution for the founding of modern day Israel, a fact that by itself refutes the propaganda coming from the world of Islam.

See the Virtual Jewish Library for a true history of the holy land using the link below:

LINK: JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY

Pray for the peace of Israel and know that a remnant is prophesied to find salvation in the arms of her Messiah in the days just ahead!

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