3
That is why one such as Karl Barth can assert that the Lord Jesus "the Servant of God who came from Israel", and Jesus, the "Saviour of all peoples", are "two realities inseparable from each other...for the whole of history, indeed for all eternity. Israel is nothing apart from Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ would not be Jesus Christ apart from Israel."
That is why he even more strongly (perhaps for some, shockingly?) can insist, "Anyone who is in principle hostile to the Jews, must also be seen as in principle an enemy of Jesus Christ." (3)
Who, if not the Church, is going to labour in prayer to oppose the "great red dragon" who has already sought to "devour" the "male child (who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron)", brought forth by the "woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars"?
Who, if not the Church, is going to pray for this "woman", still fiercely pursued by the dragon who continues to pour "water like a river out of his mouth...to sweep her away with the flood"? (Rev 12)
(2) God has gathered His beloved Jewish People into The Land to be saved..."but only as through fire". (1 Co 3.15) The Messianic scholar, David Baron (1855-1926, England) plainly foresees these events in his exposition of Ezekiel 22.17-22: "It is clear that there is a time of purging by fiery judgement awaiting Israel after their return to their land, which will immediately precede their national conversion and the revelation to them of the Messiah, whom, as a nation, they have so long rejected."
The issue of Jesus our King's return, is the issue of the presence of a believing Jewish Community in Jerusalem. And the issue of just such a Company, spiritually awakened and restored unto Jesus, is the issue of remnant-Israel being present in The Land...even as "all the nations of the earth" circle for "the kill"!
satan and his nations will view Jerusalem (and The Land too!) as a vessel of final destruction. But God's grace is to triumph and will make this instrument of apparent death like unto the "burning fiery furnace" of Daniel 3 - to be sure, stoked by "Nebuchadnezzar" (4) - but wherein walks "the Son of God" their Saviour (v25) who "chastises every son whom he receives". (Heb 12.6)
"So all Israel will be saved...the Deliverer will come from (and 'to' according to Isaiah 59.20-21) Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob." (Ro 11.26-27)
"And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, every one who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgement and by a spirit of burning." (Isa 4.3-4)
"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child." (Zec 12.10)
