Von Daniel Ventura – Own work,
CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
The "Apostolic Succession" of the Catholic church
Israel has been God-less for two thousand years
Why more and more Jews are no longer rejecting Jesus
"The Roman Catholic Church traditionally claims to have been founded by Jesus Christ himself, in
particular on the basis of Jesus’ comparing the Apostle Peter to a ‘rock’ (Mt 16,18–19)." (WIKIPEDIA)
You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church.
Mt16,13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who
do people say that the Son of Man is?" 16,14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still
others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."
16,15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16,16 Simon
Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 16,17 And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
16,18 I also say to
you that
you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. 16,19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
16,20 Then He warned the disciples that they should tell no one that He was the Christ. Mt 16,13-20;
When reading the above passage from the Bible while keeping the authors of the New Testament and their
writings in this Christian Bible in mind, one wonders, if Peter is the “rock” and if the Lord wanted to build his church
on him, why then has Peter – apart from two relatively short letters – disappeared so quietly from world history and
Bible history, unlike the evangelists or Paul, for example?
When we then look to clarify the situation as it was
at that time, the background quickly becomes apparent. In John 1:11, it says of Jesus:
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
Jn 1,6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was "John". 1,7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 1,8 was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
1,9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 1,10 He was in
the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 1,11
He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
1,12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the
right to become children of God, 1,13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man,
but of God. Jn 1,6-13;
Who then were the Lord’s "own" back then? The Gentile nations? No, "his own"
could only refer to the Jews, the Jewish congregation of the Mosaic faith. And it was likewise this
Jewish congregation, those Jews who, like Peter, had recognized that Jesus was the Messiah, to whom the Lord’s
promise "on this rock I will build My church" applied.
For it was not only Peter who had recognized that the Lord
was the Messiah of the Jews.
We have found the one (Messiah).
Jn 1,43 The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said
to him, ‘Follow me.’ 1,44 Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. 1,45 Philip found Nathanael and
told him, ‘We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of
Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’ 1,46 ‘Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?’ Nathanael asked. ‘Come and see’, said Philip. Jn 1,43-46;
And this same Nathanael, who the day before asks Philip, "Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"
on the following day declares, after he has seen Jesus:
Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.
Jh 1,47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, ‘Here truly is an
Israelite in whom there is no deceit.’ 1,48 ‘How do you know me?’ Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, ‘I saw you while you
were still under the fig-tree before Philip called you.’ 1,49 Then Nathanael declared, ’Rabbi, you are the Son
of God; you are the king of Israel. ‘ Jn 1,47-49;
And as we can see from the statement of the woman at the well in Samaria, even the Samaritans, who were
ostracized by the Jews, knew about the Messiah.
‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming.’
Jh 4,25 25 The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah’ (called Christ) ‘is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.’
26 Then Jesus declared, ‘I, the one speaking to you –
I am he.’ Jn 4,25-26;
And now it dawns on us – in those early days there was no talk of Christianity, nobody had even heard of
it. It was only ever about the Jews. Hence John also says: "He came to his own, and his own people did not
receive him."
"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, (of the Jewish congregation,
that is), he gave the right to become children of God." These are the few who spoke like Nathanael: "Rabbi, you are the
Son of God; you are the king of Israel." And now it is also clear that this congregation which the Lord IS GOING TO
build on Peter the ‘rock’ is not the Catholic church, but the Jewish congregation.
And in view
of the circumstances of that time, in which such a congregation obviously could not come into being, we recognize that
this is now a prophecy referring to the Millennium, the thousand-year kingdom of peace of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus
Christ. Then the Jews will convert, and "mourn over him whom they have pierced". (Zech 12,10)
You will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’
Mt 23,38 "Behold, your house is being left to
you desolate! 23,39 "For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me
until you say, ‘Blessed He who comes in the name of the LORD!’" Mt
23,38-39;
They will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son.
Zech 12,10 "I will pour out on the house of
David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of
supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will
mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly
over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. 12,11 "In that day there
will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the
plain of Megiddo. Zech 12,10-11;
The families of the house of David that remain will mourn for Him whom they have pierced.
Zech 12,12 "The land will mourn, every
family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and
their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their
wives by themselves; 12,13 the family of the house of Levi by itself and their
wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by
themselves; 12,14 all the families that remain, every family by
itself and their wives by themselves. Zech 12,12-14;
So then, at the time of the Millennium, the "remaining" Jews will all convert to Jesus Christ as their
Lord and God. All Jews living until then - and for two thousand years - will go to perdition if they do not turn to
Jesus Christ.
Unless you believe that I am He (the Messiah), you will die in your sins.
Jn 8,21 Then He said again to them, "I go away, and you will seek
Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come." 8,22 So the Jews were saying,
"Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?"
8,23 And He was saying to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I
am not of this world. 8,24 "Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for
unless you believe that I am He (the Messiah), you will die in your sins." Jn 8,21-24;
In connection with the Messiah, the Israelites too always awaited the "kingdom", the kingdom of God on earth – what we know today as the Millennium – in which their Messiah will be king and Israel the “chief of the nations” – i.e. a world power.
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, And shout among the chief of the nation.
Jer 31,7 For thus says the LORD, "Sing aloud
with gladness for Jacob, And shout among the chief of the nations;
Proclaim, give praise and say, O LORD, save Your people, The remnant
of Israel.’ 31,8 "Behold, I am bringing them from the north country,
And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth, Among them the blind
and the lame, The woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together;
A great company, they will return here. 31,9 "With weeping they will come,
And by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams
of waters, On a straight path in which they will not stumble; For I am a father
to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn." Jer 31,7-9;
But now this very Messiah tells them that his kingdom is already there, "in your midst" – this at a time
when the Roman Empire is a world empire and Rome occupies the whole of Israel.
For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.
Lk 17,20 Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of
God was coming, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed;
17,21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God
is in your midst." Lk 17,20-21;
This "in your midst" , now, could only refer to the Lord himself, the Messiah, who had come to
fulfill this prophecy. He was, so to speak, the catalyst and the fulfillment for this promise, as the statement in Mt
12,28 then also proves:
But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Mt 12,28 "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then
the kingdom of God (on earth) has come upon you. Mt 12,28;
But the Jews did not understand him – and still do not understand him today. This decision by the Jews –
contrary to the asseverations of some Jewish historians – was made of their own free will at the time, and the
alternative choice of the kingdom of peace would have been entirely possible two thousand years ago. This fact is
evident from many texts of the New Testament, but especially from the statement of the Lord himself, below, in Mt
11,2-14.
Especially with his statement here, in Mt 11,14: "And if you are willing to accept it, he is the
Elijah who was to come", it is the Millennium that the Lord proclaims. The millennial kingdom of peace of the
Son of God on earth could therefore have begun at this time if the Jews had accepted their Messiah. We get a final
confirmation of this in Jesus’ answer to the question put to him by John the Baptist, who was now in prison:
Are you the one who is to come (the Messiah), or should we expect someone else?
Mt 11,2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples 11,3 to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’ 11,4 Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 11,5 the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. 11,6 Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me’.
11,7 As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 11,9 Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
11,10
This is the one about whom it is written: «I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you»
11,11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 11,12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been
subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.
111,13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.
11,14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Mt 11, 2-14;
In Mt 11,10 above, the Lord refers to another promise made by the Old Testament prophet Malachi, which was to indicate the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.
I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.
Mal 3,1 ‘I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.
Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, ‘ says the Lord Almighty. Mal 3, 1;
So a messenger was to appear before the coming of the Messiah, who was to convert the Jews to
their God and lead them to repentance. This promise was fulfilled in John the Baptist, as was announced to his father
Zechariah by an angel:
It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah.
Lk 1,13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be
afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth
will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. 1,14 "You
will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. 1,15 "For
he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor,
and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.1,16
"And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.
1,17 " It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and
power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and
the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord." Lk 1,13-17;
And this is exactly what the Lord says to the Jews above, in Mt 11,10 – that John the Baptist is this promised messenger. And again in response to the disciples’ question, here below in Mt 17,10, as to whether Elijah had to come first, the Lord answers quite clearly: "But I say to you that Elijah already came." This inevitably should have led to the conclusion that the promised time had arrived and that Jesus was the Messiah. But the Jews were unwilling to accept either the one or the other..
But I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him
Mt 17,10 And His disciples asked Him, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?" 17,11 And He answered and said, "Elijah is coming and will restore all things;1
7,12 But I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands." 17,13 Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist. Mt 17,10-13;
And the Lord then also tells them that Elijah may well come – another time. This time, however, the Jews
recognized neither Elijah nor the Messiah, but killed them both. This wrong decision by the Israelites back then led the
whole world – especially their own people – into thousands of years of persecution, war and hatred rather than into a
phase of millennial peace and justice. And that was not the only consequence. Through this wrong decision, God also
turned his back on the Israelites and turned towards the Gentiles.
This paradigm shift is illustrated very vividly in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Here,
Jesus heals a leper and tells him to go to the priest with the prescribed offering of thanksgiving and tell him about
this miracle. However, as with all the other miracles that the Lord had performed, the priests kept it quiet for fear
that when Jesus came to power, they would be deposed.
"See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them."
Mt 8,1 When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. 8,2 And
behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." 8,3 And Jesus
stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 8,4 And
Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift
that Moses commanded, for a proof to them."
8,5 When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, 8,6 "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly."
8,7 And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." 8,8 But the centurion replied, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8,9 For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I
say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it." Mt 8,1-9;
And then in Mt 8,11-12, the Lord inaugurates this paradigm shift: it is not the Jews who will recline at
the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the Gentile nations at that time dwelling in the
East and the West. And in verse 12 he pronounces the judgment on the people of Israel that is still valid today and
remains so until the Millennium (if they have not converted or will not convert to Jesus Christ):
But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mt 8,10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him,
‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 8,11
I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 8,12
But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
8,13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.’ And his
servant was healed at that moment. Mt 8,10-13;
The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it..
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At this point they were not yet able to arrest the Lord, but as we know, they succeeded in doing this just a little later with the help of Judas Iscariot, condemned the Lord to death and handed him over to the Romans for crucifixion. Before his arrest, however, the Lord prophesied to them:
Unless you believe that I am He (the Messiah), you will die in your sins.
Jn 8,21 Then He said again to them, "I go away,
and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come."
8,22 So the Jews were saying, "Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says,
‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?" 8,23 And He was saying to them, "You are from below,
I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 8,24 "Therefore I said to you that you will
die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He (the Messiah), you will die in your
sins." Jn 8,21-24;
This threat by the Lord ("You will die in your sins") did not make much of an impression on the Jews at
that time. After all, they had the sin and guilt offering prescribed in the Torah, which they only had to make at the
altar of burnt offering in the temple in Jerusalem in order to be free from sin again. However, by denying Jesus as
their Messiah, condemning him to death and handing him over to the Romans to be crucified, the Jews had also denied
their God.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
1Jn 2,22 Who is the liar but the one who denies
that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father
and the Son. 2,23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the
one who confesses the Son has the Father also. 2,24 As for you, let that
abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the
beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 1Jn
2,22-24;
No one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jn 14,6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way,
and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. Jn
14, 6;
They have forsaken the LORD, they have rejected the Holy One of Israel.
Isa 1,2 Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD
speaks, "Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against
Me. 1,3 "An ox knows its owner, And a donkey its master’s manger, But
Israel does not know, My people do not understand. 1,4 Alas, sinful nation, People
weighed down with iniquity, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly! They
have abandoned the LORD, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have
turned away from Him. 1,5 Where will you be stricken again, As you continue in your
rebellion? The whole head is sick And the whole heart is faint. Isa 1,2-5;
Seventy years later, what the Lord had prophesied to the Israelites before his death came to pass. On
July 1, 69 AD, Titus, the son of the then Roman emperor Vespasian, was sent to Jerusalem as commander-in-chief of the
army that was to put an end to the Jewish war. In April 70 AD, he marched there with an army of four legions and
numerous auxiliary troops from allied kings (Josephus, Bell, 5:40-6:120). Titus laid siege to the city and surrounded it
with a high wall (Josephus, Bell, 5,130-135.491-511; Tacitus, Hist. 5,1.10-14).
At the beginning of September 70
AD, Jerusalem was then conquered by a bloodbath that Titus tried in vain to avoid(!) and through famine. The temple, in
which 6,000 Jews had taken refuge on the basis of a prophetic oracle that prophesied the final salvation of the
sanctuary (Josephus, Bell, 6,285f), was destroyed by fire (Bell 6,220-270). According to Josephus, Titus is said to have
tried in vain to prevent the destruction of the temple until the very end (Bell, 6,241.266).
In this way, Titus
sought to be exonerated from personal guilt for the fate of the Jews. Apparently the enraged soldiers defied his orders
(Bell, 6:254-259). The city was razed to the ground. Only the towers of the citadel were spared and
reinforced for use as garrison outposts.
If you look at the above accounts of the historians, it was certainly
not the secular power – namely the Roman commander Titus – that wanted to destroy the temple. On the contrary, as
Josephus writes, Titus gave his troops explicit orders not to destroy the temple. But this entire war was not decided on
a worldly level. It was God Almighty who had decided that both the city and the temple had to be destroyed. And so,
probably for the first time in his life, Titus experienced Roman legionaries refusing to carry out an order from their
commander as they stormed the temple and burned it down.
Now objectively speaking, we have to ask ourselves whether this claim that the
destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was God’s will is also confirmed in the Bible. And here we have the Lord’s
lament over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41-44:
They will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.
Lk 19,41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the
city and wept over it, 19,42 saying, "If you had known in this day, even
you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from
your eyes. 19,43 "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will
throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side,
19,44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and
they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize
the time of your visitation." Lk 19,41-44;
Here in Luke 19:43 the Lord not only prophesied the "barricade", i.e. the high wall that Titus would
erect to besiege Jerusalem, but also indicated that the besiegers would not leave one stone upon another in the city,
which the historian Josephus then confirms with the words "the city was razed to the ground" (see above).
As for the temple, we find a prophecy of its destruction in the Lord’s response to the disciples’ admiring words about the
glory of the building in Mt 24:1-2:
Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.
Mt 24,1 Jesus came out from the temple and was
going away when His disciples came up to point out the temple buildings to Him.
24,2 And He said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to
you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down."
Mt 24,1-2;
And here we now see the reason why God had the city and Temple
of Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans: after they put his Son to death on the
cross, God abandoned the Temple, the city and the people of Israel. In the
following report from Mt 27,45-51, telling us about the death of Jesus on the
cross, we find two concrete indications of this.
My GOD, My GOD, why have You forsaken Me?" And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two.
Mt 27,45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon
all the land until the ninth hour. 27,46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out
with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" that is, "My GOD, My
GOD, why have You forsaken Me?" 27,47 And some of those who were standing
there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." 27,48
Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine
and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. 27,49 But the rest of them said,
"Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him." 27,50 And Jesus cried out
again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 27,51 And behold, the
veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook
and the rocks were split. Mt 27,45-51;
Von Daniel Ventura – Own work,
CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
The last words of the Lord on the cross were: "My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?" It was that moment when the sin of the entire world
was laid upon the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit of the Father was obliged to
leave the Son, because he could not remain in one body along with unforgiven
sin.
On the one hand this was the event which the Son of God had come
into the world to bring about: to make the vicarious sacrifice that would be
pleasing to God for the sins of all human beings.
But on the other hand, this dying cry was a prophecy for the Jews, who from now
on were in exactly this situation. As their Messiah had prophesied to them,
"Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (Jh 8,24), so now
they had no means of forgiveness left to them, because God had abandoned them.
And the fact that the veil of the temple, which was always kept closed, was torn
in two from top to bottom, can also be seen as significant when we know that this
veil or curtain separated the two rooms – the holy space to the front, and the
holy of holies where God dwelt behind it (Ex 26:33). This was proof that God had
left the temple and that the people of Israel, having become the murderers of his
Son, were from now on god-less.
And this too had been prophesied to them by the Lord while he was still alive:
Your house is being left to you desolate!, until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD!’
Mt 23,32 "Fill up, then, the measure of the
guilt of your fathers. 23,33 "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will
you escape the sentence of hell? 23,34 "Therefore, behold, I am sending you
prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and
some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to
city, 23,35 so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed
on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of
Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
23,36 "Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
23,37 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to
her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers
her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. 23,38 "Behold, your house
is being left to you desolate! 23,39 "For I say to you, from now on you
will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the LORD’!"
Mt 23,32-39;
Here above, in Mt 23,38, the Lord says to the Israelites:
"Behold, your house is being left to you desolate". This is originally a saying
of David (Psalm 69,25: «May their camp be desolate; May none dwell in their
tents.»), which Peter also quotes in Acts 1,20, in his address on the election
of a new twelfth apostle instead of the traitor Judas Iscariot, together with
another saying of David, from Ps 109,8: «… Let another take his office.»
It is significant that these two sayings of David apply not only to the traitor Judas Iscariot, but also to the betrayal of the people of Israel against their
Messiah. Their house is being left to them desolate (Mt 23:37-39;) – God has dissolved the covenant with Israel and the task assigned to them by God – the government in the Kingdom of God on earth, the Millennium – is taken away from them and will be given to to a people, producing the fruit of it (Mt 21:43;).
So from a biblical point of view the people of Israel, since
their rejection of the Messiah and in consequence of the destruction of the
Temple, and so of the sacrificial altar in Jerusalem, have had no opportunity of
entering into any kind of interaction with their God, from the time of the death
and resurrection of the Lord until his Second Coming to start his rule of the
Millennial Kingdom of Peace – either through prayer or through sacrificial
offerings.
Paul saw this very clearly in the Holy Spirit when he wrote to the Galatians,
"But you, brethren, like Isaac, are the children of promise." So the believers
in Christ are the children of the free and of the promise, and Israel, they are
the children of the bondwoman, the ones bound to the law, they shall not inherit
with the children of the free woman.
Dr. Eitan Bar, who works for the messianic portal «One for Israel», was born a Jewish Israeli and was raised in Tel Aviv. He observes: «To this day, the question of whether or not Jesus is the Jewish Messiah is not even considered a valid question. Everything a rabbi writes about Jesus is based on prejudice and on the assumption that Jews should not be allowed to read the New Testament.»
The rabbis don’t want you to know anything about Jesus, concludes Eitan Bar. «For 2000 years they have been concerned with how to conceal the truth about the most famous Jew in the world and obscure the greatest secret of Judaism».
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It is the chief rabbis of Israel in Jerusalem – again and again the Jewish hierarchy – who have been
preaching the Mosaic religion for two thousand years, even though it was abolished by God two thousand years ago. Our
Lord Jesus Christ, their Messiah, whom they had murdered, told them in Luke 16:16:
The Law and the Prophets (the Mosaic religion) were proclaimed until John;
Lk 16,16 "The Law and the Prophets
were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the
kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.
Lk 16,16;
Since the death of John the Baptist, there is no longer a Mosaic religion. The prayers of the Jews all
come to nothing, for he who does not have the Son does not have the Father, the triune God, either.
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
1Jn 2,22 Who is the liar but the one who denies
that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father
and the Son. 2,23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the
one who confesses the Son has the Father also. 2,24 As for you, let that
abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the
beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 1Jn
2,22-24;
No one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jn 14,6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and
the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. Jn 14,
6;
And since, of course, there is no longer a temple or an altar of burnt offering in Jerusalem where they
could offer their sin offerings in accordance with the rites, they will also – as Jesus prophesied – die in their sins
and be banished to damnation by the Son of God at the Last Judgment. This applies to all Jews for the last two thousand
years and until the Millennium, if they have not and will not convert to faith in the Son of God.
God has left just this one chance open to the Jews, which he also leaves open to every other human being: to come to faith in
Jesus Christ and accept his redeeming sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. And here we come full circle to the
Catholic Church. Both religions are based on a lie: the Jewish hierarchy still preach the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, even though he abandoned them two thousand years ago when they condemned his son to death and handed him over to
be crucified.
And the Catholic hierarchy attributes its right to exist to an "apostolic succession" by way of the
apostle Peter and the Lord’s promise that he will build his church on this "rock" – even though the Lord never meant to
refer to the Catholic Church here, but rather had in mind the Jewish congregation in his future millennial kingdom of peace.