Chapter 21: Gathered from Nations
When Jesus returns, he sets up shop in Jerusalem. It is from Zion that the law goes forth, and out of Jerusalem goes the word of the Lord. Israel is at that time finally knowing the Lord their God, and we will fulfill our purpose of being the priestly nation to the nations. There is only one question that remains. Are the people that make up Israel already in the Land? More Scriptures than I can quote speak of the ingathering of Israel, and it is interesting that with many of these Scriptures comes a regathering as well. When they are “ingathered” to Christ, they will then also be gathered again from all nations unto which they have been sifted.
I’m not sure how much this is realized, but the people of Israel are more than the Israelis. There are Jews around the world. Jewish communities are even in the most remote places of the word that we wouldn’t expect. God has established that where the Church is, so is the Jew. The two go hand-in-hand together. God has given us every opportunity to witness to them. However, when we witness to them, we need to understand that they aren’t the Jewish people of our city that we’re speaking to. Their family heritage is traced back to Israel. Though they might not technically be in Israel, and though they might even think that where they are located does not matter, God still remembers each inherited plot of land from the time of Joshua and to whom that plot of land is designated.
The Jewish people are Israelis whether they like it or not. And we, too, having been grafted in, have a place in Zion. If the Jewish people dispersed even currently throughout the world, and to be sifted again through all nations, are to come back to Jerusalem, what are some of the terms of that gathering? I think of the Exodus where God told Israel that they will not flee. They will go out with joy like royalty.{dlv} Remember the Scripture in Isaiah 11 that we looked at earlier. It says that God will gather His people a second time from “Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonian, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah fro the four quarters of the earth”.{dlvi}
My mind flashes to that verse that is later in Isaiah where the prophet foretells of the nature of their coming. “See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will carry your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on your shoulders. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who home in me will not be disappointed”.{dlvii} Just like in the Exodus, Israel does not return in gloom or despair. Contrary to that thought, it is written, “The ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will be upon their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away”.{dlviii} God will do great things in their midst. They will see miracles before their eyes as they wander the wilderness of the nations. Isaiah 35 states earlier that “the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped” – obviously an undoing of Isaiah 6:9-10 – “Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”
Israel will survive their time of trouble because of the providence of God. Miracles will burst forth, both through the Church as well as in the literal wandering of the wilderness. The divine character being manifest to Israel is what God meant when saying: “I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”{dlix}
Ezekiel saw the devastation of Israel. God speaks to Him about how He will strike their hearts with fear and terror. By the time they come to this point in the narrative, God has already been striking at that heart of stone. Here in Ezekiel 36 we have cogent and precise words. These are calculated. God gathers them from the nations – even upon the shoulders of kings and queens{dlx} – and it is in this divine manifestation of love that Israel breaks down and weeps. At the coming of Christ, the people of Israel have already gone through torture. What is a judgment upon them is an act of mercy and love, for Jesus even told the Church in Laodicea, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.”{dlxi} When the power of that people is broken, as is mentioned in Daniel 12:7, they have finally come to the place where they can see God and accept Him. It takes ruthless breaking upon them for it to come, but so it is with us all.
This is why Isaiah 14:1 starts with the words, “I will have compassion on Jacob.” Jeremiah 3:18 states that “in those days the house of Judah will join the house of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your forefathers as an inheritance.” That divided house that has been at enmity with one another since the time of Rehoboam (and further pressed by Ezra and Nehemiah who rejected their brethren from Northern Israel) will be joined once again. Christ will break down the wall of hostility between them. Yet, Isaiah 14:1 goes a step further in even adding the detail, “Aliens will join them and unite with the house of Jacob.” Not only will Israel and Judah be united, as Ezekiel 37:15-28 also suggests, but even the foreigners and Gentiles will be added to them. Guess who that is!
Zechariah 10:10 tells us that “there will not be room enough for them.” We find the same sentiment in Isaiah 49:20-21 when we read, “The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, ‘This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.’ Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who has brought these up? I was left all alone, but these – where have they come from?’” Notice in Isaiah that the point is being made that Israel was utterly ruined, and the woman who is here is looking out and seeing the ruins. She is metaphoric Zion, seeing the devastation and the small remnant that is left in her. She cries out “I was left all alone,” but now sees coming upon the shoulders of the Gentiles her sons and daughters born to her from afar – reared and nourished by a people that Isaiah calls later in chapter 56 “eunuchs”, who Jesus alludes to in Matthew 19:12.
Jeremiah tells us that among those who return will be “the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return. They will come weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. I will lead them besides streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son”.{dlxii}
We see in Ezekiel 20:41: “I will accept you as a fragrant incense when I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered.” This, no doubt, is where Paul got his understanding that we are the “fragrance of Christ.” We have been brought out of our own nations and unto Zion through Christ. The fragrance of Christ will in that day be at work in Israel, which will cause them to also have “singleness of heart and action”.{dlxiii} This also reminds me of something Paul said to the Corinthians, where he encouraged them to be one in spirit and heart. Do you see how the new covenant Scriptures affects the way that we live? And yet we also know there is a coming time where the new covenant shall be fulfilled to the uttermost.
The importance of recognizing the return from the nations is critical. We spoke briefly about how the return in 1948 could not be this final return. Do you see why? After going this far in the eschatological Scripture, can you see why it is that the Nazi Holocaust cannot be the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, and the return to Israel cannot be the final return? Though Israel returned with gladness and joy, Isaiah 51:11 tells us that “sorrow and sighing will flee away.” Sorrow and sighing has not fled away, and indeed Israel’s enemies are on every side. The Gentiles did not bring Israel back. Ezekiel 28:26 says that the Israelites will live safely and build houses and plant vineyards. The abundance of Scripture on this subject is simply embarrassing. The fact that we as the Church have pretty well not even recognized this tells us just how Scripturally nonliterate we are. We have every ability to read the Bible, but we don’t.
New Exodus
“So then, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “When people will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ but they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ Then they will live in their own land.”{dlxiv} This passage from Jeremiah 23 should give us a moment to pause. I’ve used the term “New Exodus”, but how legitimate is that term? Honestly, can we use such a wording when God says that it will not be like when He brought them out of Egypt? It is interesting that God makes the point that no longer will the Israelites need to look back to Moses in order to know that the Lord lives.
Have you ever spoken with a religious Jewish person? They might pray to God. They might or might not believe that God performs miracles. They might tediously obey the Torah. They might find joy in keeping the Law. But, something that is strangely missing in the religious Jew should become obvious as you speak to them or listen to them give lecture. Though they give homage to God, they don’t really seem to believe that He is living. Of course, like most of us, they would accept the doctrine that God is alive. But, often they don’t speak of how God interacts in their daily life. They are extremely humanistic. They employ the correct terminology, often time knowing the Scripture better than we do, and yet that terminology is only vocabulary.{dlxv} It is much like many of us who claim to have a “burden” for the lost. That supposed burden that is plaguing our soul is nothing more than vocabulary.
Isaiah 31:5 has an interesting phrase. God says that He will come down upon Mount Zion to do battle, but it says that He will “pass over it and will rescue it.” This, of course, should have us immediately think of Exodus. The Lord came with the spirit of death, and those who had the blood upon their doorposts were “passed over”. What is the blood upon the doorposts? God says, “Like birds hovering overhead, the Lord Almighty will shield Jerusalem; he will shield it and deliver it.” Think back to Isaiah 4:5. “Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy.”{dlxvi}
The blood on the doorposts is the Lord Almighty. We know this to be Christ, our Passover Lamb. Yet, in Isaiah 4, we find some more interesting information here. Christ is the Passover Lamb, and His blood is sprinkled upon the doorposts of our lives. Yet, that same Lord Almighty that will be over Mount Zion as a shield to protect her in Isaiah 31 is described in Isaiah 4 as the cloud by day and fire by night. Above all of this glory is a canopy. What does that mean? This is no doubt a chuppa. In Jewish weddings, the bride and groom stand underneath a chuppa. That chuppa is a symbol of God overshadowing the lives of these two – a three-chord strand is not easily broken.{dlxvii}
What we see in Isaiah 4 is a hint as to what the wedding of the Lamb is. It is the gathering back of Israel, the bringing forth of the nations to give tribute to the Lord, and the uniting of the Church and Israel to become one flesh – a Bride of Christ. The reason that the term New Exodus works just fine, but at the same time might not be a big enough term, is because at Sinai, God spoke in wedding language to Israel. The Ten Commandments are His vows. He came down upon Sinai with a cloud that was overhead – a chuppa. He invites Israel to be married to Him, and what is the response? Israel tells Moses to speak to God, but they don’t want to hear Him.
God was left at the altar.
But now, at the consummation of the age, Israel will finally be united unto their Husband, and being united to Christ they will be a part of that heavenly Jerusalem. Remember that the foundations of that city are twelve stones, each one representing the apostles. But, the gates of pearl are 12 gates, each representing one of the tribes of Israel. Zion is the Bride, and the Bride is Zion. The expression of Zion is found where humanity and divinity marry. Spirit and flesh unite and become one. No longer are we stuck in this battle between wanting to do good, but that which I want to do I do not do. That which I do not want to do, the evil found within my sinful nature, I find myself doing. Oh wretched man that I am! Who can rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!{dlxviii} The gathering of Israel from the nations is the coming up to Zion for marriage.
Destruction of Idols
When Israel is regathered from the nations unto the Land, she is given the obligation to destroy all of her idols. By this time, since the coming of messiah has already taken place, Israel and all the Jewish people are believers. The idolatry in the heart has been eradicated. The outworking of that heart transplant is the destruction of the idols that fill Israel – whether graffiti, occult temples, whore houses, or the abomination of desolation. God gives the clear charge to destroy the idols. In Isaiah 27:9, we read about the altar stones being like chalk stones ground to pieces. No Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing. The children of Israel will destroy all of her idols, and in that they find their full redemption.
The pattern of God’s Kingdom is David. Yet, there is a real sense in which Josiah is also a pattern. He was the last great king of Judah. Josiah tore down all of the idols and high places. He scattered bones and feces upon the altars to ensure they were unclean and could never be used again. It is a symbol of a future king who would restore Israel back to her land, and an Israel that would then break down all of the idols that have been erected. The final restoration of Israel to the Land will not take place in a land that is spotless, but instead in a land that needs to be refurbished. The cities will be in ruins. The land will be desecrated. Idols will clutter the countryside. And Israel is brought back to her Husband at Zion. It is in this new condition that we can even reflect on our own salvation. When we came to Christ, we were not the cleanest people. There were idols and abominations that we needed to tear down.
It is at the return of Christ that thrones are set up, and there are people who will rule over the whole of the earth. That rule cannot go forth unto a pagan world if Israel itself still has pagan idolatry. The tearing down of the idols symbolizes the baptism of Israel – for we it is a burial into the waters of death to be raised up unto glorious newness of life; for Israel, it is the destruction of the idols to show that they are no longer governed by demonic powers, but have been gloriously set free by the power of resurrection in Christ Jesus. The one symbol of baptism is given to the individual, but the destruction of the idols is given unto the nation.