The Sword of the Spirit (97)

The sword of the Spirit is the word of God.  And today, these powerful passages of scripture touched my heart of hearts:

Paul said, "I am speaking to you who are Gentiles.  Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow-countrymen and save some of them.

"And if the root be holy, the branches are too.  But some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree.

"However, if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more shall these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree.

"For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of the mystery, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles has come in."

The Apostle Paul was a Jew, born in Tarsus, but brought up in Jerusalem, where he was educated under a prominent Pharisee named Gamaliel.  He was a persecutor and executioner of Christians before his miraculous conversion along the road to Damascus.

The branches broken off the cultivated olive tree represent the Jews; the branches grafted in from a wild olive tree represent the Gentiles.  However, let’s not be arrogant towards the Jews.  Remember that our salvation isn’t based on our own achievements.  By God’s grace through faith, we who were formerly lost have received adoption as sons.  And if wild olive branches can be grafted in, contrary to nature, then why can't the natural olive branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?  For at the “fulness of the Gentiles”, Jews will embrace Christ as their Messiah.

For nearly 2,000 years, Rabbinical Judaism has taught Jews that they don't need a saviour.  Instead they will be saved by mitzvahs.  That is, good deeds.

However, some contemporary Jews have come to the realization that mitzvahs are not their ticket to heaven; they need a saviour, and He is Christ the Lord.  They are called Messianic Jews and are the beginnings of "the natural branches grafted into their own olive tree".

Therefore as believers in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, we are anti rabbinical Judaism but we are not antisemitic.