Pastor Andrew W. Isker and I discuss the history of the Jewish religion, its influence in the modern world, and the potential for a future conversion of the Jews to Christianity. We also discuss the role of the Bible in shaping our understanding of the world after the end of the Old Covenant.
00:02:14.600right on the radio the christian radio stations you'd only hear those guys preaching that
00:02:19.520particular thing uh when the when that is actually when you look at all of church history that's
00:02:25.800that's the minority view a tiny minority view the rest of theological history in the church
00:02:32.580is that you know is the the kind of stuff that we're saying yeah this one's a banger again go
00:02:40.560to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries to get all nine parts ad free right
00:02:46.840now available today the other aspect of this argument is the anachronism of its application
00:02:54.400into the future it makes sense that the jews would envy their god going to the gentiles
00:02:59.440seeing and hearing gentiles throughout the oikumene the greco-roman world read the torah
00:03:04.860and the prophets, singing and eating in worship, which are activities only allowable at the temple,
00:03:11.400would enrage them to no end. In our modern context, and any context after AD 70, this does not have
00:03:17.800the same effect. The overwhelming majority of those called Jews today are secular and agnostic,
00:03:23.320and among those who are not, their religion is not the religion of the Old Testament,
00:03:28.200but of the traditions of the rabbis codified in the Talmud and the Mishnah. The Old Testament
00:03:32.960religion was of temple, sacrifice, and keeping the covenant. None of those things exist anymore.
00:03:39.760When we go to plant churches, we do not operate the same way Paul did in the transitional period
00:03:46.240between Old and New Covenant. We don't hang out at the synagogue and preach until they kick us out.
00:03:52.820The Old Covenant Jew and the Old Covenant Gentile were united in Christ, and after Christ came in0.96
00:04:00.080judgment to end the Old Covenant, taking apart the world that both Jews and Gentiles were under,0.68
00:04:07.380the distinction no longer holds. The world is now divided up between those in Christ and outside
00:04:14.900of Christ, those in his kingdom and those not yet. Whatever those called Jews today are,0.97
00:04:22.820they are not Old Covenant Jews because such a people no longer exist. They are now an ethnic
00:04:29.960group, like any other, that will one day bow the knee to Jesus. They are not Israel, not in the1.00
00:04:38.640true sense, because Israel came to its spiritual and covenantal end in AD 70. To talk of a future0.88
00:04:46.820conversion of Israel today is like talking about a future conversion of the Amalekites or Hittites.0.78
00:04:52.840A people could exist who maybe even took their 23andMe and can claim some genetic descent
00:04:58.840to these ancient peoples, and perhaps even began to adopt their ancient religious rites.0.74
00:05:05.080But they neither are those people from the book of Genesis, nor are they Gentiles,
00:05:11.580because the category of Gentile no longer exists covenantally.
00:05:28.840you know what i love about this season of the friday special is number one it's your second
00:05:43.340time we this is still we're still in the first year of you doing this show yeah and uh you made
00:05:48.300two appearances i get to be here twice you get to be here twice so andrew isker's so nice we had to
00:05:53.200have them twice. So we have you twice. But you know, some of the things we've done so far were
00:05:59.420controversial. Boniface option, that was a little controversial. Mermaids, that one people absolutely
00:06:06.120hate it. I understand. Maybe it's a little wacky. Probably is. And then, you know, right now we've
00:06:11.880got a series as we're recording this. Our third season is with Cultish. And there's some
00:06:16.940controversial things there. We're talking about Taylor Swift and the divine feminine and those
00:06:21.540kinds of things. But this season I think is just, it's just right because there's nothing
00:06:27.840controversial, right? At all about any of these. Yeah, there's nothing controversial. Everybody
00:06:32.920agrees. If you want, you know, if you want a conversation piece that you know is sure not
00:06:37.820to offend anybody, something that every Christian can agree on, it's the subject of Israel.
00:06:44.100That's right. That's right. All right, so how do you want to start us off with this episode?0.50
00:06:48.220Well, I think even just going to what we read in the beginning in the cold open is extremely important to wrap our minds around what is occurring in the New Testament era.
00:07:03.820That you have, the majority of the Bible is Old Testament.
00:07:09.200It's the Old Covenant and the history of this particular people, Israel.
00:07:13.440And then you get to the New Testament and something new and different is happening.0.76
00:07:17.900There's a major shift, a major change to a new people, the people of God in Christ, which are Jew and Gentile, that these distinctions between the old covenant and the new covenant are breaking down.0.81
00:07:32.560The distinctions between this particular people set apart from the rest of the world to minister to the nations, that distinction is being broken down.0.71
00:07:42.720Paul says in Ephesians, the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile has been torn down.
00:07:49.660And so what does that mean both in the first century, in Paul's time, in his context, and in ours?0.64
00:07:56.620It means that these categories, these covenantal categories, it's almost like, I like to describe it as, it's like God has Tupperware.
00:08:05.500Two kinds of Tupperware that he puts people in in the Old Covenant.0.98
00:08:08.200you got the Jew, right? Puts them in there, and they're separate out from the rest of the people1.00
00:08:13.900of the whole world, the Gentile, right? These two buckets that he puts them in. When the New1.00
00:08:19.440Covenant, those are gone, right? You still have a distinction, but it's between in Christ and0.94
00:08:28.320not in Christ. Two covenantal heads, Adam and Christ. Yeah. And so, that is the distinction
00:08:36.980that's operative in the new covenant, the distinction between Jew and Gentile no longer
00:08:41.420is. And you still see it in the New Testament era, right? As the New Testament is being written,
00:08:46.760the time between Pentecost and I think 70 AD, that 40 years, because there's still a temple
00:08:52.960standing. There's still aspects and remnants of the old covenant. They're still in operation as
00:08:57.920the gospel and as the spirit of God is breaking into the world and decreating it, tearing it
00:09:04.320apart. One of the things I didn't do in this book, because I think it's maybe a future book,
00:09:10.220right? It deserves a book all on its own, is get into the book of Revelation, right?
00:09:16.100But that book, you read it and you see it, especially from this perspective,
00:09:20.900it is all about that old creation world, right? That old covenant world being deconstructed by
00:09:28.840God. You see these patterns of seven all over the place, and particularly in judgments,
00:09:33.080not just the seven bulls and seven trumpets and seven of everything, but the world, right?
00:09:39.780You see the days of creation going backwards in the old creation world.
00:09:46.140He's ripping out the drywall, then all of the studs, and then tearing out the foundation and building something new.0.96
00:09:52.160And part of that, part of the features of the construction of the old covenant, the old creation, are these distinctions between Jew and Gentile.0.86
00:10:01.800So, in the new creation, in the new world that Christ has made after his resurrection, after his ascension, after Pentecost, and after his judgment on the old covenant.0.72
00:12:59.880There's Christ or nothing. And we believe that that Christ or nothing strategy on God's part
00:13:06.780in his judgment actually wrought a great many of Jews turning in repentance and faith to Jesus.0.81
00:13:17.620I mean, there's some historical evidence of this, and just thinking through this, right, if this prophecy of Christ, which is one of the things, the main things that the charge against him that made them want to kill him is, I'm going to destroy the temple.0.86
00:13:36.620Within this generation, right, within 40 years, this temple is going to be destroyed, and then it actually happens, and they experience that judgment.
00:13:46.680I mean, we don't think about 70 AD nearly enough.
00:13:52.840You're talking millions of people, millions of dead bodies scattered around, millions more taken away into slavery, and the city burned.
00:14:04.480I mean, imagine what that would look like to one of our cities in America, and just the terror and the horror of an experience like that, right?
00:17:16.820So let's say from Constantine up to the 20th century.0.97
00:17:19.220Up to the 20th century, right up until 1945, you know, but from, you know, from Constantine up until, you know, the last century, that incredible mustard seed growing into this tree, leaven working through the batch of dough, this Christendom permeating all the nations of the earth is the very life from the dead that Paul promised would happen.0.95
00:17:43.360And it's because, it's not because there's this promise of a future spiritual revival among Israel according to the flesh or even according to the old covenant that's indicative of the offspring of Abraham and that it's in our future and one day it'll happen and then we'll experience this life from the dead among the Gentiles.
00:18:02.620No, we've been experiencing life from the dead revival around the world for centuries and centuries and centuries because it already happened.0.69
00:18:10.540So this is what I want to talk about now, if you'll oblige, is the temple is destroyed.
00:18:27.840Has there ever, will there, a two-part question, will there ever be a third temple?
00:18:32.560And has there ever been an attempt at a third temple?
00:18:37.320Yeah. Well, is there a third temple? And this is a good question, because I would say, yes, there is. There is a third temple. And that is, you see that in the book of Ephesians. Paul talks about the third temple. And what is it? What has its cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ, and then its foundation of-
00:18:59.900and the prophets yeah and then the living stones of the temple are the people of god so you know
00:19:07.220actually you know we're recording this on a monday you and i were in the third temple yesterday
00:19:11.880right in church right we we uh we were there and if you know we go there every sunday uh to the
00:19:17.740third temple so the third temple has been constructed it's currently continually being
00:19:22.400constructed the third temple has been under construction for 2 000 years yeah yeah 19 and
00:19:28.720a half centuries and really before it's coming up as the old covenant is winding down. The third
00:19:34.360temple is the church. Has anybody ever tried to build a literal third temple while rejecting
00:19:40.020Christ? And how did that work out? So after Constantine, you have all the Roman emperors
00:19:46.140after him were Christians, except for one. One of them, I believe it was his nephew, actually,
00:19:52.920julian um he apostatized right he's known in history as julian the apostate so he hated
00:19:59.020christianity he hated the christian religion he tried to uh he was he was an ex-evangelical right0.52
00:20:04.300he tried to deconvert he was very bitter and nasty and angry tried to put up all the pagan statues
00:20:08.540and everything else that's right that's right and uh and what did he do right he said all right all0.99
00:20:14.800all of the jews i'm really gonna spite the christians because i hate these guys and right0.98
00:20:21.480Here's a billion dollars, go rebuild a temple in Jerusalem, we'll resettle you in this land.1.00
00:20:27.420And so they go, you know, back to Jerusalem, and they gather all the materials and everything on the very first day of construction.0.89
00:20:34.800And like you can, as of the recording, anyway, you can go on Wikipedia, right, just nasty atheist Reddit Wikipedia, and they still have an article about this, right?0.54
00:20:46.060Very first day of construction, what happens?0.57
00:28:07.520But then, right, the dispensationalists will say, except one little stretch of land, there are these everlasting promises to a particular ethnic group that they get to have that.0.82
00:28:20.600Jesus gets to have everything else.0.90
00:28:29.780The true seed of Abraham, the faithful one, right, that kept and maintained the promises, right, by faith, right, not by the law.
00:28:39.260And that stretch of land, that real estate, that's his, that that belongs to him and to his people, right, to his co-heirs, the church.
00:28:48.760To Abraham was promised a particular land, but to his seed, and Paul says this explicitly in the New Testament, not seeds, plural, but seeds, singular.
00:28:58.300So, the seed is not Israel as a nation, but Christ as one particular descendant.
00:29:05.360There aren't multiple covenants happening at the same time.
00:34:04.180Ethnic Israel, people who practice Judaism and so forth, they have to perpetually exist as a distinct people, a distinct ethno-religious group forever in order for this promise to be fulfilled.0.77
00:34:22.400But if you look at demographic trends in post-war, post-war consensus, secularist world, that has hit Jews very hard, especially the secular Jews, but even religious ones as well.0.87
00:34:59.380Right. I mean, and so it's a real thing.
00:35:02.220Right. I mean, if there's Jewish people watching this, maybe hate watching this, that's a concern that they have is they do not have grandchildren.
00:35:09.960And their kids, or if they do have grandchildren, their children are marrying, you know, non-Jews and they're not maintaining traditions and they're just assimilating into other people.0.68
00:35:17.020Because secularism doesn't value posterity.0.85
00:35:18.960Just living for YOLO, you only live once in your own generation.0.52
00:35:22.280And if all religions are all kind of the same, none of it really matters.0.98
00:35:25.840And so much of secularism, correct me if I'm wrong or if you need a disclaimer or nuance, but so much of secularism has come out of modern Jews.0.87
00:35:33.680Yeah, I don't think, I mean, people can notice that the leading academics and theorists and cultural figures that have pushed secularism have largely been Jewish.0.90
00:36:48.360So all unbelievers, whether they be Muslims or agnostics or atheists or Jews, all unbelievers1.00
00:36:54.340are totally depraved at the level of the heart.1.00
00:36:55.840But in terms of political and economic and cultural actions, outward behaviors, I do think that not all, but some Jews are uniquely pernicious.1.00
00:37:09.960Like motivated by a hatred or antipathy to Christianity.0.98
00:37:13.620Because Islam says that Jesus is not the son of God, but he's an esteemed prophet.
00:37:18.860Buddhists esteem Christ, not as the son of God, but as a prophet.0.56
00:37:22.580Every major world religion carves out at least some, it tips the hat to Jesus.0.87
00:37:52.580So not only are Jews, Judaism is what, because Jews can come to Christ, but the actual religion itself.0.96
00:38:00.780Not only is Judaism not Christian adjacent, but it is arguably the most Christian hostile in terms of major world religions.0.82
00:38:11.400I think it's important to look at it this way.0.99
00:38:14.620And yeah, I don't want to sound like, oh, these are the worst people ever at all, all this kind of stuff.
00:38:18.580But I think in terms of like theologically, like looking at it from a theological perspective, right?
00:38:22.680Just think about, because you see this all the time, like, oh, there are older brothers in the faith or they're really close to Christ because they have the Torah.
00:42:10.280And so, right, it is a religion that is opposed to Christianity.0.96
00:42:15.880There can be no, you know, partnership in theological terms, maybe in political and different things.0.59
00:42:21.660Like you can have, right, if you have Jewish neighbors in your neighborhood and you want to, you know, get, you know, you want to oppose transgenderism and they're very religious Jews and things like that, you can work with them.
00:42:49.060And so, this is, there's an oppositional relationship that is there.0.66
00:42:54.840And what dispensationalism does, what Christian Zionism does, what all of this does is just papers over it and pretends that the oppositional nature is not there whatsoever
00:43:06.280between the two very separate and distinct religions, right?0.86
00:44:53.120Yeah, my concern with it too is, right, it can go one of two ways.
00:44:57.460I think that trend, you're absolutely right, is true and correct.1.00
00:45:01.560And the more resistant Christians are, Big Eva Christians, especially, but even in the Reformed world, the more resistant we are to having these conversations and talking about these things, the worse it is going to be when these things are ultimately rejected.0.99
00:45:19.060Because you won't have guys like us who are having this conversation in a very sane and reasonable way.0.99
00:45:24.040Well, because there will always be leaders.
00:45:25.280Here's the thing. If you just stand like Gandalf on the middle of the bridge, you shall not pass. It must be the middle way. You shall not pass from feminism to patriarchy, but complementarianism. And you shall not pass. That's been evangelicals for the past 20 to 40 years.
00:45:48.960you shall not pass to cessationism nor shall you stay with charismatic it but but it will be open
00:45:54.980but cautious you know and like every little thing has been a if you do a third way move on this one
00:46:00.880yeah um the evidence is so overwhelming yeah you can't make people not notice and we're going to
00:46:07.460get into this because we do need to talk about how no it's not every jew no of course not but
00:46:11.780we do need to talk about um the percentages of of uh of people who own porn companies yeah the
00:46:17.760percentage, like, we do need to talk about some of these things. And here's the deal. It's not
00:46:22.060going away. It's not going away. People have already noticed. They're going to continue to
00:46:27.700notice. And then what happens is that if you just stand like Gandalf and try to keep the
00:46:33.420Belrog from going to the other side of the chasm, what's going to happen in this scenario is that1.00
00:46:39.060all these young men are going to get to the other side, and it will be a movement, and every
00:46:45.240movement will have leaders. But in this case, what it will mean is that there will be no mature
00:46:49.680leaders. There will be no mature leaders that will lead them and restrain them and teach them
00:46:56.120to operate in a faithful Christ-like way. It'll be unhinged. It'll be leaders who have gone down
00:47:01.500the rabbit hole with the tea being silent. You know, it'll be leaders who have gone down the
00:47:05.980rabbit hole. Took me a second. It's a good one. The tea is silent. But it'll be leaders who like
00:47:11.820They've done their 1,000 hours of research on YouTube.
00:47:26.740They won't know historic Protestant theology and what we believe.
00:47:30.820And this is, I mean, I spoke at a conference recently on this topic that Protestant Christianity, and in particular, American Protestantism, and this is something that Stephen said when we were in Ogden, is historically very, very tolerant of minority views, minority religions, things like this, tolerant of Judaism.
00:47:55.960and it was able to because it said, right,0.83
00:48:24.540What it does is it actually secures the stage so that if Christians have power, then we can afford to have people who disagree with us here and we can give them equal rights and privileges under the law, but not equal elected office.0.73
00:48:39.320Or political power or anything else.0.91
00:48:50.980It's one that is in danger of being subverted that then lashes out against minority groups.0.79
00:48:57.020And so the best thing, if we want to flip the paradigm around, the best thing for American Jews would be, and maybe Yoram Hazoni will listen to this, although he's Israeli, I think.0.80
00:49:09.000But America, for them, the best thing that could possibly be would be for America to return to its Protestant Christian roots and being an exclusively Christian country.0.91
00:50:38.920And if we, if, when we do, when the Christian church, when historic Protestant Christianity from America, what America was founded with returns, right, then you have the strength to be able to have a society like that.
00:50:56.600You have to have strength in order to have tolerance.
00:51:28.980Like us and our churches and Christians who are politically assertive and culturally assertive, that is who's public enemy number one.
00:51:36.260So the principle of a strong, healthy society, if secularist society could be strong, it wouldn't be threatened by Christianity, but it very much so is.
00:51:48.440And so that's why I think that's a huge white pill is that we threaten them.
00:51:53.500You're not threatened by something that you're not afraid of.