The Calling of the Jews, as Described in Jeremiah

In Question 191, the Westminster Larger Catechism asks, "What do we pray for in the second petition [of the Lord's Prayer]?" The answer says, in part, "In the second petition (which is, Thy kingdom come), acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fulness of the Gentiles brought in..." And the Directory for the Publick Worship of God, under the heading of "prayer," directs that prayer be made, among other things, "for the conversion of the Jews, the fulness of the Gentiles..." That is almost a direct quote from the Apostle Paul in Romans 11:25-26: "a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved..." It is these promises on which the catechism answer is based.

Did this concept originate with Paul? Is this a Christian imposition, and to be considered offensive by Jews? I answer no to both questions.

In Jeremiah 31:3-4, we find, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued My faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel!" This promise appears after long passages protesting the apostasy of Israel, which God would judge with the seventy-year exile in Babylon (e. g., Jer. 25:18). The prophet continues in verse 6, "For there shall be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim: 'Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.'" Verse 9, "With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back..., for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." And 13-14, "I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people shall be satisfied with My goodness, declares the Lord.”

"Don't these verses refer to the return of Israel after the Exile?" someone may ask. Modern Jews limit it to that application. On the other hand, dispensationalists apply it to the modern State of Israel. The problem for either interpretation is further down the passage.

In verses 18-20, the prophet tells us, "I have heard Ephraim grieving, 'You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for You are the Lord my God. For after I had turned away, I relented, I was ashamed, and I was confounded, because I bore the disgrace of my youth.' Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he My darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord." This is a description of the repentance of Israel, and return to faithfulness to her God, which certainly has not happened. Ancient Israel continued in apostasy, even rejecting and killing her Messiah, so that God destroyed their nation, city, and temple, in 70AD. And today's State of Israel is overwhelmingly secular. Under her laws, a Jew can be religious, agnostic, atheist, or even Buddhist or New Age. What he cannot be is a follower of Jesus the Messiah.

And in verses 33-34 (part of the same New Covenant passage quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12), God Himself says, "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."  This is what Paul talks about, when Israel repents of her apostasy and turns, as a nation, to her Messiah, Jesus Christ. The key is found in Jer. 30:9: "They shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them." The restoration prophesied by Jeremiah isn't geographical or political, but rather a restoration through Jesus, the Davidic king (compare Isaiah 9:6-7 and Jer. 33:14-26). That has, demonstrably, not happened yet.

That same event is described by the Prophet Zechariah (Zech. 12:10): "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on Me, on Him Whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over Him, as one weeps over a firstborn." Their God, Jehovah, promises to send His Holy Spirit to change their hearts, so that they will finally recognize Who Jesus is, and what they did to Him 2,000 years ago. And He shall receive them (Rom. 11:26-27, Isa. 59:20-21): "The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be My covenant with them when I take away their sins." Thus, both Old and New Testaments prophecy of a time when the Jews, en masse, will repent of their hardheartedness, and turn to their God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Jeroboam and the Regulative Principle of Worship

In Reformed churches, there is a precept referred to as "the Regulative Principle of Worship" (hereafter, RPW). According to this principle, nothing is permitted in worship except that which is commanded in Scripture, or may be inferred from it. This contrasts with Lutheranism, which holds that all is permitted, except what is forbidden, and with Catholicism, which seems to have no principle of worship except the limits of papal imagination.

In the Directory for the Public Worship of God, adopted by the Church of Scotland with the Westminster Standards in the XVIIth Century, we read in the preface, "our care hath been to hold forth such things as are of divine institution in every ordinance; and other things we have endeavoured to set forth according to the rules of Christian prudence, agreeable to the general rules of the word of God."

The biblical basis for the RPW is primarily found in the IInd Commandment (Ex. 20:4-6, Deut. 5: 8-10): "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." While the commandment is narrowly tailored, addressing merely the use of images in worship, its application is broadened in the historical portions of the Old Testament.

In the story of Jeroboam, the first king of Israel after the dividing of the Davidic kingdom, we find two occasions of will-worship, i. e., worship after the desires of man, rather than the commandment of God.

In I Kings 12:33, Jeroboam goes "up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings." Here, we see Jeroboam violate biblical worship in three ways: he changed the calendar of biblical feasts, to the point of creating a new month; he built an altar for worship away from the Temple in Israel; and he performed a rite which was properly for the levitical priests (compare Saul's similar sin in I Samuel 13:8-23).

Again, in I Kings 13:33, we see Jeroboam appointing a new class of priests for the "high places" (places of pagan worship). In fact, his standard was so lax, that "any who would, he ordained." This is a violation of God's institution of the Aaronic priesthood (Exodus 29:44).

And what are the consequences of Jeroboam's actions? I Kings 13:34, "this thing became a sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth."

Just as no responsible parent would leave it to his children to make the rules for the household, God does not leave it to His creatures to determine how to worship Him. That concept seems to me to be so obvious, even without the biblical instructions, that I cannot conceive how professing Christians can so easily disregard it. I have written before (use the tags below) on even Presbyterian churches which have become hardly more than pagans in their worship. Just as with His judgment on Saul, surely God will rebuke such rebellion among His professing people.

The Apocrypha Used in the New Testament?

I attend a men's Bible study on Monday nights. We are just getting started, using a Navpress study on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Tonight I was preparing for the study of the opening four verses.

Hebrews 1:1-4: "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs."

The editors of the Reformation Study Bible attribute the phrase "radiance of the glory" to common terminology from the intertestamental period, found in the apocryphal book, the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 7, verses 25-28 (referring to the personification of Wisdom, as can be found also in the Proverbs): "For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness. And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets. For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom."

I assume that the editors refer to Wisdom as an indication of the rise of certain theological terminology, not as an application of the analogy of faith. But even given that assumption, this note gives me trepidations. While the original King James Version included the Apocrypha, a few years later the Westminster Confession (I:3) advised, "The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the church of God, nor to be otherwise approved or made use of, than other human writings." And the Westminster Directory for Public Worship instructs, "All the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments (but none of those which are commonly called Apocrypha) shall be publicly read in the vulgar tongue, out of the best allowed translation, distinctly, that all may hear and understand."

Obviously, the footnotes of a study bible must necessarily be brief, lest the volume become unusably large. However, I would have wished some clarification here, for the sake of conscience. Perhaps the note was clarified in the recent update of the RSB.

The Psalms, The Prosperity of Zion, and the Glory of God

"You, O Lord, are enthroned forever; You are remembered throughout all generations. You will arise and have pity on Zion; it is time to favor her; the appointed time has come. For Your servants hold her stones dear and have pity on her dust. Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear Your glory. For the Lord builds up Zion; He appears in His glory; He regards the prayer of the destitute and does not despise their prayer.

"Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: that He looked down from His holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem His praise, when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the Lord."
- Psalm 102:12-22

To interpret these verses as applying exclusively, or even primarily, to the physical Jerusalem in Israel is to turn this passage against itself. While it refers to nations fearing the name of the Lord, a future people praising the Lord, and the liberated declaring His name and praise, and gathering to worship Him - all of which are spiritual activities - it would then be a nonsensical shift to be talking of a geographical location. Surely this is that spiritual Zion mentioned explicitly in Hebrews 12:22, "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering..." This is the Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, that is a reference to the Church, by the name of her Old Testament type.

This same gathering of the nations to the Church is mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah. For example, see Is. 60:3, "And nations shall come to Your light, and kings to the brightness of Your rising." He uses almost identical wording, reinforcing the application of these prophecies to the Gospel Church.

The Westminster Larger Catechism, question 191, interprets the second petition of the Lord's Prayer ("thy kingdom come"), in part, as praying for "the Gospel [to be] propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, [and] the fullness of the Gentiles brought in." The Westminster Directory for Public Worship enjoins that prayer be raised "for the propagation of the Gospel and kingdom of Christ to all nations, for the conversion of the Jews, [and] the fulnesse of the Gentiles."

The belief in the prosperity of Zion through the power of God in the Gospel is taught in Scripture and has been the historical desire and love of God's people. The negativism and malaise that now dominate the Church have come in through the infection of dispensationalism, in all its factions. May God restore the Church to the power that her oldtime faith gave her!