TRAVELS WITH YAHSHUA [JESUS]

There is a general lack of perception amongst Christians today of the ministry of Yahshua, First Fruit of the Most High, when incarnated into our realm. This lack of perception may partly be due to the presence of “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” who pretend to offer Christian guidance to His flock but actually are leading them away from their true Shepherd.

One of the preeminent signs of this false guidance is the misunderstanding of His Purpose here. He came, firstly, to redeem Israel. To redeem anything, one must first possess it and then–for whatever reason, voluntarily or involuntarily–lose possession of it. Once it is out of one’s personal possession, then one is in position to redeem it. In a sense, there is a suspension of legal ownership until such time as the redemption is lawfully transacted.

So, whom did Yahshua, the Christ, say, according to Holy Scripture, He was come to redeem? And where did he go to initiate this redemption? Let’s consider the former a moment:

After the Davidic Kingdom had been divided into two Houses, Israel [sometimes referenced as Ephraim] and Judah, the Northern Kingdom promptly began to distance itself from the God of their fathers. Vanity and lust were incarnated in the image of a bull. Heathenism and corruption became the order of the day. Almost immediately after separating into an independent kingdom, the northern tribes broke the First Commandment of Yahway. The others were soon violated.

Now, in Isaiah 54:5, we learn that a metaphorical husband-&-wife relationship had been established [it was entered into at Mt. Sinai] between Yahway and Israel: “For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.”

Therefore, when the House of Israel [Ephraim] promptly began breaking all His commandments and “fornicating” with other gods, a serious breech occurred. Adultery is an acceptable cause for divorce under Yahway’s Law. Therefore, after enduring much grief along this line with Israel, a break occurred. Yahway told his “wife” both through Jeremiah and Hosea that he was divorcing her and gave her a bill of divorce [Jer. 3:8].

“Plead with your mother, plead; for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband.”  [Hosea 2:2]

The northern house of Israel was divorced and no longer the wife of Yahway. But, unfazed, the northern tribes continued to live corrupt, lewd lifestyles, and Yahway sent Assyria to conquer the Northern Kingdom. Israel once more goes into bondage due to its stiff-necked resistance to Yahway’s Will. Incidentally, this deportation of Israelites was not limited to the vast majority of Israelites who resided in the Northern Kingdom, but also included the greater part of the Southern Kingdom, as well. Consider:

“Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.” [See 2 Kings 18:13] This would have largely evacuated the Kingdom of Judah outside of the fortified metropolitan Jerusalem area at the time period of 700 B.C. The southern part of the Kingdom of Judah may have retained its mixed population of Judahite and Edomite [which had begun a slow migration northward, hastened by the suddenly vacant land.]

Subsequently, Jerusalem was to fall to the ascendant Babylonian power, and the Judahites remaining there were taken into captivity at Babylon. After about 70 years, a remnant returned. This remnant of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levy provided a small Israelite community from which the Israelite population in the Judean Province of Rome at the time of Yahshua Christ mostly descended. There was only, therefore, a small proportion of the total Israelite population actually in the area of Judea, Galilee and Samaria at the time of redemption.

It was not necessary for them to be in the Lands of Israel to be redeemed. However, it was necessary for Christ the Redeemer to be there. That is why he was there and not elsewhere. Consider:

“The message from the Ever-Living that came to Hosea-ben-Bari…The Ever-Living said to Hosea, Go! marry a wife from the whores and the child of whores, for the country whores away from the Ever-Living! …But she conceived again and bore a daughter. Then He said to me, Call her name Lo-ruhamah ["Merciless"]: for I will not continue to have mercy on the House of Israel, but I will drive them away.…When she had weaned “Merciless,” she conceived again and bore a son. Then He said, Call his name Lo-ammi ["Not-My-People"], for you are not My people, and I will not be with you. And although the Children of Israel were as numerous as the sand of the sea that cannot be measured or counted, yet in the place where it was said of them, you are Not-My-People,—they shall be called the children of a Living-God! For I will collect the children of Judah, and the children of Israel together, and they will appoint a Single Head for themselves and rise up from the earth for the Great Day of God’s Harvest.” [Hosea 1, 2]

Since the northern tribes were divorced in the “Land of Milk and Honey,” it was to that land the Prophet Hosea affirmed that they would be taken back. Where they were dispossessed, they were to be repossessed. This is the redemption which is spoken of in Scripture. No other people were known to Yahway. No other people had been given the Law. No other people were “married” to their Ever-Living Lord by contract, or covenant, at Mount Sinai. This was the old marriage arrangement. By means of His prophets Yahway made clear that a “new marriage arrangement” [covenant] would be made with Israel, and that Israel would bear a new name [Christian].

The love of Yahway for His Covenanted “wife”, Israel, is made clear in Solomon’s Song of Songs. The love of Yahwah would heal the breech. How? Consider:

Know ye not, brethren (for I speak to them that know the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adultress, though she be married to another man [Romans 7:1-3].

By this passage we understand from Paul that Yahshua’s sacrificial death on the cross at The Skull accomplished the redemptive deliverance of “Not-My-People” ["which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God"], fulfilling the prophecy of Hosea. Beyond this, Christ’s death opened to all who wished to be saved the possibilityof life everlasting through faith in Christ and His Way.

Therefore, with the vast horde of Israelites north of Assyria–and east, west and even south, there is little wonder at the Scriptural references to “scattered” Israel. “My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

“For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out” [Ez. 34:6,11].

There can be no doubt that the Holy One Who comes in the name of Yah [Yahshua], is the Searcher and Gatherer. Consider: For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost [Luke 19:10]. Further, Yahshua Christ commented: “But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” [Matt. 15:24]. In Matthew 10:6, Yahshua Christ directed His disciples to go to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Again, we can turn to Paul for further clarification. He states that he is a Benjaminite. In writing to Christians in Galatia, he is writing to Israelites who happen to be residing there and who might be likened to “fallen away” faithful—prior to the “good news” of Christ’s redemption and promise. To these dispersed Galatian Israelites, Paul writes: “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law…” [Gal. 4:4,5].

My understanding of Scripture is that the expressive term “sheep” is only used in conjunction with Israel, or the Israelite people. No other people are addressed with this term. Therefore, it is an identifying term for Israel.

According to the late Sheldon Emry in his “HEIRS OF THE PROMISE”, “the word ‘lost’ appears 13 times in the New Testament in relation to Israel. The Greek word means ‘put away and punish.’ So Jesus was saying in Matthew 15: 24, ‘I am not sent but unto the put away and punished house of Israel.’ “

It is not my intention to try to limit the great sacrifice of the Lord nor to imply that his ministry is not inclusive. Nevertheless, in the Wisdom that informs creation with such astonishing logic that one never can seem to run free of interesting ramifications, “tangents, as it were,” there appears to be a major line of great substance, and included in this line is the greatly significant “redemption of Israel.” It is repeatedly prefigured in Holy Scripture. It should always be prominent in our thoughts.

And be wary of the doctrines of preachers and priests whose smiles of assurance betray unusual canine fangs, even as they attempt to diminish all that is central to the Bible, while affirming doctrines scarcely found in Scripture at all.

Note: This interpretation is indebted to the late Sheldon Emry, and our citations are from the KJ version and Ferrar Fenton Bibles.

All rights reserved. Gobigfoot, 2007.