RemnantInWilderness

Ezekiel 5: 1-12 uses the parable of Ezekiel’s beard and hair to describe God’s judgment upon three parts of a larger group of his people. Ezekiel is also told in verse 3 to bind a few in his skirts.

” 1And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber’s razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.

2Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.

3Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts.”

If Ezekiel 5: 1-12 is to be taken as a literal prophecy for the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, then almost all the people in Jerusalem would have died. They would have died, as Ezekiel 5: 12 says, from disease, from famine and from the sword. But II Kings 25 does not record that almost all the people in Jerusalem died when in the ninth year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar took the city. Verse 11 says many in Jerusalem were taken captive to Babylon. In addition, Jeremiah 39: 9 records that many in Jerusalem were taken captive to Babylon.

Ezekiel 5: 1-12 is not limited to being a literal prophecy for the final fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 596 BC. The text uses that historical fall of the city as a metaphor for end time prophecy. In the end times God will divide “Jerusalem” into three groups and will judge each group in different ways. In Ezekiel 5: 2 “when the days of the siege are fulfilled” the siege of Jerusalem is metaphoric for what is to happen to “Jerusalem,” those who claim to be God’s people, in the Tribulation, and specifically during the 5th and 6th Trumpet Judgments of Revelation 9.

This three part division of the larger whole of God’s professing people is affirmed in Zechariah 13: 8-9 where the text says:

“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.

9And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”

Zechariah 13: 9 gives us some additional information that Ezekiel 5: 1-12 does not tell us. One third of the entire larger group of God’s people are to go through some kind of fire, and then they will turn to the Lord, call on him and he will accept them as his people.

Since Zechariah 13: 9 is a prophecy for the end times and for the Tribulation period, we can look for other end time prophecy texts that might answer the question of what the “fire” of Zechariah 13: 9 could be. In Revelation 9: 3-5 there is a group identified as locusts and scorpions. The scorpions do not have the power to kill, but in verse 5 they have power to torment. This torment is part of the “fire” which the one third of Zechariah 13: 9 are to go through.

Is there a more explicit text in the Bible that says God will judge those who claim to be his followers? Yes there is.

I Peter 4: 17 says “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”

But why is God going to judge the “Church?”

A large part of the answer to this question is found in II Thessalonians 2: 7-12 where Paul writes that:

“For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. “

Some of John Gill’s commentaries tend to get long, so I will quote him only on verses 10 and 12 of II Thessalonians 2:

John Gill’s commentary on II Thessalonians 2: 10, 12:

Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be

saved;

“by the “truth” is meant either Christ the truth of types, the sum of promises, in whom the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are, and by whom grace and truth came; or the Gospel, often called truth, and the word of truth, it coming from the God of truth, has for its subject Christ the truth, is dictated and directed into by the spirit of truth, and contains nothing but truth: and by “the love” of it is meant, either the loveliness of it, for truth is an amiable, lovely thing, in its nature and use; or an affection for it, which there is, where true faith in it is, for faith works by love: there may be a flashy affection for the truths of the Gospel, where there is no true faith in Christ, or the root of the matter is not, as in the stony ground hearers; and there may be an historical faith in the doctrines of the Gospel, where the power of them is denied, and there is no true hearty love for them; and in these persons there is neither faith nor love; the truths of the Gospel are neither believed by them, nor are they affected with them, that so, they might be saved; for where there is true faith in the Gospel of Christ, and in Christ the substance of it, there is salvation; the reason therefore of these men’s perishing is not the decree of God, nor even want of the means of grace, the revelation of the Gospel, but their rejection and contempt of it.”

On verse 12:

That they all might be damned…

“Or judged, discerned and distinguished from true Christians and real believers, or rather that they might be condemned and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and have their portion in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone; where the devil, the false prophet, and the beast, whose followers they are, will be cast; and it is but a righteous thing with God to give them up to such delusion,

that they may be damned,

“since they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved; and the following character of them justifies the divine procedure.”

II Thessalonians 2: 12 warns that those who do not have a love of the truth in the Bible and of Christ and who do not follow the truth are not saved. This text argues against the claim of man-made theology that one can be saved while he or she follows a man-made theology which contradicts Scripture.

Dispensationalism is the man-made theology which is followed by more of those claiming to be God’s people than any other man-made theology. Dispensationalism starts from the belief that God has two distinctly different peoples who he deals with in different ways, physical Israel, or the Jews, and the “Church.” Even this starting point of dispensationalism contradicts what Paul and Peter say in the New Testament. Under the New Covenant those who are born again in Christ are spiritual Israel, while the Jews who reject Christ are Israel after the flesh, and as Paul says in Romans 11: 20 many of the Jews were broken off because of unbelief.

Classical dispensationalists also say that in the end time, during the Tribulation, God will return to physical Israel who were left behind by the New Covenant and will redeem the Jews. The New Testament Scriptures saying there is no difference between Christian Jews and Gentiles, and that all are spiritual Israel, contradict the idea of an exclusive Jewish kingdom in the end times.

There are some other man-made theologies which also contradict Scripture in their teachings. There is Christian Identity that claims God still sees race as the main qualification for blessings and that the Germanic and Celtic peoples are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel.

Sacred Name theology is another false doctrine which goes against the New Testament in a number of ways, and edges close to advocating a return to the Old Covenant. Sacred Name theology derives to a great extent from the Hebrew Roots movement which is a source for additional man-made theologies, which do not accept the left behind status of physical, unsaved Israel. Messianic Judaism is a source for some of these false doctrines.

Dispensationalism makes a strong separation between the Christian “Church” and physical Israel and it teaches that in the Tribulation God will create a kingdom just for the Jews. Some of the theologies derived from the Hebrew Roots movement continue this teaching of God’s return to the Jews or the Israelies in the end times.

Christian identity deals with the Israelite tribes of the northern kingdom called Israel, which was taken captivity in about 721 BC by the Assyrians. Some of the theologies derived from the Hebrew Roots and Messianic Judaism traditions also deal with these tribes of the northern kingdom. Some claim that Ezekiel’s two stick prophecy (Ezekiel 37: 16-22) will be fulfilled in the end times when the Jews, descendants of the southern kingdom of Judah, and the descendants of the northern kingdom of Israel will be joined together. The problems with this is that Ezekiel’s two stick prophecy was fulfilled in the times of Hezekiah and of Ezra and Nehemiah.

There are several variations of the newer two house theology derived from the Hebrew Roots and Messianic Judaism theologies. It can get confusing and complex. I will quote only one variation of this false theology here”

On a Hebrew Roots web site

http://www.hebroots.org/twohousemeeting.htm Dan Juster, Monte Judah and Eddie Chumney say “…we believe in this present time, as in times past, the house of Judah and the house of Israel have been physically separated and have not physically joined together and have not been physically reunited as a corporate people in the land of Israel as described by the prophets. The prophets of Israel associate this event with the Messianic Era when Messiah will set up His tabernacle with His people and establish a covenant of peace (Ezekiel 37:24-27)…The prophesied physical joining together of the two houses is the future restoration of Jacob. We believe that  future restoration of the two houses will be completed in conjunction with other events known as the Greater Exodus, Jacob’s trouble, the Great Tribulation and the return of the Messiah (Jeremiah 30:1-7). Therefore, teachings and discussions in our day concerning how the two houses of Israel will be physically reunited are primarily eschatological (study of the end of days) in nature and substance. This physical reunion of both houses of Israel in the end of days is like a song of joy (Revelation 15:30)”

At least in great part for the Hebrew Roots followers as for the dispensationalists the Tribulation is not to be a period of God’s judgment on Christians for falling into false doctrines - but it is to be a time of the completion of redemption for physical Israel.

This Hebrew Roots web site statement goes on to say “We believe that the house of Israel, led by Ephraim, who is scattered in the nations and their future reunion with the house of Judah is one of the most

significant Messianic prophecies concerning the role and function of the Messiah of Israel. Yeshua / Jesus stated that He needed to die on the tree so that His two houses or sheepfolds could become one (John 10:14-17).”

The Hebrew Roots people want to bring physical unsaved Israel into Christianity in mass during the end times. But they set this joining up in a way which compromises the truth of Scripture. Above all, like the dispensationalists they claim that Christ in part failed in his mission to redeem Israel, and so he must return to this task in the end times. Following the rapture theory of some dispensationalists, God will return to carry out the redemption of unsaved physical Israel after the “Church” has been raptured off the earth.   Bernard