The History of the Ten "Lost" Tribes Part 5

"Israel was evidently in the minds of the apostles themselves. On the day of the ascension they asked Him:--

"'Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' (Acts i. 6.)

"A restoration of the kingdom of Israel with the kingdom of Judah had been promised. The apostles did not confuse the kingdom of Israel with that of Judah, for they said, 'Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' St. Paul devotes thirty-six verses in Romans xi. to prove that G.o.d has not cast away His people, but that "blindness in part is happened unto Israel until the fulness of the nations be come in," so that all Israel shall be saved.

"Lastly, the final word must be that of our Lord. In Acts i. 7, 8 Christ said:--

"'_It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power, but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth_'--which refers to the 'regions beyond'--an expression that was fully understood to mean the dispersed among the Gentiles."

With much pain one has to say that this reveals either lamentable ignorance of the plainest and simplest truths of New Testament Scripture on the part of an otherwise educated man, or a clever adaptation by which a lawyer would seek to support a preconceived theory.

I have already dealt with some of these perversions in the first part of this pamphlet, so need only refer to them again in the briefest possible manner.

(a) It is indeed "perfectly clear" to any reader of the New Testament that Israel "was much in our Lord's mind during His three years'

ministry upon earth"; but as clear and evident is it to any candid reader that the only "Israel" of whom He thought and spoke were the people among whom He lived and moved, and to whom His blessed ministry on earth was confined, and who are alternately called in the New Testament "Jews" and "Israel."

It was to these "lost sheep" _in the land of Palestine_ for whom His own compa.s.sions were moved when He beheld them in mult.i.tudes, that the Twelve were sent out in Matt. x., and He ascribes to them the term "lost" in a deeper and more solemn and spiritual sense than Anglo-Israelism has evidently any conception of. (_See_ page 41.)

(b) The statement here repeated about the tribe of Benjamin, and that the "majority of our Lord's disciples at the time of His earthly ministry were connected with the tribe of Benjamin," is nothing but a fiction invented by Anglo-Israelites, as already shown in Part I. (_See_ page 17.)

The only thing which is historically true is that the Apostle Paul was of the tribe of Benjamin, but he was called after our Lord's earthly ministry was ended, and he was appointed not to the "lost tribes," but to preach Christ's Gospel _among the Gentiles_ (Acts xxii. 21; Rom. xi.

13; Gal. i. 16).

(c) The nation which brings forth the fruits of the kingdom of G.o.d during the present dispensation of Israel's national unbelief is not the British Empire, but _the Church of Christ_--the elected body out of _all_ nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues, who are called "a chosen generation (or 'elect race'), a royal priesthood, a _holy nation_ (e????), a people for G.o.d's own possession" (1 Peter ii. 9).

(d) To state that the Jews themselves understood Christ's statement in Matt. xxi. 43 as referring to some "lost" Israel, because in John vii.

35 they said: "Will He go unto the dispersed (t?? d?sp??a?) among the Gentile (or 'Greeks'), and teach the Greeks?" is not true.

The "dispersed" among the Greeks were h.e.l.lenistic "_Jews_" of all the Twelve Tribes scattered abroad, who stood (as already shown in Part II.) in closest connection with the Temple and hierarchy in Jerusalem, and were never "lost"; and the Greeks among whom they were dispersed were "_Gentiles_."

(e) And what can be said of such a perverted application of the question in Acts i. 6, namely, that when the disciples, immediately before Christ's ascension, asked: "Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" it was not their own nation, the "Jews," that they meant, and Jerusalem the centre of G.o.d's kingdom on earth--but some "lost" tribes in distant regions of which they knew nothing--I suppose on the same principle of Anglo-Israel interpretation when Peter, with the eleven on the Day of Pentecost, for instance, addressed the people as "_Ye men of Israel_," and again, "Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know a.s.suredly that G.o.d hath made Him both Lord and Christ--this Jesus whom ye crucified" (Acts ii. 22-36)--he did not speak to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude of "Jews" before him, but over their heads to some distant regions where there were some wandering "lost" tribes who alone were ent.i.tled to the name "Israel." But such a.s.sertions are altogether too ridiculous to be treated seriously.

The "Israel" which "was evidently in the minds of the apostles," and to whom Peter spoke, and of whom Paul wrote in that great prophetic section in his Epistle to the Romans (chaps. ix.-xi.), were the "Jews," whether of Palestine or in the "Dispersion," who are the only representatives of all the Twelve Tribes of "Israel" with whom Scripture or prophecy has any concern, and not any supposed "lost" tribes to be identified after many centuries by Anglo-Israel writers as the British and the United States.

(f) "Lastly, the final word," we are told, "must be that of our Lord," and then there follows the quotation of the glorious promise and prophetic forecast from Acts i. 7, 8: "_Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth_"; and we are a.s.sured that the last sentence refers "to the regions beyond--an expression that was fully understood to mean the dispersed among the Gentiles"--by which, I suppose, we are meant to understand, the "lost" tribes.

But the sentence--?a? e?? es?at?? t?? ???--means, as it has been properly rendered, "unto the end (or 'uttermost part') of the earth,"

and has always been "fully" and properly understood by the Church of Christ as a Divine warrant and forecast of the preaching of the Gospel, not to the Dispersed _among_ the Gentiles, but to _the heathen world_.

Note II.

THE PROMISES OF A MULt.i.tUDINOUS SEED, AND THAT ISRAEL SHALL BECOME A GREAT AND MIGHTY NATION.

A great point is made by all Anglo-Israel writers of the promises which G.o.d made to the fathers of a mult.i.tudinous seed. The argument is, that since the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were to be a great and mighty and very numerous nation--yea, "a company of nations"--these promises cannot apply to the "Jews," who are comparatively few in number. There must exist, therefore, a people somewhere great and mighty and numerous who are the seed of Abraham, in whom these promises are realised.

Now look at the British Empire, how great and mighty it is in the earth, and what vast numbers it includes, _ergo_, the British, including the United States of America (which by some wonderful process of divination Anglo-Israelites are able to distinguish and identify as "Mana.s.seh," in spite of the fact that their progenitors, who emigrated from England, were, according to them "Ephraimites," and that those original emigrants have since been mixed up with a flood of emigrants from all other races under heaven), are the descendants of Abraham, and particularly of the "lost" Ten Tribes!

Now the following are the Scriptures on the subject:

(1) "And I will make of thee (Abraham) a great nation" (Gen. xii.

2).

(2) "And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered" (Gen. xiii. 16).

(3) "And He brought him (Abraham) forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the number of the stars, if thou be able to tell them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be" (Gen. xv.

5).

(4) "And G.o.d talked with him (Abraham), saying: As for Me, My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be the father of a mult.i.tude of nations; neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for the father of a mult.i.tude of nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee" (Gen.

xvii. 4-6).

(5) "Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him" (Gen. xviii. 18).

(6) "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seash.o.r.e; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies" (a Hebrew idiom for "shall be victorious over his foes") (Gen. xxii. 17).

(7) "And G.o.d said unto him (Jacob), I am G.o.d Almighty, be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins" (Gen. x.x.xv. 11).

To these pa.s.sages have to be added Isaac's blessing to Jacob: "G.o.d Almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a company--literally, 'a congregation' (??????? ????????) of peoples" (Gen. xxviii. 3); and Jacob's forecast of Ephraim in his blessing of Joseph's sons, that his seed shall become "a mult.i.tude (or literally, 'a fulness,' ??????? ??????????) of the nations."

Now in reference to all these particular promises and forecasts, I would beg your attention to the following observations:--

I. There are expressions in them which must not be pressed to the extreme of literalness according to our Western ideas. We speak of "nations," and think of them as embracing populations of whole countries, and of "kings" as being sovereigns of States, but in the earlier books of the Bible we are introduced to many "nations" and "peoples" as comprised in one little country of Canaan, and of many "kings" who were no more than chiefs, or rulers of "cities," which in our modern times we would only cla.s.s as "villages." As a matter of fact, the term ??????????, _goim_, generally standing for "_nations_," and usually for the _Gentile_ nations, is actually used for the _tribes_ or families of the Jewish people. Here is the Scripture: "And He said unto me, Son of Man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to nations ?(?????????, (_goim_--the word is in the plural) that are rebellious, which have rebelled against Me" (Ezek. ii. 3).

The "Jews," or "Israel," as they are properly called are being spoken of as "nations," because they comprised different families or tribes.

Already Moses could say of the Israel of his time: "_Jehovah your G.o.d hath multiplied you, and behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for mult.i.tude_" (Deut. i. 10; x. 22); and Solomon, in his prayer for wisdom, says: "_Thy servant is in the midst of Thy people which Thou hast chosen, a great people that cannot be counted for mult.i.tude_" (1 Kings iii. 8).

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews knew nothing of a supposed identification of the millions in Britain and America with the "lost"

Ten Tribes, but speaking of the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, he could say that because Abraham believed G.o.d, and Sarah herself, in spite of natural impossibilities, judged Him faithful who had promised: "_Wherefore also there sprang of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of heaven for mult.i.tude, and as the sand which is by the seash.o.r.e innumerable_" (Hebrews xi. 12); so that even if we view only the past it is not true to a.s.sert that the promises of G.o.d that the seed of Abraham should be a mult.i.tude which cannot be numbered, and const.i.tute "a company of nations," has not been fulfilled in the "Jews"

or "Israel," which has never been "lost."

II. The promises of a mult.i.tudinous seed and rapid increase of the seed of Abraham, though in the first instance given to the fathers unconditionally, and therefore will a.s.suredly be fulfilled, were nevertheless made conditional on Israel's obedience. It is with this, as with all the other great promises, given to the Jewish nation. They were conditional as far as any particular generation of Jews are concerned, who may either enjoy them if in obedience, or forfeit them through disobedience; but they are unconditional to the nation because G.o.d abides faithful, and in the end all His plans and purposes in and through them will be fulfilled. For this very reason He has preserved them as a people in spite of all their sin and disobedience.

Now at the very commencement of Israel's history--long before there was any likelihood of a schism among the tribes--Moses, speaking in the name of G.o.d of the whole nation, says: "_If ye walk in My statutes and keep My commandments to do them, ... I will have respect unto you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and will establish My covenant with you_"

(Lev. xxvi. 3-9).

On the other hand, he solemnly forewarns them that if they shall "corrupt themselves" and fall away from the living G.o.d, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it, ...

and Jehovah shall scatter you among the peoples, _and ye shall be left few in number among the nations whither Jehovah shall lead you_" (Deut.

iv. 25-27).

This is repeated with solemn emphasis in Deut. xxviii. 62: "_And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for mult.i.tude_." In the light of the Word of G.o.d, therefore, and apart from all the absurdities involved in the Anglo-Israel theory, the very fact that the British and American races are so numerous and powerful among the nations precludes the possibility of their being Israel, for when out of Palestine and in dispersion Israel was to become "few in number,"

and oppressed and downtrodden among the nations.

III. The underlying fallacy in the Anglo-Israel argument from the promises of a mult.i.tudinous seed which G.o.d made to the fathers (and this, indeed, is one of the chief errors underlying the whole theory), is that it overlooks the fact that those promises, according to the testimony of the prophets, will be fulfilled in the _future_, when (as stated above) the Jewish nation, restored and converted, shall become under the personal rule of their Messiah, great and mighty for G.o.d on this earth. Then, when Israel shall be spiritually restored to G.o.d, and in and through the grace of their Messiah they shall be a nation all righteous and planted by G.o.d in their own land, "the little one shall become a thousand, and the small one a strong nation" (Isa. lx. 21, 22); and so rapidly and marvellously shall they increase that even the whole promised land, which is fifty times as large as the portion of it "from Dan to Beersheba," which alone they possessed in the past, shall become too small for them, so that they shall say to the surrounding nations: "_The place is too strait for me, give place ('make room') that I may dwell_" (Isa. xlix. 19, 20).

Now all this has been, and will be, fulfilled in the "Jews," who, as I have shown, are the people of the whole "_Twelve Tribes scattered abroad_." In the dispersion among the nations they became reduced to "few in number," but when they are restored and blessed G.o.d says: "I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small" (Jer. x.x.x. 19).

Of the capacity for rapid increase of the Jewish people there is sufficient proof already. The following is from a recent number of _The Scattered Nation_:--