A most unusual story (but with a sad sequel) has come to us from Palestine. More than 40,000 Jews immigrated to Israel from Bulgaria in recent years; these settled in the vicinity of Jaffa. Their leader in Bulgaria was the chief rabbi, Daniel Zion, who also went with them to Jaffa. Shortly after his arrival in Israel he came to the conviction that Jesus was the Jews' Messiah, and made bold, public declarations of his belief, addressing as many as 1000 Jews at one time in a public meeting.
We would have cause to rejoice in the awakening of a prominent son of Israel to own Jesus as the Christ, but alas, this man easily fell into the false and soul-damning teaching of Arius, the Unitarians, and latterly of Jehovah's Witnesses (which cult's literature was readily furnished to him). How much he was influenced by it, we do not know, but he rejected the truth of the deity of Jesus and His place in the eternal Godhead, and published a leaflet in Hebrew seeking to refute it.
It is sad indeed to find the enemy at work with a false doctrine about the Person of Christ, so that Jews may acknowledge that Jesus was their Messiah, and remain poor, lost souls. The Jews stumbled over Jesus, the stumbling stone that God laid in Zion (1 Pet. 2:6-86Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. 7Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, 8And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. (1 Peter 2:6‑8)), by utterly rejecting His claims of deity. They looked for a Messiah who would restore Israel to a place of prominence and blessing, but because He came in His Father's name, they rejected Him (John 5:4343I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:43)).
The teaching of this totally false cult, Jehovah's Witnesses, lends itself easily to the enemy's work with the Jews. Their teaching does not go beyond earth, hence the Zionism of the Jews is an easy ally. Their hopes are earthly and both will agree in the blasphemy against the glorious Person of Jesus the Son of God.
When the Lord Jesus was on trial before the high priest and the Sanhedrin, He was put under an official oath to tell if He were the Christ, the Son of God. When He truthfully replied that what they had
said was correct, the high priest rent his clothes in feigned shock, and charged Him with speaking blasphemy (Matt. 26:63-6663But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. 64Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. 65Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. 66What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death. (Matthew 26:63‑66)). He was then condemned by that august body for His good confession.
Unbelievers have sometimes falsely said that the Lord Jesus did not claim deity, but witness His dealings with the Jews in the 8th of John's Gospel. He said, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad." v. 56. Whereupon they argued from His youth that He could not have seen Abraham (twisting His words, for He said Abraham rejoiced to see His day). Then Jesus said to them, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." v. 58. He did not say, Before Abraham was, I was, but "I am." It is a sublime statement of the fact that He was God, that He always existed. He was Jehovah, the self-existent One. It was the name by which God revealed Himself to Moses when He was about to enter into covenant relationship with Israel (Exod. 3:14; 6:314And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. (Exodus 3:14)
3And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. (Exodus 6:3)). He could have said, Before Adam was, I am, but He went no further than to answer the charge they made. True greatness does not have to multiply substantiating statements.
And why should a Jew or anyone else be willing to accept Jesus as an earthly Messiah if He were not what He claimed to be? To deny the truth of what He claimed, and yet to accept Him is to claim to accept an untruthful man as a Messiah. And is not this what Judaism, and that which is left of an apostate Christendom after the believers' rapture, will do? They will accept a man who will come in his own name, as the Lord Himself said they would do (John 5:4343I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. (John 5:43)).
This is in keeping with the prophecy of Zechariah 11. There the Lord Himself was commissioned as the Shepherd of Israel, and was rejected as such. Because of this, God will give them a foolish shepherd, a "worthless shepherd" (v. 17; J.N.D. Trans.) who will not do the work of a shepherd, and he will leave the flock. He will be the one of whom the Lord spoke in John 10-the hireling, "whose own the sheep are not," who will flee for his own safety in that last deluge of judgment of the great tribulation. He, however, shall not escape the judgment of the very One whom he sought to impersonate, for the Lord Jesus coming in His glory shall cast that willful king into the lake of fire, along with the wicked head of the revived Roman Empire.
There are two forms of unbelief which are equally fatal. They are found together in 1 John 2:2222Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22): "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son." The mass of the Jews in that day denied that Jesus was the Christ; this is to be a liar and not know the truth. It was an especial Jewish unbelief in the rejection of Him who came in His father's name. The next statement is a form of unbelief which largely characterizes what is often referred to as Christendom. It is denial of "the Father and the Son"-the special revelation of God as known in Christianity, the Father and the Son, co-equals in deity. This is the basis of the apostate teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, and many others, not excluding some religious and semi-religious secret orders which profess to recognize God, but relegate the Son to a plane on the level with an imposter, Mohammed. This is antichrist.
Now, strange as it may seem, the devil has given some Jews to admit that Jesus was the Messiah, and then adopt the other soul-destroying heterodoxy, by rejecting "the Father and the Son." As the end approaches, the activities of this false "angel of light" increase, and false doctrines multiply.
What a blessed portion is ours who accept the truth of His deity and His true humanity-holy, spotless, undefiled, and undefilable.
"How wondrous the glories that meet
In Jesus and from His face shine!
His love is eternal and sweet,
'Tis human, 'tis also divine.
"His glory-not only God's Son-
In manhood He had His full part-
And the union of both joined in one
Form the fountain of love in His heart.
"The merits and worth of His blood
Have freed us from hell and from fear,
That we, as the blest sons of God,
May make His good pleasure our care.
"Oh then may this union and love
Make us walk in the service of heaven,
'Mid obedience and suffering to prove
That we to the Lamb have been given."