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The Mystery of Israel and the Church
Art Katz

The Resurrection of Israel - Chapter 13 [part 2]

Israel's Millennial Destiny
As long as the nation of Israel remains in its grave, we will continue to have incest, abortion, child molestation, perversion, and every sick and defiling sin, even unto a Sodom and Gomorrah.  We will be inundated with every grotesque form of iniquity until Israel comes to be a priestly nation, instructing the world in the difference between the sacred and the profane, blessing all the families of the earth because now they know God as the God who raises the dead.  The true knowledge of God is not knowledge about God, but it is the experiential knowledge of a God who raises the dead, the experience of the resurrection in our own lives that, alone, empowers us to effect it in others.  Except we have experienced that resurrection from our death, how shall we believe it for them?  Except our word be a resurrection word in resurrection power, how shall they be raised from that death?
Since Israel has a millennial destiny central to all nations, there is no alternative but for God to bring her out from the place of man in his self-sufficiency and dependency upon his own competence, and into a union with Him by which she is divinely enabled.  The unhappy thing is that no one can come into that, short of death.  It is really a remarkable revelation of our own condition that we have not understood this necessity for Israel, perhaps because we have not been willing to understand it for ourselves.  The Church itself is operating too much from its own humanity, and making a brave show of it in terms of seeming success, but it is only when the issue of the glory of God is raised that our presumptions and failures are apparent.  We are persuaded that all of our error and failure to understand how God will bring Israel down, our reluctance to consider the necessary suffering and devastation that will result, stems from the fact that our central consideration is not the glory of God, but the success of a nation, a fellowship or an individual.
We need to understand that Israel's predicament shall worsen, both from within and without.  There has never been a nation so bewildered, so bedeviled as Israel, with vexing problems rising from differences in culture, national origin and ethnicity.  Israel is surrounded by hostile enemies who are determined to see her destruction; they have a Palestinian presence within, and even if there is momentary resolution, the intractable hatred, bloodlust and revenge that is characteristic of the extremist, Islamic mentality will not be placated.
This is neither accidental nor haphazard, but the calculated wisdom of God to bring a proud, stubborn, self-willed and self-assured people down and out, in order that He might raise them up in the power of God, supernaturally, by a word spoken through Gentiles, whom Jews would consider the least likely source.  Believing Gentiles will be the key to Israel's national restoration, and that is why God Himself does not speak the word; He has us to speak it, together, in agreement, one heart, one mind, one will, when it is commanded, and in a faith that must work by love.
The unconditional love of God cannot be offended against, regardless of the condition of the one upon whom that love is visited.  In a word, the 'son of man' who speaks for God has got to be in unsullied union with God; his love is God's love, his faith is God's faith, and for him to live is Christ.  How many of us can say that that is our present condition?  It means choosing not to live by one's own wisdom, or be moved by one's own energy.  It is to become emptied, to become weak, helpless and frail.  And except that He lives, I do not live either.  I am dead and hid with Christ in God until His life is revealed; then is my life revealed unto glory.26  

Crisis unto Death
If Israel were not in this crisis unto death, but in a less demanding place where the Church could help them, then, in what condition would we, with them, be eternally fixed, both as the Church and as Israel?  It would be a condition less than what glorifies God; it would not be a condition that fitted us for our own eternal calling, and if we miss this, we miss something immeasurable.  We cannot discuss the issue of Israel except in the context, then, of eternity.  The issue is not their immediate need, security, and being helped through; there is an issue of eternity at stake.  This is the last occasion in time and history by which that is to be effected.  It is ultimate and final, both for Israel and for the Church.
How can this be communicated to the Church in such a way that the Church would become willing to embrace this death so as to know this life?"  A Church that is merely well-meaning could never succeed in bringing itself to this awareness, conviction and understanding.  Only a prophetic call of an unsparing kind could conceivably bring the Church to this awareness.
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones.  And He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry (Ezek. 37:1-2).
Does this indicate that the prophet would necessarily like to be in the midst of the valley of dry bones?  When the Allies arrived in Germany at the end of World War II, they came upon scenes of mounds and mounds of stinking corpses and bones in the most horrifying configurations.  Men puked upon seeing the ugliness of those mass graves, unburied corpses, and bodies in their final convulsions of death.  It is not something that is pleasant, but if the prophet, or anyone, will not come to the place of truth, however grim, if he will not see things as they in fact are, as God Himself sees them, then is he equally powerless to address them.
The 'son of man' is as much a concern in the purposes of God as the valley of dry bones itself.  It describes God's preoccupation and jealousy, not only for Israel, but that something symbolized in the phrase, 'son of man,' the prophetic calling in the man.  Unless the Spirit of the Lord brought him there, and the hand of the Lord was upon him, he would not, himself, have chosen to come down into that valley.  A valley is invariably a place of depression.  Unless we will allow the hand of the Lord to come upon us as a corporate 'son of man,' as a prophetic end-time people, to bring us out of a lesser but more comfortable place, which we have ourselves preferred, and bring us down into the place of desolation and death, we forfeit the true place in God.
It is always the issue of truth.  We need to begin to see how much man is desperately evil in his own humanity, and why 'death' is the only answer.  Deep-seated in our humanity, we have our delusions, our wishful thinking, the way we like to color something in our views, or see the better side of it.  We naturally want to avoid the hard, painful seeing of something as it, in fact, is.
Self-induced deception, born out of the carnal heart, refuses to see something as it in fact is, and transforms it to the point that it believes its own perception and its own lie.  In that condition, we will never prophesy anything.  A prophet is a seer before he is a spokesman, and if his word is not in keeping with the truth of what is to be seen, it is not a true word, and it will not raise the dead.  This text suggests that this prophet, like ourselves, is not naturally willing, that there is a degree of reluctance to see things as they in fact are. 

True Seeing
How do we perceive the present-day state of Israel?  Is she just struggling through some temporary problems?  There have been some unhappy things, yes; and yes, they have had to use some force and even brutality; and yes, it was a very sad episode about that Jewish doctor going into the Mosque in Hebron, and killing those praying Muslims in cold blood.  But is that not, rather, a symptom and a statement not of a man, but of a condition of a nation?  When a man, who is both orthodox and highly educated, can, in cold blood, calculate the death of others as being the means by which Israel will obtain its security, then we have something much more here than an aberrant individual.  Are we seeing with a degree of wishful thinking that wants to dismiss painful considerations, or are we seeing something deeper and truer?
We have to ask if the act described in Hebron was an act of a deranged man, or whether the extremities and the pressures of his nation's situation have revealed what man in fact is, and always has been, and is revealed again in this extremity.  We can ask the same question about Nazi Germany, the land of philosophy, ethics, morality, music and culture.  Is what we see now the true Germany, or is the true Germany the one that was unmasked by the pressures of the 'thirties,' revealing the pagan heart of that nation in the Nazi time?  In fact, does God allow, if not bring into being, the circumstances that will reveal the truth of our condition?  God will not bring His redemptive answer to the changing of that condition until we acknowledge it and make no excuses for it.  We love Israel, but we are not going to allow that love to deceive us as to their condition and their need, let alone our own.
Before the Church can speak prophetically, it needs to see prophetically.  That means dying to every illusion and desire it has to see things in a rosier light.  God is not saying to the son of man, "Just take a glimpse at this."  He brought him down into the midst of those dry bones, and walked him all around, and thrust him into the grit of it.  What do you think of a God like that?  Might we not just as well be talking about community living?  If one wants to live with delusion, then be a Sunday Christian, wear the pious face, and let others wear theirs, and greet each other in the foyer of the building, and ask, "How are you doing, brother?"  If one wants to see the true condition of the fellowship, then live in community for the rest of the week, and see people when their religious masks are off, as they, in fact, are.  Even more shocking is to see what we, in fact, are!
Disillusionment is not a bad thing, because illusion is another name for a lie.  It is only the grace of God that enables us to give up our illusions, and see things as they in fact are, and it is on that ground that God meets us.  That is when His mercy and grace are available, but only on the ground of truth.  He is not going to allow us to feed our suppositions, romantic imaginings, or any such thing.  He is full of grace, but also full of truth.  Where are a prophetic people like that?  It is for as many as will allow the Spirit of God to bring them out from their comfortable views and their wishful thinking, and down into the situation as it in fact is, grim and full of death, and from that place, to speak as God in the place of God.  That is why the priests were barefooted; their feet had to touch the ground; they had no illusions about the truth of Israel's condition, and only in that condition could they go in and make sacrifice for the nation.  Before you are a prophet, you are a priest, or you are not a prophet.  Only priestly identification with the people, in the condition that they are in, can bring the prophetic benediction and blessing.  We have got to recognize that God is as concerned for the 'son of man' as He is for Israel and it is only in the interaction between the two that both come forth into the place of truth, the place of resurrection and glory.

One with God
There is a very interesting conclusion here that we should not miss.  After 'the son of man' prophesies, and bone comes to bone, and flesh upon the bones, and when they are brought up out of their graves and into the land of Israel, we read,
'Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people.  And I will put My Spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land.  Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,' declares the LORD (Ezek.37:13-14).
How can the Lord say "I have spoken it," when it is clear from the text that the 'son of man' is the one who prophesied?  How can both things be true at the same time?  "God is not a man that He should lie."  Is it not because the two are one, which is the very genius of the faith?  There has been a coming together in union where God's word is the prophet's word; God's thought is his thought; God's will is his will, and God's impulse is his impulse.  He has no independent life of his own.  For God to have performed the speaking Himself would not have been a glory.  The glory is always revealed when it is expressed through another vessel, especially an earthen one.  This will be the final demonstration to Israel of the genius and glory of God, coming through a Gentile Church, the last agent that Israel would have selected to be their 'Deliverer.'
What would you rather be: a believer who receives help from the Lord so that you can do 'such and such' for the Lord, or a 'son of man,' who has come to a place of union with the Lord, so that you cannot tell where the 'son of man' ends and where God begins?  Your speaking is His speaking; your thought is His thought; your will is His will.  You have no independent existence. What would you rather have, an independent Christian existence with your speaking, your thoughts and your desires, which are nice and good, or be brought into union with the Lord Himself that He becomes your life and speaking?  Can He presently say about your speaking that it is His?  We would hazard a guess that the majority of Christians would prefer not to make this radical transition from the one mode of being to the other.  Yes, they would like the help that God would give them, so that they could do something for God, but they do not want to cross over to that other side where "to live is Christ."
An ultimate condition of being in God is implied here beyond anything we have ever contemplated as Charismatic, Pentecostal or Evangelical.  This is more than being a sincere Christian; it is coming to a place where you no longer nourish an independent identity in yourself.  You are "dead and hid with Christ in God."  Until we come to that, Israel remains in her grave.  God will not allow Israel's restoration on any basis other than this.  We have got to come into the place where we are fused with God, one with Him, having come to the death of our own independent identity, purpose and being.  On that basis, and that basis alone, can there be a resurrection word that raises the dead.

The Consummation of all Things
Unless our death and resurrection, as the Church, precedes Israel's, they remain dead, and this to the detriment of the nations, and the holding back of the establishment of the kingdom of God in the earth.  The issue of the Lord's coming and the whole eschatological climax is so altogether interwoven with Israel's restoration, that to omit Israel is to lose the whole context and glory of the Lord's coming, the blessed hope of the Church.27
That is the mystery of the Church; it is the mystery of the Godhead; it is the mystery of Israel.  It is climactic and final; it is the end of history; it is the whole purpose for which history has been established; it is the consummation of everything.  The purposes in this age of history and the nations are fulfilled.  The Lord returns.  He has got an Israel that is one with Him, a Church that is one with Him.  His glory is revealed.  None can glory in anything.  It is from Him, through Him, and to Him, to whom be glory forever.  Now He can trust us to be co-heirs and co-laborers with Him in His eternal kingdom.  Now, with Abraham, we can be the heirs of the world, where there is nothing left that would in any way threaten or jeopardize the interests of God or misappropriate His glory.
The Last Days' dealings of God with Israel are not a novelty of some sort; it is not God putting on another face.  This is God in His essential being.  This is God in what was always intrinsic to Himself.  This is the way that He has always performed His works, and the way His wisdom has always been depicted.  It has always been set forth that there is a suffering that precedes a glory; the Lord demonstrated this principle in His own earthly tenure.  Why should we be surprised that the nation that is called to be the "first-born" son should have a requirement less or other than the Lord Himself?  Our problem is that we are not attuned to God; we are not in keeping with the basic thought of God and the disposition of God, the great symbol of which is the Cross.  It has become a sentimental and ceremonial thing; we are seekers after experiences; we shrink from pain and are afraid to embrace the Cross.  A jealousy for God's glory, and a desire to embrace and fulfill His ultimate and Last Days' purposes, makes one a candidate for suffering.28
My dwelling place also will be with them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. And the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever (Ezek. 37:27-28).
This reads like it could be the last verse of the Bible; it is the consummation of everything. The kingdom is established under Jesus, the greater David, His rule is forever, and God has a priestly nation who will never again break covenant with Him, with a new spirit and another heart.  We have to see the whole death and resurrection of Israel in the context of the establishment of God's theocratic rule forever.
The last word is 'forever,' which implies finality, irrevocable and eternal.  "It is finished" on the basis of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  When Jesus spoke those words, He was envisioning this climactic end.  This was the "joy that was set before Him," and He set in motion, by His own death, the release of the power of the resurrection glory by which Israel, at the end, would be raised from the dead, that He might be King over them and rule forevermore.  Everything is predicated on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

Resurrection
The one thing that will distinguish the apostolic church from the apostate church of the Last Days is the subject of resurrection.  That is not to say that the apostate church will deny the truth of the doctrine of resurrection; they will continue to acknowledge it ceremoniously and religiously, but they have no intention of living in it.  Whereas, the thing that will distinguish the remnant church is their qualification to say with Paul, "For to me, to live is Christ."   They will be a people who live eminently in the power of the resurrection life, forfeiting any other dependency.  Why would the apostate church be reluctant to also live and move and have its being in the resurrection life, if it is available?  Why is it only the remnant church?  Why is one content for the mere form of a Christian life, and the other insistent on the power of it?  The answer lies in the fact that death precedes resurrection power every time, and there are not too many who will make themselves candidates for that.
If we want religious success, that is fine, it can be done on the basis of our own expertise, prowess and religious ability.  But if we want our fellowship, our marriage or our life to be for God's glory and not merely our success, then they must all be predicated totally on resurrection ground.  The question is, "How far do we want to go?"  For most of us, success is all that we want, be it religious, marital, professional.  The root problem of the Church is that we have a false center, namely, ourselves, when the true center should more rightly be the glory of God.  We never will have gratification and satisfaction until we make that radical adjustment, and put God, His interests and the fulfillment of His eternal purposes by which He obtains His glory as the central purpose of our being.
Our very failure, as the Church, to understand the necessary death of Israel shows that we have not truly understood God.  The hope to see the fulfillment of Israel in fifty years as the prophetic, Messianic state is really an expression of our own impatience, immaturity and lack of understanding of the centrality of the Cross, and of suffering, in the effecting of things that are enduring and eternal.  The prophetic scriptures will be fulfilled, but by an event that is much more painful, much more demanding and much more requiring of the supernatural demonstration of God than we have presently observed or desired to see in the recent history of Israel.
How much of the Church's disappointment with Israel is predicated upon a false premise and hope of an idealized or romantic view of Israel?  Have we been fascinated by the energy of this people, and their ability to raise themselves up in a generation?  And how much is that really a statement, or a projection, of our own vain perception of ourselves, contrary to the whole tenor of the gospel that rests on the issue of death and resurrection, necessary for Abraham, necessary for Jesus, and therefore necessary for Israel as well as ourselves.  We wanted an easier success both for ourselves and for Israel, but God is not accommodating our shallowness, for He must perform what He must perform, that He might be glorified thereby.
The issue of Israel is the issue of the Church, because Israel, in its final Last Days' death, can only be saved by resurrection power.  It makes, therefore, a requirement of the Church to become the Church indeed, in all of its full, apostolic and prophetic character and glory.

23 See Micah 5:1
24 See Daniel 12:7 and Deuteronomy 32:23-39
25 See 1 Cor. 15:42-48.
26 See Colossians 3:3-4.
27 See Acts 3:21 and Titus 2:13.
28 See Acts 9:15-16