The Daily Word of Righteousness

You Are My People, #16

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)

Jesus was the Son of God, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit. But He was born of a Jewish woman and experienced and possessed all the aspects of humanity (except sin). The Lord Jesus was a Jew, not a Gentile; and Gentile believers ought to consider this fact carefully.

Someday Jesus will return to His own people and they will worship Him as their own Redeemer.

And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. (Zechariah 12:10)

Zechariah was a Hebrew prophet, and he spoke of the piercing of Christ. When Christ comes He shall be pierced—and He was!

The twelve were all Jews. To hear Gentile believers speak you would think the twelve disciples were of various races—particularly the Gentile races. Gentiles seldom remember that the twelve were Jews, not Gentiles. The original followers of the Lord Jesus were all Jews. It would have been inappropriate for a Gentile, an uncircumcised male, to join with them.

Jesus was a Jewish rabbi, and all His followers—male and female—were Jewish.

The Holy Spirit fell on 120 Jews, and the Church of Christ was born. The birth of the Church is described in the second chapter of the Book of Acts.

And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes, and Judas the brother of James. (Acts 1:13)

It is likely that every person in the "upper room" was Jewish.

And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) (Acts 1:15)

It would have been unthinkable for a Gentile to have been part of the disciples at this time.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. (Acts 2:2)

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit by the Lord Jesus marks the birth of the Church. The participants were all Jewish.

How, then, is the Gospel of the Kingdom a Gentile religion? By the fact that Gentiles claimed it and made it their own? By this reasoning, the Jews have no right to the land between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean because the Arab nations have claimed it and made it their own.

Just as the land bounded by the Euphrates and the Mediterranean, the Sinai and Lebanon, was given to the Jews as an inheritance by the God of Heaven, so it is true that the Kingdom of God was given to the Jews by the God of Heaven. Neither ownership can be changed by the actions of covetous people.

To be continued.