The malignant tumor of anti-Semitism – Modern manifestations and practical cures

A Yiddish joke from Holocaust times aptly illustrates the difficulty of trying to deal constructively with anti-Semitism. In this apocryphal tale, two Jewish ghetto fighters in the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943 were captured by one of SS General Stroop’s Nazi soldiers. As the brave ghetto fighters are lined up against a wall to be shot by the firing squad, the Nazi commander uncharacteristically asks the two if they have any last requests. The first Jewish man says, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I would like a cigarette.” The second Jewish fighter hisses at the first fighter, “For God’s sake don’t make trouble!”

The black humor of this story revolves around the second fighter’s being out of touch with reality, with the deathly seriousness of the situation. Among European Jews, anti-Semitism was a normal part of life. Gentile Christians were expected to sneer at or hate Jews as best, and to attack or even murder Jews on occasion. For many ghetto Jews, the safest course of action was to act like an armadillo or an ostrich, playing dumb or simply hanging onto life until the worst of the pogroms had swept by the ‘Anatevka’ of Jewish life.

Yet there comes a time when downplaying threats to the Jewish people is no longer a joke. The rise of anti-Semitism in the modern world is a fast-spreading malignant cancer, and the angry red tumor of Jew-hatred can no longer be ignored.

From classical anti-Semitism to modern anti-Zionism, from the Der Stürmer propaganda images of the evil Jew controlling world finance to the rabid BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel) and pro-Hamas marches across the Western hemisphere, it is too late for men and women of conscience to timidly request that we should just sit tight, and that no one should make trouble. Believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (all Jews), and followers of Yeshua the Jewish Messiah – it is time to shine God’s light into darkness and to clearly recognize where the battle lines are.

Pagan anti-Semitism infiltrates the Church

Two world-class scholars, one Catholic and one Jewish, shed light on the fact that the roots of Christian anti-Semitism are essentially borrowed from the pagan world.

Edward Flannery (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Flannery) penned the historical analysis “The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism” (reprinted Paulist Press 1985). He shows how Greek and Roman Jew-hatred was baptized and given confirmation as orthodox Christian dogma by the Fathers of the Church. The Greco-Roman arrogance toward the Jewish people revealed itself in assuming that the people of Israel were primitives (worshipping an invisible God) who refused to bow down before a superior culture (Hellenism) and who kept themselves separate and distinct.

Pagans accused Jews of performing secret religious ceremonies involving cannibalism and sexual orgies. These pagan philosophers described the ‘seditious nature’ of the Jewish people. Since the original Christians were actually Jews – Messianic Jews – these same anti-Semitic charges were aimed by Romans against these first believers – both Jews and Gentiles. Within two hundred years these same pagan charges were adapted and adopted by the predominantly Gentile Church, and used as live-fire ammunition against the Jewish community at-large.

Dr. Menahem Stern, editor of Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974) has brought together the definitive compendium of all writings by ancient Greeks and Romans dealing with the Jewish people as well as contemporaneous Greco-Roman attitudes to Israel. The reading of these documents is shocking but at the same time strangely familiar. All of their main points have been plagiarized and amplified by the Church Fathers and have become part of the Western world’s guilty subconscious, its prejudiced outlook against the Jewish people.

These books are a good place to start for those who want to uncover anti-Semitic roots hiding within some aspects of Christian theology. They give helpful directions for those who would like to prioritize repentance and intercession about these matters.

From Justin Martyr, a Samaritan raised in a community steeped in Jew-hatred, to Saint John Chrysostom (who called for Christians to murder Jews), the bloody tumor of anti-Semitism can be seen bulging out beneath priestly robes. For more on these issues, see chapters 8-10 of Israel the Key To World Revival (https://davidstent.com/books/) especially “Dragon Theology: The Spiritual Roots of Anti-Semitism”).

The Chosen People teaching – turned on its head

One of the most revered Fathers of the Church, Saint Augustine, re-interpreted the biblical teaching regarding Israel’s priority calling. He admitted that Jews are different and separate but saw this as a curse, with the Jewish people being forever under judgment, forever to be persecuted and humiliated by Christians, bearing a Jewish ‘mark of Cain’ for the rest of history.

“No one can fail to see that in every land where the Jews are scattered they mourn for the loss of their kingdom, and are in terrified subjection to the immensely superior number of Christians. Not by bodily death shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish. For whoever destroys them in this way shall suffer sevenfold vengeance, that is, shall bring upon himself the sevenfold penalty under which the Jews lie for the crucifixion of Christ. So to the end of the seven days of time, the continued preservation of the Jews will be a proof to believing Christians of the subjection merited by those who . . . put the Lord to death” (Schaff, Philip, ed., St. Augustine in A Selection of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church; 8 vol., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983, 4:187-188).

Augustine was not the first to say this. Origen and others said similar things. Yet Augustine’s teaching of contempt for the Jewish people was a crystallization of pagan anti-Semitism in Patristic garb. The Jewish people’s chosenness would now be understood as their being chosen for persecution, for destruction and for damnation.

To put it simply, a negative paradigm about the Jews was now solidly in place. No good thing could or would happen to the Jewish people. All scriptures speaking of a rosy prophetic future for the Jews would no longer be tolerated as orthodox theology. The Jews could no longer look forward to any goodness of kindness from an angry Jehovah. Any prophetic blessing for Israel now applied to the present experience of Gentile believers in Jesus. Only judgment awaited the Jews, both then and down through the corridors of time

This negative paradigm, which refuses to recognize God’s good and kind hand toward Israel after Calvary and also in our day, is part of the cancerous fruit of the pagan anti-Semitism adopted by the Church Fathers. Even today is has been imbibed by many orthodox Christians with their mothers’ milk.

The ‘unforgiveable sins’ of the Jewish people

The Church Fathers believed that the Jewish people were rejected by God and under an unchangeable curse, Paul’s words in Romans 11:1-2, 28-29 notwithstanding.

The two legal charges these theologians made against the Jewish people were: ‘rejecting the Messiah’ and ‘deicide’ (killing God).

Here are three such examples from respected Church Fathers:

“They committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the Savior of the human race” (Origen, Against Celsus, 4:22 in Ante-Nicene Christian Literature; New York: Scribner, 1905; IV, p. 506)

“(Concerning the Jews' assassination of Christ there is) no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon . . . (The destruction of Jerusalem) was done by the wrath of God and His absolute abandon of you . . . (Jews will live) under the yoke of servitude without end . . . He who can never love Christ enough will never have done fighting against those (Jews) who hate Him . . . Flee, then, their assemblies, flee their houses, and far from venerating the synagogue because of the book it contains, hold it in hatred and aversion for the same reason . . . I hate the synagogue precisely because it has the law and the prophets . . . I hate the Jews also because they have the law...” (John Chrysostom, Adversus Iudaeos in The Fathers of the Church: Saint John Chrysostom, vol.68; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979)

“What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blaspheming and cursing, we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy . . . We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity . . . Let me give you my honest advice: First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom. . .Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. . .” (Martin Luther, On The Jews And Their Lies; 1543; trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther’s Works, 47:268-72)

The negative paradigm as a factor in Christian anti-Semitism states that, since Jews are guilty of rejecting Messiah and of deicide, there can be no restoration of Israel. A modern metastasis of this anti-Jewish teaching is that no physical or spiritual restoration of the Jewish people is occurring in our day because God would never restore an unbelieving and Christ-rejecting people. In this scenario there is only room in the immediate future for another holocaust, but no room for a God-breathed present-day Jewish restoration to Zion.

Jewish kingdom bad, Gentile kingdom good

Since Christianity had judged the Jewish people as irrevocably chosen for persecution and destruction, it was unthinkable that a Jewish kingdom under Davidic rule would ever be restored. Therefore all the prophecies which insist on Jewish restoration to the Promised Land, and revival of Jewish sovereignty and the Davidic dynasty over Israel and the entire world – these now needed to be understood in ‘spiritual’ (that is to say allegorical) terms. The revival of a real Jewish kingdom on earth could only be carnal and evil, according to these perspectives.

Not so the establishment of a Greek- or Latin-speaking imperial power, however. Constantine’s adoption of Christianity and its incorporation into the Roman Empire was perfectly spiritual, since Jews were not in charge. The Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire, which promptly split in two. After Islam conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul, the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow laid claim to being the present incarnation of Holy Gentile power.

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm allegory, the pigs who became the commissars declared “Two legs bad, four legs good!” In the same way, when Gentiles took over the reins of the Body of Messiah, they quickly proclaimed, “Jewish kingdom bad, Gentile kingdom good!”

The unease and loathing some Bible believers feel when they consider the re-establishment of God’s kingdom rule out of physical Jerusalem or the restoration of David’s tabernacle (a governmental term often misunderstood and misapplied by some who love worship and intercession; read and download “A Messianic Perspective on the Restoration of David’s Tabernacle” at https://davidstent.com/books/) – these may stem from the cancerous denial both of God’s covenanted love for the Jewish people, and of His strong avowal that the gifts and calling that He has given them are irrevocable – even if the Jewish people sin, stumble and trip (see Romans 11:1-2, 11-15).

‘The mother of all devils is a Jew’

In his well-researched book The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modern Anti-Semitism (Joshua Trachtenberg Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983), Trachtenberg reveals how Western and Greek Christianity were simultaneously fascinated and fearful about the power of the Jewish people. They even branded the Jewish people with the strongest curse they knew how to bestow – the anti-Christ, when he would come, would now be a Jewish man, a fitting and outstanding representative of a godless and Christ-rejecting people.

“The Antichrist will ... command that Jerusalem be rebuilt in its splendor and will make it a great and populous city, second to none in the world and will order his palace to be built there… And Jeremiah does not merely point out his sudden coming, but he even indicates the tribe from which he shall come...” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book Five, Chapter 30, Section 2; circa 180 A.D.)

“For Moses speaks thus: ‘Dan is a lion's whelp, and he shall leap from Bashan’ … in naming the tribe of Dan, he declared clearly the tribe from which Antichrist is destined to spring. For as Christ springs from the tribe of Judah, so Antichrist is to spring from the tribe of Dan. But since it is necessary to prove this assertion by sufficient testimony, we shall not shrink from the task” (Hippolytus, 170-236 A.D., Bishop of Portus - probably Portus Romanus, 15 miles north of Rome; Treatise on Christ and Antichrist,14)

“As his tribe, then, and his manifestation, and his destruction, have been set forth in these words. For he will call together all the people to himself, out of every country of the dispersion, making them his own, as though they were his own children, and promising to restore their country, and establish again their kingdom and nation, in order that he may be worshipped by them as God” (Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 54)

“They did slide, therefore, in all things, as they were found to be in harmony with the truth in nothing: neither as concerns the law, because they became transgressors; nor as concerns the prophets, because they cut off even the prophets themselves; nor as concerns the voice of the Gospels, because they crucified the Saviour Himself; nor in believing the apostles, because they persecuted them. At all times they showed themselves enemies and betrayers of the truth, and were found to be haters of God, and not lovers of Him; and such they shall be then when they find opportunity: for, rousing themselves against the servants of God, they will seek to obtain vengeance by the hand of a mortal man” (Hippolytus, Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 58)

Irenaeus and Hippolytus are the earliest Church Fathers who established an anti-Semitic linkage between the restoration of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the appearance of a Jewish antichrist. In this scenario it is Satan and not God who restores the Jewish people to their Promised Land. The modern Zionist return to Israel has been taking place since 1850, yet no Jewish antichrist has appeared. Perhaps this hypothesis needs to be reworked.

Modern expressions of the ‘Jewish antichrist’ teaching

“(In Scripture) the hints given are so plain, the conclusions which must be drawn from certain statements of Holy Writ are so obvious, and the requirements of the case are so inevitable, that we are forced to believe he (the Anti-Christ) must be a Jew” (Arthur W. Pink, The Antichrist, Chapter 3, The Person of the Antichrist)

“Who will the Antichrist be?” asked Mr. Falwell, whose Sunday services at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg are carried by television stations nationwide. “Is he alive and here today?” he asked. “Probably. Because when he appears during the Tribulation period he will be a full-grown counterfeit of Christ. Of course he'll be Jewish” (“Antichrist Is Alive, And a Male Jew, Falwell Contends”; New York Times, January 16, 1999)

“Then, Hagee boomed, ‘There's a phrase in Scripture used solely to identify the Jewish people. It suggests that this man [the Antichrist] is at least going to be partially Jewish, as was Adolph Hitler, as was Karl Marx” (“Pastor Hagee: The Antichrist Is Gay, ‘Partially Jewish, As Was Adolph Hitler’”; Huffington Post, Max Blumenthal June 2, 2008)

“The statement by Rev. Jerry Falwell, that the Antichrist, who is evil incarnate, is Jewish, borders on anti-Semitism at best and is anti-Semitic at worst. In identifying the Antichrist as a living Jewish man, Rev. Falwell draws from an especially vicious tradition of Christian theological anti-Judaism… Fortunately, the great majority of Christian leaders and ministers consider these hateful myths to be wholly contradictory to true Christian doctrine. If Rev. Falwell and others persist in these prognostications they will be instigating an anti-Semitism rooted in Christian theological extremism” [The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry]. (Abraham H. Foxman, Anti-Defamation League National Director, New York, NY, January 19, 1999)

“The Jewish Antichrist legend is a prelude to persecution – of Jews. The most infamous piece of anti-Semitic propaganda, the so-called ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ also repeats the medieval fable. The ‘Protocols,’ together with the Antichrist myth, sow the seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism and endanger religious liberty” (Andrew Gow, The Myth of the Jewish Antichrist: Falwell Stumbles Badly, History News Service, Feb 10, 1999)

A professional definition of anti-Semitism

In the document titled “Working Definition of Anti-Semitism” (EFOA - 2012),
https://www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/working-definition-of-antisemitism/english/ it is stated, “Anti-Semitism frequently … is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits…Contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to: Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews…drawing comparisons … to that of the Nazis.”

When believers in Jesus make mendacious, dehumanizing and stereotypical allegations about Jews, this unfortunately fits the internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism.

European contributions – money, control, defilers of culture

The European arena has made its own unique contributions to anti-Semitism, most of which have become accepted belief among conspiracy junkies, Islamist groups and leftist movements.

Greco-Roman anti-Semitism has metastasized, with modern writers depicting Jews as controlling the world economy though banking families such as the Rothschilds or various secretive Commissions. A Russian Tsarist forgery “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” states that Jews are the demonic power behind capitalism and communism, and that they are pushing for anti-Christ world domination. From this perspective, any anti-Christian development in popular culture is instigated by Jews; America’s banks and entertainment industries are secretly being directed by anti-Christ Jews; any American support of the Jewish state is another example of Jewish anti-Christ control of superpowers.

Such views were popular within the Nazi hierarchy and championed by Joseph Goebbels. They are widely held in the Islamic world, and have a strong measure of popular support in the former Communist Bloc. Many of these ideas have re-appeared in the anti-Zionist and anti-Israel movements. Some Evangelical groups who advocate for BDS (boycott of Jewish products from Israel) do not see the irony that their own actions and beliefs are strikingly similar to those Nazi who boycotted Jewish shops and goods in Germany of the 1930’s.

The sharpness of demonic anger toward anything Israeli or Jewish on many Western university campuses is another indication of the virulent spread of this new-old anti-Semitic cancer

Modern charismatic expressions

This brief study of the history of anti-Semitism is not only looking at ‘the ghost of Christmas past.’ New mutations of this ancient cancer are spreading, even among Evangelicals, even among charismatics, in our day, on our watch.

The teaching that Jewish rejection of Jesus and the deicide charge has altered Jewish destiny, has decked itself out in our day with the Emperor’s New Clothes.

There is a teaching, popularized a few decades ago by Art Katz (https://davidstent.com/he-being-dead-still-speaks/) and reworked in our day by his disciples and spiritual grandchildren (https://davidstent.com/prophesying-the-destruction-of-zion/), that good things cannot happen to Israel, that restoration to the Land cannot happen before Jewish repentance. According to this view, which fits into the classical anti-Semitic pattern first espoused by the Church Fathers, Israel’s destiny is to suffer as punishment and expiation for her sins. Only then will God allow her to be restored. Perhaps one should be thankful that, according to this modern re-working of an old theme, Jewish restoration is now permitted as long as it remains in the safe and distant future.

But since Jews are being restored to the Land, undeniably so, this creates a bit of a challenge. No problem! Those who teach this position simply state that the present state of Israel is not of God (this sounds like the radically anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta), and that the modern state of Israel will soon be overwhelmingly destroyed. The figure of a future 90% destruction of the Jewish homeland has been placed on record in related books and websites. According to this viewpoint, only then will the coming future restoration of a nearly totally devastated Israel have these believers’ Christian approval as being a bona fide restoration of God.

The result of this school of interpretation is simple and chilling – all teachings in the prophets regarding the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel cannot be applied in any way to the Return to Zion in our day. This present Jewish return is only a regathering for massive Jewish slaughter. Such Christians can never really accept what is going on today with any warmth of heart. Cold hearts and pained smiles greet Jewish enthusiasm, and once again Gentile Christian expressions of anti-Semitism lend a hand in crushing out God’s heart for His Chosen people (see Hosea 11:8; Romans 11:28).

Christian denigration of Jewish Restoration

There is a fascinating historical encounter between the father of secular Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and Pope Pius X. Their conversation on January 26, 1904 was recorded in Herzl’s diaries (Raphael Patai, The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl; New York/London: Herzl Press, Thomas Yoseloff, 1960; pp. 1601-1605). Herzl had come to ask for Vatican support for the creation of a homeland for his persecuted Jewish people. Here are some excerpts from the Pope’s statements during that dialogue:

“We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem – but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people”

“There are two possibilities. Either the Jews will cling to their faith and continue to await the Messiah who, for us, has already appeared. In that case they will be denying the divinity of Jesus and we cannot help them. Or else they will go there without any religion, and then we can be even less favorable to them… The Jewish religion was the foundation of our own; but it was superseded by the teachings of Christ, and we cannot concede it any further validity. The Jews, who ought to have been the first to acknowledge Jesus Christ, have not done so to this day”

“And so, if you come to Palestine and settle your people there, we shall have churches and priests ready to baptize all of you”

The sad fact revealed by these quotes is that no room has been left for the God of the Bible as the loving God who is restoring His people to their Promised Land. And the stark refusal to recognize God’s restorative love for Jacob’s sons and daughters finds cold refuge in the heart of some Christians today as well.

According to this viewpoint, the Jews may have a past and a future – but they certainly do not have a present. According to this viewpoint, all that the Jewish people can look forward to is to “this present darkness” (see https://davidstent.com/making-the-crooked-straight-tearing-down-evangelical-strongholds-opposed-to-israels-restoration/)

Solutions

The enemy of our souls has invested heavily in perverting and distorting the biblical teaching on God’s heart for Israel. His strategy throughout history has sadly found fertile ground in the theological hothouses of the Christian church. In our day, in order to clear out the Augean stables of centuries of filth, we need to invest ardently in repentance, prayer, teaching and activism, as we labor and groan for the restoration of Israel.

How shall we then live?

Recommit to study the history of anti-Semitism and its shifting shapes

Recommit to reading the Bible with new and open eyes about these subjects

Pray for a spirit of repentance to fall upon your community, your teachers, your country about these matters

Become an activist – holding up the hands of those involved in Israel’s restoration, standing against anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and boycotters of the Jewish state

Make Matthew 25:31-46 a place of meditation, encouragement and challenge regarding taking a stand for Yeshua’s Jewish brethren

Get involved in the Jewish community. Make Jewish friends, Rejoice and appreciate things Jewish. Don’t wait for times of anti-Semitic persecution to do this

Wash Jewish people’s feet but don’t use boiling water

Be prepared to live and die like Ruth, whose heart was so bound to the Jewish people that she was prepared to love them even if it meant her own death

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

Donations can also be made on-line (by PayPal) through: www.davidstent.org

Darkness over the face of the abyss

“Stand up, radiate with light, for your light has arrived, and the glory of YHVH is streaming down upon you. For behold, the darkness will cover the earth and terrible darkness the peoples. But upon you YHVH will radiate His light, and upon you His glory will be made manifest” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

This End of the Age prophecy describes a time when gross and evil darkness will spread across Planet Earth. God’s response to that darkness will be to shine His reviving face upon the nation of Israel and bring life from the dead to the world.

Darkness and light

The prophet Isaiah lived in times of violent military upheaval in the Middle East. During the late 700’s BC the Assyrian juggernaut smashed across the Aramean Empire in Syria, crushed all resistance in the Phoenician trading cities of Lebanon, and steamrolled into Samaria. There the ten Jewish tribes of the Kingdom of Israel were brutally kidnapped and then dragged in chains across the Syrian desert to exile in Nineveh (Northern Iraq’s modern Kurdistan near Mosul and Kirkuk).

Isaiah’s prediction of the coming of Messiah is read every year at Christmas pageants. His measured words prophesy of how the cruel darkness of Assyrian invaders would one day be eclipsed by the advent of a great light – the blazing torch of King David’s Greater Son:

“But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a land of deep darkness, light will shine on them” (Isaiah 9:1-2).

The clash of darkness and light is at the heart of the story. Even though Assyria was a tool in the hands of a righteous God to punish disobedient Israel (Isaiah 10:5-11), the prophet clearly saw that Assyria’s pride and arrogance would lead to that superpower’s sure punishment and judgment in the day of YHVH’s wrath (Isaiah 10:12-19). The light and fire of YHVH’s wrath would burn up the darkness of Assyria’s evil: “A fire will be kindled like a burning flame … and the light of Israel will become a fire and his Holy One a flame” (Isaiah 10:16-17).

God is light, and light is good

Every child who has heard Bible stories knows that God created the world – that He spoke into the darkness and created the light.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness He called ‘night’. And there was evening and there was morning, one day” (Genesis 1:3-5)

From the dawn of creation, it has been crystal clear – God is good, God is light, and light is good. Darkness, however, is another matter.

Isaiah tells us that darkness has a moral aspect, and that spiritual darkness has fearful spiritual consequences: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

Yet the God of Jacob (who is sovereign over both light and darkness) even uses darkness as one of the secret weapons in His arsenal:

“The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity – I am YHVH who does all these” (Isaiah 45:7)

“Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?” (Job 38:17)

“Complete darkness is held in reserve for His treasures” (Job 20:26)

YHVH’s X-Ray vision

God is actually able to see clearly in complete darkness. His vision is beyond anything that we humans understand, and nothing is hidden from His sight:

“For the morning is the same to Him as thick darkness, for He is familiar with the terrors of thick darkness” (Job 24:17)

“Even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You” (Psalm 139:12)

“It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him” (Daniel 2:22)

“He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deep darkness into light” (Job 12:22)

“Wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5)

“And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13)

God is at war with darkness

The God of Israel understands darkness perfectly because He is the Light. Yet the spiritual wickedness of the darkness cannot grasp the righteous and holy ways of God:

“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not comprehended it” (John 1:5)

“This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5)

“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19)

“Then Yeshua again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life’ ” (John 8:12)

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12)

God wants to rescue those trapped in darkness

ISIS is not much interested in bringing unbelievers to repentance, and is even terrorizing Muslims who are seemingly deficient in their religious zeal. Yet Yeshua’s heart for those trapped in darkness is other-worldly, full of compassion, ready to extend mercy and to bring deliverance and healing:

“I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness” (John 12:46)

“To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18)

“But you are … a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9)

“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13)

“For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8)

“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Messiah” (2 Corinthians 4:6)

God calls believers to walk in the light of His love

One of the litmus tests of being a New Covenant believer is “to walk the walk” – to shine God’s love on other human beings, whether one agrees with their lifestyles or not:

“Beloved …I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes” (1 John 2:7-11)

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21)

“Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness” (Luke 11:35)

God calls believers to shine His light into the darkness

Messiah Yeshua – the Light of the world – calls His followers to shine His light on each other and on the human race. His calling to the nation of Israel is to shine as a light to the nations. This means speaking His message, standards and values with love and occasionally with tears. It involves washing people’s feet without using boiling water to do that. But it does not involves playing down, distorting or weakening the message of light, darkness, repentance and judgment:

“I will also make you a light to the nations so that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6)

“For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed you as a light to the Gentiles, that you may bring My salvation to the end of the earth’” (Acts 13:47)

“… a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness” (Romans 2:19)

“And if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday” (Isaiah 58:10)

“Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them” (Ephesians 5:11)

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14)

Darkness is the place of ultimate judgment

YHVH warns mankind that rebels who scorn the ways of God will find themselves receiving throughout eternity what they insisted on having – separation from the One they hate. This separation from the Light of the world will be outer darkness, bereft of even a glimmer of light.

“Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’ ” (Matthew 22:13)

“Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties… wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever… But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, that they were saying to you, ‘In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.’ These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh” (Jude 1:3-23)

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:1-10)

The Day of the Lord is a day of darkness

The Hebrew prophets peered down the corridors of time and were shown some stunning revelation by the God of Israel. A season of time would come at the end of this age, and it would be known as the Day of YHVH. In that Day:

The God of Israel will return to the earth, crushing the rebel arm raised against Him (Psalm 2).

YHVH will destroy all the enemies of the Jewish people (Isaiah 59:15-21)

The God of Jacob will regather the scattered exiles of Israel (Ezekiel 39:27-29; Isaiah 27:12-13)

His atonement for all of Israel’s sins and for the sins of the world will be manifest to all (Daniel 9:24, 26; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2)

This Day is depicted in the prophets as a Day of darkness:

“A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Zephaniah 1:15)

“A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness … There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it to the years of many generations” (Joel 2:2)

The Day that Isaiah described – gross darkness covering the earth – is the period of time when God begins to stream His stupendous rays of divine power, deliverance, healing and salvation onto the face of the Jewish people (see Isaiah 60:1-2)

Worldwide increase of rebellion and ungodliness is one of the clearest benchmarks that we are approaching this prophesied revival of the Jewish people – a revival that will bring life from the dead to the world (Romans 11:15) and much greater riches to all nations who bow the knee before Messiah Yeshua, David’s Greater Son (Romans 11:12).

Yeshua gives those of us who live at this time a mighty word of encouragement: “But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28)

How shall we then pray?

Press in to God in worship and thanksgiving. Find the comfort, healing and encouragement that comes from spending intimate time with Him

Pray that YHVH will shine the radiance of His countenance upon the very heart of the Jewish people, bringing world revival

Pray for a spirit of repentance to fall on your own nation, that many would turn from their wicked ways and walk into the Light

Pray that the God of Israel will grant you the privilege to shine His light to your friends and neighbors, to be a witness for Him whether it means life or death, praise or persecution