How Jew-haters must dislike this passage!  It is a human frailty to dislike those passages that puncture our ego and tear down our play house.  We ignore them if possible, and if we are forced to deal with them, we explain them away.  

There are political Jew-haters, who hate them because of their ability to make money, and, through it, to control governments.  There are two classes of religious haters: Those who believe the Jews "have had their chance" and are eternally condemned, and that the promises made to Israel will be fulfilled in a spiritual way to "Gentile" saints; and those who believe themselves to be Israelites, and special favorites of God, while that part of Abraham's descendents that are called Jews, are under the continual displeasure of Jehovah, and that He has no blessing for them.  

This second class of religious haters believe the English and Irish are members of the race of Israel, and that Jews are the black sheep, or goats of Abraham's family. 

This raises the question: Is the term, Jew, reserved for members of the tribe of Judah alone?  And is there to be a perpetual separation between them and Israelites?  

Paul, the apostle, was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, Phil. 3:5, yet he was a Jew, Gal. 2:15; Acts 19:39.  

In Acts 19:14 we find mention of "Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest."  Was Sceva of the tribe of Judah?  We know that the priesthood was of the tribe of Levi.  Christ alone was to have the honor of being a Priest out of the tribe of Judah, Heb. 7:14, "For it is taken for granted that our Lord has risen out of Judah, to which tribe Moses speaks nothing concerning priests."  Sceva was of the tribe of Levi, but the God-spirited scriptures call him a Jew.  There is no possibility of denying and sustaining the denial, that the term, Jew, is used of Israelites indiscriminately, in the Greek scriptures, or the so-called New Testament.  

Paul says the oracles of God were entrusted to the Jews, Rom. 3:2.  Were the oracles given alone to the tribe of Judah?  Every reader of the scriptures knows all twelve tribes were included.  When Paul, the Jew who was not of Judah's tribe, stood before Agrippa, he said "I stand in expectation of the promises made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes, earnestly offering divine service night and day, are expecting to attain," Acts 26:7.  All twelve tribes offered divine service, and all expected to the promises God had made. 

Peter, one of the twelve apostles, is said to have been a Jew, Gal. 2:14.  There is no reason to doubt that he was with the other apostles when they asked Christ, "Lord, art Thou art this time restoring the kingdom of Israel?"  Acts 1:6.  What interest could Peter have had in the kingdom, if Israelites were to have it, and Jews were not to have it?  His interest is understood when it is remembered that, at that time, "Jews" and "Israel," were used interchangeably in conversation.  

In earlier times, when the term "Jew," referred to one who was of the tribe of Judah, Daniel a Jew, was a captive in Babylon.  And it was to Daniel's people that the kingdom was promised.  Read Daniel.  Comparing it with Acts 1:6, we find that Daniel's people are not only members of Judah's tribe, but members of all the twelve tribes.  

The theory which I am opposing is based on suppositions which are not sustained by any authentic history.  The ten tribes were carried into Assyrian captivity, in 722 B. C.  The two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were carried into Babylonian captivity in 586 B. C., which was less than 200 years later.  Babylon was the same territory that was formerly Assyria.  The supposition that the ten tribes wandered is purely imagination.  The expression, "The Ten lost Tribes," is an invention that is not supported, either by scripture or history.  As a matter of fact, when James wrote his epistle he evidently knew that all twelve tribes were within easy reach, for he addressed them all, James 1:1.  Not simply Judah and Benjamin were in the dispersion; all twelve tribes were in it.  The dispersion was something that had recently taken place under the rule of Rome.  The dispersed members of the twelve tribes were where James' epistle could reach them.  Not only had those of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned to Palestine before the beginning of what is known as the Christian Era, but the other ten tribes had also returned.  It was then that the name "Jew" lost its distinctive meaning, and was applied to all Israelites.  

When our Lord, Who had been born of a Jewish mother, said, "Salvation is of the Jews," it was the same as saying, "Salvation is of Israel."  While this is true of our salvation, Jesus Christ being a Jew on speaking off this.  He spoke of the fact that Israel is t be for salvation to the limits of the earth, Acts 13:47.  

Nothing shows the blindness of humanity more than the attempt to establish world-wide peace and happiness apart from the Jew.  God commanded Israel to be a blessing to the nations.  They refused and were set aside.  Now God is saving the ecclesia in spite of Israel's defection.  But He will yet deal with Israel, and save them, Rom. 11:25.  It is then that Israel, or the Jews, will fulfill their destiny.  They will bless the nations, or Gentiles.  It is then that the nations, (or Gentiles), will glorify God for His mercy, Rom. 15:8, 9.  Believers among the nations are now making merry, in spirit, apart from God's people, Israel.  But then the nations will make merry WITH His people, Rom. 15:12.  

But, during Israel's defection, the picture is the opposite.  Christ's dark prediction of the sword in the earth, has to do with unbelieving Israel.  The same nation that shall bless all other nations, when in a state of obedience, has been a source of distress to others during its disobedience and blindness.  This is necessarily true, since all wars are waged for financial reasons, and Jews control the finances of all nations, to a large extent.  In one way or another, Jews and their money stood back of World War Number One, and they play a great part in the present world conflict.  I am not saying that they are always willingly a cause of war.  But, whether willingly or not, the Jewish question, in one way or another, has much to do with the rivers of blood that have been spilled on battle fields.  And much of it has been Jewish blood, for, in the United States, especially, Jews, (I mean the middle class ones), are very patriotic.  International bankers have controlled the finances of the world, and most of them are Jews.  They have so pulled the strings of the nations, which are puppets in their hands that those nations have waged suicidal and homicidal wars, while unconscious of the Jewish influence.  This will end in the will-deserved destruction of that very same money-mad Jewish power, in Babylon, Un. 17 and 18.  But a discussion of this must be left to another time.  

Informed believers do not hate Jews because they are, either unwittingly or deliberately, one of the causes of war.  We know that their unbelief is in accord with God's intention, John 12:39, 40.  

The "millennium" will not come while the Jewish nation is in blindness and unbelief.  God will conclude the new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12.  It is under the new covenant that Israel will be a blessing to all the nations.  It is at that time that the words of Christ, "Salvation is of the Jews," will be fulfilled.  

Salvation does not always mean what we mean by the word when referring to what Christ does for us.  The salvation under consideration in the text evidently refers to the fact that through regenerated Israel, people of the nations will be blessed, and millions of them will pass into the new earth and live until the consummation, when all shall be vivified in Christ.  There shall be nations in the new earth, as we find in Un. 21 and 22.  It most surely refers, also, to the fact that, through the ministry of Israelites during the "millennium," the earth shall come to be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.  

At any rate, the greatest blessings the nations shall ever have this side of the consummation, comes through the Jews, or Israel.  And it is evidence of utter blindness, to undertake to establish these blessings, apart from the Jewish people.  

God is not fulfilling spiritually, to the "church," the promises made to the fathers, Rom. 15:8.  He will yet see that Israel gets what He promised, and does what He designs.  

The expression, "Salvation is of the Jews," contains the Greek word, ESTIN.  This shows that an absolutely correct rendering of the phrase would be, "Salvation is REPRESENTED TO BE of the Jews."  All salvation is of God, through Christ.  But the salvation of the nations during the "millennium" will come to them THROUGH the Jews, and it is, therefore, represented as being OF the Jews.  Usually, where the word, ESTIN, occurs, it means that the statement is true in a sense, but not absolutely.  We must not lose sight of the fact that all salvation is of God, through Christ.  In this case, it is of God, through Christ, and then through the Jews.  

The woman of Samaria, John 4, is typical, not of us who are being saved now, but of the nations that shall be saved during the "millennium."  They, like us shall worship God in spirit and truth, without ritual, in the last eon, when there is no literal temple or priesthood.  They shall be in the kingdom of the Son of God.  We are in that kingdom, now, in spirit.  The passage in which the text is found looks, not only to the kingdom of the Son of David, but further, into the kingdom of the Son of His love, and, in spirit, we are in that kingdom, and the spiritual conditions of that time are present with us now.  We do not have to worship in Jerusalem, no in the mountain of Samaria.  That shall be their condition, also.  

PUT TO REPOSE

My mother, Mrs. W. B. Screws, Sr., was put to repose November 9, at the age of 86 years, after having been an invalid for several years.  She died without a struggle.  God bade her sleep until He calls her in the morning.  She was tired and wanted to rest.  She was a believer in Universal Reconciliation.  At her request I spoke at the funeral service, which was held at Sardis church, Emanuel county, Georgia.  Elder T. M. Riner also spoke.  Survivors besides myself are my father, who is quite feeble; a sister, Mrs. A. W. Lawson of Kite, Ga.; and a brother B. W. Screws of Adrian, Ga.  We bade our loved one good-bye with the assurance that she will live again.