Gathering all Israel

We observe through the Scripture that scattering, afflicting and re-gathering is a fundamental mode of God. It is the manner in which He shepherds His flock. Whenever you see God dealing with someone, you observe His deeds as a shepherd. Thus it can be said, ‘He sows, He afflicts, and He gathers’. The shepherd takes the sheep out from the fold to pasture and then returns them to the fold. Regardless of the location or generation in which we live, this principle of going out to pasture and returning to the fold applies.

The history of the Scripture reveals that this has occurred from the beginning. God shepherded Joseph and his family down to Egypt. At about the age of seventeen, Joseph was sold into slavery, removed from his family and sown into Egypt. He was sown as a forerunner, making way for the nation of Israel to be saved in the midst of a dreadful famine. This was not a pleasant place for him. However, He continued to entrust himself into the hands of the living God. He was able to testify to his brothers, ‘You meant it for me for evil, but God meant it for good’. Gen 50:20.

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul spoke of ‘all Israel’ being saved. Rom 11:26. What does this mean? We’ll recall that the nation of Israel split in two shortly after the reign of King Solomon. The two southern tribes were called Judah, and the ten northern tribes were variously called Israel, Jacob, Joseph or Ephraim. These ten northern tribes were conquered by the Assyrians, and scattered among the nations. However, Isaiah prophesied that the Lord will recover with His hand the remnant of His people in the nations. He will lift up a standard for all nations and will assemble the banished ones of Israel. With this in view, ‘all Israel’ includes all Gentile nations. It is Jew and Gentile in one body. Hence Paul’s desire in his ministry to the Gentiles was that ‘all Israel might be saved’. Remember that by the time of Paul, Israel had long been scattered, sown and dispersed into all the nations of the earth. Israel was mixed among the Gentiles awaiting the day of re-gathering and the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning Ephraim, ‘His seed shall be the fullness of the Gentiles’. Gen 48:19.

The heavenly Father is interested in a multitude of sons. He will gather Jew and Gentile in one body. God continually sows and then reaps. He scatters and then gathers. By this means, He generates a bountiful harvest from all the earth. Joseph was ‘sown’ into Egypt and a multitude was brought out as a result. In the same way, Christ was sown into the world and was the ‘firstborn among many brethren’. Rom 8:29. These ‘many brethren’, of whom we are a part, are yet to be gathered from all the nations of the earth.

David Baker

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June 2008

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Gathering all Israel