Yahweh's Anointed: The Children of Israel
By: William Finck © 2007
The word χριστός (christos, Strong’s #5547) is defined by Liddell & Scott: “verbal Adjective of χρίω, to be rubbed on ... II. of persons, anointed: ΧΡΙΣΤΟ´Σ, ὁ, the Anointed One, the CHRIST, as a translation of the Hebrew Messiah, N.T.” The root verb, χρίω (chrio, #5548), is “... to rub or anoint with scented unguents ... to anoint ...” (L&S). So we see that when used of persons the adjective χριστός simply means anointed. Yet wherever the A.V. translators found the word, either as an adjective or used as a Substantive (a noun, usually with the Article), they, whether by habitual repetition or plain ignorance, translated the word as Christ. Therefore Christians have been led to believe that the word always refers to Yahshua Christ Himself. Most translations done since have simply followed the A.V. in this respect, and so have the lexicographers, including Liddell & Scott as is evident above. Because of this situation, and the intended demonstration of this essay, all of the translations below shall be my own unless otherwise noted. Comparing the passages supplied here with those found in the A.V., and using a concordance such as Strong’s, the reader should be able to assess the validity of the following assertions.
The verb χρίω, to anoint, is found at Luke 4:18; Acts 4:27; 10:38 and Heb. 1:9, all pertaining to Christ. Elsewhere in the N.T. we see this verb used in the same manner of the children of Israel, at 2 Cor. 1:21. Indeed the Corinthians were descendants of Israelite tribes, from whence came the Dorians, who settled in Greece over a thousand years before Christ’s birth. Note the text at 1 Cor. 10:1-11 for instance. Likewise, a related noun, χρῖσμα (chrisma, 5545), was used by John, speaking of Israelite Christians. The A.V. translated this word as “unction” at 1 John 2:20, and as “anointing” twice at 2:27.
Uses of these words in this manner, pertaining to the children of Israel, are found in the Greek Septuagint, as their Hebrew counterparts are in the Masoretic Text and so they are evident in the A.V., at 1 Sam. 2:10, 35; 1 Chron. 16:22; Psa. 2:2; 19 (20):6; 27 (28):8; 83 (84):9; 88 (89):38; 104 (105):15; 131 (132):17 and at Hab. 3:13. In the A.V. see also Lam. 4:20, though this verse differs from the LXX.
While Ἰησοῦς χριστός is literally “anointed Yahshua”, usually written “Yahshua Christ”, and while ὁ χριστός, always “the Christ” in the A.V., does very often refer to Yahshua Christ in the N.T., the primary assertion here is that ὁ χριστός also often refers to the children of Israel as a group, and this is especially apparent in the letters of Paul. That the children of Israel, with Yahshua Christ as their Head, are “the Anointed” as a group is explained by Paul at 1 Cor. 11:3; 12:12-31; Eph. 4:11-16, and is alluded to elsewhere. Although ὁ χριστός is singular, such singular nouns are often used to describe such a collection of individuals in Greek. Examples are σπέρμα (sperma, 4690), seed or offspring, all of one’s children as a group (i.e. Acts 7:6; Rom. 11:1; Heb. 11:18), and ἔθνος (ethnos, 1484), properly a nation but in some contexts people, plural in English, for which see the A.V. at Rom. 10:19 and Acts 8:9.
- 1 Cor 11:3: “But I wish for you to acknowledge that of every man the head is the Anointed, but the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the Anointed, Yahweh.”
- 1 Cor. 12:12: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also the Anointed.”
- Eph. 4:11-16: “And He has given the ambassadors, and the interpreters of prophesy, and those who deliver the good message, and the shepherds - teachers, towards the restoration of the saints, for the work of ministering for building of the body of the Anointed, until we all would attain to the unity of the faith and of the acknowledgment of the Son of Yahweh, at man perfected, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Anointed; in order that we would be infants no longer - being tossed as waves and carried about in every wind of teaching by the trickery of men, in villainy for the sake of the systematizing of deception. But speaking the truth with love, we may increase all things for He who is the head, the Christ, from whom all the body is being joined together and is being reconciled through every stroke of assistance according to the operation of each single part in proportion; the growth of the body creates itself into a building in love.”
Examining 1 Cor. 11:3 in light of 12:12 and Eph 4:11-16, we see that the phrase ὁ χριστός at 1 Cor. 11:3 should indeed be “the Anointed”, the children of Israel as a group. For Yahshua Christ, being the same as Yahweh (i.e. Col. 2:8 ff., John 10:30), is not described by Paul here as being merely the Head of Himself.
A walk through Paul’s epistles, examining certain places where the phrase ὁ χριστός appears, shall certainly make manifest the veracity of the assertion made above. Here we shall examine some places where this is more readily evident.
- Heb. 11:24-26: “By faith Moses, becoming fullgrown, refused to be called a son of the daughter of Pharaoh, rather preferring to be mistreated with the people of Yahweh than to have the temporary rewards of error, having esteemed the reproach of the Anointed greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, since he had regard for the reward.” Surely it was not Yahshua Christ suffering reproach as a slave in Egypt, but rather the Anointed people: the children of Israel, whose reproach Moses chose to share in, although he could have had an easier life in the house of Pharaoh instead.
- 1 Tim. 5:11-12: Discussing the support of widows by the assembly, Paul states: “But younger widows you must excuse, for when they behave wantonly towards the anointed, they desire to marry with judgment because they have set aside that former assurance.” Paul is surely telling Timothy that young widows should support themselves, or remarry, rather than dedicating themselves to the assembly only to break that commitment later on. Surely Paul is not inferring that young, unattached women could behave wantonly towards Yahshua Christ, but rather towards “the anointed”, men of the children of Israel.
- 1 Cor. 1:10-13: “Now I encourage you, brethren , by the name of our Prince Yahshua Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and there may not be divisions among you; but that you are disciplined in the same mind and in the same purpose. It has been disclosed to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of the house of Chloe, that there is contention among you. Now I say this: that each of you say, ‘so I am of Paul’, ‘but I am of Apollos’, ‘but I am of Kephas’, ‘and I of Christ’. Have the Anointed been divided? Has Paul been crucified on your behalf? Or have you been immersed in the name of Paul?” Paul is not asking whether Yahshua Christ had somehow been divided. In verse 10 Paul tells the assembly that there should not be divisions among them. In v. 12 he states that they have each chosen favorites from among the apostles and in turn claim to be followers of those favorites. Then in v. 13 he asks “Have the Anointed been divided?”, the Anointed being the body of the children of Israel, the Anointed people. Warning against such disunity is subsequently a major theme of this letter to the Corinthians, for which see chapters 3, 4, and 12 especially.
- 1 Cor. 4:15: “Although you may have a myriad of tutors among the Anointed, certainly not many fathers; indeed in Christ Yahshua through the good message I have begotten you.” The phrase ἐν χριστῷ is “among the Anointed” here, as it often appears in my edition of Paul’s letters. Liddell & Scott have in their lexicon at ἐν, in part, “1. in .... 2. in, upon ... 3. in the number of, amongst ...” As an aside, many think wrongly of Paul’s statement here, concerning his attitude towards those to whom he brought the gospel, considering himself their father. Those scoffers should consult Mark 10:29-30, and read it carefully, rather than fault Paul for their own lack of understanding.
Once it is recognized that Paul uses the phrase ὁ χριστός, “the Anointed”, to refer not only to Yahshua Christ, but to the children of Israel as a whole, many difficult and little-understood passages may be looked at in an entirely new light. From a Kingdom Israel Identity viewpoint, this recognition is of great benefit to our understanding of Paul and to our beliefs in general: for Paul was the first teacher of Israel Identity, which may become apparent as we examine the passages below.
- Rom. 9:1-5: “I speak the truth among the Anointed, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that grief for me is great, and distress incessant in my heart, for I have prayed that I myself would be accursed from the Anointed for the brethren, my kinsmen in regards to the flesh; those who are Israelites, whose is the position of sons, and the honor, and the covenants, and the legislation, and the service, and the promises; whose are the fathers; and of whom are the Anointed in regards to the flesh, being over all blessed of Yahweh for the ages. Truly.” At v. 9:1 Paul explained that he speaks the truth “among the Anointed”: for his mission is to the nations of Israel, those nations actually descended from the ancient Israelites, as he explains in various places throughout his letters. At Romans 8:39, a couple of lines prior to 9:2, Paul explains that nothing could “separate us from the love of Yahweh, which is in Christ Yahshua our Prince”, and so here “accursed from the Anointed” must refer to the people of Israel, and not Christ Himself. Paul is offering himself in place of his brethren, if he could do such a thing. At vv. 9:4-5 Paul explains that the Anointed are Israelites, and are of “the fathers”, i.e. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to which people alone belong all of the covenants and promises of Israel. Here Paul is distinguishing between the true Israelites of Judaea, and the Edomite-jew usurpers in Judaea, and Paul continues in vv. 9:6-12 and 20-23 contrasting the fates of Jacob and Esau, and so the Israelites and the Edomites. While the ‘church’ has failed to distinguish between these two groups, Yahweh and Paul have not! Paul then continues to allude to this theme until chapter 11 of Romans.
- Gal. 3:15-18: “Brethren, (I speak as befits a man,) even a validated covenant of man no one sets aside, or makes additions to for himself. Now to Abraham the promises have been spoken, and to his offspring. It does not say ‘and to offsprings’, as of many; but as of one: ‘and to your offspring,’ which are anointed. Now this I say, a covenant validated beforehand by Yahweh, the law which arrived after four hundred and thirty years does not invalidate, by which the promise is left idle. For if from law, the inheritance is no longer from promise, but to Abraham through a promise Yahweh has given it freely.”
Yahshua Christ may be “Heir of all things”, yet His very purpose is for Israel, His elect (Isaiah 43, 44, 53). Yahshua Christ is not the only legitimate heir of the promises to the fathers. Rather, as we see at Gen. 35:10-15, for instance, the promise was handed down from Abraham through Isaac to Jacob and his descendants. That these are the heirs of the promise is made clear by Paul elsewhere, at Heb. 6:17: “By which Yahweh is more abundantly desiring to display to the heirs of the promise the immutability of His will, mediated by an oath”, and at Heb. 9:15: “And for this reason He is a mediator of a new covenant, so that from death resulting in redemption of the transgressions against the first covenant, those having been invited would receive the promise of the eternal inherit- ance.” At Romans 4:16 Paul states that from faith “the promise is to be certain to all of the offspring”. And so we must understand Gal. 3:15-18 in context with these other statements.
At Gal. 3:15-18 Paul explains that the heirs of the promise are the anointed seed, the children of Israel, and not the children of Abraham’s other offspring: Ishmael, or the sons of Keturah (Gen. 25:1-4), nor especially his grandson Esau and his wicked brood. This is a recurring theme in Paul’s letters, as we have seen above in Romans 9, and again at Galatians 4 where Paul makes an allegory which recalls the exclusion of Ishmael, the “son of the bondwoman”. Ultimately, Esau and Ishmael were treated in this manner because they took wives of the Canaanites, having children of mixed race who are void of that Spirit with which Adamites alone are endowed.
That the phrase ὅς ἐστιν χριστός may be rendered “which are anointed” in English, even though the words are in the singular and the adjective, χριστός and so the pronoun, are in the Masculine gender, is evident once it is realized that χριστός is being used to describe a singular collective noun, σπέρμα or “offspring”, has itself been used as a collective noun as we have seen in the example above, and that such collective nouns are commonly treated in such a manner in Greek. ἐστιν, second person singular of the verb εỉμί, to be, is “are” in many similar instances in the A.V., i.e. Gal. 4:24 and 5:19. A similar phrase appears at Col. 1:27, which I have rendered in part “which is the expectation of honor anointed in you”.
- Eph. 3:1-9: “For this cause I, Paul, captive of Christ Yahshua on behalf of you of the Nations, if indeed you have heard of the management of the family of the favor of Yahweh which has been given to me in regard to you, seeing that by a revelation the mystery was made known to me (just as I had briefly written before, besides which reading you are able to perceive my understanding in the mystery of the Anointed,) which in other generations had not been made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed in His holy ambassadors and prophets by the Spirit, those Nations which are joint heirs and a joint body and partners of the promise in Christ Yahshua, through the good message of which I have become a servant in accordance with the gift of the favor of Yahweh which has been given to me, in accordance with the operation of His power. To me, the least of all saints, has been given this favor, to announce the good message to the Nations - the unsearchable riches of the Anointed, and to enlighten all concerning the management of the household of the mystery which was concealed from the ages by Yahweh, by whom all things are being established.” And a few verses later, at Eph. 3:14-17, Paul writes: “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father, from whom the whole family in the heavens and upon earth is named, in order that He would give to you, in accordance with the riches of His honor, the ability to be strengthened through His Spirit in the inner man, to administer the Anointed through the faith in your hearts, being planted and founded in love”.
It is clear in Paul’s letters, in the verses supplied above and elsewhere, that Paul knew that all of the promises of the Old Testament, including the New Covenant, were for Israel alone, the “family of the faith” (Gal. 6:10; cf. Amos 3:2). The mystery discussed here by Paul is clearly not “of Christ”, meaning Yahshua. Rather, the mystery is this: if Abraham had descendants as the sand of the sea (Gen 22:17), and in that manner became the father of many nations (Gen. 17:4), as Sarah would be a mother of nations (Gen. 17:16), and this promise was passed down specifically through Jacob (Gen. 35:11), then where were all of these nations? Certainly, as he is explaining here in Ephesians, it was revealed to Paul where they were, evident throughout his letters (i.e. Rom. 1:18 ff.; 1 Cor. 10:1 ff.), and so to those nations he brought the gospel! While in this day, through a thorough study of ancient history, archaeology and language, the Israelite origins of the people of Europe can be established with certainty, this was not manifest to the scholars of Paul’s time, nor to very many since. From the dawn of Christianity, Paul’s work was the glue by which the New Covenant faith in Yahshua Christ adhered to the true children of Israel: the Aryan Nations of Europe. Paul strove to reveal to them their identity 2000 years ago, and in their blindness most of Israel still cannot see it. Yet that blindness was also a matter of prophecy and a result of our errors, i.e. Deut. 28:28-29; Isa. 29:9-16; 42:18 ff.; 43:8 ff.
- Paul’s message to the Colossians was very much like that to the Ephesians. Col. 1:24-28: “Now, I rejoice in these sufferings on your behalf, and I substitute for those deficiencies of the afflictions of the Anointed with my flesh on behalf of the body itself, which is the assembly; of which I have become a servant in accordance with the administration of the household of Yahweh which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of Yahweh, the mystery which has been concealed from the ages and from the races, but now has been made visible to His saints, to whom Yahweh did wish to make known what the riches of the honor of this mystery are among the Nations, which is the expectation of honor anointed in you”.
Here Paul certainly was not suggesting that Yahshua Christ hadn’t suffered enough, so he suffered more on behalf of Yahshua. Rather, Paul tells the assembly that he suffers on behalf of the Anointed, the children of Israel. Further on, at Col. 2:11, Paul mentions the “circumcision of the Anointed”, which is that circumcision of the hearts of the children of Israel, mentioned at Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Rom. 2:29 and elsewhere.
At Col. 4:3 Paul says “at the same time praying also for us, in order that Yahweh would create an opportunity for the Word, for us to speak of the mystery of the Anointed, for which I also have been bound”. Elsewhere Paul states that his mission was to deliver “a message for compliance of faith by all of the Nations” (Rom. 1:5), and that his message was “the proclamation of Yahshua Christ; in accordance with a revelation of mystery having been kept secret in times eternal, but being made manifest now, through the prophetic writings; in accordance with the command of the eternal Yahweh, for the submission of faith to all the Nations ...” (Rom. 1:25-26). So it should be fully evident, that the Anointed are the children of Israel of those very nations descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom Paul brought the gospel.
As Paul consistently spoke to these same nations about redemption (Rom. 3:24; 8:23; 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:7, 14; 4:30; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:15) and reconciliation (Eph. 2:16; Col. 1:21-22), matters of prophecy foretold only for the children of Israel, he was indeed the first teacher of Kingdom Israel Identity. One should now comprehend the term “Anointed” more thoroughly!
Please click here for our mailing list sign-up page.
