TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 61: 79, Paul’s Commission from Christ; 80, Identifying the Nations and Kings of Paul’s Commission

TruthVid's 100 Proofs that the Israelites were White, Part 61

In Parts 25 through 31 of this series, we presented what we had designated as Proof 45, a discussion of Specific NT Verse misteachings, mistranslations or corruptions in the epistles of Paul. Now we shall revisit Paul’s epistles, as they contain many testimonies that serve as stand-alone proofs of the identity of the true children of Israel. Some of these proofs may include our own translations, and we will not always preoccupy ourselves with explaining all of the nuances of translation again since we already discussed it in Proof 45, however we shall repeat what is necessary. Paul is of the utmost importance to an understanding of apostolic Christianity, since he was the first apostle who is recorded as having brought the Gospel to Europe, and that must have been in accordance with the specific commission which the apostle had received from Christ to bring His gospel to a specific people, as well as Paul’s own descriptions in relation to that commission. So for that same reason, we shall begin with Paul’s commission, and how he himself had understood his commission.

79) Paul’s Commission from Christ

Paul of Tarsus had been persecuting Judaean Christians, and especially those who had moved outside of Jerusalem to Damascus, after he witnessed the stoning of Stephen which is recorded at the end of Acts chapter 7. Then, after the Road to Damascus event in Acts chapter 8, where Christ had appeared to him, we read that he is taken to Damascus to the home of a man named Hananias. But Hananias was dubious of Paul’s intentions, as he knew that he had been persecuting Christians. So we read in Acts chapter 9: “13 And Hananias replied ‘Prince, I have heard from many concerning this man, how much evil he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem, 14 and thus he has authority from the high priests to bind all of those being called by Your Name.’ 15 But the Prince said to him ‘Go! For he is a vessel chosen by Me who is to bear My Name before both the Nations and kings of the sons of Israel.’ As we have already explained, the King James Version has “Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel”, however the particle joining the phrases, τε, does not translate simply into the English word and, as does the particle καί. In his Greek-English Lexicon, Joseph Thayer states that τε differs from the particle καί, the usual word translated as and, where καί is conjunctive, but τε is adjunctive and that “καί introduces something new under the same aspect yet as an external addition, whereas τε marks it as having an inner connection with what precedes” (Thayer, τε, p. 616, column B).” So we stand by our translation of the phrase as being the correct translation.

First, the commission reflects the beginning of the fulfillment of the promises made to the fathers, which Paul had said that Christ had come to fulfill, as we discussed in relation to Romans chapter 15 in our last proof. With that, it is also evident that the commission follows those promises, as Yahweh had told Abraham, in Genesis chapter 17: “6 And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.” There are many similar promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Scripture, but this one is representative of the intentions of them all.

Second, when Paul was given this commission, which was a relatively short time after the crucifixion of Christ, there was no king in Judaea, never mind kings, so the commission must not have been for Jews. Furthermore, the Jews themselves did not even have their own nation, in a political sense of the term, since Judaea was only a Roman province inhabited by Greeks and Romans as well as Israelites and Edomites and others. During the entire period from the death of the first Herod in 4 AD to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, Jerusalem and Judaea only had a king for 3 years, when Agrippa I was given the privilege by Rome from 41 to 44 AD. His son Agrippa II was only king of Chalcis in Syria, but not of Judaea, which reverted to a tetrarchy upon the death of his father. So no Jew ever had a king or a kingdom, and from that time the Jews have only been guests of other kings in other kingdoms.

Later, in Acts chapter 22 when Paul had addressed the Judaeans in Jerusalem after he had been arrested there, he once again described the commission which Christ had given to him where he said: “21 And He said to me ‘Go, because I shall send you off to distant nations.” So Paul was told by Christ to go to far off nations, and the nations of Europe must be the nations of Israel to which he was sent. Then Luke recorded the reaction of the Jews: “22 Now they listened until this word, and raised their voice saying ‘Take such as him from the earth! For it is not fit that he lives!’” So the only thing Paul said for which the Jews wanted to kill him was that he was commissioned to take the gospel of Christ to the twelve tribes of Israel which were scattered abroad.

Even later, before he was sent to Rome in chains, Paul had spoke before Porcius Festus and Herod Agrippa II, and we cannot imagine that Paul’s words are contrary to his commission. Rather, they are consistent with the fulfillment of his commission. So in Acts chapter 26 Luke records him as having said: “6 And now for the hope of the promise having been made by God to our fathers I stand being judged, 7 for which our twelve tribes serving in earnest night and day hope to attain, concerning which hope I am charged by the Judaeans…” This attitude justly reflects the words of Christ where He had told His adversaries that “… ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13). Again, near the very end of Paul’s ministry, we read in Acts chapter 28 that Paul had professed that “for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”

Where Paul of Tarsus had professed his intention of bringing the Gospel of Christ to the twelve tribes of Israel, he brought it to Anatolia and to Europe. He made it as far as Rome in the West, and Illyria and Macedonia in the North, which is evident in Romans chapter 15 and in the Book of Acts. In Romans 15, he expressed the desire to go as far as Spain, but he never made it that far. This was in fulfillment of his commission to profess the name of Christ “before both the Nations and kings of the sons of Israel” and to bring the Gospel “to distant nations.” We cannot imagine that Paul failed to fulfill the task which he had been given, and we cannot imagine that Paul had changed the nature of that task, or he could not have claimed to come in the Name of Christ. So at the same time, Paul professed that he labored for the hope which had been given to the children of Israel.

This leads us to discuss several other topics, aspects of this same phenomenon which are also explained in Paul’s epistles.

80) Identifying the Nations and Kings of Paul’s Commission

Few people realize that when the promises were made to Abraham some time around 2000 BC or not long after, there were no Germans, there were no Irishmen or Englishmen, no Scandinavians, no French, and not even any Spaniards, Italians or Greeks as we know them from later history. While there may have been Japhethites in various places in Europe, since Moses describes some of the Genesis 10 nations as having been Thracians, Ionians and Tartessians, who along with Meshech and Tubal were scattered around the Black Sea and along the southern coasts of Europe, the nations of modern Europe, or the Europe of Paul’s time, were all formed by later immigrant tribes.

These tribes were, at least for the most part, descended from the children of Israel. Earlier in this series, of proofs we discussed the Roman origination from the Trojans, and the connections of the Trojans to ancient Judah, who along with the Danaan Greeks had evidently migrated away from Israel at the time of the Exodus. We also discussed how the Dorians had come from Israel, how the Phoenicians, who made many colonies in Europe and on the coast of northern Africa, were actually the Israelites of Tyre, and then how the Kimmerians and Scythians, among whom we would count the Massagetae, Sakae or Saxons, Goths, Alans, Huns and other tribes, were Israelites of the Assyrian deportations. Ultimately, it is these tribes, along with a few other related groups, who formed the nations of modern Europe.

So in Romans chapter 4, Paul described the nations to whom he had been sent as the descendants of Abraham, where he wrote, in part: “13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith…. 16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all”. Now the law was only given to Israel, but Abraham believed that his seed, or offspring, would become many nations in spite of the law, so the promise did not hinge on the keeping of the law, which came 430 years later.

Rather, Paul defined what he means by the faith of Abraham as what it was that Abraham himself had believed, as he continued and wrote: “17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. 18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.” Speaking to Romans, Paul called Abraham the “Father of us all”, and earlier in the chapter he referred to him as “our forefather”, because Paul knew that the nations to whom he had brought the Gospel were actually descended from Abraham. Then he wrote that God calls those things which are not as though they were, meaning that He spoke of nations that did not yet exist when the promise to Abraham was made, and they did not yet exist because they would come from Abraham’s seed, which had not yet been born when the promise was made. But they did exist in Paul’s own time, and one of those nations was that of the Romans.

So what Abraham believed, as Paul also explained in that chapter of Romans, is that his own offspring would become many nations, and that those nations would inherit the world. That is the faith of Abraham of which Paul spoke in Romans, and it is what Abraham believed to which Paul referred in his other epistles. So in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul tells his readers, who are evidently Dorian Greeks, as that was the tribe which had settled at Corinth, that “1 Now I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all had passed through the sea. 2 And all up to Moses had immersed themselves in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all had eaten the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank of an attending spiritual rock, and that rock was Christ.” We have already discussed the historical evidence from Flavius Josephus and the apocryphal 1 Maccabees, that the king of Sparta, who was also a Dorian, acknowledged that he was of the seed of Abraham, and that the high priest in Jerusalem agreed, around 160 or so years before the birth of Christ.

Then later in that chapter, Paul makes a broader statement where he says “18 Behold Israel down through the flesh: are not those who are eating the sacrifices partners of the altar?” The King James Version has that verse, in part, to read “Behold Israel after the flesh”, but the Greek preposition κατά does not mean after as we use that term today. It commonly means down or down through, or in non-literal contexts, according to, as it was often translated elsewhere in that version. So Paul was speaking in relation to “Israel according to the flesh” and the idolatry which they had been committing. Then he makes a parenthetical remark and says: “19 What then do I say? That that which is sacrificed to an idol is anything? Or that an idol is anything?” Then, as “Israel according to the flesh” is still the subject, he wrote: “20 Rather, that whatever the Nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to Yahweh. Now I do not wish for you to be partners with demons.” But there is no record of any Jews in Corinth or its environs where they were practising idolatry. Rather, the idolatry was being practised by the pagan nations of Europe in and around Greece, that had descended from those same twelve tribes of Israel to which Paul had been sent, and that is “Israel according to the flesh”, as he used the same phrase in relation to his kinsmen in Romans chapter 9.

In Paul’s epistle to the Galatians we find much the same evidence, that he was writing to people of the twelve tribes of Israel. But our translation of several passages in Galatians chapter 3 is contrary to the translations of the Churches, and especially in verses 15 and 29, even though we would assert that our translation is grammatically correct. We have already discussed these at length in the earlier presentations where we discussed the mistranslations in Paul, so we will not go into detail here. However here we shall cite our own translation, the Christogenea New Testament. But even in spite of these mistranslations in other versions, the text of Paul’s epistle is clear, that he was speaking to descendants of the ancient Israelites.

We shall first cite Galatians 3:6-8, where Paul written: “6 Just as ‘Abraham had trusted Yahweh, and it was accounted to him for righteousness’ 7 then you know that they from faith, they are sons of Abraham. 8 And the writing having foreseen that from faith Yahweh would deem the Nations righteous, announced to Abraham beforehand that ‘In you shall all the Nations be blessed.’” Paul defined that faith in Romans chapter 4 as what Abraham had believed. So they from the faith are the products of what Abrham had believed, which was the promise that his seed would become many nations, and that those nations would inherit the world. There is no other faith of Abraham described in Scripture for which “it was accounted to him for righteousness”. But in Isaiah chapter 45 we read: “25 In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.”

Paul proceeds by stating in verse 9: “9 So those from faith are blessed along with the believing Abraham.” Then he goes on to explain that righteous does not stem from the law, since men cannot keep the law without sinning, and now we shall read verses 13-14: “13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse on our behalf, (for it is written, “Accursed is everyone who hangs upon a timber,”) 14 in order that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Nations at the hand of Christ Yahshua, that we should receive the promise of the Spirit through the faith.” So the redeemed are those who were under the law, who needed to be redeemed. Nobody but those same twelve tribes can possibly fit into a need for that redemption. The redemption was needed so that the promises to Abraham could be kept. The blessing would come upon the nations through Christ, but it would come only upon those nations to whom it was promised, who are the seed of Abraham through Jacob Israel.

Therefore now we will read the next verses of the chapter, where Paul explained that same thing in his own way, although first he has a disclaimer in verse 15: “15 Brethren, (I speak as befits a man,) even a validated covenant of man no one sets aside, or makes additions to for himself.” In other words, nobody can add themselves or others into the covenants and promises which Yahweh God had made to Abraham and to his descedants. But, of those descendants, Ishmael was rejected, and Esau was disqualifed from the inheritance because, as Paul wrote in Hebrews chapter 12, he was a fornicator, which from the evidence in Genesis is revealed to be a race-mixer. Neither did the later descendants of Abraham with Keturah have any share in the promsies. They only fell to Jacob.

Therefore, referring to the promises which were made to Abraham and carried down to only certain of his descendants, and not to all of them, Paul wrote: “16 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. 17 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. 18 For if from law, the inheritance is no longer from promise, but to Abraham through a promise Yahweh has given it freely.” The Israelites were sent off in punishment for breaking the law, but they would be redeemed in Christ on account of the promises to Abraham.

Moving to the end of the chapter, Paul makes a remark which is also poorly understood, and for that reason, poorly translated: “28 There is not one Judaean or Greek, there is not one bondman or freeman, there is not one male and female; for all you are one in Christ Yahshua. 29 But if you are Christ’s, then of the offspring of Abraham you are heirs according to promise.” There is not one Judaean or Greek, as Paul was speaking to the twelve tribes, and there is no difference before God between Judaean Israelites and Greek Israelites. If they were at one time under the law, they are redeemed in Christ. But in verse 29 the structure of the Greek grammar is what is known as a conditional sentence. The word for “then” is the Greek word ἄρα (Strong's # 686). According to Liddell & Scott ἄρα was generally used to describe a thing which is next in order after another, or something which explains what has preceded. Both of these uses are manifest where ἄρα also appears in different types of conditional sentences.

The Greek word ἄρα often serves to introduce the apodosis in a conditional sentence, which is the then... part, a clause which answers to the protasis, which is the if... part. For example, “If it is raining, then I cannot go fishing.” But there are several types of conditional sentences. They can either express factual implications, or they can express hypothetical situations and their consequences. We see conditional sentences using the same Greek words for if and then in Matthew 12:28 and in Paul’s writing in Hebrews 12:8. In both instances, if the protasis is true, which is the clause following the if, then the apodosis must also be true, which is the clause following the then. These are conditional sentences which express factual implications.

In Matthew 12:28 we read: “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.” So if the kingdom of God in the person of Christ and His disciples was not manifest, then Christ was not casting out devils by the Spirit of God. In other words, if one clause is true, then the other clause must also be true. Christ did not say to the Pharisees in Matthew that the kingdom of God may come unto you or will come to you, He said it is come to you. So by the grammar of each clause, we see that both clauses in His statement must be true. This is a conditional sentence which expresses a factual implication, or as Liddell & Scott have it in their definition, “something which explains what has preceded”. Similarly, In Hebrews 12:8 we read: “But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” If one is a bastard, then one is not a partaker in the chastisement of the children of God, as the Word of God says to the children of Israel that “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). Again, if one clause is true, then the other clause must be true.

So here this is also a conditional sentence which expresses a factual implication. The then part of Paul's statement is “something which explains what has preceded”, which is the if part of Paul's statement. Paul did not say in Hebrews that one may be a bastard, or could be a bastard, so by the grammar of each clause we once again see that both clauses must be true. This is because the verb in the apodosis is Indicative, which is a mood that is used to express a definite statement. Here in Galatians 3:29 where Paul wrote “if you are Christ’s, then of the offspring of Abraham you are heirs according to promise”, once again the verb in the clause in the “then...” side of the statement is Indicative, expressing a definite statement. So this is also a type of conditional sentence which expresses a factual implication. If you are Christ's, you are also Abraham's seed. Paul did not write that if you believe in Jesus you may be, or you could be, or you shall be Abraham's seed, in the manner in which the denominational churches claim. Both sides of the statement must be true. If you are Abraham's seed, according to what Paul had explained in Galatians 3:16, then you are of Christ. Paul is teaching the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham as they were stated to Abraham.

This brings us to Galatians chapter 4 which also further reinforces these assertions. Paul likens the children of Israel to a worldly servant and says “1 Now I say, for as long a time as the heir is an infant, he differs not at all from a bondman, being master of all; 2 but he is subject to guardians and stewards until a time appointed by the father.” This has nothing to do with Christ, and everything to do with the fact that the children of Israel were kept under the law throughout their early history in this very manner, and that the Galatians were among them, or at least, they are descended from them. So Paul continues to describe how they were released from the bondage of the law.

So we read in the next three verses: “3 Just as we also, when we were infants, we were held subject under the elements of the Society. 4 And when the fulfillment of the time had come, Yahweh had dispatched His Son, having been born of a woman, having been subject to law, 5 in order that he would redeem those subject to law, that we would recover the position of sons.” Finally, in the very next verse, we read: “6 And because you are sons, Yahweh has dispatched the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying Father, Father.” This shows that believing in Christ does not make one a son. Rather, one is a son first, and if he is a son, Yahweh God has sent Christ on account of that.

So Paul struggled for the twelve tribes of Israel, and it is nations which descended from those tribes to which he had brought the Gospel. Presenting our next few proofs, we will continue to demonstrate this truth in different ways from the epistles of Paul.