The Mystery of The Gospel

A saying: ‘Look, if a man divorces his wife, and she goes from him and she becomes another man’s wife, will he return to her again?’ Will not that land be greatly defiled? And you have prostituted yourself with many lovers, would you now return to me?” declares Yahweh. Jeremiah 3:1”

The Northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes referred to as the House of Israel, house of Joseph or Ephriam, completely abandoned Yahweh and the covenant. They worshipped other gods under green trees, on high places and committed other abominable acts. Yahweh compared it to an adulterous woman leaving her first husband for another. Could the husband ever take her back? This would not be possible according to Yahweh’s own law.

Deu 24:1 “When a man takes a wife and he marries her and then she does not please him, because he found something objectionable and writes her a letter of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her away from his house,
Deu 24:2 and she goes from his house, and she goes out and becomes a wife for another man,
Deu 24:3 and then the second man dislikes her and he writes her a letter of divorce and places it into her hand and sends her from his house, or if the second man dies who took her to himself as a wife,
Deu 24:4 her first husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to become a wife to him after she has been defiled, for that is a detestable thing before Yahweh, and so you shall not mislead into sin the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you as an inheritance.

The husband and wife relationship is used all through scripture to explain the relationship between Yahweh and the children of Jacob, being the complete twelve tribes. After the kingdom split under Solomon, ten tribes went under the leadership of Jereboam, and moved further and further away from Yahweh’s commandments, or wedding vows. They joined themselves with the gods of the nations, their religious customs and practices, and made up new holidays to worship Yahweh, like the heathens worshipped their gods. It was so bad that Yahweh issued them a decree of divorce.

Jer 3:6 Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah, the king, “Have you seen what apostate Israel has done? She has gone on every high hill and under every leafy tree and she has prostituted herself there.
Jer 3:7 And I thought, ‘After her doing all these things to me she will return,’ but she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
Jer 3:8 And I saw that for this very reason, that on account of apostate Israel committing adultery I divorced her and gave the letter of divorce to her. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid and she went and prostituted herself also.

All the people of the northern tribes, the house of Israel, were cut off at this point. They would not be able to return to Yahweh. According to His own law, He could not take them back, even if He wanted to. Paul referenced this very thing in his letter to the Romans. This flies over many peoples’ heads because no one is taught from the Old Testament any more, and in some cases, it is taught to not be applicable to Christianity.

Rom 7:1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
Rom 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
Rom 7:3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Rom 7:4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
Rom 7:5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
Rom 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Jesus’ death and resurrection made void the decree of divorce issued against the house of Israel by Yahweh. Meanwhile, through the house of Israel being scattered throughout the whole world, the promise was extended to everyone. This is how the law held people captive. It is never a problem with Yahweh’s laws, but always the breaking of them that causes all the problems. Jesus knew this part of His mission as well:

Mat 15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Mat 15:25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
Mat 15:26 And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
Mat 15:27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
Mat 15:28 Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Jesus had an encounter with a woman from Samaria. This is part of the Northern kingdom. Is it a coincidence that this woman had many husbands, or was this also a reference to the foreign gods to whom the Northern kingdom had joined themselves?

Joh 4:6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
Joh 4:7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Joh 4:8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
Joh 4:9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
Joh 4:10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Joh 4:11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
Joh 4:12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
Joh 4:13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
Joh 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Joh 4:15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Joh 4:16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
Joh 4:17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
Joh 4:18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Idolatry is adultery and fornication when the marriage contract between Yahweh and His people is taken into consideration. The vows were given at Mount Horeb.

Deu 4:10 Remember the day that you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb when Yahweh said to me, ‘Summon for me the people so that I can tell them my words, that they may learn to fear me all of the days they are alive on the earth and so that they may teach their children.’
Deu 4:11 And so you came near, and you stood under the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of the heaven, dark with a very thick cloud.
Deu 4:12 And Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard a sound of words, but you did not see a form—only a voice.
Deu 4:13 And he declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he charged you to observe, and he wrote them on the two tablets of stone.
Deu 4:14 And Yahweh charged me at that time to teach you rules and regulations for your observation of them in the land that you are about to cross into to take possession of it.
Deu 4:15 “So you must be very careful for yourselves, because you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,
Deu 4:16 so that you do not ruin yourselves and make for yourselves a divine image in a form of any image, a replica of male or female,
Deu 4:17 a replica of any animal that is upon the earth, a replica of any winged bird that flies in the air,
Deu 4:18 a replica of any creeping thing on the ground, a replica of any fish that is in the water below the earth.
Deu 4:19 And do this so that you do not lift your eyes toward heaven and observe the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heaven, and be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all of the peoples under all of the heaven.

Yahweh considered this a covenant similar to a marriage covenant with Israel. The book of Hosea covers this subject. Note that in Hosea 2:11, “And I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals;”, many will try to say these are the feasts of Yahweh; however, that is nonsensical. These are the Sabbaths, festivals, and new moons of the Baal’s that they were playing the harlot with. The same holy days are with us today that have to do with sun worship, heavenly hosts, solstices and equinoxes.

Hos 2:1 Say to your brother, “Ammi,” and to your sister, “Ruhamah.”
Hos 2:2 Plead with your mother, plead—because she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her put away her whoring from before her, and her adultery from between her breasts.
Hos 2:3 Lest I strip her naked and expose her like the day when she was born; I will make her like the desert and turn her into parched land; I will kill her with thirst.
Hos 2:4 And I will not have pity on her children, because they are children of whoredom.
Hos 2:5 Because their mother was unfaithful; she who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said: “I will go after my lovers, the ones who give me my bread, my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink.”
Hos 2:6 Therefore, Look! I am going to hedge her path with thorns, and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall against her, and she will not find her paths.
Hos 2:7 Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not overtake them; she will seek them and not find them; and she will say, “I will go and return to my first husband because it was better for me then than now.”
Hos 2:8 But she did not know that it was I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and who gave her silver in abundance, and gold which they made into a Baal.
Hos 2:9 Therefore I will take again my grain in its time, and my wine in its season; and I will take away my wool and my flax, which were to cover her nakedness.
Hos 2:10 And now I will uncover her nakedness before the eyes of her lovers, and no one will rescue her from my hand.
Hos 2:11 And I will put an end to all her mirth, her festivals, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her appointed festivals;
Hos 2:12 and I will lay waste to her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, “They are my payment for prostitution, which my lovers gave to me.” I will make them a forest, and the wild animals of the field will devour them.
Hos 2:13 I will punish her for the days of the Baals, to whom she burns incense, and she decked herself with her ornamental ring and jewelry, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me—a declaration of Yahweh.

Yahweh also tells of a path back for the adulterous wife.

Hos 2:14 Therefore, Look! I am going to allure her and bring her into the desert, and I will speak tenderly to her.
Hos 2:15 From there I will give her her vineyards, and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope. And there she will respond, as in the days of her youth, just as in the day of her coming out of the land of Egypt.
Hos 2:16 And on that day—a declaration of Yahweh—you will call me, “My husband;” you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”
Hos 2:17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.
Hos 2:18 I will make a covenant for them on that day, with the animals of the field, with the birds of the heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.
Hos 2:19 And I will take you as my wife forever; I will take you as a wife for myself in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
Hos 2:20 I will take you as my wife in faithfulness, and you will know Yahweh.
Hos 2:21 On that day I will answer, declares Yahweh, I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth.
Hos 2:22 And the earth will answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they will answer Jezreel.
Hos 2:23 I will sow her for myself in the land; I will have pity on Lo-ruhama; I will say to Lo-ammi, “You are my people,” and he himself will say, “you are my God.”

Paul uses these same verses in his letter to the Romans. What has been confused during the hundreds of years of Christianity, is that the term gentiles, which simply refers to people of nations other than Israel, was being applied to the divorced Northern kingdom mixed in with the other nations by Paul. The only people of Yahweh, after the divorce decreed in Jeremiah, were the people from the House of Judah.

Rom 9:22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
Rom 9:23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
Rom 9:24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
Rom 9:26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
Rom 9:27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
Rom 9:28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.”
Rom 9:29 And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.”
Rom 9:30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;
Rom 9:31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
Rom 9:32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
Rom 9:33 as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

The House of Judah, or the “Jews”, tried to obtain their salvation by works, not by faith. However, it does not nullify the law of God simply because someone misapplied it. Paul exemplifies that he still holds the law of Yahweh in high regard many years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In this account in the book of Acts, we see Paul having to dispel the rumour that he was teaching things contrary to the law of Yahweh.

Act 21:18 On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
Act 21:19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
Act 21:20 And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,
Act 21:21 and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.
Act 21:22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.
Act 21:23 Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow;
Act 21:24 take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.
Act 21:25 But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.”

Here we have thousands of Jews who believed, and were zealous for the law, under the belief that Paul is telling the Jews living amoung the nations that they do not need to follow the instructions of Yahweh. What is their solution to this dilemma? Paul takes a Nazarite vow. Are they being deceitful by displaying that many years later after the death and resurrection of the Messiah, Paul still follows the instructions of Yahweh, otherwise known as the Torah?

It should not be a surprise that Paul skipped his visit at Ephesus in order to make it to Jerusalem in time for the feast of Pentecost, which is Shavuot.

Act 20:16 For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.

Yet at the same time, Paul uses similar language that is in Hosea in his letter to the Galatians, worried that they have turned back to keeping feast days.

Gal 4:8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
Gal 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Gal 4:10 You observe days and months and seasons and years!
Gal 4:11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

On one hand, Paul skips visiting Ephesus to try to make a feast at Jerusalem, then on the other hand, tells the Galatians he is worried about them for observing days, months, seasons and years! It is obvious therefore, the Galatians were going back to the same idolatry that was spoken about in Hosea, where Yahweh hated their festivals and Sabbaths to Baal. Paul has a similar message when writing to the Colossians.

Col 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Col 2:9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
Col 2:10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
Col 2:11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
Col 2:12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
Col 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
Col 2:14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Col 2:15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.
Col 2:17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Col 2:18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind,
Col 2:19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
Col 2:20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—
Col 2:21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”
Col 2:22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings?
Col 2:23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

In verse 2:14, “by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross”, it is the record of debt that was done away with. The decree of divorce becomes invalid when the husband dies. Note that the record of debt is not the thing that causes the debt, which are Yahweh’s instructions that were broken, such as adultery and idolatry. It is always philosophy and man’s traditions that both Paul and Jesus speak against, never the law of Yahweh. In another place Paul states he has not broken any laws of the Jews.

Act 25:7 When he had arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many and serious charges against him that they could not prove.
Act 25:8 Paul argued in his defense, “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense.”
Act 25:9 But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and there be tried on these charges before me?”
Act 25:10 But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as you yourself know very well.

We cannot have Paul advocating abandoning the feasts of Yahweh and the other instructions of Yahweh, then say in a tribunal he has not committed any offence to the law of the Jews! Is Paul a liar, or are scriptures being manipulated to turn people away from following the commandments of Yahweh? Peter tells us what is happening:

2Pe 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
2Pe 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
2Pe 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
2Pe 3:17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.

Peter warns us to be without spot or blemish, and that people will twist what Paul says to their own destruction by lawlessness. It has clearly come to this and is very disturbing once a person realizes it. Jesus spells it out, and leaves no room for misunderstanding what He means by commandments. Because Jesus didn’t mention idolatry, sabbaths, coveting and murder, do we think He wasn’t talking about the whole covenant?

Mat 19:16 And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”
Mat 19:17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”
Mat 19:18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness,
Mat 19:19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

There is neither Jew or gentile now as we are all grafted into the commonwealth of Israel due to Jesus eliminating the debt, and also defeating the rulers of darkness, in which mankind was enslaved. Colossians 2:15: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him”. These rulers and authorities are part of the elemental spirits or stoicheion.

G4747
στοιχεῖον
stoicheion
Thayer Definition:
1) any first thing, from which the others belonging to some series or composite whole take their rise, an element, first principal
1a) the letters of the alphabet as the elements of speech, not however the written characters, but the spoken sounds
1b) the elements from which all things have come, the material causes of the universe
1c) the heavenly bodies, either as parts of the heavens or (as others think) because in them the elements of man, life and destiny were supposed to reside
1d) the elements, rudiments, primary and fundamental principles of any art, science, or discipline

Paul explains further in his letter to the Ephesians:

Eph 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
Eph 2:12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Therefore the mystery of the Gospel is revealed. I am using the Modern King James Version of the Bible for the next couple of passages of scripture because it translates Strong’s G1484, ethnos, to nations, rather than the made up word “Gentile” with a capital “G”.

Rom 11:25 For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, lest you should be wise within yourselves; that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the nations has comes in.
Rom 11:26 And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, “There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

The blindness happened to Israel so they they could be a conduit for all the nations of the world to be brought in to the Commonwealth of Israel. One has to consider all twelve tribes to understand this and not just think in terms of the “Jews” or the house of Judah.

Finally, Paul spells out the mystery of the gospel in his letter to the Ephesians.

Eph 3:1 For this cause, I, Paul, am the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you nations,
Eph 3:2 if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given to me toward you,
Eph 3:3 that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I wrote before in few words,
Eph 3:4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
Eph 3:5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit,
Eph 3:6 that the nations should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partaker of His promise in Christ through the gospel.

By Yahweh’s divorce of the northern kingdom of the ten tribes of Israel, they were scattered to the nations and completely lost their identity. Now, through the mystery of the gospel, the scattered sheep can all come back to the fold, bringing with them all the nations of the world.