(Part III)
THIS IS THE MESSAGE that scripture, in
both testaments, shouts so loudly that one must wonder how so many could have missed it -- or sidestepped it -- for so long.
"TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY."
The condition to be a member of Israel is abiding, obedient faith in Messiah: having the
faith of Abraham, and doing the
works, bringing forth fruit like that of Abraham.
Both Abraham
and David, faithful and obedient men, were given unconditional promises regarding their "seed."
The covenants were made
personally and exclusively with these two men (except Abraham's was later reconfirmed to Isaac and Jacob after him) -- not to any future physical descendants of those men, who
did not yet exist.
The faithful righteousness of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David stands. The promises to them still stand, are still being fulfilled even today, and will yet see ultimate fulfillment in the future Kingdom.
Four hundred years after Abraham, Yahweh formed another
separate covenant, with separate terms, with a large body of people who happened to have been of Abraham's physical progeny, whereby that group would
become Yahweh's chosen people:
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth [is] mine:
And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.
(Exodus 19:5,6)
Yet, the majority of those who happened to be
physically descended from those men turned against Yahweh and were cut off from these promises. In so doing they proved they were not spiritual children of Abraham.
So they were judged for their sins, not being allowed to ride to glory on the coattails of virtuous ancestors. For as Yahweh says:
The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. (Ezek. 18:20)
Except for the small faithful remnant, the Israelites became the "Lo-ammites" (Lo-Ammi: "not my people"). Formerly exalted, they were
abased: first the northern ten tribes, then the southern kingdom, then finally, even the remnant thereof under Roman domination.
These unbelievers were plucked up, or broken off, the tree of Abraham's family.
They were disowned, divorced by Yahweh, counted as Gentiles.
They were disinvited from his wedding feast.
They were moved from first to last.
They were stripped of their royal robes and priestly garments, their birthright riches, their sumptuous feast of divine blessings.
Finally, in a national sense, they were miserably destroyed -- down to the last remnant -- and their city burned, and their house left unto them desolate.
Prophesying and overseeing these judgments was the
true, not-so-mysterious commission of the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah's commission was not to
move the house of David to another location, but to announce Yahweh's intent to "pluck up, and to
break down, and to
throw down, and to
DESTROY, and to
afflict" it (Jer. 31:28),
and to
"overturn, overturn, overturn it; and
it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is" (Ezek. 21:27).
He prophesied -- and in part documented -- the "plucking up" of the old kingdom and order and the "planting" (Jer. 1:10, 18:9, 24:6, 31:28, 42:10) of a
new kingdom through a
new covenant. He personally helped shepherd and shelter a remnant of the royal house of Judah, not to Ireland to plant a "throne" to one day be occupied by the likes of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, and Prince William -- but to flourish in Babylon and Judea and one day yield the
Messiah!
British Israelists make much of Zedekiah, who they claim was the last king of Judah and whose daughters allegedly were spirited off to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah to continue the "throne" of Judah. Whatever may have happened to the these young women is irrelevant since the royal lineage was
not reckoned through Zedekiah; it was reckoned through th last
genuine king, Jehoiakin, who was taken to Babylon!
Zedekia was the
uncle of the king, appointed "regent" over Judah by Nebuchadnezzar. But it was the lineage of Jehoiakin -- that is, the
true royal lineage -- which remained in the Holy Land and produced the Messiah.
To claim otherwise, is in effect, to efface the royal lineage of Messiah.
Notably, in his book
The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert Armstrong mutilates both verses to make them conform to his theory: when quoting the former verse he
omits the word
"destroy" (obviously to destroy something is quite different from moving it to Ireland); while in citing the latter, he twists the thrice-repeated word "overturn" (Heb. 'avvah,
"ruin") to mean merely "convey to another location" and changes "it shall be no more" to "it shall be
overturned no more ..." --
reversing its meaning!
There is no excuse for this deliberate, lying, fraudulent scripture twisting, which invokes the punishments described in Deut. 12:32 and Rev. 22:18-19. Frankly, I fear for the eternal lives of these men, in whichever resurrection they manage to appear.
The Jews of Messiah's time understood that "overturned" meant "destroyed"; that's why they were waiting for the throne of rulership to be
restored, in Jerusalem, by he
"whose right it is." They knew who "he" was -- since they asked him about it directly!
When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6)
If the kingdom of Israel had been packed up and shipped off to the British Isles centuries earlier, it would have had no need of restoration -- and more than anyone, the disciples would have known this! Rather than asking when he would restore the kingdom to Israel, they would have asked, "When shall we travel to Britain to witness your coronation on the stone of Lia-fail?"
"Even on the outside chance that they might have been ignorant of the status of the Israelite kingdom, this would have been the perfect opportunity for Messiah to have educated them as to the throne's existence in Britain (and his travel plans to go and be coronated upon it -- or not).
Of course, he did not. The throne did not exist. True to the prophesy,
it was to be no more until "he come whose right it is" -- and until the time was ripe to restore it!
He whose right it is is the uncorrupted Seed of faithful Abraham and David. It is
he, along with those who are
in him, who shall fulfill the Abrahamic promises and collectively inherit the throne of David (Rev. 3:21).
This restoration is yet future. Rather than restoring the physical kingdom to Israel then and there, the King preached the existence of a spiritual kingdom now, which would become an earthly kingdom in the world tomorrow. He recruited a bunch of former "nobodies" to be rulers in that future kingdom. According to Peter, we nobodies of unimpressive physical pedigree are, in fact, the fulfillmenet of Exodus 19:5-6:
a chosen generation, a royal priesthood , an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Peter 2:9)
This is the "royal nation" that would produce the fruits of the Kingdom, which Lo-Ammi failed to produce. These are the poor in spirit, the meek and lowly, the formerly abased yet now exalted in Messiah,
the King of Israel!
Scripture foretells that this same nation and company of nations, the true Seed of Abraham, the Israel of Yahweh (which does include a small remnant of physical Israel -- Rom. 9:27), will take part in the future resurrection and salvation of the sinful majority of Lo-ammi, who were cut off. Then will Yahweh put his spirit into those resurrected Lo-ammites, and induct them into a better covenant (Ezekiel 37:12-14, Heb. 8:6). Once again -- or actually
for the first time, according to the spiritual reality of things -- they will be Israel!
Yet
unless and
until they enter into that better covenant through faith in Messiah, those claiming to be of the fold of Israel, but who have not come through the Door (John 10:7) -- who say they are Israelites, but are not -- are called
liars (Rev. 2:9, 3:9), no matteer what their geneaology says!
LORD ACTON FAMOUSLY SAID, "few discoveries are more irritating than those that expose the
pedigree of ideas."
People invest a lot of emotion, a lot of
ego, into the ideas they believe. When our cherished beliefs are attacked or refuted it feels as if our very being has been attacked. The way to avoid that feeling, of course, is to love the truth more than our own opinions. That way, being corrected is more relieving than painful, since it means you've come closer to your goal of alignment with truth.
But if the pedigree of British Israelism is not biblical, where
did it originate? This requires some digging into history and a little speculation.
This article sheds some interesting light on the question. It cites Prof. Stuart Piggot, who wrote that the idea of British origin and inheritance from Israel was promoted by
occultists, among them the late 18th/early 19th century poet and artist William Blake.
"‘Your Ancestors,’ [Blake] told his readers, ‘derived their origin from Abraham, Heber, Shem and Noah, who were Druids, as the Druid Temples (which are Patriarchal Pillars and Oak Groves) over the whole Earth to witness to this day.’ And in a single phrase Blake takes us, and the Druids, back to a familiar landscape. ‘The Nature of my Work, ‘ he wrote, ‘is Visionary or Imaginative; it is an endeavour to Restore what the Ancients call’d the Golden Age.’" (Piggot, The Druids)
It seems that for some reason, occult orders identifying themselves as
Druidic had an interest in promoting the idea that their ancestors were Israelites. A secret "Order of the Ancient Druids" was founded in 1781 "on lines inspired by Freemasonry"; a split in its ranks yielded "numerous daughter orders" which "also contained its original mystic lines." One of these daughter orders, Albion Lodge of the Ancient Order of Druids of Oxford, initiated into its ranks a young
Winston Churchill.(Piggot)
As an aside, note that an Armstrongist idol -- a man constantly lionized by HWA and his followers as a "real leader" -- was himself said to be a “natural psychic” and belonged to Freemasonry, the Order of the Garter (a high-level occult group traditionally presided over by the Prince of Wales), as well as a secret neo-Druidic order. (He also found time to
defend a medium being prosecuted under Britiain’s Witchcraft Laws. This opened the way for the recognition of paganism as a religion, followed by the flowering of Wicca and other open forms of neo-paganism.)
None of this should come as no great shock to anyone with the slightest familiarity with the occult, as the upper echelons of British and American society (like ancient Israel) have long been honeycombed by interconnected mystery cults such as Freemasonry, Druidism, Skull and Bones, Bohemian Grove, Death’s Head, the Order of the Golden Dawn, the
Hellfire Club(s), the Illuminati, the Jesuits and many others. Druidism is yet one more branch of the ancient Mysteries which ultimately descend from Babylon. The greater story of the ancient mysteries and their modern descendants is a story for another time.
But getting back to the ancient
Druids -- the evil, blood-soaked pagan order that ruled the Celts of Gaul and Britain. One striking aspect of this priesthood is its resemblance to the Levitical priesthood -- that is, a
perversion thereof. This suggests that some of the Israelites may indeed have made it to the British Isles. E. Raymond Capt writes:
Many other authorities have noted the resemblance between the Druidic religion and that of the Old Testament. To quote Charles Hulbert, a noted British scholar: 'So near is the resemblance between the Druidic religion of Britain and the patriarchial religion of the Hebrews, that we hesitate not to pronounce their origin the same.'" (Stonehenge and Druidism)
As Garner Ted Armstrong himself notes:
British historians have been struck by the amazing similarity between
Druidism and the rituals of the Levitical priesthood of ancient Israel....
Not so strangely, the Druids ... retained some of the practices of the
ancient Levitical priesthood. For example, they constructed altars ... of unhewn stone, because according to Druidic law, no axe could touch a stone intended for an altar of sacrifice ...
Notice, "If thou wilt make an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of
hewn stone ..." (Exodus 20:25, 26)
The best-remembered practice of the Levites was the ritual of sacrificing animals as a picture of the need for the shedding of blood to atone for sin. The Druids practiced the same thing! Remember, the ancient Passover included animal sacrifice, as well as a feast featuring bread and wine. Is it so strange that the Druids of ancient Gaul ... and England practiced nearly identical rituals? (Europe and America in Prophecy)
Let's not forget the Tuatha de Danaan, the legendary ancient forebears of the Irish people, said to possess magical powers. Elizabeth Van Buren writes that they "were said to have possessed a . . .Grail-like vessel. . . These teachers of wisdom . . . were the founders of the Druidic priesthood" (
The Sign of the Dove, cited
here). British Israel theory, of course, identifies the Tuatha de Danaan with the tribe of Dan.
Could it be that some or all of the Danites did indeed migrate to the British Isles, bringing their false Baal-worshipping priesthood with them? Could their "serpent's trail" have been followed, centuries later, by their similarly idolatrous brethren of Ephraim and the others? The evidence certainly can be interpreted that way, and of course, zealous British-Israelists see this putative
historical evidence as proving the
covenental claims of British/American divine right to rule under the Abrahamic promises. However, in light of the true history of the ten tribes -- their breaking of
their covenant with Yahweh, their continued cleaving to demon-gods, and finally his utter rejection of them as a people -- any such evidence only underscores their continued status as
Lo-ammi: "
NOT MY PEOPLE"!
Fleshly Israel, subsequently, is no "holy nation" in any way, shape, or form; its history is secular, not sacred history.
No matter how legitimate, genealogical evidence connecting the ten tribes to the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples cannot in itself prove that those peoples therefore inherited the Abrahamic promises. Rather, scripture tells us that in rebelling they became just one more group of pagan tribes mired in corruption, idolatry, even human sacrifice -- albeit a group possessing the faint collective memory of having been
somebody important, way back when.
British Israelism has continued to exploit that faint memory, to no small effect. Viewed through the BI prism, acts and policies ranging from morally questionable to outright wicked are justified as righteous means of providential blessing: wars of conquest, massive theft of others' lands and resources, slavery, rape, pillaging, genocide, morally dubious financial juggling (e.g., fractional-reserve banking, usurious lending), global economic racketeering, etc., are transformed into acts of "chosen people" merely claiming the dominion to which they were entitled.
But then, recall that the wicked husbandmen killed the son of the householder to "sieze on his inheritance." Seeing this, it should come as no surprise that the wicked priests and chieftans of Lo-ammi would
still be promulgating the notion that they are "The Chosen" (in league with their fellow wicked husbandmen, the leaders of Zionism, also born in London). We should not be surprised to see the husbandmen exploiting this twisted and falsified version of scripture to justify their worldly empire and whatever evils undertaken to establish and maintain it. Nor should we be surprised to see this teaching emanating from 19th-century occult societies claming connection to the Druids, whose origins may very well trace back to the ancient
Baalite priesthood of Canaan.But let's not stop at the 19th century. The British-Israelist idea can be traced to occultists of even earlier times, when it may have been put in the service of a different agenda.
An author calling himself The Magician has written a most interesting
article in the Zola Times. Noting that the rift between the Vatican and the British monarchy occurred essentially because Henry VIII wished to divorce his wife Catherine, the Magician says:
Henry VIII's seizure of the Church of England had to be justified to English-speaking people in a spiritual sense. And so it was. The British had a spiritual destiny, it was declared. ... the British were to inherit the earth, and in the process foster the spread of True Christianity. That is, not Catholicism.
Also, British Israelism came to serve another important purpose:
The doctrine of British-Israelism and the Lost Ten Tribes was intended to forge a political alliance between the British monarchy and the Jews of Amsterdam, through a merger of the Arthurian Imperial tradition with Cabalistic interpretations of the Hebrew scriptures….
To forge ties between Jewish merchants and British Imperialists, John Dee created the concept of British-Israel, which gave the British and the Jews a common racial identity, and invoked biblical prophecy to show the inevitable triumph of British Imperialism: the British, as Abraham's seed, were to inherit the earth. Dee also introduced the Jewish Cabala to the British ruling class and its interlocking network of European royal dynasties. All this set the stage for the later absorption of European Jewish merchants and bankers into British society…In essence, the dissemination of the British-Israel doctrine was an intelligence coup carried out by the British Monarchy.
Who was John Dee? A royal magician whose claim to fame was his ability to contact demonic spirits. As students of conspiracy or "deep politics" are well aware, and the Magician writes, "Much of the history of the last several hundred years can be interpreted as the competition for power between the British Monarchy, or 'Perfidious Albion,' and its allies, on one hand; and the Vatican and its allies, on the other."
In this view, British-Israelism was first conceived and utilized to counter the Counter-Reformation -- the overt and covert war of the Vatican against Protestant Europe. Putative political indepdence from the mother church, however, did not completely erase family ties or family resemblances! Britain became a church-state to itself and its king a mini-pope, as might befit a
daughter of Rome. (While this fact is beyond the scope of the present article, Rome has continued to exert a powerful influence upon England and her colonies in the New World, as mothers often tend to do in the lives of their grown children!) The monarchy developed the self-serving ideology of British Israelism to further its claim to a divine right to rule first Britain and then the world: like mother, like daughter?
The powerful Jewish international banking cabal figures in this theory as well. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance -- just as in the first century -- the Jews looked down upon non-Jews, calling them "Christian dogs." (Their Talmud -- the ever-growing collection of rabbinical traditions which had come to replace the Torah as the rule of faith -- set the tone with its vile calumnies against Yahshua and his followers.)
And as now, the Jews wielded power far out of proportion to their numbers.
Spain was one of the few Christian countries where they were allowed to reside... England and France had already expelled them (in 1290 and 1306 respectively) and Bohemia would do so in 1542. ...
Although they were far from numerous-- only 25,000 fanilies in all-- their lockhold on trade and money-lending tended to fan the flames of fear and resentment. ...[I]n Cuenca [Spain] during the famine of 1376 they refused to lend for sowing at less than 40%. (Frederick W. Marks, A Brief for Belief)
For these and other reasons Jews were expelled en masse from Spain in 1492 (and from a long line of
other European cities and countries throughout the 15th and 16th centuries). A large contingent set up shop in Amsterdam. Subsequently, that city became the center of usury banking, a Jewish specialty. Yet later -- thanks in large part to the British monarchy's overtures, which included the cabalistic interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures to yield British Israelism -- the Jewish financiers moved their base to London. Eventually the twin Jewish strongholds of credit and usury would be perfected in the world's first central bank, the Bank of England, the financial engine which would propel “the empire of the City of London” to world domination. For, as
Henry Makow puts it, "the British Empire was an extension of bankers' financial interests." Since World War II, that Empire has been transported across the Atlantic, to the former British colonies, and now is known as "U.S. hegemony," or increasingly, the American Empire. Yet this empire remains under the domination of an
Anglo-American establishment.
Author Barry Chamish sees a third use for British-Israelism. He writes that "In the 1860s, the British-Israelite movement was initiated from within Freemasonry." Chamish believes the goal was "to establish a Jewish-Masonic state in the Turkish province of Palestine," i.e., the present state of "Israel."
It could be that all these theories are correct: that the sweeping breadth of British-Israelism makes it an ideal pretext for just about any goal the claimants happen to be pursuing. From wresting control of a kingdom and church, to wooing the extremely talented and powerful Jewish banker faction, to creating a climate favorable to a state of "Israel," to whatever other grand scheme the Babylonian elite are pushing on a given day, British Israelism has proved supremely useful.
IN EFFECT, BRITISH ISRAELISM denies the "Israel identity" of the
true "Israel of God," the Body of the Anointed. It attempts to place the imprimatur of Yahweh upon the self-serving activities of fallen, sinful men and their empires of money and temporal power. Like the false theology of Rome, by which she elevates herself to the Kingdom of God on earth; like its close cousin Zionism, which in its undiluted form elevates Jews to the same status, British-Israelism is a counterfeit of the real Kingdom of Yahweh under the true Messiah and King, Yahshua.
Some key proponents of the theory have been massively deluded ("deceiving and being deceived" -- II Tim. 3:13). A very few, perhaps, are working with conscious evil intent to deceive for the material benefit of degenerate "royalty" and the financial and commercial interests behind them. Other conscious deceivers may utilize the doctrine as a convenient tool with which to build their religious empires.
Is everyone who believes evil? No, because anyone can be deceived who does not fully love the truth and who fails to "search the scriptures," proving the truth and discarding untruth. The majority of believers and teachers of these doctrines are guilty of these failings, which are common enough -- I have been guilty as well, and on some points, probably still am. But it is my sincere hope and prayer that more believers begin to examine in depth, and see for what it is, this unbiblical snare of a theory.
Stay tuned for more information and thoughts on this topic in the future.
