Ephesians Lesson 18 of 39 part 3

Picking up with Isaiah chapter 60:

Isaiah 60:3
"And the Gentiles shall come to thy light,..."
And who was Israel's light? The Messiah, The Christ! Now this of course in the literal sense is still future when Christ sets up His Kingdom. But for us living in this day of Grace, we have entered into this simply because of this Gospel of Paul's proclaiming, and not because of the covenant promises made to Israel. But instead of the first promise made to the first Adam, which is found in Genesis 3 verse 15, the Light of the Redeemer. Who we all know to be Christ. How do we know? not by a preacher but instead by our own conscience awareness. For in this promise is hidden the ontological essence of all mans origin, the Spirit of Life. Now coming back to the Book of Ephesians, verse 16 again.

Ephesians 2:16-17a
"And that he might reconcile both (Jew & Gentile) unto God in one body (the Church) by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: And came and preached peace to you which were far off,..."
Who was far off? The Gentiles. Do you see that? It was those people who were out there without a Messiah. They, our forefathers didn't have the Word of God, they didn't have a knowledge of the one true God. They knew gods, but they didn't know the God of Israel for the most part. But now as we saw in an earlier verse because of the finished work of the cross, God can do all of this on behalf of the whole Gentile world. Always remember when God sent this Gospel, as we find in I Corinthians 15:1-4, to the Gentiles predominantly through the Apostle Paul, where did that put every Gentiles in relationship to God? He now has access to God just like Israel did in the past. And not through a priest, pastor or Rabbi but on an individual bases. Because He enacted the first vow He made to man-kind in Adam (though man knew Him only through his consciousnesses) now through Christ's work of total Redemption as the All in all we have fellowship restored.
  
Remember from Abraham all the way up to Paul's conversion, a period of 2000 plus years, it was only Israel who had access to God with just a few Gentile exceptions. Then Israel dropped the ball, the first time about 1500 years prior to Jesus' day they were on a downhill slide and God turned to the Gentiles through the Apostle Paul. And now for the past 2000 years on this side of the cross it's been Gentiles that have access to God with a few Jewish exceptions. But this to has been on a downhill slide for about 1500 to 1700 years now. Ever since the Gospel of God's Grace (in righteousness through mans Redeemer) became contaminated, twisted, and perverted by the reasoning's of sin filled men in what can be called the "Christian Religion", which joins the ranks with the "Jewish Religion" and all other religious forms.

This being so and said, Do you see how God always evens things out? Do you remember in Romans chapter 11, we have the analogy of the root and fatness of the olive tree which was setting on the promises and covenant made with Abraham? But Paul tells us, "because of Israel's unbelief, God broke off their branches, and put the Gentiles in their place." We share or receive of the root of Abraham by faith through Christ Jesus our High Priest. When we were there we said that for 2000 years the nation of Israel was literally living in that place of privileges, on the promises God made to Abraham. We mean every Hebrew had access to God. But did that make every Jew a believer? Oh heavens no! Now we suppose the Jewish people would argue with us on that point, but nevertheless only a small few were true believers. And why would any one believe that the worlds churches would be any different to this day? When they to have taken the same road of least resistance which the LORD Himself called the broad way.