The Romans 11 Deception and the Antichrist

We read about “Israel” in the news and are taught about “Israel” from Christian pulpits and we also read that the Israeli Jews call themselves Israel. All of this confuses everyone. The media does not know the ancient history of Jacob’s nation called Israel and neither do the Jews or Christians, for the most part. Believers in Yeshua must come to the understanding that “Israel” is not the name that refers to the Israeli Jews nor is it the name of any religion, whether Judaism or Christianity. “Israel” is the name of YHVH’s righteous nation comprised of a righteous remnant. Avoid the traps being set by teachers of false doctrine who are now upholding the right of the Jews to own all Israel!

For years, I have analyzed the wrongdoings of all 3 monotheistic religions and their lies and distortions. Recently, the focus has been on Judaism because this is the religion now rising to global power and that rise is being facilitated by Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots teachers and leaders! This is something you need to know about.

Here is where I must define two terms used in this article. The Jews and the House of Judah are the same people. The House of Israel is in Christianity. And the WHOLE House of Israel is all 12 tribes of Israel.

One of Judaism’s biggest lies infiltrating the Hebrew Roots Movement from the Messianic Jewish rabbis is that believers are grafted into the tree of Judah. We now have Hebrew Roots leaders and teachers teaching this. One of the first ways this is done is by telling believers they must return to their “Jewish roots”. I have heard major Hebrew Roots and Messianic Jewish leaders call for people to return to their “Jewish roots” and they then proceed to teach that the olive tree of Romans 11 is “Judah”. The House of Judah’s tree always was and remains the fig tree. Know that up front.

The first time I heard the false doctrine that the olive tree is the tree of Judah, i.e. the House of Judah, was in the early years of my Torah walk when I attended a Messianic Jewish synagogue. The Rabbi taught a 6-week series on being grafted in. Each week, he reiterated that the tree we are grafted into is Judah’s tree. Even in my early walk, I knew this was not true but did not yet have the understanding to explain why. Today, I have the understanding and can explain why.

That believers must return to their “Jewish roots” is a wicked teaching! What that false doctrine means in practical terms is that all believers must convert to Judaism! That is the message and it is a message addressed by the Apostles in Acts 15 when some Pharisee believers wanted to force circumcision on the new Greek believers. Circumcision in the 1st century was a euphemism for converting to Judaism. The problem is that Judaism is a religion; it is not YHVH’s Kingdom. We must analyze this false doctrine and teach others to stay away from it and those false teachers.

The teachers who teach this do not know the identity of the “tree” they speak about. The olive tree of Israel is the ‘netser’ shoot that came from the stump of Jesse. That tree is the restored tree from the two sticks of Ezekiel which are already one tree in YHVH’s hand in the Heavenly realm. Those two sticks are named as the House of Judah and the House of Israel. Both Houses were in exile when Ezekiel wrote about these sticks. The House of Judah had not yet been cut off from the olive tree but the House of Israel had.

A stick is part of a tree. The House of Judah had become a stick from that tree just like the House of Israel was just a stick. A stick is a broken off branch of a tree. How, then, can Judah be the olive tree? The answer is that it cannot. No stick that ever comes from a tree is the tree itself.

Paul explains about the branches of olive tree in Romans 11 but the blind have misinterpreted it because they are coming from a religious perspective. So while they are calling people out of one religion, Christianity, they are using it to call them into another religion, Judaism. This is a problem because YHVH did not create religion and He does not want His people participating in religion! That’s what idolaters do; idolaters do religion.

The place to start is by seeing who Paul is talking to. It comes in hints. First, Paul compares himself to Elijah in Romans 11:2, the prophet sent specifically to the House of Israel. In verse 11, Paul identifies his audience – Gentiles, people who have not yet become believers in Yeshua. (After a Gentile becomes a believer in Yeshua, he or she is now an Israelite. After a Jew becomes a believer in Yeshua, he or she is now and Israelite).

Let’s start at verse 1 so that we can clear up the false doctrine that is designed to trap people in Judaism or Noahidism.

Romans 11:1  I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. 

YHVH’s people from the beginning are the 12 tribes. Notice that Paul does not identify with the House of Judah. He did not call himself a “Jew” or “Jewish”, the collective title for the 4 tribes of the southern kingdom House of Judah. Instead, Paul calls himself an Israelite. Why? It is because Israel is all 12 tribes of the Kingdom and Paul is making it clear that he at this time has become an Israelite.

Romans 11:2  God didn’t reject his people, which he foreknew. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel: 

Paul has already spoken about the predestination of Israel in Romans 8. Now, he reminds his readers of what he said before. But now Paul will address specifically what happened to the northern House of Israel by referencing Elijah, the prophet to the northern House of Israel.

Why did Paul address only the northern House of Israel in Romans 11? It was because there was trouble between the new converts that came from among the Greeks and Asians into this synagogue in Rome.

What were they boasting about? That they were in Yeshua’s olive tree but the unbelieving Jews in the same synagogue were not! They were correct in what they said but Paul is telling them to stop boasting about it! These converts’ attitude was wrong! And it appears that their boasting had gone so far as to claim that the northern House of Israel was the entire olive tree. Right here, in Paul’s time we see replacement theology happening and each House is fighting the other over it!

Paul had just spent the first 10 chapters of Romans correcting the Jews in their false doctrine of circumcision (the Jews used circumcision as evidence of conversion to Judaism) along with the false doctrine of being saved by the works of Jewish law (Romans 3:19-20). So in Romans 11, Paul addresses the new non-Jewish believers in Yeshua to correct them over their attitude toward the Jews.

What had the Jews done to cause this congregational uprising in the synagogue? The Jews were teaching what Jews always teach: That believers in Yeshua must be circumcised into Judaism. There is a circumcision into the Abrahamic Covenant but the Jews had conscripted that and made it into a doctrine that says unless a man is circumcised into Judaism, he cannot enter the “world to come”. And the Jewish leaders were still espousing the Oral Law over the Torah Law.

So now, the non-Jewish believers in Yeshua were using His grace and mercy toward the Jews as a weapon against them by saying that they, the non-Jewish believers, had a special place in YHVH’s Kingdom.

Now Paul draws attention to Elijah and even compares himself to Elijah to reference the return to the Covenant of Abraham of the non-Jewish believers.

Romans 11:3  “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have broken down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.” 

Now, Paul quotes Elijah from before and after the incident with the prophets of Baal which identifies his topic as the House of Israel. Jezebel, wicked king Ahab’s even more wicked wife, was killing the prophets of the House of Israel – the remnant – who were calling the people to repentance (1 Kings 18). Then Elijah went up against the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 19. Who were the prophets of Baal? They were all Israelites from the HOUSE of Israel, the northern kingdom who had learned to do the Baalim worship from Jezebel.

Hebrew Roots and Messianic Jewish teachers equate Paul’s lament in Roman’s 11:3 as the same lament of Yeshua when He spoke to the Pharisees (Matthew 23:31, 34, 37, Luke 11:47, 49, Luke 13:34, Acts 7:52) about how the House of Judah, the Jews, had been killing the prophets that were sent to them. Paul’s words in verse 3 and Yeshua’s words to the Jews address two different “Houses” who killed their prophets sent to them by YHVH. Paul specifically addresses the killing of prophets from within the House of Israel, the northern tribes before their captivity. The Jews also killed their prophets but Paul is talking specifically to the non-Jewish believers in this chapter.

Romans 11:4  But how does God answer him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”
Romans 11:5  Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

It was grace that Yeshua gave to all 12 tribes at His death and resurrection to return to the Covenant of Abraham.

Rom 11:6  And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. 

“Works” here refers to the works of “A” law but it is not law of Moses. It is the Jewish doctrine of the oral law which would be written and codified as the Talmud in the next century, and it was being taught to the non-Jewish believers in all the synagogues in Greece, Rome and Asia Minor. Paul is telling these new believers in Yeshua the same thing he told the Jewish believers which was to stay away from “the works” of the other law, AKA the Talmud. All through Paul’s epistles is the comparison between “law” and “the law”. For further information, read this article I posted at Beast Watch News which explains this.

Romans 11:7  What then? That which Israel seeks for, that he didn’t obtain, but the chosen ones obtained it, and the rest were hardened. 

What did Israel, the House of Israel, the northern tribes, seek for but could not obtain? A return to YHVH. That is what the remnant, the chosen ones in this synagogue had now obtained. And there they sat among others in the synagogue whose hearts were hardened.

Hos 2:1  Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah.
Hos 2:2  Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
Hos 2:3  Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
Hos 2:4  And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.
Hos 2:5  For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.
Hos 2:6  Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.

Hosea had prophesied to both Houses but, in chapter 2, he specifically addressed the divorce that would come to the northern House of Israel if they did not turn from their idolatry. He told the northern House that, once divorced, there would be no way back to YHVH for them. Yet, in the same chapter, Hosea would prophesy that the House YHVH would divorce and cut off from Himself would be brought back to Him by Himself.

Hos 2:14  Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.
Hos 2:15  And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
Hos 2:16  And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.
Hos 2:17  For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
Hos 2:18  And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
Hos 2:19  And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.

How in the world could YHVH bring back a divorced wife? The Torah expressly forbids remarrying a divorced wife! So how could the House of Israel’s northern tribes ever return? It was a mystery to all 12 tribes when Hosea wrote this, it remained a mystery to all 12 tribes in Paul’s time and it still is a mystery to all 12 tribes today. Why is it such a mystery? Because the people, all 12 tribes, are still blinded as to the work of Yeshua on the cross! The Jews claim Jacob’s “Israel” only for themselves and the Christians claim the name “Israel” only for themselves. The two Houses are still fighting each other. With their eyes and hearts still focused only the enmity between the two Houses, they cannot see the reality of the reunification and restoration of the WHOLE House of Israel, the 12 tribes together.

Paul criticizes ALL works in Romans 11:6. What works? The man made religious laws of the Jews (which they were still following) and the laws which the northern House of Israel had followed from Jeroboam’s time. “Works” is a metaphor for man’s religious efforts trying to enter YHVH’s Kingdom. Neither of the two Houses obtained righteousness through the works of their religious laws. Only the chosen ones, the remnant from the House of Israel during Elijah’s time and afterward in the Roman synagogue, obtained righteousness. They obtained righteousness only by following YHVH’s Law, rejecting Judaism and Baal’s false religious doctrines which was the religion of the northern House of Israel before the divorce and exile. All Israel, not just part of Israel – one House or the other – had their hearts hardened like Pharaoh’s heart was.

Romans 11:8  According as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day.” 

Paul is comparing the blindness of both Houses, the southern and northern Houses, to the open eyes of the remnant that existed from the time of Mount Sinai to Paul’s day. YHVH has always had a remnant who understood the Kingdom and lived by its Law. Paul is not comparing the blindness of the House of Judah to the blindness of the House of Israel or vice versa. No! He is comparing the blindness of the majority of Israel to the open and understanding eyes of Israel’s remnant, and he is saying that the non-Jewish believers among the Jews were that remnant whose eyes had been opened. And furthermore, their bad attitude toward the blind was wrong!

Romans 11:11  I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 

“They”, as referenced here by Paul, is neither House. “They” are the blind and the non-blind. Let’s go about 2 verses back.

Romans 11:9  David says, “Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, a stumbling block, and a retribution to them. 
Romans 11:10  Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see. Always keep their backs bent.” )Paraphrsed from Psalms 69:22-23).

Now, finally, we come to a reference about the Jews. Right? No. Not right. Is it a reference to the Gentiles? No. Gentiles are not Israelite remnant. Is it a reference to the divorced northern Kingdom? No. Then what is it a reference to? The Kingdom during David’s time. Twelve tribes which refused to be united as a Kingdom before David was finally able to do that. Before that time, ALL Israel was blind except for that remnant that YHVH always has behind the scenes where no one recognizes them. But before they were united by King David, they were split into mainly 2 factions as they are today. David was lamenting about this pre-Kingdom disunity before he was finally able to bring all 12 tribes under one king and now Paul uses this to show this remnant of non-Jewish believers that their eyes should be open and that they should recognize the poverty of the blindness of all those who do not accept Yeshua as Messiah. In this synagogue, it was mainly the mainstream Jews teaching Judaism who Paul is calling blind but blindness is on ALL religious Israelites.

Here is the “explainer” in Romans 11:11 of who Paul is addressing.

Romans 11:11  I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy. 

Did “they” – ALL blinded Israel, which were from both Houses, fall so as to never rise again in order that the Gentiles could come into Yeshua’s Kingdom? Of course not! YHVH had promised Jacob that all 12 of his tribes would population the Kingdom. The fall of blind Israel from both Houses was done so that they could be sown into the Gentiles (Hosea 2:23), start believing they are Gentiles and then provoke the Gentiles to jealousy so they also would enter in. The 12 tribes get grafted back into Yeshua’s olive tree and the Gentiles get to enter into the Kingdom, too. And once in the Kingdom, the Gentiles become part of the tribes. The Gentiles get provoked to jealousy, not the Jews! Paul is not calling the non-Jews to provoke the Jews!

Romans 11:12  Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? 

The fullness of Israel is Yeshua and His plan to graft back into His olive tree all 12 branches while simultaneously bringing in the Gentiles.

Romans 11:13  For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry; 
Romans 11:14  if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them. 

Paul’s use of “Jew” and “Gentile” is a convenience to refer to their origins. Non-Jewish who believe in Yeshua are Israelites but Paul needs terminology to address the two political factions which now appear in the synagogues. However, he explains who is Israel in another synagogue filed with similar troubles.

Eph_2:12  that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Who are these? Non-Jewish people who now believe in Yeshua as Savior. Understand that there is no Judah tree and no Gentile tree.

Romans 11:17  But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; 

The “some of the branches” that were broken off refers to the divorce of the northern House of Israel from YHVH. All non-Jews, which Paul is addressing, are of those particular broken off branches. The House of Judah’s broken branches happened when Yeshua took them to the grave with Him. More on that in a minute.

Romans 11:18  don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. 

The Gentiles, the non-Jews, were coming back in boasting all kinds of things like the Christian Church does today, things like “salvation belongs to US”!

Earlier, I said the House of Judah AKA “the Jews”, had also been cut off. Read more about this here.

No, dear Christians. Don’t boast! Salvation through Yeshua does not belong to you alone! Salvation belongs to Israel. Yeshua died to save Israel. Yeshua did not die to save Gentiles. He died to save His Kingdom! Make this distinction. Why? Because His people killed His Kingdom. Had Yeshua not died to save His Kingdom, Israel, His Kingdom would be dead now, defunct, ancient and a forgotten fable of the past like all other earthly kingdoms that have come and gone.

Yeshua’s death was to save Israel, the Kingdom, and provide a way for all His people, both Jews and those who now identified as “Gentiles” (because that’s where they were scattered and lost their identity) to come to Him.

What was the condition of the House of Judah right after Yeshua died and was laying in His grave? We know the condition of the House of Israel. Divorced. Gone until the Messiah comes with the Good News of restoration of all Israel. But what was the condition of the House of Judah at the time when Yeshua lay in His grave? Dead. He was dead and the House of Judah was dead with Him. There was no more Israel! No more House of Judah. those 4 tribes had been all that was left of PHYSICAL Israel. Now that House was as gone as the House of Israel was after her divorce.

We have to understand this point that all Israel was gone, and that the House of Judah – the “Jews” – died with Yeshua. Christianity teaches that the Torah died with Him. No! Wrong! All Israel was gone. All 12 tribes! The Jews were just walking dead men, at that point, for 3 days and 3 nights and they didn’t even know it!

In order to save Israel, to revive Israel and make it into the righteous Kingdom it was intended to be, Yeshua had to resurrect! His death satisfied the Genesis 15 promise to His Father that He would die under the terms of the Abrahamic Covenant of the Pieces if His people broke the Covenant. And when He resurrected, He restored all 12 tribes!

What was Israel when Yeshua resurrected? It was a bare bones nation comprised of 120 people in an upper room in Jerusalem. It was 12 tribes with an increase of ten times more! It was the righteous remnant! Unlike Moses how wouldn’t let YHVH start over with him, these 120 are what Yeshua’s restored Kingdom started with. It was Mount Sinai in Jerusalem! The 120 then took it to the Temple and the Ruach’s Mount Sinai fire spread there. But not to the Gentiles yet! YHVH started with Jews that were gathered from all over the known world for the Feast of Ingathering – Shavuot. YHVH first restored the 3,000 that died at the golden calf incident which happened at Mount Sinai and then He began moving it outward from Zion. YHVH’s Word, His Law, goes forth from Zion, not from the Gentiles!

Understand this. When Yeshua died – taking the remaining four tribes that were still in Covenant with Him at that time, the House of Judah, were cut off. The northern House of Israel had been cut off 700 years earlier. Now, it was the House of Judah’s turn to be cut off. How did He cut them off? By putting the ax to work.

Mat 3:10  “Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.
Luk 3:9  Even now the ax also lies at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire.”

There was no more House of Israel and, at Yeshua’s death, no more House of Judah. He widowed Judah! He widowed His own city. No King, no capital city. 

Lam 1:1  How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave!

There is now only the House of Yeshua, according to Hebrews (Hebrews 3:6) AKA the restored House of Jacob.

The boasting of the Gentiles, the non-Jewish believers, in Romans 11 shows us how early Christian replacement theology was afoot in the new movement. The Jews had their own replacement theology long before this and I have talked a lot about that.

Verse 17 speaks of the olive tree. This is where many teachers go awry because they believe Romans 11 is all about the Gentiles boasting against the Jews and then they teach that this olive tree that the Gentiles are boasting against is the “Judah” tree. It is not. This olive tree which they boast about is the fully grown ‘netser’ from the stump of Jesse that has now begun to graft back into itself the two dead “sticks” from Ezekiel 37, and their boast is that only the northern branches are grafted into that tree. Both houses were separated from the tree, the olive tree, the Kingdom of Israel tree!

By the way, Yeshua accomplished the saving of this olive tree by dying on a tree. Do you see the connection? The olive tree is always ALL Israel, all 12 tribes. The southern House’s tree is the fig tree, not the olive tree. Israel is not Israel without all the tribes. And Gentiles cannot come into the Kingdom of Israel unless there’s all 12 tribes’ branches already grafted back into the olive tree, Yeshua. Christianity and Judaism disagree! In Christian doctrine, Israel is now all the Christian Church leaving out Judah. In Judaism, Israel is only Jews leaving out everyone else.

Why is this important? First, because we must know how YHVH defines Israel so we can reject joining one of the 2 religions that rejects all the other tribes they don’t like! Second, If you don’t understand this, you risk standing with the wrong people in the coming time of sorrows and tribulation – people who are going to be destroyed.

Our Hebrew Roots and Messianic Jewish teachers lack understanding and people are paying attention to them, not to the truth! If you ever hear a teacher say that YHVH’s people get grafted back into Judah, don’t walk, run from that teacher and stop listening to everything he says! If he doesn’t understand the trees, he doesn’t understand the Kingdom.

What causes lack of understanding in YHVH’s people? Disobedience.

Paul’s explanation in Romans 11 fulfills Jeremiah’s prophecy:

Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 
Jeremiah 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 
Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 

The renewed Covenant was for the purpose of reviving ALL Israel as Ezekiel 37 also explains. Twelve tribes are grafted into Yeshua, the ‘netser’, the olive tree which is the Kingdom! Please do not stay in Christianity or convert to Judaism. Begin to identify with YHVH’s Kingdom and its King and stay out of Satan’s!

Here is Daniel’s vision from chapter 12 which is a message to the remnant, the elect. After asking the angel to show him the meaning of the vision, the angel said:

Daniel 12:9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel; for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end. 
Daniel 12:10 Many will purify themselves, and make themselves white, and be refined; but the wicked will do wickedly; and none of the wicked will understand; but those who are wise will understand. 

What is the understanding that the wise, the remnant, need especially now? That Israel is a Kingdom, not a religion, and it is a reunited and restored Kingdom in Heaven which will soon come to earth to become a physical reality.