Romans 11:15
For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
Israel could have gone from Goshen Egypt to Israel without having to cross the Red Sea. Had they walked straight North-East, they would have been back Home in a few days and the whole ordeal would have been over. But this wasn’t the plan. Not only Hashem needed to bait pharaoh’s army into the Red Sea, but Israel needed to go through a cultural renewal before entering their restored independent lives as the people of God.
Part of the program was for Israel, and for the ‘mixed multitude’ of nations following them was to go through a rebirth process (Exodus 12:38). They needed to get ‘baptized’, die to their old Egyptian identity and reborn into new creatures. For the Israelites, it meant to be cleansed from ‘Egypt’, but for the strangers with them, it meant literal conversion. The process would be repeated forty years later when the second desert generation crossed the Jordan (Joshua 3).
In Judaism the main staple of conversion is immersion in water. In keeping with Jewish ideas, Paul mentions the crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism (Rabbi Kaplan: The Waters of Eden; 1 Corinthians 10:1-2). This was the gist of the conversation between Yeshua and Nicodemus. Just as the Priests and Levites did with John the Immerser, Nicodemus boasted that being already Jewish he didn’t need the conversion rebirth of immersion, but just like John answered the Jerusalem visitors Yeshua told Nicodemus that he still needed to be reborn (Matthew 3:9-11; John 3:1-21).
Judaism teaches that when the ‘mixed multitude’ crossed the Red Sea with Israel, they became Children of Abraham, they became Israelite. It is interesting because the whole time in the desert no circumcision (and important part of conversion to Judaism) was performed. They just had a mass circumcision as they entered the land (Joshua 5:2-8).
Another important event is Amalek intercepting Israel (Deuteronomy 25:18). It seems that the descendants of Esau always intercept Israel returning home! It happened with Jacob (Genesis 32:6), during the Exodus, and it is happening again today. The first time peace was reached (Genesis 33), the second time God ordered the destruction of Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:19; 1 Samuel 15:1-3). What will it be this time?
The Yeshua believing world needs to know that as believers in the Jewish Messiah, as true born again people, like the ‘mixed multitude’ of the Exodus, they share the fate of Israel. Even today, Esau's children are intercepting us trying to annihilate us as we return home to our Land. They have done so from the on start in 1948. Can Israel count on the ‘mixed multitude’ with them fight at their side? This is not just Israel’s fight; the future of all believers is at stake (Romans 11:15). “He that stands idle while the rights of others are being violated will very soon become victim to these same evil forces” (Personal narration of famous quote).
For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
Israel could have gone from Goshen Egypt to Israel without having to cross the Red Sea. Had they walked straight North-East, they would have been back Home in a few days and the whole ordeal would have been over. But this wasn’t the plan. Not only Hashem needed to bait pharaoh’s army into the Red Sea, but Israel needed to go through a cultural renewal before entering their restored independent lives as the people of God.
Part of the program was for Israel, and for the ‘mixed multitude’ of nations following them was to go through a rebirth process (Exodus 12:38). They needed to get ‘baptized’, die to their old Egyptian identity and reborn into new creatures. For the Israelites, it meant to be cleansed from ‘Egypt’, but for the strangers with them, it meant literal conversion. The process would be repeated forty years later when the second desert generation crossed the Jordan (Joshua 3).
In Judaism the main staple of conversion is immersion in water. In keeping with Jewish ideas, Paul mentions the crossing of the Red Sea as a baptism (Rabbi Kaplan: The Waters of Eden; 1 Corinthians 10:1-2). This was the gist of the conversation between Yeshua and Nicodemus. Just as the Priests and Levites did with John the Immerser, Nicodemus boasted that being already Jewish he didn’t need the conversion rebirth of immersion, but just like John answered the Jerusalem visitors Yeshua told Nicodemus that he still needed to be reborn (Matthew 3:9-11; John 3:1-21).
Judaism teaches that when the ‘mixed multitude’ crossed the Red Sea with Israel, they became Children of Abraham, they became Israelite. It is interesting because the whole time in the desert no circumcision (and important part of conversion to Judaism) was performed. They just had a mass circumcision as they entered the land (Joshua 5:2-8).
Another important event is Amalek intercepting Israel (Deuteronomy 25:18). It seems that the descendants of Esau always intercept Israel returning home! It happened with Jacob (Genesis 32:6), during the Exodus, and it is happening again today. The first time peace was reached (Genesis 33), the second time God ordered the destruction of Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:19; 1 Samuel 15:1-3). What will it be this time?
The Yeshua believing world needs to know that as believers in the Jewish Messiah, as true born again people, like the ‘mixed multitude’ of the Exodus, they share the fate of Israel. Even today, Esau's children are intercepting us trying to annihilate us as we return home to our Land. They have done so from the on start in 1948. Can Israel count on the ‘mixed multitude’ with them fight at their side? This is not just Israel’s fight; the future of all believers is at stake (Romans 11:15). “He that stands idle while the rights of others are being violated will very soon become victim to these same evil forces” (Personal narration of famous quote).
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