“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”
—1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 9 and 10
The Christian Era was referred to as “the times of the Gentiles” in scriptures. Let us examine these scriptures so that we can understand how the Christian Era was indeed “the times of the Gentiles”.
The Era of National Gods
History teaches us that after the reign of King Solomon, Israel split into two kingdoms. The Northern kingdom retained the name Israel, and the Southern kingdom took the name Judah. In those days, nations identified with different divine entities which the citizens served as their “ national god”. Before Israel split into two, she identified with HaShem as her “God”. But after the split, citizens of the Northern Kingdom, which retained the name Israel, decided to change their “national god” for “all the gods of other nations put together ”. In the same vein, they abandoned the Oral Torah which they received from Abraham and the Written Torah which they received from Moses (the Written Torah is what we call the Law of Moses).
Those who would not do so left the Northern kingdom and relocated to the Southern Kingdom, Judah.
Moses warned that evil would befall the people, if they chose to worship any other entity, or abandon the Oral Torah or the Written Torah. Moses wrote (Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 25 to 27 ): “After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of HaShem your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. HaShem will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which HaShem will drive you.”
Punishments
Both the Oral Torah and the Written Torah was given to the Hebrews along with agreements (covenants). Since the Northern Kingdom utterly abandoned both the Oral Torah and the Written Torah, the covenants that came with them became null and void. HaShem said to the Northern Kingdom [Hosea 1 verse 9]: “Then said HaShem, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.” But that was only with respect to the Northern Kingdom which beared the name “Israel” in ancient times.
Also Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 8 reads: “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce….” Only The Northern Kingdom was divorced.
Why?
Because the citizens of the Southern Kingdom did not come up with a decision to replace HaShem, who their predecessors chose as their national God, nor did they utterly abandon the Oral Torah and the Written Torah. Rather, they worshipped other entities along with HaShem, and, from time to time, they repented [Jeremiah chapter 3 ]. By so doing, they continuously provoked HaShem to jealousy (Exodus 20 verse 5).
Therefore, the sin of Israel was weightier than the sin of Judah. For example, Ezekiel, the prophet, was instructed to mourn for 40 days for Judah and 390 days for Israel. [Ezekiel chapter 4].
In line with this fact, HaShem punished Israel differently from Judah. He destroyed the Northern kingdom completely with the hands of the Assyrians— and the Northern kingdom would never be reinstated. But HaShem decided to punish Judah, the Southern Kingdom, twice, after which Judah would be reinstated.
Jeremiah 16 verse 28 (ESV) reads: “But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations. “Hosea 6 verse 2 reads: “After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.”
This double punishment happened when Judah was sacked by the Babylonians in the 7th century B.C.E, and was reinstated during the era of Nehemiah and Ezra, only to be sacked again in the first century C.E. by the Romans.
If we call the first Judah that was sacked in the 7th century B.C.E. ‘Mother Judah’, then the second Judah that was sacked in 70 C.E. would then be ‘Daughter Judah’ or the phrase, ‘Daughter of Judah’.
The sins of Daughter Judah against the Written Torah was even more weightier than the sins of Israel against the Written Torah [Ezekiel chapter 16 ], but they continued to associate themselves to the name of their God [HaShem] and several lineages amongst them continued to hold the whole or part of the Oral Torah sacred. Because of these, they were not utterly forsaken. Hosea chapter 11 verse 12 NKJV reads: “Ephraim has encircled Me with lies, And the house of Israel with deceit; But Judah still walks with God, Even with the Holy One who is faithful.”
The successful re-establishment of a Jewish State by Hebrews who are traceable to the ancient Southern Kingdom, Judah, on May 16, 1948, spelt the end of the double-fold punishment. Ortherwise, the attempt of the Jews to re-establish a State in 1948 would have failed. Isaiah chapter 40 verses 1 and 2 reads: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah 48:1 even foretells the new name modern Judah now bears, which indeed is an act of subversion against her sister, Israel: “Listen to this, you descendants of Jacob, you who are called by the name “Israel” and come from the line of Judah….”
The Southern Kingdom was punished and pardoned and reinstated. But the Northern Kingdom was completely destroyed, never to be reinstated as an independent Kingdom; even though the Southern Kingdom, after her first reinstatement, trespassed the Written Torah even more than the Northern Kingdom [Ezekiel chapter 16]. This is because the Southern Kingdom continued to call upon HaShem despite their sins. Isaiah chapter 48 verse 1 reads: “Hear ye this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, which swear by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness.”
Moreover, there are certain lineages within the Southern Kingdom that continued to observe the Oral Torah even to this day. Isaiah chapter 65 verse 8 KJV reads: “Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, ‘Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it,’ so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all.”
This proved the superiority of the Oral Torah to the Written Torah.
The Lost Tribes ?
The prophetic ministry of prophets like Jeremiah to the kingdom of Israel informed many Israelites about the impending doom and encouraged many of them to “jump ship” into the kingdom of Judah, before the kingdom of Israel was sacked by the Assyrians in the sixth century B.C.E. For example, members of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon fled to Judah during the reign of Asa of Judah from 911–870 B.C.E. [2 Chronicles chapter 15 verse 9]. Furthermore, 2 Chronicles chapter 30 verses 1-11 explicitly mentions northern Israelites who had been spared by the Assyrians—in particular, members of Dan, Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher, and Zebulun—and how members of the latter three returned to worship at the Temple in Jerusalem at that time.
Coupled with several episodes of Aliyah conducted across India and Africa since 1948 C.E. by the government of Israel and Jewish organizations like the Jewish Agency For Israel and the Jewish Federations of North America, it is reasonable to conclude that the Jewish population today represents all the tribes of both the Southern and Northern Kingdoms of Ancient Israel and Judah.
However, it is important to note that there were lineages from every tribe that got assimilated by the surrounding Gentile populations, as assimilation have been a constant threat to the entire Hebrew community across the centuries.
The Judgement
Before now, when Hebrew Souls lost their connection with the Oral Torah during a lifetime, that is when they get assimilated, they would find themselves in enemy territories in death—and they were subsequently captured and kept as Prisoners of War, forbidden to incarnate again as a human. That is why Paul was inspired to write that, “It is appointed unto man to die once, and after that, the judgement” [Hebrews 9 verse 27]. That judgement applied only to the Dragon’s Prisoners of War.
Both “the House of Israel” and “Ephraim” are used figuratively in prophecy to represent all the assimilated lineages of the Hebrew people.
“Christianity” And “the Law and Covenant of Moses”
Let us reemphasize the fact that, although the Law and the Covenant of Moses was abolished with due respect to the Northern Kingdom (Israel), the Law and Covenant remained intact for the Southern Kingdom (Judah). This is because Judah did not utterly abandon HaShem or the Oral Torah or the Written Torah (which is the Law and Covenant of Moses) like the Northern Kingdom did. Hosea chapter 11 verse 12 NKJV: “….Judah still walks with God, Even with the Holy One who is faithful.”
Apart from the two-fold punishment for Judah, HaShem promised to provoke Judah to jealousy as well. Deuteronomy 32 verse 21 reads: “They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.”
The “times of the Gentiles” was the era of “those which are not a people”, and the “foolish nation” refers to the Vatican City of Rome which would have been the most populous nation in the world, if all Christians were Romans. “Those who are not a people” stands for Christianity because Christianity is neither a nationality nor a civilization. And ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity had been politically weakened.
Christianity replaced the Northern Kingdom in the divine master plan. Romans chapter 10 verses 20 and 21 reads : “But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and (stubborn) people.” Ehyeh (Jesus) puts it very clearly: “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.” [Matthew 21 verse 43]
Although Jesus spoke this to Jews in the first century C.E., after the Northern Kingdom had been utterly destroyed in the 6th century B.C.E., it was only to provoke them to jealousy.
That was why Paul wrote that the Law and Covenant of Moses had been abolished and the Faith in Yeshua has replaced the Law and the Covenant [Ephesians chapter 2 verses 14 and 15 KJV]: “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances…” Again Paul wrote to the Romans [Romans 10 verse 4 KJV]: “For [Yeshua] is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”
However, this replacement is a temporal arrangement. Paul candidly called the Christian Era a “dispensation” in the divine plan [Ephesians 3 verse 2 NKJV]. That is, it was created with the intention that it would last for a duration— not everlasting.
The bad news is that the Christian Era has expired. It expired on the 8th of April,2024. The writer was duely notified of change of events in the Heavens. The writer received a report from the Heavens to this end.
In our earlier article titled, “The Gospel of ‘Jesus Christ’ According to ‘Lucifer’ ”, we examined this matter in details.