Recognizing the Two Anointings

 

Recognizing the Two Anointings of Galatians 2:6-8 —
Apostles to the Jews and the Apostle to the Gentiles
by Donna Diorio

I have a specific article rumbling in my spirit right now. It is in a little different vein than the others I have been writing, and will continue to write. It involves Galatians 2:6-8, which I believe is still a God-thing in the current season. 

     6 But as for the highly esteemed — whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism — those leaders added nothing to me. 7 On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted to preach the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For the One who was at work in Peter’s apostleship to the circumcised was also at work in my apostleship to the Gentiles.

In light of the moves the empowered religious right parties in Israel have made to cease granting the work visas of those working in Christian organizations in Israel, we may need to consider that God wants us to shift our assumptions about how “all Israel” will be saved.

This is actually a development I expected to see from having been laser-focused the last 22 years of doing my Israel Prayer Weekly Summary of Prayer Requests from Israeli Ministries and Arrows from Zion. My deepest conviction is that the people of Israel will come to faith in Yeshua through the labors of the Messianic Jews of Israel - just like in the Book of Acts.

The apostolic team in Israel, 11 chosen by Yeshua and 1 chosen by them after Judas committed suicide, were tasked by God for the salvation in Israel during the period. Then another Jew, who frightened the Jews in Israel because he was different: First because he persecuted the believers, but Shaul became a post-Resurrection Apostle chosen by Yeshua Himself. And he was really different, because the parameter of his calling was as "the apostle to the Gentiles."

Acts 9:15-16 shows us a frightened Damascus Messianic Jew, Ananias, and the LORD speaking to him to get over his fear because, “This man is My chosen instrument to carry My name before the Gentiles and their kings, and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for My name.”

Why a separate Jewish apostle to address the Gentiles and their kings? because it takes different anointing to be effective among the Gentiles, as it is also true for effectiveness among the Jews. The Gospel is the same, but there is an anointing for effectiveness among the Jews that is different from that which is effective among the gentiles.

Just because there are crossovers of effectiveness is not the point. The point is that when the LORD gives us an effective anointing among a certain people group, we are going to be wildly, not mildly effective among them. Understanding also that the Jewish people group are more resistant to the “Christian god” preaching than any other people group!  This is not ONLY because of horrible Christian history of persecuting the Jews. If we are honest about this, there was resistance to Yeshua before a single Gentile got involved and that is because it was God’s plan from the beginning to cause a blinding of their eyes, which He in His sovereignty would remove in His own timing. Many Christians have missed that point, like Martin Luther for instance. It turned him from advocate to anti-Semite because the Jews did not respond to his goodness toward them. It has done the same to many through the ages because we have completely missed that their blindness to Jesus is due in great part to God’s own plan.

Read Deuteronomy 29:2-4  2 Moses summoned all Israel and proclaimed to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land. 3 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, and those miraculous signs and wonders. 4 Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

Isaiah 6:9-10 9 And He replied: “Go and speak over this people, ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10 Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Why would the Father instruct the prophet Isaiah to prophesy over Israel so they might not “see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Because it was not according to the plan that God had for bringing all the nations of the world into the opportunity of spiritual life through the “by their transgressions salvation is come to the Gentiles.” Romans 11:11  I cannot explain God’s reasoning – it is far above mine! But I can tell you this is what His Word says about what He is doing among us.

 Yeshua Himself quoted in the Isaiah 6:9-10 prophecy in Matthew 13:13-17 13 This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.’ 14 In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15 For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.’ 16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Jesus wasn’t talking to Gentiles, He was talking to Jews who saw and believed.  He knew there would come a time in the Father’s plan when His people, the Jews, would have this blindness removed, so they could be healed.

Why? Paul explains it to us in Romans 11:11 and 11:28

 Romans 11:11-12  I ask then, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Certainly not! However, because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous. 12 But if their trespass means riches for the world, and their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!

Romans 11:25-29  25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you will not be conceited: A hardening in part has come to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will remove godlessness from Jacob. 27 And this is My covenant with them when I take away their sins.” 28 Regarding the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. 29 For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.

Reading these things, why do so many Christians think it will never happen until God allows the Christians to all fly away leaving the horrors part of the end times exclusively to the Jews to find their way to God? Who will be here to tell them? Paul explains it in Romans 10:12-15, although many Christians have focused on the wrong thing. It is not that there is no difference in Jews and Gentiles, but that in coming to faith both have to hear the Gospel and respond in order to be saved:

Romans 10:12-15  12 For there is no difference between Jew and Greek: The same Lord is Lord of all, and gives richly to all who call on Him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then can they call on the One in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

There is much about God’s plan that we are like the proverbial ‘calf at a new gate” including the idea that even though Christians have been preaching the Gospel up a storm in the nations for almost 2,000 years, including winning some Jews to the reality of the Messiah, God has already set His own plan in motion regarding bringing “all Israel” to faith and it is not like many suppose. I believe this is a last days truth that many are going to be resistant to, but God is going to have His way anyway.

For one thing, none of us can come to the Jesus unless the Father draws them. We don’t choose Him, God chooses us to reveal Him to us. God opens the blind eyes, not us. Our part is to share the Gospel and those God has chosen will come to Yeshua. That is where God’s timing is such a dominant factor of “all Israel” coming to faith in the Messiah.

Now in God’s timing and in fulfillment of Ezekiel’s Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones (EZ 37), God set to restore the Jewish people scattered in the nations back to Israel. Only there would He do the main miraculous restoration of “all Israel” to spiritual restoration. Some Christians think that the takeover of the current religious right parties in the Israeli government and the plans for the raising up of the third Temple in Israel is the proof of God’s spiritual restoration occurring before our eyes. That is NOT the spiritual restoration God is doing in Israel because the ONLY ones blessed with spiritual restoration in Israel are the Israeli Messianic body of the LORD – the targets of much persecution from religious Jewish zealots.

Christians who either have no idea they exist in Israel, or who have been propagandized by unsaved traditional Jews to regard Jews who believe in Jesus to be a hateful cult just don’t get it. God plans to use those believers in Israel to bring spiritual restoration to “all Israel.” How deceived must we be as Christians to accept the premise that Jews who believe in Jesus are CULTS! Seriously?

Over the past two decades I have watched as major Christian ministry heads and Christians in politics who have ignored the believers of Israel. Some have even been sucked into becoming their enemies because instead they court the favor of Israelis who reject Yeshua is Israel’s Messiah. Just like Martin Luther did not understand what God is up to, so these high profile Christian leaders do not have a handle on it either. Some have been more harmful than others, but Christians ignoring the reality of up to estimates of 15,000 to 20,000 Messianic Jews in Israel is a sad thing to behold.

In the current political environment where the Israeli religious right government coalition is empowering religious zealots in anti-Messianic activist groups to be even bolder in targeting those believers for persecution of all sorts, isn’t it time yet for international Christians to awaken and arise to their aid in every way possible?

For 22 years I have been so focused on the Israeli Ministries, and I mean exclusively focused on them that I have not followed at all what is going on in the Church in the US, or even in the Messianic congregations in the U.S. The reason is that it is easy to lose the track you are on when you don't set boundaries of what you are going to concentrate on.

Spiritually speaking my eyes have only been for the Israeli ministries, because I KNOW how significant the body of Messiah in Israel is to "all Israel" being saved. I know their uphill ministry challenges. I know their obscurity with so many blind to their existence and then others aware but frankly not comprehending the magnificent role God has chosen for them to play in days of all Israel being saved.

There has been a shift in the Spirit since the Isaiah 62 fast and prayer for Israel. Many people who participated may not have a real clue about the body of Messiah in Israel, nevertheless the prayers that went up over the month of May have accelerated us into a new season of our contending for the faith. Things have been set in motion to begin to reveal the truth about the believer ministries in Israel.

Even as right now, the Israeli believer ministries are sitting in extremely uncomfortable seats with everything from lack of decent ministry funding to the rise of the exact segment in Israel that incites and enables persecution against them. But in this season change, God is going to pour out new levels of understanding by revealing His plan for Holy Spirit unification of Christians and Messianic Jews in the Messiah.

I know I certainly feel my own ability to write about these things has entered a new faster-forward momentum. Some doors are opening to me that I did not expect. There is confidence in my innermost being in how I am serving the LORD's purpose, in how I relate to Him, and in His love for me. The fact that He chose me, not that I chose Him or this path He set me on.

My belief is that in the weeks and months ahead we are going to marvel at what God is doing and those He chooses to do it through. I'm pretty excited about all that I think that is going to do for Yeshua's brothers and sisters in Israel, the Remnant who did not persist in their unbelief, but have entered into the faith of Israel's Messiah. Yes, there are still going to be persecutions. All you have to do is look at prophetic scripture and see that is going to go on all the way to the end but despite that, "all Israel" is getting saved - right now and all the way to the end!

I am going to have a part in that. I set my stake in the ground 22 years ago at this time in August of 2001. "Whoever tends the fig tree will eat of its fruit." Proverbs 27:18 I have been tending the fig tree for 22 years in my elists. It has been a lonely mission, mostly underfunded and overlooked, but I was not doing it for money or for to be famous. I am "tending" the fig tree because God showed me why I need to.

The word tend is translated from the Hebrew word nāṣar. The scope of its meaning is: The KJV translates Strong's H5341 in the following manner: keep (38x), preserve (13x), watchmen (3x), besieged (2x), keeper (1x), monuments (1x), observe (with H7521) (1x), preserver (1x), subtil (1x), hidden things (1x), watchers (1x).

The fig tree represents Israel's fruitfulness, or through being leafy only with no fruit, of its religious pretense.

For most of these 22 years, people looking at the body of Messiah in Israel have dismissed them as "ineffective" for bringing "all Israel" to the saving knowledge of Jesus. I have had people say that outright to me!

The season has changed. Watch for unexpected breakouts of grace, provision and anointing for the work of God related to Israel.