Title: 13
Author: JBG
Last saved by: Matthew C. Lawson
Company: Auth CO

© 2001  Joe Griffin

01-04-29-B.JSH-475 /

The Inscrutable Question: Conjecture & Speculation on the Potential History of Plan A, John 18:33-38; 19:12; Covenants to Israel
21)	We are able only to conjecture what would have happened had the Jewish people responded to our Lord’s message.  They didn’t and God knew they wouldn’t.
22)	Nevertheless, the offer had to be real in order that their volition might be legitimately challenged.  Consequently, although there was a Plan A, it was decreed that it would be abandoned for Plan B.  Potential history is excluded from the divine decree in favor of what actually occurs.
23)	What then was Plan A?  We may speculate that had the Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah then the Romans would have executed Him anyway since the Lord’s claim to be a King would have been considered by the Romans as the capital crime of treason.
John 18:33 - Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”
v. 34 - Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?”
v. 35 - Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew am I?  Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You up to me; so what have you done?”
v. 36 - Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world [ ablative of source from ™k toà kÒsmou / ek tou kosmou /: from the source of this cosmic world system ].  If My kingdom were from the source of this cosmic world system, and it is not, then My servants would be fighting in order that I might not be delivered up to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not from the source of this system.

24)	Jesus has just told Pilate that His kingdom is not one about which the Governor should be concerned.  In addition the Lord indicated that His enemies were not the Romans but the Jews.
John 18:37 - Pilate, therefore, said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king—and I am. To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world in order that I should bear witness to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”
v. 38 - Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”  And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in Him.”
John 19:12 - As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him but the Jews cried out saying, “If you release this Man you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.”
25)	Consequently, we can see from this last verse that if the Jews had universally accepted Jesus as the Messiah then the Romans would have considered the Lord to be in opposition to Caesar and they would have executed Him themselves as a traitor.
26)	Once it became clear to our Lord that His public offer of the kingdom was rejected by Israel, He began to alter His discourse away from Plan A and over to Plan B.
27)	And Plan B required that the message be offered to the Gentiles and then followed by His crucifixion, sacrifice, judgment, physical death, and resurrection.
28)	Thus Plan B finds the Jews promoting the execution of Christ as a blasphemer rather than by the Romans as a traitor.
29)	This all helps explain the baptism of John the Baptist.  He was the forerunner to Messiah announcing His arrival and the fact that the “kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
30)	John is announcing to the nation Israel the arrival of its prophesied Messiah Who is coming to offer them the kingdom promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
31)	This kingdom is based on four unconditional covenants given to these patriarchs of Israel.
32)	First issued was the Abrahamic Covenant which was granted by the Lord to Abraham.  It isolates the genetic and spiritual seed of Abraham as the citizens of the first and last client nation in history.  
33)	The genetic seed was established with the birth of Isaac.  The spiritual seed is patterned after Abraham’s own salvation in: 
Genesis 15:6 - Abram had believed in the Lord and the Lord imputed this faith to Abram for righteousness.
34)	The promise given to Abraham included both a racial lineage called Jew and a new nation, which would become known as Israel.  
Genesis 12:2a - I will make of you a great nation.
35)	There was also a land covenant that provided real estate in which the nation was to function.  It was originally called Canaan but became the Kingdom of Israel and later Judah.    The real estate promise is given first to Abraham in Genesis 13:14-16; 15:18-21.  
36)	This covenant was reiterated to Abraham’s progeny until the nation entered the land of Canaan.  It was confirmed to Isaac in Genesis 26:3-4 and to Jacob in Genesis 28:13-14, 35:12.
37)	The land grant mentioned to Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21 covers more land than Israel was ever able to occupy prior to the Church Age.  The dimensions of the nation Israel in the Millennium will stretch from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq and everything from Turkey south to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.  
38)	This land will never be fully occupied by Israel as a client nation until the Second Advent of Christ and His millennial reign.  However, this was the kingdom that John the Baptist was announcing and that the Lord was offering to the people of Judea in a.d. 26.
39)	The Davidic covenant was the Lord’s promise to David that his progeny would rule forever on David’s throne in Jerusalem.  This was prophesied in:
2 Samuel 7:16 - “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”
40)	Therefore, the announcement that the kingdom of heaven was at hand by John the Baptist made reference to Plan A.  The sequence of events that would have taken place had Israel accepted Jesus as the Messiah likely would have occurred in the following manner:
1.	Jesus would have been proclaimed by the people and the Sanhedrin as their Messiah and exalted as King of the Jews.
2.	The Romans would have viewed this as treason and arrested Jesus on such charges.
3.	He would have been found guilty and sentenced to the ignominious death of Roman crucifixion.
4.	The imputation of all humanity’s sins would have been imputed to Him and judged.
5.	He would have died physically, been buried, and then resurrected on the third day.
6.	Following a brief period of about 40 days the Lord would have ascended into heaven terminating the Incarnation and beginning the Tribulation.
7.	Jesus Christ is the first fruits of resurrection.  The resurrection of Jewish believers who died during the dispensation of Israel plus those Jewish believers who died during the Tribulation would occur at the Second Advent.
8.	Those Jews who entered the Tribulation as believers and those who believed in Christ during the Tribulation are those who “will be left” at the baptism of fire for the Jews.
9.	Those Jews who entered the Tribulation as unbelievers and those who did not believe in Christ during the Tribulation are those who “will be taken” at the baptism of fire for the Jews.
10.	Those who believed that Jesus was Messiah spoken of by the prophets and that He had come to set up His earthly kingdom are the ones to whom John offered baptism.
11.	This baptism required that these believers identify themselves with the kingdom.  When John immersed a person into the Jordan River, that person was identified with the kingdom and the One who would come to establish it, namely, Jesus the Messiah.

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