Judaism is the net result of Israel’s fleshly nature, their peculiar moral flaws as a nation, perverting divine revelation. Throughout the history of Israel, we can see how the best and most faithful kept trying to pull them back on track, but the truth is that they were never really there. The bulk of the nation was never faithful without a very active sword keeping them in line. Their wicked nature was never far below the surface.

Jews claim to understand their own Hebrew roots, but their actions as a people betray a literalism that Moses did not promote. Divine Election is not a law or decree; it is the divine Presence Himself. The concept of Israel as “chosen” was not a status painted onto them as a people. Isaiah teaches how it was a domain God built to house them, and which the wicked abandoned with glee. It was Israel as the mission and message, not Israel the people who were chosen.

The living truth is not an instrument. It is a divine Presence with all the subtlety and whimsy of any real person you encounter. You cannot reduce divine revelation to a set of rules. Jewish Law was a manifestation; it was not God Himself.

The only thing Judaism today remembers from that background image is that they insist they should conquer the world with their list of rules, and when it doesn’t work, they are under siege. They see themselves as persecuted because they don’t rule, whining and carping until they do rule. God is not commanding them, so it’s all a fleshly operation. Had they understood the moral and spiritual mandate within that image, then a physical conquest would be unnecessary.

The Covenant of Christ inherits that image – the true Israel, the mission and the message, that the prophet Isaiah is prophesying here. We should recognize that the image is symbolic. We conquer in the moral and spiritual realm, and scarcely pay any attention to the politics of this world. We do not whine about real world persecution; we welcome it as Jesus did the Cross. The sorrow of the Cross led to the joy of conquest in the Spirit Realm. We are besieged in the flesh, but we reign in the Spirit.

The conquest has already taken place in the Unseen Realm. We are not under siege there, and what happens in the flesh is of little consequence. The political manifestation was important for Israel in the Old Covenant but that ended with the Cross; God abandoned human politics into the hands of His opposition, but seized the victory in the Spirit Realm. He now rules in the hearts of people, and the worldly situation is just the background against which His glorious reign shines.