DIVIDED KINGDOMS: PART TWO
The way things have been between Jews and Christians since the first century or so is not unlike the way it was between the northern and southern kingdoms after Solomon. The northern kingdom was called Israel, Jacob and Ephraim. It created its own high places of worship and established its own religious leaders to serve in those places which were scattered around the territory of the ten northern tribes. The southern kingdom was called Judah. Although it was much smaller (i.e. it included only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin), it had the advantage of including Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple.

STUDY TIPS: Serious students (i.e. disciples) are encouraged to read from 1 Samuel to the end of the Old Testament for a complete history of the rise and fall of Israel while it was under the leadership of Kings. For a summary review of this history, Wikipedia articles (Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), and Kingdom of Judah are good places to begin.

The story of the two kingdoms is found in 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles. It is full of inter-tribal intrigue, warfare, successions of good kings and bad kings and invasion by Babylon and exile. It is important to note that this troubling history began when Israel said that it wanted a king in 1 Samuel 8. We find there that God reluctantly agreed to give Israel a king but also warned it about what  would happen if it choose to be governed by a king.

It is reasonable to say that the northern kingdom symbolically represents  Israel/Judaism and the southern kingdom represents Christianity. Both kingdoms had the appearance of Godliness but they were so fully engaged in idolatry that God saw fit to send them into exile in Babylon. And that is where both religions are today.

STUDY TIP: See Egypt and Babylon for the symbolic meaning of Babylon.

The closing of the gap between Jews and Gentiles will not be a matter of conversion. Jews do not need to become Christians and Christian do not need to convert to Judaism. The common belief  that conversion from one religion to the other is what God wants is the obstacle to closing the gap.

Reconciliation between Jew and Gentile will happen only when both religions are reconciled to God. As long as both sides remain faithful to their respective religions, they will not be reconciled to each other or to God. They are both so affectionately wedded to their respective Defiled Religions that they cannot see the truth found in Pure Religion. Neither religion has eyes to see or ears to hear the righteous alternative in the New Covenant which has no written laws, codes or regulations.

In contrast to Old/First Covenant religion which brings spiritual death, the New Covenant brings spiritual life and only has the law written on the hearts of people. Thus, New Covenant disciples are guided only by the Spirit of God and not by written laws, regulations, rituals and programs conceived by, written by and enforced by men for other men to follow without any Godly influence. The way God sees it, when these rules created by men are followed, they take the place of God and in effect become “other gods,” and the people who follow them become idolaters.

STUDY TIP: See Religion is Idolatry.

The “one new man” that God wants is neither Jew nor Christian as we understand both religions. Since both religions practice their unique forms of Defiled Religion, conversion to one or the others still results in Defiled Religion. God’s goal is to establish New Covenant disciples that practice Pure Religion. That means that there must be conversions, of course, but not from one Old/First Covenant religion to the other. The “one new man”  will be established one person at a time as individuals abandon their traditional Defiled Religions in favor of a unique Pure Religion that is not like any  traditional religion. When this happens they will repent of their Old/First Covenant legalism and enter into a New Covenant relationship with God and each other. In other words, they will exchange the written laws of their respective religions for God’s spiritual laws written on their hearts.

This transition from Old/First Covenant to New Covenant will not be a global event where all ethnic/cultural Jews and Christians will be radically transformed at one time. It is a process that occurs one man and woman at a time. When it does happen, it is symbolically represented as the “end of the world” for each transformed individual. Interpretation of the “end of the world” as a global, cataclysmic event is a totally wrong interpretation.

STUDY TIP: See End Times, Rapture and Tribulation for understanding of the end of the