PAGE 57 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(BAD FIG TREE)

After the Apostles died, the shepherds of various churches began to not take heed or pay attention to Paul's warning in the book of Romans.  These shepherds that are known in history as the early church fathers began to slowly distance themselves from their Hebrew roots and the Word of God and began to boast over the branches:

Justin Martyr (100-165ad) - claimed God's covenant was no longer valid and that the gentiles had replaced the Jews.

Iraenaeus (130-202ad) - said the Jews were disinherited from God.

Tertullian (155-230ad) - said the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus and argued that they had been rejected by God.  He also said that the old law had been obliterated.

Origen (185-254ad) - wrote "If he who is commonly called a Jew murdered the Lord Jesus and is still today responsible for that murder, it is because he has not understood the law and the prophets in a hidden manner."

"The true Israelite, then, is everyone who knows Christ, if a man does not know Christ he is no Israelite."

"O Jews, when you come to Jerusalem, and find it destroyed, it had been changed into dust and ashes, don't weep as a child, don't be in grief but ask for a city in heaven instead of that which you search here on earth."

Cyprian (200-258ad) - "That the Jews should lose the bread and the cup of Christ, and all his grace; while we should receive them, and that the new name of Christians should be blessed in the earth."

"That rather the gentiles than the Jews should attain to the kingdom of heaven."

The shepherds of the church turned away from the Word of God and started boasting over the Jews and their covenant with God. They started separating themselves from their Hebrew root and said that earthly Israel and Jerusalem had lost its calling. These writings brought great cursing in the future as they became the justification Hitler needed, in order to do what he did to the Jewish people in Nazi Germany.

The Apostle Paul had stated that staying connected to the Hebrew root would bring the nourishing sap or spiritual blessing to the believer or assembly, and we see huge Holy Spirit power in the early believers in the time of the apostles as recorded in the book of Acts. After the Apostolic age, at the same time as these shepherds started breaking away from the Hebrew root, miracles and wonders began to decline significantly. So much so, that many people today believe that God ceased giving spiritual gifts after the time of the Apostles. Origen reports a decline in signs and wonders in AD 230.  He writes, "...Moreover the Holy Spirit gave signs of his presence at the beginning of Christ's ministry, and after his ascension he gave still more, but since that time these signs have diminished, although there are still traces of his presence in a few who have had their souls purified by the Gospel."

The Bible never declares that the gifting of the spiritual gifts will cease after the Apostles die, but it clearly states that if an individual or assembly cuts itself off from its Hebrew root and boasts over the non-believing Jewish people and Israel, it will also cut itself off from the power of the Holy Spirit.