13 And the Passover of the Jews was near. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And He found those selling oxen and sheep and doves in the temple, and the money changers sitting. 15 And having made a whip out of ropes, He threw all out of the temple, both the sheep, and the oxen, and the money changers, poured out the coin and overturned the tables. 16 And to the ones selling the doves, He said, Take these things from here! Do not make My Father’s house a market-house.
John 2:13-16 KJ3
These were the banksters making merchandise of Temple worshippers at that time. You see how Jesus acted towards them. And the following is what Jesus said of the religious leaders of His day.
25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within they are full of plunder and intemperance. 26 Blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside of them may become clean also. 27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly indeed appear beautiful, but within are full of bones of the dead, and of all uncleanness.
Matthew 23:25-38 KJ3
28 So you also indeed outwardly appear righteous to men, but within are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and adorn the tombs of the righteous. 30 And you say, If we were in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 So you witness to yourselves that you
are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 And you fill up the measure of your fathers. 33 Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How
shall you escape the judgment of Hell? 34 Because of this, behold, I send to you prophets and wise ones and scribes. And some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and will persecute from city to city; 35 so that should come on you all the righteous blood poured out on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah whom you murdered between the Holy Place and the
altar. 36 Truly I say to you, All these things will come on this generation.
37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those sent to her. How often I desired to gather your children in the way a bird gathers her chicks under her wings! And you did not desire
it. 38 Behold, “your house is left to you desolate.” Jer. 22:5 39 For I say to you, You shall not see Me from now on; not until you say, “Blessed
is the One coming in the name of the Lord.” Psa. 118:26
Who was Jesus to speak about the Pharisees like this? Through the Apostle John, Jesus Christ said:
8 And to the angel of the assembly in Smyrna, write: These things says the First and the Last, who became a dead one, and lived:
Revelation 2:8 KJ3
Jesus Christ, the son of God, the self existent One, is the first and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 1:8; 22:13), The Aleph (אֵ֥) and the Tav (ת). Respectively these are the first and last letters in the Greek and Hebrew alphabets. Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew is:
בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
The underlined is אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת (’ĕ-lō-hîm ’êṯ) which transliterated is “Elohim (God) aleph (the First) (and) tav (the Last)”. Jesus was there in the beginning of Creation; He is the Creator. He said He was.
8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord, the One being, and the One who was, and the One coming, the Almighty.
Revelation 1:8 KJ3
Jesus continued:
9 I know your works, and the affliction, and the poverty; but you are rich. And I know the blasphemy of the ones saying themselves to be Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Fear nothing of what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some from you into prison, so that you may be tried; and you will have affliction ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. 11 The one having an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. The one overcoming will not be hurt by the second death, not ever!
Revelation 2:9-11 KJ3
9 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before your feet, and to know that I have loved you.
Revelation 3:9 KJVER
10 Because you kept the Word of My patience, I also will keep you out of the hour of trial, the one being about to come on the whole inhabited earth in order to try the ones dwelling on the earth.
Revelation 3:10 KJ3
When Jesus was teaching on the mount of Olives all people came to him including the scribes and Pharisees.
19 Then they said to Him, Where is Your father? Jesus answered, You neither know Me, nor My Father. If you had known Me, then you also would have known My Father.
John 8:19 KJ3
Religious Jewish leaders did not actually know God the Father despite all their claims.
23 And He said to them, You are from below [hell]; I am from above [heaven]. You are from this world; I am not from this world. 24 Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM [the self existent One] (See Exodus 3:14), you will die in your sins.
John 8:23-24 KJ3
Jesus came from the Father in heaven. He is the self existent One, who is called Jehovah or simply I AM.
38 I speak what I have seen with My Father. And you therefore do what you have seen with your father. 39 They answered and said to Him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I heard alongside of God. Abraham did not do this. 41 You do the works of your father. Then they said to Him, We were not generated of fornication; we have one father, God. 42 Therefore Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I went forth and have come from God. For I have not come from Myself, but that One sent Me. 43 Why do you not know My speech? It is because you are not able to hear My
John 8:38-44 KJ3
Word. 44 You are of the devil as father, and the lusts of your father you desire to do. That one was a murderer from the beginning, and he has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own things, because he is a liar, and the father of it.
Quite clearly there are no Jews in the synagogue of Satan. Jesus said so (Revelation 2:9; 3:9). He said Pharisees are from hell, they are of their father the devil. But weren’t the Pharisees Jews? Well from this it would seem that they were not.
How do you resolve this?
It is quite simple really. There is no Jew or Greek or anyone other ethnic group in Christ.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28 KJVER
There is no Jewish privilege, no Hebrew privilege, nor any white privilege in Christ. All people without distinction are equal in Christ. Therefore if an ethnic Jew is not a believer in Christ he/she is not a true Jew, that is, one who is circumcised of the heart.
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and whose circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, and whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Romans 2:28-29 KJVER
Therefore only saved born again believers in Jesus — the one and only true God from above — are the children of Abraham and the children of God.
7 Know you therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. 26 For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:7, 26 KJVER
Many people who identify as Jews today are atheists, some are religious, but without trusting in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour they are not the “true Jews” (i.e. circumcised of the heart). Though they might call themselves Jews, they are in fact those whom Jesus was referring to when He said they are not Jews but the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9; 3:9).
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Bible Science Forum 
3 replies on “Jesus on the Synagogue of Satan”
Reblogged this on Ponder Anew (What The Almighty Can Do) by Mensch59 aka Gary and commented:
A very important scriptural/biblical explanation of a spiritual aspect of the kingdom of the devil.
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May 27, 2023
Dear John,
Although I left your various chat groups on Telegram, I have continued to receive your articles on email. In brief response to your latest: Jesus on the Synagogue of Satan:
• Thank you for the interesting insight which I had never considered, that the name for Deity—when the definite article is included–in Gen. 1:1 (ath Elohim) indeed begins and ends with the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the parallel to Christ in Revelation being the Alpha and Omega. Of course, the definite article does not always appear with the title Elohim, but it does in Gen. 1:1. Very interesting insight—thank you.
• Those are beautiful references you made to the glory and absolute Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• When it comes to the central idea of your article, I scratch my head at to whom you are directing your arguments. Although I am a convinced Premillennialist, neither I nor any serious Christian leader who shares my eschatology would ever consider that a Jew without Christ is saved, or a spiritual child of Abraham. Nor, that historical Jews have some inside track to God. I served the Gospel for nearly 40 years in Muslim lands, shoulder to shoulder with Amillenialists (and even a couple Post-Millenialists!), with the shared conviction that without Christ not one of our Muslim or occasional Jewish guests was saved.
There are a few misguided John Hagee types, and some confused people in the pews, but these do not represent a biblical perspective, are not consistent with historical Premillennialism, and would be few in number.
• When you say: “There is no Jew or Greek or any one ethic group in Christ”, you are of course correct on the level of equal access to the Father, equal privilege before God, and perfect oneness in Christ. But that does not mean that ethnicity is erased when one comes to Christ!
When Paul said in Gal 3:28 that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no male and female, for you are one in Christ Jesus”, he was not saying that Christians can no longer distinguish between, or glory in, our human differences and roles. Christian men cannot now give birth. Christian women cannot now become elders of churches or heads of families. Slaves do not now have control over the resource management of their masters. And Christians of Jewish ethnicity are not required to become cultural Greeks in their worship; nor Greeks to become cultural Jews.
The idea of distinguishing multifold ethnicities and cultures was God’s idea, and His infinite qualities and perfections are magnified by the thousands of different human languages, multivaried cultural distinctives, and unique ethnic perspectives that every slice of humanity brings to the table of worship. (Acts 2:8-11, Acts 17:26, Rev 5:9, Matt 8:11, even Matt 28:19 & Rom 1:16).
Christ’s incarnation underscored the sanctity of the human body, a body which He still shares with the rest of humanity. Though glorified, His is forever a human body. There is a human man forever seated at the right hand of the Father, and he contains in his chromosomes the DNA of Adam, like you and me. But unlike you and me, his body has the DNA of a Jewish mother in first-century Israel.
There is no hint in Scripture that He somehow lost the uniqueness of his identity at birth. Nor do we lose our God-given uniquenesses when we come into the unified, beautiful, multi-faceted, Body of Christ. Heaven and heavenly worship will be enormously enriched, and His fame and glories best magnified, with that mighty symphony of worshippers from every tribe, tongue, and ethne (Rev 5:9).
Your brother in Christ,
Steve Mack
steve@dublin.com
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Thank you for your comments. I have responded below each point you make with your comment bracketed with // …. //.
//• Thank you for the interesting insight which I had never considered, that the name for Deity—when the definite article is included–in Gen. 1:1 (ath Elohim) indeed begins and ends with the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus, the parallel to Christ in Revelation being the Alpha and Omega. Of course, the definite article does not always appear with the title Elohim, but it does in Gen. 1:1. Very interesting insight—thank you.//
You are welcome. My attention was drawn to this fact recently by another brother in the Lord when we were discussing the Hebrew in Genesis 1:1-5. My friend did not understand the significance, but I saw it immediately. I think it very interesting.
//• Those are beautiful references you made to the glory and absolute Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.//
Also it always impressed me how Jesus of Nazareth, many times, claimed to be Jehovah as recorded in the gospels especially by the Apostle John. See
//• When it comes to the central idea of your article, I scratch my head at to whom you are directing your arguments. Although I am a convinced Premillennialist, neither I nor any serious Christian leader who shares my eschatology would ever consider that a Jew without Christ is saved, or a spiritual child of Abraham. Nor, that historical Jews have some inside track to God. I served the Gospel for nearly 40 years in Muslim lands, shoulder to shoulder with Amillenialists (and even a couple Post-Millenialists!), with the shared conviction that without Christ not one of our Muslim or occasional Jewish guests was saved.
There are a few misguided John Hagee types, and some confused people in the pews, but these do not represent a biblical perspective, are not consistent with historical Premillennialism, and would be few in number.//
I am a not a premillennialist but on this point I don’t see it all that relevant anyway. I am directing this study to all who will listen because we need a better understanding of how Satan is working in this world.
However there does seem to be a class of professing Christians who follow the view that the Jews or Israel in the flesh will ultimately be saved because of their ethnicity. This is what they call “national salvation” which in my opinion is antithetical to the gospel. Paul Wilkinson describes this in his book “For Zion Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby”. The book is an apologetic for Christian Zionism. But I find those words an oxymoron.
//• When you say: “There is no Jew or Greek or any one ethnic group in Christ”, you are of course correct on the level of equal access to the Father, equal privilege before God, and perfect oneness in Christ. But that does not mean that ethnicity is erased when one comes to Christ!
When Paul said in Gal 3:28 that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no male and female, for you are one in Christ Jesus”, he was not saying that Christians can no longer distinguish between, or glory in, our human differences and roles. Christian men cannot now give birth. Christian women cannot now become elders of churches or heads of families. Slaves do not now have control over the resource management of their masters. And Christians of Jewish ethnicity are not required to become cultural Greeks in their worship; nor Greeks to become cultural Jews.
The idea of distinguishing multifold ethnicities and cultures was God’s idea, and His infinite qualities and perfections are magnified by the thousands of different human languages, multivaried cultural distinctives, and unique ethnic perspectives that every slice of humanity brings to the table of worship. (Acts 2:8-11, Acts 17:26, Rev 5:9, Matt 8:11, even Matt 28:19 & Rom 1:16).//
I agree. There are still ethnic groups but that has nothing to do with our salvation. A corrolary of that is that to be a true Jew, one circumcised of the heart, one must be saved by grace through faith. Jewish or Israeli ethnicity will not help. Thus Judaism is itself antithesis to Christianity.
// Christ’s incarnation underscored the sanctity of the human body, a body which He still shares with the rest of humanity. Though glorified, His is forever a human body. There is a human man forever seated at the right hand of the Father, and he contains in his chromosomes the DNA of Adam, like you and me. But unlike you and me, his body has the DNA of a Jewish mother in first-century Israel.//
This I only partly agree with. It may be the crux of our disagreement. I agree Jesus was incarnated as fully human during His earthly life but to say He has human DNA of Adam and therefore of Mary, his earthly human mother, is well above my pay grade. I don’t see how anyone can know that. It maybe you are drawing a conclusion based on a priori belief — a logical error.
We know Jesus had a human body on earth but it does not necessarily follow that He has a human body in heaven. Luke 24:39 “… a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have.” Jesus is speaking of His resurrection body. Why no mention of blood? Could it be because He died and the life of the flesh is in the blood? (Leviticus 17:11) Thus I would argue Jesus simple took on a human body (Hebrews 10:5) which He sacrificed for us.
Before being born on earth He pre-existed all time and space and had a theophany — a god body. When coming to earth He slipped on a human body to experience all that we experience. But most of all He needed a body with blood so that He could give His blood for a covering of our sins, which the blood of bulls could never do (Hebrews10:4-7).
Therefore it follows then that Christ does not have blood in His heavenly body, and nor will we because we will be dead physically but alive spiritually in a “celestial body” like that of Christ. But as I say, I do not know, as it is possibly something we’ll learn when we are resurrected.
//There is no hint in Scripture that He somehow lost the uniqueness of his identity at birth. Nor do we lose our God-given uniquenesses when we come into the unified, beautiful, multi-faceted, Body of Christ. Heaven and heavenly worship will be enormously enriched, and His fame and glories best magnified, with that mighty symphony of worshippers from every tribe, tongue, and ethne (Rev 5:9).//
But as discussed above, there are actually hints in scripture that our heavenly body will be quite different, afterall, it will not be an earthly body. 1 Cor. 15. Jesus was resurrected with a physical body but it appears to be something quite different to the earthly bodies we now inhabit. No one can yet understand what that is since it transcends spacetime and enters the heavenly realm.
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