WHILE by every consideration of the Scriptures it is certain that there is not to be a return of the Jews, it is equally certain that there is to be a gathering of Israel. And this gathering of Israel, and, in this sense, this return of the Jews, is to be, as was quoted in last week's study on this subject, concerning Israel as the good olive tree. Because of unbelief, the branches of that tree were broken, and so the tree stood all marred and incomplete; but from the wild olive tree, branches are taken and grafted into the good olive tree,—and also such of the original branches as abide not still in unbelief,—until all its lost branches are restored, and the tree stands full, complete, and perfect, as originally conceived. “And so all Israel shall be saved.” And such has been the story of Israel always. It has always been true that “they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” Rom. 9: 8. This was so in the family of Abraham, at the very beginning of God's peculiar people. Ishmael was the child of Abraham, but was born after the flesh, and so was not a child of God. Abraham, in his natural affection, thought that Ishmael should be recognized by the Lord as His, according to original design and his original purpose in the gospel; and so exclaimed, “O that Ishmael might live before thee!” But the Lord said, No. “Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. . . . But my covenant will I establish with Isaac.” Gen. 17: 19-21. Isaac was the child of faith, born by the promise of God, “born after the Spirit.” Accordingly, though both were the sons of Abraham, only one was a son of God. This did not utterly exclude from the promises him that was born after the flesh; but he could become partaker of the promises only by himself becoming a child of promise. And this “allegory,” which was worked out in the family of Abraham, was for the instruction of all people in all ages, that “they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are of the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” Rom. 9: 6-8. It tells to all people, forever, that that which is born of the flesh249is flesh, and can not inherit the things of the Spirit; that, unless one is born of promise, and thus becomes a child of promise, he never can be partaker of the promises. Yet, although this lesson was worked out to completion in the family of Abraham at the very beginning of the course of Israel; though it was repeated in the family of Isaac—in Esau and Jacob; and though it was written for the instruction of all people afterward, great claim is, and ever has been, made in behalf of them “which are the children of the flesh.” And in spite of all the instruction the Lord has given upon the subject, it is insisted that he is bound, in justice, to recognize as his children those who are children of the flesh. But such a thing never, in justice, can be. Such a thing would undo all righteousness, and would ruin the universe. It is asking that God shall clothe sin with righteousness, that he shall accept sin as righteousness, and exalt it as righteousness, to the place of righteousness. But that is all that Lucifer wanted, in the beginning of sin: that is the secret of the whole controversy from that time when it began in heaven, unto this day, and even to the end of the controversy in the triumph of righteousness over sin, to the complete exclusion of sin. And so from Abraham’s day until this hour, and unto the end of the world, the children of the promise are counted for the seed of Abraham, in place of the children of the flesh. Forever it is so, and is abundantly shown to be so, that they which be of faith, these only are the children of Abraham, and, as such, alone are heirs of Abraham, of Christ, and of God. And in the gathering of Israel, only these will come,—these who have been, when they lived, or are, while they live, children of the promise,—“they which are of faith.” Read the story of faith, in Hebrews 11, of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Sarah, and of those that sprang “of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the seashore innumerable.” These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; “because they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.” Read on in the story of faith, through Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and the number of whom the time to tell would fail. “These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” Thus all Israel are to be made perfect together; they are all to be gathered at once. And that time of gathering all Israel is declared by the word of the Lord in Isaiah: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which are ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” Isa. 27: 12, 13. This day when “the great trumpet shall be blown,” is the day when “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise” (1 Thess. 4: 16); and “he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mat. 24: 31), and “then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thess. 4: 17. And “as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” Isa. 66: 22, 23. This is the gathering of Israel: this is the return of the Jews. And there is no other.