The world has heard that Yehoshua came to the Jews, Israel, his own people, and that they corporately rejected him, and that by means of the Romans they crucified him. The truth is that God saw them, as he sees us all, as no more than little children who thought they were grown up and had the power to do this. Like little children, they did not have the power to take his life from him. Instead, rather than seeing them condemned and destroyed, Yehoshua laid down his life himself, as a sacrifice, in order to save Israel from guilt. He did this because he had the power to do so, because God gave him that authority and that power. And then he took up his life again from the dead, because he had the power to do so, because God gave him that power when he answered his prayer for Israel's forgiveness.
The world heard that God called himself the God of Israel. The world heard that God planned to bless Israel with his law, his Torah. The world chose to rebel, then it heard that God promised to save Israel from the rebellion. The world heard that Yehoshua came to Israel in his Father’s name to serve Him in these ways. But the world heard that Jerusalem refused Yehoshua.
Israel did not receive him as an entire nation. Now some conclude that God rejected his plans of saving Israel. The belief is that it was God’s intention to save Israel through Yehoshua laying down his life for Israel. Israel, as a whole, did not accept this. Some say that God, therefore, made salvation to come to the world apart from Israel, through Yehoshua alone.
Yehoshua came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But as a Jew he laid down his life for his nation and took it up again for the salvation of his nation. He did this so that God would grant Jerusalem repentance and Israel would receive him. Whoever believes in him, in what he has done, will receive the blessing of Israel’s corporate salvation, even now. For the present time is the beginning of salvation, the Good News of the Jews, the Good News of Israel and Her Messiah.