What is the significance of Judea in the Bible?

This name occurs in Ezra 5:8 for the territory of Judah; in Dan. 5:13 the same is called JEWRY. In the N.T. the name at times refers to a much larger district, including all south of about 32 5' N, 35 20' E with the plain on the west border of the land to mount Carmel as generally shown on N.T. maps. The land was thus divided by Rome, with Samaria in the centre, and Galilee in the north. In Luke 3:1 Judaea embraces the above and Samaria; but in other passages a smaller area than the above is implied. Acts 12:19 speaks of Herod going down from Judaea to Caesarea, whereas Caesarea would be part of the Judaea of the Romans. Paul, in Gal. 1:22; 1 Thess. 2:14, speaks of the 'churches of Judaea' which would seem to embrace the whole of Palestine. The context will almost always show the extent of the district intended. It is called JEWRY in Luke 23:5; John 7:1.

Seventy years of captivity had been foretold by Jeremiah (Jer. 25:11-12; Jer. 29:10); these began in B.C. 606 and ended in 536 when under Cyrus the Jews returned to build the house of Jehovah; but it was not finished and dedicated until B.C. 515. Ezra 6:15. A commission was given to Ezra in B.C. 468 (Ezra 7); and one to Nehemiah to rebuild the city in 455. It could not however be called the kingdom of Judah; only a remnant of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned. They were first subject to the kingdom of Persia, then to the kingdom of Greece, and after a short time of freedom under JUDAS MACCABEUS and his successors they became subject to Rome.

In B.C. 65 Syria became a Roman province and in the year 40 Herod was appointed by Rome king of Judaea, and he continued on the throne to N.T. times. The children of Israel inhabiting Judaea in those days were the descendants of Judah and Benjamin (except any individuals who may have found their way thither from the ten tribes). They were the people to whom the Messiah was presented, and who refused and crucified Him. They continued their persecution in the times of the apostles, and they will be dealt with separately from the ten tribes: cf. Matt. 24:4-35; Matt. 27:25.

In John, together with the state of man, is brought out the gift of eternal life, as if the Lord Jesus had been rejected and redemption had already been accomplished. Israel is viewed as reprobate throughout: the feasts are not spoken of as the feasts of Jehovah, but as 'of the Jews,' and 'the Jews' (those of Jerusalem and Judaea) are distinguished from 'the people,' who may have been Galileans or visitors at the feasts from districts outside Judaea.

The Gospels by Matthew, Mark and Luke are largely occupied with the ministry of the Lord Jesus outside of Jerusalem and Judaea. They record the animosity of the religious leaders toward Him and also trace out the stages in His rejection by the common people. As this rejection becomes more and more apparent a new work comes into view. If He is rejected as the Christ it is upon Him as the Son of God that this new work is founded. In answering the Lord's question, “But whom say ye that I am?” Peter confesses, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee … upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:15-18). John's Gospel is more concerned with events in Jerusalem and Judaea. In this centre of Judaism He is rejected from the outset and we are occupied with this new work from the beginning (John 2:18-21; John 3:14-16; John 4:23-24; John 5:23-25; John 6:53-57; John 7:37-39 etc.). We might well call John's Gospel the Gospel of Christianity. In the parallel passages in Mark 8:27 - 9:1 and Luke 9:18-27 He is confessed as “the Christ,” but there is no reference to His being the Son of God or to the building of the assembly.

This was in Judea. But there is Samaria and Galilee as well as Judea, and we must look at each of them.

These regions, morally, are very different. Samaria was the defiled, Galilee the rational, Judea the religious. These are the characteristic differences between them, as we see them in these chapters.

Surely, then, we see these regions to be morally diverse, and the blessed Lord to be related to each of them in diverse ways. Conscience was stirred in Samaria, and no miracle asked for; and there Jesus was at home. Mind rather than conscience was exercised in Galilee, and miracles were the ground of faith; and there Jesus did a deed of grace and power, but did not dwell. Religion shut Him out from Judea.

Judea was the religious. If Galilee were the intellectual world, Judea was the religious world. Though of a different kind, neither will do for the Son from the bosom. He had not come among men to vindicate or adopt them as religious, nor to educate and cultivate them as intellectual. His business was with defiled man, with man as a sinner, and pretension on man's part in any form will not do for Him.

But further extended as his preaching was over the world, it set forth the comprehensiveness of the grace of God in this dispensation. In principle the sound of this grace was to go to the ends of the earth; and so St. Paul speaks of his ministry as stretching itself on the right hand and on the left, from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum. He had received "apostleship for the obedience to the faith among all nations," and he felt himself debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise. He spake to the Jews, and to the devout persons, to the common people as many as he met with; and then with the philosophers (Acts 17). His purpose was to compass the whole earth. And thus he speaks continually to the churches of passing from place to place, by Corinth into Macedonia, returning thence to Corinth again, and so being brought into Judaea; and again he speaks of going to Rome as he takes his journey into Spain. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, and the Spirit that was in this apostle of God, therefore, thus reached the ends of the world. He was calling on men everywhere to repent, as did the dispensation. And when he could no longer go about with the gospel, being the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, "he received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 28:30). All this was expressive of the comprehensiveness of the grace that was calling in "had and good, that the wedding might be furnished with guests." In the Jewish times the ordinances of God were all at Jerusalem. It was there that men ought to worship. The priest abode in the temple, for the dispensation was one that refused converse with men, but in righteousness kept the flock of God folded in the land of Judaea. But now the dispensation is one of grace, going forth in the activities of love, to gather home the lost sheep that had gone astray upon the mountains; and preaching is therefore the great ordinance of God now. Preaching is the new appointment of God, something that is beyond the mere services of a secluded temple; and of this new ordinance Paul was made the most distinguished minister.

He, "has been preached among the nations" — the impact of God having been manifested in flesh was too great to be confined to Israel. The testimony of it must be widespread. As risen from among the dead the Lord had commissioned and commanded His own that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His Name, beginning at Jerusalem. For this witness they would require power from on high. The Spirit having come upon them they would witness to their Lord in Jerusalem, all Judaea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. We might add that in this would be an extension to His being justified in the Spirit. From then on we trace their activity in witness, moving on in the early chapters of the book of Acts, in Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria and, following the conversion of the erstwhile persecutor Saul of Tarsus, the uttermost parts of the earth or, as he wrote in Colossians 1:23, "the hope of the glad tidings, which ye have heard, which have been proclaimed in the whole creation which is under heaven." Praise God! the witness continues still — "God is one, and the Mediator of God and men one, the Man Christ Jesus, Who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be rendered in its own time" (1 Tim. 2:5-6).

Early in His ministry He so preached the gospel that in Judaea He "made and baptized more disciples than John" (John 4:1). We have no record of this tremendous campaign, truly amazing for the scale of its success, though apparently Peter refers to it when he says that the word which God sent, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, "was published throughout all Judaea" (Acts 10:37).