Who Are the Dispersion?

I believe the “other sheep” of John 10:16 “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd”, are the circumcision believers, the sheep of the dispersion. Peter, James, and John wrote to them (Jam 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1; Rev 1:9). We can see that the “other sheep” refers to the dispersion by looking at the Old Testament material. In Jeremiah 50:4-7,17-19, it says, “In those days and in that time, says the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; with continual weeping they shall come and seek the LORD their God. 5 They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces toward it, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to the LORD In a perpetual covenant that will not be forgotten. 6 My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray; they have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill; They have forgotten their resting place. 7 All who found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We have not offended, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, The LORD, the hope of their fathers. 17 Israel is like scattered sheep. The lions have driven him away. First the king of Assyria devoured him; Now at last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones. 18 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I have punished the king of Assyria. 19 But I will bring back Israel to his home. And he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan; His soul shall be satisfied on Mount Ephraim and Gilead.”

As we continue reading OT material, it will become clearer that these other sheep are the dispersion of Israel. In Deuteronomy 30:1-5 it says, “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you, 2 and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3 that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. 5 Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.”

In Psa 44:11 it says, “You have given us up like sheep intended for food and have scattered us among the nations.” And in Jeremiah 31:7-12 it says, “For thus says the LORD: ‘Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations; Proclaim, give praise, and say, “O LORD, save Your people, the remnant of Israel!” 8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the ends of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and the one who labors with child, together; a great throng shall return there. 9 They shall come with weeping, and with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn. 10 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’ 11 For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he. 12 Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, streaming to the goodness of the LORD; For wheat and new wine and oil, for the young of the flock and the herd; Their souls shall be like a well-watered garden, and they shall sorrow no more at all.”

Returning to Zechariah 13, in 7-9 it says, “Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the Man who is My Companion, says the LORD of hosts. Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; Then I will turn My hand against the little ones. 8 And it shall come to pass in all the land, says the LORD, that two-thirds in it shall be cut off and die, but one-third shall be left in it: 9 I will bring the one-third through the fire, will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, This is My people; and each one will say, The LORD is my God.”

It’s important for us to realize that when Christ was on earth, His ministry was not to us Gentiles. His ministry at that time was only to Israel. Christ showed this in Matthew 10:5,6 when it said, “These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He states it even more explicitly in Matthew 15:24, “But He answered and said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Even that wicked high priest, Caiaphas was moved into the picture by God when he said in John 11:51-52, “You know nothing at all, 50 nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people [Israel], and not that the whole nation [Israel] should perish. 51 Now this he did not say on his own authority; but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, 52 and not for that [the] nation only, but also that He would gather together in [into] one the children of God [Israel] who were scattered abroad. Eze 20:34, 41; 28:25; 36:19, and Joel 3:2 are more references.

In Ezekiel 11:16-20 we find new covenant overtones. This would place the unification’s fulfillment time after the tribulation to at least the time of the millennium. “Therefore say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone. 17 Therefore say, Thus says the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel. 18 And they will go there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there. 19 Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.”

I believe our Lord was thinking of the following portions I emphasized in Ezekiel 37:15-28 when He made the “other sheep” statement in John 10:16. “Again the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 16 as for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: For Judah [Judah and Benjamin] and for the children of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write on it, for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim [The ten tribes], and for all the house of Israel, his companions. 17 Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand. 18 And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, Will you not show us what you mean by these?; 19 say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand. 20 And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. 21 Then say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; 22 and I will make them one nation in the land [Of course, these will only be believers.], on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations [Israel and Judah], nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again. 23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God. 24 David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd [Jesus Christ]; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. 25 Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. [This is in connection with the promised Davidic kingdom which was offered in Acts 3:19-26] Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. 27 My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 28 The nations also will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary [The New Jerusalem of Revelation 21] is in their midst forevermore.”

Christ, the Great Shepherd, will gather the other sheep from among the nations and make His sheep one flock in fulfillment of these prophecies. Jeremiah 23:1-8 is the most comprehensive of them all. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture! says the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings, says the LORD. 3 But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. 4 I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, says the LORD. 5 Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness [According to the promise of 2 Sam 7]; a King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. 6 In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. 7 Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, that they shall no longer say, As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, 8 but, As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them. And they shall dwell in their own land.”

Hebrews 13:20 applies these themes to Christ and the circumcision believers. “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant make you complete in every good work to do His will.”

Israel will have a new city. It will come down from heaven for them. Christ’s twelve apostles, the undershepherds, will have their names on the foundations of the city and will sit on twelve thrones judging them. Revelation 21:12-14 shows us this wonderful sight. “Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: 13 three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. 14 Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

Therefore, we must conclude that the dispersion are not Gentiles. They will be believers who will be joined with the true Israel, the little flock. The one flock will be the true Israel of God. They will inherit the kingdom promised to David. They will have one Shepherd. At first, the little flock was the twelve. But soon thousands of Jews believed. After the body of Christ is taken up in the rapture and the tribulation purifies the nation, they will receive their long awaited kingdom.

John the Baptist sent to Israel. That’s what it says in John 1:31: “I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water.” John came to Israel to show that Jesus was the Messiah or Christ. It was at a time when God was only dealing with the Jews. The method of salvation was repent and be baptized for your sins. This was the message of the kingdom gospel. Luke 16:16 shows when the kingdom gospel started: “The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.”

When James wrote his epistle to the Jewish dispersion, he explicitly calls them the twelve tribes who are scattered abroad: “To the twelve tribes which are in the dispersion (tai'" dwvdeka fulai'" tai'" ejn th'/ diaspora'/).” The New Testament Greek-English Dictionary, World Library Press, Inc., Springfield, Missouri, defines dispersion, diasporav, “The term . . . occurs infrequently in secular Greek, but it appears regularly in Jewish and Christian documents where it is a technical term of the Jewish settlements outside the borders of Palestine. . . . In later Judaism diaspora was the usual term for describing those Jews who lived in areas which were formerly places of exile. The New Testament understands it in this sense of Jews who lived among the Greeks (John 7:35). The story of the dispersion of the Hellenists from Jerusalem following the stoning of Stephen uses the verb diaspeiro` to describe the event (Acts 8:1,4; 11:19). When James wrote of ‘the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad’ (1:1) and when Peter wrote to ‘the strangers scattered throughout’ (1 Peter 1:1), diaspora should probably be read in its traditional technical sense.” The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says, v. 2, pp. 98-104. “diasporav This has almost become a loan-word. It refers in the first instance to the Jewish dispersion, i.e., to the scattered Jews (diasporav from diaspeivrein, . . .) living outside Palestine.” It “occurs most frequently in the LXX. In all 12 passages concerned it is a technical term for the ‘dispersion of the Jews among the Gentiles,’ . . . ‘the Jews as thus scattered.’ Jm. 1:1 and 1 Pt. 1:1 are the two other NT passages in which the term occurs, and they are obviously related. If the Epistles are addressed to Jewish Christians, we have the normal usage and the reference is to the Jewish diaspora. On the other hand, if they are addressed to Gentile Christians, the word is given a figurative Christian sense.” But, “ There is, of course, no clear support for the equation of aiJ dwvdeka fulaiv [the twelve tribes] with [non-Jewish] Christians.”

When we read James’ salutation, how much more Jewish can you get? Most expositors believe James wrote to Jewish Christians of the dispersion. Guthrie wrote, “In these circumstances the authorship of James, the Lord’s brother, must still be considered more probable than any rival. (Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, p. 758, 739.) He cited J.B. Mayor’s explanation for the reluctant acceptance of the epistle in the west: “The difference is easily explained from the fact that the Epistle was probably written at Jerusalem and addressed to the Jews of the East Dispersion; it did not profess to be written by an apostle or to be addressed to Gentile churches and it seemed to contradict the teaching of the great apostle to the Gentiles.”

When we remember that James is named by Paul in Galatians 2:9 as a pillar of the Jerusalem church who would limit his ministry to the circumcision, we recognize the credibility of Mayor’s observation.

A.T. Robertson also supports the Jewish flavor of this epistle in his Word Pictures in the New Testament, p. 5. “The author addresses himself ‘to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion’ (James I:I). Clearly, then, he is not writing to Gentiles, unless he includes the spiritual children of Abraham in the term Diaspora as Paul does for believers (Gal. 3:29; Rom. 9:6f.). [Diaspora does not occur in Romans or Galatians.] The word diaspora occurs elsewhere in the NT. only in John 7:35; 1 Pet 1:1. It apparently has the spiritual significance in 1 Pet. 1:1, but in John 7:35 the usual meaning of Jews scattered over the world. The use here of ‘the twelve tribes’ makes the literal sense probable here. Clearly also James knew nothing of any ‘lost’ tribes, for the Jews of the Dispersion were a blend of all the twelve tribes. It is probable also that James is addressing chiefly the Eastern Dispersion in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia as Peter writes to five provinces in the Western Dispersion in Asia Minor. It is possible that James has in mind Christian and non-Christian Jews, not wholly non-Christian Jews as some hold. He may have in mind merely Christian Jews outside of Palestine, of whom there were already many scattered since the great pentecost [sic]. The use of synagogue as a place of worship (2:2) like church (5:14) argues somewhat for this view. He presents the Mosaic law as still binding (2:9-11; 4:11). As the leading elder of the great church in Jerusalem and as a devout Jew and half-brother of Jesus, the message of James had a special appeal to these widely scattered Jewish Christians.”

Because of this overwhelming testimony to the Jewishness of this epistle, then, we see that it is certainly resting on the foundation of the conditional covenant of circumcision. We must apply the practical exhortations of these epistles, but we cannot appropriate the salvation material without severe hermeneutical problems. We, in this dispensation, possess salvation, are sealed and can’t lose it, but it was different for the believers under the gospel of the circumcision. Because it was a conditional dispensation, they were in the process of salvation. They would have to endure in the tribulation (Mat 24:13,14). They had to remain in Christ, the vine (John 15:6). They had to continue confessing their sins (1 John 1:9). If they did not endure or abide, they would be lost.

When we look at the salutation of 1 Peter, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, we see that Peter was writing to the same group that James wrote. A. Welch wrote in The Authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, pp. 22,23, that Peter also wrote to the dispersion. “The apostle of the circumcision (Gal 2:7,8), wrote the epistle called First Peter to the Jewish Christians of the dispersion. The First Epistle is addressed to ‘the sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia,’ etc.; the Second, ‘to them that have obtained like precious faith with us in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.’ These inscriptions are so different that they naturally suggest that the Epistles could not have been intended for the same class of readers. This suggestion is confirmed by an examination of the contents of the Epistles. . . . In short, he seems to have in his mind just such a community as is pointed to in Hebrews . . . . This is so like the state of things indicated in Hebrews that we have been constrained to conclude that both Epistles, that is, Hebrews and Second Peter, were addressed to the Jewish section of the Church at Rome.”

Then, in 1 Pe 1:3-5, Peter conveyed some wonderful thoughts to the dispersion when he wrote these words: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

They have been begotten again for a living hope and a permanent inheritance. They are kept by the power of God for salvation prepared to be revealed in the end time. But, is this rebirth absolute? Does it mean they are secure? Are there any conditions which must be met for them to experience these blessings? Their assurance depended on their faith. They are being kept (This is a present participle, it is continuous present action, tou" en dunamei qeou frouroumenou" dia pistew" ei" swthrian etoimhn apokalufqhnai en kairw escatw,. those being kept by the power of God through faith.) by their faith. If they continue in their faith until the end, they will make their salvation sure (Mat 24:10-14) since these epistles will have special use in the tribulation. That is why Peter told them to be diligent to make their election sure in 2 Peter 1:10,11: “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Therefore, those circumcision believers of the dispersion who were saved before the body of Christ began with the salvation of the Apostle Paul would be saved if they made their election sure by doing the thing listed in 2 Pe 1.