With the present Middle East crises the question is again raised, “Is not God through with the Jews?” Has not the Church replaced Israel and God has finally and totally rejected Israel? Of course individual Jews can come to Christ, but will the Lord ever restore the national theocracy with the Lord Jesus reigning over the Davidic messianic kingdom?
Many pastors and so-called theologians are proclaiming publicly that what is happening in Israel and Lebanon has nothing to do with the Bible or prophecy. The Jewish people have no prophesied fulfillments that will come to pass in the future.
But what does the Bible say?
No one can honestly look at Scripture and say that the Lord is through will Israel, unless he purposefully rejects clear passages that remind the reader that God will restore the Jews to the Promised Land! Some try to say that the return of Israel back to the Land following the Babylonian Captivity was the final and complete fulfillment of a “return.” But no honest Bible scholar can make such a claim!
The Abrahamic Covenant Remains
God made it clear that the promises to Abraham would form a binding covenant (contract) that God Himself vows to fulfill, despite the failings of Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 12:1-3). Through Moses the Lord said: “I will remember My covenant with Jacob (Israel), and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land” (Lev. 26:42). But what if the Jews are unfaithful? Then, “the land shall be abandoned by them … because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes” (v. 43). Well, if this happened (which it did), will not God then completely and forever cut the Jewish people off from their Land inheritance?
God continues His argument and says: “Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant (the Abrahamic not the Mosaic) with them; for I am the Lord their God” (v. 44). And, “I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord” (v. 45).
While it is true the Mosaic Covenant is “conditional,” i.e. dependent on the Law keeping of Israel, the Abrahamic Covenant is solely dependent on the faithfulness of God to someday fulfill. And the promised of the Holy Land to some future generation is part and parcel of that vow from the Lord. The Abrahamic Covenant is “The word which He commanded to a thousand generations. The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. He also confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance’” (1 Chron. 16:15-18).
One of the most telling passages is found in Judges 2:1-2. In verse 2 God told Israel that when they came into the Land they played the harlot with the pagans and “you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done?” (v. 2). Despite their sinfulness, and the fact that someday they would be temporarily be driven off the Land, the Lord emphasized: “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you’” (v. 1).
God will do what He said
There are no indications in Scripture that the Lord will turn His back on these promises. Some future generation of Jews will repent, turn to Christ as their Savior, and receive the kingdom blessings of the Land for one thousand years! Christ will be reigning on the throne of David in Jerusalem!
Despite their sinfulness, the world will see Israel’s restoration (Ezek. 39:21), and that they went into exile for their wickedness (v. 23). Nevertheless, God “will restore the fortunes of Jacob (not the Church)” and have mercy on the whole house of Israel (v. 25). They will dwell securely in the land (which has never happened as yet) and “no one will make them afraid” (v. 26). God will “bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations” (v. 27). God will “gather them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there (among the nations) any longer” (v. 28). The Lord will no longer hide His face from the Jews but “shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Lord” (v. 29).
How nice to be wrong!
The Reformed and Covenant theologians have a right to be wrong! And of course they are! They believe God has replaced the Church with Israel. Their allegorical and amillennial theology does not line up with the normal reading of Scripture. They have thoroughly misled believers through the generations and denied God’s everlasting promises to Israel.
