Introduction
Many Christians believe that the mission
entrusted to Israel in the OT has been continued and expanded in the
Church since Pentecost, and that the nation of Israel as such has
lost forever its previous position and privileges. A logical, if not
inevitable, development of this doctrine is
Christian Palestinianism—an
idea taught in some professedly Christian circles that the Jews have
no right to be in their historical homeland. Now many view the
current troubles in Israel and the surrounding area in purely
political terms, but the issues there actually run to the heart of
what we believe as Christians. I may take no notice of either
politics or prophecy, but if I am a true believer, then I most
definitely have an interest in the promises of God. Why? Because my
salvation depends upon these promises. And yet, if “the land of
promise” (see Heb.
11: 9, my emphasis) ceases to be such for the Jew, then how can the
Christian rely on the promises of God for his inheritance in Christ
(see Eph. 1: 11)? If the Jew cannot rely on God’s Word for earth and
time, how can the Christian rely on God’s Word for heaven and
eternity? He cannot. Again, what is a Christian? One who has
believed God’s Word. So what does that Word say? “He that scattered
Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd his flock” (Jer.
31: 10). Now if the
scattering was
literal, will not the
gathering be as
literal as the scattering? And if the scattering was of national
Israel, will not the gathering be of national Israel as well? The
answers are obvious. It is one thing to draw spiritual lessons from
God’s dealings with Israel (as recorded in the Bible), and quite
another to allegorise the terms which describe that nation and their
land, thus making the promises of God say whatever we want them to
say.
God’s Oath
The Word of God leaves us in no doubt that the
physical land of Canaan was promised to Abraham and his descendants:
“Unto thy seed will I give this land … I am Jehovah who brought thee
out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give thee this land to possess it …
On the same day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy
seed I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river,
the river Euphrates … And I give to thee, and to thy seed after
thee, the land of thy sojourning, all the land of Canaan … Unto thy
seed will I give this land …” (Gen. 12: 7; 15: 7, 18; 17: 8; 24: 7).
Furthermore, it was to be “for an
everlasting
possession” (Gen. 17: 8, my emphasis) and was given, not to Ishmael
or Esau, but to Isaac and Jacob and their seed after them (see Gen.
21: 10; 35: 12; 48: 4; 50: 24)—that is, to the children of Israel.
However, the land was not just promised to
Abraham but
sworn to him—Abraham
recounts not only how God had “spoken
to me” but also how God had “sworn
to me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Gen. 24: 7, my
emphasis). This matter of the divine oath is frequently referred to
by the OT writers before and during the conquest of Canaan (see Gen.
26: 3; Exod. 13: 5; 33: 1; Deut. 1: 8; Josh. 21: 43 etc.), and as
Paul says, an “oath is a term to all dispute, as making matters
sure” (Heb. 6: 16). However, the question might arise as to
why God swears, when
His bare word of promise cannot be broken, it being “impossible that
God should lie” (v18).
In order to answer this, consider another
characteristic feature of the nation of Israel. I refer to the
Aaronic priesthood, an office which was instituted with a set of
exceedingly solemn sanctions, such that “no one takes the honour to
himself but [as] called by God” (Heb. 5: 4). However, this
priesthood could and was “changed” (see Heb. 7: 12) to make way for
the priesthood of Christ and the spiritual priesthood of all
believers in Christ. Why could it be changed? Because it was
instituted “without the swearing of an oath” (v21). Christ, however,
“has the priesthood unchangeable” (v24) for “with the swearing of an
oath … The Lord has sworn, and will not repent [of it],
Thou [art] priest for
ever” (v21). Anything instituted by God for a
temporary purpose (as
was the Mosaic system—see Gal. 3: 23–25) had no oath attached to it,
and could thus be set aside or abolished when its purpose had been
fulfilled, but anything confirmed by an oath remains unalterable.
Thus those who doubt Israel’s title to the land of promise not only
must believe that God can break a promise, but that He can also
violate an oath. That really is an untenable position for any true
believer. The truth is that when God wants to “shew more abundantly
to the heirs of promise the unchangeableness of his purpose” He
intervenes “by an oath” (Heb. 6: 17). Such an oath applies to the
land of promise (see Deut. 31: 23 etc.). It is of course true that
their disobedience resulted in the children of Israel being removed
from the land and scattered “from one end of the earth even unto the
other end of the earth” (Deut. 28: 64). However, this does not at
all undermine the promise of God. He cannot forget Zion (see Is. 49:
15, 16), and ultimately Israel will possess the land
forever (see Amos 9:
15).
The Figment of Past Fulfilment
Those who deny that the Jews have a current claim on the land of
Israel often contend that the prophecies relating to Israel’s
restoration to the land were fulfilled on their return from the
Babylonish captivity. A number of Scriptures can be brought in to
refute this view.
To begin with, the restoration from Babylon was
from a limited area, and consisted of only about fifty thousand
persons. The restoration that Isaiah speaks of is clearly much more
extensive: “And it shall come to pass in that day, [that] the Lord
shall set his hand again the second time to acquire the remnant of
his people which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and
from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and
from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall lift up a
banner to the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of
the earth” (Is. 11: 11, 12). The carrying away to Babylon towards
the end of the sixth century BC was local, but the dispersion after
AD70 was universal. Israel was never in the four corners of the
earth until then, and consequently the gathering back into the land
can only be fulfilled
after that point in
time.
Next, the Bible predicts a restoration to the
land by the Jews after which there shall never be another
dispersion. This was clearly not the case with the return from exile
in Babylon. “Thy people also shall be righteous: they shall possess
the land for ever—the branch of my planting, the work of my hands,
that I may be glorified … But Judah shall abide for ever, and
Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I will purge them from
the blood from which I had not purged them: for Jehovah dwelleth in
Zion (Is. 60: 21; Joel 3: 20). Again, Jeremiah 24: 5 can hardly said
to have been
completely fulfilled
with the edict of Cyrus: “And I will set mine eyes upon them for
good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build
them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck
them up. And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Jehovah;
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall
return unto me with their whole heart” (vs. 6, 7). It is quite
ludicrous to suggest that this was the state of Judaism in the
post–captivity period. Like many prophecies, it has an incomplete
initial fulfilment, but much more waits for the future.
Then there is the fact that the land of promise
has never been possessed in all its
promised dimensions.
God called the land “a good and spacious land” (Exod. 3: 8), and the
promise was “Unto thy seed I give this land, from the river of Egypt
to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen. 15: 18). Now it is
admitted that a great deal of this territory was under tribute to
David and Solomon (see 2 Sam. 8: 6; 1 Kings 4: 21 etc.), but for the
prophecies to be fulfilled, Israel must be in actual possession of
every bit of it (see Deut. 11: 24). A future restoration of Israel
to the land in its fullest geographical sense is thus a legitimate
inference.
Finally, the tribes are to be differently
located and the land differently distributed, from any previous
possession of the land. This will be abundantly evident from a
comparison of Josh. 13, 18–19 and Ezekiel 48. Reuben, for example,
will then have an inheritance
over the Jordan (see
Ezek. 48: 6). These prophecies have never been fulfilled, and are
incapable of being spiritualised in any intelligent way. They thus
demand a future restoration of the Jews to the land.
Fulfilment in the Church?
Many contend that the Jew has no claim upon the
physical land of Israel because the concept of a land of promise has
been transferred to the spiritual inheritance allotted to the
Church. Now it is undeniable that Christians
do have an
inheritance, and that Scripture both parallels and contrasts that
inheritance with the land of Canaan. Thus Peter, writing to Jewish
believers, speaks of how they have been “begotten … again to a
living hope through [the] resurrection of Jesus Christ from among
[the] dead, to an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading
inheritance, reserved in [the] heavens for you” (1 Pet. 1: 3, 4).
Like the two on the road to Emmaus (see Luke 24: 21; see also Acts
1: 6), the expectation of these godly Jews of a Messiah reigning
over Israel had been all but extinguished by the Lord’s crucifixion.
However, a much better hope had since dawned in their hearts,
concerning an inheritance which was not material in nature, but in
“the heavenlies in Christ” (Eph. 1: 3). This inheritance (unlike
Canaan) is also open to Gentile believers (see Acts 26: 17, 18) and
is eternal (see Heb. 9: 15). The Holy Spirit makes it real to the
believer even now (see Eph. 1: 14), for “our struggle is not against
blood and flesh” (as in Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, but “against
spiritual [power] of wickedness in the heavenlies” (Eph. 6: 12).
The manifestation of a hope “laid up for you in
the heavens” (Col. 1: 5) while superseding any earthly hope for
believers
now, does not,
however, mean that the earthly hope is done away
forever. The
disciples question and the Lord’s answer in Acts 1: 6, 7 indicates
very plainly that there will come a time when the nation of Israel
will again return to the fore: “They therefore, being come together,
asked him saying, Lord,
is it at this time
that thou restorest the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, It
is not yours to know
times or seasons,
which the Father has placed in his own authority” (my emphasis). Any
Jew converted now loses his Jewish identity in the “one new man”
(Eph. 2: 15), and his hopes become heavenly not earthly. However
Scripture
is explicit that the hope of Israel is
not lost forever, and when the Church has been called to glory, that
this hope will be revived by God: “And he said unto me, Son of man,
these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold,
they say, Our bones
are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off! Therefore prophesy
and say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah:
Behold I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your
graves, O my people, and bring you into the land of Israel” (Ezek.
37: 11, 12; my emphasis).
Why must the Jews return to the Land?
Few of those who believe in the return of
Israel to their ancestral homeland ever stop and consider
why it must be so.
God’s purpose is never arbitrary, and there is no exception here.
When Joseph made himself known to his brothers, all of them had to
be there. This is but a feeble hint of how the Lord will gather his
earthly brethren together, so that He may address their guilt with
them, and save a people for Himself: “And it shall come to pass in
all the land, saith Jehovah, two parts therein shall be cut off
[and] die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the
third part into the fire, and I will refine them as silver is
refined, and will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my
name, and I will answer them: I will say, It is my people; and they
shall say, Jehovah is my God” (Zech. 13: 8, 9). Certainly the Jews
“shall look on me whom they pierced” and in “that day there shall be
a great mourning in Jerusalem”, but in the mercy of God it also says
that there will be a “fountain opened … for sin and for uncleanness”
(Zech. 12: 10, 11; 13: 1)! We must never forget that while God gives
the nations their inheritance in the earth,
God’s own inheritance
is Israel (see Deut. 32: 8, 9), and they remain, despite their
current estrangement, “the apple of his eye” (Zech. 2: 8).
Attention has often been drawn to the account
of the glory of God departing from the temple in Ezekiel 10 and 11,
but the same glory is described as returning in chapter 43 (see vs.
2–5). The prophet is not left in doubt as to the meaning of all
this: “and he said unto me, Son of man, [this is] the place of my
throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in
the midst of the children of Israel for ever; and the house of
Israel shall no more defile my holy name, they nor their kings” (v7;
see also Zech. 8: 3, 8). It is patently obvious that none of this
has been fulfilled in relation to Israel, and it is fanciful in the
extreme to attempt to transfer the prophecy to the Church instead.
Either all of this is yet future, or God’s Word is false.
God’s purpose for Israel is for that nation to
be the centre of the earth: “This is Jerusalem: I have set her in
the midst of the nations, and the countries are round about her”
(Ezek. 5: 5). This is more than a matter of mere geography, for God
will have Israel to be the strategic centre of the world, the nation
through whom divine favour can be administered to the nations, “a
blessing in the midst of the earth” (Is. 19: 24). Thus it is
prophesied that “many nations shall go and say, Come, and let us go
up to the mountain of Jehovah, and to the house of the God of Jacob;
and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For
out of Zion shall go forth the law, and Jehovah’s word from
Jerusalem” (Mic. 4: 2). Hence it will come to pass that just as they
were a curse among the nations, so the Jews will be a blessing (see
Zech. 8: 13), and men of “all languages of the nations, shall even
take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with
you; for we have heard [that] God is with you” (v23). In that day
“my people shall never be ashamed” (Joel 2: 27).
Has this ever been true of the Jew since
the captivity in Babylon? All history testifies to the contrary.
Conclusion
Christians are the recipients of “exceeding great and precious
promises” (2 Pet. 1: 4; AV), heavenly in character and centred in
the Man in the glory (see Eph. 1: 3–14). God, however, has not given
up his thoughts for the earth, and a day will soon dawn when He will
gather Israel from the four corners of the earth to “a good land, a
land of waterbrooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth
in the valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines,
and fig–trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive–trees and honey”, a
land where they shall “eat bread without scarceness” and where they
shall “lack nothing” (Deut. 8: 7–9). Thus both heaven and earth
shall display, according to their character, the beneficence of God.
Let us not then ‘hesitate’ at any of the promises of God “through
unbelief” but be “fully persuaded that what he has promised he is
able also to do” (Rom. 4: 20, 21)!
