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The Future Prospects of the Natural Israel
Inasmuch as nearly all Mr. J.B's criticisms are occupied,
wholly or in part, with this subject, we may assume that he regards it as the
most important question now under discussion. The question is: Whether those
promises and prophecies which refer expressly to "Israel" are to be
accomplished in a day yet future in connection with "Israel after the
flesh" (1 Cor. 10:18) which nation is to be reconstituted with all its
twelve tribes; or whether they are to be understood in a spiritual sense, and
as pertaining to the spiritual seed of Abraham, as it is written, "They
which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7) whom
the apostle calls collectively, "The Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16)?
This question specially concerns the New Covenant, promised of God through His
servant Jeremiah, by whom He declared that, in days to come, He would
"make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah"
(Jer. 31:31-34).
While I regard the question of the future of Israel after
the flesh as one concerning which brethren might be permitted to differ
without breach of fellowship, yet I admit it is important that all the members
of the one "household of faith" should
know with
certainty whether or not that great promise of the New Covenant belongs to them
as a part (and indeed a priceless part) of their inheritance in Christ — as it
is written, "If ye be Christ's then are YE Abraham's seed and heirs according
to THE PROMISE" (Gal. 3:29); and also whether, in claiming it as their
God-given birthright they are properly chargeable with "robbing the
Jews?" And in that connection I would ask if it be "robbing the
Jews" to accord "to the New first" the blessings of the
gospel of Christ, including the right of elevation to the exalted rank of a
child of God, an heir of God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ, Whom God hath
appointed the heir of all things?
It will
greatly assist us in our inquiry concerning the future prospects of the natural
Israel if we have in mind certain facts of a broad and general character which
throw light upon that question:
1. Those
who apply the promise of the new covenant and other promises and prophecies of
a like nature to the natural Israel necessarily take for granted the
reconstitution of the Israelitish nation in its entirety and the re-occupation
by that nation of the land of Canaan before the end of this gospel
dispensation. Now it is a very pertinent fact that, among all the prophecies
of the New Testament concerning things that are to happen in connection with
our Lord's second coming, there is not a word or hint of the
national restoration of Israel or Judah, or of their re-occupation of
Palestine, or of the rebuilding of the temple, or of the renewal of the
Levitical priesthood and ritual (including animal sacrifices) or of any of the
related things that dispensationalists, in agreement with the Jewish
talmudists, so confidently assert. If the national prospects of the now widely
scattered — and, as to the larger part, submerged — descendants of Jacob
are indeed what dispensationalists suppose, it is surpassingly strange that the
apostle Paul made not the remotest allusion thereto when he answered his own
question: "Hath God cast away His people?" (Rom. 11:1). Indeed
his inspired answer to that question should suffice of itself to settle the
disputed matter we are considering; for it clearly implies that God had
disowned all except the elect remnant "which He foreknew." And this
is in perfect agreement with our Lord's own words to the leaders of the people:
"The Kingdom of God shall betaken from you, and given to a nation bringing
forth the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43).
2. It is
of the very essence of the doctrine of Christ that He by His cross has abolished
all distinction between Jew and Gentile; that "the middle wall of
partition," which God had aforetime interposed between the people of
Israel and the heathen, has been taken away, and all national and racial
differences between man and man have been abolished by His sacrificial death.
The truth is so clearly set forth and so strongly emphasized in the New
Testament, it is so closely related to the cross and so manifestly precious in
the sight of God, that only by the plainest statement of His Word would we be
warranted in believing that He purposes to raise up again that partition wall,
thus building again the things He has destroyed, and will bring in a
dispensation of a thousand years' duration conspicuously distinguished by the
supremacy of Jews over Gentiles.
3. The
doctrine of a coming dispensation of earthly dominion for the natural Israel to
be shared (on a lower political plane) by Gentile nations is, as might be
expected, very popular with the natural man: for, in order to understand and
rejoice in the prospect thereof, one needs not to be born again, nor to be
delivered from this present evil world and to have his citizenship in heaven,
nor to receive a new heart and to be renewed in the spirit of his mind. On the
other hand, in order to look upon
and long
for the things which are unseen and eternal, one must be made by. the mighty
power of God a new creature in Christ Jesus; for "the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto
him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned"
(1 Cor. 2:14). Hence it was, that, when the promised Messiah of Israel came in
lowly guise, preaching a Kingdom which is "not of this world", which
cometh not with ostentation, and which none can see or enter except he be born
again, He was despised, rejected, betrayed and crucified. Should we not
therefore regard with suspicion that literalistic principle of interpretation
of the O.T. prophecies, which motivated the Jewish sanhedrin in that day and
which is advocated by the dispensationalists in ours, it having been recorded
for our enlightenment that it was "because they knew Him not, nor yet
the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have
fulfilled them in condemning Him" (Acts 13:27)?
4. Inasmuch as our question is —
do the Old Testament promises of blessing belong to the natural Israel or to
the spiritual Israel? to "the son of the bondwoman" or to "the
son of the freewoman?" to the earthly Jerusalem, "that great city
which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was
crucified" (Rev. 11:8) or to "the Jerusalem which is above ...
which is the mother of us all" (Gal. 4:26)? It is to me a
remarkable and significant thing that Mr. J.B's paper contains not a single
reference to the fact that there is another people whom the Scriptures
designate as "the children of Abraham" and to whom the apostle Peter
writes, "but ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy
nation, a. peculiar people ... which in time past were not a people,
but are now THE PEOPLE OF GOD" (1 Pet. 2:9, 10). Yet Mr. J.B. writes
precisely as if the Bible made mention of only one "nation" that God
has owned as His "peculiar people", only one "people of
God", and as if that nation and people was Israel after the flesh. How can
we account for the fact that Mr. J.B. closes his eyes to this
"Israel," which the New Testament presents so conspicuously, and
which it presents as — not a, but — the people of God, an expression
which leaves no room for another people?
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