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Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America
Pioneer Christian Monthly
Date - May/84
Contributor - John Opmeer
Title - Is The Old Covenant Finished? or Did God Promise to Give The Land Back to The Jews?
Topic - Israel
PART I OF 2 PARTS
When I wrote on "The West Bank and Israel" (June 1983 issue), Mrs. Van Farowe responded with some thought provoking questions, wondering why we should be concerned at all about the future of Israel:
"Didn't Christ say that He would give the vineyard to other keepers? Why do we insist that He must still give it back to the Jews?
Paul said there is no longer a distinction between Jew and Gentile. When Paul spoke of Jerusalem, he spoke of the Jerusalem above. There is nothing of a political Jerusalem in Paul's inspired writings. Why should we be so concerned about Jesus as King over the nation of Israel when already His kingdom is worldwide?"
Perhaps these are your questions too. In that case, you will not be interested in what 'prophecy lovers' teach about modem Israel. Nor will you have much use for large portions of the Old Testament I hope that you are willing to dig into this subject with me, to see what we come up with.
First of all, it is helpful to see that behind the above questions is a conviction. That conviction is (was?) shared by almost all in the Reformed tradition. It goes like this:
God offered the Old Covenant to the Jews. Included in the Covenant was the promise of land. The Jews broke this Covenant particularly in rejecting Jesus as Messiah.
God replaced the Old Covenant with the New. Under the New Covenant the ancient promises have only spiritual application.
The Jews have lost all their special privileges. Hence: there is no further significance to the Jews, their land, or Jerusalem, in God's plan for the earth.
Let's examine this teaching. Is it based on the Bible? Is it the view of Jesus? Of the New Testament writers?
These questions are not asked in a vacuum. The terrible outburst of anti-Jew feelings of recent
history, culminating in the murder of one-third of the Jewish race, has awakened many questions
regarding God's plan for the Jews. As a number of theologians have put it "After Auschwitz,
who can still maintain that God is finished with the Jews as people?" We could add- "After the
rebirth of the state of Israel after 2,500 years, who can still maintain that God's promises of an
end-time revival of the Jewish nation must not be taken literally?"
Now that, of course, only explains why there is so much interest in the Jewish question. It does not help us much with the answer. So, let' s turn to the main question: has the New Covenant cancelled out the Old?
We must deal with this question on two levels, that of the promise of the Old Covenant and that of the view of the New Testament On level one we begin by simply raising some questions. Is it believable that an all-wise, faithful and merciful God gives hundreds of promises to one specific people, relating to their future, their land, their return to faith, their judgement and blessing in the end time, knowing all along that not one of these promises will be fulfilled in their plain, original sense? Furthermore, is it believable that the God whose promises or judgement on Israel by way of exile were fulfilled literally, would not keep His promises of restoration after judgement to these same people? On level two, we must ask whether the New Testament indeed teaches that the promises given by God under the Old Covenant to Israel have no further value now that Israel has rejected Jesus as Messiah
I believe, with a growing number in the Reformed communion, that the answer to these questions is a clear NO. Now lets look at the evidence.
Level One. The Promises
We are dealing here with the Old Testament primarily. Is it true that God's promises to Israel were completely conditional, depending on Israel's faithfulness to the Covenant? The answer is: it is specifically stated, not once but over and over again, that God would be faithful, even if Israel would not be faithful.
1) God's election of the nation of Israel is unconditional.- God made a covenant with Abraham, and confirmed it many times, that the nation descending from him would be blessed and would become blessing to the world (Gen. 12:1 - 3, a.o.). The leading characteristic of Israel's national election is that it is undeserved and unconditional. Israel did not get the promises because it was so important (Deut 7:6, 7) or because it was so righteous (Deut. 9:4 - 6), but because God loved His people, and because He would keep the oath He had sworn to their fathers (Deut. 7:8). God informed Israel by His prophets that He would carry out His promises, even if Israel would be unfaithful, for His own name's sake (Ezek 36: 22, 32).
2) The gift of the land to Israel forever is unconditional- In Gen. 12:7 we read, "The Lord appeared to Abraham and said- To your offspring I give this land". This is repeated and made more explicit yet in Gen 17:7, 8: "I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan ... I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you.
3) The final restoration and blessing of Israel is unconditional.- Among the dozens of prophecies on this theme, let me select the following:
"It is not for your sake, 0 house of Israel that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of My holy name ... For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean... I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt ... They will say, 'This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden'. . . The nations around you that remain will know that I the Lord have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it" (Ezek 36:22, 24, 25, 33, 35, 36)
Could God have spoken more clearly than this? Is there any doubt to whom He was speaking Who dares maintain that after all, God will not do what He said He would do because Israel failed? If God is going to fulfill this promise to other people in a spiritual way, without the towns and the land He spoke about can His "I will do" be the Word of God? You see what is happening: if God did not mean what He said here, how can you be sure He meant what He said somewhere else? It is nice to have a theology that explains it all but the fact remains: if the plain sense of Scripture cannot be trusted, how can the Bible be the infallible Word of God?
One wonders by what stretch of logic has the Christian church so readily given a literal interpretation to all the curses on Israel, while with equal readiness she has given a spiritual interpretation to all the blessings on Israel, applying them exclusively to the church? When God says Israel He first of all means the natural descendants of Jacob. "He who scattered Israel will gather it" (Jer. 31:10)! Does God promise here to gather the church? There is not a single instance in the whole Bible in which the term "Israel" can legitimately be applied to the church. There may be a further, spiritual meaning to a prophecy, but the integrity of the Word of God requires that we first of all honour the original intention of what God said.
I believe, therefore, that the teaching that the Old Covenant promises are no longer valid because the Jews disobeyed God is not based on Scripture. The Old Testament is clear about God's intention to restore the Jewish nation in the end time, and to give it a special role in the final chapter of the history of salvation
Next time, I hope to show that this was also the view of Jesus and the New Testament writers.
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