Author: HEAVENLY REMNANT MINISTRIES

We are at the beginning of the bigger study of eschatology, but kind of in the middle of studying the role that Israel plays in eschatology.

In His sovereignty, God is moving everything to His own purposed, glorious end. What is wonderful for us is that He has revealed so much about it in the Bible. The book of Revelation, tells us the most. Foundational to any accurate understanding of the end is an accurate understanding of the future of Israel. Israel is the cornerstone of biblical eschatology.

It is a matter of election. Israel is God’s elect nation. The Bible calls the church, “God’s Elect.” And the Bible calls Israel, “My Elect.” And thus it is strange, that it is the very historic theology of sovereign election whose advocates have denied this to Israel. In fact, they have come up with the idea that the church, God’s new and present elect, receives all the promises once given to Israel, because of Israel’s apostasy and rejection of Christ.

REFORMED THEOLOGY AND ESCHATOLOGY

Where did this incorrect view originated? There is no verse anywhere in the Bible that says the promises of God to Israel have been cancelled and the church is the new Israel. Historically it started with a man named Augustine in the fifth century. As a shaping theologian, he was the main influence in the lives of people like John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Owen and many other formidable students of Scripture. The idea then, began in a formal sense with Augustine, flowed down through these great Reformers and found honour among those who rightly honour the Reformers and so it has long survived.

However, reformed theology, is hard pressed to prove the point. They have come up with a view called amillennialism which says there is no Kingdom for Israel, and for that matter there is no earthly Kingdom period in which Christ reigns on earth and fulfils all of the Old Covenant promises. This is called replacement theology. The church replaces Israel and the blessings are spiritual. The Kingdom then becomes only a spiritual Kingdom and a heavenly Kingdom and not an earthly one at all. They have to perform some very manipulative exegesis to avoid what is clearly in the Bible. Scripture then has to be removed from its normal sense and placed in a category of interpretation. You have to basically say that when God called Israel His Elect, and gave them unconditional, unilateral, irrevocable promises, He didn’t keep them, or He doesn’t keep them, so that election doesn’t mean permanent election, it might be temporary as in the case of Israel.

CHALLENGES TO AMILLENNIALISM

Nobody who believes in the doctrine of election thinks its temporary with the elect angels, the elect Son or with the elect church, so this has to be a category invented to accommodate replacement theology.

They cannot interpret Scripture in the normal sense in which it is written both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, because clearly in both promises are made to Israel. Therefore Israel doesn’t mean Israel, a thousand years doesn’t mean a thousand years, reigning in Jerusalem doesn’t mean reigning in Jerusalem, it must now mean something else.

Now you have to ignore the clear words of Zechariah 12 to 14, Ezekiel 36 to 39, Romans 9 to 11, particularly. And you also have to do damage to your own understanding of sovereign grace because you are saying that Israel failed to believe and embrace Christ. You would also have to say that Israel would have guaranteed its own place in the future purposes of God if on its own it had done what was right. The problem is, nobody can believe except by the sovereign grace of God. Israel has failed but that has not altered God’s plan because the generation that is elect has not yet come. To believe that the church somehow has earned the promises given to Israel because we pulled it off on our own and Israel didn’t, is a skewed way of thinking about sovereign grace. Romans 9 through 11 teaches that salvation is by sovereign grace and election alone for the church now and many Jews that are brought into the church and for Israel in the future.

However, some Reformers, like the Scottish theologian Horatius Bonar, differ from this view. In 1847 he wrote prophetic landmarks and he took a position very different from his Reformed friends. He was always a strong advocate of the doctrines of sovereign grace and election. He affirmed that election was forever and therefore affirmed the primacy of the destiny of the Jews in the scheme of eschatology. This is what Bonar wrote in 1847: “The prophecies concerning Israel are the key to all the rest. False principles as to them…that is Israel…will most thoroughly perplex and over cloud the whole Word of God.”

He further wrote, ” As I believe in Israel’s present degradation, so do I believe in Israel’s coming glory and pre-eminence. I believe that God’s purpose regarding our world can only be understood by understanding God’s purpose as to Israel.” Now remember, this was said, almost a hundred years before they had ever been gathered back into their land as prophesied in the Bible.

He went on to say, “I believe that it is not possible to enter God’s mind regarding the destiny of man without taking as our key or our guide His mind regarding that ancient nation. Human guesses concerning the future are the most uncertain of all uncertainties and human hopes built upon these guesses are sure to turn out the most disappointing if not the most disastrous of all failures. I believe that meanwhile Israel shall not only be wanderers, but that everywhere only a remnant, a small remnant shall be saved. I believe that these times of ours are the times of the Gentiles and that Jerusalem and Israel shall be trodden down of the Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

HISTORY OF ANTI-JUDAISM IN REFORMED CIRCLES

There is a strong anti-Judaism in Reformed Theology and at the Westminster Theological Seminary, which is a seed bed of amillennial thinking, saying Israel had lost its election and the right to all its covenants and promises.

For example, George Murray writing in Millennial Studies says, “… be sure the nation was sovereignly chosen by God, but God no longer deals with them as a chosen nation.” So they were chosen, they aren’t chosen anymore. They were elect, they’re not elect anymore! Some contemporary anti-Judaism replacement theology, like the Anglicans, are so anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian that they would be delighted if the Arabs pushed Israel right into the Mediterranean Sea.

Based on chapter 12 of Genesis, if a Christian’s eschatology produces indifference toward the children of Abraham, or detachment from the children of Abraham, or antagonism toward the children of Abraham, you are in trouble because the Abrahamic Covenant says you bless them and God will bless you, you curse them and God will curse you.

Augustine even likened the Jewish people to Cain, the first criminal recorded in biblical history who had murdered his own brother and merited death but instead had been condemned to wander unhappily ever after. According to him, the Jews are witnesses to what happens when you reject the truth. He did however, suggest that they would turn to Christ at the last judgment. The canonical legislation of the church in the thirteenth century fully institutionalized the reprobate status of the Jews. The Jews then had to be subordinate to Christians. They could exercise no position of authority and Christian society had to be originally protected from contamination through living, eating, or engaging in any sexual relationship with a Jew. That was church law.

In the thirteenth century, the Lateran Council segregated the Jews by requiring them to wear distinguishing dress. In Germanic lands they wore a conical hat and what they called a Jew-badge, usually a yellow disc sewn into their clothing whose color symbolized Judas betraying Christ for gold coins. It made the Jews more visible and vulnerable to attack which reduced their ability to travel. And so they formed ghettos. The German Reformation a few hundred years later under Luther’s guidance led to a very unfavorable direction for the Jews, seeded hatred sewn deep. It eventually found its full flower in the Third Reich with Hitler. The German Protestants showed themselves amazingly receptive to Nazi anti-Semitism, ingrained for so many centuries. Also at the Council of Nicaea in 325, Jews were called “that odious people.”

This attitude stuck throughout the Middle Ages. At the end of the thirteenth century they were expelled from England by Edward I and allowed to come back 350 years later under Cromwell. In 1144 in Norwich, England, the Jews were charged with killing their babies to drain the blood to use in the Matsos, the unleavened bread of Passover. In the sixteenth century, at the time of the Reformation pervasive anti-Jewish attitudes pervaded in Europe. And sad to say, the Reformation didn’t change it. At the last sermon that Luther preached before he died, he called for all Jews to be driven out of Germany. He was fighting on another front, never really got around to dealing with that issue which was so ingrained in the culture. This led to this Amillennial Replacement Theology.
The Christian Reformed Church, Dutch Reformed Calvinism, would not tolerate anybody believing in a future kingdom for Israel. Anybody who did was placed under investigation. They actually went so far as to forbid preaching or discussing premillennialism.

One writer, W.J. Greer said, “The power of Augustine is best seen in the fact that he removed the ghost of premillennialism so effectively that for centuries the subject was practically ignored.”

This actually continues to be an issue today. In our modern tolerant world, a world that embraces everybody and everything, there is still this subjective sort of pre-suppositional anti-Judaism, if not anti-Semitism, mentality.

BIBLICAL REALITY – THE ABAHAMIC, DAVIDIC AND NEW COVENANTS

The race Israel is chosen and a generation or remnant will be saved, although present-day Israel lives in apostasy and unbelief and can claim no protection from God now. God will preserve them as a race although they are under divine judgment, as are all people who reject Christ. But they do have a future.

In Genesis 12 and following chapters we said that obviously God promised Abraham a seed, a nation, a land, blessing and through them blessing to the world. Specifically, a nation that would grow like the sands of the sea and the stars of the heaven and through that nation a seed, as the Apostle Paul describes it in Galatians, meaning a ruler, a Messiah which assumes a Kingdom. It’s all in the ABRAHAMIC COVENANT, we saw that last time.

The second great covenant in the Old Testament is the DAVIDIC COVENANT in 2 Samuel chapter 7. The Davidic Covenant, is made with David. It really is an expansion of the Abrahamic Covenant. Verse 12, “When your days are complete you will lie down with your fathers. I’ll raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish His Kingdom.” Verse 13, “He shall build a house for My name, I will establish a throne of His Kingdom forever.” We know He’s not talking about Solomon, but about a forever Kingdom. Down in verse 16 He moves again beyond Solomon to the forever King and the forever Kingdom, “Your house, and Your kingdom shall endure before Me forever, Your throne shall be established forever.” God is saying to David, “Out of your loins, out of your line is going to come a King with an everlasting Kingdom.”

Also, Psalm 72 speaks of the reign of the great King who will come and establish His Kingdom and bring peace to the people. Verse 18, “Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel who alone works wonders. Blessed be His glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with His glory, Amen, Amen.” David is celebrating here the wonderful promise of the King. He will rule, according to verse 8, from sea to sea, from river to the ends of the earth, etc. Psalm 89 is another of these great Psalms of the King that celebrate the covenant that God made with David. There is no other way to interpret these covenants.

But both the Abrahamic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant depend on one other covenant. In Jeremiah 31, the Abrahamic Covenant expands in to the Davidic Covenant which expands in to the New Covenant which is the only way that the promises of the Abrahamic and Davidic covenant can come to pass. This is the only means of fulfillment and it is the New Covenant. Verse 31, “Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the hand of Egypt. Not like the Mosaic or Sinaitic Covenant, the Covenant of Law, not like that. “Covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord.”

Here is the dilemma. You have the Abrahamic and the Davidic covenants with all its promises. Then you have then the Mosaic Covenant which only proves that they can’t qualify for the blessings because they can’t keep the Mosaic law, which only curses them. You need to come to the New Covenant, which is not like the Mosaic Covenant. God promises one day He will change their hearts and write the Law inside of them. And then He will be their God and they shall be His people.

God hasn’t changed His mind. “Thus says the Lord…verse 37…if the heavens above can be measured…and they can’t…and the foundation of the earth searched out below…and it can’t…then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the Lord.” There is in one passage the answer to Replacement Theology. God is not going to cast off Israel even for what they have done. The New Covenant was given through Jeremiah at a time when Israel’s disobedience was so severe, they were punished by God. Jeremiah was weeping over Israel’s judgment, the captivity and the New Covenant is not a reward for their faithfulness, it is given in spite of their unfaithfulness. God says there will be a day when I will change their hearts sovereignly. He will not change His plan anymore than He will allow the fixed order of His creation to be altered. And when that Covenant comes, He wll write His Law on the inside.

So where do the Gentiles fit in? We are also the beneficiaries of all the promises to Abraham. Messiah is the Son of Abraham and we by faith are children of Abraham. We will also be there in the Kingdom and receive all the blessings of the glorious reign of Christ on earth whether we have been glorified before, or whether saints entering into the Kingdom who are alive at the time. He has written His Law in our hearts as well, without replacing Israel. In Jeremiah 31, all the way up to verse 30 we see some very physical blessings.

Ezekiel 36 rehearses the same term and realities of the New Covenant. Verse 34, “I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols…” Moreover, verse 26, “I will give you a new heart, put a new Spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you, cause you to walk in My statutes…. You will ll live in the land that I gave to your forefathers so that you will be My people, I will be your God. Moreover I will save you from all your uncleanness.”

Verse 33, “… Once I’ve cleansed you, the Kingdom comes and the desolate land will be cultivated, instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passed by, and they will say this desolate land has become like the Garden of Eden, and the waste desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited and the nations that are left round about you will know that I the Lord have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate. In the language of chapter 37, “He will gather the dry bones of Israel.”

Jesus ratifies the New Covenant in His blood at the very hands of the apostate Jews. The New Covenant is reiterated to Israel through their own Messiah at a time when they were under apostasy and on the brink of judgment which came a few years later in 70 A.D. But Israel will exist through these judgments until the covenants are fulfilled.

Zechariah 12, “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem …the spirit of grace and supplication…, and they will look on Me whom they have pierced.” Two thirds of the Jews will perish, one third will be left, that will be that final Israel that is saved. And when that happens, verse 9 of 14, “The Lord will be King over all the earth, … ”

THE ROLE OF ISRAEL

Certainly, the nation Israel is at the center stage of history in the world. Particularly since it was re-established as a nation in 1948. But even before that, Israel was always a preoccupation for the world. It was chosen by God to be the land of promise for His people and the very place where He sent His Son to do His mighty work of redemption and salvation.

Israel is still center stage in the world. They are in the news every day and it always seems as if they could be engulfed and swept into oblivion by the surrounding Islamic world at any moment. But that will not happen. They are not currently under the protection of God because they are apostate and they have rejected their Messiah. However, they will be preserved as an ethnic people because God does have a future plan to save a remnant of them to give them the promises that He made in the Old Testament. So the history of Israel will continue going forward, and it will even become a bigger point at the very end when the Lord returns to the earth and places His feet in Israel, in Jerusalem on the Mount and sets up His Millennial Kingdom. From Jesus would rule the entire world.

Throughout all of human history and even in the Middle Ages people were wondering why, while no other ancient people could be found, you could always find the Jews. It is evident and tangible that God wrote the Bible and that He is protecting His people for His future purposes.

ESCHATOLOGY IS IMPORTANT

Every story is written for an ending. God’s redemptive history is written so that it might be brought to pass and so that we might understand how it is going to end.

God could not write the end of human history unless He was in absolute control of it. History is controlled by God as to culminate in the accomplishment of His purpose for His own glory. It will end with the same perfect precision and power with which it began and by which it is being continually sustained.

Some people however think that the end of the story is very vague, and almost any view will do because it is so unclear. That is not the case, nor is it unimportant. It is something God cares greatly about and we are accountable to give the whole counsel of God, and that is part of it. God doesn’t say what doesn’t matter. In any book, in any story, the end is the motive for the story in the first place. And so it is with the Bible. Everything was predicted and planned and is being executed by a sovereign all-powerful, all-knowing God to bring it to a glorious end which He planned before anything ever began. He wants us to enjoy the foretaste of the glories that are to come. He tells us about heaven. We are blessed, purified, comforted and encouraged in knowing what is to come.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

In eschatology, there is a sequence of events and this is the way the Bible lays it out. In the very end, everything starts with the Rapture of the church. The gathering of the church into the presence of the Lord. That is followed by a period called the Tribulation.

Tribulation is a period in which God brings horrific judgment on the world, the details of which are described in Revelation, starting in chapter 6 and running through chapter 19. Tribulation ends with the Second Coming of Christ, when He comes to earth bringing His church. He destroys the ungodly and sets up His Kingdom.

At the end of the Kingdom there is the Great White Throne Judgment which is the final judgment of all the ungodly who are raised from the dead. The tribunal of God, where the final sentence is rendered and they are sent forever into the Lake of Fire. After the final Judgment the universe as we know it is uncreated and God creates a new heaven and a new earth, the eternal state in which we live forever.

If you follow the book of Revelation, that’s exactly the way it’s laid out. Chapters 2 and 3 describes the present church age and immediately thereafter, in chapter 4 you see the church worshiping in heaven. Though it does not describe the Rapture, it is described in other places. Then in chapter 6 the judgments on the earth begin as the Tribulation takes place. At the end, the Lord Jesus comes in chapter 19, sets up His Kingdom after His return in chapter 20, then calls all sinners to the final Great White Throne Judgment. Then in chapter 21, He sets up the New Heaven and the New Earth. It really is not that difficult, just take it at face value.

The Rapture is what we call imminent, meaning it is next. Its exact timing is unknown to us and absolutely nothing prophetically specifically needs to happen before it. All the prophetic elements of eschatology really are triggered by the Rapture of the church.

So all history is headed toward the eternal reign of the Lord Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords in His earthly Kingdom, first of all, for a thousand years, then in His eternal Kingdom forever and forever.

The major focus for us in this initial study is to look at the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. This Millennial Kingdom described in Revelation 20 which lasts for a thousand years, as mentioned six times in the opening verses. It’s not a symbolic number.

The Old Testament says a lot about the things that are going to take place in the Kingdom. It talks about the salvation of Israel. It talks about salvation of Gentiles prior to the Kingdom during the Tribulation as well as in the Kingdom. It talks about the renewal of the earth, the restoration of the earth, paradise regained. It talks about the removal of the curse that has been upon the earth. It talks about the bodily resurrection of the saints who are going to rise from the dead and come to dwell on the earth with the saints that are still alive on the earth, both together in the time of the Kingdom. It describes the Kingdom as a time of righteousness, peace and joy.

In the book of Revelation you have the sequence and the chronology, and the New Testament talks about the Rapture and also about the Tribulation time. Jesus talked about it in the sermon called the Olivet Discourse which in Matthew 24 and in part in chapter 25.

The New Testament talks about the fact that the twelve tribes of Israel will be identified. Over each of the tribes will rule in the behalf of Christ, one of the twelve Apostles and we as believers having been glorified coming back to earth will even under the leadership of Jesus Christ rule over the earth and over the living people of Israel as well.

The book of Revelation says Satan will be bound for that thousand years, and at the end he is released because people will be born during that time and they will not all believe. There will be a final rebellion in history and Satan will be crushed by the Lord. All those who are in that rebellion will be send into hell, in the Lake of Fire with all the rest of the ungodly of all the ages and then the New Heaven and the New Earth. All that is given in detail in the New Testament, as well as in the Old Testament which also talks about the New Heaven and the New Earth, especially in the book of Isaiah.

OUR STUDY BACKGROUND

From here on, we are going to look at one thing at a time, one element at a time, one component at a time and survey that so we have a better understanding.

Some of the books we are going to use include Daniel, Zechariah, portions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, Matthew, Luke, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Peter and.

We have begun with the important lynch pin that holds everything together, which is God’s purpose for Israel. We have to get God’s promises to Israel right and the Kingdom right and then basically everything else works around that.

Simply put, God made covenants and promises to a people that came out of the loins of Abraham, known as the people called Israel. These promises and covenants largely define the nature and the character of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The future is centered on this Kingdom, which will include all the redeemed of all the ages, in glorified or still living form, but it is still uniquely designed to fulfil promises to Israel. We will enter in to the blessing of the Kingdom, just as we enter in to the promises given to Abraham. We are in a sense spiritual children of Abraham by faith. So we participate in all the good things that God promised to Israel, but not to their exclusion but in company with His promises being fulfilled to them.

There will be a generation of Jews who will come to faith in Jesus Christ collectively as a people. Then Jesus will return to give them His promised Kingdom and it awaits their salvation.

HISTORICAL VERSUS FUTURISTIC PREMILLENNIALISM

God promises that He will not rescind them, and still there are some among evangelicals, who deny the future Kingdom established by Christ on earth. They deny the Kingdom and they deny the Jewishness of the Kingdom. Some will say there will be a Kingdom, but it will not be a Kingdom with Jewish characteristics, fulfilling Old Testament promises to the Jews. That is called historical premillennialism. They say that Old Testament promises were cancelled to Israel and given to the church. So it will be a church Kingdom. Saved Jews will be there but it will not be uniquely and particularly for Israel.

What we believe is called futuristic premillennialism which simply is to say there will be a Kingdom on earth and it will bring to pass all the promises that God ever made to Israel. And that is not to be rescinded and those promises are not to be given instead to the church.

If you do not get it right, then it disrupts eschatology completely. Once you say it does not mean what it says, then all precision is gone.

AMILLENNIALISM AND POSTMILLENNIALISM

Amillennialism is the view that there is no Millennial Kingdom in one sense or another. They believe in a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, but no earthly Kingdom. Postmillennialism says the church is in the “millennium” and at the end of it Jesus comes.

REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY / SUPERSESSIONISM

The irony of this is that a-millennialism is most popular among Reformed people who are believers in divine, sovereign election of the individual and His promises. Yet, they do not believe that God will keep His promise to elect Israel. They believe there is no future for Israel.

Replacement theology promotes the idea that the church replaces Israel. Some theologians call it supersessionism. They say the church replaces Israel because Israel disobeyed God and rejected Christ as Messiah. By crucifying the Messiah they forfeited permanently all the Old Testament promises of God which therefore are transferred to the church. You will not find such a statement anywhere in the Bible. Even the rebuilding of the temple and the restoration of temple worship is prophesied by Israel. That will happen.

Now let us approach this subject of premillennialism and the coming Kingdom and the future of Israel from the negative side. From the a-mill side, by finding answers to some questions.
Is the Old Testament amillennial?
Were the Jews of Jesus’ day amillennial?
Was Jesus amillennial?
Were the prophets amillennial?
Were the early theologians amillennial?
And then we’ll draw some critical conclusions. Somebody has got to come up with amillennialism in and around Scripture.

IS THE OLD TESTAMENT AMILLENNIAL?

To say that the writers of the Old Testament were amillennial when they were writing about a Kingdom they knew was not going to come, it’s a very strange thing. They were inspired to write details about a coming Kingdom promised to Israel and through Israel to the Gentiles as well. Of course they would believe it was true.

It is not legitimate to interpret the Old Testament only by the New Testament. It is not legitimate to say that the Old Testament is this oblique, mysterious, hidden book with all kinds of things that you cannot know about apart from the New Testament. This is like having a canon within a canon, having a rule within a rule. If Old Testament promises were actually for the church and not for ethnic Jews, ethnic Israel, then those Old Testament promises are meaningless to the Old Testament reader. That is, taking texts out of their literal sense, spiritualizing them into some other than literal sense.

So, when you take the New Testament and impose it upon the Old Testament, twist and turn the Old Testament like a piece of clay into whatever shape you want it to, you really have adulterated the authorial intent of the Old Testament which can stand on its own. Replacement theology demands the Old Testament to be viewed through the lens of the New Testament.

All of the curses we could say were fulfilled literally on Israel, so why would we say all the blessings will be fulfilled literally on the church? There is no biblical support for such a split hermeneutic. Hermeneutics comes from a Greek verb hermeneuowhich means to interpret, to explain.

Another way to look at it is all the prophecies regarding Jesus’ first coming, which have been fulfilled literally. If all of the prophecies regarding His first coming were fulfilled literally, then that establishes the precedent that all of the prophecies related to His Second Coming will also be fulfilled literally.

Genesis 12. The promises of God that relate to Israel’s future are basically bound up in three covenants.

The first one is called the ABRAHAMIC COVENANT. Verse 1, “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, from your relatives and from your father’s house to the land which I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'” What strikes you, first of all, is the little verbal phrase, “I will”, five times. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. It is an unconditional promise. It further expands in the chapters which follow. They have never had it yet … but God has bound Himself.

He describes the rivers, the people who live there. He knew exactly what He was talking about. He was not talking about spiritual blessings to the church. There is no ambiguity in this whatsoever.

The “I wills” are ubiquitous in every one of these declarations by God. “My covenant for you is an everlasting covenant.” God seriously binds Himself.

It continues this way and in chapter 22 we read, “… In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.” In Galatians Paul says that refers to the Messiah. So what was in the Abrahamic Covenant? Land…first a nation, a people, land, influence, blessing to the world and even the Messianic promise. Through the Messianic promise salvation would come to Israel and to the Gentiles.

It continues and the Lord appears to Isaac in Genesis 26:24. Again God reiterates His promise to the subsequent patriarch who is Isaac. In chapter 28, the same happens with regards to Jacob.

God kept making promises to sinful patriarchs. Abraham was sinful, Isaac was sinful, Jacob was sinful. Then in Exodus we see that Israel did not obey to the Mosaic Covenant on Mount Sinai, the law. So was it all cancelled? In Galatians 3:15, Paul says, “Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.” Covenants are covenants, and they are irrevocable. The Law which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.

First comes the Abrahamic Covenant, much later comes the MOSAIC COVERNANT. They say they will obey, they do not obey. But even that does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God.

Here Paul is simply saying disobedience to the Mosaic Law does not cancel the Abrahamic Covenant. It does not abrogate it even when Israel proudly and eagerly said, “We will obey,” and went through a blood ceremony in which they were sloshed with blood to signify their commitment to obedience. Even when they did not follow through, blatantly violating the Law of God, still they continue to be the people of promise, for that promise is not based on their ability to keep the Law.

You see it illustrated in the book of Hosea. Hosea marries a woman who is a prostitute. She goes and lives a dissolute life. Hosea goes and buys her back to keep his covenant to her. This is a symbol of God buying back the prostitute Israel because He made a covenant.

Now let us look at Ezekiel 16. It is about God’s unconditional love for Israel. It is in graphic terms. In verse 3, the Lord God speaks to Jerusalem, “Your origin, your birth are from the land of the Canaanite. I rescued you out of the land of the Canaanite. Your father was an Amorite, your mother a Hittite.” They came from pagan origins, of course. “As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths.”

You were like a baby born, came out of the mother’s womb and never cared for, never cleaned, cord never cut, bloody. You were taken without pity…verse 5, “No eye looked with pity on you.” “You were thrown into an open field.” Nobody cared. “When I passed by…verse 6…I saw you squirming in your blood and I said to you while you were in your blood, ‘Live!’ … I gave you life.'” Abrahamic Covenant right there. “I made you a people. I made you like numerous like plants of the field. You grew up, you became tall, you reached the age of fine ornaments, your breasts were formed, your hair had grown. You were still naked and bare, I passed by you, I saw you. Behold, you were at the time for love. Spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness to protect you from those who would rape you. And I swore to you and I entered into a covenant with you and you became Mine. And I bathed you with water and I washed off your blood from you and I anointed you with oil and I clothed you with embroidered cloth.'”

This is where figures of speech come into play in literal interpretation of Scripture. We all understand that the literal meaning here is that God is establishing His covenant with Israel doing it in beautiful figures of speech.

Then jump to verse 28, “You weren’t satisfied with Me… you played the harlot with the Assyrians and a whole lot of others, the Egyptians. And you still weren’t satisfied. You multiplied…verse 29…your harlotry with every merchant that showed up.” Israel bedded down with every false god there was. It’s a sad story. And it goes on and on and on.

But then go down to verse 53. “Nevertheless, I will restore their captivity…He says…regarding the captivity of Sodom, the captivity of Samaria.” God has it in His heart to restore. Even Samaria, even Sodom.

Verse 60. “Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.” There is no way that this covenant can be cancelled, no matter how wretched you become, no matter what a harlot you are. The time will come, verse 61…”You will remember your ways, you will be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger, I will give them to you as daughters, not because of your covenant, thus I will establish My covenant with you and you shall know that I am Lord.” Again, “I will.” “I will establish My covenant in order that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth any more because of your humiliation when I have forgiven you for all that you have done, the Lord God declares.” This is repentance.

God’s decision to set His love on Israel is in no way determined by Israel’s performance or by its national worthiness. It is purely His own sovereign will. And some day in the future, all that was promised to Abram will come to pass.

Deuteronomy 7:6, “You are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, you were the fewest, but because the Lord loved you and the Lord kept the promise that He swore to your forefathers. Know therefore that the Lord your God, verse 9, He is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant and His loving kindness to a thousand generations.” In addition, Chapter 9 verse 4 in Deuteronomy also provides great reference.

Psalm 89, “…. I have made a covenant with My chosen. I have sword to David, My servant. I will establish your seed forever and build up your throne to all generations.” Down to verse 30. “If his sons forsake My law and do not walk in My judgments, if they violate My statutes and do not keep My commandments, then I will visit their transgression with a rod and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness, I will not lie to David. His descendants shall endure forever. His throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established forever like the moon and the witness in the sky is faithful.”

The next covenant is the DAVIDIC COVENANT which is an extension of the Abrahamic Covenant. What God promises, He does.

Psalm 132 verse 13, “The Lord has chosen Zion, He has desired it for His habitation. This is My resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.” So God unilaterally gives a covenant. He is the sole party responsible to fulfill its obligations. Obedience is not the condition that determines fulfillment. Divine sovereign power is the condition that determines fulfillment. God has to turn their hearts so that they can obey, therefore it is all the work of God that will bring about the fulfillment. It will come when He wills it to come. Only God can produce the faith, repentance and obedience that brings about the fulfillment.

Next time we will look at the next phase of God’s promise, the Davidic Kingdom to which we already saw references in Psalm 89.

Talking about eschatology is not without controversy. There are a number of viewpoints of what the Bible means when it speaks of future events. When you have a prophecy in the Bible that has not yet come to pass, not everything will be clear. In 1 Peter chapter 1, Peter says that the prophets who wrote concerning Christ, wondered what person and what time. That is to say that while they understood that someone would come, the timing was not clear and the precise personages were not clear. We should take prophetic Scripture at face value, in the same way we interpret any other passage of Scripture. It will yield for us as clear an understanding of the future as the Lord wants us to have. It is not nearly as difficult as some people make it if you just take Scripture at face value.

Now to affix our thinking, let us talk about the coming Kingdom of Christ, known as the Millennial Kingdom in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. The words “One thousand” are repeated six times in that brief text. That leaves us with the impression that God wants us not to question the length of its duration.

There are a number of views. But let us boil them down to three.

THE POST-MILLENNIAL AND A-MILLENNIAL VIEWS

The first view we will call the POST-MILLENNIAL view. That is to say that Christ will come after the Millennial Kingdom. Christ will return, but not to establish His Kingdom, but rather His Kingdom has been established by the church. The church will move out of its own environs to capture nations, leaders, ideologies, philosophies, theories, religions, and bring them all into captivity to Christ. In the world things will get better and better as the church becomes more powerful and more influential. And when the church has brought about the dominating influence of Christ across the world, He will then come and end everything and establish the new heaven and the new earth which is the eternal state. Post-millennialists also think that there is not to be a literal thousand-year kingdom as such, but that’s just metaphoric for a long time.

The second view is called A-MILLENNIALISM. The alpha privative in the Greek language means a negative, so they believe there is no Millennium and that what John is writing about in Revelation 20 is very vague and may refer to nothing other than a long time in which the church flourishes on earth, referring to that kingdom which is spiritual. Others believe that it refers to heaven and the experience of the saints in heaven.

Post-millennialism and amillennialism is really the same thing. Amillennialism can almost be called negative, and postmillennialism positive. In both cases it will be the flow of history under the influence of the church. One calls it a kingdom and says it will expand and gives it the positive spin. The other looks at it as a spiritual kingdom also but says it will decline until Jesus finally comes.

But in both cases they deny the actual thousand-year reign of Christ and that Christ will reign and rule on earth and literally fulfil all His promises to the nation Israel given in the Old Testament covenants. They basically say Israel forfeited all its promises, privileges, and all those things that God declared in covenant that He would give to them in the future. They forfeit it by their disobedience to the Mosaic Covenant, by their apostasy from true religion and by their rejection of their Messiah. Therefore, Israel has permanently been set aside so that the only Kingdom will be that Kingdom which is called the church.

THE PRE-MILLINNIAL VIEW

They believe that there will be a Millennium and prior to it, Jesus will come. He will return to an increasingly wicked earth. He will come in fiery judgment. He will judge all the ungodly of all the earth and then establish His rule and His Kingdom forever. After that, His rule will continue in a new heaven and a new earth that replace this heaven and earth which will melt in an atomic implosion and make way for the new creation.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE REVEAL ABOUT THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM?

There is a growing influence of a-millennialism because it has been a part of reformed theology. The Reformers had it right on most issues, but they were fighting the massive Roman system and being occupied on those fronts, they never really got to the front of eschatology.

It is really one of the strange ironies of Reformed Theology. They are usually the most fastidious in Bible interpretation, but are in varying degrees of disinterest in applying their skills to the end of the story. If you don’t know what you believe about the future, you can’t preach on it.

A-millennialist and post-millennialists do not know what to do with prophetic truth. If they interpret prophetic truth in the same normal natural way they interpret the rest of the passages of Scripture, they are going to end up as pre-millennialists. So they have to change the rules of interpretation. When you have to go to all of the passages of Scripture that talk about the Kingdom and do believe what say, it is a strange approach.

Does the end matter to God? It is the whole point of the beginning and the middle. The end is as divinely designed as the beginning. In fact, some say nearly one fourth of Scripture is prophetic. God filled the Bible with prophecy and much of it is looking at the end. There are whole denominations that are instructed not to teach on the end times. You would assume that they are confused because parts of the Bible are “confusing”. But if the Bible is confusing, then God Himself is confused.

Working hard to understand prophetic passages is needless. In fact, it is an impossible effort since it does not mean what it says and you have to sort of allegorize it or spiritualize it. If it does not mean what it says, everybody has a different view, and nobody has the authority to say this is true.

Loraine Boettner wrote a book called The Meaning of the Millennium and this is what he said, “It is generally agreed that if the prophecies are taken literally, they do foretell a restoration of the nation of Israel in the land of Palestine with the Jews having a prominent place in that Kingdom and ruling over the other nations.” What’s wrong with that and why do we want to run from that? Why do we want to change the rules in interpretation to avoid that?
Normal, natural, literal interpretation is the only way to stop abuse of Scripture. If we are going to change the rules, then we better have a divine mandate because God cares that we get it right. His glory is at stake and our hope and comfort is at stake and the evidence of God’s massive moving in history is at stake with regard to the future.

Most people who hold to a sound, biblical view (and Reform Theology) would live and die by the fact that Genesis 1 through 3 means exactly what it says because that is the only way to interpret Scripture. Therefore we reject evolution. Why then if we are so committed to protecting the text of the beginning in its literal nature are we so fast to give up the texts of the end and their literal nature? It makes no sense. Where is the divine mandate to do that?

And if we change the rules, what are the new ones and who made them? And by what authority? Now here comes the real irony. Those who most capably defend that whatever God chose to do, He will do, and whatever He began to do He will complete, they will die for that truth regarding the church, but unashamedly abandon that same truth for the elect nation of Israel.

Why? It’s the same God, same terminology. Scripture affirms that all whom the Lord has chosen He brings to glory. In similar language, Scripture affirms ethnic Israel to a future salvation and a future Kingdom as a race of people and in that Kingdom will be the fulfilment of all divine promises given to them in the Old Testament and repeated in the New Testament.

Whether you are talking about the church as God’s elect, or Israel as God’s elect, both are God’s elect. If God will be faithful to His promises to His church, He will also be faithful to His promises to His elect nation Israel.

Of all the people who should be premillennialists, it should be the Calivinists who believe in divine sovereign election. On the other hand, those who follow Arminius do not believe in election and that would almost make them perfect amillennialists.
In the modern theological world, amillennialism should be left to the process theologians. They are the liberal theologians, who believe that as God receives more and more information and as He has more experience in dealing with the issues of His universe, He is getting better at being God. He is sorting it all out, as He goes. They want to get God off the hook so He is not responsible for evil. (But God takes the responsibility for allowing evil for His own glory. In fact, the worst evil that has ever been done on the history of the world was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And by that the worst evil, He gained the greatest glory).

The other view is called Openness Theology. It simply means God has no idea what the future is. He does not know the future because it has not happened. He is not predicting the future because you cannot predict what hasn’t happened, it does not exist. Even His promises may not be valid because He made them with inadequate information.

So leave amillennialism to those who do not believe in the sovereign unilateral irrevokable divine electing power of God. Leave it to the semi-Pelagians and Pelagians who go in and out of salvation. It makes sense for their theology. Israel sinned, you are out. Israel sinned, the promises cancelled. Israel crucifies the Messiah, that’s it. You forfeit everything and God gives it to somebody else, namely the church. And we hope the church can do better than Israel or the church will forfeit it all as well. So this is a classic perfect fit for Arminian theology.

But for those who embrace God’s sovereignty that He is the only one who can determine who will be saved and blessed and He is the only one who can save and bless, then saying that He cancelled promises to Israel because they didn’t believe, is completely inconsistent. How could they believe unless He caused them to believe?

There are two great elect people in the Bible…Israel and the church. And Israel is elect as the church is elect. The New Testament is full of comments about the church being the elect. But in the Old Testament, for example, Isaiah 45:4, “Israel, Mine elect. I have even called thee by thy name.” Isaiah 65:9, “Mine elect shall inherit it, the promises of God.” Isaiah 65, really the whole chapter is about Israel, God’s elect. Verse 22, “My elect…again…shall enjoy long the work of their hands.” Israel is repeatedly called God’s elect, and we know what that means.

When you understand God’s purpose for Israel, you now have the foundation for all eschatology. You get Israel right when you get the Old Testament covenants and promises with Israel right. You get the Old Testament covenants and promises right when you get the interpretation of Scripture right. You get the interpretation of Scripture right when you are faithful to valid rules of interpretation. So you interpret it right and God’s integrity is no longer at stake. Over 200 times in the Bible God is called the God of Israel. There are over 2000 references to Israel in Scripture. Not one of them means anything but Israel. So if you say the promises of the Old Testament that refer to Israel really meant the church, you have no precedent for such an interpretation. Not one reference anywhere in Scripture referring to Israel means anything other than Israel. There are 73 references in the New Testament, each of them refers to Israel.

And may I remind you that you have one very, very important reality to deal with – living Israelites. You never met a Hittite, an Amorite, a Hivite, a Jebusite, or any other ite…they have long since morphed into the melee and the mix of the races. But we have pure Israelites. That in itself is an indication of God’s preservation for their future. Seventy percent of Scripture is the story of Israel, start to finish. Not that they were the end, but they were the means to the end. Not that they were the only ones to be saved, but they were the ones through whom God will eventually reach and even set up His Son to rule over the nations.

When Frederic the Great called his chaplain in he said, “I want proof of the truthfulness of the Bible, and I want it briefly.” The chaplain replied, “Sir, I can give you proof of the truthfulness of the Bible in one word, Israel.”

When asked, “What is the biblical significance of the existence of Jews in their land?” one prominent amillennialist said “It has no significance at all.” Really? It is the single most inexplicable story in human history that this small group of beleaguered people attacked and assaulted by everybody around them for centuries still exists as a pure ethnic race.

So here’s how to get the foundation for a good sound eschatology. Get election right. Get Israel right. You got it. Cause what that means is God does know the future, God has set the future and the future involves not only the glory of His church but the fulfilment of His elect people Israel with regard to everything that He promised that nation.

God did not reveal prophetic truth in so much detail to hide anything, to obscure the truth, but to reveal it for our blessing, our motivation, and His glory. Return the sovereignty of God in election to its rightful place, return the nation Israel to its rightful place, and your eschatology will unfold in beautiful clarity.

Look, I reject some really abusive and bizarre kinds of Charismatic interpretations, but frankly, they are no wackier then the interpretations of the amillennialists who want to take the entire book of Revelation and stuff it into the events of 70 A.D. and a few years afterwards and come up with things that are just as ridiculous.

We are going to save the good stuff utill next time, but I want to end with Revelation 1:3, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near.” What you have here is a benediction from God. This is a pronounced blessing. Getting your eschatology right will bless and purify you.
In Acts 3:19, Peter says, “Repent therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing,” that’s the Millennium, “may come from the presence of the Lord that He may send Jesus the Christ appointed for you whom heaven must receive till the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.”

(Source: “WHY EVERY CALVINIST SHOULD BE A PREMILLENNIALIST.” – John MacArthur)