Dispensational Disconnect

Simon Attwood

Christians are polarised about Israel. Some say that it no longer plays a part in God’s plans for the earth while others advocate strongly for the state we call Israel today. The former follow a tradition of Bible teaching that replaces Israel with the church, though some are so radical in their thinking that one wonders whether they believe the Bible at all. The latter — often evangelical — can be so preoccupied with Israel that they seem to forget that Christianity is centred in Christ above (Col. 3:1–4). What does the Bible say?

A little bit of history

God honoured His promise to Abram in Genesis 15 by planting Israel in the land of Canaan (Ex. 6:2–9; Ps. 80:8), but the people forsook Him in their hearts, ways and words (Jer. 2:13). Under His disciplinary hand, they divided into two kingdoms in 975BC: 1) Israel, comprising ten tribes, and 2) Judah plus Benjamin in the south (1 Ki. 12:16–24) — later called the Jews. After further unfaithfulness, God let Assyria put an end to the kingdom of Israel in 721BC (2 Ki. 17:1–23), and Babylon conquer Judah in 606BC,[1] taking it into captivity too (2 Ki. 24; 25). But the two captivities were very different. The Assyrians dispersed the ten tribes throughout their empire and they have never emerged from it.[2] By contrast God limited the Jews’ captivity in Babylon to 70 years (Jer. 25:11), stirring Cyrus the Persian to let them go back to Jerusalem in 536BC (2 Chr. 36:22–23). But out of the hundreds of thousands of captives, less than 50,000 took the opportunity to rebuild the temple and city under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah (Ez. 2; 8; Neh. 2).

With God’s help, the Jews who did return restored His worship (Ezra 3:8–13) and re-established themselves in the land. This meant that their descendants were there to receive the Messiah when He came according to prophecy (Matt. 2:3–6; Gal. 4:4). But they crowned their ancestors’ earlier disobedience with the awful crime of rejecting and delivering Him up to the Romans to be crucified (Acts 13:17–31). In marvellous grace God entreated them but they stoned His messenger Stephen, in effect saying: ‘We will not that this man (Christ) should reign over us’ (Luke 19:14). Forty years later they felt the full force of Roman power themselves, and in the wake of the destruction of the temple and city in AD70 — prophesied by our Lord in Luke 21:20–24 — were extirpated from the land. 

Fast forward to the 19th century

The Jews did not return to the land in any numbers until the end of the 19th century when it was in the hands of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The prospect of repossessing it was still a dream, yet this when Christians — especially so-called ‘brethren’ — had already begun to show from Scripture that Israel was destined to do just that (Jer. 33:10–13). What brought this about? The Spirit of truth guided believers to read the Old Testament prophecies according to their plain meaning[3] and in the light of the New (John 16:13–14). The scales fell from their eyes and they saw the future of Israel clearly. This was at the same time that God enabled them to recover the truth of the church as His heavenly people. These two distinct aspects of truth go hand-in-hand. 

Like them, we are waiting for the Lord Jesus to come to take us to be with Himself (John 14:1–3; 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:16–17), knowing that when this happens the prophetic clock will start ticking again for this earth, and Israel in particular. But there is this difference: in their day — until the early 20th century — the land was a desolate backwater but for most, if not all, of our lives, a vibrant, advanced and prosperous Jewish state has been located there. We are so familiar with this reality that we hardly give a thought to the fact that it took little more than half a century for this tumultuous change to occur. Evidently God allowed it, but is it the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies that Israel would be restored to its land, as some seem to think?

To answer this, we turn to Jeremiah 30–33. We learn at least three things from these chapters: 

1) ‘Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, when I will turn the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith Jehovah; and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it’ (30:3). Does the modern state of Israel compare with this? No, it is a Jewish state only — the ten tribes of the kingdom of Israel are missing. But God does not fall short when He fulfils His promises so we can be sure that they will be included (Ezek. 20:33–38).[4]

2) ‘Behold, days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah’ (31:31). Blessing must have a righteous basis — in this case the new covenant, which the Lord Jesus said, when He instituted the supper in the upper room, is in His blood (Luke 22:20). Has this covenant been made with the modern state of Israel? No. There is no sign it even thinks it needs it. Most Israelis are as unbelieving as their counterparts in western countries, and the orthodox minority does not regard the blood of Christ as precious (1 Pet. 1:18–19); He is a rogue rabbi to them.

3) ‘I will turn the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel, and will build them, as at the beginning … it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear of all the good that I do unto them; and they shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it’ (33:7, 9). Is this true of modern Israel? Not at all! It has fought four wars with its neighbours and continues to be a target for terrorism, trade embargoes and negative media reporting. It survives by a blend of clever diplomacy, cutting edge technology, and military skill and ingenuity, as well as a security wall that straddles its territory. 

So the answer is ‘no’. Israel today is the result of man’s efforts to achieve his ends though there is little doubt God has allowed it in a providential way for the working out of His own perfect will.

What does this all mean for the future?

Paul writes in Romans: ‘all Israel shall be saved’ (11:26) — not just the Jews. God will accomplish this on the basis of the new covenant of grace as Hebrews 8 confirms. They will enjoy the material blessings of the land as described in Jeremiah 33:10–18 and other prophecies. The only way to read such scriptures is literally — figurative expressions stand out by contrast (e.g. v. 6). Given that God promised them the land in the first place but had to deprive them of it because of their sin, it would not be worthy of Him to do less when their sin is put away. And He guarantees it in literal terms: as day and night follow each other (vs. 19–26).[5]

But prior to this God will deal with His people, particularly the Jews. He will refine them in the tribulation period (Zech. 13:9), especially the second 3½ years of Daniel’s seventieth week — the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble’ or ‘great tribulation’ (Jer. 30:7; Matt. 24:21). The remnant will judge their sin and learn their utter weakness, but at the point of their greatest extremity Messiah will appear and deliver them from their enemies.[6] They will ‘look on [him] whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for an only son’ (Zech. 12:10), no doubt using the language of Isaiah 52:10–53:12. 

But for us today God’s declared principle of blessing is grace (Titus 2:11). As believers on the Lord Jesus we form the church, His heavenly people. Whether Jew (Gal. 6:16) or Gentile we are ‘one new man’ (Eph. 2:15). As such we possess the spiritual blessings of the new covenant, such as forgiveness of sins (Jer. 31:34; Eph. 1:7), because the blood of Christ on which it is based has been shed already.[7] But we possess so much more (see Eph. 1) and know God in the most intimate way possible: as Father rather than Jehovah (compare John 20:17 with Jer. 31:34). Surely we should reach out to Jews and Arab people with the gospel but may we kept from the twin evils of fighting against God’s settled purpose in blessing Israel or meddling in its accomplishment, which is not our business. The epistles are full of exhortations to go in for our spiritual blessings. Our politics are above, not below, as Paul writes: ‘our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour’ (Phil. 3:20).

[1] The times of the Gentiles start from this date (Luke 21:24).

[2] Though we find individuals in the land later like Anna of the tribe of Asher (Luke 2:36).

[3] The so-called ‘church fathers’ (e.g. Origen, Jerome and Augustine) allegorised them as though they referred to the church. Many Christians still do this today.

[4] They will not go through the tribulation in the land because they were not in the land when the Lord Jesus came the first time and therefore are not guilty of His rejection and crucifixion.

[5] Jeremiah believed his own prophecies because he bought, upon God’s instruction, an actual plot of land in Israel on the strength of them (see ch. 32).

[6] These enemies may include the citizens of modern Israel who continue to reject God. They will be part of the wicked mass of the people referred to in the Psalms e.g. Ps. 1:1.

[7] Like the old one at Sinai (Ex. 24:8), the new covenant will be made with Israel (all 12 tribes). It was never made with the church.