I’ve never owned a Scofield Bible but a brother on the internet gave me the following below as an example of Scofield and dispensationalism teaching two peoples with two separate destinies. I dont quite know yet what to make of the statements. I just wanted to share them. I’m coming to see there is a difference between classical pre-mill dispensationalism and the historical pre-mill view although I’m still doing some sorting in my mind. The brother said these were Scofield’s notes on Hosea 2:2. Just thought I would share it.

That Israel is the wife of Jehovah (see vs. 16-23), now disowned but yet to be restored, is the clear teaching of the passages. This relationship is not to be confounded with that of the Church to Christ (John 3. 29, refs.). In the mystery of the Divine tri-unity both are true. The N.T. speaks of the Church as a virgin espoused to one husband (2 Cor. 11. 1,2); which could never be said of an adulterous wife, resored in grace. Israel is, then, to be the restored and forgiven wife of Jehovah, the Church the virgin wife of the Lamb (John 3.29; Rev. 19.6-8); Israel Jehovah’s earthly wife (Hos. 2.23); The Church the Lamb’s heavenly bride (Rev. 19.7).

Hi, Doc. Thanks for this. I actually have a Scofield (the ’67 edition with word changes) and like it a lot. I favor its literal and futuristic approach to prophecy and Israel, but not its particular variety of dispensationalism, particularly its view of the nature of the church.

There are two basic pillars that support ‘pre-tribulational’ dispensationalism. One is the doctrine of imminence (the view that no prophetic event stands in the way of the potentiality of an any moment coming of Christ, a potential that has existed since the earliest apostles first preached the ‘blessed hope’, which they define as exemption from the great tribulation). The second pillar is dispensationalism’s unique view of the nature of the church. According to dispensationalism, the church had no existence before Pentecost and does not (cannot) exist on earth after the rapture. I see both of these pillars as seriously flawed.

According to dispensationalism, there are two distinct programs of God, two distinct peoples of God, and two distinct dispensations for Israel and the church. The church belongs to God’s ‘mystery’ program for this dispensation only. The dispensation of the ‘church’ is seen as confined to the period between Pentecost and the rapture. In their view, the concept of the mystery removes the church from anything anticipated in OT prophecy. Therefore, it is believed that the dispensation of the church must end with the rapture before the “prophetic program” for Israel can be resumed. Thus the events of the last seven years (Daniel’s seventieth week), are understood to belong to an entirely different dispensation.

It is believed that the church is a mystery that occupies a parenthetical interim between Pentecost and the rapture, and thus stands in marked contrast to God’s “prophetic program” for Israel. According to dispensationalism’s erroneous view of the Pauline mystery, the church is so completely distinguished from even the righteous of Israel as to constitute a distinct people of God with its own distinct destiny. This doctrine of the two peoples of God is THE defining hallmark of pre-trib dispensationalism.

Note: (These features of dispensational thought developed in the mid 19th century out of an effort to understand the distinction between Israel and the church. Early, pretribulationism was not initially born out of a desire to escape tribulation as unfairly accused. Rather, the primary motive was to defend the hope that Christ could come any moment, i.e., the doctrine of imminence.)

We too distinguish between Israel and the church, but not in this way. There is another choice that does not require the dispensationalist’s notion of two peoples of God.

The election continues to go with the nation even in its unbelief. In that sense, the Jewish people remain beloved (foreloved) as a people, and can be rightly called ‘the chosen people’. But are they another ‘people of God’? True, the Jewish people remain a necessarily distinct people of covenant destiny. To this end the Jews are miraculously preserved in order to publicly demonstrate and openly vindicate the power and election of God towards this people. (“What shall the receiving again them be but life from the dead?”) But the promise of coming salvation, and the preservation of a national identity to that end, assumes nothing concerning personal salvation of individual Jews. So the question of whether there is more than one people of God is more nuanced than recognized by the simplistic ‘either / or’ choice pressed by one school against the other.

In contrast to both replacement theology and dispensationalism, we believe that the distinction between Israel and the church is better compared to the distinction that always existed between the elect nation and the more specific election of grace from within the nation, namely, the righteous remnant.

Through the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, that righteous remnant, now become the eschatological remnant of first-fruits, can be defined as the ‘body of Christ’ comprised of all who are indwelt by the ‘Spirit of Christ’. In my view, the body of Christ (though it could not have been known by that term) includes the OT righteous (see 1Pet 1:11, “the Spirit of Chirst which was ‘in’ them”).

With the new revelation has come a new language. But this is where we need to exercise caution. We learn from the doctrine of Christ’s pre-existence that for something to be newly revealed does not mean that it has come newly into existence. This is an important distinction when we are speaking of Christ and the church. Much has come to light in the gospel that had real existence before the dispensation of the fuller revelation. This applies as much to the ‘body of Christ’ as to Christ Himself and the unity of persons in the Godhead.

We believe that the church now revealed and described as the body of Christ is in indivisible continuity with the ‘remnant according to the election of grace’ that existed throughout Israel’s history and before. Israel as a nation remains elect despite its temporary unbelief. It’s destiny is only discernible by covenant and prophecy, not by its temporal behavior. The nation’s long history of apostasy cannot thwart the appointed time of transformation (Ps 102:13). This is necessary because of the demands of the covenant that remain unfulfilled apart from the reinstatement of the ‘natural branches’.

Never could the presence of a mere remnant guarantee the nation’s continuance in holiness in the Land as specified in promise and prophecy (literally understood). This can only be accomplished by the salvation of ‘all Israel’, which means the end of the remnant, since from that time ‘all’ know Him forever (Jer 31:34; 32:40; Ezek 34-39). This is everywhere shown to come no sooner than the apocalyptic day of the Lord (Isa 59:21; 66:8; Ezek 39:22; Zech 3:9). Only the coming of the revealing regenerating Spirit upon the surviving remnant as a whole can guarantee the kind of enduring national obedience necessary to continue in the Land ‘forever’, thus establishing the ‘everlasting’ covenant by an ‘everlasting’ righteousness (Dan 9:24; Jer 32:40; Isa 60:21).

Hence, Pentecost represents a first-fruits of that coming eschatologial transformation of the nation. This is the revelation that has made the church the church, and when Israel will receive the same revelation ‘in that day’, it too will be no less church, and no less the body of Christ, albeit in a unique stewardship of divine commission on the earth, as the long promised light that will lighten multitudes of gentiles throughout the millennium of Israel’s glory (Isa 60:5). It is to this church of the eschatological remnant of first-fruits that the gentiles have been added in unexpected numbers. As an eschatological entity, the church, like Paul (Act 13:47), understands its apostolic task as a first-fruits anticipation of Israel’s commission to lighten the nations. None of this supplants or replaces the covenant promise that envisions the salvation of the nation, but rather constitutes a first-fruits anticipation of that very eschatological glory, which is the “without which not” of covenant fulfillment (of any literal kind).

Your prayers are so deeply appreciated. In His great goodness, Reggie

Followup Question:

On Mon, May 5, 2008:
Hi Reggie, have you ever seen or read the book, “The Great cover up” A research project (I guess) that traces the origination of pre trib back via, Dallas Theological College, Scofields the brethren and Darby to the McDonald family in Scotland. Apparently their daughter Mary I think was very prone to long (and way out) prophetic utterances (some of which were documented ) I believe Darby or Irving actually attended these meetings and took the idea back to the Brethren. The book contains some documentation and actual eye witness accounts.
I believe after promoting this view a number left the brethren over this including George Muller the father of orphans who said something like, I can have my bible or can have Darby and so I choose to leave and keep my bible.

It was a long time ago I read this so my memory may fail me but that was the gist

Christian love and kind regards

Hi Robert. Yes, I’ve read McPherson a long time ago in a first edition of his book. There was quite a gathering of gifted ministers in the original brethren movement. Some from both sides of the rapture question are noted for their substantial work as writers and theologians. My favorites are Tregelles and Newton; both parted ways with Darby over his innovation.

It is most interesting that just when so many gains were being made in the restoration of prophetic truth, the pre-trib rapture theory was brought in like the proverbial Trojan Horse into the evangelical camp. It became the dominant view.

Actually Margaret McDonald’s prophecies presupposed a split rapture distinguishing the spiritually fit (the five wise) from other less perfected believers who would get straightened out by passing through the tribulation. So it wasn’t the pretrib rapture of the classic dispensationalism variety as formulated by Darby and popularized in the Scofield Bible. This remains the view of those that identify themselves as ‘classic dispensationalist’. Margaret McDonald’s view was more in keeping with the partial rapture that some Pentecostals continue to teach.

I seem to recall that Darby’s more refined synthesis occurred to him during a season of illness somewhere in the mid 1830’s. The supposed revelation confirmed for him the the supposed separation of the church and Israel and their different destinies on the basis of 2Thes 2:7. He was the first to deduce that if the restrainer was the Holy Spirit, then His removal assumed the removal of the church, as those indwelt by the Spirit. The idea suggests a ‘reversal of Pentecost’ (John Walvoord) whereby the Holy Spirit will no longer indwell the so-called ‘tribulation saints’.

After the rapture, the Holy Spirit returns to His former relationship of merely ‘with’ or ‘upon’, but not ‘in’ the faithful, as believed to be the case with the saints of the OT. Thus, the pre-trib rapture of the church as concurrent with the removal of the Holy Spirit as the ‘one who now holds back’ the Antichrist, the ‘blessed hope’ is protected as an imminent event, since in this way the church of this ‘mystery dispensation’ is kept separate from the sign events of God’s prophetic program with Israel. Thus the two peoples of God. The church is the heavenly people with heavenly promises (covenants?) and heavenly destiny, while Israel is the earthly people of God, with earthly promises and an earthly destiny.

So the Lord’s manifest return after the tribulation (Mt 24:29-31) is not for the church. Rather, the purpose of Christ’s post-tribulational coming is to end the times of the Gentiles and to establish His mediatorial kingdom over the millennial earth and rule out of a restored Israel. So the rapture is distinguished from the so-called ‘kingdom coming’.

Grace and peace, Reggie

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What would you say is the cost of making the first resurrection either the new birth or something else?

Contrasted with the first resurrection coming at the end of the last persecution with the destruction of the final beast, the obvious answer is the necessary details of all that. But is there something more that is lost? It sure feels like it.

Lost is all that God has invested in the demonstration that Israel was first set apart to demonstrate and vindicate “through their fall” and national resurrection by a sovereign act of discriminating grace (Eze 36:22, 32). Lost is all the meaning of God’s own affliction and sacrifice in their temporary surrendering over to blindness and dispersion “for our sake”. (Ro 11:11-12, 28). Lost too is all that God has invested in the crisis events of the end that signal and lead up to that great transition of greatest consequence to millions.

Lost is the purpose of 1000 years of open demonstration and vindication of the ‘everlasting covenant’, as every Jew who revered the scripture understood it before the cross, and as the apostles of the Lamb manifestly understood it after the cross.

In all references to the forward looking “everlasting / new covenant” the expectation is clear, that AFTER a final tribulation of unequaled severity, the penitent survivors of Israel would be born to new national life in one day (Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9) through the spiritual regeneration of the new / everlasting covenant. That “from that day and forward”, not SOME but “ALL” would know the Lord from the least to the greatest (Isa 4:3; 45:17, 60:21; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 39:22, 28-29), and this blessed preservation would extend without exception unto children’s children, “world without end” (Isa 44:3; 59:21; 61:9; 65:24; 66:22; Eze 37:25).

From this time and forward, all of Israel would lie down in safety, none making them afraid, or menacing their peace again forever (). This is because that at the end of the final week (Daniel’s 70th week), the surviving remnant of Israel, having come now to faith by the Spirit’s revelation of Jesus to their hearts, will enter into the “everlasting righteousness” that was secured when reconciliation was made for sin at the end of the 69th week (Dan 9:24-26).

It is not enough that Jews and gentiles be saved on equal footing by faith in Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice. For the promises of the covenant to have their complete and plenary fulfillment, it is necessary for two crucial events to be accomplished, 1.), the finishing of the mystery of iniquity by the finishing of the mystery of God at Jesus’ seventh trumpet return (2Thes 2:3-8; Rev 10:7; 11:15), and 2.), the salvation of “all Israel” that ends Israel’s temporary and partial blindness at the end of the times of the gentiles” (Mt 23:39; Ro 11:25-29; Lk 21:24).

God has joyously placed Himself under sworn obligation to His covenant oath that the hopelessly intractable nation that He first brought out of Egypt, He is able to bring into the specific Land of specific promise, and not only bring them in, but keep them there in abiding, unbroken peace, because of the everlasting righteousness that is not their own. That through His work with them, He might show on the public stage of history one of the greatest, open and visible demonstrations of the glory of sovereign, electing grace.

It is for this very cause (“in order that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls”) that He first chose Jacob on a basis utterly apart from any inherent quality in himself, and for this purpose, to make this very point, He has miraculously preserved their public visibility throughout all the centuries. That the people He first set His love upon, and for nothing that can be credited to them (Eze 36:22, 32), He has invested this open demonstration and vindication of HIs glory on the question of whether He is able to graft in again, and thus fulfill the everlasting covenant in all its parts and aspects, literally and tangibly on this earth, the opposition of history and all the demons of hell notwithstanding.

It is our appreciation of this, and our fellowship with Him in this great burden of the prophets that is at stake. We need to get beyond what any given truth of scripture will ‘do for us’, and enter into the fellowship of what this means to Him. He desires that we “come and see”, feast and fellowship in the mysteries of His manifold wisdom that He delights to reveal to His friends, even the hidden wisdom ordained to our glory.

He desires that we know what this great demonstration and vindication means to Him as His answer, not only to His people and the nations, but to the gainsaying principalities and powers that have so long ruled this present age, always raising that original, but no less perennial question, “has God really said?” For this great event of divine satisfaction, we are commanded to give Him no rest “till He stablish and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth”, against all odds!

Finally, there is the question of hermeneutics, which can have the end effect of raising the same question, “has God really said?” Going beyond the fully agreed and acknowledged use of metaphor, figurative language, poetic, symbolic and apocalyptic conventions of speech found all throughout the Bible, has anyone ever paused to document the sheer volume of scripture, not of figurative but plain words of plainest meaning, that would have to be spiritualized and divested of their natural sense, in order to sustain the non-millennial interpretations that see nothing on this present earth after the post-tribulational day of the Lord? I realize that’s a long sentence, but read that again.

It would be a worthwhile exercise just to go through and document the massive amount of scripture that describes conditions on this earth after the great day of the Lord, but that fall clearly short of the final perfection. Plain language could never be thus handled by anyone who believes the scripture infallible and without error unless deferring to powerful presuppositions as to what these scriptures ‘cannot’ mean.

Many have noticed how little agreement exists among amillennialists over what is meant by “the first resurrection”. There is only agreement on what it cannot mean. This can only be attributed to strong presuppositions that precede and influence exegesis, in this case, the plain person’s plain reading of plain language.

Even if we had never heard of the duration of the millennium from John’s Revelation, any plain reading of the OT would have led to the necessary inference of glorious but yet imperfect conditions on this earth between the post-tribulational DOL and the perfection of new heavens and new earth. We know that such views existed in the intertestamental period and among Jews during the post-Christian centuries.

Nothing in the NT contradicts but only re-affirms that fundamental expectation of events on this earth, only now in the full light of the revelation of the mystery of two comings of Messiah. And finally, have our amillennial brethren ever been to the future day of the Lord to confirm and report back that Israel will surely NOT be gathered?

The time for that event was always described as happening at one time only, i.e., the post-tribulational day of the Lord. On what ground can they certify to us that this will not happen right on schedule, when the prophets said it would? And what do they do with the modern state of Israel? Is it an accident of history? To those who have this hope, the trajectory of history seems firmly right on course.

Looks like we’re in for stormy weather, and it threatens to be a lot stormier if we do not have an anchor in what these events mean and where they’re designed to take the church and Israel in these ultimately transitional, closing days, particularly when they are staring us right in the face.

Reggie

The post The First Resurrection appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Before Art’s passing, the goal of the planned ‘table talks’ for the following summer was to bring together the scriptures that would establish an overview of the key themes of prophecy. He wanted to find something that would “pull the strands together” into a kind of synthesis, and then to use that synthesis to address and answer the classic Jewish objections to the faith.

What follows is an expansion on a brief overview sent to a brother with whom I shared a plan of presentation that aims to simplify many of the sometimes complex issues of prophecy. It also provides a convenient grid of reference for anyone wanting to present the case for Christ and the mystery of Israel from the Old Testament.

I first present some ideas for an initial introduction. This can be used with great versatility and comparative simplicity, depending on the situation. For those who want to take the subject further, I offer further suggestions on how this initial introductory outline can be used to go deeper, as understanding and maturity permits.

I believe that what I present here came in answer to prayer. For years I have looked to the Lord for a means to “make plain upon tables” (Dan 12:4; Hab 2:2-3) an appreciable amount of otherwise difficult and controversial subject matter. The goal is simplicity and clarity for the average person, regardless of academic background. But the real power of the truths that follow lies in the scriptures themselves. They are specific target passages that merit closest attention.

The approach builds around the well known story of Joseph, as type and parable of both comings of Christ to Israel. The idea is to begin with a couple of key portions of Old Testament prophecy in order to establish a simple outline of the prophetic future, particularly as it pertains to the relationship of Christ’s two comings to Israel. This will provide a convenient frame of reference that can enable and equip any believer to make the case for the mystery of the gospel in the Old Testament, particularly in its relationship to Israel and the events that conclude the age.

To open the subject, I sometimes begin with the familiar story of Bethlehem as an opportunity to show the amazing prophecy of Mic 5:2, pointing out its great antiquity (8th century contemporary of Isaiah). I then point out the lesser known feature of the prophecy the follows in the next verse. “Therefore (for this cause) will He (Yahweh) ‘give them up’ UNTIL the time that she who travails has brought forth; then shall the remnant of His brethren return to the children of Israel (Mic 5:3). The chosen nation is to be “given up UNTIL …”. This is the language of divine abandonment. What are the implications? What provocation was so great as to evoke such ominous language, anticipating the tragic nature of Jewish history?

The next verse shows that the return of “His brethren” coincides with the universal dominion of the ruler from Bethlehem. Exile ends forever with the Davidic king’s rod-iron rule over all nations that begins when His enemies are made His footstool with the destruction of the last invader of the gentiles (Ps 2:6-9; 110:1-6; Mic 5:4-6). This is the arch-persecutor whom Paul, citing Isa 11:4, will call, ‘the man of sin’, (compare Paul’s use of the Septuagint’s translation, “the Ungodly One” with the KJV’s, “that Wicked; 2Thes 2:8).

That verse 2 speaks of Israel’s promised Messiah from David’s line is undisputed by the Rabbis who freely acknowledge the Messiah’s pre-existence but do not accept any inference of deity. Indeed, the Hebrew does not require it, as examples can be shown where the language means only the days of old, but it is also understood that were a kind of divine son-ship in view, as in Christian theology, there is no other terminology in the Hebrew language that could more definitely indicate deity and co-eternality. Yet, if we compare Isaiah’s use of very similar language for the Davidic Messiah (Isa 7:14; 9:6-7 from Gen 3:15; Ps 2:7; 110:1-4), the evidence begins to mount in the direction of a divine figure.

By connecting verse 1 with verse 3 it becomes evident that the reason for the abandonment of verse 3, (“He shall give them up”), is that the smitten judge of verse 1 was not, as usually assumed, a mere humiliation of Israel’s contemporary king by the invading army (whether Hezekiah by the Assyrians, or Zedekiah by the Babylonians, as variously suggested), but the smitten judge was, in fact, the Messiah from Bethlehem who was rejected by “His brethren” (keeping in mind the Joseph analogy).

It has been well said that when we see a “therefore” in scripture, we need to pay close attention to what it’s ‘there for! ‘Therefore’ marks the transition from what is said and what the results or consequences are of what has been said. In this instance, I point out that the “therefore” (‘for this cause’) of verse 3 stands in causal connection to the smiting of the ruler of Israel in verse 1. The insertion of verse 2 between the cause of verse 1 and the effect of verse 3 explains the enormity of the offense that brings the judgement of Yahweh’s abandonment of the chosen people. It is because the smitten judge of verse 1 is not just any king or governor of Israel. He is the ruler from David’s line who has no beginning who brings the kingdom that has no end. The time in view is NOT the time of His birth, nor His ascension to the right hand of God, but when He comes (returns?) to destroy the final enemy (Ps 110:1-2; Isa 11:4; Mic 5:5-6).

The degree of punishment implies a greater crime than the more common sins of idolatry and covenant disloyalty from which there would a measure of recovery and revival, as under the prophets, Zechariah and Haggai, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Rather, the enormity of the punishment implies something more than sins in general, but a particular, consummate offense. This is evident in Hos 5:15-6:2 where the end of exile and the resurrection of the nation to begin the messianic age awaits acknowledgement, not simply of sins, or guilt in general, but of one offense in particular (compare also Zech 12:10, and Mt 23:39; Jn 19:37; Rev 1:7).

Such a long and unremitting experience of exile can only be explained by an offense that is on the scale of the national rejection (smiting) of God’s Messiah, the Davidic king whom He calls His son in Ps 2:7. It should not be lost on our attention that the prophet Isaiah, who is notably a contemporary of Micah, uses the same language to describe the suffering servant of Isa 50 and 53 who is likewise smitten by both the nation and by God as an atonement for sin. (compare, Job 16:10; Ps 69:26; Isa 50:6; 53:4, 10; Mic 5:1; Zech 13:7; Lam 3:30; Mt 26:31, 67-68; 27:30). .

Because it is so important to be clear on Israel’s predestined restoration to covenant favor, we are careful to emphasize that the “giving up” of Israel is never permanent, but only “UNTIL” the time of ‘Zion’s travail’. It is also important to point out that Micah’s reference to Israel’s travail is typical OT language for the great and unequaled tribulation (“Jacob’s trouble”) that ends in the spiritual birth or resurrection of the nation (compare Deut 4:30; Isa 13:8; 26:16-17; 66:8; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1; Hos 5:15; Mic 5:3).

Most will have heard of the coming “great tribulation”, referred to in popular idiom as ‘the apocalypse’. The concept of a final great tribulation of unequaled severity was once a common theme in the eschatology of Judaism. The transition from exile to redemption was understood to follow a time of great and unequaled tribulation, which the Rabbis called “the messianic woes,” or “the footsteps of the Messiah.”

The Micah passage is only the first plank of evidence. The strength of the argument is in the cumulative evidence for a foretold prophetic mystery that is distributed here and there throughout the writings of the prophets (Isa 8:14-17; 28:9-13; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:9; 1Pet 1:11; Ro 16:25-26).

Pointing out the implications of Micah 5:1-4 for both comings of Messiah to Israel provides the perfect opportunity to turn to another significant “until” passage from the Old Testament, Hos 5:15-6:2. Here again, a time of divine desertion is in view, which can be shown to correspond to the two days of exile and the age long chastisement that ends with Israel’s national repentance and resurrection (Hos 6:2 with Isa 26:19-20; Eze 37:5, 11-12; Dan 12:1-2; Hos 13:13-14).

Notice that in both the Hosea passage and the Micah passage; the cause for divine desertion is blamed, not on guilt or transgression in general, but on a singular ‘offense’ or transgression. The nation’s release from the judgment of exile and tribulation comes when this particular offense is acknowledged (Hos 5:15; Zech 12:10; with Mt 23:39; Acts 3:19-21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). Once again, we see that the transition comes “in their affliction” (Deut 4:30; Isa 48:10; Jer 30:6-7; Dan 12:1). It is important to stress that the day of national deliverance is always depicted as coming after a brief, but unequaled time of national birth pangs, affliction, or tribulation called “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Deut 4:30; 32:36; Isa 13:6-8; 26:17-18; 66:8; Mic 4:9; 5:3; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1, 7; Mt 24:21).

Significantly, Hosea depicts the departure and return of God in language that fits the presence, departure, and return of the Messiah to His former place in heaven, as now ‘sit down’ (term of completion) at God’s right hand, “waiting till His enemies are made His footstool when He shall begin His rod-iron rule out of Zion (Ps 2:8-9; 110:1-2; Hos 5:15; Heb 10:12-13). It is important to point out that the One who departs to His place, returns when the offense that provoked His departure is finally acknowledged. This corresponds to Zech 12:10. “They shall look up Me whom they have pierced.” The manifest analogy with Joseph becomes even more compelling in light of Mt 23:39. “You will not see me again ‘till’ you will say, “Blessed is He who comes …”  Zech 12:10, used with Mt 23:39, takes on glorious force in relationship to the prophetic type of Joseph’s reunion with his estranged brethren. It is the fitting dénouement to the most costly, fiercely pursued love story ever conceived.

The smiting of the divine son of David is the key to determining when the two days of Hos 6:2 begins. The time of Israel’s final giving up conincides with the two days that begins when the smitten ruler returns to His place at the Father’s right hand, expecting till His enemies are made His footstool at Antichrist’s destruction and the return of the kingdom to Israel. (compare Mic 5:1-5; Hos 5:15-6:3). This is the ultimate provocation that caused the One who “came to His own” but was ‘despised’ of the nation (Ps 22:6; Isa 49:7; 53:3; Hos 9:7; Jn 1:11) to “go away and return to His place” (Hos 5:15 w/ Ps 110:1-3; Mt 22:44; 26:64; Acts 1:11; 2:34; 3:21; 7:56; Ro 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2). You can see how amazingly well Mic 5:1-4 and Hos 5:15-6:2 go together in setting forth this basic outline of prophetic history.

The order and the way one proceeds from here will be a matter of personal adaptation and choice, but at this point, I like to point out that the unexpected interval between two distinct comings of Messiah covers, not only the full time that God is hiding His face in disapproval (Deut 31:17-18; 32:20; Isa 8:17; Eze 39:24, 29), but it particularly marks the time that the Deuteronomic threat would be fulfilled that during Israel’s estrangement from covenant favor, another people, a ‘not a people’, would be called to make Israel jealous. (Deut 32:21; Isa Isa 49:5; 65:1; with Mt 21:43; Acts 14:27; 15:14; Ro 10:19; 11:11; 1Pet 2:9-10). This is the time of Messiah’s session at God’s right while His face remains hidden, as the vision and prophecy remains sealed from the errant nation who have not yet come into the everlasting righteousness of the New Covenant sealed by the ascended Redeemer’s blood (Ps 110:1-2; Isa 8:14-17; Isa 59:20-21; Jer 32:40; Dan 9:24).

This great and unexpected reversal begins with rejection of the ‘corner stone’ (Isa 8:14-15; 28:16; Mt 21:42; Acts 4:11; 1Pet 2:8) and continues until the Spirit is poured out upon the surviving remnant (Ezek 39:28-29; Joel 2:28; Zech 12:10). “From that day and forward the house of Israel will know that I am the Lord their God (Ezek 39:22). “And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel, says the Lord God” (Ezek 39:29; compare also Isa 8:17; 59:19-21; Ro 11:25-27). This basic order of ongoing covenant discipline and the hiding of God’s face between the advents needs to be brought to Jewish attention, so that what many refuse to consider now, they will consider perfectly. “In the latter days, you will consider it perfectly” (see Deut 32:29; Isa 1:3; 42:22-25; Jer 23:30; 30:24)

After the two days of divine absence (Mt 23:39) that perfectly parallels the age long “giving up” of Israel described in Mic 5:3 and Hos 5:15-6:2, the rejected ruler from Bethlehem returns to revive the blinded nation by a miracle of revelation and regeneration that accomplishes the return and reunion of His estranged brethren (the broken off branches). With this, the covenant with Israel is vindicated, as Messiah begins His universal, rod-iron rule over the nations from a restored Zion (Mic 5:4). Notice how the language, “then the remnant of His brethren shall return” is so profoundly evocative of Joseph’s family reunion at the moment of his self revelation to his brethren who had formerly rejected and sold him.

If I am speaking to Christians who have heard of the millennium, I point out that the Jews are raised to live out the third day in His sight as a newly born / newly revived, now entirely regenerate nation (Isa 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34 et al). Thus, the third day in which the resurrected nation lives in His sight, corresponds perfectly to the NT revelation of the thousand year reign that follows Messiah’s return.

With the national confession and repentance that concludes the second day, the resurrected nation then lives out the third day of millennial glory as an all living (fully regenerate) nation that has now come into the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of covenant promise (Jer 32:40; Dan 9:24). With the new heart and spirit that is no longer the experience of only a remnant (Eze 18:31), but now the entirety of a fully regenerate with none left among them who do not know the Lord (Jer 31:34; Eze 39:22), never again to depart (Isa 54:10; 59:21; Jer 32:40), the Land can now be kept in  guaranteed security, forever beyond the threat of curse and exile (2Sam 7:10; 1Chron 17:9; Isa 54:15-17; Jer 24:6-7; Eze 37:25-28; Am 9:14-15).

At this point, I will typically share my personal conviction that the two days should be reckoned from the point of the Lord’s return “to His place”.  The time of abandonment begins, not with the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D., but when Jesus returned to His former glory in heaven, to take His seat of authority and rule at the Father’s right hand. There He remains until another great ‘until’ of prophecy, “until His enemies are made His footstool” (see Ps 110:1-2), and from thence He will return “at the set time to favor Zion” (Ps 102:13; 110:3). The following verse, Ps 110:3, shows that the same time Messiah’s enemies are made His footstool, the nation, long apostate, is made ‘willing in the day of His power” (i.e., the day of the Lord). With this, the long captivity is over forever, as the times of the gentiles close with the Deliverer’s descent out of Zion to turn ungodliness from Jacob (Lk 21:24; Ro 11:25-29).

In His parting words, Jesus declares to the nation who would not be gathered, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:38-39). With Israel’s fall, a “door of faith” would now be opened to the gentiles (Deut 32:21; Isa 49:5; 65:1; Acts 14:27; 15:14; Mt 21:43; Ro 1:5; 10:19; 16:25-26; 1Pet 2:9).

The death of Jesus would mark an unexpected extension of the long night of exilic judgment that must continue “UNTIL the times of the gentiles be fulfilled” (Lk 21:24). In the meantime, something completely unexpected would interpose itself into the eschatological time line. That is the present calling out of the gentiles a people for His name (Mt 24:14; 28:19; Acts 14:27; 15:14; Ro 16:26). This was, of course, very much expected but only in connection with the ‘end’ of exile, never as a result of Israel’s greater fall and further hardening (Ro 11:11). Though fully ‘written’ and foretold in the prophetic writings, all of this belonged to the mystery hidden in other ages (Isa 8:16; 29:11; Acts 26:22; Ro 16:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8; 1Pet 1:11).

Astonishingly, before Israel’s regeneration and return, before the tribulation (Zion’s travail; Isa 66:7-8), not with Israel’s deliverance and exaltation, but “through their fall” (Ro 11:11). This unexpected turn took everyone by surprise. “Though Israel be NOT gathered”, yet,  Messiah’s labors would not be in vain, but receive a more immediate reward and vindication among the gentiles (Isa 49:5-6; 65:1). Even while the saved remnant will continue to ‘wait on Him who hides His face from Israel’ (Isa 8:17), the sealed vision, what Paul calls the ‘hidden wisdom’ is ‘bound up and sealed among My disciples’ (Isa 8:16). It is the ‘mystery of the gospel’ by which the gentiles are made fellow partakers and joint heirs with the household of faith (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 2:19; 3:5-6; 6:18).

Paradox of paradox, only in this way could the Deuteronomic threat of Moses be fulfilled, that for a certain season, during the nation had been ‘given up’, another people (‘not a people’ / gentiles) would be blessed in their place. How better to understand the great extension of exilic judgment than by the nation’s failure to recognize “the time of their visitation” resulting in the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus? (Mt 23:39 with Lk 19:44; Acts 2:23). In this light, few things uttered by mortal lips could be more chilling and prophetic than the tragic self-imprecation invoked in Pilate’s judgment hall, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Mt 27:24-25).

By following through, using, and underlining for emphasis, the highly significant ‘tills’ and ‘untils’ of prophecy, the way is made clear to show that Israel’s blindness and exile is both temporary and everywhere connected to their national resurrection at Messiah’s return. With the question raised as to what great offense would be sufficient to condemn the nation to such an extended exile, one might turn to compare in Dan 9:26, where one called a ‘messiah’ is ‘cut off’, noting the same language is used to describe Isaiah’s suffering servant in Isa 53:8. Like Micah’s smitten king, He is likewise smitten, stricken, and despised of His own brethren (Isa 49:7; 50:6; 53:3-4). This comparison shows that the anonymous Servant in Isa 53 and the anointed Prince of Dan 9:26, are one and the same. He is the seed of the woman through whom the curse would be reversed by atoning substitution.

It is important to understand that the prophets well knew the implications of this most pregnant promise. Only one not under the curse could conceivably reverse it. Through unfolding revelation of David’s discernment of the significance of Abraham’s encounter with Melchizedek and his own investing of his future greater son with transcendent attributes of deity at God’s right hand (without “beginning of days”; Ps 110:4; Mic 5:2; Heb 7:3, or ‘end of days’; Isa 9:6-7), we may be very sure that the prophets foresaw, not only the sufferings of Messiah and the glories that would follow (1Pet 1:11), but also His necessary sinlessness and divine nature (Ps 2:7; 110:1, 4; Isa 7:14; 9:6-7; Mic 5:2; Jer 23:6).

As contemporaries in the southern kingdom of Judah, both Isaiah and Micah saw and foretold that the ruler from David’s line would be (in significant pattern with the sufferings of the rejected Joseph and the afflictions of David), rejected, despised, and ‘smitten’ by “His own brethren” (Ps 22:6, 16; Isa 49:7; 50:6; 53:3-4; Mic 5:1-3; Zech 12:10; Jn 19:37; Rev 1:7). They understood that before Messiah would enter into His glory, He would first be made a trap and snare for pride and unbelief, as the divinely ordained stone of stumbling (Isa 8:14; 28:6; Mk 12:10-11; Acts 4:11; Ro 9:32-33; 1Cor 1:23; 2Cor 2:16; 1Pet 2:4-8).  But it is just here, at the point of Israel’s greater fall by the rejection of their Messiah, that both Micah and Hosea, also contemporaries, speak of an extended time of divine abandonment (Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15).

Among the covenant curses of Deuteronomy it is written that while God’s face would be hidden from the nation (Deut 31:17-18), at the same time, He would be provoking them to jealousy by another people, a ‘not a people’, a ‘foolish nation’ (Deut 32:20-21). The foretold surrender of Israel over to an age long hardening (Job 34:29; Isa 6:9-11; 29:11) would never be more than partial, of course, since God would always preserve to Himself a remnant.

God’s face was never hidden from the remnant, but the prophets looked to the time when, not only a remnant, but all Israel would be saved, entirely, and without exception, all would be righteous and their children after them preserved in righteousness forever (Isa 4:3; 45:25; 54:13; 50:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; 32:40 et al), when the face of God would no longer be hidden from any part of the now fully redeemed nation (Isa 8:17; Eze 39:22, 28-29).

This situation of a lively remnant in abiding contrast with a disobedient nation under judgment would continue only ‘UNTIL’ the Spirit is poured upon us from on high …” (Isa 32:15-17). Not the concurrence of the pouring out of the Spirit with the spiritual birth of the nation in one day (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9; Eze 39:22) whereupon the erring nation will at last and forever enter into everlasting righteousness of the New Covenant (Isa 66:8; Jer 31:3131-34; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27). But note; a new spirit was always in times past available to the remnant who would turn to the Lord in repentance (Prov 1:23; Isa 55:1-3; Eze 18:31).

Not knowing the mystery of Messiah’s two comings and the purpose of God for the gentiles during an unexpected inter-advent period, nor the expansion of the remnant to include the wild branches from among the gentiles during an extended exile between the advents, the pouring out of the Spirit was always associated with the end of the final tribulation at the day of the Lord. The hiding of God’s face, not from the remnant, from whom His face was never hidden, but from the nation as a whole, ends forever with pouring out of the Spirit upon the newly born (Isa 66:8), resurrected (Isa 25:8; 26:19; Eze 37:12; Hos 6:2; 13:14) , and now entirely regenerate nation of penitent survivors at the end of the great and final tribulation (Isa 8:17; Isa 54:7-8; 57:17-18; 59:21; 64:7; Eze 36:26-27; 37:14; 39:8, 13; 22-24, 39; Joel 2:29-31; Zech 12:10).

Not only had Moses foretold the great anomaly of gentile salvation at the very time the face of God would be hidden from the larger nation, but Isaiah is just as clear, particularly when an exceptionally stubborn and much debated textual variant is duly considered. Time forbids giving an account and full documentation of the argumentation that has passed between both Jewish and Christian scholars, but the wording that is actually present in our surviving manuscripts (Kethiv) for Isa 49:5, but also questioned by the marginal reading (Quere) in some manuscripts, requires us to understand that Messiah’s mission to gather the tribes Israel would meet with momentary disappointment and seeming failure (“though Israel be NOT gathered”; see note below).

This momentary disappointment would be vindicated by the more immediate expansion of Messiah’s mission to bring the light of salvation to the nations and isles afar off (Isa 42:1; 49:1, 6), not AFTER Israel has been restored, but during the time that Israel is NOT gathered. Such a reading, along with Isa 65:1, suggests that the gathering of the gentiles would not be limited to the post-tribulational salvation of the nation, (which is no less true and forthcoming), but to the time that follows the rejection of Messiah, Jesus (Isa 49:7; 53:3; Mic 5:1; Zech 12:10).

This is just an opening for all the many evidences that can then, time permitting, be added to demonstrate the gospel in the Old Testament. Not only as a mystery that pertains to Christ’s two comings, but as a mystery that reveals God’s plan in all its glorious relationship to the fall and rising again of Israel. As I said, it provides a port of entrance by which one can move freely, fitting each additional piece into the framework that the mystery establishes of Messiah’s two comings and the extended judgment of exile that continues until His return.

It is certainly well known that the two comings of Christ were foretold in prophecy, but the approach that I am commending here underscores and proves the relation of the second coming to Israel in particular. Then all the great points of divine contention that the end events will press to ultimate intensity can be considered in their proper context. This is something much more than the mere acknowledgement of prophetic fulfillment. It raises all the great issues of God that surface when we understand that the end of the age comes in relation to what Isaiah calls the “controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3).

By demonstrating this structural outline of the mystery of Christ and Israel, one is able to verify from OT prophecy, that between the comings of Christ, the face of God is hidden from the nation at the very same time that God is provoking the Jew to jealousy by another people (the preponderantly Gentile church; Deut 32:21; Isa 49:5; 65:1 with Mt 21:43; Ro 10:19; 11:11). These scriptures establish the context and time for the calling out of a people from among the Gentiles (Acts 14:27; 15:14-18; Ro 11:15-17, 25) during the time that God is hiding His face from the nation as a whole (Deut 31:17-18; 32:20; Isa 8:17; Ezek 39:29; Mic 3:4).

I say “the nation as a whole,” because the face of God is not hidden from the elect remnant, among whom the testimony is “sealed up and bound” (Isa 8:16). The Spirit has already revealed the mystery of the gospel to the church (Ro 16:25-26 w/ Dan 11:32-33; 12:3, 10). What is waiting is for the Spirit to be poured out “in the whole house of Israel” at the day of the Lord (Isa 44:3; 59:21; Ezek 37:11, 14; 39:25, 29; Joel 2:28-29; Zech 12:10). Then will the ‘sealed vision’ be revealed to the penitent remnant of Israel by the outpoured Spirit of God (compare Isa 8:16-17 w/ Dan 9:24; Ezek 39:29; Zech 12:10) in the same way that the gospel was revealed by the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 3:18-21 w/ 1Pet 1:11-12). From this we can see that Israel’s national regeneration “in one day” (Isa 66:8; Ezek 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10) stands in remarkable analogy to the amazing sovereignty of Christ’s revelation of Himself to Paul on the Damascus road (Gal 1:15-16 w/ Ps 102:13).

Ezekiel is clear that “from that day and forward” (Ezek 39:22), God’s face will never more be hidden from any part of the whole house of Israel (Ezek 39:28-29). From that time, every living Jewish survivor of the last tribulation (Jer 31:34), and every child ever born to Jewish parentage (Isa 54:13; 59:21), will ‘all’ know the Lord in the glory of the everlasting covenant (Isa 60:21; Jer 31:34). This is the covenant background behind Paul’s statement, “And so ‘all’ Israel shall be saved” (Ro 11:26).

The gentile believer, no less than the Jewish believer, needs to be prepared to show the evidence of the gospel as a prophetic mystery contained in the Old Testament, not only for the useful goal of personal salvation, but because God has literally ‘commanded’ that the mystery of the gospel should be made known to all nations (not only to Jews) “by the scriptures of the prophets” (Acts 18:28; Ro 16:26). Prophecy is God’s own chosen method of witness (Isa 41:21-22; 42:9; 43:10-12; 44:7-8; 45:11; 46:9-10; Rev 19:10). It is like Paul’s reference to the weakness and ‘foolishness” of preaching; it is the approach that has “pleased God.”

From the standpoint of evangelism, the early church made a point to proclaim the gospel as a revelation a mystery (Eph 6:19) that was completely foretold in the Old Testament (Acts 26:22), but yet kept secret until the set time of revelation (Isa 8:16; 29:11; Ro 16:25-26). Should this also be our approach to evangelism? I believe it should for the following reasons:

Among Jews of the first century, the test for any truth claim was the question: “Does it stand written?” The revelation of the gospel was commended, by the apostles, to Israel on one basis only, namely, its agreement with what Moses and the prophets foretold. Approaching the witnessing task in this way does some very important things. At the same time that it validates the gospel, it also shows decisive evidence for the miracle of prophecy. The demonstration of the divine purpose of God in prophecy gives purpose and meaning to history, which opens a door of hope to the hopeless, even as it removes the intellectual excuse. (Even when our witness does not result in someone’s salvation, God has willed the removal of the “hiding place” for purposes of clarity in His judgment (Ps 51:4; Isa 6:10; 28:13; Jn 15:22).

This original approach to evangelism also accomplishes something else that is very important but too slightly considered in modern times. It establishes the gospel as a mystery that was intentionally hidden until the time of its full revelation with the advent of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 3:18-21; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). We need to understand why the gospel of Christ was a mystery, because it bears greatly on how we understand the last days of this age.

There was a divine strategy to expose and defeat the principalities and powers of this present age by keeping the mystery of God’s hidden wisdom concerning Christ secret until after its accomplishment (compare Mk 8:30; 9:9; “see you tell no man;” w/ 1Cor 2:7-8; “For had they (the principalities and powers) known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”. The mystery was a divinely prepared trap and snare against all self sufficient presumption, both human and demonic (Ps 69:22 w/ Isa 8:14-15; 28:16; Mt 21:42; 1Pet 2:6-8). In that sense, it was hidden for judgment (Jn 9:39).

Before its revelation, the gospel, though completely foretold, was a divinely designed mystery (the sealed testimony or vision; Isa 8:16; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9) prepared to function not only as revelation to the repentant, but as judgment to the impenitent. The church needs to present the gospel for the mystery that it was, and also for the revelation that it will yet be to the penitent survivors of Jacob’s trouble at the future day of the Lord.

The mystery of the gospel includes both comings of Christ, and the second coming is inextricably related to literal-physical Israel and all that pertains to the Antichrist, the tribulation, and Christ’s return at the day of the Lord. The greater mystery of God (Rev 10:7), “the mystery of His will” (Eph 1:9), or “the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ” (Eph 1:11), reveals God’s predestined means of fulfilling in literal detail His everlasting covenant with Israel. That is why it is so essential that the church understand its relationship to Israel’s future grace, since it is the same covenant of sure mercies, as established with Abraham and David.

In order for the hidden wisdom of God’s prophetic purpose in Christ to be concealed from the demonic realm, it was also necessary that it be hidden from man as well (Mt 13:35; Ro 16:25; Eph 3:5). Even after the mystery of the gospel has been revealed to the church in its outward form, its inner essence remains hidden and inaccessible to pride (Mt 11:25; 1Cor 2:14). It is not enough that the outward form of the gospel be only understood with the mind; it must be quickened by the Spirit, as only revelation by the Spirit is sufficient to create lasting inward transformation (2Cor 3:18). Enough evidence will make even a devil “believe” (Ja 2:19), but true trust in God is foreign to our nature. It must be in-wrought by the life giving Spirit of God.

This understanding of the ways of God in mystery as judgment, and through revelation as mercy, saves the church from taking for granted the extravagant cost and scope of the work of God with both Jew and gentile in His continual war against the pride of self-reliance. It brings into view a further aspect of God’s ability to accomplish both judgment and salvation by His wise use of a prophetic mystery that is at once His glory and special delight.

Paul spoke about the “fellowship of the mystery” (Eph 3:9 KJV), as a “hidden wisdom, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Cor 2:7). This carries huge implications for the church, not only for its more intelligent appreciation of the cost and glory of the gospel, but for its understanding of the modern crisis of Israel as we approach the concluding stages of the same prophetic mystery, as this mystery will again confront Israel (Isa 28:11-18), the church (Ro 11:25; 1Pet 4:17), and the nations (Ps 2:1-2, 6; Isa 29:7-8; 34:2, 8; Dan 11:28, 30; 40-45; Joel 3:2; Zeph 3:8; Zech 12:2-3, 9; 14:2-3).

It raises the issue of God’s employment of mystery and revelation in His conquest of Satan (Dan 10:12-13; 1Cor 2:7-8; Rev 12:7-10), as it also tests and exposes the hearts of men. Although the prophetic mystery that stumbled Israel is now an open secret, it remains hidden from the pride of impenitence (Isa 28:21). Such a concept of revealed mystery by a God who “hides Himself” (Isa 45:15) provides a radical readjustment of how God is perceived in this aspect of His judgment upon all human and demonic autonomy. If the ultra religious sects of Israel was not spared in the day of an unrecognized visitation (Lk 19:44), how shall the pride of the church be spared (Ro 11:21; 1Pet 4:17), as we near the time that the “the mystery of God” (Rev 10:7) is about to be finished?

In conclusion, this plan of presentation shows the basic outline of history in prophecy, and makes sense of the unexpectedly long interval that has already passed between the first and second comings, which brings us now full circle again to an imminent world crisis over Jerusalem as a modern cup of trembling, evoking all the great issues of God that conclude the age. It makes sense out of all that has followed in Jewish history.

The case for a future tribulation that is focused primarily on the nation of Israel opens up opportunity to call attention to the contemporary fulfillment of prophecy and to draw out the implications of current trends. Time permitting, particularly when witnessing to Jews; one could expand on the ancient contention of the covenant (Lev 26; Deut 28-32; Ezek 20:37), and the explanation this provides for the mystery of Jewish suffering throughout history. The way is then made to show that the great goal of the covenant and the solution to the crisis of Jewish history is the revelation of the righteousness of God in Christ. This is the crux; all else is secondary by comparison. The entire New Testament is occupied to expound the righteousness promised to Israel in the everlasting covenant. (“For therein (the gospel) is the righteousness of God revealed… But now the righteousness of God is manifested …; Ro 1:17; 3:21-22, 25-26; 10:3-4; 16:26).

In covenant and prophecy, all lines lead to the revelation of Messiah as “the Lord our righteousness” (Jer 23:6). No other righteousness is adequate to fulfill the law and no other sacrifice is acceptable to assuage divine wrath. The imputed righteousness of Christ is the “the everlasting righteousness” (Isa 26:12; 45:24-25; 54:17; Jer 23:6; 32:40; Dan 9:24) of covenant promise that will enable Israel to keep the Land forever. It is the righteousness revealed to the church at the end 69th week of Daniel, as it will be revealed to the penitent remnant of Israel at the end of Daniel’s seventieth week, fitting the newly born nation (Isa 66:8) for its millennial inheritance.

The gap that the above scriptures expose between Christ’s two advents can be discerned in Daniel’s famous prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27). A hidden age between the advents is a common characteristic of Old Testament prophecy, where both comings of Christ are often blended in the same prophecy without clear distinction. The phenomenon also appears in many passages where near and distant aspects of prophecy are combined.

We need to understand that God deliberately concealed the foretold gospel of Christ in the form of a prophetic mystery, revealed in parts and pieces (“here a little, and there a little”) throughout the prophetic writings of the Old Testament (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). This needs to be underscored, because Daniel’s mysterious prophecy of the seventy weeks constitutes a perfect example of the OT mystery of Messiah’s coming, departure, and return to Israel, as a secret, divinely sealed and ‘kept under wraps’, or ‘encrypted’ (the Hebrew sense of Isa 8:16 according to Keil and Delitzsch) until its revelation by the Spirit (compare also Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12 etc.)

This is not the place to make the full case, but the seventy weeks are strategically constructed around the two great mysteries of incarnation (the woman’s and the serpent’s seed of Gen 3:15) that mark the beginning and the end of this present age. In One (“Messiah the Prince”), the mystery of godliness is revealed (1Tim 3:16). In the other, “the prince that shall come” heads up the mystery of iniquity, which Paul shows must be revealed before Christ can return (2Thes 2:7).

It can be demonstrated beyond reasonable dispute that the final week (Dan 9:27) of Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27) is not in reference to Christ but the Antichrist. Therefore, a gap is necessarily observed between the 69th and 70th weeks. The controversy over whether the 70th week of Daniel is future, resolves itself into one decisive question: “Which of the two princes stops the daily sacrifice?” If the evidence within the immediate context of the book is given due priority, the answer is irrefutable. It is “the one who exalts himself” (compare Dan 8:11 w/ Dan 11:31-37; 2Thes 2:4).

Furthermore, chapter 12 of Daniel is particularly decisive in making the case for the futurity of Daniel’s final week, because it makes clear that the sacrifice that is stopped in “the middle of the week” in Dan 9:27, happens approximately 3 ½ years (1290 days) before the resurrection of the dead (compare Dan 12:1-2 with Dan 12:11; see also, Dan 7:25; 12:7; Rev 11:2-3; 12:16, 14; 13:5). To suppose that the 70th week of Daniel follows the 69th in unbroken succession is to ignore the internal evidence within the book, but worse, it is to miss the divinely intended mystery that will continue to offend the rationalism of higher criticism.

So the great tribulation is clearly the second half of the last seven years that starts with a covenant or league (Dan 9:27; 11:23) that is made with “the prince that shall come.” He is the Antichrist (“little horn” or “Man of Sin”) who makes the “covenant with death hell” that seduces Israel into a false sense of security (Isa 28:15-18; Dan 11:24 ASV). The false security that results from this ill-fated peace treaty (Ezek 38:8, 11, 14) prepares the way for the “sudden destruction” (1Thes 5:3) of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21). Therefore, the tribulation starts at the mid point of the week when the Antichrist violates the covenant that he earlier confirmed at the start of the week (Dan 9:27; 11:23-31).

No single prophecy could ever be more important for the end time church to understand (“Let the reader understand;” Mt 24:15) than Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks (Dan 9:24-27). Careful attention to Daniel is vital for opening up and showing so much else that is critically relevant for the church’s preparation for its role in these last days towards Israel and the nations (Dan 11:33; 12:3, 10). The specific chronology of Daniel is particularly dreaded by Satan, because his eviction by Michael in the middle of week (Rev 12:9-10) is directly related to the prophetic countdown of events that start with the beginning of Daniel’s seventieth week.

[Note 1: We have followed K and 4QIsd in reading lo‘ (‘not’; cf also Vg, Sym, Th), rather than Q and 1QIsa lô (‘to him’; cf also LXX, Tg, Syr). The latter reading implies the meaning ‘and so that Israel might be gathered to him’, which makes easier sense but thus seems to be a correction. Goldingay, J., & Payne, D. (2006). A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55. (G. I. Davies & G. N. Stanton, Eds.) (Vol. 2, p. 162). London; New York: T&T Clark.

[Note 2: That the book of Daniel has suffered greater attack by liberal scholarship than any other book of the Bible should alert the conservative believer to Satan’s special fear and hatred of its contents. (see Sir Robert Anderson’s, “Daniel in the Critics Den.” More recently, Josh McDowell has written an update of Anderson’s material by the same title.)]

[Note 3: The futurity of the entire seven years of Daniel’s seventieth week was specifically affirmed by Hippolytus (170-236 AD) in his “Treatise on Christ and Antichrist” (Ante Nicene Fathers Vol 5, Pt. 2:43). Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John. So the really presumptuous allegation that the gap between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel is an invention of modern 19th century dispensationalism is patently false. On the contrary, the much maligned “gap theory” is intrinsic to the mystery of Christ in the Old Testament.]

Reggie

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When it comes to those who pass into reprobation, such as Pharaoh or Judas, I certainly don’t believe God is setting those guys up. He is, as you say, foreseeing and incorporating their own self chosen rebellion into His plan. However, once they have advanced to a certain place, God is free and just to take certain measures that He knows will exacerbate their condition and drive their fallen natures into greater exposure and damnation as judgement on an already existing condition.

On the other hand, even fully respecting a certain kind of limited free will, which I do, it cannot be denied that God does NOT operate according to the perceived rules of human fairness. What do I mean? I mean you have only to look at history, as also the history of revival and conversion. Paul himself and the surviving remnant of Israel (i.e., the third that is saved in one day), are perfect examples of God “tampering” with human freedom in a way that far exceeds and surpasses what He does with the general population over the general course of time.

Who can deny that in the case of some, much more than others, He brings far greater constraints and inducements? For example, for nearly 2,000 years, most of the remnant of God’s people was from among the Jewish nation. Then, for what has been nearly another 2,000 years, it is quite the exact opposite. Then, for a final 1,000 years, there is one nation under heaven whose population is 100 % saved while all throughout the nations there is ongoing evangelism and clearly a number of increasing preponderance, particularly towards the end of the millennium who refuse to behold the majesty of the Lord (Isa 26:10). Am I to believe that all of this happens only by God’s foreknowledge of men’s free will and actions. Besides Yada, as in Amos 3:2 and its Greek counterpart, prognosei, means intimacy or prearrangement of relationship, as when Adam knew his wife, Eve. It is much more than divine omniscience. .

I believe that God is free to bring such constraints as to conquer the natural resistance of the will without violence to the will. I further believe He is free to do this in the case of some without being thereby obligated to do the same in the case of all, and that, of course, is the offense. It is also the mystery of theodicy that Paul does not solve by merely invoking free will, which He so easily could have done in anticipation of the inevitable objections. Why did God choose Jacob, an individual and a nation, but not Esau, also both individual and nation independently of their works and before works were even possible. The answer is not mere foresight of their works. That would say nothing about grace. The scripture gives the reason very clearly. It was “in order that” His purpose in grace might stand, not of him who wills or works but of Him who calls, as always, “lest any flesh boast.” Special discrimination election was necessary for grace to be grace, that is of the biblical kind.

I would tend to go with you that this is only with regard to the Jewish nation as a corporate entity and your persuasion of that puts us at one in what I believe to be the main burden of Ro 11, but corporate entities are made up of individuals, and unless someone can explain a goodly number of scriptures that shows the instantaneous salvation of the Jewish nation, with all the subsequent population preserved in gospel holiness, without a single defection that is not met with quick chastisement and correction for a thousand years, then I’ve got to believe that something more than divine foresight is at work here. It is discriminating, apprehending grace that is NOT universal for the very reason that God’s lavish mercy on one does not obligate Him to the other, though He takes nothing from, nor imposes no disadvantage on the other. He is justly free to take special measures in behalf of one without this obligating Him to do the same for another, though He has done more than enough for the salvation of all so that all are without excuse. Their greatest damnation will be His goodness to all, but there’s a manifest difference between what some call ‘common grace’ and the special grace that is manifest by His deliberate and always successful pursuit of those the father gave to Jesus to bring home.

To fail to appropriate His provision lies entirely with the free will of man. God has done all on His part to be gracious, even pleading all the day long, not willing that any perish, taking no delight in the death of the wicked. On the other hand, those who appropriate God’s provision do so under conditions and constraints that do not prevail equally and at all times so that there is nothing in them to credit for the conversion of the will and transformation of their nature. That’s where I tend to leave it. While men are free and responsible for their actions, else judgement would be a mechanical sham, still, by any reckoning, there is more going on here than mere free will and divine foresight of what men will do with what comes their way.

As God got His man on the road to Damascus in one day by a sudden blast of transforming divine revelation (“when it pleased God to reveal His son in me”), just so, He will get His nation! (“the time to favor Zion, yea, the set time has come!”) In terms of a human perception of divine fairness, where does this leave the many generations that were not so specially constrained, their power fully shattered and met by a mighty, divinely timed in-breaking of transforming revelation that kills the old and quickens the new? Not an every day event, to be sure.

God is free to raise the dead and quicken whom He will, not just those who will and run. He’s God and that’s the point He seems to go out of His way to make, even for a thousand years of requiring the nations to recognize and honor His just prerogative in discriminating election and grace. It’s a mystery, hid and laid up among His treasures from the beginning. It is a mystery how one is made to differ from another only by God’s grace, yet without injustice to those not so specially wrought upon by God, even while His just severity is seen to fall without remedy on the unwilling for the very sake of their unwillingness. But the people will be willing, not of themselves, but in the day of His power. That’s not just any day that man chooses to make the day of God’s power. It is the time of His special act. It’s a day of resurrecting grace that is specially directed on one people, but no less every individual who will make up that nation.

That’s just some of my thinking on the matter. It makes no one happy on either side, so I’ve never gotten too spoiled to having the luxury of full doctrinal agreement on this among those I love and with whom I rejoice to fellowship. But here I stand though it loses me much support, as you can imagine, even though I’ve never pushed it or indulged in the philosophical problems it can tend to create beyond what the scripture explicitly or leaves to necessary inference. There it is: Man is responsible and God is sovereign and the twain do meet. But free will, by itself, or God’s foreknowledge by itself alone, does not seem to sufficiently account for what we see in scripture, history, and most especially prophecy.

God is free and just to constrain and bring powerful and rare inducements to an extent that becomes a natural offense when the same is not done equally for others. When you think about it, both the Calvinist and the Arminian must bear the implications of this scandal to humanistic reason. Why didn’t God provide atonement and potential for repentance for Satan? His grace towards man did not thereby obligate Him towards the angels that fell and I can imagine that this is part of their rage, but that is speculative and I have to quit. It’s all too deep for me but I am only obligated to affirm what the scriptures most plainly affirm regardless of how this perturbs or disturbs the reasoning mind, mine included. Hope that helps explain me a bit more though I doubt I can answer many of the questions it must raise. I’m as non plussed about much of this as the next person, but feel God is saying something through these things that we must not miss only because it boggles the mind and creates philosophical problems. The answer seems more to bow than to understand.

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Do you know how long the Jews have not believed in Adamic sin being imputed? How modern is that notion?

You ask an interesting question on the Jewish rejection of the imputation of Adam’s sin. I don’t think there was ever a time when rabbinic Judaism has not rejected the doctrine of original sin, and hence, the imputation of Adam’s sin. The imputation of Adam’s sin in Ro 5 is in keeping with the doctrine of original sin, which is strongly suggested in many scriptures in both testaments, but particularly required for our understanding of the necessity of Jesus’s virgin birth, since in this way the Messiah would circumvent the the fallen nature of Adam, as passed down through the seed of man. Jewish theology is particularly vocal and passionate in its rejection of the doctrine of original sin, strongly affirming instead the innate ability of man to achieve salvation, but not, of course, without the necessity of forgiveness and mercy through self-initiated repentance, nothing of the special drawing of the Spirit required.

Instead of original sin, Judaism teaches the notion of the two inclinations, with the free will of man being the arbiter as to which wins out in the struggle. They reject the Christian view that a deep root of corruption, received in the fall, pervades all our nature, rendering us incapable of a true and acceptable holiness apart from the special quickening of the Spirit. They believe that the only thing we inherit from Adam is the two inclinations inherent in human nature. With every new entry into the world, it is a fresh start of innocence that is progressively broken down or built up through free choices. No one enters into the world without the full right and ability to gain (earn?) eternal life through the wisdom and discipline of right choices (Ro 4:4). In Judaism, man is not inherently incapacitated for righteousness as in Christian theology (which is taken mostly, but not entirely from the scriptures of the NT that profoundly deny natural, unaided capacity for an acceptable righteousness (e.g., Ps 51:5; Jer 13:23; 17:9; Eze 16:5-6; Mt 19:17; Ro 7:14, 18, 23; 1Cor 2:14, Eph 2:1).

Although I believe that we do inherit the imputation of Adam’s particular sin, as he acted representatively in our nature, as in him all die; it is the fallen nature inherited from Adam that incapacitates us for true repentance, faith, and holiness, since this has rendered us as dead and inert apart from the special intervention of the Spirit. Hence, even the best that the unregenerate person is capable of producing, even in sincere obedience to divine commands, this cannot count for salvation, or even contribute towards eternal life. The way is barred from even the best of human will and noble intention (Ro 9:16, 31-32; 10:2-3). Of course, this is the offense of the cross, namely, the rejection of all that stands under the power of the first creation, not as always completely worthless in and of itself, but as necessarily rejected where the gift of eternal life is concerned.

Since this is getting at the heart of the mystery of the faith, that salvation comes only through a transforming revelation that creates a new union with the divine nature, it is to be expected that the natural man, and of course Jewish theology, would categorically reject such a foreign thesis. That “in man is nothing good” (MK 10:18; Ro 3:10; 7:18; Rev 15:4) is a consummate offense to reason, since it shatters hope in man. This is the hue and cry of humanism and the protest of every man centered theology.

This is not to say (though some have said) that all that pertains to the unsaved is worthless and evil. Even Calvin would speak of “the remnant of the image of God” in fallen man. All can see that the unregenerate are by no means incapable of a measure of goodness, but this cannot count for, or take the place of salvation. Lest any flesh should boast, this must be wholly the work of God by the Spirit. That’s the crucial difference. Man in the image of God, like the law written on stone, has a kind of glory; that is true, but it is fatally short of the glory of God. This is the problem.

It is an hard word indeed, but unless the thoughts and intent of the heart, however noble and selfless the motive, are the fruit of the indwelling Spirit of Christ received by faith, this cannot count with God where salvation and eternal reward is concerned. There may be temporary reward for wise living. A restrained and disciplined lifestyle with virtue and good works may even check and restrain the progress of sin and depravity and do some good in the world. But whatever its temporal value, it is short of the necessary miracle of the new creation and thus short of the glory God. As Paul would say, the only thing that counts is a new creation (Gal 6:15). Thus, Israel’s eschatological salvation in the present age becomes the paradigm and macrocosm of individual and corporate salvation through the transforming revelation of the gospel (Isa 45:17, 25; 54:13; 59:21; 66:8; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 37:5; Dan 9:24 with Jn 3:3; 5:21; 6:45, 63; 2Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Eph 2:1; 1Pet 1:23)

The issue will always reduce to the issue of the Spirit. In Christ / in the Spirit is life eternal. Outside is wrath, regardless of time or dispensation, since only by the indwelling Spirit of Christ were any ever made alive to God. That is a rule that may be well inferred from a host of scriptures in both testaments (Gen 41:38; Nu 27:18; Isa 63:11; Dan 4:8-9, 18; 5:14; Mt 22:32, 43; Jn 3:3, 6, 10; 4:24; 6:63; 8:39; Ro 8:14-15; 9:8; 1Cor 2:14; 2Cor 3:17; Gal 4:29; 6:15; Eph 2:1; 1Pet 1:11). Not all receive the same reward or punishment (Lk 12:47-48), but eternal destiny is decided by the issue of life by Spirit through the imputed righteousness of Christ to true faith, which, of course, is a living, and thus a working faith.

Not even the most noble acts, however selflessly motivated, can count for salvation. Nothing of man or that stands in the will or power of man can avail. Only the imputation of Christ’s righteousness can justify before God, the evidence being the gift of the Spirit who creates the new heart of the New Covenant. It is the power and life of the new creation, born of the Spirit and the Word through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. This alone justifies before God.

I think a central and non negotiable point of our message must always be the unthinkable terror of presuming to stand before infinite, unapproachable holiness, in anything less or other than the very righteousness that was perfected in Jesus’s 33 1/2 years of tested obedience under the law as the spotless Lamb (Mat 3:15; Gal 4:4-5). To come in any other covering is an inexcusable affront (Mt 22:11-13). To present anything less, or to mix something of man with its perfection is to pollute and nullify the whole. By itself, no human work can stand in the judgment, since all other ground is sinking sand. That one sacrifice cannot brook mixture. It is all or nothing. To presume to add anything within human reach or power to the finished work of Christ is to pollute the whole. “A little leaven.” I realize that’s an hard word; but the law requires perfection. Anything short is an affront to divine holiness and to the law.

The Spirit could never have quickened the first sinner apart from the divine certainty of the Surety’s divinely guaranteed success, being already counted as a fully accomplished event in the eternal counsel and foreknowledge of God. Jews need to understand that Jesus and His sacrifice was not an afterthought, not a new plan, but the ground of all salvation past and future, even before the revelation of the mystery that brought to full light the way and means of God’s eternally predestined will to gather together all things in Christ (Eph 1:9-10). Obviously, this means that those in the OT who trusted in God for a righteousness that was not their own had imputed to them much more than they could yet understand (Ps 32:2; Ro 4:6). Just as when Jesus said, “For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them” (Matt 13:17), since now, the way into the holiest of all has been made manifest.

What points of appeal can be brought to Jews that can break into such a powerful false covering, so seemingly supported by scripture itself? (Ro 10:2-3; Phil 3:5-9). Surely it is a blindness that is especially powerful and unique to this beloved enemy “for our sakes” (Ro 11:28). Who, more than the Jew is calculated to send believers back to do their homework in order to give answer? (Prov 15:28; 16:1; Isa 50:4; 2Tim 2:15; 1Pet 3:15). By this divinely ordained encounter, believers are either deepened or devastated in their faith. The Jew is a provision to see if the believer has apprehended the revelation of the gospel by the Spirit (Isa 53:1; Mt 16:17; Ro 1:17; 1Cor 2:14; Eph 6:19). Else, this formidable challenge has the power, as nothing else, to profoundly shake the faith that one only ‘seemed’ to have (Lk 8:18).

Somehow, it has pleased God that when the foolishness of the cross is preached, the Spirit cuts through all the otherwise impossible intellectual barriers. Although the consummate offense, there is something about the concept of a crucified Messiah that breaks into the human spirit as nothing else ever could. As someone has well said, “true faith begins precisely at the point the atheist thinks it should be at an end.”

The post “Behold, I Was Shapen in Iniquity…” appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Damnation is self imposed. Salvation happens when the Spirit quickens the dead (Eph 2:1). God is not responsible for the death of the wicked and has no pleasure in it. He does, however, take the highest pleasure in bringing many foreknown sons safely home to glory. I don’t understand it. I don’t have to. It is sufficient that Scripture plainly affirms it. I still find great simplicity in Spurgeon’s helpful truism: “Salvation is all of grace, but damnation is all of sin.” One thing is certain: There is nothing in one that makes him to differ from another that is not altogether the grace of God (1Cor 4:7), else he would have whereof to glory (Ro 4:2).

I agree that if our assurance is based on our obedience as the test of whether we’re among the elect, it can produce uncertainty when we stumble, especially the fruits that give evidence of true salvation seem lacking. But is this only a problem with Calvinists? Wouldn’t most Arminians agree that one lacking the fruits and traits of “things that accompany salvation,” are called upon in scripture to examine themselves, and to take care to make their calling and election sure? (2Cor 13:5; Heb 6:9; 2Pet 1:10)

Many Christian cults claim a new start with forgiveness and hold hope of renewed forgiveness for future sins, but we also see that this is not always proof of true regeneration. Manifestly, not everyone that claims some experience of forgiveness has been born again. Either that, or some would explain that they have lost their salvation, which opens yet another can of worms.

Who will not agree that true regeneration is a straight gate that comparatively few will ever find, while many will say “Lord, Lord” in confidence that their works gave decisive evidence of a regeneration they only presumed to have? In all the works oriented gospels out there, there is great emphasis on grace, but only as it is proven by works of obedience. Grace is made little more than divine enablement to keep the law. This is surely the cart before the horse. It is the Galatian heresy. It is not that true faith does not produce living works; but the cart tends to get put before horse when works are made the evidence of grace. This is affirmed by evangelicals, but also a number of cults would say the same thing. The question is works of what kind? Baptism? Sabbath keeping? No, a person still in the flesh can do many works but none of this is proof of salvation. Rather, when we are fully satisfied with the only sacrifice that can satisfy the holiness of God and the law (Isa 53:11), so that Christ alone is all our righteousness, quite apart from any righteousness of our own, then the joy and sweetness of that glorious assurance cannot but show itself in works of a new and living kind, flowing from a heart of love that has been changed and set free (Jn 7:38).

When works, even works of verification, become the focus rather than Christ’s finished work, then the cart gets put before the horse. It is a deception to make certain works the proof of salvation when only Christ is the proof of any works. Make Christ sure to the heart by faith, and the right kind of works will follow. When the heart is established on the all sufficiency of His righteousness, imputed and sure, works of a new and living kind, the true fruits of the Spirit are guaranteed to become manifest in some real measure (Mt 13:8). Albeit, not without weakness, failure, and the necessity of purging and ongoing chastisement and purification.

This brings us to the question of simple believing without works as the fountainhead of salvation and every blessing. Such believing is more than mental consent, it is a work of God (Jn 6:29). Let us say we make our choice. Let us say we believe and even believe only, putting no trust in our works, not even in any personal virtue such as human sincerity or any such thing. Let us say we are careful not to measure the evidence of our salvation by outward works, but then life goes on and on some more, and the signs of real life never seem to appear, in fact, just the opposite. What then?

Will the scripture support a claim to salvation that is completely devoid of evidence? What of James’s insistence that a living faith will produce living works? What of the Lord’s statement that the seed that takes deep root will certainly and invariably produce some real measure of fruit, whether it be 30, 60, or an hundred fold? What of John’s insistence that those applying for baptism first show fruits / evidence of true repentance, and what of Jesus’s dictum that if one were truly a child of Abraham, he would do the works of Abraham? Certainly these are not the works of the law (within the power of unaided flesh), but living works wrought by the power of the Spirit through faith. The Pharisees were incapable of these kinds of “works” apart from the new birth.

So the question of evidence by which one may take the greater assurance that his experience of divine forgiveness was truly transforming, truly regenerative, and not merely a passing relief from guilt (as claimed by so many), would seem to be the question of evidence. What kind of evidence should count that one is indeed a new creation? Or should evidence have anything to do with it? In view of quite a number of plain scriptures that warn of the absence of evidence, I have trouble when anti-Lordship salvation advocates say no.

The question is not whether one is helpless to know if they are among the elect, but whether one can be sure that they are regenerate. This is not only a Calvinist problem; Arminians also struggle with that question in times of failure and doubt. It is, of course, easier for the Arminian who can always simply be restored, which they prefer to the notion of getting ‘saved again.’ For the Calvinist, the question is even more terrifying. Since he believes that true regeneration is irreversible, a lapse, particularly a recurring lapse that seems incompatible with true salvation, raises the specter of what if I was never really saved in the first place? If not, what will it take to be sure that I am saved? Have I ever really laid hold of Christ, and if I have, how could I have fallen this far?

If I have not yet sufficiently trusted so as to be secure of my eternal destiny, how will I ever know? Must I wait till my works are well in order before I can take comfort that I’m saved? Must I come to a place of faith that is beyond doubt? And so on the questions go. Besides, who will not agree that the scripture is not silent about the marks of true salvation and the marks of its absence? Doesn’t scripture teach that the faith that receives the seal of the Holy Spirit guarantees a new heart that shows itself in new impulses, a love for righteousness and new hatred of sin, the love of the brethren and so on? These realities have tangible evidence of love and good works, do they not? Only such evidence of a heart set free will ever move the unsaved to emulation, but how will we move the unsaved to emulation if we are struggling with the question of assurance ourselves?

Where these fruits of the Spirit are lacking, particularly when they are completely absent, or where “works that deny Him” (Tit 1:16) persist unchecked and undisciplined, is this not due cause to question ones standing in grace? (Heb 12:8) The question is not whether one is elect, but whether one is regenerate, because all who are regenerate are certainly the elect. The Calvinist suffers from the further disadvantage of believing that a mere decision of the will does not always guarantee regeneration. The evidence is against it, as seen all throughout the mixed multitude that makes up most of world Christendom. We have seen untold numbers of professions that show no fruits of repentance at all, let alone lasting change. This brings questions about the true nature of regeneration, as something more rare than many suspect. Even if Edwards and the early New Englanders seem too severe in their guarded care to “look diligently lest anyone fail of the grace of God,” we should sympathize with their effort to raise a standard of rebuke to the scandal of empty and lifeless profession among many that were religious but manifestly lost. What we need to hear is not criticism for their dilemma but a biblical solution.

I believe the only solution to breaking this impasse is to labor to enter into His rest. This “glorious rest” (His rest shall be glorious; Isa 11:10) is the rest of “the full assurance.” It comes as a gift, as there is nothing of works (our own works) in it. It is free and grace. Out of that rest, His life is sure to flow (Jn 7:38) in some real measure as fruits of the Spirit, not only in good works, but most importantly in the inner witness of son-ship as we cry, “Abba Father,” in confidence that we are irreversibly His forever. Otherwise, it seems we’re on the tread mill of always checking to see if we’re safe, but on what basis? What of the gospel that has us now in Christ and now out of Christ with every fall or persistent temptation, endlessly trying to recover the ground of assurance? Is that any better than Calvinism? I think not. Find the true balance here that does NOT leave clear scriptures inadequately explained, and you will have done the body of Christ an enormous service. I’ve seen problems on both sides of the fence, and “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” that is in terms of a truly biblical solution that doesn’t slide off in a direction that leaves too many gaps to be trusted.

The Reformers had a terse saying to resist the tendency towards the perversion of grace they called,’antinomianism’ (the tendency to turn grace into license) It is this: “We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies in never alone?” That is a soundly scriptural statement; but what of the faint of heart who is always anxious to prove whether his works or patterns of behavior show well enough that his faith is true and acceptable to God, i.e., “the faith of God’s elect? It is the vicious cycle of anxiously striving to make sure we’re believing well enough to have the works that show we’ve believed well enough? Is this not also the cart before the horse?

Focusing on the inward evidence of faith can be another trap of self-introspection. It is when we look away from ourselves to Christ that faith is quickened and revived, since a true work of grace will not permit the heart to rest short of the revelation of Christ’s glory, and where Christ is glorified, there the Spirit is given (Jn 7:38-39). When the heart can rest and be satisfied in the perfect and complete righteousness of Christ alone, not only good works, but goodness and mercy are sure to follow by simply taking Him at His Word, not by human exertion and anxious concern, but by the sweetness of His holy person, because when He is all in all, assurance will not be wanting. Then will your light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father.

May His grace break through in mighty measure to ground and comfort every true hearted pilgrim in the blessed assurance of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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In a five minute quiz I was given at my work place some years ago, I found myself writing something like this: There are only two great questions that rule the history of western civilization: 1) By what standard? (the question of authority) and 2) “Who decides?” (the question of interpretation). Both reduce to the question, “What is truth?” The first is occupied with the existence and source of truth, the second with how we can arrive at truth, and whether and how we can justify a truth claim. In other words, “how do you know? And how can I know what you claim to know?,” i.e., the basis of truth, the knowledge of truth, and the question of proof.

If God is the truth and the ultimate source of truth, then only He is reliably objective. That is why the questions of inspiration, canon, and contemporary claims to authority have been such sensitive issues. This in turn brings the question of the Spirit, which takes us beyond the mechanics of even the best tools. Since many claim to have the Spirit, the question of final objectivity remains with God alone, and our only safety is the demonstrably authoritative Scripture of Truth (demonstrable particularly through the miracle prophecy; Isa 41:21-22; 43:9; 44:7; 45:11, 21; 46:9-10; Acts 26:22; Ro 16:26; 2Pet 1:19; Rev 19:10 b).

No evangelical would ‘consciously’ neglect to depend on the Holy Spirit in his or her quest to get at the meaning and harmony of scripture. Certainly, so long as there is infirmity and weakness in even the best of God’s servants, there will be differences of interpretation of one degree or another. So how do we break the deadlock and escape our own subjectivity in our approach to interpreting the Bible? Although even this is by measure and degree, I would suggest that the only power greater than our subjectivity is the inward work of the cross.

Our only ultimate enemy is not the Devil; it is ‘confidence in the flesh,’ which is the hidden pride of our own innate and all-pervasive humanism. It is reliance or hope in man, even in his best and most pious state. Ironically, except saved by the work of grace, it is precisely those things about which we have the greatest assurance, particularly the presumption of righteousness, that can sell us into an unconscious opposition of God, as it did Saul of Tarsus. Only the cross is sufficient to conquer our subjective bias, even in how we approach and read scripture.

The degree of Paul’s use was the degree of his devastation. The revelation of Christ discovered to his astonishment that every pious confidence in which he took the greatest comfort was the very strength of his greater blindness and opposition of God. This is how Paul could so instantly detect what was hidden even from Peter. That ability to see enabled him to save Peter from a serious error, that taken to its logical conclusion, would have threatened to derail the fledgling church and set it on a disastrous course. It was the leaven that escaped (for a moment) even the trained eye of a Peter, who was also a devasted man.

That is why Paul’s constant cry was, “who is sufficient?” So while we wait on His deeper work in us, what can we do? The best we can do is to approach the text with trembling, since even with an absolute confidence in the authority of the canon, and with even the best tools of linguistics and well vindicated principles of interpretation, still, it is only by grace that we come to the truth. Having done all in our power, we are still hopelessly trapped in an invincible subjectivity, unless the Holy Spirit break through the veil, even as the Lord opened Lydia’s heart in order that she might heed the things spoken by Paul (Acts 16:14).

Paul is careful that we know that even if we have escaped error, it is only by grace alone, since it is God alone who makes any to differ (1Cor 4:7). Knowing this keeps us from the pride of impatience with others, since God is well able to open the eyes of the blind (Phil 3:15) and cause those who “erred in spirit to come to understanding and to learn doctrine” (Isa 29:24).

Certainly the Spirit of Truth is something more than a correct interpretation, but it is also not less. Not all error is fatal, but all error is to some degree costly, and a slack hand towards the importance of interpreting the text accurately cannot be without loss. We are stewards of His mysteries and He has been careful to make the fellowship of the mystery dependent on relationship. Therefore, even with the best use of the best tools, we are cast on His mercy, since He has ordained and constructed scripture in such a way that the pride of self dependency will sell us into error, and if not error, then the just as deadly pride of being correct.

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1 Chronicles 16:34 O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. This appears in the book 50 times and I question the validity of this being true, as I was thinking, how can this be true if there is a place called hell? Please expound on this!

Unfortunately (for the flesh), the question of hell is inseparably bound to the question of Jesus’ identity and authority. I have a view that helps me considerably with this question, but you have not asked concerning matters of interpretation. Instead, you seem to question whether such a place can co-exist with the justice and goodness of God. That is a far more serious issue, since this becomes the question of Jesus’ authority and identity, not only as a prophet, but as the divine Son of God.

Though many will agree that we evangelicals are of all people most to be pitied, it is true that we are ‘victims’ of the conviction that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and this leaves us with no recourse than to believe what He affirmed about hell, else the whole foundation is at once removed. Simply put, if we would not sacrifice the integrity of Christ’s authority, we are compelled to believe in the existence of hell, regardless of how we understand it.

This means that the reality of the hope of eternal life is inseparably bound to the reality of eternal damnation, if Jesus is indeed who He claimed to be. We who are naturally humanistic in our thinking need to understand that only one provision for salvation was ever possible to God. From a human point of view, God is bound to be God. He is defined by His nature. According to Ro 8:20, His very decision to create a universe that He knew would pass into futility was based on the timeless pre-determination to send Jesus to the cross (Isa 49:7; 53:3-5; Dn 9:26; Mic 5:1; Zech 12:10; Acts 2:23; Rev 13:8).

It is significant that the reason for hell’s existence is explained in the very place where we see the greatest conceivable sacrifice of divine love. “For God sent NOT His Son into the world to CONDEMN the world; but that the world through him might be saved … THIS is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil … ” (Jn 3:17, 19).

So we must understand that the question of hell is subservient to the much more ultimate question of the existence and nature of divine revelation. Ultimately its a choice between revelation and philosophy. I begin with the evidence. If the evidence is sufficient to remove all reasonable doubt of the reality of divine revelation, then I am relieved of having to understand hell in order to acknowledge its existence. If He is indeed there; if He has indeed spoken, then who am I? I am creature; He is God. I am at the mercy of whatever He has chosen to reveal (Deut 29:29). This is the humility of faith, but faith is not without reasons.

Revelation transcends the limits of rationality, but it is never irrational. It is not without compelling evidence. The evidence is such as to leave all without excuse, but not such as to remove all mystery. There is the choice. Will we bow to the evidence, suffering the tension that must always exists between evidence and mystery, or will we exalt reason over revelation, with an all or nothing demand?

Hell is one of those things that is so naturally unthinkable that it actually commends itself as belonging, not to the realm of human conceptions of justice, but of divine revelation. The greatest reason for our quarrel with hell is because we are ‘cut off’ and ‘out of touch’ with the holiness of God. We are insensible of divine reality. If God is possessed of a holiness that is infinite, sin becomes something much more than a finite, time bound event, as we tend to imagine. That is why we are incapable of knowing the degree of our sin apart from revelation.

We are in no position to demand of God. Revelation does not come as divine obligation to the creature, else it would not be grace but debt. Revelation is the issue of humility and divine sovereignty (Mt 11:25-27). It doesn’t work with the pride of demand. It works where prayer works, namely, at the end of the power of self-sufficiency (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7). Revelation comes to those who have been brought to feel their own destitution (Ps 102:17). I call it the Jacob’s trouble principle, but it is the principle of the cross.

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God” (1 Cor 8:1-3). In contrast to philosophy, religious dogma, or even a creed that is merely ‘correct,’ only revelation can bend the knee and break the heart. It brings down man and lifts up Christ.

This is why I don’t have to understand or explain hell to enjoy the salvation of Christ. It is the issue of trust. I simply am too weak and unreliable in myself to trust the limits of my poor reason over that which He has spoken (“Has God really said?”). When it comes to the question of hell, my answer is the same as Abraham’s unquestioned assumption: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25).

Notice that Abraham appeals to this great ‘given’ of the nature and character of God in the face of what seemed to him evidence to the contrary. The operating word here is “seemed.” I like to say that we see through a “seem.” There is often a great chasm between what ‘seems’ and what is. It is testament to Abraham’s faith that he holds fast to the conviction of God’s goodness and justice, even in the face of ‘apparent’ contradiction. He never lifts himself up beyond the place of finite and dependent creature-hood. He puzzles, he appeals, but he never puts his own limited first impressions in the place of God. This is precisely what philosophy does when it rejects the primacy of revelation.

Whether any of His attributes are ever palatable to the flesh, we are not in a position to prescribe the kind of deity that suits us. Either God has revealed Himself as He indeed is, despite the limits of our understanding, or He has not. In which case, we can play till judgment day with our unbounded imaginations, “ever learning (conveniently) and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

By a sublime irony, God deliberately puts Himself on trial. When Jesus stood before Pilate, things were not as they appeared. By placing Himself before the tribunal of human judgment, God was permitting our judgment of Him to be the judgment that we are really passing on ourselves. When we exalt an autonomous reason over the gift of inspired revelation, we judge ourselves (“He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him – the Word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day;” Jn 12:48).

The entire passion scene is divinely constructed to raise the great questions. Pilate’s dilemma is ours. What should be done with this man? “What is truth?” These are questions that the crisis of Jesus (and soon of Israel) puts on the lips of our collective humanity. Settle this one question and all others fade in comparison. The only really ultimate question is put by Jesus Himself when He asks, “Who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8:29).

Either Jesus was a man of His times spreading well meaning religious, but nonetheless human opinion, or He is the final authority of truth on all questions pertaining to human destiny. He is the only One who is in a position to speak with such absolute authority from the other side of the veil. If He is wrong about hell, what is He right about? What good is a mistaken Messiah? “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die!” (Isa 22:13; 1Cor 15:32). That is sound advise from one whose pious self assurance was crucified on the road to Damascus.

No hell, no Savior! I don’t see any possible middle ground. Both the identity of Jesus and the existence of hell belong to the realm of revelation. A Jesus that is less than divine is no threat to the flesh, but He is also no hope for the soul. If Jesus was sincerely deceived about hell, then tell us, “to whom shall we go?” Judaism? Islam? Or the nihilism of hedonism?

Well, you asked that I expound on the question. Now for a personal appeal. You and I have been back and forth on questions of this kind for a good while now. I don’t mind, but I get the feeling that your frustration may become such that you will despair to inquire further. Therefore, in honor of our friendship, would you consider to read a little booklet that made all the difference in my life? It is, “Saved by Grace,” by John Bunyan. He was the author of the famous, “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

How I would love to see you come to the real resolution and peace that is faithfully quickened to our hearts when we have despaired of any hope in ourselves (Isa 57:10). May it be soon for you, is my prayer.

Your friend in His unspeakable goodness, Reggie

The post The Question of Hell appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

A complete session of the Video from September’s “People Prepared” Convocation on Daniel Chapter 9 is now available on YouTube. A direct link is found below:
Chapter Nine (click/tap here if you see nothing below)

The post The Seventy Sevens of Daniel Chapter 9 (Video) appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Hello, Reggie

“I am looking for a reply or articles answering these two questions:

1. Acts 2:17 and the pre mill [pre-millennial] understanding of end times.”
2. A clear verse that shows the Jews our main part or a huge role in end times.”

Peter quotes in full the passage from Joel describing the day of the Lord and the salvation that attends it. He is indeed saying that the salvation of that coming day has appeared already in Christ. It is not necessary to suppose that he is saying that the day of the Lord has come, which in context comes AFTER the stellar darkness (Acts 2:20), which Jesus says comes just before His return (Mt 24:29). That the day of the Lord passed with Pentecost is contradicted by many passages in the NT that speak of that day as yet future.

No, it is better to understand that Peter is saying that the phenomena that was being publicly manifested (and creating quite a confusion) is the promised Holy Spirit that was expected in connection with the well known day of the Lord. This does not mean that Peter believes the day of the Lord has come. He well knew that the day of the Lord follows the tribulation, as described by Jesus (Mt 24:29). Rather, Peter’s declaration of present fulfillment is in keeping with what many of the NT writers affirm, that the powers of that coming day have ‘broken in’ into this present age, in unexpected advance of the post-tribulational day of the Lord. [Note: Jesus puts the cosmic upheaval and darkness at the end of the tribulation (Mt 24:29), which Peter, citing Joel’s prophecy, puts BEFORE the day of the Lord. So it is plain that Peter did not confuse Pentecost with the day of the Lord.]

Pentecost is the feast of first-fruits, and it is the pre-millennial view that what has come at Pentecost through the revelation of the mystery of the gospel is the “first-fruits” of the salvation that will yet come to the penitent remnant of Israel who survive the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7 with Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21). The post-tribultional day of the Lord remains intact and still future, with no promise to the natural branches failing of its scheduled time of fulfillment, and why not?

Non-millennial interpreters do something here that is very unjustified. They ignore “the already and the not yet” pattern of NT fulfillment, at least when it comes to Israel. They rightly recognize that the salvation promised to Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord has come in unexpected advance of that day. It is true that the revelation of Christ’s twofold coming has introduced an ‘inaugurated eschatology’ that realizes a present first fruits of coming glory. But recognition of the present fulfillment of some aspects of the salvation of the coming day of the Lord, provides no legitimate grounds to completely re-interpret or spiritualize what is yet to come to Israel (the natural branches) at the end of the tribulation. [Note: Non-millennial interpreters also tend to deny the futurity of the great tribulation, since a future tribulation implies a future Antichrist, which is exegetically impossible to dissociate from an end time scenario of events that is very literal in its relation to Israel.]

I can’t go into all the evidence now, but many passages in the OT reveal in retrospect a hidden parenthesis between the two advents of Christ. The revelation of the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming illuminates the meaning of this formerly unknown gap. During the interim period God is hiding His face from the apostate nation, while a remnant (including gentiles in fulfillment of Deut 32:21) will know the secret and instruct many (Isa 8:14-15, 16-17; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 11:33; 12:4, 9-10). But this state of general apostasy and exile of the elect nation (Ro 11:29) is never forever. It is only UNTIL the restoration of Israel at the post-tribulational day of the Lord (Isa 66:6; Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15-6:2; Ezek 39:22-29 etc et al.).

Until then, the gospel reveals that the power and salvation of the  day of the Lord has indeed come in unexpected advance of THAT DAY, through the revelation of the secret hidden in other ages (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11). But according to Paul, this present fulfillment of the covenant through the revelation of the mystery of the gospel and concomitant gift of the Spirit cannot stop short of the grafting in again of the natural branches (Ro 11:25-26, 27-29).

Paul does not present this event as a generous divine initiative tacked on at the end of the age for good measure. No, it is a covenant necessity demanded by the specific language of the covenant, (Ro 11:26-29), which would only be established with the nation, as nation, at the end of the great tribulation (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1).  That is the eschatology of the Old Testament. The revelation of the mystery modifies, but does NOT erase, nor spiritualize this abiding goal of the covenant. The day of the Lord will bring all that the literal reading of scripture said it would bring.

So I see Peter as saying “this is that,” but this is NOT “all” of that. It is indeed the Spirit promised to Israel in association with the well known day of the Lord. The promise of that day has indeed arrived. It is here. But the day itself, and the full balance of hope and promise that remains to be fulfilled at that time, remains for a post-tribulational future. Nothing about that has changed.

The powers of the age to come have indeed broken decisively into this present evil age, apart from the apocalyptic judgments and outward transformation that was expected to accompany the day of the Lord and the end of the time of the gentiles (Lk 21:24). But this discovery does nothing to change all that Scripture promises will come to the broken and penitent remnant that will look upon Him whom they pierced (Zech 12:10), when “that generation”. Then will the penitent Jewish remnant say with one voice, “blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mt 23:39). Hallelujah!

Non-millennial interpreters are very weak on the “UNTILs” of eschatology. They take the “already” of present fulfillment to blot out the other side of the mystery of Christ, namely, the birth of the nation at the still future “restitution of all things” (Isa 66:8; Ezek 39:22; Acts 3:21).

I have no problem with the church appropriating Israel’s promises, particularly since there are no others to appropriate. My problem is the failure to recognize that the covenant is not complete, and God Himself can take no rest, until the promises made to the fathers and to David has extended to “all Israel.” According to the prophets, the salvation of “all Israel” begins with the repentance of a surviving Jewish remnant at the end of the tribulation (Ezek 39:22, 20; Zech 12:10, Jer 31:34), and extends to include every child born to Jewish parentage “from that day and forward” (Isa 44:3; 45:25; 54:13; 59:21; 61:9; 65:23; 66:22; Ezek 39:22, 29).

The salvation of any number of Jewish individuals does not fulfill this promise. This is the post-tribulational salvation of a nation (Isa 66:8). It will arrive on schedule and not a moment sooner (Ps 102:13; 110:3). To ignore or attempt to ‘re-interpret’ this inalienable feature of the everlasting covenant is to miss the goal that stands at the end of the covenant by which God will be greatly magnified in the sight of all nations. It is to miss the context and nature of the mystery that has provided salvation for the world through Israel’s fall (Ro 11:11, 11:25). Not only this, but to miss the mystery of Israel is to miss the nature and meaning of the crisis that will engulf the nations and bring this age to its predestined conclusion.

“2. A clear verse that shows the Jews our main part or a huge role in end times.”

Again, the issue is the mystery. If we believe that God has ordained that the Jew should be moved to jealousy by what he sees in the church (Ro 11:11), then certainly the church has a ways to go. If we are not pre-tribulational, then it follows that the church will be here in the capacity of witness and friend to Israel in the day of their greatest national calamity. Rev 12 speaks of the woman being fed in the wilderness. You might interpret that as angels, or God, but we believe it refers to those who will know the prophecy and the time, and will be prepared to receive and succor the Jews in the hour of their flight from ‘sudden destruction’.

To be sure, that is an inference; but it follows from our conviction that God has ordained that Israel and the church meet in the wilderness of flight and persecution, to receive refuge, succor, and decisive prophetic instruction from a church that foresaw the evil and made ready.

The conversation that takes place in that wilderness and the demonstration of the church’s love to risk its life in costly identification with the despised nation will be used of God to prepare and soften Israel for the gospel to break upon their understanding in the same way that Saul’s exposure to Stephen’s witness played a role in preparing him for his encounter on the Damascus road.

Also, if you take the pre-day of the Lord context of Isa 28, as signifying an eschatological “covenant with death and hell”, that causes Israel to rest in a deadly false security, then you can see that this action is greatly protested by those who bring a witness of prophetic warning against this ill-fated presumption (in the context of a defense of the mystery of the gospel, “here a little and there a little”). The context shows that this protest of Israel’s decision to trust in man is also the gospel (“the rest and the refreshing whereby the weary is caused to rest”).

But notice that this prophetic warning comes to Israel by voices that are rejected and dismissed, particularly because it comes to them from a people of another tongue. This is an idiom used in other places to refer to gentiles. In other passages, such as Isa 35:4, we see the presence of a prophetic voice in the wilderness that aims to encourage the hope of the devastated nation that the time of their deliverance is near at hand.

Simply put, the church is the prophetic voice that has the key of interpretation. The godly remnant will employ the prophetic scriptures to point Israel to the savior. Prophecy is God’s final ‘dynamite’ that will prevail over Jewish unbelief. The church is the prophetic priestly intercessor that God uses in the travail of bringing Israel to birth after the time of unequaled judgment (Isa 66:8), in the same way that He used Paul to travail till Christ be formed in his Galatians.

Some things must be intuited prophetically by the Spirit. There is not always a single “clear” verse that is finally decisive. It is not that easy; it wasn’t meant to be. We must be taught by the Spirit. However, this will never contradict the clearest parts of scripture. That is the check and safeguard that God has given us. Sometimes it is the cumulative evidence of scripture that leads to what one might call, “a necessary inference”.

Many from very diverse backgrounds and walks of life, with no traceable influence on one another, have claimed an inner witness of the Spirit concerning the church’s role towards Israel in the coming time of Jacob’s trouble. If the church is God’s servant heart and prophetic voice in the earth, this would surely follow. I would urge that you pray whether these impressions may have indeed come from the Spirit, and whether God has ordained a wilderness encounter between Israel and the church in the coming great tribulation. It is an issue of the Spirit more than exegesis, though not without substantial support from the cumulative evidence.

“I have reviewed some articles and can follow some of the points, but when it comes to Israel, where is this bias (basis?) coming from? I am looking for answers, not debate.”

I always welcome honest inquiry and I’m grateful for your interest in this subject. I’m glad to see that you were unwilling to dismiss things out of hand without further inquiry. So the Lord bless you in your quest. May it be pure of self interest and greatly rewarded by His faithfulness to always help those who confess themselves helpless.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie Kelly

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