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

The post Israel and the Church: Two Views appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

It is hard to overstate how far this runs against the a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of regeneration, as it pertains to both testaments, but this is nonetheless a key component of the system. But many, even in their own camp, are often not aware of this, and have not thought through why this view is an essential pillar of pre-tribulational dispensationalism.

But if tribulation saints are not indwelt by the Spirit, what of the truth of the believer’s adoption and union with Christ, as common partakers of the divine nature? How does one sustain union with the divine nature if this is not internal? How is one who is born of the Spirit not also indwelt by the Spirit? What happens to the New Covenant promise of a new spirit and new heart? What of the new creation that the believer becomes through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit?

Is not the Spirit that came at Pentecost the same that was promised all throughout the prophets? And will this promise not have a yet further fulfillment when the penitent survivors of Israel will receive the Spirit in the yet coming Day of the Lord? Are we to believe that the blessing of Pentecost and the New Covenant will be different, or something inferior for tribulation saints and the Jews who come into the blessings of the New Covenant at Jesus’ return? And what of the saved of the nations throughout the millennium? Will they NOT be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and therefore NOT qualify as members of Christ’s body?

John F. Walvoord and other pre-trib defenders speak of a “reversal of Pentecost”. Does this not imply a ‘retraction’ of the blessing of Pentecost? How would that notion suit Pentecostals? Yet many of them embrace the pre-trib rapture of the bride whom they distinguish form the saints of the tribulation. But how can there be a reversal of Pentecost without the equally impossible notion of a reversal of the New Covenant? Since the gift of the Spirit’s indwelling belongs to the blessing of the New Covenant secured in the Redeemer’s blood, how can this be reversed in the case of believers who come to faith during the tribulation and beyond?

Since the Spirit was (in some sense) “not yet given” until Christ was glorified (Jn 7:39), it is no more possible for a reversal of Pentecost than the reversal of the basis on which He would now be given. Now that Jesus has been glorified, the Spirit has also been ‘forever given’ in the full light of the revelation of that once and for all event. The relation of these two realities, the glorification of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, are inseparable, not only throughout this age, but no less the millennial age to come. Yet dispensationalists would have us believe that tribulation saints will not be indwelt. Why not? Simply because this would make them members of the body of Christ based on such scriptures as 1Cor 6:17; 12:13; Eph 2:17; 4:4, etc.

In its original context, the eschatological promise of the Spirit was to the penitent survivors of Israel at the post-tribulational Day of the Lord (Isa 32:15; 59:21; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:29-32; Zech 12:10-13:1). With the glorification of Jesus, the “promise of the Father” has come as first fruits in unexpected advance of “that day”, but this does nothing to cancel or change its original application and fulfillment in the still future DOL. Now that the New Covenant has been sealed in the Savior’s blood, how can it be thought that those who receive the promise in that coming day will receive something inferior to what the church received at Pentecost in first-fruits fulfillment of that very promise?

What is it then about God’s beloved saints enduring the persecution of the Antichrist that deprives them of the advantage of the Spirit’s indwelling? Shall post-tribulational Israel receive something inferior in the day of their national repentance than the fledgling community of Jesus confessors received at Pentecost on the very basis of that very promise? This is a question pre-tribulationists ought to reconsider, since they hold with us that the penitent Jewish survivors of Jacob’s trouble will indeed receive the promise of the Spirit at that time.

To rephrase the question: will those who receive the promise of the Spirit in its original, post-tribulational context, receive something less (“with” but not “in”) than the body of Christ received at Pentecost? Yet if the receive the Pentecostal blessing of the Spirit’s indwelling that the church of this age receives, how will they not be members of Christ’s body, particularly now that Jesus has been glorified? Why would tribulation saints not also be baptized by the one Spirit into the one body now that Jesus has been glorified?

I don’t think most pre-tribulationists have thought this through, or really seriously faced the implications of their unique view of the church that depends entirely on some very erroneous notions of the Spirit’s indwelling, as limited only to a presumed mystery church age. Now that Jesus has been once and for all glorified, there is no returning to an inferior, pre-Pentecost relationship of only ‘with’ but not ‘in’. Why would there be? Such an inference would not exist were it not for its essential expedience to support a view of the church that did not exit before Darby. The reason is clear.

Dispensationalism’s defense of the doctrine of imminence depends entirely on their defense of an ecclesiology that keeps the church out of the tribulation and no less out of the millennium. This is because of their view that the church is a mystery organism, belonging strictly to this present mystery dispensation, unforeseen and unforetold in the prophets. All the saved before Pentecost and those saved after the pre-tribulation rapture cannot belong to the ‘mystery body of Christ’. They belong instead to God’s program for Israel and the nations. So those who believe on Jesus after the rapture cannot, on this view, be reckoned as belonging to the body of Christ.

Dispensationalism depends on a view of the Pauline mystery that must be regarded as completely separate and distinct from the “mystery of the gospel and of Christ” (Eph 6:19), which is admittedly foretold in the OT scriptures. It is not only God’s eternal purpose to incorporate gentiles into equal standing in one body that was hid in other ages (Eph 3:6), but the mystery of the gospel itself (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12), and this mystery was certainly fully foretold in the “scriptures of the prophets”. So already the idea that a mystery can have nothing to do with what was foretold in prophecy breaks down. To support, then, the idea of the church as a mystery organism, separate and distinct from all other saints in the OT, the tribulation, or the millennium, dispensationalism must conceive of the church, not only as a new revelation, but an entirely new entity, separate and distinct from all who will be saved in the tribulation and beyond.

It is one thing to “distinguish” between the church as the regenerate people of God and “Israel after the flesh”, elect and predestined, but not yet in Christ, but to posit a separation between the regenerate saints of the present time from all who are no less born again in the tribulation and beyond, is opposed to the Bible’s own definition of the nature of regeneration, and what constitutes believers as the body of Christ by reason of living union through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Dispensationalism’s unique understanding of the Pauline mystery is foundational to the system introduced by Darby. Certainly the church was not, and could not be revealed as the body of Christ until the gospel was revealed, but does this mean that the church, in its essential nature, as joined to God by the Spirit, had no prior existence? (1Cor 6:17). Here is a principle too little considered: For something to be newly revealed, or come more fully to light, does not necessarily mean it has had no prior existence.

This is a very neglected consideration. We see this with the gospel, with Christ, and particularly His two comings, which were certainly foretold, but not understood until the gospel was publicly revealed with the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost (compare Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11=12). This was entirely new to the understanding, but not new to what could be shown to have been fully foretold in the writings of the prophets. Yet Paul calls this fully foretold gospel a mystery that was kept secret in other ages (Acts 26:22-23; Rom 16:25-26; Eph 6:19).

For the dispensational view of the mystery to stand, it must be distanced from anything foretold in the OT, and nothing of OT prophecy can intermingle with this ‘mystery age’ that the church is assumed to occupy, as extending only from Pentecost to the rapture. The tribulation belongs to another dispensation entirely.

Why do dispensationalists find it necessary to assume this? It is because there can be no compromise of imminence. If the abiding possibility of the rapture is not to be put off beyond any intervening events foretold in OT prophecy, then for imminence to stand as an abiding, ever present possibility, no foretold event can exist in OT prophecy that must be fulfilled before the 70th week begins. All outstanding and un-fulfilled OT prophecy can only be seen on the other side of the rapture, fully contained in Daniel’ 70th week. Otherwise, if it can be shown that there are prophecies in the OT that could only be fulfilled in the long age between the advents, then, of course, imminence becomes impossible.

But a careful study and comparison of parallels of Paul’s use of the term, mystery, or secret will not permit this kind of complete dissociation from the mystery contained in the OT scriptures. Yes, there are discrete and distinct mysteries, not all of which were specifically foretold in the prophets, but these could only come to light by the revelation of the gospel (Ro 16:25-26).

Certainly the mystery of Christ and the church could not be understood as it is now, but since the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, the means by which God would accomplish His eternal purpose to bring all things together into one could now be made be made known (Eph 1:9; 3:5-6), not only to the church but to the principalities and powers (Eph 3:10). The mystery revealed to Paul was that through the instrumentality of the gospel (“by the gospel”), as a secret now revealed, God would fulfill His original promise to bless all nations through Abraham’s Seed, only this would accomplish something far more grand than anything that could have been conceived before. Not only would the nations be blessed, they would become fellow equals in the inheritance of the saints in the one, regenerate people of God, revealed now as the body of Christ, God’s one new man (regenerate man).

This is NOT something that is temporary, as in dispensationalism, but continues to be the revelation of everyone who believes on Christ until the final perfection of new heavens and earth. Granted, this discrete mystery revealed to Paul was not specifically spelled out anywhere in the writings of the prophets, but it is bound to the larger revelation of the gospel that is its basis. Therefore, in Paul’s mind, the mystery of the church is a piece with the mystery of the gospel.

Notably, one aspect that shows the relationship of the mystery to OT prophecy is its wonderful capacity for verifying the truth claims of the gospel by solving the puzzle of prophecy (1Pet 1:11-12). The agreement of the revealed mystery with all that stood written in the prophets was regarded as the gospel’s greatest evidence of proof (Acts 26:22-23). Yet, this evidence, so compelling in retrospect, was purposely hidden, not only from the pride of man, but necessarily from the righteous too, until the time appointed.

This is so that the mystery would remain hidden, even from the rulers of the darkness of this age, so that they would not know the ‘hidden wisdom’ until it was too late (1Cor 2:7-8; Rom 16:25-26). It was a divinely set trap (Isa 8:14-17 with 1Cor 2:7-8). So Paul’s view of mystery is not disconnected from Jesus’ teaching on the “mystery of the kingdom”, as the new form the kingdom would take throughout an unexpected, inter-advent period.

This idea of a mystery, closed up and sealed among the Lord’s disciples, has its background in the OT’s view of the sealed vision (Isa 8:14-17; 29:11; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9; Hab 2:2-3). It is this that make the Messiah to be a stone of stumbling in His appointed time, but that’s another whole study in its own right, but very relevant to how we would see Paul’s use of the concept of the revelation of concealed secrets in contrast to dispensationalism’s interest to divide between two, regenerate peoples of God in order to keep the church out of the tribulation.

But suppose the concession is made, (as some non-dispensationalist also believe), that the church (as now defined) did not exist in any form before Pentecost. What then? Surely this is no proof that the church does not appear on earth again after the rapture, and that believers who come to faith during the tribulation and beyond are any the less to be reckoned as members of Christ’s body. This would be to suggest that a once and for all revelation could somehow recede back to something inferior, according to the dispensationalists’s reading of Jn 7:39 with Jn 14:17.

So in order preserve the doctrine of imminence, the church must be raptured before any of the signs of the 70th week can begin, obviously. Therefore, to make the church of this present, “mystery age”, exempt from the tribulation, something must explain the presence of saints in the tribulation, as seen so clearly all throughout the book of Revelation. Here is where dispensationalists turn to texts on the Holy Spirit to support the concept that only believers of this age can belong to the body of Christ, because only believers of this age have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

To uphold the system, they must define the church out of the tribulation, ‘at all costs’. Identify tribulation believers as members of Christ’s body and all is lost, case closed. That would put the church in the tribulation. That’s the logic. Thus the invention of a new, and unprecedented doctrine of the church that denies to the faithful of the tribulation identity as members of Christ’s body. We may find traces of the doctrine of imminence in church history, most often on the presumption that the Antichrist is present, but never this. This is new, original with Darby.

Like tribulation saints, millennial believers are also believed to sustain a pre-Pentecostal relationship to the Spirit, “with” but not “in”. Fantastical, I know, but this is some of the ugly underbelly that is taught in the seminaries in the interest defending the indefensible. Unhappily, much of this never reaches the people in the pew. They get just enough to be inoculated from a fair hearing of an alternative, mediating view, and never learn what academic pre-tribulationists know very well to be necessary to sustain the system. As for example, what would the average pre-tribulationist think if they knew what the academics at the seminary know, that for the system to work, Job, Isaiah, Daniel, and all the saints of the OT must remain in the dust of the earth for another seven years after the rapture, while the church is in heaven celebrating the marriage of the Lamb?

By defining the church out of the tribulation period, not only is the church protected from wrath (as though tribulation saints and Jews fed and preserved in the wilderness will NOT be protected from divine wrath, not to mention the surviving gentiles who facilitate Jewish return after the tribulation is over), but by removing the church from earth before the onset of Daniel’s 70th week, the doctrine of imminence is safeguarded, because all of the signs that definitely signal the Lord’s return belong to the 70th week, safely on the other side of the rapture. So nothing needs to happen that might signal Jesus’ return to rapture the church, since the signs belong to the 70th week.

The problem with this is view of imminence is the necessary reconstitution of Israel as a viable nation populated by Jews, with Jerusalem at its center (see Dan 12:1; Eze 38:8; Zech 12:2-3 et al). This is a comparatively recent development that did not exist for centuries!

Think about it: For nearly 17 centuries, the Jews were almost everywhere else but in their own Land. The Land was to lie waste and desolate, not for one, but for “many generations” (Isa 61:4). Not only this, but the temple that the last aggressor will “tread down, burn, and lay waste” is very significantly one that has been only recently recovered to Jewish possession (“possessed it but a little while”; Isa 63:18; 64:10-11). The context is clearly the final desolation of Jerusalem and the Jews’ final deliverance at the DOL. No other assault, whether Babylon, Greece, or Rome has burned a temple that the Jews had possessed only a “little while”.

Either this language is merely a metaphorical of a ‘seemingly’ short time, or it is literal, and necessarily future. The point is this: No other period has answered to the “many generations” of desolation as referred to in Isa 61:4. The Babylonian captivity was a single generation, 70 years. Only the long Diaspora that followed the Roman destruction can answer to these details. So how could Jesus return at any moment since Paul allegedly introduced the mystery of the pre-trib rapture sometime before his first letter to the Corinthians? And what was the “blessed hope” of believers living between Pentecost and Paul’s supposed new revelation? May I suggest it must have been the hope that Jesus gave to every believer drawn by the Spirit, namely, resurrection at the “last day” (Jn 6:39, 44; 11:24).

How possible then was an imminent return when there was no Jewish nation in existence to strike an agreement with the Antichrist? It is one thing to teach an any moment coming when the temple was still standing, and Daniel’s 70th week might begin without obstacle. It might seem possible again to teach an imminent return before the tribulation after the modern repatriation of the Land, but HOW can pre-tribulationists consider a pre-tribulational return a viable possibility for the 17 centuries during which the Jewish people were everywhere but in the Land? Where would be the “many generations” of desolation, not to mention many other details of the foretold Jewish experience all throughout the long Diaspora that began with the Roman expulsion?

But I digress; back to the issue of the Spirit. So we see Dispensationalism’s ‘interest’ to find anything that might seem to support their distinction between the saints of this, so-called “church age” (a term so completely assumed you would almost think it exists in scripture). They believe they find justification to distinguish so-called “church saints” from so-called, “tribulation saints” by their understanding of Holy Spirit’s relation to the body of Christ as unique to believers of this mystery church age.

They argue, and who will not agree?, that the Spirit was in some sense “not yet given”, because Jesus was “not yet glorified” (Jn 7:39). They further point out that Jesus speaks of the Spirit who is now “with” the disciples but “will be” (future tense) “in” them (Jn 14:17). Dispensationalists make much of this to argue that before Pentecost the Spirit was only “with” OT believers. He was not “in” them. When it is pointed out that many of the OT saints were indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, with Peter affirming the same in the NT (1Pet 1:11), the response is, “yes, but the Spirt did not indwell them PERMANENTLY”. Well, they were either born again or they weren’t, and how else do the dead live and sustain a living relationship with the living God? (Mt 22:32). We can see from Jesus’ remarks to Nicodemus that He did not regard the new birth as something new or future, but a present necessity to discern the things of the Spirit, as Paul would also so clearly affirm (1Cor 2:14). In the OT, the children of the flesh persecuted the children of the Spirit, even as now (Gal 4:29), and so on we could multiply examples.

But perhaps the most exegetically unsupportable ‘reach’, illustrating how one unproven inference demands another, is when pre-tribulationists advance the notion that not only “assumes” that the Holy Spirit is the un-identified personal restrainer of 2Thes 2:7, but that it is the church that must be removed before the man of sin can be revealed. It is one thing to say the Holy Spirit is the one who is holding back the revelation of the man of sin (itself a mere inference); it is quite something else to say it is particularly His indwelling of the church that requires that the church be removed. How is this arrived at?

Pre-tribulationists do NOT want to say that the Holy Spirit is removed entirely from the earth. They know that no one could be born again after the rapture except by the Spirit, of course. Therefore they reason that it is particularly the Holy Spirit’s indwelling presence in the believers (of this age) that is removed. Thus, the church is removed. And, as we have shown, since the church as the body of Christ is defined by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they reason that those who come to faith during the tribulation cannot be the body of Christ. Well, there it is. This is what they teach, and must teach in order to keep the church out of the tribulation, in order to maintain the any moment return to terminate the mystery body’s limited tenure on this earth.

It is a shameful grabbing at straws, and like all wood, hay, and straw, it will go up in smoke not many days hence, but at what cost? The prophetic people of God must not only identify error, they must ask why it has come, particularly just now? What does it threaten? What will it cost in the day when it will be required?

Before ending this, I can anticipate that many will want to ask in what sense was the Spirit “not yet given” in Jn 7:39? I may not know the right or complete answer, but I’m sure enough of a few things it cannot mean. It cannot mean that no one was ever indwelt by the Spirit before Pentecost. That would be a contradiction of a host of scriptures bearing upon the nature of vital regeneration and flatly contradict 1Pet 1:11 that says that the Spirit of Christ was “in” the prophets. When this is pointed out, it is ‘desperately’ argued that He ONLY in-dwelt the prophets, or worse, that He did not PERMANENTLY indwell them.

While the Spirit certainly came in a much fuller, ‘corporate’ measure, with signs following, there were signs before Pentecost. So in what way did He come that was wholly new? I can only suggest, but one thing that was truly new and without precedent. It is the Spirit’s descent upon the whole of the church. All that were being daily added to the church received the ‘coming upon’, ‘falling upon’ of the Spirit’s power and anointing. This fulfilled Moses’ desire that the prophetic anointing would come upon all the people (Num 11:29).

The special empowerment of the Spirit was no longer selective, as in the OT, but came upon all, not only in gifts and signs, but perhaps the best answer is that now, the Spirit would come as the Spirit of revelation, opening to clear view the mystery that many prophets and righteous, even angels desired to look into (Mt 13:17; 1Pet 1:12). The full glory of the revealed mystery could only break on the disciples’s understanding AFTER Jesus was glorified, and now the gospel could be proclaimed to the whole world. This is just the point of Pentecost. This is at least one sense in which the Spirit came in power that is not too much considered in studies and discussions of what changed at Pentecost.

I suspect that the phenomenon of revelation and the deep piercing of the heart, all in conjunction with the appointed time, is what sets Pentecost apart, as it set in motion the church’s mission to the nations. That’s perhaps part of the explanation of what unique, new sense the Spirit had not yet been given.

As for Jn 14:17, I suggest that far too much has been concluded beyond its simple intent. It is typically taken to mean that the Spirit who is “with” the disciples would come at some future time to be “in” them. I don’t think that’s the point, though, of course, it could be so argued, provided this was the only text to use this language, and provided that such a conclusion didn’t conflict with other clear texts bearing upon the question. But I invite us us to look at another text in John’s second epistle where the same language is used.

“For the truth’s sake, which dwells ‘in’ us, and shall be ‘with’; us forever” (2Jn 2). Observe that here we have an inversion of the same expression, “with”, and “shall be in”. Who would want to suggest that the truth, which now dwells “in us” will change His relation to an inferior position of only “dwelling WITH us” sometime in the future? I submit that this is simply what is called a ‘synonymous parallelism’, intended only to stress the abiding nature of the Spirit’s, or in this case, the truth’s relation to the believer, and not a change of position or relationship.

In my view, the disciples would hear this comfort from Jesus, not as a change of location, but an assurance that the One currently with them, would come to them in the person of ‘another Comforter’ and remain ‘in’ them forever, not that they were currently un-born again, or un-indwelt by the Spirit. Jesus had pronounced them all “clean”, except Judas (Jn 13:10), and this could never be said apart from the regenerating work of the Spirit that implies the indwelling of the divine nature, which Peter will make the equivalent of being ‘born again by the Word’, something that we may be sure distinguished the living from the dead, not only in the NT but no less in the OT (1Pet 1:23). Being born of the Word of God, as being partaker of the divine nature by the Spirit’s indwelling, is certainly NOT limited to NT believers, as a number of scriptures, and many necessary inferences can be produced to show. .

But again, even if it were granted that the Holy Spirit indwells believers in this age in some unique, unprecedented way, this would not mean that He will do less for tribulation saints, particularly since His indwelling is based on the once and for all glorification of Jesus. Conclusion: Tribulation saints, and all who come to faith throughout the millennium will be no less the body of Christ on earth than those who have the Spirit now.

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If we can interpret and establish Rom. 11:15 “……what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” to be the same time that the “dead in Christ” are raised, then is it settled that there can be no pre-trib rapture, since the resurrection of the “dead in Christ” is, by all accounts, the rapture, which is, of course, contemporaneous with the resurrection?

We can establish that the national resurrection / birth of the beleaguered nation takes place at the moment of Christ’s return (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; 24:30; Lk 21:24; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:25-26; Rev 1:7; 11:2 et al.) But even after we prove the intersection between the national resurrection of the nation and personal resurrection of the saints, we have proven nothing against the rapture, at least not to their peculiar kind of thinking. Let me explain why.

They are instant to grant that Israel’s experience of tribulation ends in national resurrection at the return of Christ, which is simultaneous with the resurrection of OT believers and the martyrs of the tribulation who will come to faith AFTER the rapture. According to their view, everyone saved before Pentecost and after the pre-tribulational rapture belong to a distinct people of God, separate, not only from unbelieving Israel, but even from the regenerate saints of Israel who died before Pentecost, with those who come to faith after the rapture, thus dispensationalism’s famous theory of ‘two peoples’ of God. These groups are thought to belong to different economies or dispensations, thus the term, dispensationalism.

According to pre-tribulational dispensationalism, God’s “foretold” prophetic program for Israel is resumed only after the present ‘mystery’ dispensation (parenthesis / intercalation) that ends with the rapture. Recognizing that the books of Daniel and Revelation depict saints in the tribulation, so-called ‘church saints’distinguished from so-called ‘tribulation saints’. The former are removed by secret translation before the tribulation can begin. They acknowledge that the national resurrection of Israel comes with the end of the times of the gentiles and the sudden regeneration of the nation that Ezekiel and Hosea represent as a resurrection and Isaiah will depict as the moment of birth (Isa 66:8; Eze 37; Hos 6:2). Scripture is clear that the national rebirth or resurrection of the nation is contemporaneous with the post-tribulational resurrection of ‘those who sleep in the dust of the earth’ (Isa 26:16-21; Dan 12:1-2; Job 14:14 with 1Cor 15:52 & Job 19:25-27 with Zech 14:4, 7-9). This does not stop their theory because they simply assign the post-tribulational resurrection of OT saints to another dispensation that begins after the church has been removed. That is to say that saints who died before Pentecost do not go up in the rapture but continue to sleep in the dust of the earth for seven more years.

In contrast to God’s prophetically foretold purpose for Israel, it is believed that the church occupies an entirely distinct and completely un-foretold dispensation that was a mystery in other ages, the so-called, ‘church age’. Of course, we believe this is a complete misinterpretation of what Paul means by his use of the term, ‘mystery’. He is not using the term to dissociate the new revelation that has come to light in Christ from what stood written in the prophets. On the contrary, what has come to light in the gospel, though hidden until the appointed time of revelation, was fully foretold. That was the hallmark of its authenticity and verification that makes the world accountable (Acts 26:22; 1Cor 15:3-4 with Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11). That something has been newly revealed or brought to much fuller light, does not necessarily mean that it is newly existent. For example, the mystery of Christ and His pre-existence and co-eternality in the Godhead has come to much greater light since the revelation of the gospel. You see the point. I believe the same could be said of the church. It could not have been conceived as the body of Christ prior to the revelation of the mystery of Christ and the gospel, of course, but this does not mean that the church had no prior existence before Pentecost, as believed by dispensationalists.

Dispensationalists believe the mystery is the church as a new organism that has nothing to do with what was foretold in prophecy. Only after God’s mystery program for the church has been completed with the rapture does the focus turn again to God’s prophetic program for Israel (their words). Then begins the Day of the Lord, which they make to include the entirety of Daniel’s last week (another untenable claim). All who are saved after the rapture belong to another, completely distinct people of God. Not only the redeemed of Israel, but all who come to faith after the rapture, and all from among the nations that will be saved throughout the millennium, are NOT to be reckoned as belonging to the body of Christ, which belongs distinctly to the interim between Pentecost and the pre-tribulational rapture.

Dispensationalists will be the first to tell you that unless the body of Christ is restricted to those who are indwelt by the Spirit between Pentecost and the rapture, the case for a pre-tribulation rapture falls apart. Indeed, if the saints depicted in the tribulation in Daniel and Revelation belong to the body of Christ, then the conclusion cannot be avoided that the church is in the tribulation. Therefore, dispensatinalists would probably have no problem acknowledging that ‘life from the dead’ for national Israel coincides with the resurrection of Daniel and all the saints who died either before Pentecost or after the rapture. They know there is a spiritual resurrection of Israel at Christ’s return to establish the kingdom, they just don’t think this interferes with the inferences that they have built around the presupposition that the church, by definition, cannot be in the tribulation. That is what they do. They define the church out of the tribulation by a definition that was unknown until it was first proposed by John Nelson Darby as a break through insight from his sick bed in 1836.

Pre-tribulationists view the time between Pentecost and the rapture as ‘the dispensation of the church’ (the so-called, ‘the church age’). This is based on the belief that the church did not exist in the OT. They will cite Mt 16:18. “Upon this rock, I will (future tense) build my church.” They will point out that only with the pouring out of the Spirit (after the glorification of Jesus as Messiah; Jn 7:39) did the Spirit begin to baptize believers into the newly revealed body of the one new man. We take great exception to this view, but there are many besides dispensationalists who believe (I think incorrectly) that Pentecost was the ‘birthday’ of the church. But quite apart from that discussion, here is what is especially obnoxious to their system: It is the radically baseless inference that they haste to draw from 2Thes 2:7. The restrainer is held to be the Holy Spirit and His removal permits the Antichrist to be revealed. That is not the only interpretation for the identity of the restrainer, but even if it is allowed (though I do not allow) that the restrainer is the Holy Spirit, it would not necessarily follow that when He is withdrawn from His ministry of restraining evil, every believer who is indwelt by the Spirit is also taken away.

This is an inference based on a presupposition that leads to absurd conclusions. Those who take this view do not blush to call this event “a reversal of Pentecost” (Walvoord and many others). I call it a ‘retraction’ of Pentecost, because that’s what the theory implies. They argue that since the Holy Spirit did not indwell saints before Pentecost (on the contrary, saints were indwelt by the Spirit), He will no longer indwell those who come to faith after the rapture. They will be born again but not indwelt (how is that?). Tribulation believers will sustain a relation to the Spirit that they assume (I think falsely) existed before Pentecost. It is believed (quite incorrectly) that the Holy Spirit did not indwell believers before Pentecost. Until Pentecost, He only resided “with” them. This view is built on what can be shown to be a faulty interpretation of Jn 14:17.

The two pillars of dispensationalism that are indispensable to its defense is first the doctrine of imminence and secondly their definition of the church as restricted only to this age. The second pillar is based on two principle presuppositions that are essential to its support: 1). Their own new view of Paul’s use of the term, mystery as applied to the new revelation by the Spirit, and 2), their view that Holy Spirit’s indwelling is restricted to saints living only between Pentecost and the pre-trib rapture. Touch either one of these pillar points and the whole edifice of modern dispensationalism starts to crumble. But that is only if one knows their own system well enough to know what is absolutely necessary to its support.

Most who embrace the pre-trib theory (with its doctrine of an any moment return and new and novel ecclessiology) might give pause if they only knew what the academic defenders of their position must teach in order to hold the system together, things so obnoxious to the normal believer as the thought that none of the righteous who died before Pentecost can participate in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Why? Because it is believed that no one living before Pentecost can belong to the body of Christ. All the righteous of the older dispensation continue their sleep in the dust of the earth for an additional seven years. This is clear from Dan 12:1-2 and a number of other scriptures that show that the resurrection of the OT faithful takes place only AFTER the tribulation at the time of Israel’s deliverance. Not only so, but Jesus said that those who would believe on Him would be raised, not at an undisclosed, pre-trib rapture, but ‘at the last day’ (Jn 6:39-40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48).

Such observations may not dissuade those who have deeply imbibed academic dispensationalism, but few things could be more obnoxious or theologically untenable to the average believer than the imaginative notion that the Spirit who has been once and for all given (as based on the once and for all glorification of Jesus; Jn 7:39), that His indwelling presence should also be taken away at the rapture, so that He will no longer indwell those who become saints after the rapture. Not only does this so-called ‘reversal of Pentecost’ obtain throughout the last seven years of this age. By the same principle, all who come to faith all throughout the millennium cannot be indwelt by the Spirit. He is with them but not in them, because that distinction is what makes the body unique to this dispensation. Believest thou this? Such is the price of consistency.

This is a point where they stand most to be embarrassed. For the sake of those who might give pause, love bids that we endeavor to educate the unwary of what the academic defenders of dispensationalism admit to be necessary to support the doctrine of an imminent, and therefore pretribulational rapture.

Not only was the Spirit given on the basis of Jesus’ once and for all glorification, which can NEVER be reversed, but as you so well asked, “how will the outpouring / baptism of the Spirit that will come to the penitent Jewish survivors ‘in that day’ NOT also baptize them into the body of Christ?” Exactly! How can the Spirit not put one in the body in that day no less than this? How can one be in Christ and not be in His body? And how can the Spirit who will be poured out upon the the penitent Jewish survivors of tribulation produce a lesser result than Pentecost, particularly when Pentecost was the first fruits of that which is to come? How is it that He baptizes believers now into the revealed body of Christ but He will not do the same for those who receive the ultimate promise made to Israel? Absurd! Not only is this poor eschatology; it is disastrous theology! It belies a terribly deficient understanding of the inward working and abiding union of the Spirit as the basis of that union with the divine nature that is salvation. And, though impossible apart from the cross and resurrection of Jesus, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is certainly NOT something that began only after the cross, as witness Jesus’ reprimand of Nicodemus for not recognizing that just as a nation cannot be born apart from the Spirit, neither can a person, and so on we could go in demonstrating by many scriptures and evidences too plain to dispute that the Spirit of Christ indwelt, not only the prophets (1Pet 1:11) but all the children born of the Spirit (Gal 4:29 etc.), but that’s another discussion, albeit a needful one.

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The time of the rapture is really a secondary outgrowth of dispensationalism’s distinctive doctrine of the church, which derives from their own peculiar and novel view of ‘the mystery.’ It is a false view of the mystery that supports a false view of the nature of the church, which supports dispensationalism’s unique duality between two eternally distinct peoples of God.

It is correct to distinguish between the ‘Israel after the flesh’ and the church. But dispensationalism incorrectly divides between the seed of Abraham after the Spirit, saying that saved Jews before Pentecost and saved Jews living in the millennium do not belong to the church. In this way, there are two distinct ‘regenerate’ peoples of God belonging to two eternally disinct entities with different destinies. This constitutes a false view of the nature of the church. Hence, they fail to see that those of the natural seed of Abraham that are predestined for national salvation at Christ’s return will be as much a part of the body of Christ on earth as any living now before the Lord’s return. It is a question of what defines the church.

So while the ‘two peoples of God’ theory is a distinguishing hallmark of dispensationalism, it is more particularly their distinctive interpretation of ‘the mystery’ as it pertains to the church that is the real bedrock of the whole edifice on which every other inference stands or falls. The whole system is of comparatively recent origin. It is beyond dispute that the particular synthesis of doctrine that defines modern dispensationalism began with John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren movement in the late 1830’s.

I hope sometime to make the case that it is precisely this perversion of Paul’s teaching concerning the mystery that needs most to be corrected if the pre trib error is ever to be adequately answered, particularly at the academic level. Dispensationalism is much more than the pre trib rapture. It is a tightly integrated system that is not the ‘easy knock off’ that many tend to think. As fantastic as it may seem to some, it is nonetheless a formidable heresy that has appeared at this time for a diabolical purpose. I believe it is a judgment on the Laodicean condition of much of the modern church. I see it as a ‘trojan horse’ in the evangelical camp, by which the church’s corporate vigilance is compromised, and timely calls to preparation, both spiritual and physical, go comfortably unheeded.

Worst of all, it completely removes from the church any consideration of its role towards Israel during the tribulation as a divinely ordained support and witness. It misses the genius of God that has ordained the wilderness meeting of Israel and the church through their common experience of flight from Antichrist persecution. God has ordained this ‘conversation in the wilderness’ between Israel and a largely gentile church that God has ordained should move some to envy.

Unless the church is ‘defined’ out of the tribulation on pre trib terms, it is apparent that the church will be instructing many (Dan 11:33). The church will hold the key of prophetic interpretation that will be a powerful testimony to Israel. God will appeal to the Jewish conscience through the apocalyptic events as the church presses on Jewish consideration the relationship between covenant responsibility and the gospel as its only fulfillment.

The pre tribulational view of the rapture prevents the church from anticipating any such divinely ordained encounter with Israel. But if the church can expect such an encounter in the near future, what should be the wisdom appropriate to such an expectation? I believe the call to the Jew forces the church to do its homework. Engagement with Jews, particularly the orthodox, does more than anything I know to intensify and deepen the church concerning its own faith. If this is true now, it will be even more so at that time.

The crisis of Israel, and the urgency of the church’s role towards the Jew, is perfectly designed to provoke the church to maturity. Although Israel does not exercise corporate faith until “the Deliverer comes out of Zion to turn ungodliness from Jacob,” (a reference to Christ’s return), Israel’s national return to the covenant does not happen apart from the preparatory witness of the church (Dan 11:32-33; 12:3).

The toll that that the pretribulational view of the rapture has taken on the church and threatens to take in the future is beyond human calculation. But because God is faithful to save His elect from being deceived ultimately, we may be sure that a time of correction and adjustment is coming to the church (“judgment must begin at the house of God”). But the cost of delay will be immense. Especially painful will be the regret of precious time and opportunity wasted on a lie.

The greatest and most tragic loss of all is the loss of the divinely chosen context of the glory that is never so gloriously revealed in any other context (Ro 11:33-36). The loss of ‘this mystery,’ so central to the eternal purpose, has put most of historical ‘Christendom’ out of touch with the cost of divine suffering in its accomplishment. Every Christian acknowledges that it cost God the sacrifice of His own dear Son, but few consider that it also cost Him the temporary setting aside of His beloved elect nation (“enemies for your sakes”).

Paul presents God’s eternal purpose in terms of a gloriously wise strategy designed to accomplish the overthrow of the demonic powers that rule this age through “this mystery” (i.e., the secret of the cross; 1Cor 1:27; also compare Ro 16:25; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11; Rev 10:7). The hidden purpose meant that the elect nation would be left for now in its rebellion, not only as judgment for its own sin, but also for the sake of a greater glory than could be conceived in times past, namely, the inclusion of the gentiles into full covenant privilege through the mystery of the indwelling Christ.

Thus, through Israel’s fall, the blinded nation becomes the unknowing servant (“who is blind as my servant?”) of an eternal purpose now revealed to the church of the eschatological interim, and one day to be revealed to ‘all Israel’ at Christ’s return, when “they shall look upon the One they pierced.” This does not mean that the church did not exist before Pentecost. It means rather that the church could not be revealed as “the body of Christ,” until after the “mystery of Christ” had come to full light in the revelation of the gospel.

With the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, it was understood and preached for the first time that Christ should come twice (Acts 3:18-21; 1Pet 1:12). Until then, the mystery was concealed from the prophets and even from the Lord’s disciples until the set time of revelation (Mt 16:22; Mk 9:9-10; Lk 18:34; Jn 16:25).

It is important to distinguish between something that is newly revealed and something that is newly existent. Take the revelation of Christ for example. Certainly Christ is without origin, but the revelation of Christ and the gospel came by the Spirit only after the cross. It is the same with the church. The church as the regenerate people of God, though called by different names (e.g., “the remnant according to the election of grace”) had an essential existence even before the gospel was revealed and proclaimed, but could not be revealed as the ‘body of Christ’ until after the ‘mystery of the gospel’ had been revealed.

The basic revelation of Jesus as Israel’s twice coming Messiah (declared first at Pentecost) formed the basis of Paul’s further revelation concerning the nature of the church as the “body of Christ.” The revelation of the one had to precede the revelation of the other. But both existed before the first century.

So the concealment of the prophetic plan of God in a mystery was part of a divine strategy to expose and defeat the powers, and also the means whereby atonement would be accomplished as the essential ground of salvation for all time, whether before and after the cross. But also to show that it is impossible for the everlasting covenant to fail of its predestined goal. This is why the scripture says, “”Unto Him be glory in the church …” Because when ‘all Israel’ will come to see the mystery of the gospel, it will then be no less the ‘body of Christ’ than any now living on this side of the Lord’s return.

At that time, the same people that endured the exiles, crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, and holocausts of continual recurrence, will exist as a completely regenerate nation (Jer 31:34), all returned to the Land (Ezek 39:28). Then will ‘all Israel’ also be part of the church on the earth during the millennium, which will continue to expand to include as many as the Lord shall call from among the nations. It will not be a strictly “Jewish church,” but a completely regenerate Jewish nation will indeed be a chosen witness in the service of the eternal church of God, composed of every tribe and nation, whether in heaven or on the earth.

So after the rapture, the church does not cease to exist on earth. How could it? The church will be comprised of both the glorified redeemed ruling and reigning with Christ, and also the saved of Israel and the nations. Israel and the nations are depicted as dwelling on the earth in their natural bodies throughout the millennium. Since none can enter the kingdom in its final fullness apart from the required ‘change’ (1Cor 15:50-53), it seems necessary to infer that millennial saints will be glorified at the second resurrection. Then will a fully gathered church inherit the new heaven and earth at the end of Christ’s mediatorial reign when God will be all in all (1Cor 15:24-28).

The church is the revelation of God’s eternal purpose to gather all things together in Christ. It is not a ‘speed bump’ on the way to the millennium. It is the eternal and indivisibly one people of God in Christ, whose unity is based on a new creation of shared divine nature through the indwelling Spirit of Christ. But Israel will have a special mediatorial role in the further calling out of the church throughout the time of the millennium. “Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness? … For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?”

So why was the distinction originally made between Jew and gentile? Why is this divinely ordained distinction visibly preserved now and throughout the balance of the millennium? Why not pass immediately into the eternal state at Christ’s return? That is the question that theologians have struggled to answer. It is indeed a mystery requiring a precious grace for its knowledge and apprehension, but the glory of God is bound up with it. The everlasting covenant cannot be entirely fulfilled and visibly vindicated apart from Israel’s total redemption. The age does not end ’till they (the ‘generation’ of perpetual defiance) shall say with one voice, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Mt 23:39). Christ’s return will mean “the restitution of all things spoken by the prophets” (Acts 3:21), which Paul cannot conceive apart from the salvation of ‘all Israel’.

One final note. I would want to offer an important caveat on the way that many replacement minded theologians are prone to exploit dispensationalism’s theory of two peoples of God in a way that obfuscates the mystery of Israel and the church. Many protest the propriety of referring to unsaved Jews as the “people of God.” Here’s why I have a huge problem with their objection:

Certainly there is no hope of eternal life for any Jewish person that dies outside of Christ, and certainly there is only ‘one people of God’ in Christ (in that sense). We know that every truly regenerate person or nation is incorporated into the one body of Christ in heaven and on earth. That is the point of Eph 1:9-10. However, and this is a big ‘however’, from the standpoint of an abiding ‘corporate solidarity’, individual Jews continue to belong to an elect race that is predestined for future salvation. Therefore, as ‘a people’, they retain their distinct national identity for the sake of a millennial calling and stewardship towards the nations. This is the goal of the everlasting covenant that is still outstanding “WITH THEM” when their national sin will be taken away. In that sense, they are a “people of God,” despite their present enmity, not in the sense of ‘present regeneration’, but of corporate election and predestination.

This abiding distinction between Israel and the church is vital to the intention of God to make a visible display and open demonstration of His witness nation, as essential to the demonstration of the glory that He will get for His name through them (Ezek 36:32). God promised Moses that He would not be defeated in His purpose to finally bring into the Land the very nation that He first brought out. He will yet prove that they are not too much for Him! I always like to say that as God got His man on the road to Damascus, He is able to get His nation at the time appointed (Ps 102:13; Gal 1:15). We know that this comes at the end of Jacob’s trouble, when He sees that their power is gone” (Deut 32:36 with Dan 12:7). “Your people shall be willing in the day of your power” (Ps 110:3).

Through this mighty act of divine power the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord. To this end, and for the sake of this glory, Jewish racial identity has been sufficiently preserved. There is something deep in God’s heart and intention that will not be satisfied until “all that ‘see’ them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed” (Isa 61:9). In this, God is making a very public statement and demonstration concerning His sovereign prerogative to “have mercy on whom He will have mercy.”

Furthermore, to say that the Jews are not ‘the chosen people’ is to empty Jewish suffering of its awesome significance. To deny to the Jewish people their special identity as “the people of God,” despite their momentary estrangement, is to rob God of the glory of His own self-appointed challenge to bring this people (and not another) back into the bond of the covenant, and hence back into the Land as a holy seed never to be removed again.

And finally, to denude this people of their high and privileged calling, though momentarily suspended through unbelief, robs the Christian of the fellowship of the divine suffering in Israel’s judgment. Jesus wept! In order to accomplish the salvation of the world, it was necessary to postpone the day of Israel’s national salvation “for your sakes!” Do we grasp this? Do we dare? Can it be that for my sake, God surrendered His beloved nation, with whom He had bound His very name and glory, to exile and the sword?

This is why I stop short of agreeing with those that insist that there is only “one people of God” when it is invoked to deny that the Jews belong to a chosen race of abiding national destiny. This is the trap that some of our post tribulational brethren are falling into, and for the same reason, namely, ignorance of the mystery, since both replacement and dispensationalism misinterpret the mystery.

In their zeal to distance themselves from some of the untenable aspects of pretribulational dispensationalism, some historic premillennialists tend to side with replacement’s tendency to strip Israel of significant national identity, and thus miss the whole point in what is at stake in the current trend of prophetic fulfillment that is moving the age ever closer to an ultimate showdown over the issue of the covenant, particularly as it pertains to the Land. What an awesome test this is shaping up to be!

This is why the issue of Israel’s election and irrevocable relationship to the everlasting covenant is so bound up with the gospel and the mystery of Christ’s twofold advent. That crucial and indivisible relationship is what the theology of Ro 9-11 is all about. The covenant issue of Israel is the divinely ordained context in which we are meant to understand the true nature of the gospel of grace. Can’t dwell on this now, but that is some food for thought till next opportunity.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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I’ve had some email exchanges with my pastor, and it seems that “the imminent return of Christ” is his main objection. Also for me this scripture seems ‘against’ our view. Although it could just have been a sentence directed to the hearers that they need not concern themselves about the restoration of the kingdom, they had work to do here and now.

“And he said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons,
which the Father hath put in his own power” (Acts 1:7).

So any thought would be appreciated….

I think our modern debate over the rapture question is making a very illegitimate use of the context and original intention of this passage.

So far from lending support to the doctrine of ‘imminence,’ Acts 1:6-7 is the Lord’s personal correction of that mistaken presumption.

Let’s notice some things:

The disciples that asked this question of Jesus on the eve of the Ascension were either not present when He gave the prophecy from the Mount of Olives, or they had forgotten His words. Only days before, Jesus had taught the disciples that “the end” would be preceded by an unequaled tribulation signaled by the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel (Mt 24:15-16, 21). But first, the gospel must be preached to all nations before the end can come (Mt 24:14).

At the time the disciples asked the question of Acts 1:6, the mystery of Christ’s twofold coming to Israel had not been revealed (Acts 3:18-21; Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:11-12). They didn’t know that the risen Jesus was about to ascend to the right hand of God and there remain until His return (Acts 3:21). Even on those occasions when the disciples had heard the Lord speak of ‘going away,’ it was never imagined that this would be by way of death and resurrection and subsequent ascension.

To understand the dilemma, we must remember that the great puzzle for first century Israel was how the messianic redemption could be accomplished BEFORE and apart from Israel’s national deliverance. We know from the Jewish apocalyptic writings of the time that many looked for the redemption to follow the unequaled tribulation, or ‘Zion’s travail’ (compare Isa 66:7-8; Jer 30:6-7; Mic 5:3 with Dan 12:1), but no one knew that before this, Messiah would suffer death and be raised to return a second time. This was a mystery of the first order. It stumbled Israel. It would not come to full light until the Spirit would be poured out at Pentecost (1Pet 1:11-12).

Jesus knew that the puzzle would soon be solved when the power of the Spirit would come at Pentecost, ‘not many days from now’ (Acts 1:5). Then all would be made clear (Acts 3:18-21). But for these particular disciples at this particular time, the time for the universal witness to the gospel had come. That was the task at hand. Later, when Jerusalem’s destruction would be truly imminent, then it would be time to know that His coming is near, even at the door (Mt 24:33).

Later on, when Paul will correct a similar presumption of imminence, great stress will be laid on how the day of the Lord will be preceded and recognized by definite, known signs (Mt 24:14-15; 2Thes 2:3-4). It would therefore be a great error to interpret Jesus’ correction in a way that off sets or contradicts the great importance that He had earlier placed on reading and understanding the prophecy of Daniel (“Let the reader understand;” Mt 24:15). Jesus knew that in its time, this critical knowledge will be life or death for many (Mt 24:16, 21; Rev 12:6, 14; 13:5, 15-17).

So should this passage (Acts 1:7) be used to teach that the Lord is denying the knowableness of the time for anyone at anytime? Even pretribulationists say no. They admit that saints living at that time will surely know that the ‘end’ (i.e., the resurrection and deliverance of Israel) comes approximately 3 ½ years after the abomination (Dan 9:27; 12:11; Rev 11:2). Tribulation believers (those whom they say come to faith after the church has been removed) will surely be able to know the time when the signs appear that mark the beginning of the tribulation.

In their view, it is only believers living before a presumably imminent rapture that have no business to occupy themselves with the question of the times and seasons, since it is assumed they will be taken up before those times begin. This is how pretribulationists apply the Lord’s answer in Acts 1:7 to the question of whether anyone can know the time of the rapture and the start of the day of the Lord (i.e., “the times and the seasons;” 1Thes 5:1-2).

But the imminence of the rapture is not the question here, but the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. It is not the time of the rapture but the time of the kingdom that is not given to them to know at this time, simply because the time (and true imminence) of the kingdom cannot be known with certainty until the signs of its approach will be clearly in view.

Since the gospel must be first preached to all nations, it would have been impossible for the disciples to look for a presumed any moment rapture as a realistic potential in the earliest years before the persecution at Jerusalem (Acts 8:1), before the conversion of Paul, and before the gentile mission. Furthermore, since the final seven years begins when the Antichrist makes a false covenant of peace (Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23) with a recently regathered nation (Jer 30:3; Eze 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2; Dan 12:1), how can pretribulationists hold that the rapture was a truly ‘imminent’ possibility during the many centuries of Jewish exile from the Land?

Even on pretribulational assumptions, from 70 A.D. until 1948, the conditions necessary for the last seven years to begin have not been in place! Therefore, the doctrine of imminence is unsustainable for anyone committed to the necessary fulfillment of all prophecy.

As I have shown in an earlier writing (“The Rapture Question Decisively Answered by the Timing of the Day of the Lord”), the question of imminence is best decided by a study of the day of the Lord. A popular assumption that will not stand the test of scripture is that in order for the day of the Lord to come as a thief in the night, it must be secret and un-signaled. However, Paul says the day will NOT overtake believers as a thief, not because the day comes without signs, but because believers will be watching and will recognize the signs that MUST precede ‘that day’ (1Thes 5:4-6; 2Thes 2:3-4; Mt 24:15; Dan 11:21-45).

“That day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed …” (2Thes 2:3). “And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, BEFORE that great and notable day of the Lord come” (Acts 2:19-20). “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet BEFORE the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Mal 4:5).

In order for an event to be imminent in the sense that pretribulationists use the term, it cannot be signaled by any other known event. This is why pretribulationists were obliged to change their position on the day of the Lord, first in the 1940’s and again in the 70’s (see the above mentioned article).

Until recently, traditional pretribulationism thought the rapture started the day of the Lord. Since the day of the Lord comes unexpectedly as a thief, it was thought that it could NOT be preceded by any known event that might alert of its approach. This view became untenable when post-tribulationists of recent years pressed the point that the day of the Lord cannot be imminent until after the Antichrist has first been revealed (2Thes 2:2-3).

In order to obviate the problem, pretribulationists proposed that a gap of some indefinite duration should be discerned between the rapture and the beginning of the day of the Lord in order to provide time for the Antichrist to be revealed. This maneuver, however, is to controvert the whole idea that in order for the day of the Lord to come as a thief, it must be imminent, un-signaled, and without warning. This still popular theory collapses when definite and recognizable signs foretold in prophecy are shown to ‘necessarily’ precede ‘that day.’

Not only does scripture make clear that the Antichrist must be revealed before the Day of the Lord can start (2Thes 2:2-3), but throughout the prophets we see a number of Old Testament passages that describe the day of the Lord to be “near” or “at hand” only at the very end of the tribulation with the final judgment on the nations that have besieged Jerusalem (Isa 13:6-11; 34:8; 63:4; Eze 30:3; 39:8; Joel 1:15; 2:1; 3:14-16; Obad 15; Zeph 1:7, 14; 2:1-2; Zech 14:1).

This order of events is especially clear in Peter’s mention of the darkening of the sun and the reddening of the moon “BEFORE that great and notable Day of the Lord” (Acts 2:20), whereas Jesus, quoting the same OT prophecy (Joel 2:31), puts this climactic sign “‘immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days” (Mt 24:29-30). Therefore, if the darkness that comes BEFORE the day of the Lord is also said to come “immediately AFTER the tribulation,” it must follow that the day of the Lord is NOT the entire seven years, as in pretribulationism, but comes at the end of the great tribulation.

If the day of the Lord is NOT the seven years (the first half of which is false peace and certainly NOT great tribulation), but rather the climax of the tribulation, it becomes most untenable to argue that the day of the Lord comes without warning, or that it starts with a secret rapture, or, in more recent pre-trib theory, begins shortly after the Antichrist is revealed. This is not the language of scripture; it is pure inference based on presupposition.

As we have seen, it is false to assume that the day of the Lord cannot come as a thief if it is placed at the end of the tribulation. Even some pre-tribulational scholars admit that the coming Christ that is compared to a thief in Mt 24:43 is His visible, post-tribulational return. This is clear from the order and language of the context (Mt 24:27-43). This is further proof that preceding signs do not keep the Lord’s return from overtaking the unbelieving world as a thief.

Furthermore, Paul speaks of yet another sign of the day of the Lord that will greatly distinguish between those who will be overtaken as a thief and those who will not be surprised. It is the declaration of “peace and safety” (1Thes 5:3). I believe Paul has in mind the ill-fated peace covenant that the Jews will enter into with the Antichrist (see Isa 28:15, 18, Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 8:25; 9:27; 11:23).

To further demonstrate that the thief like day of the Lord comes at the very end of the tribulation, notice the relation of Christ’s coming as a thief in Rev 16:15 with Peter’s reference to the day of the Lord in 2Pet 3:10, 12. It is significant to observe that, according to Rev 16:15, the thief like coming of Christ is not presented as truly ‘imminent’ until after the sixth bowel.

Even so late as after the sixth bowel (Rev 16:12), the thief like return of Jesus is presented as yet future (Rev 16:15). An examination of the context of Rev 16:12-17 will show that the warning of Jesus’ thief like coming is significantly placed between the sixth and seventh bowels, and the context makes clear that the seventh bowl is “Armageddon, the battle of the great day of God Almighty” (Rev 16:14-17). This points to the fact that Jesus’ coming to destroy the Antichrist (2Thes 2:8) is the same coming that is elsewhere compared to the coming of a thief.

Notably, the next event after this insertion of warning concerning Christ’s ‘now truly imminent’ return (as a thief) is the announcement of the seventh bowel, which is also “the great day of God Almighty.” This, and not a supposed earlier rapture, is the coming that in Rev 16:15, 2Pet 2:10, 12, and Mt 24:43 is represented to overtake the ‘earth dwellers’ as a thief. In contrast, Paul makes it clear that this will NOT be the experience of the true believer. “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief.” (1Thes 5:4).

A careful comparison of the language of Rev 16:17 with Eze 39:8 will prove beyond question that the seventh bowl, also called “the great Day of God Almighty,” is indeed the Day of the Lord foretold by all the prophets of Israel. A further comparison of 2Pet 3:10, 12 with Rev 16:14 puts beyond question that the thief like day of the Lord and the post-tribulational “Day of God” are synonymous. Jesus comes as a thief at the great day of God Almighty to end the battle of Armageddon. This is the great and notable day of the Lord, which comes AFTER the darkness, which comes “immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days” (Mt 24:29; Acts 2:20). What could be plainer?

Hence, the term, day of the Lord, is a biblical synonym for the post-tribulational return of Christ. It is the day of Antichrist’s destruction (2Thes 2:3, 8), the gathering of Christ’s elect (Mt 24:31 with 2Thes 2:1-2), and the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:25-26; Rev 1:7). It does not include the tribulation; it ends the tribulation. The day of the Lord is not an imminent, un-signaled event and cannot therefore be introduced by an alleged any moment, pre-tribulational rapture. Christ returns at the day of the Lord, and this is the only return of Christ promised in scripture.

It may be asked, how can the day of the Lord come as a thief in the night when it is signaled by such clear and manifest events? That is a good question, but it leaves the question, clear and manifest to whom? It may seem a marvel, but at the time when the world will have occasion to witness perhaps the most prolific and manifest fulfillment of prophecy in history, still, the mediating angel says to Daniel, “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand” (Dan 12:10).

We simply cannot suppose the Lord’s answer in Acts 1:7 is meant to teach that there is no need for knowledge of the times and events which He and Paul, and later John, so clearly sets out for the church’s protection (Mt 24:15-16, 21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 12:6, 14; 13:5, 15-17; 14:9), and which so greatly glorifies God in the knowledge of His prophetic plan and revelation of His manifold wisdom.

The mystery revealed at Pentecost made clear that the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (i.e., the day of the Lord) must await the return of Jesus from heaven (Acts 3:21), but first “this gospel of the kingdom must be preached to all nations for witness, and then (only then) shall the end come” (Mt 24:14). The times and seasons of when that will be will only be knowable with certainty when the signs are fully in place. This concerns in particular the closing stages of Daniel’s vision, which the scripture says would not be fully unsealed and understood until the time of the end (Dan 12:4, 6-7, 9). This seems the more likely context and background of the Lord’s intention in His answer to the question of Acts 1:6.

We’ve come a long way to use a text intended to correct the mistaken presumption of imminence to defend the modern doctrine of an imminent pre-tribulational rapture. No, the day of the Lord is not imminent. It does not begin the tribulation; it ends it. It will not overtake believers as a thief, precisely because it will be preceded by the clear and knowable signs of its approach.

Finally, it would have required the greatest stretch of the imagination to teach an imminent, any moment rapture of the church at any time during the many centuries when there was no nation of Israel to even set the stage for the last seven years. The Lord is always “at hand” (Phil 4:5) in the sense that “the Judge is standing at the door” (Ja 5:9), signifying every person’s proximity to the ever present potential of sudden judgment (Lk 12:20, 45-46), but the doctrine of imminence from the standpoint of actual chronology is a disarming false doctrine that threatens to cost the church dearly.

In His precious service, Reggie

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By any fair comparison of these corresponding references, (and so many more that put “Zion’s travail” as immediately preceding the great and awesome day of the Lord), it is readily seen that the phrase, “Jacob’s trouble” is synonymous with the unequaled tribulation climaxing in the day of the Lord (compare Isa 13:6-10; 26:16-19; 66:8; Jer 30:6-7; Hos 5:15-6:1-2; Mic 5:3-4). Nothing could be more consistently attested throughout the whole of scripture than that the long-awaited day of salvation awaits the destruction of the last aggressor who brings the unequaled, never to be repeated time of great tribulation upon Israel and the nations.

In contrast, a-millennialism conceives of the millennium of Rev 20 as a symbolic number representing the entirety of the present age between the Lord’s ascension and return. In this scheme, the present age between the advents is conceived as a time wherein Satan is bound. After the thousand years have expired, Satan is once more unbound for a “little season” (Rev 20:3). It is this “little season” that a-millennialists typically equate with the age ending tribulation.

By dismissing Jesus’ reference to the “great tribulation” of Mt 24:21 as past already in Rome’s 70 A.D. sack of Jerusalem, the otherwise manifest connection between Jer 30:7, Dan 12:1 & Mt 24:21 is curiously disconnected. This evasion removes the final tribulation from any direct relation to literal Israel, but to do this is to overlook the superabundance of specific detail that both testaments attach to the final tribulation and its day of the Lord conclusion.

Another approach to prophecy that gets the tribulation all wrong s called, “Historicism”. It is best known for its often failed ‘year day’ theory that spreads the great tribulation out over a vast span of years (whether 1260, 1290, 1335), with perhaps an intensive resurgence at the end. The view that the church is taken away to heaven during the tribulation, leaves Israel to face the fury of Antichrist without the witness of that entity that Paul calls, “church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth” (1Tim 3:15).

In this comparatively recent view in the history of interpretation, the innumerable multitude of Rev 7:9, 13-14 is won to Christ by the witness of the 144,000 and the two witnesses in Jerusalem. With the bride of Christ transported to heacen, these, with all who come to faith after the rapture, are not to be reckoned as part of the body of Christ, but belong to another, distinct people of God called, “tribulation saints”.

The position called, ‘historic pre-millennialism’ sees the future great tribulation as primarily concerned with the purification of the church, since there is often little or no focus on the still outstanding covenant contention that will rage over the literal land and people of Israel at the conclusion of the age (Isa 34:8; Zech 12:2-3), nor the unique millennial destiny that follows where a literal reading of scripture presents the newly saved nation as exalted to be the head of the nations during the rod iron rule of the Davidic Messiah.

We agree with historical premillennialism that the church will indeed be tested and purified (Dan 11:35; 12:10; Rev 7:14), but this is common to the church’s persecution throughout history. The primary purpose of the great tribulation like no other is to bring Israel back into the bond of the covenant (Ezek 20:33-34, 35, 37) and to establish on earth the completion of the everlasting covenant that God made with the Patriarchs in all its literal detail.

Hence, ours is a comparatively rare perspective that sees both Israel and the church together in the tribulation, with the godly remnant ‘instructing many’ (Dan 11:33; 12:3), amid a common experience of worldwide flight from the persecuting policies of the Antichrist (Rev 12:6, 17). The time of Jacob’s trouble designs to bring Jacob to the end of his power (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7) and so prepare the Jewish heart for the removal of the veil that has so long hid the face of God from the larger nation until the predestined, “set time” to favor Zion when the beleagured survivors of Israel will “look upon Me whom they pierced” (compare Ps 102:13; 110:3; Isa 59:20; 66:8; Joel 3:16; Mic 5:3-4; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26, Rev 1:7).

This transitional time is also referred to as ‘Zion’s travail’ (Isa 13:6-8; 26:16-19; 66:8; Mic 5:3; Jer 30:6-7), which ends in the sudden and supernatural birth of the nation “at once … in one day” (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9). The millennium begins with Christ’s return to destroy the Antichrist, translate those who belong to Christ at the last trump, and deliver the the elect remnant of Israel on the brink of extermination (Isa 27:12-13 with Mt 24:22, 31; 1Cor 15:52; Rev 10:7; 11:15).¹

In speaking of the future desolation and ‘treading down’ of Jerusalem (Isa 28:3, 18; 63:18; Dan 8:13; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2), Jesus will use a term that Ezekiel uses as a synonym for the day of the Lord (i.e., “the time of the gentiles;” Ezek 30:1-3). It is usually thought that Jesus’ use of this term in its plural form, “the ‘times’ of the gentiles” (Lk 21:24), is intended to describe the entire time of gentile control over Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity until Jerusalem passed back into Jewish hands after the Arab Israeli war of 1967. Others see the time in view as reaching to the return of Christ when the times of the gentiles will end with a final treading down of Jersualem that ends when the Deliverer returns and the kingdom is restored to Israel (Lk 21:24; Acts 1:6; 3:21; Ro 11:12, 25-26; Rev 11:2).

In keeping with the pattern of past instances when Jerusalem was “trodden down” by the Assyrian and Babylonian invaders (Isa 10:6; Mic 5:5), the prophets, Jesus, and the NT writers expect a final “treading down” of the Holy City by the Antichrist (Rev 11:2). He is seen as the eschatological anti-type of all of Israel’s ancient oppressors (Eze 38:17). This final treading down of Jerusalem will be in progress when the day of deliverance arrives (Isa 28:5, 18; 63:18; Dan 8:13; Zech 14:1-4; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2).

Although quite unjustifiably disputed, it can hardly be denied that the apocalyptic books of Daniel and Revelation apply the treading down of Jerusalem, not to the long period between 70 A.D and the present return, but to a short period, i.e., the second half of Daniel’s seventieth week, which is the last 3 1/2 years (Dan  9:27; 12:7, 11; Rev 11:2). Throughout the prophets beginning with Moses, the tribulation of the “latter days” was conceived of as a very brief transition between the present age and the great day of the Lord of final judgement and salvation (Deut 4:30; Isa 13:6-8; Jer 30:6-7; Eze 38:8, 16-23; 39:8; Dan 12:1-2, 7, 11)

In some places, the day of the Lord is spoken of as inclusive of this short period beginning with Israel’s pre-tribulational return to the Land in unbelief and ending with Israel’s post-tribulational deliverance accompanied by the resurrection of the just (Job 19:25-27; Isa 25:7-8; 26:1617, 19, 21; 59:20; Joel 2:32; 3:16; Obad 1:17; Dan 12:1-2). A comparison of passages in their context of final tribulation makes it very evident that before the final desolator invades the Land to bring on the final desolations, the Land is depicted as flourishing in Edenic beauty (Joel 2:1-3; Eze 38:12-13). This pre-tribulatonal prosperity of the Land appears to be taking place during a time of false security.

This can be inferred from Isa 28:14-15. 18, 22; Eze 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26; Dan 8:25; 11:21, 23-24, 31; 12:1-2, 11; 1Thes 5:3. Taken together, these passages lead us to assume that pre-tribulational Israel is dwelling under the illusion of a peace that has been entered into with the one who will bring the final desolation (Dan 9:27; 11:21, 23-24, 31; 12:11; Mt 24:15-16, 21, 2Thes 2:4, 8; Rev 11:2; 13:5). In this light, it is remarkable that Jesus’ use of Daniel’s term for a final desolation of Jerusalem applies equally well to both the long and the short periods of desolation and captivity. A further captivity after Israel is regathered is clearly anticipated in Zech 14:2. Though mercifully brief in duration (Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2-3; 12:6, 14; 13:5), it is nonetheless described as a time like no other. “Alas! for that day is great so that none is like it …” (Jer 30:7 with Dan 12:1; Joel 2:2, with Mt 24:21-22).

Since the above passages show clearly that the holy city is in the process of being ‘trodden down of the gentiles’ when the Lord returns (Zech 14:1-5; Rev 11:2), it cannot be imagined that the ‘times of the gentiles can end anytime short of the post-tribulational day of the Lord. Furthermore, Paul speaks of the “the fullness of the gentiles” (Ro 11:25), as coterminous with Israel’s national deliverance at the post-tribulational day of the Lord (compare Ro 11:25-27; Isa 59:16-21; 63:3-7; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1). Only after this future desolation and treading down of Jerusalem of very brief duration (Isa 63:18; Dan 7:25; 8:13; 9:27; 11:31; 12:1, 7, 11; Mt 24:15; Rev 11:2) will Jerusalem dwell securely “from that day and forward” (Eze 39:22, 25, 28 with Jer 30:10; 32:37; Eze 34:27-28; Hos 2:18, 23; Mic 4:4; Zeph 3:13; Zech 14:11).

Since it is clear that the last 3 1/2 years envision a further treading down of the holy city, we must distinguish between a return after the long exile of “many generations” (Deut 28:59, 63; Isa 32:10-15; 58:12; 61:4; Eze 38:8; Hos 3:3-4) and another very short time of desolation, captivity, and wilderness flight that takes place during the unequaled tribulation of the last 3 ½ years (Jer 30:7; 31:2; Ezek 20:35-36; 22:19-22; 38:8; Dan 11:31; 12:1-2, 11; Hos 2:14, 18; Joel 3:1-2; Zeph 3:1-2; Zech 12:2-3; 14:1-2, with Mt 24:15-16; Rev 11:2; 12:6, 14. In contrast to the present return, the return that follows the great tribulation will be in faith. It will be complete and final and to the last man (Deut 30:1-5; Isa 27:12-13; Eze 39:22, 28-29; Zech 10:10-11; 12:10-13:1).

This means that the Antichrist invasion from the north (Eze 38-39, Joel 2:20; Dan 8:9; 11:21) is launched against a nation that has only lately returned from the long exile of ‘many days’ (Eze 38:8). This is further corroborated by the evidence of scripture (Isa 63:18; 64:10-11; Dan 8:13-14) that suggests that the ‘sanctuary’ that the Antichrist will violate has only ‘recently’ been recovered to Jewish possession (notice the language, “a little while;” Isa 63:18).

Daniel is equally clear that a short desolation of just 3 1/2 years begins when the regular sacrifice is taken away by the Antichrist (Dan 8:11; 9:27; 11:31, 12:11). This anticipates the restored presence of the ‘sanctuary’ on the hotly disputed temple mount. It is exegetically impossible to separate the removal of the sacrifice and the placing of the abomination from the last 3 1/2 years of  unequaled tribulation “of those days” (Mt 24:19, 22, 29) that ends in Jesus’ return, the destruction of Antichrist, Israel’s deliverance, and the resurrection (Dan 7:11, 25; 11:31, 35-36; 12:1-2, 7, 9-11; Mt 24:15, 21, 29, 31; 2Thes 2:1-4, 8; Rev 10:7; 11:2, 15; 12:6, 14; 13:5; 16:14-15; 19:20. ²

Therefore, from the broad range perspective of the Hebrew prophets, Israel’s long captivity is not considered as finally ended until the day of national repentance and deliverance. The time is clear. The surviving remnant of the down trodden nation are born into holy nationhood at once and in one day at the end of Zion’s travail, the great tribulation that reaches its climax in the great day of the Lord (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; 14:7; Joel 3:21; Mt 23:39; 24:29; Acts 2:20; 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7).

The significant ’tills’ and ‘untils’ of OT prophecy invariably place Israel’s national deliverance and full return at the end of a time of great travail and affliction (Deut 4:30-31; Isa 13:7-9; 26:16-17; 32:15-18; 66:8; Jer 30:6-7; Hos 5:15; 6:1-2; Mic 5:3-4). Zion’s travail ends with the day of the Lord (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22). Although he does not use the term, day of the Lord, Daniel will place the deliverance of Israel at the end of the unequaled trouble that he will identify with the last 3 1/2 years (Dan 12:1, 7, 11). A careful comparison of contexts, considered in light of attending detail, will reveal that MOST of the return passages have in view this final post-tribulational return from the Diaspora (Deut 30:1-5; Jer 30:10, 18; 33:7-9, 11, 14-16; 46:27-28; Eze 39:22-23, 25, 28-29; Zeph 3:8-9, 13-15, 19-20; Joel 2:27; 3:1-2, 20-21; Zech 14:2-5). ³

So both testaments give witness of a long captivity followed by final captivity of very brief duration  (Zech 14:2). It is from this latter captivity that “the ‘redeemed of the Lord’ shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads …” (Isa 51:11; 62:11-12). Failure to distinguish between a partial and preliminary return ‘after many days … many generations’ and a further and complete return after a further captivity of only short duration has left many with a misguided optimism concerning the future of the modern state.

I will never forget the first time that I heard believers call Israel, “the Ark of Safety”. I was with Art visiting the Corrie Ten Boom house in Haarlem near Amsterdam. The view expressed was that if such a disaster was not to be repeated, Christians should unite to do all in their power to help Jews from every country return to Israel, as the divinely protected, “Ark of Safety”. There was no doubting the sincerity of concern for the people of the ancient witness, but I could hardly believe my ears. Were these dear believers unaware that the Antichrist reign of terror begins in the Land and makes Jerusalem its first target? It made me to wonder, not only how such an error could survive the plain sense of scripture, but why has this found such widespread acceptance among the friends of Israel, the very ones that should have been the prophetic watchmen on her walls?

It is the return of an ancient heresy that scholars of Jewish history call, “the inviolability of Zion.” It is the presumption that God has pledged unconditionally to protect the nation from the success of her enemies. The enemy may assail, but he can never prevail. However, the enemy has prevailed many times before (not ultimately, of course), and how, apart from the only righteousness that fulfills the covenant, can the present secular state claim immunity from ‘the discipline of the covenant,’ as recorded in Lev 26 and Deut 28-32? Until the coming in of the ‘everlasting righteousness’ (Jer 32:40 and Dan 9:24), the Jewish people, as a whole, remain under what we might call, ‘covenant jeopardy.’ This means that the threatened curses of the broken covenant remain outstanding and threatening until their final resolution in the promised messianic righteousness of the New Covenant.

The ill-fated doctrine of Zion’s inviolability suffered its first death in the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jer 25:11; Dan 9:2). It was revived after the successful Maccabean resistance against the Syrian tyrant, Antiochus IV (Epiphanes). This formed a new precedent that emboldened Jewish resistance in three successive, but futile revolts against Rome (66-70, 115-117, 132-135 A.D.)

The modern revival of belief in the “inviolability of Zion” is defended by three basic arguments:

1) The modern re-birth of the nation in 1948.

2) The belief that the “time of Jacob’s trouble” was the Holocaust of Nazi Europe.

3) The amazing succession of military victories that have, against all odds, saved the fledgling nation from almost certain destruction.

The first argument confuses May 14, 1948, with the spiritual birth of the nation at the post-tribulational day of the Lord (compare Isa 66:8 with Ezek 39:8, 22, 28-29; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Zech 12:10). As the surrounding context confirms, the sudden regeneration of the nation “in one day” happens after Zion’s travail, and marks the beginning of the nation’s millennial glory with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the surviving remnant (Ezek 39:29 with Joel 2:28-32; Zech 12:10). “From that day and forward” (Ezek 39:22), there will be no more remnant, because every Jewish survivor and all the children born throughout the future generations will all know the Lord (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; 66:22;  Jer 31:34; Ezek 20:40; 39:22, 28-29). With the Deliverer’s return to Zion (Isa 59:19-21; Ro 11:26), the Antichrist is destroyed (Dan 7:11; 2Thes 2:8) and the millennium begins (Ezek 39:22-29). It is then that Israel will be the all righteous nation of covenant promise that enjoys final and uninterrupted security in the Land (Jer 23:6; 30:10; 32:37; Ezek 34:25, 28).

[Note: In the perspective of the prophets, Paul’s much disputed phrase, “and so all Israel shall be saved,” envisions this time when there will be no further need for evangelism among the Jewish inhabitants of the Land (Jer 31:34), thus assuring the abiding continuance of unfailing obedience through the promise of the new heart.]

The second argument is refuted by the fact that Jacob’s trouble and all the passages that deal with Israel’s last suffering are set ‘in the Land.’ It begins in the Land (Ezek 22:19-22; Zech 13:8-9; Dan 12:11; Mt 24:15-16, 21) and ends in nothing short of Israel’s final and ‘complete’ deliverance (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1), Christ’s return, the destruction of the ‘Man of Sin’ (2Thes 2:8), and the resurrection of the righteous dead (compare Mt 24:21, 29-31; with Dan 12:1-2).

As to the third argument, there can be no doubt that Israel’s return to nationhood is a remarkable and necessary fulfillment of prophecy (Ezek 38:8; Dan 12:1). Before the judgment of the tribulation and Antichrist, and before the day of national repentance, Israel is granted a gracious, albeit probationary return to the Land BEFORE the final crisis that ends in the redemption (Ezek 38:8; 39:26). This gathering is indeed a gracious fulfillment of covenant promise (Jer 30:3; Eze 38:8), but it does not accomplish the final salvation of ‘all Israel.’ Rather, it sees ahead to the yet future time of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1), which does indeed end in final salvation of the day of the Lord and the further and final re-gathering of all Israel (Eze 39:28; Zech 8:7-8, 22-23; 10:9-12; 12:10-13:1; 14:3-4).

Significantly, Daniel will apply Jeremiah’s language of a time like no other (Jer 30:7 with Dan 12:1) to the last 3 1/2 years that begins with the abomination of desolation and the removal of the daily sacrifice that ends with Israel’s deliverance and the resurrection (Dan 9:27; 12:1-2, 7, 11). Jesus will use the same language (Mt 24:21) to describe the unequaled tribulation that begins with the abomination and ends with His return (Mt 24:15-16, 21, 29). Thus, we see that the present return is a probationary time of divine pleading that must, at some point, climax in the great tribulation that reaches its climax in the great and notable day of the Lord (Mt 24:29; Acts 2:20; Rev 16:14-17; note especially the similarity of language between Ezek 39:8 and Rev 16:17).

Therefore, so long as the larger part of the nation remains estranged from the “bond of the covenant” (as only fulfilled in Christ), the judgments of the broken covenant will continue to threaten Israel’s peace in the Land. And while covenant jeopardy threatens Jewish safety in any land at all times, it is particularly “in the Land” that the prophet Zechariah says that two thirds will be cut off (Zech 13:8-9) in the tribulation. Therefore, if we believe that Jews will be facing the fury of Antichrist, as first directed against those living in the Land, what should be our prophetic responsibility? (Ezek 33:6).

The victories of the past do not guarantee that the enemy will not terribly prevail for a season (Dan 7:21, 25; 12:7; Rev 11:2; 13:5). While it is certainly true that Israel will be abundantly saved at the “set time” (Ps 102:13; Dan 11:35), it is not before she has passed through “what has been determined” (Dan 11:36; 12:7). It is no mere matter of interpretation, but only the greatest sorrow that constrains us to face the plain language of scripture of a last days’ siege and desolation of Jerusalem. We must not shrink from the lengths that God will go to arrest His elect and beloved nation on its predestined path to resurrection and glory.

It is only Scripture that compels us to point out that great affliction and another exodus of wilderness flight awaits Jews all over the world, both in the Land and in the nations (Jer 30:7 with Dan 12:1 Mt 24:16; with Rev 12:7, 14). The same awaits all who will expose themselves to peril through costly identification with this hunted people (Rev 12:16-17). The true church will be distinguished from the false in no small measure by its willingness to lay down its life to lend succor and aid to despised and now abandoned nation. This, since scripture leads us to infer that it will be the Antichrist’s first objective to eliminate the Jewish race (Rev 12:6, 13-14). In all probability, it is the church’s part in hiding the woman that will bring upon the saints the hatred and fury of the Antichrist (Rev 12:16-17)

We are very near the ancient doctrine of Zion’s inviolability when we hold an unjustified optimism concerning Israel’s future that ignores what all the prophets see as necessary for the self-reliant Jacob (supplanter) to become the broken and contrite Israel (one who perseveres with God). It is the principle of the cross, of death before resurrection. The nation must mirror Messiah’s tragic passage from degradation to exoneration. A naive view of the cost of Israel’s return risks being offended at the lengths that God will go in order to bring His people into the bond of the covenant. Perhaps we are ignorant of this for them, because we’ve not sufficiently known this process for ourselves. Paul understood this when he speaks of a necessary travail in order for Christ to be formed in the hearts of the Galatians (Gal 4:19). It is the principle behind his statement, “So then death works in us, but life in you” (2Cor 4:12). That is why Israel’s deliverance is often depicted as a birth that is preceded by travail (Isa 13:8; 26:16-17; 66:8; Mic 5:3; Jer 30:6)

The reason for such tribulation is manifest (Acts 14:22). Fallen human nature cannot be conquered except by the inward work of the cross applied by the Spirit, through the quickening of divine revelation. This is why Jacob must be brought to the end of his power (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7) before the veil can be taken away (2Cor 3:16; Zech 12:10). How can it be different for the church? The veil is lifted and Christ revealed at the end of strength (“confidence in the flesh”). That is the pattern for all the true “Israel of God”. It is death before resurrection and travail before birth.

It is the plain reading of the covenant that ‘until’ the Jewish people possess the “everlasting righteousness” of the New Covenant (Jer 32:40; Dan 9:24), not by a few, but by ‘all’ (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; Jer 32:40; Eze 20:40; 39:22), there can be no lasting security in the Land. Until then, there will always remain “the quarrel (vengeance) of My covenant” (Lev 26:25; Mic 6:2). The broken covenant, the coming short of the glory of God in Christ, will always be a liability that leaves open the peril of further judgment, yes, even momentary captivity into the nations (Zech 14:2 with Lk 21:21-27; Rev 11:2; 12:6).

Since the covenant requirement is met nowhere but in Christ, to suppose that Israel is not subject to further exile, even if very brief (3 ½ years), is a humanistic presumption that is in great danger of being offended at the lengths God must go to accomplish the resurrection of a nation, whether it be out of the death of exile, or an hour of unsurpassed affliction and travail (Deut 4:30-31; Ezek 37:11; Ro 11:15). Although no enemy can ever have final success in accomplishing Satan’s futile desire to eliminate the Jewish race, biblical history is full of examples of severe chastisement that have ended in exile. If another expulsion and exile of brief duration (the last 3 1/2 years) is considered a term too extreme to describe Israel’s experience under the Antichrist, who will deny that Jesus describes a final desolation of Jerusalem before His return (Mt 24:15-16, 21), and that John sees a final treading down of Jerusalem and flight into the wilderness? (Rev 11:2; 12:6, 14). Is this not enough to prepare ourselves to warn and escort fleeing survivors to places of safety in the day of Jacob’s calamity? (Eze 35:5; Obad 13)

If the Assyrian who was a type of the coming Antichrist was called by Isaiah, “the rod of my chastisement” (Isa 10:5), why should it be different with the final anti-type? The Antichrist functions under God’s sovereignty as the rod of His discipline. And while God has set definite limits, it is foolish to imagine that the covenant chastisement that will come through the final Antichrist will be less severe than any of the other cruel oppressors of Jewish history. If Jewish writers can call the modern Holocaust, the “tremendum”, what will be “the time of Jacob’s trouble”, so that none is like it? (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1; Mt 24:21).

The ancient Jewish sages and rabbis confess with one voice that salvation comes to Israel in the hour of his greatest extremity. This is far from supposing that the enemy will not have cruel success and prevail for “a season and a time” (Dan 7:21, 25; Rev 11:2; 13:5). The final desolation of Jerusalem is a constant theme of Old Testament prophecy, confirmed and understood as literal by Jesus and the apostles (Isa 63:18; 64:10-11; Ezek 22:19-22; Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11; Mt 24:15-16; Rev 11:2).

Even before the New Testament revelation of the mystery of the gospel (Ro 16:25; Eph 6:19), the Old Testament was clear in its witness that God would accomplish His unconditional promise by pouring out His Spirit on the broken and contrite survivors of the final trial (Isa 59:21; Ezek 39:29; Zech 12:10). The ancient Rabbis described Israel’s last woes by such terms as, “the birth pangs of Messiah,” or, “the footsteps of Messiah.” Throughout the writings of the sectaries of Qumran (the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls) and many of the Rabbinical writings of the Christian period, the view was commonplace that the final redemption comes only at the end of a brief but unequaled time of severity (Jer 30:7; Dan 7:25; 9:27; 12:1, 11).

This will be the time when God will once again bring the fleeing remnant into the wilderness to “plead with them there” through great judgments, mighty signs in nature, and also tender appeals (Isa 35:6; 40:3; 41:19; 42:11; 43:19; Hos 2:18; Jer 31:2; Ezek 20:35). [Note: Scholars see that the final redemption is set in the context of a second exodus out into the wilderness and back again, but tend to interpret this as poetic metaphor of Christ as the new exodus. In the literal view, Israel is driven into the wilderness by the Antichrist, to return again from all lands when he is destroyed at the Lord’s return.]

The New Testament confirms the Old Testament’s witness to a final wilderness experience for the people of God that begins with the descent of the nations upon unsuspecting Jerusalem (Isa 34:8; 63:18; 64:10-11; Joel 3:2; Zech 12:2-3; Mt 24:15-16; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2). A careful comparison of related passages will show that after this, when the “great trumpet” sounds (Isa 27:13), the surviving remnant of Israel begins their long trek back home, not only from specifically mentioned neighboring countries (Isa 11:15-16; 27:12-13), but from places of hiding such as the neighboring wilderness of Edom (Isa 16:1-4; 26:20; 35:1; 42:11; Ezek 20:35-37; Jer 31:2; Hos 2:14; Dan 11:41 ASV).

When the abomination is placed in the holy place in Jerusalem, speedy flight from that area will be a matter of life or death (Mt 24:15-16, 21). A remnant will escape into the outlying regions, such as the wilderness of Petra in southern Jordan (Isa 16:1-4; 26:20; 42:11; Dan 11:41). It is significant to observe that the Jews that are returning to the Land after the day of the Lord are called, “the outcasts” (Isa 11:12; 16:3-4; Isa 27:13), “the escaped of Israel” (Isa 4:2; 10:20; 66:19), “those who were ready to perish” (Isa 27:13), and “those who were left of the sword” (Jer 31:2).

Manifestly, the modern return, though prophetically significant, cannot be the return that Isaiah calls, “the second time” (Isa 11:11). A careful comparison of Isa 11:11-12, 15-16; 19:4-6 with Isa 27:12-13; Zech 10:10-11 will show that this return must be accompanied by a miraculous crossing of ‘the river of Egypt’ on dry land. Moreover, this return is signaled by the sounding of the “great trumpet” (Isa 27:13). Since the time is the same, it can hardly be doubted that this is the post-tribulational trumpet that Jesus refers to in Mt 24:31, and that Paul calls, the “last” (1Cor 15:52)? Note that Paul’s citation of Isa 25:8 in 1Cor 15:54 (“then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written”) demonstrates that the time in view is the time that the OT righteous are raised from the dead, clearly AFTER the unequaled tribulation (Job 19:25-26; Isa 26:19; Dan 12:1-2).

Therefore, since it is clear that the return of Isa 11:11-12, 15-16 is the same return that begins with the post-tribulational trumpet of Isa 27:12-13, it follows that the modern return is not the return that Isaiah calls “the second time.” We may see the present return as a first stage, but we must distinguish between the present partial return and the full and final return that follows the national regeneration that comes only at the end of the last tribulation.

Not only throughout the nations of the Diaspora (compare the term “outcasts” in Isa 11:12; 16:3-4; 27:13), but even more locally and regionally in the neighboring countries adjacent to Israel (Dan 11:41 with Isa 16:3-4; 42:11 NKJV), Jews will be driven into places of hiding (Isa 16:3-4; 26:20; 27:13 {“ready to perish”}; Rev 12:6, 14).

[Note: The word translated rock in Isa 42:11 is not the usual Hebrew word for rock. It is Petra in Edom / modern Transjordan, see 2Kings 14:7; Isa 16:1; 26:20; with Dan 11:41]

These and a number of parallel passages combine to show that the day of salvation will find many in the wilderness. The reason is clear. It is because Jerusalem has very recently become a wilderness of desolation through the assault of the Antichrist (see Isa 4:2-4; 63:18; 64:10-11; Ezek 22:19-22; with Dan 11:31; 12:11; Mt 24:15; Rev 11:2; 13:5).

Therefore, it is a great error to confuse the present return and re-establishment of the unbelieving nation with the complete return that comes only after Israel’s post-tribulational deliverance and spiritual transformation (Ezek 39:22, 28-29). Until then, they are a chosen and ever beloved people (Ro 11:28-29), albeit under the abiding threat of the curses of the covenant (Lev 26; Deut 28-32). Nevertheless, the preliminary return that we see today was absolutely foretold. It was necessary to the complete return that follows the end of the tribulation. All of prophecy presupposes and requires a substantial Jewish presence in the Land, existing again as a nation (Dan 12:1), albeit under covenant judgment (Ezek 20:35-37; 22:19-22; Dan 12:1; Zeph 2:1-2). To make light of the modern miracle of Israel is not merely an issue of interpretation, it is an issue of the heart.

After the conference, I plan to work with a friend and colleague from New Zealand (Dalton Lifsey) on a joint writing project that aims to present the full case from scripture for this crucial distinction concerning the order of the return. Manifestly, the present return, though very gracious, is probationary at best (Ezek 38:8; 39:26), since it anticipates the unequaled tribulation that MUST precede the nation’s repentance at the day of the Lord. Only then, “from that day and forward” (Ezek 39:22), will God’s face never again be hidden from the prodigal nation (Deut 31:17-18; 32:20; Isa 8:17; 64:7; Ezek 39:23-24, 29).

We must see that there is a return that precedes the trouble, and another return that follows it. The first is partial and in unbelief. The second is in penitent faith and includes every Jewish survivor (Zech 13:8-9), to the last man (Deut 30:4; Eze 39:28).

Much has been made of the passage in Ezek 36:24-25 where great stress is put on the word “then” that seems to imply that Israel is “first” gathered to the Land before the time of national cleansing. The same may be said of Ezek 37 where a case can made for the prior resurrection of the nation before the breath of the Spirit effects the promised regeneration. However, just as much stress should be put on the wording of verse 33, which says, “In ‘the day’ that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities (past tense), I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be built. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, ‘This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden;’ and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it” (Ezek 36:33-36).

There is a mystery here that is the cause of much of the puzzlement. It is solved when we understand that there is an age long exile of desolation and depopulation of the Land that is followed by a re-gathering that precedes the desolations of the great tribulation (Jer 30:3; Ezek 38:8; 22:19-22; Zeph 2:1-2). Though unsurpassed in severity and apocalyptic devastation extending to all nations, this time of desolation and flight into the wilderness is thankfully very short (Dan 12:7; Mt 24:16; Rev 11:2; 12:6, 14; 13:5).

You are correct that Art became persona non grata to most of the messianic leaders in Israel for referring to this time as another “expulsion.” I believe this was to “make a man an offender for a word” (Isa 29:21), since many agree that Jews will be required to flee to places of safety, many to outlying regions that will provide hiding from the face of the Antichrist (Isa 16:3-4; 26:20; 42:11; Ezek 20:35; Dan 11:41; Mt 24:16; Rev 12:6, 14).

Art also was understood to teach that there would be no survival for Jews left in the Land. Whether he failed to qualify his remarks on those occasions, I do not know. I do know that there will be a remnant of Jewish life that survives in the Land. The scripture says as much (Zech 14:2; Mt 10:23; Rev 11:13). However, it would be a great presumption to not heed the Lord’s warning to flee into the wilderness (Mt 24:16). Note that Zech 13:8-9 says that a third of those “in the land” escape the sword. Given what the scripture implies of conditions in the Land under the reign of Antichrist, that is a surprisingly high percentage of Jewish survival, for which we can be very thankful. However, are we safe in assuming that this high percentage of Jewish survivors remain in the Land, or will survival depend on successful escape into the wilderness and to places of refuge outside the Land? It is at best a sober inference, but in view of Jesus’ clear warning to flee, it seems more probable that the “third part” that were in the Land when the tribulation began, will survive in so great a number only because the larger part managed to escape to places of refuge in the wilderness. Whether this escape is within or outside the Land, we cannot say with final certainty, but we are safer to follow the lead of the scriptures that show the certainty of survival in wilderness regions outside the Land.

See the following scriptures as evidence that Israel’s flight into the wilderness is concurrent with Jerusalem’s final desolations: Isa 63:18; 64:10-11; Jer 30:7; Dan 9:27; 11:31-35; 12:11; Zech 14:2; Mt 24:16; Rev 11:2; 12:6, 14). Significantly, Jer 30:18 says that the Jerusalem will “be built upon its own heap.” This is the picture that we see in the larger context of Ezek 35-36 and Obadiah. The final return is always AFTER the surrounding nations (Edom in particular) have been humbled for their ‘everlasting hatred’ against the children of Israel (Joel 3:19-21). The time is clear: It is “in the day of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end” (Deut 32:35; Ezek 35:12, 15; 36:2-3; Obad 13).

It is after this final judgment on the persecuting nations (i.e., ‘times of the gentiles’; Ezek 30:2-3; Lk 21:24) that the waste and ruined cities of Israel shall again be built and re-inhabited (Ezek 35:4; 36:3-4, 10, 34-36, 38), never again to be “bereaved of men” through war (Ezek 36:12, 14 with Isa 49:19-20).

Thus, we must distinguish between “the desolations of many generations” (Isa 61:4), and the brief and final desolations of the great tribulation. We must be clear: There is a return before the tribulation (Jer 30:3; Ezek 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2; Dan 12:1) and there is another that is AFTER the tribulation (Isa 11:11-12, 15-16; 27:12-13; 49:19-20; Jer 30:10; 31:8-9, 11-12; 32:37-40; Ezek 34:12-15, 25, 28, 30; 36:33; 39:28-29; Joel 2:18; 3:1-2, 15-16; Zech 8:8-9; 10:6, 10-11; 14:11).

Zephaniah presents the pre-tribulational gathering of Israel as a “self-gathering” BEFORE the day of judgement (Zeph 2:1-2 KJV). In contrast, the final return is attended by great signs of supernatural divine power (Isa 11:15-16; 27:12-13; 35:1, 6; 41:17-18; 43:19-20).

If context is duly considered, it is this post-tribulational return of Israel in penitent faith that is so gladly assisted by gentiles (Isa 49:22; 60:9; 66:20; Zech 8:23). I do not discount the possibility that certain circumstances might justify assisting a Jewish family in their desire to return to the Land. However, to assist Jews back to the Land with no clear warning of what awaits them there is reprehensible in the extreme (Ezek 33:6). These covenants of silence are shameful evidence of the church’s own deep humanism. What an irony that in the interest of recovering our “Jewish roots”, we should so radically depart from our ‘apostolic roots’ (Acts 4:20).

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

Original Question:

Reggie,

I am teaching a three part series over the next three Sundays, pt 1 The restoration of Israel pt 2 & 3: The Jewish Road to Calvary

Ezek 36 does appear to be referring to ruins during the apocalyptic period just before the return of the Lord. Verse 15 states no less than three times. V 29 “deliver you from all your uncleanness” compares with Zech 12:1. Again V 33 “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities.” Again V 30 “never again to bear the reproach of famine among the nations.” Then in v 36 we have “the nations which are left all around you shall know that I the lord have rebuilt the ruined places.” Ruins being rebuilt are also referred to in 10 & 33.

More than anything else, Art was profoundly disapproved for this one thing: i.e., his suggestion that these ruins are modern day Israel.

In terms of arguing the case against this premise (and I say that because I want to be solid in my arguing the case for Art’s position), can anyone point to any time in history when Ezek 36:36 has been fulfilled? Was there any such demolition during any of the three deportations into Babylon and then into Egypt with poor Jeremiah? There was no such demolition of the nations round about, was there? It was Israel that was being demolished and not the surrounding nations!

What about other periods of history? Could this verse be used in any of those in an attempt to deflect it away from the glaring reality of a coming holocaust? So, can anyone argue that verse V 36 has been fulfilled at a time prior to today? If not, then it does stand, does it not, that much of modern day Israel will yet be turned to rubble? Indeed, the fact that rebuilding is such a prominent feature in this chapter and in other books, such as Isaiah etc., the language of the prophecies are intended to imply the kind of massive building projects we see in the land today, such as never seen in all its history.

As some parts of my knowledge of the whole history of Israel are a bit patchy, would this last statement be correct in your thinking?

Peter

I am sorry to be so long getting to your question, Peter, but its importance is part of the reason I knew it deserved more than a quick reply. Above is part of a reply to some friends in Germany that have expressed concern over the ‘Aliyah’ movement among Christians to assist Jews to return to their Land. Hopefully this will address both questions.

The post The Order of the Return (Part 1) appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Thu, May 1, 2008 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 diffference 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, restored 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, Schofields 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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