“But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

John 6:39-40

“And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose none, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

John 6:44-45

“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.”

John 6:64-65

“But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”

In all of the above texts, the necessity of faith is understood, but the existence of saving faith is credited to the Father’s prior initiative to give only some to the Son. The text would have us to observe that this is a limited number, since none to whom it is given fail to come, but none can come unless enabled by the drawing power of Father.

This raises the question: Does any so drawn by the Father ever fail to come? The procession of the text will not admit of any such failure.

The order of the Lord’s sayings, as the chapter continues, seems to narrow to an unavoidable conclusion: None are enabled to come to Christ unless it has first been given, and no one who comes is ever lost.

We know that this drawing is effectual in obtaining its goal because it ensures that each one who is drawn by the Father is also “taught of God”, and that “everyone” so taught comes to Jesus, never to be cast out or lost (Jn 6:37, 39). What follows will show that this is all by a Divine enablement that is not only the result, but also the effectual cause of faith in those whom the Father has given to the Son from all eternity.

Of that foreordained number, not one is ever lost or cast out (6:37, 39), but is kept by the unfailing power of Jesus to be raised at the “last day” (Lk 14:14; Jn 6:39; 17:12; 1Pet 1:4-5). These chosen ones whom the Father has specifically entrusted to the Son’s secure keeping (compare Jn 6:39; 10:27-29; 13:18; 15:16; 17:9, 12, 20) are also the special object of His unfailing intercession, most especially to the end that their faith “fail not” in the day of testing (Lk 22:32; Jn 17:9, 12, 20; with Heb 7:25).

Next is an observation that carries the most glorious implications for those who “love God and are the called according to His purpose” (Ro 8:28-29). It is Jesus’ citation and application of Isa 54:13 in Jn 6:45.

Here Jesus extends to His sheep from every nation all the glorious eternal security of Yahweh’s long promised, long awaited “covenant of peace” (Isa 54:10 with Eze 37:26), which is elsewhere equated with “the everlasting covenant” (compare Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; Eze 16:60; 37:26).

As you will observe by comparing the following verses, the “everlasting covenant”, as well as “My covenant of peace” are manifestly synonymous with Jeremiah’s “new covenant” (compare Jer 31:31-34 with Jer 32:38-40 & Isa 54:10, 13 with Eze 34:25; 37:26).

This is the covenant that includes all the unilateral (some would say, unconditional) promises made to Abraham and to David concerning their seed. It will stand in its most public and plenary fulfillment with a fully renewed Israel in the future Day of the Lord.

This is when every penitent Jewish survivor of the final great tribulation (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1) will all “know the Lord from that day and forward” (i.e., the Day of the Lord; Eze 39:8. 22), “never again to depart” (Ps 89:28-36; Isa 59:21; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Eze 37:25-27; 39:22, 28-29). Since “all Israel” will be a completely regenerate nation “in that day”, they will no longer stand under the continual threat of covenant judgment, subject always to the potential of curse and recurrent eviction from the Land.

In glorious contrast to past generations, post-tribulation Israel will dwell securely in their own Land “from ‘that day’ and forward” (Lev 25:18-19; 2Sam 7:10; Ps 4:8; Jer 23:6; 30:10; 32:37; 33:16; Eze 34:25, 28; 39:26; Hos 2:18; Mic 4:4; Zeph 3:13; Zech 14:11).

This is made possible because, no longer will there be a mere remnant, at best restraining, but never long preventing the largely blind and backsliding nation from falling back under covenant judgment. In radical, unprecedented contrast, post-day of the Lord Israel will all, without a single exception be righteous with the Lord’s own “everlasting righteousness” (Isa 45:17, 24-25; 54:13-14, 17; Jer 23:5-6; Dan 9:24).

This blessed unity in the Holy Spirit is promised to extend throughout all future generations unto “children’s children”, not one ever failing of the “everlasting righteousness” of the “everlasting covenant” (Isa 4:3; 44:3; 45:17, 24-25; 54:10, 13, 17; 59:20-21; 60:21; 65:23; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:38-42; Eze 20:40; 37:25; 39:22, 28-29, etc.)

From Jesus’ citation of Isa 54:13 in Jn 6:45, we can see that He is applying the eternal security of this everlasting covenant that will stand with post-tribulational Israel to all whom the Father has given Him now, and in the millennial age to come. To be given by the Father to Jesus is to be secured in the everlasting covenant established with Abraham while he was in a deep sleep, signifying its unconditional surety of certain fulfillment (Ps 89:35-36; Isa 55:3; 66:22).

God’s purpose in putting Abraham into a deep sleep before passing between the pieces was certainly NOT to ignore or circumvent the indispensable conditionality of the inheritance. Rather, it is God’s own pledge of Himself that He would unilaterally engage to meet and fulfill all required conditions, first by means of the atoning sacrifice of the curse-reversing Seed of the woman on behalf of “all the seed” (Ps 18:50; 89:29, 36; Isa 41:8; 45:25; 53:10; 65:23; Jer 33:25-26; Ro 4:16; Heb 2:16). Then by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, a new nature will invariably, necessarily bear fruit “after its own kind” (Mt 13:23).

At the “set time”, “when it pleases God” (Gal 1:15-16; Ps 102:13; 110:3), whether for the Jewish remnant at the end of the tribulation, or the calling of any individual in this age, God will “put” His Spirit into the newly recreated hearts and spirits of the heirs of the everlasting covenant. He retains this free sovereign right to quicken “whom He will” (Mt 11:27, Jn 5:21; Ro 9:18), when, at His own sovereign timing, He has prepared the right conditions for the final and everlasting salvation of His elect nation (Isa 30:18).

By Jesus’ applying the covenant promise of Isa 54:13 to all whom the Father has given Him to save and keep (Jn 6:37, 39-40, 44-45, 65), He is thereby uniting “the called according to His purpose” of every generation to the same secure covenant inheritance that will come to the “natural (Jewish) branches” in the coming day of their great national deliverance when “all Israel shall be saved” (Ro 8:28-29; 11:26-29).

For the elect remnant of Jewish survivors of the final tribulation, covenant failure resulting in more than temporal discipline will be a thing of the past. Scripture is very clear that from this time forward, not one of the heirs of the everlasting covenant will ever again depart (Isa 59:21; Jer 32:40; Eze 39:22, 28-30).

Neither can any of the chosen seed of Israel’s race ever fall fatally or finally away from what they have irrevocably and irreversibly become, namely, an everlasting “new creation … born of the indestructible Word of God that lives and abides forever” (2Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15).

One can see how the NT writers will often describe personal salvation in all the terms and colors that the prophets use to describe the eschatology of post- tribulation Israel. For the apostles, Israel’s eschatology is the model and pattern for the soteriology (doctrine of salvation) of the new / everlasting covenant as applied to the salvation of the individual.

But how might such assurance be mistaken and misused by persons who are yet in the body of this flesh? Wouldn’t this give them a sense of license to misuse their liberty? Well, as believers in the “fight of faith” are reminded to take due diligence to make their calling and election sure (2Pet 2:10), this danger of presumption is certainly warned against in scripture (Gal 5:13; 1Pet 2:16).

But so far as one may have evidence that they are bearing the fruits that witness to the reality of “the righteousness of faith” (Ro 4:13), it is also to be understood that the holy fear of God (“my fear”; contrast Jer 2:19; 32:40) is built right into the everlasting covenant. This is what God has promised to “put” into the heart of every heir of new covenant righteousness (Isa 59:21; Jer 31:33; 32:40; Eze 11:19; 36:26-27; 37:6, 14).

Because of the indwelling Spirit of Christ, the regenerate seed of Abraham will vigilantly guard their own hearts. This is not because they will be in any doubt of the security of their everlasting inheritance, but because the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, and also the sure knowledge that God will faithfully chasten His own, which is the distinguishing badge of true sonship (Ps 89:30-33; Heb 12:7-8).

Not only post-tribulation Israel, but all of God’s elect are contemplated as the “seed of Abraham” and heirs of His everlasting “covenant of peace” (Isa 54:10; Eze 37:26) . And lest it be foolishly objected that the word, “everlasting“ doesn’t always mean “everlasting”, the context makes its meaning here most abundantly clear. It means eternal, “world without end”(Isa 45:17; 66:22).

These things cannot be said of all persons, but only those whom Paul calls, “the election of grace” (Ro 11:5). Indeed, the gift of “everlasting life” (Jn 6:40) is promised to faith, since unbelief forms the contrast between those to whom it has been given and those to whom it has not been given, in verses 36-37 and 64-65.

But faith is NOT the basis for God’s sovereign, pre-temporal initiative to this limited number. Rather, faith is the result of the Father’s eternal choice to Divinely enable all whom He would give to Christ to both come to Him and be kept forever by Him (Jn 6:37, 39, 44, 65)

This enablement is preceded, not at first by faith that we supply, but by the Father’s “good pleasure” to “quicken whom He will” (Jn 5:21; 6:39; Ro 9:18; Eph 1:5; Phil 2:13). This is a Spirit-quickened faith that must invariably and necessarily “overcome the world”, precisely because it is “born of God”, since it is a rule that “whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world” (1Jn 5:4).

While many, such as Judas (Jn 6:64, 70; 13:10-11; 17:12) and the tares sown among the wheat, may move undetected among the sheep for a season (“Lord, who is it?”, Jn 13:22, 25), Jesus said these are “NOT of My sheep” (Jn 10:26; 1Jn 2:19). None of God’s true sheep who are truly “born of God”, and thus in living union with the Divine nature (2Pet 1:4) can ever fatally or finally fall from the Father’s grip (Jn 10:28-29; Ro 8:28-39).

This is just one example of a pervasive biblical doctrine taught in many places throughout both testaments, but it is far more than a doctrine among doctrines. In Ro 9:11, it is called “the purpose of God according to election”.

Paul is clear that in order for that purpose “to stand”, it must not be influenced by any virtue found or foreseen in one more than another (Ro 9:11). The only difference distinguishing the two brothers is a difference that is made by God (1Cor 4:7)

According to Paul, and no less John, any difference that is not perceived as given from above is dangerous ground for the pride of presumption (Jn 3:27; Ro 11:35-36; 1Cor 4:7). In 2Tim 2:19, Paul will call this doctrine the very “foundation of God”. That unshakable foundation has “this seal, the Lord knows them who are His”.

It is the knowledge that Jesus has of His own sheep (Jn 10:14). He warns of those who will count themselves as His sheep whom He “NEVER knew” (Mt 7:22-23). So 2Tim 2:19 is clearly not merely speaking about God’s obvious knowledge of one’s present spiritual condition, but an eternal foreknowledge that reaches back to the covenant that always existed between the persons of the Godhead before creation (Ro 8:28-29; 2Thes 2:13; 1Pet 1:2; Rev 13:8).

Not only is this great truth precious to the believer’s comfort; it is also vital to the upholding of the integrity of the Word and the vindication of the “everlasting covenant” of grace.

John Newton who wrote, “Amazing Grace”, believed this truth, as nothing else so plucks from man any presumption of entitlement, simply because this decision of God, so unbiased by anything in man, cannot be impugned as in any way unjust (Ro 9:14-21). Notably, Paul does not undertake to satisfy all the natural questions that might arise. Rather, he simply answers the anticipated protest with the surprising retort, “who are you, O man, to reply against God?”(See Ro 9:18-23).

Ironically, it is in the place of greatest offense that God has plainly declared the incomprehensible goodness of a grace that was moved by nothing found or foreseen in man, except this unique love for His own that existed before time. Its source, its working, and its goal begins and ends as wholly the work of God alone, for the glory of Christ alone.

He is both author and finisher of a faith that is “given from above” (Jn 3:27; Ro 11:35-36; 1Cor 4:7; Eph 2:8; Phil 1:20) and upheld to the end by the power of God and the indwelling of the indestructible, ever-abiding seed of the Word of God (1Pet 1:23), establishing an eternal, irreversible union between the believer and the Divine nature (1Pet 1:4-5; 2Pet 1:4). This means the truly regenerate believer is not ‘becoming’ a new creation; he or she ‘is’ an eternal new creation (Isa 66:22; 2Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15).

In conclusion, Israel’s eternal covenant is our eternal covenant.
Romans 11:33-36

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
“For who has known the mind of the LORD?
Or who has become His counselor?”
“Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

The post The Everlasting Covenant in John 6 appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

In John 17, Jesus made these two statements: “I have finished the work which you gave me to do.” And, “Now I am no more in the world.” He was still here, and still had the cross to endure.
Do you think these words pivot off what Revelation so surprisingly tells us, that Jesus was “Slain from before the foundation of the world”?

Above and behind all the contingencies of time that seem so contingent and uncertain to us, Jesus lived and walked in a whole other place. He walked in the works that had been finished already before the foundation of the world. He walked, lived and labored out of the rest (Heb 4:3, 11). ).

With the cross still before Him, and even before He would plead that the cup be somehow removed, even while knowing this would be impossible, since for this cause He came into the world. This seeming contradiction between a predestined inevitably and the Son’s appeal as though some lingering ignorance of an unavoidable certainty had come over Him.

This is no contradiction at all!, as some wicked gainsayers have suggested. On the contrary, this is the nexus of the glory of the incarnation, of the One who so emptied Himself to be exalted, as a man!, to the highest preeminence, even equality with God! Precisely here is the greatest demonstration of the perfect convergence of a fully poured out humanity in a final act of perfectly voluntary submission to the will of His Father in the face of the unbearable and incomprehensible.

Consider: He knew He was not just about to die but take on Himself the full punishment of divine wrath due the sin of the world. Certainly He would ask the cup be removed, “if possible”. He wouldn’t be human if He did not stagger beneath the weight of all that His prophetic senses could only contemplate with an intensity beyond our capacity to imagine. Let’s ponder this for a moment.

He knew He was asking the impossible, but the scripture wanted us to see the glory of a fully submitted humanity that would not be human if it did not shudder and shrink in horror at what now lay just before Him.

In the words of the grand old hymn, “did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?” I would ask, did e’er such humanity and deity meet, or the Father’s love and glory more surround?

If we could only know the power of weakness, we could begin to understand the glory of that one word, “nevertheless”. “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” When that heart of utter submission dwells in a person, it is a piece of incarnation, as it reflects living witness to the mystery of the incarnation itself. Why? Because this kind of love, and voluntary submission in the face of such sacrifice on behalf of another, particularly an enemy, is “impossible with man”. This is why martyrdom is so central to the faith. It is not human heroics; it is submitted love. But back to the point.

It is so amazing to contemplate that the one who could say outside the grave of Lazarus …

And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. John 11:42

comes now to Gethsemane, with a request that though gloriously heard, could never be granted, and Jesus knew it only too well. Still, His very humanity required expression in the impossible request, and the scripture was unwilling that we should fail to hear it.

But lest anyone vainly imagine that for something to be an inevitable and predestined certainty that it is somehow automatic or mechanical, look again. Jesus did nothing by external constraint or necessity, but only by the liberty of the Spirit. It was very necessary that no man take His life from Him (though men would be the witless agency), but that He lay it down “FREELY” of His own accord. Freedom, the God kind of freedom, is also at the very heart of a predestined incarnation of the Spirit of liberty.

Even while seeing, I know I don’t see. The glory of this is blinding. It would take a very uncommon revelation to begin to even conceive, let alone grasp.

The reason for this is very much to your question.

As no one else has ever walked, Jesus walked in perfect, unfettered faith in works that were finished (predestined) — already accomplished, before the foundation of the world. He lived in the past tense in the sense that He saw His future as already accomplished. Still, He prayed and groaned and travailed in prayer for the birthing and coming forth of God’s predestined future.

No contradiction here, just our mortal minds faced with the incomprehensible power of God to balance freedom, responsibility, and a fixed and unalterable predestination. And aren’t we glad God is in control of every sparrow that falls? Pity those who are afraid to embrace their best friend — the predestining power of God.

Imagine rising up in the morning, knowing you will be walking in works that were predestined before creation? Jesus lived with this consciousness. He lived each day as predestined, and in that sense past. Each day was predicted by a certainty that could not be stopped, though all hell should make it all the more glorious in the futile attempt.

We live in all the uncertain contingencies of the natural world around us, we struggle in suspense of all the maybes and what if’s of this life. Jesus lived in the consciousness that everything, literally everything concerning Him was on a predestined timeline. Is there something here for us?

The free actions and seemingly free decisions of men, enemies and disciples alike, would all fall into perfect service of a predestined plan that was perfectly ordained and utterly impossible to thwart or alter. In the words of my beloved brother, Art. “How’s them apples?”

How does that work? Exactly! We cannot grasp such a concept. Why strain and break our brain. Such paradox should not be cause for debates over philosophical, theological questions over freedom and determination, but amazement and worship at the power of grace to win the battle despite all the gates of hell, freedom and contingency notwithstanding. We can only bow and worship at such wonders that defy comprehension.

It all had to be just so, with no part (cog) missing or out of its appointed place, because the whole original purpose for creation depended on it. And not only the cross at just some eventuality along the way, but by a predestined set time under the equally ordained (pre-set) circumstances, with every player in place, yet with no violence to the will of responsible individuals. But precisely at this time, under no other possible set of circumstances. How do you do that? Only God!, which is precisely the point.

I’m now coming to the verse that I think speaks most to your question, but first one more verse that is very much like it.

John 13:3-4
Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He rises from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself …

Here is the Lamb of God’s grand exit from this world, and what does He do? He stoops to wash our feet! Take that in. This is astonishing! This is His statement that will only begin to be conceived or understood in retrospect.

Jesus said and did a lot that would only be understood in retrospect, but oh, the glory of looking back in hindsight at all that the Father was so perfectly controlling to the tiniest detail. What part could have been left out? Even the human editing of every word of the four gospel accounts is part of a perfectly sovereign, utterly superintendence, right down to the finest detail. As Jesus said, “not one jot or tittle can pass from the Torah unfulfilled.” Now that’s micro-management! Yes, God is all about the details and the small print. He guards the jots and the tittles as all a piece with the ‘seamless garment’ of the sacred trust of our divinely sent canon, perfectly supervised in its preservation and transmission.

Only Jesus could see how a perfectly predestined future was not put in doubt by the necessity of the indispensable, equally predestined travail of holy intercession that was no less voluntary, but constrained by the grace of the Spirit. We must note how nothing of what God ordains is dispensable. Prayer is the ordained means to all of God’s ordained ends. There is no conflict between a predestined outcome and the equally predestined means to its birthing into the creation, even though the works were finished before the foundation of the world. Big thoughts for our little minds! But back to the verse that is to your question.

“And now I am in the world …” These are words that look at the present from the eternal perspective above time, that sees by the “Spirit of prophecy” what is to come as though already accomplished. This is a common characteristic of Hebrew prophecy. Scholars call it the “prophetic past tense”. This is a common characteristic of Hebrew prophecy which can accomodate temporal conditionality and contingency based on response with an absolute predestination that assures a certain response at a certain, foretold time. That’s sovereignty!, where nothing of the tension is lost, but nothing is left to uncertainty. This is because the whole, with all its moving parts, is being perfectly controlled towards a predestined end, and that end, and the perfectly foretold process leading to it, is never put at the mercy of mere foresight alone.

The logic of all that the scripture says of God’s attributes in the Trinity of persons concerning an eternal purpose that had no beginning in time but always existed in the Godhead (as one brother put it, “from all eternity, there was a cross in the Godhead), leads us to conclude that the Father and the Son were enjoying the end of the timeline as already finished before it started. It was done before it began. That’s what this language, especially here in John is intended to convey. Now for those final two verses that bring this out most perfectly, also here in Jn 17, in what has been called, “Jesus’ high priestly prayer”.

John 17:4-5
I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (Spoken as already finished when the cross still lay ahead)

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

If that isn’t glorious Trinitarian language, I don’t know what would be!

From His perspective, Jesus has already been here and returned to the Father. This glory that the eternal Son had with the Father before the creation always existed in full finished certainty and fellowship of mutual enjoyment, and all on the basis of what was now, just about to be accomplished in time.

In the words of Fanny J. Crosby, “I scarce can take it in!” Think about it. The cross, and all the things of time that would be constructed around this great, eternally centermost event that was not only known and predestined in God, but the object of eternal, pre-temporal fellowship and enjoyment of infinite glory in the Godhead before anything had been created. It was finished before it began, but it all depended on that one center-most event of time — the cross.

Seen this way, Jesus’ last words from the cross. “It is finished!”, takes on a meaning that reverberates through all time and eternity from the Alpaha to the Omega.

That is who He is. He’s everything! All things have been put in His hands and only the Father Himself can weigh His worth!!’

Reggie

The post It is Finished appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

However, we see in rom. 11:25-29, there is reference to a covenant that remains outstanding with Israel (“the natural branches”, ie. the Jew as Jew, and the nation as nation) that is to be fulfilled in the future. What covenant is this? Clearly, it is the same new covenant that is already ratified eternally in the sacrifice of Messiah. Still, it is not completely fulfilled in its stated provisions until all Israel is saved” (Rom. 11:26, 27). “But this shall be the covenantthat I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the LORD, I will putmy law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no moreevery man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:33-34; see also Isa. 39:20-21, in context).

We will show that according to the provisions of the New Covenant, the salvation of “all Israel” signifies an eschatological contrast to the perennial presence of a remnant that has always remained in the midst of a predominantly apostate nation. The context of Jeremiah’s new covenant points to the Old Testament Day of the Lord, when a remnant that has survived “Jacob’s trouble” (and only those will survive who are appointed to salvation) become a new nation, “born in a day” (Isa. 66: 7—9), the iniquity of the land is “cleansed in one day” (Zech. 3:9,10). From this time, there will never again be a remnant in the land, because the whole of the nation “from the least to the greatest” will all know the Lord, and will be preserved in holiness for the duration of the thousand years. That is to say, because the covenant is fulfilled in their national and collective obedience, there is no longer a remnant, but the entire nation is preserved in an everlasting righteousness” (Jer. 32:40; Dan. 9:24).

Because the law is fulfilled, as there is now a new heart of faithful obedience shared by the entirety of the nation, there is also no further threat of exile, no longer the inevitable recurrence of national disruption through covenant violation (Lev. 26; Deut. 28-32). The chronic tendency to backslide that placed the nation in perpetual covenant jeopardy is now replace by a new and lively spirit that can, and by the law of an inherent new nature, will ‘certainly’ persevere in righteousness according to the tenor of the following passages:

“Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause the to dwell safely: And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will given them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlastingcovenant with the, that I will not turn awayfrom them, to do them good; but I will putmy fear in their hearts, that they shall not departfrom me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. For thus saith the LORD; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them: (Jer. 32: 37-42).

“ In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none, and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve: (Jer. 50:20).

“Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified(Isa. 60:2).

“In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escapedof Israel. And it shall come to pass, that he that is leftin Zion, and he that remainethin Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every onethat is written among the living in Jerusalem” (Isa. 4:2-3).

“But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end…In the LORD shall allthe seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory” (Isa. 45:17, 25).

“And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD: My spirit that is upon thee, and my words, which I have put in thy mouth, shall not departout of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever: (Jer. 31:33034; see also Isa. 59:20-21).

And so, Ezekiel and the other prophets: “For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heartalso will I giveyou, and a new spiritwill I putwithin you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and causeyou to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keepmy judgments, and dothem. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your uncleanness….” (Ezek. 37:24-29).

“For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice. And without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim; Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days” (Hos. 3:4-5).

“Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the daythat I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent…The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid” (Zeph. 3:8-13).

“And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as thought I had not cast them off: for I am the LORD their God, and will hear them…In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness: (Zech. 10:6; 13:1).

This is not to multiply passages merely to prove a point; though many more that say essentially the same thing could be cited almost indefinitely rather, it is to give you a sense of just what Paul has in mind when he says that the salvation of “all” Israel is according to “my covenant with them when I shalltake away their sin” (Rom. 11:27). This is clearly future; it concerns the “natural branches” that are currently “enemiesof the gospel”. This is, of course, the same New Covenant that the church (through the revelation of the mystery) has entered upon in unexpected advance of the Day of the Lord, in contrast to the expected “restoration of the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6, 3:21; compare also Dan. 2:44 with Rev. 17:12 demonstrating the manifest futurity  of this restoration of the kingdom “to Israel”).

Now consider also that until one is in Christ, there is no true fulfillment of the law, and so one remains “under” the law for condemnation and not for blessing, because the blessing is only to the doer (Lev. 18:5). But there is no acceptable doing of the law except through the gift of the Spirit received by faith. This is why Israel stumbled even before Jesus came. Paul explains that Israel’s historic error was their failure to pursue the holiness of the law by faith (Rom. 9:32). Instead, Israel turned the standard of righteousness into a work of human ‘do-ability’. This is quintessential humanism; it is “confidence in the flesh” (Phil.3:3-r), a condition so resilient and intractable that it continues to war against the believer as well (2 Cor. 1:9, 12:7).

When the law was revealed from Mt. Sinai, it stood forth in its holiness as humanly unapproachable (Ex. 19, Heb. 12:18-21). Till this day, this is Israel’s humanly insoluble predicament. Israel remains under the curse of the broken covenant UNTIL the law is fulfilled by the creation of a new heart, and a new spirit. And until the law is consistently kept by the entire nation, there can be no final refuge from terror, and no lasting possession of the land. There is no discharge from that covenant except through fulfillment of the righteousness that it demands, but cannot confer.

The Abrahamic and Davidic covenants are both defined as “everlasting” (Gen. 17:7, 2 Sam. 23:5, Ps. 105:10, Isa. 55:3, 61:8, Jer. 31:35-37, 32:40, 33:25-26, Ezek. 37:26 et al), and belong to :my covenant (Gen. 17:19, Ex. 6:4, Lev. 26:42, 44, Ps. 89:28, 34, Isa. 59:21, Jer. 33:20-21, 25-26) “WITH THEM”(ie. the “natural” branches). This covenant is both fulfilled and unfulfilled. It is fulfilled in Christ, and with all who are in Christ. However, an essential feature of the covenant remains outstanding and unfulfilled until every Jewish soul living after Christ’s return will them be in Christ “from the day and forward” (Ezek.39:22, Acts 3:19-21, Rom. 11:25-27).

Significantly, God describes the broken law as “my covenant” in Jer. 31:32, as it is distinguished from the “new” covenant announced in the proceeding verse. Here, God calls the broken covenant “my covenant”, a term used elsewhere of the “everlasting” covenant. It is the same covenant that Paul unmistakeably identifies with the new covenant still to be established with the natural branches (Rom. 11;27 with Isa. 59:21 and Jer. 31:31-34). 

God seems to look upon the covenant in its distinct stages as a single and perpetual covenant that is both conditional and unconditional. And, whether this “everlasting” covenant is regarded as “old” from the standpoint of its failure, (because of human incapability), or “new” in its Divinely assured success (because of the promise of regeneration through Messiah’s atonement), it remains throughout, “My covenant” (compare esp. Jer. 31:32 with Isa. 59:21 and Rom.11:27). 

A comparison of these passages suggests that it is the same covenant, but differently regarded in different relationships. Viewed from the standpoint of Israel’s chronic failure, and the pessimism of the prophets concerning Israel’s spiritual capacity to fulfill its demands, the covenant is “old”, failed, and ineffectual. But viewed from the standpoint of God’s sovereign resolve to establish the covenant on the basis of grace and Divine enabling, it is new and everlasting. But the same covenant in both relations is called “the everlasting covenant”. It never ceases to be conditional, but its abiding conditionality cannot frustrate the promise, because it is God who unconditionally assures that its conditions are fulfilled on the human side as well.

On man’s part, the covenant is indeed quite breakable (Duet. 31:16, Isa. 24:5, with Jer. 31:32), but on God’s part, it is eternally secure, because it is sure of success through the power and determination of God (Isa. 59:21 with Jer. 31:31-34; 32:37-41). Therefore, we can say that the covenant that can never be fulfilled ‘by’ the people of the promise is nevertheless fulfilled ‘for’ them that it might be fulfilled ‘in’ them. Thus, when we speak of the unconditionality of the covenant, we assume, not the removal of its conditions, but the certainty of an eschatological Divine initiative that guarantees God’s own fulfillment of its human side. 

This is done for His people through the Messianic atonement, that it might be fulfilled in them through the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This gift is poured out upon “all Israel” in the great Day of the Lord (Is. 59:20-21, Ezek. 39:29, Joel 2:28-32; 3L14-21, Zech. 12:10-13:1), the grand demonstration in all of this is that there can be only one source of covenant fulfillment, because as Jesus said, “there is none good but one, that is, God!” (Matt. 19;17). Herein lies the key to Israel’s historic blindness and covenant failure (Rom. 9:32).

If, as some affirm, Israel is no longer “under the law”, and therefore no longer in jeopardy of its violation, no longer under the curse, then why is history such an open witness of the continued disciplines and judgments threatened in the covenant? (Lev. 26, Deut. 28-32). No one can read the threats of the covenant without being compelled to recognize that they are remarkably current in their fulfillment. Yes, anti-Semitism is indeed satanic. Nevertheless, the scripture is abundant in its testimony that God employs evil for the correction of His people (Isa. 10:5-6, 15, Ezek. 38:4). Even as Jesus said to Pilate; “You could have no power against me at all, but it be given you from above (Jn. 19:11).

This could as well be said of Satan in particular, whose limits are set by the sovereignty of God. So, while certainly, Satan is behind anti-Semitism, God is behind Satan. We know this because the Scripture is clear that if Israel (all Israel) should keep the covenant from the heart, God would make “even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Prov. 16:7). Then would Israel lie down in safety, and none make them afraid” (Lev. 25:18, 26:6, Deut. 12:10, 33:28; Hos.2:18).

But so long as such blessing is conditional on a obedience that is beyond Israel’s natural capacity to fulfill, the nation must continue in its tragic condition until “the day of His power” (Ps. 110:3). “In thatday”, the people will be “willing and obedient”, and thus will “eat the good of the land” (Isa. 1:19). In other words, the debarring “if” of the covenant’s conditional aspect will be overcome by unconditional Divine determination in the Day of the Lord (‘the day of His power”).

This is “the set time…the time appointed” to favor Zion” (Ps. 102:13, Dan. 11:27, 35, Ezek. 29:22). This is the great eschatological “UNTIL’ that stand between the “in part” of Rom.11:25, and the “all” of verse 26. It is the same “UNTIL” that appears in Mt. 23:39, Lk. 21:24, Acts 3:21, and many other such instances throughout the Psalms and the prophets. It marks the transition between an Israel that is saved “in part” (the remnant), and an eschatological “fulness” when every Jewish person, without exception, will be established in” everlasting righteousness” (Dn. 9:24) as a standing witness to the nations of God’s sovereignty in grace. It is the eschatological vindication of the everlasting covenant. Then it will be irresistibly visible “in the sight of all nations” that Israel is “the work of His hands” (Isa. 45:11; 60:21).

This witness “in the sight of all nations” (Ps. 98:2; Ezek. 28:25-26; 39:27) is the more remarkable and supernatural in view of the fact that renewed Israel exists as Spirit-filled believers (Joel 2:28-29; Isa. 44:3; 59:21, Ezek. 36:27; 37:14; 39:29), serving the Lord in natural bodies (Isa. 65:20-23; Ezek. 39:9-16; Zech. 14:16-19). And though there will be great evangelism among the nations (Isa. 2:3; 66:18-22; Zech. 8:23),it is only among the Jews that such uniform regeneration exists as to render Jewish evangelism forever unnecessary (Jer. 3:34; Ezek. 39:28).  Such is the nature of God’s intention for millennial Israel. Israel thus becomes the ultimate demonstration of the nature of the covenant, and of the sovereignty of grace in salvation, and so it is intended. As the Jew is to be provoked to jealousy through the Church’s fulness even so will the nations, “in that day” be likewise provoked to emulation through the demonstration of a nation among the family nations whose entire population is born again. “How much more their fulness!” “what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead!” (rom.11:12, 15). Israel’s future glory defines the nature of the New Covenant.

[Note:Let the future of the covenant as it will be displayed in Israel throughout the Millennium instruct and inspire the church to more fully apprehend and appropriate the implications of such a covenant for its own life and faith, even amid the conflict that persists in this present evil age before Satan is bound. By New Testament standards, the saints as stewards of the mysteries should recognize, appropriate, and exhibit the power of this eschatological demonstration in advance of Israel’s eschatological fulness by the 
Spirit of revelation, as custodians of the “secret of the Lor”, which is the covenant of salvation. (2 Sam. 23:5, Ps. 25:14; 91:16), known only by revelation (Isa. 8:16; 53:1, Dan. 11:32; 12:9-10).]

As a brief aside, it should be noted that coextensive with Israel’s Millennial blessedness is the binding of Satan (Rev. 20:2), and this is coincident with the destruction of the veil that is cast over all nations (Isa. 25:7). There is a manifest correlation between these events and the “finishing of the mystery of God” at the sounding of the seventh angel/trumpet (Rev. 10:7). It is no mere happenstance that with the sounding of the seventh angel, the mystery is “finished”, the veil is destroyed, and “the kingdoms of this world are now become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15; compare also 1 Cor. 15:51-54 with Isa. 25:7-8; 26:16-21; 27-13). 

The end of the age is waiting on a revelation event that comes to “the escaped of Israel” (Is. 4:2), and this happens with the return of Christ, the Deliverer who comes out of Zion (Isa. 59:21; Joel 3:16; Ro. 11:26). The return of Christ “immediately after the tribulation of those days” (Mt. 24:29-31) concludes Daniel’s 70^thweek of years (Dan 9:24). Until this point, the vision is ‘closed up”, “shut up”, “sealed up” (Dan. 9:24), “bound up”, and “hidden” (Isa 78:16-17; 29:11) from Israel (compare also Deut. 31:17-18; 32:20 with Ezk 39:29). The “times of the Gentiles” (Lk 21:24) is coextensive with the time of Israel’s national blindness (Ro 11:7-10, 25-27), a blindness that many scriptures show terminates with the Day of the Lord. This is very significant because it shows the relationship of the New Covenant to the revelation of “the mystery of the gospel” (Eph 6:19). This means that god has predetermined a “set time”, (compare Ps 102;13, Dan 9:24-27; 11:27, 35; Ezk 39:22), that He will reveal Christ and the gospel to the beleaguered nation (Zech 12:10-13:1), who will call with one consent on the name of the Lord (Joel 2:32, Mt 23:39) “in the day of their calamity” (Deut 32:35, Ezk 35:5; Obad 13). “For that that is determined shall be done.” (Dan 11:36)]

The final crisis is precipitated most specifically over the covenant. Clearly, the conflict that will engage and test all nations throughout the period of Jacob’s trouble has all to do with “the controversy of Zion” (Ps 2, Isa 34:8, Zech 12:2-3). The Authorized Version terms it “the quarrel of my covenant” (Lev 26-25 KJV). The nations rage, and Jerusalem is made “a cup of trembling” and “a burdensome stone”, precisely because of the abiding significance of the ‘literal’ city, land, and people of the covenant. And who will deny that scripture builds the closing scenes of prophetic and apocalyptic eschatology around the holy land? In both testaments, it is the ‘literal’ people, land, and city that are depicted as most violently under siege at the time of the end. Ironically, these are the particular aspects of the covenant that most of Christendom has traditionally regarded as obsolete, belonging to an “old” covenant. Has the church’s appropriation of the new covenant disannulled the literal aspects that once distinguished and defined the “everlasting” covenant? May it never be! A pompous Christendom (Ro 11:25) may forget, but He will not forget! (Isa 49:15).

But regardless of how unknown, disregarded, or misread this covenant may be in the minds of men, the principalities and powers know well its meaning, and viciously oppose it. Satanic hatred becomes a sign of the covenant’s abiding significance! Therefore, Jacob’s trouble represents, on one hand, the satanic assault of nations against the land and people of the covenant (Lev 26, Deut 28-32 et al), on a people who have not attained to the obedience of the ‘new’ covenant, and are therefore under the abiding wrath of the ‘old’ covenant.

[Note:Until Israel will be “in Christ”, they are yet “of the law”, and “under” its curse (Ga. 3:10). Until Christ is revealed to the heart, all persons are “under” the curse of the broken “first” of “old” covenant (Jer 31:31-32, 2 Cor 3:14, Heb 8:13), because by definition, “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 Jn 3:4). So let none suggest that because Christ has come and fulfilled the law, Israel is no longer “under” the threat of the broken covenant. Such pitiful theology reveals a sanguine and humanistic superficiality that ill prepares the church for what should have been its prophetic expectation and responsibility.]

Does God’s covenant remain steadfast with Israel in spite of their failure to recognize either its promise or its threat? This question will become especially critical for the church as we near the end of the age. The Holocaust is proof that Jewish disregard for the covenant provides no asylum from its “vengeance” (Lev 26:25). The same is true of the nations who have before, and will again, stumble over the same covenant. And the nations that despise or disregard God’s covenantal prerogatives towards Israel will likewise drink of the cup of Divine indignation for the pride of their rebellion. In the paradox of God’s sovereignty, it is both God that brings the Gentile powers down )Ezk 38:4, 17, Zech 14:1-4) against “the people of my wrath” (Isa 10:6, Lk 21:23), and it is God who judges the presumption of the nations for their complicity in Satan’s hatred and defiance of God’s covenant, particularly as it concerns the land and people of Israel, a defiance that many scriptures show is inspired by demons (Ps. 2, Rev. 16:14), because Jerusalem is the city of the great King, the locus of Christ’s Millennial rule.

[Note:It is interesting to ponder the logic of Satan’s futile opposition to God’s rule. From the beginning the war has been over the Word: “Hath God said?” “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10b). If the sovereignty of the prophetic Word can be at any point prevented, then the God in whose living presence the demons will be eternally tormented cannot exist, because if the Word of God can fail, then the God of the Word does not exist, and Satan is not doomed. This also explains why the nations are depicted in a demonic frenzy as Satan sees that his time is short. It is therefore instructive to observe what Satan is most committed to oppose.]

The powers o darkness know the threat that the ‘literal’ land,, people, and city pose to their usurping rule, and this is why the nations rage (Ps. 2:1). The principalities and powers (Dan 10:12-13, 20) move the nations to defy the covenant, because they know better than the church what the Jewish resettlement of the land signifies. It is the presence of a ‘recent’ returned nation (Ezk 38:8), still in a state of unbelief, and facing imminent Divine discipline (Zeph 2:1-2, Jer 30:7, Ezk 22:17-22, Dan 12P1), that signals the imminence of Messiah’s rule over all nations (Ps2, Rev 11:15-18), and the final displacement of the false “rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age” (Eph 6:12 TEV). This “regathering” in unbelief is viewed as both human (Zeph 2:1-2), and Divine (Jer 30:3-7, Ezk 38:8). This is most certainly the order of return, because it is the nation’s continued state of unbelief and covenant defection that makes the Divine discipline of Jacob’s trouble necessary.

As previously noted, it is only as the new covenant is fulfilled in the salvation of “all Israel” (at 
Christ’s return) that the beleaguered nation will know undisturbed tranquility and enduring possession of the land. Though the Jew may dwell in the land for an extended period under even a provisional blessing, until the nation can keep the covenant, it cannot keep the land. Until the covenant is fulfilled by an enduring righteousness that extends to the entire nation at once and forever, Jewish tenure in the land is probationary at best. 

And when has it ever been otherwise throughout Israel’s history? Except for a remnant, and the rare occasion of a fleeting revival, the nation, form its inception, had never shown any other tendency than to slide backwards.  Still in spite of persistent covenant disobedience and the judgment of exile, restoration to Divine favor always meant restoration to the land, because the land continued to be regarded as Israel’s inalienable possession: “Thee are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth out of His land” (Ezk 36:24). As long as the covenant shall stand, possession of the land can never pass to “another people” (Lev 20:24, Dan 2:44).

This inexorable decree will be defiantly rejected and violently opposed by the nations (primarily Islamic, the descendants of Esau in particular – Ezk 35-36:11; 38-39). These nations will constitute a multinational (ten kings?) confederacy that will suddenly and unexpectedly descend upon the land people of the covenant. And though these historic enemies of the covenant will be violently overthrown in the Day of the Lord, and fearfully condemned for their “perpetual hatred” of Jacob, it is necessary (in view of other clear prophetic passages that describe a brief 3 1/2- year period that is bounded by two distinct invasions of the land) to infer that these nations do not meet with immediate judgment, but have an initial success against Israel, bringing upon the Jews the final desolations threatened in the covenant and in prophecy (Mt 24:15-21).

In our time, God has once more brought the Jews home, not to the lasting peace of the covenant, but rather to a final crucible of Divine pleading, (though there may be a brief period of deceptive peace through the Jews’ presumptuous covenant with Antichrist). This surprising anomaly in the order of return is anticipated in Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:4-7). What the Jews will now experience in the land will test and uncover (Isa 28:15-17) the true poverty of its condition, the cause, and at length, the cure of the nation’s perpetual predicament. If we read the prophets correctly, the present return is a final trust and stewardship of the land that is Divinely intended to compel Jews to grapple with the implications of an ignored covenant bond, its promises and threats, and ultimately, the necessity of the promised Redeemer, who is the goal of the covenant. But also, the issue of the land is designed to press the issue of the covenant on the consciousness of the nations.

Prophecy indicates that this final test of the nation’s stewardship of the land ends again in covenant failure, invasion, desolation, and expulsion. Even after a future space of security in the land (though tenuous and apparently under the auspices of an unholy league with the Antichrist), the nation’s spiritual condition is manifested in that its sins increase under these deceptively tranquil conditions (Ezk 39:26 in context of 38:8, 11, 14 with Isa 28:15-18, Dan 9:27;11:22, 31;12:11, Mt 24:15, Jer 30:7). Always, throughout the prophets, and reiterated in the eschatology of Jesus, Paul, and John, Israel’s final distress before millennial glory is set in the context of an apostate Jewish presence recently regathered to the land (Zeph 2:1-2, Ezk 38:8, Jer 30:4-7), and existing again as a “nation” (Dan 12:1).

Nonetheless, however tenuous and threatened by covenant defection, the land remains Israel’s by sovereign unconditional election. We must distinguish between Israel’s conditional enjoyment of the covenant and God’s sovereign right to unconditionally give the blessing to ‘whom He will’: “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” Rom 9:11). Hence, Jewish possession of the land is an inalienable part of the everlasting covenant, and this recognition is Divinely required of the nations, regardless of Israel’s temporal spiritual status. Israel’s temporal spiritual fitness is not the criterion by which God judges the nations concerning their attitude towards the covenant.

It is true that Jewish generational descent is no guarantee of anything but of certain judgment if the covenant is not fulfilled by personal and national holiness. No generation of the Jews may hope for enduring personal or national peace, apart from the righteousness of faith. However, though the conditional and temporal aspects of the covenant may be suspended through disobedience, and individually denied, the eternal and unconditional aspects of the covenant are never removed from the Jews corporately considered, ie. as a distinct people with an aboding “special Divine status”, precisely because of God’s sovereign prerogative to “quicken who He will”.

It is not just God’s ability to overcome Israel’s inability that makes the covenant sure, but it is His sovereign determination to overcome Israel’s natural unwillingness (Ezk 20:33-37) in the “day of His power”, “the set time”, “the time appointed” (Ps 1092:13, Dan 8:19; 11:27, 35). The conditions of the covenant are not set aside. It is just that God has unconditionally predetermined to enable this particular people, at a predetermined time, to fulfill all of the conditions that make the blessing of the covenant both certain and everlasting Prophecy is not mere foresight; it is the declared foreordination of God, the sovereign Creator who “does according to His will in the army of heaven” (Dan 4:35). And though Antichrist exalts himself to “do according to his will” (Dan 11:36), such autonomous ‘freedom’ cannot frustrate or exceed the limits set by God’s predetermined purpose: “for that that is determined shall be done” (Isa 14:24-27, Dan 11:36). 

It is the power and certainty of God’s predestinating grace that is the surety of the covenant and the consolation of all saints (see 2 Sam 23:5, Ps 89:28-34, Isa 55:3, Ro 8:28-39, Eph 1:11, 2 Tim 2:19). Though the covenant remains in constant jeopardy on the Jewish side until the bringing in of an “everlasting righteousness” (Jer. 32:20, Dan 9:24), the gift and promise of the land is not removed, but stands forever with this people only (Amos 3:2, Dan 2:44). 

God is free and righteous to distinguish! It is the prerogative of His rule as God. And Israel is the historical proof of this Divine prerogative. However blessed the nations through Israel’s national resurrection, the stewardship of this particular land belongs exclusively with this particular people, because of god’s intended purpose to make of Israel a visible, compelling, and consummately instructive exhibition to al nations of the sovereignty of His rule.

However ignorant, indifferent, or hostile, the nations are finally accountable for their attitude toward the covenant. Though Israel does not spiritually ‘qualify’ for undisturbed tranquility or enduring possession of the land, it is nonetheless the assault of the nations against the pole and land of the covenant that provokes God’s ultimate indignation against them: “then shall my fury come up in my face” (Ezk 38:18). God regards the world’s disregard and defiance of His covenant as an arrogant assault on Himself. But observe carefully that his ‘latter days’ multinational invasion takes place ‘while’ Israel is yet under covenant judgment. May the church of Jesus Christ hasten to observe this, because most of Christendom will also stumble over this ‘rock of offense’ that the covenant (“My covenant”) will be to the nations! [Note: Of course, the ‘rock of offense’ has first to do with the mystery of Messiah, but as we show elsewhere, this mystery touches both of Messiah’s advents to Israel, and has everything to do with the covenant.]

God, in the wisdom that is able to employ even the greatest of evils to show the sovereignty of His judgment and the glory of His grace, brings the presumptuous nations against ‘the people of His wrath’ (Isa 10:6, Lk 21:22-23), but utterly opposes the motives and pride of their demonically-inspired enterprise (cf. Ezk  38:16-23, Zech 14:2-4, Rev 16:14). To deny Jewish inheritance of the land, even on the basis of Jewish covenant failure, is to deny the covenant. 

Moreover, it is to deny “the foundation of the Lord”, because it denies the basis of election and grace. “Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His” (2 Tim 2:19 KJV). Not only does the Lord “know them that are His” (“my sheep”), but He knows them before they know Him. And so it is with God’s covenant with Israel, though it has conditions, it is not based on human ability to fulfill those conditions, but is is based on God’s predetermination to “give repentance” (Acts 5:31, 1 Tim 2:25), to have mercy on “whom He will” have mercy, and to quicken “whom He will” (Jn 5:21, Ro 9:18). It is the sovereign “whom He will” of grace that is the ultimate foundation of the everlasting (new)covenant. “for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand. So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Ro 9:11, 16 KJV).

It is to this end, and in demonstration of this principle that God has made His covenant with Israel both literal and visible. The Jew is preserved in ethnic distinction (Jer 3:35-37) to show to all the helplessness of man and the sovereignty of grace. The power of this demonstration lies in its visible (literal) display with a specific race, whose distinction does not exist for its own sake (Ezk 36:32), but for the sake of the glory of God. Such demonstration intends the ultimate humbling of the nations, and the saving of many, as the nations are made to recognize the righteousness of God’s magisterial prerogatives in both judgment and grace towards Israel. “And the nations will know that the people of Israel went into exile for their sin, because they were unfaithful to me. So I hid my face from them and handed the over to their enemies, and they all fell by the sword” (Ezk 39:23). “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; in those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God I with you” (Zech 8:23). Whatever else the Day of the Lord will bring, the prophets are very express that all nations will b compelled to acknowledge Israel’s special Divine election (Ezk 37:28; 39:21-29). And no account of the everlasting covenant in prophecy can be detached from the  eschatological controversy concerning the city and the land.

Israel’s covenant delinquency has and will again bring the nation into judgment and exile. Though exile is a sign of Divine rebuke and displeasure, the attitude of the nations towards the wandering Jew in their midst is a Divine measurement of eternal consequence. The nations are eminently accountable as to their perception and regard for Israel’s abiding covenant status. Whether in the land or out of the land, whether in covenant compliance (and when has the nation been sustained by more than a remnant?), or sinful indifference, the covenant stands with this people, and with this land (“shall not be left to other people” Dan 2:44). God may take the Jews from the land, but He will never take the land from the Jews.

The issue of God’s reckoning and coice is the issue of His rule, and the principalities and powers know it, thus the rage of their opposition. The land was not initially given on the basis  of Israel’s righteousness. Therefore, even as the judgement of the covenant spews Israel out of the land, it remains their land, and Jerusalem remains the city of David. Though Israel cannot retain continued possession of the land apart from covenant obedience, the promise of return is irrevocable. The modern existence of Israel is not an accident of history. Jewish possession of the land is never incidental, regardless of God’s covenant contention with them. The nations will discover that God’s covenant contention extends to them as well. The test lies particularly in the question of Jewish fitness to possess the land. Though apart from national regeneration, Jewish possession of the land can never be assured of permanence, temporal tenure in the land has never been based on Israel’s spiritual worthiness! Though God may have sent the nation into exile, yet many were the days that God deal both bountifully and severely with the people in the land, and it was never the question whether the land should be theirs, but could they keep it? Could they prolong their days in the land? (Deut 4:26; 5:23; 11:9; 39:18; 32:47)

Thought God drive His people from the land, the land remains His, and because His, theirs. Not because of any virtue in the Jews, but to impress upon the nations the sovereignty of His decision, the chosen test-stone of His authority and rule, objections notwithstanding.  Therefore, the Divine entitlement of the land is non-negotiable; it cannot pass to another people, or God is not God! And while great care is enjoined concerning treatment of “the stranger’ in the land, Israel is biblically forbidden to enter into covenant or league with the inhabitants of the land (Ex 23:32-33; 34-12, Judges 2:2-3). To do so is a precursor of Divine judgment (“a snare and a thorn”, as evident in Israel’s last days “league” with the Antichrist (Dan 9:27;11:23). 

This league is made with one whom “in a time of tranquility” (NASU), “security” (ASV), enters in, and “becomes strong with a mall people” (Dan 11:23-24 ASV). There are some references to “the fattest places of the province (realm)”, suggesting that the “little horn” (an entity of insignificant origins) is actually active within the land. This would certainly fit the pattern where some of these events have been pre-typified (though not fulfilled in certain specifics) in past history. The passage indicates that “during a time of security” (Dan 11:21), and contrary to natural laws of succession (“to whom they shall not give the honor of the kingdom“ KJV), he gains royal power by intrigue and stealth. This strategic piece of cunning and artifice moves the “little horn” into a much larger dominion (“the glory of the kingdom” Dan 11:20 KJV). He is now a more significant power, and thus begins a series of regional conquest (11:25), securing increasing solidarity among those who share his contempt for “the holy covenant” (11:27-30), deceiving, and receiving support from all who are mutually incensed against it (11:32).

[Note: Many scriptures are harmonized if the Antichrist should originate as head of a newly-formed nation in the region (Dan 7:8, “came up from AMONG them”; Dan 7:24, “and another shall arise AFTER them”). According to Dan 8:9, he emerges from somewhere north of Israel, most evidently from some part of the vast Israel once ruled by the Seleucid kingdom of antiquity, which was one of the divisions of Alexander’s Grecian empire. He is appropriately called a ‘little horn’, as “comes up and becomes strong with a small people” (Dan 11:23). In the earlier part of his career (“after the league made with him”, he will employ the deceitfully disarming tact of promises of peace (“by peace he shall destroy many” Dan 8:25). From his rise to power through intrigue and stealth (Dan 11:21), and under the auspices of a treacherous “league” with the inhabitants of the land (‘”it will surely be a snare unto you”; Ex 34:12), this “man of lawlessness” (opposed to all that is holy and set apart by covenant) will “work deceitfully” (11:23), to prosecute his program of unification (the ten nations) based on a shared hatred of the “holy covenant”, particularly as it stands with the Jewish people, their Land and the holy city. He will have secretive conspiracy (“intelligence” KJV) with others who mutually plot the sudden overthrow of “the holy covenant” by what biblical geography in light of the modern spread of Islam would indicate to be the Islamic capture and and ravaging of Jerusalem (11:28, 30; Rev 11:2). “For when they shall say, ‘Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape” (1Thess 5:3).]

There is a massive amount of biblical evidence to suggest that Israel’s final crisis is an eschatological reiteration of the quarrel that began in the tents of Abraham and Isaac. These ancient ‘brethren’ constitute the modern Arab world under the implacable banner of Islam, and will prove the ultimate thorn in Israel’s side. There is much to suggest that the ten kings that will confederate with the Antichrist in the final assault of Jerusalem are Arab nations (Ps 83; Eze 25:15; 35:5; 36:5; 38:5-6; Dan 8:9; 11:20-31; Obad; Mal 1:4, etc.) . In our view of the covenant, it is not surprising that the God who loves what He has chosen with an eternal love, nonetheless takes a very stringent view of Jerusalem in its pretribulational apostasy: “how is the faithful city become an harlot?” (Isa 1:21), “the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Rev. 11:8). There can be little doubt that Jerusalem is to some extent identified with “that great city’ of apocalyptic mystery Babylon. There is no reason to make the identification complete, because there is evidence of two distinct destructions of “the whore”, one that inflicted initially by the ten kings, and another that comes at the end of the great tribulation with the last bowl of judgment in the great Day of God. This judgment of Babylon appears more comprehensive, (inclusive of the whole world system), and seems to include the ten kings (Rev 19:19). This is also the order of events in Israel’s apocalyptic eschatology. There is an initial invasion that begins the time of Jerusalem’s desolations (Ezk. 38, Jer30, Dan 9:26; 11:31-39; 12 :1, 11; Mt 24:15-21), and after 3 ½  years of great tribulation, there is subsequent convergence o nations (Armageddon), but this time the invasion is prompted by the presence of Antichrist, who is situated in the besieged city of Jerusalem (Dan 11:40-45, Rev 11:2). Towards the end of the tribulation, the nations are demonically induced to attack the Antichrist (Rev 16:14; 19:17-21 with Ezk 39:17-22). One can only infer why, but apparently his yoke has become to intolerable, and the nations revolt (?). 

All of this is to say that if the ten kings are indeed the descendants of Ismael and Esau, and if Jerusalem is rightly identified with the “harlot” of the apocalypse, we may reconsider the significance of the passage that says “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore (in this instance Jerusalem), and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire” (Rev 17:16 KJV). If we have rightly understood this mystery, the disaster of 9/11 is a portent of the kind of Islamic contempt that will be targeted towards all who will be identified with Israel. The die is cast. But of particular significance for our view of the covenant is the following passage which adds: “For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until  the words of God shall be fulfilled” (17:17). Again, it is the paradox of god’s sovereign employment of the greatest and most unlawful of evils to affect the judgments and desolations threatened in the covenant, and to convert these covenant severities into the salvation of “the remnant according to the election of grace” (Ro 11:5).

Contrary to international protest and rage, God will not surrender His land to Esau. If another people temporarily inhabit the land, the right o if inheritance cannot pass to them. In spite of Israel’s covenant rejection, possession of the land is an issue of inviolable Divine choice, and is not disannulled through Israel’s covenant faithfulness, because covenant faitfulness, though required, is to the work of man, but the gift of God. God must first give what He commands, o man, because he is fallen , will faithfully fail. Rather, the promise of the land, like all of the promises of the covenant, is base on God’s sovereign prerogative to give His irrevocable “gifts and calling” (Ro 11:29) to “whom He will” (Jn 5:21, Ro 9:18). But are the nations also required to recognize the prerogatives o God’s electing grace? Apparently so, in view of God’s “controversy’ with the nations that is provoked over the last days question of Jewish possession of Jerusalem and the land. The nations receive Divine rebuke for their presumption against the city and the people of the covenant, and this in spite of Israel’s own vulnerability to covenant wrath. It seems that it is one thing for God to judge concerning the duration of Israel’s temporal possession of the land, but not for another!

Scripture leaves to question that the Jews are back in the land for Divine dealings that conclude the age, not because they are worthy, but because they are His! And though It is true that according to the covenant, a secular and unbelieving people cannot prolong their days on the land (Deut 4:26; 30:18), yet, if Israel will be displaced in judgment, it is for God to remove them, but woe unto that nation by whom they are removed. It is indeed God’s prerogative to judge His people, but woe to those nations who lend themselves as willing agents of His wrath (Isa 10:5, 12, 15, Ezk 38:4, 17-18). God will indeed bring the nations down in Divine judgment against ‘His land’ (even employing demons in fulfillment of His sovereign determination to gather the nations (Zeph. 3:8 with Rev 16:14). They will come against the people that are paradoxically called “the people of My wrath” (Isa 10:6), but it is His people, and it is His wrath, and woe unto those nations who are so divinely-employed, because “they have broken the everlasting covenant” (Isa 24:5), and presumptuously “touched the apple of ‘His eye’” (Zech 2:8). This is the stone that will fall upon the nations. The same covenant that is blessing to the penitent is a trap and a snare to the proud that tumble. Thus, Israel becomes God’s magnet that irresistibly draws the nations into a “valley of decision” (Joel 3:14). 

All of this confirms beyond dispute the viability and continuity of the literal aspects of the everlasting covenant. And nowhere is this continuity, and the distinctions between ‘old’ and ‘new’, ‘first’ and ‘second’, better  thean in the incontrovertibly future events of Jacob’s trouble. As pointe ot earlier, Jacob’s trouble is that period of crisi and transition that brings the Jewish nation into its full eschatological appropriation of Jeremiah’s New Covenant. Therefore, the Day of the Lord accomplishes the final enforcement of the new covenant in its full appropriation by “all Israel” (the surviving remnant of “that day”), and this is the goal of Jacob’s trouble.

[Note:  Many scriptures show, however, that only a remnant, “one-third” Zech 13:8) will survive to become the “all Israel” of millennial salvation. Only the remnant “that is left” (Isa 4:3) receive the revelation that comes at the precise point of Christ’s return (Ezk 30:38, Zech 13:10, 
Ro 11:26, Isa 59:21; 66:8, Zech 3:9, Ezk 39:22 et al.)]

And as many of the foregoing passages demonstrate, the ‘literal’ people, land, and city (Jerusalem) belong to the promise structure of the ‘everlasting covenant”. However, the judgements that descend on the Jewish people at this time are what Jesus calls “the days of vengeance…and wrath upon this people” (Lk 21:22-23). It is “the vengeance of the covenant” (Lev 26:25). But such vengeance and curse is not according to the tenor of the ‘new covenant”. Such judgment assumes what Paul calls “the curse of the law” (Gal 3:10). And yet, it is through the severities and travail of the so-called ‘old’ covenant that the ‘new’ comes. During the final period of unequaled tribulation period (compare Jer 30:7 with Dan 12:1, Mt 24:21). Israel is brought through sever chastisement “into the bond of the covenant (Ezk 20:33-37). The “bond of the covenant” suggests Israel’s eschatological attainment of new covenant salvation issuing in true covenant obedience. But this transforming even is accomplished by means of covenant discipline, the “rod” (37) and “fury poured out”(33), according to the tenor of the so-called ‘old’ covenant with its threats of judgement and curse. Such Divine rebuke assumes that the nation has no attained to the blessing of the new, and still suffers the curse of the old.

So, we see the simultaneous presence and activity of both the ‘unconditional’ ‘everlasting’ covenant, and the conditional Deuteronomic covenant in the very events of Jacob’s trouble. However, there is a continuity of conditionality that subsists in the covenant that is never abrogated, but ‘Divinely’ fulfilled. And it is that conditionality that creates the practical distinctions between ‘old’ and ‘new’, ‘first’ and ‘second’. This aspect of conditionality is never ‘conveniently removed’ to accommodate the weakness of the flesh (the first creation, the first Adam). It does not cease to curse sin in the flesh. It is only through death to the flesh, and resurrection to newness of life that the curse of the law is removed. It is only removed because its demand for holiness is gloriously fulfilled through the Spirit. But the gift of the Spirit assumes the glorious mystery of the atonement in Christ’s blood. So the threat of the covenant is not removed merely because of a dispensational change (the nature of which has proven quite ambiguous in the history of the church), but only as Christ’s death and resurrection becomes ours by its repetition in us through a like pattern of death resurrection (the operation of the Spirit in regeneration, and of the pattern of the cross in our sanctification).

It is the Spirit that fulfills the covenant, first, and perfectly in Christ’s humanity, and by measure (Jn 3:34) in the believer who is delivered from the curse through death to the flesh (ie. death to confidence in the flesh). This means that Israel remains ‘under’ the curse of the broken covenant (the law) until the nation will attain the corporate obedience of the New covenant, then fulfilling the promise of the ‘everlasting covenant’. Thus, such distinctions of ‘old’ and ‘new’, ‘first’ and ‘second’ may be more accurately understood as referring to tow sides (human and Divine), two effects (judgment and redemption), and two stages in the historical progress of the same covenant. The New Covenant is the salvation side of the ‘everlasting’ covenant, and the ‘old’ covenant is ‘old’ by reason of the absence of the Spirit’s empowerment to meet its requirements and conditions. And of course, as there is no new Covenant, and no gift of the Spirit apart from the necessary work of Christ’s atonement, and it is the Spirit’s revelation of the fulfillment of the covenant in Christ that signifies a change of dispensation. Even the Rabbis recognized that with the advent of the messianic era. There would be significant changes in the administration of the law under the new millennial conditions, thus, a new dispensation. Therefore, certain dispensational changes adapted by the church (in keeping with its faith that the promised age of fulfillment has arrived in the relation of the gospel), actually constitute a strategic testimony to Israel, demonstrating (through the evidence of the promised Spirit) the inadequacy of the works of the law (ie. the works of human ability).

But remember, the covenant is fulfilled in one place only – “in Christ”. This of course takes place in real space-time history, and indeed changes history, and brings in a new form of administration, but until one is ‘in Christ’, for that one, the covenant is unfulfilled, and in the absence of faith and the indwelling Spirit, the curse remains. What remains outstanding and unfulfilled concerning the New Covenant is its promise of a day when there will be no singly Jewish person on earth that is not also, certainly, and forever ‘in Christ’. This is Paul’s meaning when he speaks of the future salvation of “all Israel”, and it is god’s meaning when He says, “this is my covenant with them, when I shall take away their sin.” (Ro 11:27, Isa 59:21). Already, there was a remnant according to the election of grace (in context, the term is used of the specifically Jewish remnant), but according to Paul, the salvation of a mere remnant still leaves the elect nation (with whom God has bound the ‘public’sanctification of His very name (Ezk 36:21-22) in its shame and reproach, and this is clearly short of the covenant promise (Paul is proving the inadequacy of a remnant to fulfill the promise, although the continued presence of the remnant is pledge that the covenant, though incomplete” as touching the election”, has not failed). No, the covenant will have its ultimate historical fulfillment in the resurrection of the elect nation out of the death of Jacob’s trouble (“in one day”). Then shall “the Jerusalem which is now” be united with “the Jerusalem which is above”, an through the quickening, liberating power of the Spirit, be made of God anopenand everlasting ‘praise in the earth” (Isa 62:7).

[Note:Observe the contrast between Paul’s negative term “the works of the law” (Rom 9:32, Gal. 2:16; 3:2,5,10) with his positive term “the righteousness of the law” (Ro 2:26, 8:4).]

Therefore, in any dispensation, the absence of the obedience that is reflective o regeneration places one under the curs of the law (see Isa 26:1-; 65:2-; Zech 14:16-19). And of course, true spiritual obedience is never the cause, but the inevitable sign of regeneration.

Decisive evidence for the continuity of the covenant is found in the eschatological book od 
Daniel. Here we see that the last days Antichrist siege of Jerusalem is directed against “the holy covenant” (Dan 9:27, 11:22, 28, 30, 32). That the covenant touching the land, the city of Jerusalem, and Israel’s holy places is still significantly in force at the end of the age is evident in Satan’s rage against these institutions. In view of such indisputable evidence, it is especially unsettling to hear some of our finest evangelical leaders publicly deny ‘special Divine status’ to the ‘ancient people’ (Isa 44:7), the Divinely-commended witnesses of the covenant (Isa 43:10, 22; 44:8). “For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches” (Ro 11:16). The though is not of active personal holiness, but ‘holy’ in the sense of ‘set apart’. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they (the elect race) are belovedfor the fathers’ sakes, for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Ro 11:28-29). They are beloved enemies! And all the more as we realize that the “door of faith” newly opened to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27) is the result of the Divine purpose accomplished “through their fall”, and Paul is unwilling to leave us unapprised of this costly transfer (Ro 11:11, 28). Even in Israel’s blindness to the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, there remains a conspicuous continuity in the covenant (for woe rather than weal) until the nation will escape its abiding conflict with “the vengeance of the covenant” (Lev 26:25 NKJV), through revelation of the mystery of the gospel (Ro 16:25-26, Eph 6:19), the very revelation that now constitutes the church as the eschatological mystery, and ‘fellow-heirs’ of Israel’s covenants (Rom 9:4, Eph 2:12).

In further defense of an apparent continuity, consider that before Jeremiah calls the covenant “new”, it is already known as the “EVERLASTING” covenant. The everlasting covenant made with the patriarch, declared to be unconditional with David (2 Sam 7:10-16; 23P5, Ps 89;28-37, Isa 55:3), and so often reiterated throughout the Psalms and Prophets, was first described as ‘new’ in relationship to the promise of an eschatological intervention that would come at the end of Jacob’s trouble (Jer 30:7). It represents the instantaneous regeneration of a final surviving remnant at one time only, the climactic Day of the Lord. From that day, Israel will not longer exist a s a mere remnant in the midst of a faithless nation, but as an entirely regenerate race, “from the least to the greatest, they shall ALL know me”….I have left none of them any more there.” The salvation of “all Israel” stands in contrast to “a hardening in part”. When the “Deliverer comes out of Zion”, there is not more “in part”.

And this eternal covenant has always been certain of success, because Christ is “the lamb slain before the creation” (Rev 13:8). This covenant also described as the “sure mercies of David” (Isa 55:3), that will one day take “all Israel” in its sweep, stood in other generations with the “remnant according to the election of grace” (Ro 11:5), in whose circumcised heart the law was written by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

[Note:  It is pitiful theology that presents the new birth as something peculiar to this dispensation. Nicodemus was reprimanded (Jn 3:10) for being a teacher in Israel, and yet failing to recognize the necessity of inward regeneration. Though the terminology (“born again”) is indeed original with Jesus, the concept belongs to Israel’s eschatological hope. Nicodemus failed to make the connection between Israel’s national hope, and the hope of the individual. The pattern is the same. If the nations is helpless in its dry bones state of spiritual destitution and death until it is raised to newness of life as represented in the promise of a new heart, and a new spirit, “the sprinkling of clean water:, in Ezekiel’s terms or being “born at once in Isaiah’s terms, should it be otherwise for the individual who is likewise dead in sin until quickened by the Spirit? (Eph 3:1). “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living!” (Mk 12:27). The natural man (in any dispensation) CANNOT (not merely ‘will not’) receive the things of the Spirit. It is a modern heresy that claims that the Old Testament saints were not ‘indwelt’ by the Spirit (“the Spirit of Christ whish was in them” 1 Pet 1:11), or that the law was not yet written in the hearts of the righteous remnant, contrary to the clear testimony of David (Ps 37:31; 40:8), and the prophets (Gen 41:38, Num 27:18, Isa 63:11).]

The New Covenant (confirmed in the fulness of time in Christ’s blood) is none other than the “everlasting covenant” that always stood with the righteousness of faith, and that stands not with the church in continuity with the elect remnant of Old Testament Israel. And it is this same covenant that yet remains to be established with ‘all’ Israel when the Deliverer will come out of Zion, when “they will look upon Me whom they have pierced” (Zech 12:10-13). In fact, in any dispensation, and not only in the end o f the age, this covenant is established with anyone who is enabled to “look” by the Spirit of revelation (Isa 45:22).

The everlasting covenant is at all times, and in every age, established with faith, and there is no want of personal holiness under the covenant, because righteousness myst be the issue of a heart that is purified by faith (Acts 15:9). And not only to natural Israelin the eschatological Day of the Lord, but in every generation, both before and since the cross, whether it is to an individual, or to an eschatological community (the church), righteousness is always imputed to faith (Ps 32:2, Ro 4:6-10), but a faith of what kind? We believe it is  faith that is ‘quickened’ by the free and sovereign grace of God who quickens “whom He will (Jn 5:21, Ro 8:18). It is “the faith of God’s elect” (Tit 1:1). It is the faith that is found in that number that Paul classifies as “the remnant according to the election of grace” (Ro 11:5). It is this kind of faith that millennial Israel will possess forever; and this faith does not fail (“if it were possible” mt 24:24), because it is sustained by the power of God (1 Pet 1:15), and the unfailing intercession f Christ (Lk 22:32), Ro 8:34, Heb 7:25), because it is the faith of the new covenant, based on the eternal “I will” of god. Such sovereign determination overcomes all resistance. Just as God was able to ‘get His  man’ on the road to Damascus, wo will He prevail to arrest His nation on its own ‘Calvary road’ of flight and international hatred. “For God is able to graft them in again” (Ro 11:232). However, we are not to imagine that such faith as here described is automatic, or arbitrarily quickened of God. It follows crisis, particularly the crisis of the Word, the preached Word. Apart from the Word, no amount of personal crisis, or Divine judgment can create faith. Faith comes at the end o strength (confidence in the flesh). “He takes away the first, that He may establish the second” (Heb 10:9). But such holy afflictions receive their saving significance only through “the hearing of faith” (Gal 3:2, 5), “Faith comes by hearing (Ro 10:17) as revelation destroys the veil over the heart (Isa 25:7, Zech 12:10, 2 Cor 3:14). This is the logic of Jacob’s trouble.

The re-engrafting of the natural branches is accomplished as God brings Jacob to the end of his power (compare Deut 32:36, Dan 12:7). It is then, “when thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days…” (Deut 4:30), that “the LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, wo that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live” (Deut. 30:5-6). This is the Divine aim of Jacob’s trouble. “when He sees that their power is gone” (Deut. 32:36)! 

[Note:On the futurity of Jacob’s trouble, compare closely the parallel relationships between the evens described in Jer 30:7, Dan 12:1-2, Mt 24:21, Rev 12:12, also Dan 11:36-12:13 with 2 Thess 2:1-8, and observe the clear and inextricable association of a period of unequaled tribulation, the simultaneous brief career of Antichrist, the subsequent return of Christ, and the resurrection of the righteous dead. This complex of events is “immediately” (Mt 24:29) precursory to the final and everlasting deliverance of Israel, “thy (Daniel’s) people” (Dan 12:1).To place any of these events in past history is to deny their manifest connectedness, and clear proximity to the resurrection (Dan 12:1-2 with Mt 24:21-31).]

Paul explains that the covenant conditions of the law were ‘added’ to exclude the flesh from any participation in the fulfillment of the promise, thus cutting off all confidence in the flesh. The law that was handed down at Sinai (with promise only to the doer – Lev 18:5) is no hindrance to the promise. It is a barrier only to the flesh. Rather, the conditions of the covenant spelled out at Sinai only magnify the grace and glory of the promise, because it excludes the flesh from any part in its fulfillment. Because the law demands nothing less that the righteousness of God (perfected Messiah’s humanity alone), all are ‘shut up’ to the necessity of regeneration. In ay age, or dispensation, it is equally true. “You MUST be born again!”

[Note:The quickening of such faith in the heart is itself a resurrection event of Divine revelation, and Christ is most preciously revealed in “the end of the law”, not only in the sense of the end of a dispensation, but particularly as the goal of the law to destroy the presumption of human self-sufficiency. So, in a certain existential sense, the end/goal of the law is also the end of all the strength of the flesh. The biblical pattern shows that repentance is given particularly to those who despair of themselves (Is 57:10, Zech 12:10), “He will regard the prayer of the destitute: (Ps 102:17). There is great hope for those who say concerning themselves “There is not hope!” (Isa 57:10) And the destitute contrition always signals a salvation that has drawn very near. As we said, the salvation of the Lord is revealed at the end of strength.]

The ‘old’ covenant requires what the ‘new’ covenant assures, ie. “a new creation”, because in any dispensation, it is only a new creation that avails anything (
Gal 6:15). But the ‘new’ covenant pre-existed the ‘old’ covenant in the form of the ‘everlasting covenant’. The later conditionalizing of the promises at Sinai could not disannul the original Abrahamic promise because of the sovereign prerogative of God to fulfill both sides of the covenant by Himself alone. Surely this is the symbolism of Abraham’s ‘deep sleep’ (Gen. 15:12). “For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself” (Heb. 6:13).

This suggest not only the continuity of the covenant, but also the unity of the covenant, its temporary conditionality passing away only because of resurrection fulfillment. It suggest that ‘old’ and “new’ are different ways of describing transition and change in the program of the covenant. The ‘new’ is simply the ‘old’ fulfilled. Of course, such fulfillment implies a change of dispensation. The weakness of the first (old) creation has been replaced through death and resurrection by a new creation. Thus, “the second” covenant is the covenant of the new creation (Heb 10:9). It is the passing away of the old (first) creation that permits us to speak of the passing away of the ‘old’ (first) covenant (Heb 8:13). It is the old creation that is done away in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). All that pertains to the weak and beggarly elements of the first creation is manifestly cut off by the ‘old’ covenant. That was, and still is, its principle purpose. The life of the resurrection is the life of the new covenant, “against such, there is no law” (Gal 5:23).

I hope these thoughts, though very random, may contribute towards a sense of the continuity of the covenant in its different stages and distinction. Finally, there are three passages that most appropriately conclude these contemplations:

Be ye mindful always of his covenant; the word which he commanded to a thousand generations; Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac; And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant, Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.   

 1 Chron 16:15-18

If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of the fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. 

Lev 26:40-42 KJV

And as to the continuity of the covenant, I am particularly reminded of John’s contrast between old and new:

Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that he have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shines.  

1 John 2:7-8

Yours in the Beloved,  Reggie Kelly

The post The Purview of the Everlasting Covenant appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

In both testaments, the transformation that the New Covenant secures is described as everlasting and irreversible by reason of an ontological change of nature (“partakers of the divine nature”) from which, by scriptural definition, it is impossible to be separated.

This means that where justification and vital union are concerned, the moment saving faith is quickened and one is made partaker of the divine nature (the indestructible seed of the Spirit and the Word), one has perfectly and completely fulfilled the law, once and forever by the imputation of Christ’s own righteousness. This imputation is not based only in Christ’s death (His ‘passive’ obedience) but also by His perfect keeping of the law throughout the whole balance of His spotless life (His ‘active’ obedience). This obedience was necessarily wrought out in our representative humanity, the last Adam.

So not only His death, but His life of perfect obedience to the law (the examined Lamb) is imputed in the full to the least believer in Jesus (not to be confused with the barren professor).

You see then how and why it is that every believer has perfectly and forever fulfilled the law and received its blessing and not its curse. Notwithstanding, this inward reality does not exempt, but rather more fully lends the believer to divine discipline when the law is presumptuously broken or slighted in the outward life and practice of those who have their standing in the grace of the new covenant (Ps 89:28-36)..

Living union with this new nature (i.e., the ‘holy seed’) guarantees fruit “after its own kind”. The impulse to love and keep the law is built right into the seed! It is the evidence of the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

This is manifest in the believer’s life by varying measure and degree, but where it is the real, ‘everlasting life and righteousness of God Himself’, it is not possible that this seed NOT bear some measure of fruit, whether 30, 60, or 100. There is no law against the fruits of the Spirit (“against which there is no law”), because it is only the Spirit’s fruit that fulfills the law. Whether Old or New Testament times, the law could never be kept by the dead!

The child of God may vary in maturity and fruitfulness, according to the purging, pruning, and the deep dealings of divine discipline (the true mark of sonship), but every child of God, regardless of stature, has finally and forever fulfilled the law through the resurrection miracle of vital regeneration. This eternal union of shared nature is mediated by the Spirt’s quickening of the revelation of the gospel, the lively Word that divides, that kills carnal confidence, even as it quickens the dead.

From this time of vital quickening (resurrection), the believer has been translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, is seated at Christ’s right hand, far above all principality and power, and secure for eternal glory, provided there has been a true, Spirit quickened resurrection out of a true, Spirit quickened death to carnal confidence.

This is not MADE true but PROVEN true by the day of testing. The test finds out whether the faith (there are different kinds of faith) is born of God, because of this rule: “that which is born of God overcomes the world.” It must; it cannot do otherwise, because it is born of God.

The proof and evidence of this new, indwelling divine nature is love of the law and holy longing to be evermore perfectly conformed to our law keeping Savior, since it is He who gave it by the mediation of angels.

So every believer is, by definition, and we could say ‘ontological necessity’, a lover, if not always a perfect keeper of the law, else he or she is not alive to God, as the day of testing will find out, or the day of final judgment expose.

The post How Faith in Jesus Fulfills the Law Once and Forever appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Have you come across the hermeneutic that this author advocates? If you spend some time reading his stuff (not just this link) there are some interesting nuggets that I think are very helpful relating to his Israel centricity and eschatological focus. However, what is completely shocking to me is that, like N.T. Wright, he ends up in replacement theology and partial preterism after making powerful arguments for the New Testament’s eschatological lens and Israel-centric message. It’s so weird how he seems to recover key parts of the message and then lose everything…

I‘ve not looked into this beyond the one article and the follow up points by his readers. I know a little of this perspective from other things I’ve read along this line.

I am always careful of the natural tendency to over-correct. When an error or misplaced emphasis is detected, the tendency is to over-correct so that the proverbial baby goes out with the bathwater. This happened to some extent with the new perspective on Paul, and it’s happening now again with the new emphasis on the corporate / community emphasis that aims to turn the church from its tendency towards individualism and inwardness to engage the culture as salt and light with a greater militancy towards social justice. In terms of eschatology, it would tend to fit a more post-millennial optimistic orientation. It’s the old tension between historical progressivism (the gradual leavening of the dough) versus apocalyptic transformation through travail and new birth, judgement, crisis, death and resurrection.

Criticisms and proposals for keeping the ship on course and “relevant” to the changing (more enlightened?) intellectual climate seem endless. That is why I despair of anything short of a full restoration of a lost apocalyptic context. That is why I proposed the analogy of a diamond to its appropriate setting. Even out of its setting, the gospel is powerful and beautiful. It continues to have a faithful working in every generation. But much of the glory is lost when the diamond is not viewed in its proper (divinely ordained) setting. That setting is the apocalyptic vision. It is apocalyptic, not only because it is set in the context of judgment and restoration, but because it depends entirely on the Spirit of revelation. Part of the scandal of the gospel is that Christ has indeed come, but the world, at least in its outward structures, remains unchanged. That’s the challenge of the apocalyptic mystery of the gospel presented to first century Israel. As correctly expected, it is the day of the Lord that will change the world, but the scandal of the gospel is that Christ has come and brought the power of that coming age into the life of the believing community, even while the world continues in its rebellion.

It is the presence and power of that still coming future that has come in unexpected advance of the day of the Lord by the Spirit of revelation. The presence of the kingdom is powerfully witnessed by the acts of the Holy Spirit. The proof of the kingdom’s hidden presence (“mystery of the kingdom”) is in the evidence and demonstration of a life, a love, a wisdom, and a power that defies natural explanation. This changes everything, even while the outward structures and norms of this present evil age remain. The world’s boast of impunity in the face apparent ‘non-fulfillment’ is the scandal that the preacher of an apocalyptic gospel must bear, in patient waiting for the PUBLIC and visible vindication of the Word of God. In the meantime, the church gives witness to the miracle of fulfilled prophecy, as “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” In other words, things are right on course; nothing has failed, but God is hiding His mystery from the wisdom of this age, even while He reveals it to babes. It pleased God that the gospel ‘as a revealed secret contained in the writings of the prophets’ (Ro 16:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8) should be fully verifiable by comparing scripture with scripture, here a little and there a little. Christ decodes the OT with such compelling evidence as to leave the hearer without excuse.

With Israel’s restoration as a nation and the developing Mid-East conflict running exactly according to the path predicted in prophecy, we have come full circle. With some important differences, we are where the sectarians of the Qumran communities were in the century before the fall of Jerusalem, and that is why I find knowledge of their perspective so helpful for NT background, that in turn opens to better view the NT’s approach to a revelation of an OT mystery that has come to light in Christ, as pieces to a prophetic puzzle. In their outlook, they anticipated the view early church’s expectation of an imminent tribulation that would climax in the world changing day of the Lord. This perspective was all but lost after the fall of Jerusalem, and not much revived until the resurgence of historic premillennialism in the late 19th century.

The “given” of an impending unequaled tribulation centered upon Jerusalem and climaxing in the great and notable day of the Lord formed the backdrop to an apocalyptic mystery that reveals the manifold wisdom of an eternal purpose that frees the heart, even as it magnifies the glory of God in His wise use of the falling and rising again of Israel to effect the inter-advent salvation of the gentiles (Ro 9:11; 11:25 – 12:2). Therefore our occupation with the apocalyptic perspective of the NT is no new swing of the theological pendulum; it is the recovery of the original expectation and vision of the glory of God.

There is evidence, even in the NT, that the hope of a soon return of Christ began to erode with what scholars call the ‘crisis of the delay of the parousia.’ When Jesus did not come, personally and finally, in immediate connection with the fall of Jerusalem, many began to be troubled. Some believe this is what Peter is addressing in his second epistle when he says “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.”

After the collapse of Jerusalem and the complete eviction of the Jews from the city by the Romans, to interpret the prophecy literally after this would mean that Christ’s coming could no longer be expected as potentially very soon. During the long centuries of Jewish absence from the land, we may expect that it was very attractive to interpret prophecy in a way that dispensed with the preliminary signs connected with an Antichrist invasion of a literal Jewish Jerusalem. Still, we can document that a rare few vigorously held forth for the literal interpretation of prophecy, despite what appeared at that time seemed very remote.

Of course, ever since the modern miracle of the Jewish repatriation of the Land, the obstacles for the literal interpretation are fast disappearing. Except for the presence of a Jewish temple and restored sacrifice, we are now where they were then. The only difference is that the early disciples could not conceive of a generation passing before a presumably final judgment on Jerusalem, which was naturally associated with the end of the age and the Lord’s return. Whereas today, and precisely because of the apparent failure the Lord’s return in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem, we have modern preterism in both its partial and complete forms. Of course, liberal theology is completely unimpressed with preterism’s effort to save Jesus’ infallibility as a prophet. In their view, He simply missed it. On the other hand, the world is completely emboldened by the church’s divisions over questions of eschatology to dismiss the subject entirely. Modern “apocalyptic movements” are lightly dismissed as eccentric fringe groups with a history of disappointed and often destructive false alarms. Yet, for all of this, we are on the threshold of the most abundant fulfillment of prophecy the world has ever seen.

As they were then, so now are we living under the looming cloud of an impending world crisis over the trembling cup of Jerusalem. But this time, the virgins are more asleep than ever, as the church is completely disunited in its voice. For some two hundred years before the advent of Jesus, the sectarians of the recently discovered Qumran communities lived in the Judean desert in expectation of an imminent Roman destruction of Jerusalem. They considered the city doomed for reasons of covenant defilement and disobedience. They weren’t wrong. The power of the fourth kingdom was about to descend on Jerusalem with all its force. This is precisely where we are today but the world and the church could hardly be more fast asleep, exactly as prophecy said it would be. Though partly fulfilled, the now revealed mystery in its latter stage is having again the same profound effect of being hidden from the wisdom of this age, even while it is being confirmed to His sheep.

As Dalton Thomas well said, “it’s Germany 1929” (some would say much closer to 39). I fear for any view of the faith that is so blind to the place and role of Israel that it cannot see in current trends the inexorable build up to the final world rebellion against the holy covenant. Who will sound the mid-night call? Who will be found giving the master’s household their “meat” in due season? Who will prepare the way of the Lord? That’s the call, or at least a central part of the church’s stewardship for this hour.

Not the progressivism of modernity but a Christ centered gospel that is strategically set in the context of God’s everlasting covenant with Israel, which cannot attain completion apart from a final crisis over Jerusalem that is destined to ensnare and drag all nations into its vortex. That’s where I believe the Spirit is laying renewed emphasis. An ethic and a faith that is not apocalyptic in its orientation is not the faith of the NT, and should not wonder if it lacks the urgency and power of the early church. Apart from that original context, the quest to make the gospel relevant becomes irrelevant.

A view of scripture that is so blind to the terms and conditions of the everlasting covenant as to deny prophetic significance to the modern presence of the Jewish state is inexcusable. It raises the question of when our wranglings over questions of interpretation become more than academic, but take on a moral and spiritual component that will be greatly required of the last generation, as neglect of the mystery has taken a serious toll on all past generations of the church, known to Jews of the middle ages as “the arrogant kingdom” (Ro 11:25).

Reggie

The post The Narrative-Historical Reading of the New Testament appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Though inevitable, it should never have happened that the church should conceive of itself as separate from the literal elect nation of Israel. According to Paul’s manifest interpretation of the prophets, it is the yet outstanding and incomplete promise of the everlasting covenant that alone makes sense of the necessary return of the natural branches to the full hope of millennial promise. Such imagined separation would have been avoided had Paul’s warning been heeded with the trembling he enjoins in Romans Chapter 11. In my view, the common conception of the church is part of a massive illusion that is strengthened by the progress of church history since the great ‘parting of the ways’ that took place in the first and early second centuries. Let me explain.

Due to the great size and institutional appearance of world Christendom (rightly called, “the arrogant kingdom”), it was tragically inevitable that sight be lost of the fact that the church was never to be conceived as separate from the blinded nation under judgment. Like a regenerate Jeremiah (circumcised in heart), the godly remnant was, and should have remained, a corporate prophet to both Israel and the nations, since the true people of the Spirit (regardless of how many gentiles may be added), can never, in principle, cease to belong by birthright to the larger nation that awaits the great transition that is everywhere associated with the great day, the ‘last day’, as it pertains to both personal and national resurrection.

It is like the relation between the living spirit of the believer waiting for the resurrection of the body that is yet dead because of sin. As the spirit to the body, so is the church to Israel. Both are indivisibly one; both are elect. Though the spirit is alive in advance of the resurrection of the body, it can never be conceived as ‘separate’ from the body. The church was originally, and in essence remains, the true (not new) Israel of God within the larger apostate nation. Gentiles are grafted into (“among”) a corporate elect entity. One cannot be ‘in Christ’ and not also be ‘in Israel.’ Therefore we say it is Israel that forms the context of salvation history and the eschatological framework inside which the church is defined in spiritual continuity with the righteous remnant, and certainly not Israel’s replacement. That is why when the natural branches are depicted as being grafted “back” into their own covenant root, and not into some new entity that never existed before Pentecost. That too (the Pentecostal ‘birthday’ of the church / so-called, ‘church age’) is an illusion that scripture will not support.

I think we can make the case that the early church conceived of itself, not as a new entity separate from Israel, but as the ‘maskilim’ (Dan 11:32-33, 35; 12:3, 10), the people of the Spirit who have insight into the revealed secret (i.e., the sealed vision of Isaiah, Habakkuk, and Daniel that the apostles understood as now revealed in the gospel; Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19; 1Pet 1:11). Not only the coming unequaled tribulation of short duration, but throughout the entire inter-advent period, the persecuted church has been distinguished as a tribulation people. Living ‘between the times,’ the church of the reveled secret (the ‘hidden wisdom’ of the cross) is not the end but the first fruits of the messianic redemption that is not complete apart from the day of the Lord when ‘all Israel shall be saved’ by the coming of the Deliverer to turn away ungodliness from Jacob (the ‘natural branches’). This re-attachment of the natural branches to the living root, which is the body of Christ in all ages, is the surviving Jewish remnant of literal Israel that will be “born at once … in one day” (Isa 59:16-21; 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 14:7) into holy millennial nationhood.

I don’t think it an accident that Paul’s sudden arrest on the road to Damascus constitutes a compelling preview of Israel’s national conversion when they see Him (in remarkable analogy to the revelation of their rejected brother, Joseph) whom they pierced / strike (Isa 53:4; Mic 5:1, 3; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39; Rev 1:7). The apostolic mind would have conceived of the church as revealing a mystery of the corporate nature of Christ’s indwelling, as the primary principle of divine life, no less in OT saints (1Pet 1:11), but a revelation is NOT a new institution. That something is newly revealed does NOT necessarily mean that it is newly existent or newly instituted, since Christ and the church was not so clearly revealed in the OT but was no less present. So far from conceiving of itself as something separate, the apostolic church would have seen itself as a kind of corporate Jeremiah with a calling to the nations that waits in prophetic travail for the salvation of ‘all Israel’ in the coming day of the Lord, knowing that ultimately it is only in the eschatological rest of Jerusalem by which the nations will be at rest. This is why Paul sees in Israel’s return, not the end of gentile salvation, but its exponential increase (Ro 11:12, 15).

This is to understand Paul’s use of the term, ‘all Israel,’ in the context of the prophets’ vision of an all saved Jewish nation as witness among the nations in open vindication of the full goal of the everlasting / new covenant. This alone makes sense of the need for a further millennium beyond this age but short of the final perfection. It is for a divine demonstration that will be visible and open in the sight of the nations. God has a point He is jealous to make in real history. It concerns the sovereignty of His election and the vindication of His Word. This is the logic of the covenantal ‘necessity’ of the return of the natural branches to holy ‘literal’ nationhood. But here is the great anomaly of that time: In contrast to the nations, Israel is depicted as having an all saved population (see Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; Eze 39:22, 28-29 etc.). Little wonder such uniformity of salvation among the Jews of that time (post-tribulation Israel; Jer 30:7; Jer 31:34; Dan 12:1) is almost invariably spiritualized in the commentaries. Truly, it does cast itself as beyond conception or imagination, but that’s just the point. Does this point us to spiritualize the promise or does it raise the more fundamental and perennial question: “Has God really said?” Truly, they are God’s own self appointed ‘mission impossible’.

If understood of a literal nation (as it must without criminally divesting the history of Jewish suffering of significant meaning), this implies a burning bush of open and miraculous testimony to the nations, who will be required to acknowledge the divine right to lavish such amazing grace on one particular people (Zech 14:16-17), remade into the image of the corporate Servant Son. Israel’s election has been called by scholars, ‘the scandal of particularity’, and so it is. The theocratic headship of millennial Israel is a consummate offense to democratic minded humanism; it is meant to be. An all saved Jewish nation at the head of the nations will test hearts in that day, as the international ‘controversy of Zion’ is soon to test all hearts at the end of the present age. It is more ultimately the controversy / quarrel of the covenant. Had the church not separated its new scriptures from its original Bible, it would have understood that the present age is not the last age before the final perfection. It would have understood that the present fulfillment in Messiah is not the final reach of His blood, but only the first fruits of what remains to be fulfilled with a blinded and disobedient Israel at His return at the day of the Lord. This means that the covenant has not reached its full goal and public vindication until ‘all Israel,’ as a distinct, actually “Jewish,” nation, will experience to the last person what has already come to the church, namely, the everlasting righteousness of the New Covenant.

Only this ‘penultimate’ millennial fulfillment of the covenant can secure abiding safety in the Land. Until then, whether in the Land or outside of it, the Jewish people will continue to endure the threat of covenant judgment that exposes each new generation to the curses pronounced by Moses in the law. Until ‘all Israel’ will be saved, and not only a small remnant, the nation, as a whole, will be exposed to renewed episodes of judgment. So long as this condition obtains, the covenant has not reached its goal to secure permanent inheritance of the Land. As long as Israel remains under covenant jeopardy outside the regeneration of the New Covenant, we must expect the perennial return of judgment on the elect nation through continued exposure to the rage of the hostile powers. This alone is sufficient to make sense of the double measure of suffering that Jews have been subjected to throughout the centuries. God help us if we spiritualize this alabaster box of unspeakable divine demonstration! That such a divine sacrifice should be lost on the church is unconscionable! It is to put the behemoth institution called, ‘the church’, at a convenient remove from the divine pathos that still travails for the consolation of Israel (yes, literal Jewish Israel, see my paper, “The Historic Impasse Between Church and Synagogue”).

So it is my thesis that the age cannot end with literal Israel in literal exile. That would be to leave the name and Word of God in shambles, according to God’s own testimony concerning what is at stake in their return. No, the covenant has not attained its full reach ‘until … all Israel’ is saved (Ro 11:25-29) in the sense that we believe Paul is using the term. Therefore, regardless of how many gentiles may be added to the Israel within Israel, the true “remnant according to the election of grace,” this ‘appearance’ of a mostly gentile church cannot alter the inward essence of a holy nation ‘born in Zion’, conceived as a first fruits within, and not outside the temporally blinded, but no less elect nation.

The church is the ‘already’ (first-fruits) of a predestined ‘not yet’ of Israel’s national salvation. The covenant is not fully realized in all of its designated provisions until an all righteous Jewish nation can dwell in the Land in permanent security. In that day, millennial Israel, though distinct with special stewardship of the Land, will be as much the “church” as any of the elect seed of faith throughout the generations. This implies no disruption of the glory of the one new man in Christ, since even now, there are distinctions of gender roles, of office, calling, and function within the church. These distinctions constitute no disruption of the common unity and equality in Christ.

The post Restoration of the Natural Branches to the Living Root appeared first on Mystery of Israel.

Would you say that the “everlasting covenant” is synonymous with the “new covenant,” and are there any details you would give to fill in the meaning of that covenant?

I would say that there is no difference. In the prophets the Everlasting / New Covenant (‘covenant of peace’ etc.) is envisioned in connection with the salvation of the day of the Lord that follows a time of great transition that may be called, ‘Zion’s travail’ (Deut 4:30; Isa 13:5-8; 26:16-17; 66:8; Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15; 6:1-2). This is the time that Jeremiah would call, ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’ (Jer 30:6-7), and Daniel would call, ‘a time of trouble, unequaled since there was nation.’ (Dan 12:1). Jesus uses very nearly the same language of Jeremiah and Daniel to speak of the unequaled ‘great tribulation’ (Mt 24:21) that ends in His return in clouds of glory (Mt 24:29-30; Rev 1:7). Likewise, Daniel is very clear that the unequaled tribulation ends in the deliverance of Israel and the resurrection of the righteous (Dan 12:1-2, 13). Finally, John in the Revelation will speak of ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Rev 7:14). We see then that in both testaments the tribulation without equal marks the transition between this age and the age to come. The rabbis would call this time, ‘the footsteps’ or ‘birth pangs of the Messiah.’

From the standpoint of the prophets, the everlasting covenant is established when the Spirit of the Lord is poured out in connection with the post-tribulational deliverance of Israel (Isa 32:15-18; 59:21; Eze 36:26-28; 39:29; Joel 2:29-30; 3:15-16, 20-21; Zech 12:10). The day of national regeneration (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22) is followed by a final and complete return to the Land that leaves no Jewish survivor behind (Isa 27:12-13; Eze 39:28). “From that day and forward” (Eze 39:22), the face of God is no more hidden from the nation (Eze 39:28-29). Every penitent Jewish survivor, and all the children born to them after the renewal, will ALL know the Lord, from the least to the greatest, so that never again will a Jewish inhabitant of the Land need to be evangelized (Isa 54:13; 59:21; 66:22; Jer 31:34). Moreover, none of the seed of Israel will ever again depart from this blessed estate (Isa 59:21; Jer 32:40). This is how the covenant can guarantee permanent security in the Land without further threat of exile (2Sam 7:10; Isa 32:17-18; 54:9-10, 14, 17; Jer 23:6; 30:10; 31:40; 32:37; Eze 34:25, 27-28; Hos 2:18; Amos 9:15; Zeph 3:13).

Paul’s expectation of the necessary reattachment of the natural branches is based on the covenant language of Isa 27:9; 59:21; Jer 31:34 with Ro 11:26-29. For Paul, the NC is not completely fulfilled until it has reached its climax in the day of the Lord salvation of ‘all Israel’ (Ro 11:26). This controversial phrase has been understood in a number of ways. Perhaps the most common interpretation is that Paul has in view the full gathering of all the elect, which some see as including a further ‘fullness’ of elect Jews from among the natural branches (Ro 11:12, 15). Because the landward side of the covenant has been so ignored by the church, belief in a future fullness for the Jewish branches is seldom associated with national salvation and return to the Land. This ought not so to be, since the landward side of the promise is an inalienable feature of the everlasting / new covenant, a ‘without which not’ of its ultimate fulfillment (Ps 105:10-11; Isa 60:21; 61:7-9; Jer 31:36; 32:39-41; Eze 37:25-26).

Our view is that Paul’s use of the phrase envisions precisely what the prophets envisioned, namely, the spectacle of an entirely saved Jewish nation (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 60:21; 59:21; Jer 31:34), serving the nations whose populations are not so uniformly born again. In contrast with the perennial presence of a remnant that would go into exile with the nation, the eternal salvation of the nation in its entirety (Isa 45:17, 25) assures of everlasting continuance in the Land (Mic 5:4). This is the ‘eschatology of the covenant’ from the OT perspective. .

When we come to the NT, the revelation of the ‘mystery of the gospel’ brings to light the ground and basis of the NC in what the writer of Hebrews will call, “the blood of the everlasting covenant.” The revelation of the mystery of the gospel does not, however, cancel or alter the full reach of the covenant promise in the ‘necessary’ covenanted salvation of ‘all Israel.’

This two stage aspect of the NC belongs to the mystery of Christ’s twofold advent, which introduces the ‘already and not yet’ pattern of NT fulfillment. The revelation of the basis of the NC in the death of Christ fulfills the promise of everlasting life reaching to the resurrection of the body for every regenerate believer. However, according to Paul, the NC has not reached its full goal until ‘all Israel’ dwells securely in their land as an entirely regenerate nation. The time of this great transition is clearly the future day of the Lord when the Deliverer comes out of Zion (Ro 11:25-27 with Isa 59:16-21; 63:4-5). The day of the Lord concludes the time that Paul calls, “the fullness of the gentiles” (Ro 11:25 with Eze 30:3; Lk 21:24). In contrast to ‘the times of the gentiles,’ or ‘the fullness of the gentiles,’ it is the time of “THEIR fullness” (Ro 11:12). Hence, the salvation of ‘all Israel’ is the end and open vindication of the everlasting covenant in the sight of all nations.

So we see the NC in two principal stages in the same way we see the salvation of Christ in two stages according the revelation of His twofold advent. It is the ‘already and the not yet’ pattern of NT fulfillment that is introduced by the revelation of the mystery of the gospel, which had been concealed in other ages in the prophetic writings (Ro 16:25-26; Eph 6:19). Unfortunately, the mystery has often been perverted to change and cancel what remains to yet be established with Israel. On the contrary, the NT no less than the OT anticipates the ‘restoration of all things,’ which the NT reveals as the time of Messiah’s second appearing (Acts 3:21; Heb 9:28). David spoke of a ‘set time’ to favor Zion (Ps 102:13), which the prophets would see in connection with a final travail of the nation that would end in the climactic day of the Lord (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22).

When Jesus returns at the post-tribulational day of the Lord (Mt 24:29; Acts 2:20), the elect remnant that will have survived the terrors of the great tribulation will then look (by revelation and not only sight) upon Him whom they pierced (Zech 12:10) in tender analogy to Joseph’s self-disclosure to his brethren (Mic 5:3-4; Mt 23:39). The beleaguered remnant, now at the end of their power (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7), will be born “at once … in one day” (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7). We may note how such sudden and radical transformation of spiritual re-birth and resurrection bears remarkable analogy to Paul’s sovereign arrest on the Damascus road. It is now to be imagined what a nation of Pauls will mean for the further evangelization of the nations. This seems precisely what Paul anticipates in Ro 11:12, 15 (compare Isa 27:6; 60:3, 5; Mic 4:2; Zech 8:23).

Therefore, we conclude that for Paul, no less than the prophets, the everlasting covenant has not attained the full reach of its promise until it has arrived at the salvation of ‘all Israel.’ We have seen that this requires, as a covenanted necessity, the salvation of all the nation and not merely a larger remnant. This means that in order for the everlasting / new covenant to be fulfilled in all of its literal language and covenanted provisions, the prophets see a time on this present earth (after a final and unequaled tribulation) when there will not exist a single Jewish person that is unsaved. Admittedly, that is a radical proposition. It is certainly ‘against all odds,’ but a careful review of the above scriptures, if interpreted literally in their native context, seem to admit of no other explanation.

Yours in the Beloved, Reggie

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Hi Reggie, I have been reading your post “Flesh and Blood Shall Not Inherit the Kingdom”. I have a question pertaining to the following point you made:

“This, of course, leaves the question of where will the glorified, resurrected redeemed be in relation to the saints of Israel and all that will be saved during the millennium. Will they co-habit the same space? Will mortals dwell with glorified immortals in the same physical location and discourse with one another as naturally as mortals do now? I don’t think so. That is not how the scriptures depict the millennium.”

In the context of the Abrahamic covenant, the promise of land is given to him personally and to his seed, meaning Christ as Paul stipulates in Gal 3:16. So resurrection is necessary for the fulfillment of this covenantal promise to Abraham, to his Seed, and to all who are in the seed – “And if you belong to Christ, you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Gal 3:29). But does it not follow, then, that just as Abraham will physically walk in his inheritance of a land “from the great river to the Euphrates” so will we? Consonant with the literalness of this promise, the following verses suggest that Gentile believers could be physically present with the Jews in the earth at that time:

They sing a new song:

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.” (Rev 5:9, 10)

What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth. (Ps. 25:13)

But the meek shall inherit the earth. (Ps. 37:11)

The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever. (Ps. 37:29)

The seed also of his servants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell therein. (Ps. 69:36)

…but he that putteth his trust in me shall inherit the land, and shall possess my holy mountain. (Is. 57:13)

I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen (elect in KJV – in the Seed, we are part of the elect nation) shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there. (Is 65:9)

To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant– these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer (see Is 56:3-7)

I know that I have sidestepped the issue of flesh and blood not inheriting the kingdom, but obviously, I’m coming at it from the covenantal angle. I’m looking forward to your response.

Robert

I am aware of the problem and know that many have wrestled with this question. The more intimate our knowledge of the details of how the prophets depict life in the millennium, the more difficult it seems to understand how the glorified redeemed will co-habit the same physical space with mortals, unless we are able to conceive of a more transcendent and multidimensional kind of occupation by those who will not be angels, but will certainly be “like the angels” (Mt 12:25).

Paul speaks of a perfection of knowledge that will transcend all temporal limits when he says, “but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1Cor 13:12). This is just one more thing that underscores how radically different our resurrected state will be to even the most exceptional Spirit-filled life in this present age. It’s another kind of existence. But this does not mean that ruling and reigning with Christ out of a spiritual realm over cities and nations is any less a real bodily inheritance of the earth. Nor should we suppose that because glorified saints are not immediately visible to mortals living all over the millennial earth that they are any the less kings and priests that both inherit and also reign upon the earth.

I certainly see your point about Abraham and the elect seed inheriting the earth, even more particularly the designated boundaries of the promised Land, but I also see that progressive revelation has expanded the scope of the promise to a higher spiritual plane of a city that has foundations (Heb 11:10), the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of us all (Gal 4:26). This is the city foursquare that comes down in final perfection on a new heaven and earth. With the former earth now ‘passed away’ (Rev 21:1), the New Jerusalem of the new heavens and earth is distinguished from the millennial Jerusalem, as having “no more temple”  at its center (Ezekiel chapters 40 – 48 in marked contrast w/ Rev 21:22).

The “new earth” is also distinguished as having “no more sea” (Rev 21:1). This is vivid and marked discontinuity with the present earth and designated parameters of the covenant Land. That is something beyond even a redeemed millennial Jerusalem. Yet the promise is not viewed as in the least way diminished or compromised, since those who are in Christ inherit not only a Land within circumscribed boundaries, but “all things” (Ro 8:32; 1Cor 3:21-23).

The millennium has its indispensable convenantal purpose that will not be circumvented or side stepped. It is the open and public vindication of all God has promised the Jewish people, as a distinct and visible ethnic entity, from whom the election can never depart (Ro 11:29). To this end they have been uniquely preserved and not suffered to assimilate. The millennium is a covenantal necessity essential to the name and Word of God. Because it is then that the Jews, as Jews in particular, will visibly exist for one thousand years in that particular Land as an all righteous people without instance of backsliding or defection (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; 66:22; Jer 31:34).

This will be as a Spirit-filled nation, still in natural bodies, building houses, having children, and evangelizing the nations. Primary among many other things, the millennium is necessary to show that God is able to establish His covenant with a people who, in themselves, have proven hopelessly prone to backslide, but who now, as an entirely righteous nation, will be able to “securely” keep the Land forever without further threat of judgment and potential exile. The only way abiding security in the Land can be forever is if all of Israel has attained to a righteousness that is forever, even the “everlasting righteousness” of the “everlasting covenant” (Jer 31:34; 32:40; Dan 9:24). Only God could do this by His sovereign power, and that is precisely the point that the millennium exists to demonstrate in the sight of all nations.

The millennium is a distinct and necessary stage on the way to the final perfection, but it is not yet that perfection. It is not yet “the end” (1Cor 15:54). I do see that Abraham, as also the twelve apostles, inherit the present earth in the time that Jesus calls, “the regeneration” (Mt 19:28). They will certainly be present on the earth, even ‘bodily’, albeit not in the same kind of body (1Cor 15:40, 44, 49-50; Phil 3:21), and perhaps not visible with same kind of perception. I believe the glorified saints will be “like” the invisible rulers who presently rule the kingdoms of this world from the heavenly places.

This is not absence from the earth. We tend to think so much in terms of a spatial “above and beneath” that we neglect the mystical view that is thoroughly Hebraic, as implicit in Paul’s words when he says, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ …” (1Cor 5:4).

We may also recall how certain of the saints appeared bodily to many that were in Jerusalem after the Lord’s resurrection (Mt 27:53), or the appearance of Samuel to Saul (1Sam 28:13-19), or the transfiguration (Mk 9:4; Lk 9:31), or the unusual nature of His words to Mary (Jn 20:17-18).

An even more ready to hand example are those times when the risen Jesus would appear suddenly in a room, while showing complete knowledge of all that had been spoken days before (Mk 16:12, 14; Jn 20:25-27). Certainly His presence was there before the time of His appearances. In the same way the Spirit filled saints of the millennium will certainly be aware of the presence of the glorified redeemed, and there will doubtless be times of bodily appearances, but not to all; just as Paul alone could hear the distinct voice that those in his entourage could not hear (Acts 22:9).

I have a conception of a bodily resurrected Abraham, Job (19:25-27), Isaiah (Isa 26:19), Daniel, and all the righteous up to the point of the first resurrection (Dan 12:2, 13), not away in some detached place from the earth, but here, on the present earth, ruling over cities and nations, albeit in a greatly transformed mode of existence, and not immediately and all times visible to the inhabitants of the millennial earth. They are, however, completely visible to one another, and to the Lord, whose face is ever before them, regardless of spatial location.

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That title made me think that truly, the history of redemption from start to finish is ‘against all odds’. It was meant to be (Ro 8:20). Anything less would have never so greatly magnified the power, grace, and unlimited sovereignty of our covenant God (Ro 8:28).

God has chosen to embody His glory in weak, helpless, and even naturally hostile, jars of clay, not away in an invisible realm, but right here, right now, on earth, “in the presence of His enemies,” against all odds. As Spurgeon well said, “considering all things, those who hold out to the end in the way of holiness will be “men wondered at.” Indeed, our final perseverance will be to the wonderment of the angels.

Even more wondrous (though not more miraculous) is the really extravagant hope of a kingdom come to THIS earth, not off in the realm of the invisible, out of sight and beyond evidence, but here, on this earth, against all odds. The glory of God will be put on public display when in the same real, space-time history that witnessed the fall, all nations will be compelled to witness the very public resurrection and rebirth of Israel ‘in one day’ (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9).

After generations of wandering and exile, the Jew has returned to the Land, but the blindness that brought the exile continues for all but a very small remnant. For all the marvelous wonder that this represents for those who were expecting the literal fulfillment of prophecy, this is not the kingdom promised by the prophets. Although back in the Land after nineteen and a half centuries, Israel is still not saved. Therefore, Satan is not yet bound, nor is he silenced, as the question still rages, “Has God really said?”

That question is not finally answered by the revelation of the mystery of a first coming of Messiah that brings the kingdom in its spiritual essence. The ‘already’ of present fulfillment is only the earnest or first-fruits of the ‘not yet’ of a far greater number of highly detailed covenant promises that envision a kingdom of righteousness here on this earth, as all the formidable powers of the present evil age are broken and forced under its sway and authority.

What will be the proof that this kingdom has come on earth? Since the first century revelation of Christ’s twofold coming, that question has a new answer. That age will not begin when Messiah comes, but when He returns. Yet, in another sense, the powers of that coming day have already broken into this age by the revelation of the Spirit, but not to the exclusion of a further conquest of Satan’s kingdom awaits the final revelation of the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the great tribulation that precedes Christ’s return (2Thes 2:3, 7-8; Rev 10:7; 12:12).

The mystery of the gospel revealed an unexpected anomaly. The long awaited messianic salvation would be accomplished by the incarnation and atoning death of a twice coming Messiah (Isa 53:8; Dan 9:26; Zech 12:10) BEFORE the brief and unequaled tribulation (Deut 4:30; Hos 5:15; Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1). We lose the force of the formidable mystery that confronted first century Israel if we fail to observe that these passages in their original setting and language were not as clearly messianic as they now appear to the believer in retrospect.

Though fully foretold in the prophetic writings (Acts 3:18-21; 26:22), the mystery of Messiah’s twofold advent was not revealed until after Pentecost (Acts 3:21; Ro 16:25-26; 1Cor 2:7-8 with 1Pet 1:11). It is therefore not surprising that with the exception of John the Baptist (Jn 1:29), few, if any, would have been prepared to consider that the “man child” of Gen 3:15 would be born of a virgin and deal the fatal blow to the serpent’s head BEFORE Israel’s day of national deliverance.

Because the messianic deliverance was commonly (and rightly) expected to come AFTER the tribulation of ‘Jacob’s trouble’ and ‘Zion’s travail’ (compare Isa 13:8; 26:16-17; 66:7-8; Mic 5:3; Hos 5:15; Jer 30:6-7), the happenings in association with a necessary first coming to accomplish atonement and ascension to God’s right hand, were unknown until the revelation that came in the days following the resurrection (Lk 24:25-27; Acts 1:6), and first publicly proclaimed in Spirit and power at Pentecost (Acts 2:32-33; 3:18-21; 1Pet 1:12).

In view of such an unexpected, but demonstrably foretold order of events, we may be sure that the evidence for a salvation that would precede the post-tribulational day of the Lord would have been invoked as a centerpiece of Christian apologetic in the first century. This is evident by the way the book of Revelation contrasts the pre-tribulational birth and ascent of the man child with Satan’s unprecedented assault against the woman in the time of the brief tribulation (Rev 12:5, 12-14). Note also the amazing mystery implied in the significant use of the term, “before,” in Isa 66:7, in contrast with “as soon as” in Isa 66:8).

Contrary to the popular theology of replacement that has reigned in the church since the second century, the revelation of the mystery of the gospel did nothing to cancel or change the prophets’ vision of a restored Jewish nation after the tribulation. Instead, it revealed the greater glory of the nature and means of that “everlasting righteousness” promised in the covenant (Jer 32:40; Dan 9:24). The gospel reveals that particular kind of righteousness by which alone the kingdom is established in both in the heart and on the earth.  After the final tribulation (Dan 7:25; 12:1, 7), the kingdom of the heart will fill the whole earth (Dan 2:35, 44; 7:27).

The “mystery of the kingdom” reveals that God’s conquest of Satan is accomplished in stages. Since the cross, the legal ground of Satan’s final destruction has been accomplished, and his final defeat set in irreversible motion (1Jn 3:8). But notice, Satan’s final eviction from heaven does not come until the very beginning of the last and brief tribulation (Rev 12:9-10). Note that this eviction happens 3 1/2 years before Satan is bound to begin the millennium (Rev 20:2). Both of these further stages of his defeat are manifestly future. We judge then that the Spirit’s full enforcement of Christ’s conquest over Satan is accomplished in stages at predestined points of crisis and transition.

This implies that the Accuser’s continued access to heaven, though now illicit, is somehow related to the believer’s conscience. This brings the really interesting question of what it will mean for the Accuser to be finally cast down by Michael at the beginning of the tribulation (Dan 12:1 with Rev 12:7, 9-10, 12, 14). As a principle, the finished victory of Christ over the accuser of the brethren can be more deeply apprehended and appropriated, as the strength of the flesh is further broken through a similar pattern of crisis and transformational revelation, not only in the history of redemption, but also in the personal and corporate experience of the saints (Jn 16:21; Acts 14:22).

The accuser of the brethren is cast down by the revelation and / or deeper apprehension of Christ, as “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”. When this is truly and deeply apprehended by the Spirit of revelation, Satan’s ability to legislate his accusations against the believer’s conscience is broken, and there is fullness of joy, regardless of the circumstance.

The revelation of the gospel that was contained in a mystery in the prophetic scriptures (Ro 16:25-26), that has come already to the church (the maskilim) will come to Israel ‘in one day’ at the end of the tribulation (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10). That is why, “In His (Messiah’s) days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer 23:6).

This is why it is an ‘everlasting righteousness’. It is nothing else than the righteousness of God Himself, as perfected in one place only. Our righteousness was perfected in the humanity of Jesus, not only by His death, but necessarily through His perfect fulfillment of the law. This is the righteousness that is counted to the believer, by which alone the transforming and empowering Spirit is given to the one “accepted ‘in’ the Beloved”.

It is a righteousness that is much to be distinguished for what it is and what it is not. It is all His and nothing of our own (Isa 54:17; with Ro 10:3; Phil 3:9). It will not bear mixture (Ro 11:6; Gal 2:16, 21). To presume to come before God in such a ‘mingled garment’ (Lev 19:19) is doomed to meet with a terrible divine intolerance (Mt 22:11-13; 7:22-23;  2Cor 5:11; ). “All other ground is sinking sand.”

This righteousness of God by faith which has come to the elect of this age must come to the nation of the long exile at the end of the last and unequaled trouble (Jer 30:7; Dan 12:1). The ‘everlasting righteousness’ that was brought in with the death of Christ at the end of Daniel’s 69th week, will break upon the understanding of the penitent remnant of Israel at the end of the 70th week. Then will the vision and prophecy that was unsealed to the church at Christ’s first advent (Isa 8:14-17; 29:11) will be unsealed to all Israel at the time of His return (Mic 5:3; Dan 9:24; 12:4, 9; Hos 5:15; Zech 12:10; Rev 10:7).   This is the full ‘bringing in of an ‘everlasting righteousness’ (Ps 119:42; Dan 9:24) anticipated in all the prophets, not only for a remnant, as always before, but now for “all Israel’, as a nation on this earth with an entirely saved population (Isa 4:3; 26:12; 43:7; 45:25; 54:13, 17; 59:21; 60:21; 61:9; 65:23; 66:22; Jer 31:34; 32:40; Zeph 3:9, 13 etc. et al).

Little wonder that theologians see this as only possible of fulfillment in heaven. For such enduring salvation to be received by the entirety of a nation made up of the actual descendants of the inquisitions and the death camps ‘s, dwelling in real physical bodies on this present earth is most especially, ‘against all odds’. Yet his is precisely what the prophets have in view when they speak of “the everlasting covenant” (Isa 61:8; Jer 32:40; Eze 16:60; 37:26). It is also what Paul has in mind when he says, “and so all Israel shall be saved” (Ro 11:26).

This is the climax of the covenant. It is God’s self appointed “mission impossible” in history. When THIS “impossible” nation (who is less impossible?) is restored to THIS Land in THIS righteousness, then the earth will enter its Sabbath rest in glorious public vindication of the everlasting covenant foretold by all the prophets. For this the creation groans in travail, as does also the church that knows the scriptures and the power of God.

It is much to be noted that Christ’s return, the binding of Satan, and the finishing of the mystery of God (Rev 10:7) happens in significant connection with the sudden regeneration of the surviving remnant of (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Ro 11:26). It is clear that Paul stands in the tradition of the prophets in his insistence that their return is essential to the fulfillment of the covenant (compare Ro 11:26-27; Isa 27:9; 59:21; Jer 31:33-3). At “the set time”(Ps 102:13), “in the day of His power” (Ps 110:3), He will vindicate His “covenant with THEM” (Isa 59:21; Ro 11:27) openly, in the sight of all nations, “for God is able to graft them in again” (Ro 11:23), against all odds.

As we so often say, how we see God’s covenant with the natural branches in their pitiable enmity and unbelief (Ro 11:28-29), is so much the index of how we understand the nature of that grace that arrested Paul and will arrest His elect nation “at once” and “in one day” (Isa 66:8; Eze 39:22; Zech 3:9; 12:10; Mt 23:39; Acts 3:21; Ro 11:26; Rev 1:7).

Though perhaps not so outwardly dramatic, it is the same powerful working of grace that has drawn and regenerated all the elect seed of Messiah Jesus (Ps 89:29-34; Isa 45:25; 53:10; Isa 61:9; 65:23; Jer 331:26-27; Jn 6:37, 39, 44-45, 65; Ro 4:16; compare especially Isa 54:13, 17 with Jn 6:45).

Reggie

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It is revealing to see that the change comes only after an appointed time of divine pleading in the wilderness. This underscores the place and role of crisis and tribulation in God’s gracious initiatives for our salvation and sanctification. This is how Israel will be made to reflect on her historic unfaithfulness to the covenant bond, but notice; the new heart does not come until the veil has been removed that hides the goodness of God’s redeeming love. Judgment weakens that veil, but only the revelation of grace removes it forever.

It is the revelation of the goodness of God that makes Israel hate her former unfaithfulness in a wholesome way that does not fall into the pit of morbid regret and despair. It is the apprehension of divine love, and the holy cost of that love, that actually creates the faithfulness that can only come from a heart set free. It is what the NT calls the ‘gift’ of repentance (Acts 5:31; 2Tim 2:25), and what a gift it is! The veil may have been weakened through suffering (in this case the stripping of the wilderness), but it is the revelation of mercy that tears it in half, and so transforms the heart of trembling contrition into the chosen dwelling place of God (Isa 57:15; 66:1-2).

Therefore, we may conclude that whereas suffering may serve to weaken and drive down the pride of the faithless heart, real and lasting transformation comes only when we see God’s tender mercies in His unspeakable gift. Amazing love! How can it be? Paul said it is “the goodness of God that leads to repentance” (Ro 2:4). Mercy transforms. That is why justice must be so ‘severely’ upheld (Ro 11:22). It is so that mercy may appear mercy indeed.

So Israel is brought to an end of their power through the attrition of Jacob’s trouble (Deut 32:36; Dan 12:7), but the transforming moment does not come until “they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced” (Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39). That is when the penitent remnant goes everyone apart to weep, not because of guilt and regret, but because of the transforming vision of the goodness of God that leads to a repentance and a new nature that lasts forever. It is mercy that makes us faithful.

See below a brief commentary on Hosea 2 from the Wycliffe Bible Commentary:

D. The Restoration of Faithless Israel. 2:14-23.

Hosea 2:14

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her.

In love God says of Israel, I will allure her. God says that he will persuade his people with endearing words to turn from their idols and find joy in him. In Canaan Israel rejected her God. Surrounded by other “lovers” (i.e., Baal and other idols), she felt no need of him. God, however, declares his purpose to remove his people from the land of milk and honey and bring her into the wilderness, so that he may speak comfortably unto her. Literally, speak unto her heart. The grieved lover desired to win back the object of his love. He was going to take Israel to the solitary wilderness, where she could hear his voice without distraction.

Hosea 2:15-17

And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

Vineyards, which speak of prosperity and fruit-bearing, would be given by God to his restored people. The valley of Achor is described as a door of hope. There, centuries before, Achan had died as the troubler of Israel (Josh 7:25-26). Only through Achor, trouble, could Israel come back to fellowship with the Lord and its resultant blessing. God would thus restore the days of her youth. When youthful Israel crossed the Red Sea, she had a song (Ex 15:1-19). As she lost her first love, the song was quieted; but Hosea pictures repentant, restored Israel as again singing. 16. Restored Israel would address God as Ishi, literally, my husband, a word of tenderness. Baali is a synonym of ishi, but it contains the word Baal (master), the name of a Canaanite deity. For this reason it was associated with idolatry and rejected by Hosea. The Baalim (v. 18) will not be mentioned by restored Israel, who then will be true to her Lord.

Hosea 2:18-20

And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

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