Neogillist
Puritan Board Freshman
This is an interesting question that I have been pondering upon lately, especially with the new crisis in Gaza with that Hamas party and the historical mess that begun with the foundation of the new state of Israel in 1948.
Many dispensationalist believe that the return of the Jews in Israel was a fulfillment of biblical prophecies and is an indication that we are drawing closer to the rapture, the return of Christ, the millennium, etc. Being an amillenalist, I don't believe that stuff.
However, there are a few passages in the Old Testament that speak of God giving the land of Canaan to Isreal for ever, or as an everlasting possession, thus implying that they have a divine right to dwell in Palestine. See Gen. 17:8. 48:4. Or take for instance Ex. 32:13:
"13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever."
But this kind of language is also used for the ceremonial law, which we know to have been abolished. Interestingly, John Gill points out:
"These words, eternal, everlasting and for ever, are sometimes used in an improper sense, as of things which are of a long duration, but limited, and have both a beginning and an end; as the everlasting possession of the land of Canaan, granted in the everlasting covenant of circumcision, and yet both are now at end.... " A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, p. 65.
My personal conclusion is that this promise of God to give the land of Canaan to Israel as an everlasting possession was conditional upon their obedience to his laws and precepts, which they boke many times, and thus resulted in diasporas (starting with the Exile in Babylon). Probably the greatest crime committed by Israel was to reject Christ (their Messiah), which later resulted in their desctruction in 70 A.D. bringing an end to temple worship and the ceremonial law. As Paul teaches in Romans "not all Israel is part of Israel", and while some of the Jews were elect, many of them were reprobates, although they were part of the Old Testament visible church and in this respect were called "God's people." However, I do believe that there will be a return to the gospel among the Jews as is interpreted by some in Rom 11:23:
"And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved,[ak] as it is written:
“ The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”[al]
Indeed, we are already seeing this return with the Messianic Jewish movement. Although I find that the movement has the weakness of promoting too many ceremonies from the Old Testament again, I believe there are many Jews who are embracing the gospel along with it. But this is totally different from the carnal Israel and the Zionist movement which are really trying to go back to the Old Testament dispensation and take possession of a physical patch of land, indeed deporting the local Philistines in to the West Bank, and Gaza, promoting racism and trying to finish the war that Joshua started, thinking that they still have it as a command from God.
To make a long story short, I do not believe that Israelis have any divine right to possess and control the holy land, their right having been forfeited after their rejection of the gospel. Besides, for those who have indeed embraced the gospel, their hope is in the spiritual Canaan that they will possess and the New Jerusalem where they will live, not the physical one located in the Middle East.
Now, some Amillenialists like me have been labelled anti-Semites by Dispensationalists (see John MacArthur) for holding to this view. I think this is rediculous.
Many dispensationalist believe that the return of the Jews in Israel was a fulfillment of biblical prophecies and is an indication that we are drawing closer to the rapture, the return of Christ, the millennium, etc. Being an amillenalist, I don't believe that stuff.
However, there are a few passages in the Old Testament that speak of God giving the land of Canaan to Isreal for ever, or as an everlasting possession, thus implying that they have a divine right to dwell in Palestine. See Gen. 17:8. 48:4. Or take for instance Ex. 32:13:
"13Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever."
But this kind of language is also used for the ceremonial law, which we know to have been abolished. Interestingly, John Gill points out:
"These words, eternal, everlasting and for ever, are sometimes used in an improper sense, as of things which are of a long duration, but limited, and have both a beginning and an end; as the everlasting possession of the land of Canaan, granted in the everlasting covenant of circumcision, and yet both are now at end.... " A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, p. 65.
My personal conclusion is that this promise of God to give the land of Canaan to Israel as an everlasting possession was conditional upon their obedience to his laws and precepts, which they boke many times, and thus resulted in diasporas (starting with the Exile in Babylon). Probably the greatest crime committed by Israel was to reject Christ (their Messiah), which later resulted in their desctruction in 70 A.D. bringing an end to temple worship and the ceremonial law. As Paul teaches in Romans "not all Israel is part of Israel", and while some of the Jews were elect, many of them were reprobates, although they were part of the Old Testament visible church and in this respect were called "God's people." However, I do believe that there will be a return to the gospel among the Jews as is interpreted by some in Rom 11:23:
"And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved,[ak] as it is written:
“ The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”[al]
Indeed, we are already seeing this return with the Messianic Jewish movement. Although I find that the movement has the weakness of promoting too many ceremonies from the Old Testament again, I believe there are many Jews who are embracing the gospel along with it. But this is totally different from the carnal Israel and the Zionist movement which are really trying to go back to the Old Testament dispensation and take possession of a physical patch of land, indeed deporting the local Philistines in to the West Bank, and Gaza, promoting racism and trying to finish the war that Joshua started, thinking that they still have it as a command from God.
To make a long story short, I do not believe that Israelis have any divine right to possess and control the holy land, their right having been forfeited after their rejection of the gospel. Besides, for those who have indeed embraced the gospel, their hope is in the spiritual Canaan that they will possess and the New Jerusalem where they will live, not the physical one located in the Middle East.
Now, some Amillenialists like me have been labelled anti-Semites by Dispensationalists (see John MacArthur) for holding to this view. I think this is rediculous.