My dispensationalism is about as mild as this rebuke is intended to be. Basically, I see a future for the nation of Israel during the millennium, I do not believe the church replaces Israel or inherits the Abrahamic promises. Romans 11 is key for me.
A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written. Romans 11:25-26.
God hardened Israel’s hearts because of their unbelief and set them aside for a time, until the “fullness of the Gentiles has come in.” Then, God will return to his work with Israel and will redeem them fully and completely, giving complete fulfillment to all the promises given to the prophets.
I realize most of you don’t believe this and I’m not interested in an argument with Amillennialists and Historic Premillennialists. And really, who can argue with Postmillennialists – I mean, really? I’d like to address my fellow dispensationalist and dispensational-leaning friends and ask you to consider what I say.
We have a tendency to be “pro-Israel.” I love Israel. I’ve been there twice and if I ever win the lottery (I’m gonna have to start playing if I want to win, I suppose) I’ll go live there. But those pro-Israel sentiments have crossed a line to become anti-Muslim, anti-Arab convictions and that is both anti-Gospel and a misunderstanding of the teaching of dispensationalism. Have we suffered a blindness in our political support of Israel that causes us to support them no matter what they do, because of what we believe about their Abrahamic covenant blessings?
I think we have and would like to challenge that thinking.
From a Professor at Dallas Seminary
Populist, extremist dispensationalism gives us all a black-eye. There is a more biblical and scholarly version of the doctrine taught at schools like Dallas Seminary that deals with more rationally with some of these issues. I remember a bit of a rant one of my DTS profs went on one day during class. This is a 40-year-old memory. I think I am faithfully carry forward the gist of his thoughts though this is certainly not word for word.
“Listen, gentlemen, we believe that God has a future for the nation Israel but we are in the church age today. In this time, it is our duty to take the gospel to every tribe, every language, and every nation on earth. That means that it is just as important that we take the gospel to the Arabs as to the Jews. We cannot simply believe that everything Israel does is right and justified and side blindly with them. The church’s duty is to carry Christ to Muslims, Jews, and to every place on earth.”
Dispensationalism
1. Believes that there is a future for the nation of Israel.
2. Believes that God has set aside the nation of Israel for a time today because of their unbelief while the church, that great eschatological mystery, works by the Spirit’s power to gather ONE Body from every tribe and language on earth.
3. Believes that in the church, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. We are not pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian, but pro-Jesus and pro-Gospel. The church today is about all nations and there is no nationality that has a special place.
4. Believes that God will preserve Israel and raise them up in his time. Because we believe in the sovereign purpose of God we don’t have to act like it’s up to America to “save Israel.” We trust God’s eternal purposes. Hitler couldn’t destroy the Jews because of God’s sovereign protection and we are not going to be their saviors.
5. While it is a good thing for America to be an ally of Israel, we must not assume that every action of Israel is morally blessed. Israel at this point is a secular nation that often acts without regard to morality or justice. We are not obligated to support everything they do just because they are God’s chosen people. I do not think we should abandon Israel but we should not deify or sanctify the current secular nation either.
6. Islam is a false religion and much evil is done in this world under its banner. But Muslims are not our enemy – they are our battleground. We fight against the principalities and power to win Muslims to Christ. God is every bit as pleased when a Muslim is won to Christ as he is when an American or a Jew is saved. Whenever we subvert the gospel to political aims in such a way that we treat the destruction of Muslims as a good thing, we have lost touch with the gospel purposes of Christ.
7. Remember, though, modern-day Judaism is just as false and non-salvific as Islam. You cannot be saved through Judaism that ignores Christ any more than you can be saved through Islam. There is no gradation of false religions.
It is not wrong to support Israel and to love it – it seems very natural to me. But it is wrong in this day and age to love it in a way that ignores or hinders the Great Commission. If we act as if disdaining the descendants of Ishmael is acceptable we do not understand the Bible and I maintain, we don’t understand what it means to live in this “church age.”
Dispensationalism will naturally lead one to love Israel and I don’t think we need apologize for that. But if we understand it rightly, we remember that the restoration of Israel is a future act of God and that our duty right now, in this dispensation, is to evangelize Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and other Islamic nations every bit as much as it is to reach Jews.
If our standing with Israel hurts our evangelism of Muslims, our politics has perverted our theology.
Good words. I’ve had someone tell me (fairly recently) that disagreeing with Israel is equivalent to cursing them.
I am assuming dispensational views here – that conflates the millennial “restored” Israel with today’s secular Israel. It also ignores Romans 11. And the great commission.
Nothing of which I disagree; however, I don’t think you realize how hard Jewish evangelism is and hard it is to convince most churches of its necessity.
The church was birthed evangelizing Jews and it should continue to do so.
The church must also evangelize Muslims – and must care as much about one as the other.
I think God is going to do a mighty work in Israel before the end comes. After every tribe and tongue and people of the gentiles is drawn into the Kingdom, the end then being near, Israel will turn to Jesus and look to Him as their eternal savior, and probably their nation’s savioras well.
As the Gospel makes its way around the globe, starting there in Jerusalem, it leaves a remnant in every place, From the Middle East to North Africa and Southern Europe, the Spirit blew and the Gospel flourished. Trace the path. It then went more north to Europe and then to the Americas, and now it is established in Africa whie gaining more strength in China. There are more Cristians today living south of the equator than north of it. Eventually it will come in force to India, China, and Indonesia as well as the surrounding countries before Middle Asia it heads and ends up again in the Middle east and then finally Israel.
So it seems to me.
Great comment, Mike!
Why do you think that the Abrahamic promises apply to the modern secular (God denying) state of Israel? Why not the ethnic Jews or practicing believing Jews?
I am still undecided between the Historical Premill view and the Progressiive Dispensational view you outline here. One question I have regarding dispensationalism and Israel that may expose my ignorance is the following (well, actually, several related questions): According to dispensational thought, how is the covenant blessing of Abraham passed down? Is it by bloodline? If so, matrilineal or patrilineal? Or is it by religious or cultural identity? Or is it by citizenship in the modern nation-state of Israel? How do we know, for covenant purposes, who is truly a Jew today and who is not? Do both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews qualify? What about Ethiopian, Yemeni, and other ethnic varieties of cultural Jews? What is the biblical/theological basis for answering these questions?
I am not sure of one thing you are asking [not that I know any of the answers, but at least I understand theother questions], namely:
“How do we know, for covenant purposes, who is truly a Jew today and who is not? ”
What do you mean to ask?
My initial answer though, is this: We don’t need to know. God knows whom He will save and which Jew is a Jew for not all Israel is Israel.
Mike, from what I understand, the whole question of Jewish identity and what makes one a Jew is disputed and debated among various sectors of the Jewish community today. Does Christian dispensationalism take a particular approach with regard to resolving this debate? Does that make more sense?
Mike: I think David is asking this because there are not pure blood Jews, although some may be, many “Jews” have mixed nations in their blood. So how would one know who is a true Jew like the ones you are speaking of?
Also, as I understand it, a large percentage of the Jewish community today has no demonstrable genealogical ties to Abraham.
David, the blessings of Abraham are to his seed, so the physical descendants of Abraham would receive them. Of course, the law gives ways for people to convert, in which case they become physical Jews. It isn’t precise, I suppose.
Do you (or anyone else) recall any passages that teach that Jewish proselytes inherit the covenant blessings of Abraham?
Just found at least one of the answers to my own question here.
Isaiah 56:3-7.
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and let not the eunuch say,
“Behold, I am a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 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.
6 “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,
everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,
and holds fast my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
These verses seem to support the idea that all believers are “Israel”.
David Rogers,
GOOD FIND.
But guess what, no one does that. No one holds fast to that covenant. Not even the Israelis in Old Testament times.
Rather, the ony One who ever did that was Jesus. And through faith in Him and in His Word, since He is the Word, we are counted as fulfilling the covenant: holding fast to it.
Thus we read:
“Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.”
And Paul continues: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Continue to read in Galatians 3 and it ends with this:
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
Then why all the fuss about the nation of Israel? I’m sure there are physical descendants of Abraham in other governments too.
Isaac,
That is one of the thoughts/queries I have as I read this post and comments.
Isaac,
Its really not about who the physical descendants of Abraham are but who the spritual descendants of Abraham are.
BUT…
We also read this, which I believe Dave referenced to:
“I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?”
Thus there is no denying that the physical people of Israel, not just in the country of Israel, but everywhere they may be found, will lay an important piece of the end times puzzle. We continue in Romans 11:
“For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”
“This is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”
From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
Let us understand that God accepts Gentile believers as His children but He will being doing a mighty work among the physical Jews.
Let us say then with Paul:
“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor? Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”
Mike, I hear you, and the argument you make is compelling. Do you also agree with what Dave Miller says here: “the blessings of Abraham are to his seed, so the physical descendants of Abraham would receive them”? If so, I am interested to hear a bit more about how you reconcile these two perspectives. Is the covenant blessing for Abraham’s physical seed (his blood descendants) or by faith in Christ alone? I am especially interested to know how you think the covenant promises apply today to the land of Israel and who, according to the covenant, we should expect to inherit that land.
David,
The blessings are to Abraham’s seed. Now firstly I think this means to those that are of the faith of Abraham. Firstly and directly. But that does not exclude the physical descendants, by which Imean the ethnic Jews. So its not either or but AND.
In order that the ethnic Jew will benefit by the promises to their physical forefather Abraham, they must also becaome his desendants by faith.
So look at Romans 11 again:
“I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”
As we read through the chapter, it seems that after the times of the gentiles is over, the gracious choice of God, that same gracious choice that [a] saved a remnant of Jews, like Paul in his day, and also that gracious choice that sved [b] the gentiles who were grafted in, will also save [c] the ethnic Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham in that time before that great and glorious Day.
So then speaking corporately, Paul contiues in a bit:
“I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be!”
The answer is the Great and Terrible day of the Lord. And the end of age.
Nothing about the land?
David,
as to this,
“In order that the ethnic Jew will benefit by the promises to their physical forefather Abraham, they must also becaome his desendants by faith.”
We ead from John 10:
“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”
Thus the one flock all hear the Shepherd’s voice and follow Him. We all will be grafted into the one vine, having one shepherd. One Lord. One Gospel. One Body. One Family. One people of God. Allby the graciosu choice of God.
David,
auto:
“I am especially interested to know how you think the covenant promises apply today to the land of Israel and who, according to the covenant, we should expect to inherit that land.”
God has chosen that land and that place to be the center of His Kingdom. And through it, He unfoldsHis plan for the end of the age, even as He reveald His Son there once, so He has that land playing a special role in His dealings with the world. The covenant promises apply today NOT in a physical sense. We see thisas truebecause that land has not always been occupied and controlled by the Israelis. And further, as judgment upon their sins He deported most of them out of it. But he has always brought them back to it. They, the true Israelite has tobe understood in this way:
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” [Romans 2]
Thus all that are grafted into the true vine are true Jews.
And that of course includes the ‘natural branches’ as we read:
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?”
Now of course Paul is speaking corporately as the Jews who were cut off for unbelief then are now dead and long gone. And God has a remnant of Jews chosen by grace both then and yet today.
Mike, I hear and appreciate your view on this and, as I said before on the rest of what you have written on this post, find it, to a large degree, compelling. But it does not appear to me to be normal dispensationalism. I would love to hear the answer to my questions from someone more squarely in the dispensationsal camp—if you are out there.
David,
I agree with you that it isnt normal dispensational. Iwouldn’t classify myself as dispensational.
And I too would like to hear from someone from that line of thinking.