Think Wink.

Now, there is a question I want to ask. We live in a time where in 1948, a tiny nation called Israel was reformed. Jews from around the world returned to the land given to them in Scripture. To do that, the people of Palestine, the Palestinians/PLO/PLA were displaced and without a home. Many Christians see this Jewish state a fulfillment of prophecy. It is one step closer to the millennial kingdom. Some people don’t see a connection at all. If we are going to understand this kingdom and its nature, we need to answer the Jewish question. Is this a Jewish kingdom? Although my two previous posts say that the millennial is a spiritual kingdom in this present age and eliminate much of what it would take for the kingdom to be Jewish, I would like to come to this point anyways for argument’s sake.

George Eldon Ladd argues in favor of the millennium being a Jewish kingdom. He argues thus from Romans 11:26,

Paul has used the figure of the olive tree–the people of God. Israel is the natural branches; Gentiles are the wild branches. Contrary to nature, wild branches have been grafted with the tree, while natural branches, Israel, have been broken off because of unbelief (Romans 11:19). However, the natural branches will be regrafted into their own tree if they do not continue in unbelief (Romans 11:23). If wild branches have been grafted into the tree contrary to nature, “ how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree (Romans 11:24). This is the context of Paul’s statement, that a hardening has come upon (a large) part of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles comes in. “And so [that is, in this way, after a period of hardening] all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26) (Millennium, 27-28).

Postmillennialist Loraine Boettner disagrees. He argues thus, “Paul’s teaching in other places does not support that view…His teaching is that in matters of faith and spiritual relationship take precedence over the physical and that true believers are sons of Abraham” (Millennium, 51) Indeed Romans 2:28-29 supports this view, “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.” Boettner appeals to Galatians 3:7, 28-29; 6:16; Ephesians 2:14-16 where Paul teaches that only by faith is a person a child of Abraham and part of the Israel of God, one people not taking into account gender, race, or any other external factor. In Ephesians 2:14-16 Jesus has broken down the dividing wall of the Law to unite the Jews and Gentiles into one people.

To Ladd’s interpretation of Romans, I must ask to turn back to the beginning of the chapter. Paul gives the following argument, ” 1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? 3 ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’ 4 But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace. 7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened” (Romans 11:1-7).

Follow Paul in his argument here. The question is, “Has God rejected his people?” Paul is referring to the Jewish people, ethnically speaking. Why did he ask this question? What would prompt that question? It is the statement made in Romans 9:3-5 that the Jews were cut off from Christ and accursed to hell. They had all of God’s heavenly benefits such as the Law and the Temple and even the Messiah and they are still bound for hell.

Paul’s answer is a resounding “By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.” (v. 1). If God had abandoned the Jews then Paul would not have been saved, and thus writing this letter to the Romans. Indeed, none of the Twelve Apostles would have been saved as they were all Jews. God has not rejected the Israelites, ethnically speaking. Paul says in v. 2, “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”

The evidence that Paul uses to support his position that the Jews have not been abandoned to hell is that of Elijah. “Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’” Here Paul quotes 1 Kings 19:10, 14. Elijah has just slain the prophets of Bail at the summit of Mt. Carmel in the test of fire between Yahweh and Baal. Elijah was alone because all of the Israelites had turned to Baal and all the rest of the prophets had been hunted down by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.

Paul quotes God’s reply from 1 Kings 19:18 in v. 4 as, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” In Elijah’s day, God kept by his sovereign and powerful electing grace a remnant of seven thousand Israelites that were faithful to Yahweh alone. Paul applies that to his own day, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (11:5). God’s election extends from within the Jewish nation and within the Gentile world. A remnant of Jews will be saved, but Paul is not saying that every ethnic Jew will be saved.

Paul says in v. 7, “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” The nation itself failed to obtain what it was seeking. Israel was looking for the salvation that came from the Messiah. But they, nationally speaking, missed the Christ. They rejected Jesus. They failed to see and obtain Jesus. Paul says that the elect got it, those God had by his electing grace preserved for himself, but the rest were hardened, those whom God passed his grace over.

Ladd fails to consider that Paul had been arguing this point from chapter 9 of Romans. Only those chosen by God obtain the salvation. Only those whom God’s foreknowing favor has been set upon from the beginning of the world get the salvation.

Continuing in Paul’s argument from the olive tree and the natural and wild branches. Romans 11:14 sheds some interesting light. Paul argues in v. 11-15, “11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean! 13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. 15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”

Paul says in v. 11 that did the Jews “stumble in order that they might fall?” Paul says no in his usual emphatic manner. Instead the Jews stumbled so that salvation might come to the Gentiles. Salvation came to the Gentiles with but one purpose “to make Israel jealous” (v. 11). Now if their failures and rejections brought salvation to the entire world that had been abandoned, what will their salvation mean? It will be a blessedness of indescribable proportions! Paul exults in his Gentile ministry in v. 13 because of that very fact. Now read v. 14, “in order to somehow make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.” Paul wants the Jews to see Jesus, their Messiah, being preached to the Gentiles and to desire it. In that way only some will be saved. Here Paul does not say that all of ethnic Israel will be saved but only some. We come back to that idea of the elect obtaining it, salvation by grace, and rest were hardened.

The illustration of the olive tree in v. 17-24 is to humble the Gentiles reading the letter. If God can remove branches and graft wild ones in their place, then the grafted branches need not be prideful and arrogant. Romans 11:18 says, “it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.” Paul is not so much arguing for the salvation of the nation of Israel, but rather those whom he has chosen. Not every branch will be grafted back into the tree!

Thus when Paul says in Romans 11:26, “all Israel will be saved,” he means all of Israel that is elected/chosen by God through grace to salvation in Christ from before the foundations of the world. The “all” of 11:26 is to be taken in light of 11:14. But how this will happen could be in many different possible scenarios. One such is that through all of the years of the church age all of the Jews who are to be saved will be saved. Another, that seems more fitting to the text, is that after the times of the Gentiles and their salvation, the Jews will be saved. Which one I cannot say, but I am leaning more towards the latter based on reading Romans 11:38-32.

Indeed listen to the words of our Lord in Matthew 21:43, “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” Here Jesus is giving the parable of the vineyard. Matthew 21:23 identifies Jesus’ audience, “And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him.” Thus the “you” in v. 43 must be understood as the elders and chief priests of the nation of Israel. They are the ruling elite of the nation, those who held the sway of the people. They governed the people, despite the kings and Roman officials. Jesus says that the kingdom of God will be taken from them and given to another people that produce its fruits. Here Jesus has rejected the nation of Israel.

Or look to the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16, “14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, 15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind 16 by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God’s wrath has come upon them at last!”

Here Paul is commending the church in Thessolonika for their endurance through persecution. Paul likens the persecution to that of what happened at the hands of the Jews in Jerusalem suffered by the prophets of old, the Lord and by his Twelve. It was the Jews who opposed Paul’s message to the Gentiles. It was the Jews who opposed the world from experiencing God’s salvation. Paul says these actions of the Jews were “so as to always to fill up the measure of their sins. But God’s wrath has come upon them at last!” The “them” Paul is speaking here at the end of v. 16 refers back to the Jews. Paul has declared that God’s wrath has come upon them for their sins against God and his people, and the Christ. God did pour out his wrath upon them in AD 66-73 when the Jewish nation was removed from the planet until 1948. In AD 70 the Temple, the very representation of 1st century Judaism, was destroyed and brought a complete end to the ancient Jewish religion as outlined in the Old Covenant. God has rejected the Jewish nation. The nation of Jews today is a largely secular state that has no intention of being a nation of Yahweh as was originally spelled out in the Pentateuch.

Therefore Ladd and his assumption that God still has a redemptive purpose for Israel outside of the elect Jews coming to Christ is utterly false. Loraine Boettner sums this up like this,

The assumption of modern premillennialism that God still has a special purpose to be served by the Jewish people as a nation proceeds on the false notion that they are in themselves a people divinely favored above all others in the world, that they are to be blessed for their own sake because they are Jews…Originally there was a purpose for the selection of a particular people…It was necessary that a particular group of people, or nation, be set aside to prepare the way for and to bring the Messiah into the world. Originally that choice was confined to one individual, Abraham, whose seed was to develop into that nation. Until the work of redemption was accomplished that nation would be kept separate from all the other nations which were completely given over to heathenism…Since the Messiah has come and fully performed his work of atonement, this special role assigned to the Jews has been fulfilled. Hence there remains no reason whatever for reviving or re-establishing any one or more of the elements of the old system…The destruction of the temple which would be the final sign that the Mosaic system, which centered in the temple, was finished, abolished, ended forever. What a stumbling block the continued existence of the old Jewish temple would have been to the early church if it had been permitted to stand, pulling the people back to Judaism (Millennium, 52-54)!

Therefore I conclude that the millennium is not some Jewish kingdom that Jesus reigns over for only one thousand years from the current city of Jerusalem. The Bible gives something more than just this. The Millennium has a different purpose than to revive the old Jewish covenant made with Moses. Moses’ time has come to an end, it is now the time of the Christ. This is why one must make the distinctions between that of the church in the New Covenant and the nation of Israel in the Old Covenant.

Bibliography
Clouse, Robert, ed. The Meaning of The Millennium: Four Views. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1977).

My Millennial Views Pt. 1

Jesus and AD 70

My Millennial Views Pt. 6: Amil. or Postmil.?