Zechariah 14 - An Introduction

What began as a short blog article, snow-balled into a lengthy commentary of book form of some 230 pages long, including the endnotes. As such, it was just not feasible for me to enter all of that information here in this blog. And, believe me, I tried. Even if I were to have put parts of it here in this blog, it would have disrupted the continuity of thought somewhere else; for I often say something in one place that is to be elaborated upon in another place, and I was not able to always remember where I had elaborated upon such things, and so I was concerned about having said something at a previous point and then not explaining it later due to having inadvertently cutting it out. So what I have done here is to give you parts of the introduction of the book that lead into this topic that is about to take place in the 10 chapters that follow. Ten parts in a blog, plus the introduction, was just untenable. So I have decided just to introduce you to what I have to say on this important subject regarding the Church and New Jerusalem, the true and spiritual Israel of God, and not with regards to natural Israel according to the flesh at all.

As you can tell, I wrote this commentary from a spiritual perspective about the Church, and not from a literal or natural perspective about natural Israel. And in almost the fifty years that I have been a Christian, I have never come across a commentary on Zechariah 14 as extensive as you will find in these pages written from a spiritual perspective. I don’t even know of any written from a literal perspective that are very comprehensive, and even all of those which are written are based upon conjecture and speculation, rather than using the Scriptures as their sole interpreter and guide. Nothing of what I have to say concerning Zechariah 14 is based upon speculation or conjecture, which troubles me to no end with regards those who either understand a lot of this figuratively or literally.

Anything said about Zechariah 14, whether understood figuratively or literally, has to be supported by the Scriptures. We cannot just throw our thoughts or ideas out there in the hopes that they will stick. We are all much smarter than that. So, you will find no private or subjective interpretations here. For example, God has more to say about our flesh consuming away while we are still standing on our feet, our eyes consuming away in our sockets, and our tongues consuming away in our mouths than those who try to speculate what this is all about. As I said, God’s own word actually tells us what all of this means, if we will only let His word be the last word on all of this. The problem for many is that they haven’t studied God’s word enough to know any better, so they begin to imagine or speculate what this is all about and how it will all work out, rather than actually knowing what this is all about. And both Jews and Christians alike have put a bent on all of these passages in Zechariah 14, and even on the words of many of the prophets, that do not bear up under a closer scrutiny of the Scriptures. To the law and to the testimony we must go, and not to the imaginations of our own hearts and minds. Everything needs to be grounded in God’s Word, the Holy Bible.

The Church direly needs such a commentary as this today. Many of the older commentators have attempted to explain the spiritual significance of Zechariah 14 concerning the Church, only to fall short somewhere along the line in their explanations; or to just throw up their hands like Martin Luther and just leave it unexplained altogether. But I believe a fresh light has dawned, and knowledge is being increased.

Clearly, what we have here in Zechariah 14 is a parable from the Lord. In other words, the Lord is telling us a story of what will happen in the latter days (our days from Christ’s first coming to His second coming) with literal events, concepts and ideas taken from Israel’s history that, as we should all well know by now, indirectly depict spiritual truths and ideas that were to come.

Now since Christ is the spiritual fulfillment of all of the feasts of Israel (including the Feast of Tabernacles), and the Holy Spirit is the actual Living Water that flows out of God’s spiritual temple and heavenly city (or the Church) called New Jerusalem from above (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 11:10; 12:22; Rev. 21:2, 9; 22:1-2, 17), then it stands to reason that we must seek a non-literal explanation of these events. To interpret these things literally is an exercise in futility and absurdity that is not in accordance with the apostles’ doctrine, giving heed to Jewish myths and fables of a Messiah of one’s own making whom the Jews both then and now believe was to set up a physical earthly kingdom. But Jesus argued otherwise (Lke. 17:20-23; Jhn. 18:36). And He told Pilate that if His kingdom was indeed to be on the earth, like all of the other kingdoms of this world, then “My servants [His disciples] would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews” (ibid). This alone proves to us that what Christ came to offer was NOT a natural kingdom on the earth for those Jews, but a spiritual kingdom from heaven for all of His faithful followers; and even a kingdom that Christ said was against these Jews, mind you, not for them! It is a kingdom that is to be seen and witnessed from “within” according to Luke 17:21[1], and not a kingdom to be viewed from without with physical observation. Unless a man “is born-again,” Christ claimed, “he cannot SEE the kingdom of God” (Jhn. 3:3). This alone tells the story that Christ’s kingdom isn’t to be observed with the natural eye, per se, but with spiritual eyes. Even the entrance into this kingdom Jesus says in Jhn. 3:5 isn’t a physical entrance through physical gates into a physical city in a physical land, but a spiritual entrance into His holy city and land comprised of the Church, who are now referred to as “Jerusalem from above” (Gal. 4:26; Rev. 21:2) or a city of people who are “born from above” (lit. trans. of Jhn. 3:3, 7). And he who enters through this “gate” (or door) into this city “will go in and out and find pasture” (cf. Jhn. 10:9). Again, are we talking about a literal gate and pasture lands for literal animals to graze on? Of course not. Even “gates” and “lands” for “animals” to pasture or graze on take on a whole new meaning in Christ’s spiritual kingdom.

No doubt Jesus profusely used parables depicting literal events or ideas to convey spiritual truths or ideas. And the truths to be conveyed by these literal events used for illustrative purposes was not in the literalness of the objects or events themselves, but in the spiritual truth that was to be conveyed behind them. Underneath them all lay a hidden meaning or truth, and thus the reason why Christ referred to them as “mysteries,” not so apparent to the natural thinking and reasoning mind.

Jesus said that He spoke to the people in parables so that in seeing they would NOT see, and in hearing they would NOT hear; and that only those to whom He revealed the meaning to would understand them (cf. Mat. 13:10-17). Jesus also said if one cannot understand one parable, then how are they to understand all the rest? The key to understanding any parable in the Bible is found “hidden” in the revelation of God’s words in the Bible. His word alone, as illuminated to us by the Holy Spirit, is the sole interpreter and guide to our understanding any of this. His Scriptures will interpret His Scriptures for us, if we will only let them do so. Anyone reading Zechariah, and a lot of what the prophets have to say, with natural thinking and reasoning minds, will inevitably come to no other conclusion than what seems to be so “literally” or “naturally” apparent to them. As such, anyone with no insight from the Lord can pretty much say what many supposed bible scholars and teachers are saying today and come to the same conclusions that they do. Just read Zechariah 14 literally, and there is no need for any revelation or spiritual insight from the Lord. For these people it is all self-explanatory, with a big emphasis on the word “self.” One person said on the internet that God’s Word is “written in simple language that any ten year old can understand.” Really? Most of us are much older than that, and even we are still having trouble trying to decipher the Lord’s parables and dark sayings, even when attempted to be understood literally. I guess we will all just need to go to some “ten year old” and ask them. And if we did, we would probably be surprised at what they would tell us. Another person on the internet said that as long as we as believers have physical eyes to read and physical ears to hear we can all “plainly” understand what the Lord is saying. But just tell that to Christ’s disciples before receiving the Spirit. And if anything was understood by them before receiving the Spirit at Pentecost, it was only because flesh and blood had not revealed it to them, but Christ’s Father in heaven (cp. Mat. 16:17). What is the purpose of Christ sending to us the Holy Spirit to teach us all things, if it is pretty much all just “self-evident” to us? The problem isn’t with the Holy Spirit; the problem is with us in getting our natural thinking and reasoning minds out of the way. And until we do that, we will only remain as a stick in the mud going nowhere fast. A. W. Tozer has rightly said somewhere: “The bible is a supernatural book, and can be understood only by supernatural aid.” Who, being a true believer, wouldn’t agree with that? The Jews in Christ’s day had natural ears to hear and natural eyes to read, and look where that got them! They were as blind as bats, and they didn’t even know it! And the same still holds true today. The Lord has said through Isaiah to those who attempt to understand what the Lord is talking about that "the entire vision will be to you like the words of a sealed book," and that both the "literate" and "illiterate" alike will not be able to comprehend what the Lord is saying (29:11-12, NASB); but that one day the blind will see and the deaf will hear (v. 18) and that those who "err in mind will know the truth, and those who criticize will accept instruction" (v. 24). Clearly, "supernatural aid," as Tozer noted, is the reason for this insight.

So what I am about to tell you in my book is not my interpretation, but the Lord’s. And I am sure that there are others out there who also have seen some of the same things that I am about to declare to you, but they have either been silent about it, or their writings have disappeared into oblivion. Additionally, a lot of what I will be talking about is not necessarily new; for many in the past (especially a lot of the older commentators) have seen some of the very same things as well. Albert Barnes, Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, John Gill, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Keil and Delitzsch, and Adam Clarke are just a few of these commentators. And so if I seem to see something more than others, it is partly due to the fact that I have sat on the shoulders of these former giants of the faith. So, it is my sincere hope and desire that I can now add to what many of my predecessors have had only dim glimpses of, and thus give a better sense and meaning to some very difficult passages of Scripture. A “sense” in which many have only mistakenly comprehended using their natural intellect of what they believe is to literally occur in the future, rather than from an enlightened intellect that only comes from God to truly understand what He is saying to us by using such imagery and wording. God means what He says and says what He means, if we will only allow Him to give us the true meaning of what He is actually saying to us. As Adam Clarke succinctly notes with regards to all of this in Zechariah 14: “The great increase and prosperity of the Christian Church, the New Jerusalem, is then described in terms accommodated to Jewish ideas.” That is so true! And the reason for this is that the Church of Christ is essentially still “Jewish” and still “Israel” in nature, not in a “natural” sense but in a “spiritual” sense. It is the Israel of God according to the Spirit no less that God is referring to in Zechariah and throughout the prophets that He saves, not Israel according to the flesh that He judges. That this is seen demonstrated by Christ and His apostles throughout the New Testament, there can be no denying. That which was first was not spiritual, but that which was natural; and after that, that which is spiritual. If we do not catch on to the import of this concept or idea, all of this will only continue to remain a mystery―an enigma―forcing us to come up with a literal interpretation of these things for the future rather than a spiritual one, not allowing our “senses” to be exercised to start thinking otherwise.

The city of Jerusalem, the towers, the gates, the walls, Mount Zion, Israel, the twelve tribes, the temple (and even the stones of the temple), the tabernacle of Moses, the sacrifices, the festivals, the Sabbath, the Levitical priesthood, circumcision or what have you―all take on a whole new meaning now that the spiritual reality of these things in Christ has come. Everything has become spiritualized. And I mean, EVERYTHING! And this even extends to all plant life, animal life, insects, rivers, streams, the sun, moon and all the stars―to name just a few. Everything is used to symbolically portray something else besides what is often thought by many to be only literally interpreted or understood. So it stands to reason, as Adam Clarke had stated earlier, that what God was going to do with the Jews would be “described in terms accommodated to Jewish ideas,” because, as I said, the Church is still in a sense “Jewish” (for we are the true Jews whose circumcision is of the heart, as opposed to Jews only according to the flesh that Christ said were not “Jews” at all in Rev. 2:9; 3:9). All of us Gentiles have been grafted into the natural Jewish olive tree (of whom some of these Jews have themselves become spiritual Jews) and we have taken on the likeness of them, and not they of us (cp. Rom. 11:24). We “surname” ourselves with their blessed name, according to Isaiah 44:5 (KJV), by the fact that we are no longer foreigners but FELLOW-CITIZENS with Israel (cf. Eph. 2:12, 19). The Church has never replaced the true and spiritual Israel of God. The Israel according to the Spirit has become inclusive of God’s remnant out of the Gentiles, not to the exclusion of God’s remnant out of the Jews. “What, then, does this mean?” says Paul, “It means that Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking, but the selected group [or, literally, ‘the elect’] obtained it while the rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7, ISV). There’s your answer to all of this from the apostle Paul. A "selected group" or remnant from the Jews have obtained the status of becoming God’s “children of promise,” as laid out for us in Rom. 9:8; while the rest are left to themselves only to remain hardened. And the same is now true for all Gentiles as well: A "selected group" or remnant from them have also obtained the same status of becoming God’s “children of promise,” just like Isaac according to Gal. 4:28, while the rest are likewise left to themselves only to remain hardened. There is no respect of persons here of Gentiles over Jews, or Jews over Gentiles. And except for all who are chosen to be God's elect "children of promise," there is no inclusiveness of some to the exclusion of others. All of God’s chosen people who are His "children of promise" (whether Jews or Gentiles) are the spiritual Israel of God according to Gal. 6:16.[2]

I know that many reading this commentary on Zechariah 14 (and even this introduction) are going to balk and laugh at what I say. But it was no different in Christ’s day. When He spoke about spiritual ideas and concepts using literal things to convey those ideas with, many just scratched their heads in disbelief. The literalists, without the mind of Christ on the matter, will always inevitably see things from a literal perspective and give false prophetical utterances and teachings about the future that will just not transpire. And just as there were many false prophets and teachers in Israel’s midst in the past, so too are there many false prophets and teachers in the midst of the Church today. “From your own selves,” said Paul, “shall men arise and distort the truth...So be on your guard!” (Acts 20:30). Be on your guard against those who would rise up in our midst turning their ears from the truth and giving heed to Jewish myths and fables (cf. 1Tim. 1:4; 2Tim. 4:4; Tit. 1:14), for “these have not the Spirit of Christ,” says Paul. Professing themselves to be wise (or scholars), they have become fools following after the carnal desires and things of men rather than after the things of God. Peter likewise had declared that just as there were false prophets in Israel’s days in the past, there would also be false teachers in our midst as well who will be, “secretly introducing destructive heresies” (2Pet. 2:1). Many church leaders will not openly proclaim what they believe in their congregation’s statement of faith about all of this, because they know that if they really stated what they believed, then people would not follow them and their pernicious ways. So they “secretly” introduce them later, along with some actual truth peppered in with their teachings along the way, just like all of the false cults and religions of the day. Sadly, many “will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute” (v. 2). Such is exactly the case with regards to a literal interpretation of Zechariah 14 and with many other sayings of the prophets. Like Israel’s false prophets of old, similar men and women in our day “have made men to hope that the word would be confirmed” (Ezk. 13:6, ASV), when in fact it won’t be! Their words will fall to the ground. For like Paul, Christ is not going to “rebuild what I [and no less Christ] have destroyed” (Gal. 2:18).

The following translation that I will be using for Zechariah 14 is taken from the American Standard Version (ASV), with some slight alterations to be noted along the way as we move along. The Lord through His prophet Zechariah declares:

Behold, a day of Jehovah cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall Jehovah go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east; and the mount of Olives shall be cleft in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee by the valley of My mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azel; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah; and Jehovah my God shall come, and all the holy ones with thee. And it shall come to pass in that day, that there shall not be light; the bright ones shall withdraw themselves: but it shall be one day which is known unto Jehovah; not day, and not night; but it shall come to pass, that at evening time there shall be light. And it shall come to pass in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. And Jehovah shall be King over all the earth: in that day shall Jehovah be one, and His name one. All the land shall be made like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and she shall be lifted up, and shall dwell in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananel unto the king's wine-presses. And men shall dwell therein, and there shall be no more curse; but Jerusalem shall dwell safely. And this shall be the plague wherewith Jehovah will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from Jehovah shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor. And Judah also shall fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the nations round about shall be gathered together, gold, and silver, and apparel, in great abundance. And so shall be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the ass, and of all the beasts that shall be in those camps, as that plague. And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, Jehovah of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso of all the families of the earth goeth not up unto Jerusalem to worship the King, Jehovah of hosts, upon them there shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, neither shall it be upon them; there shall be the plague wherewith Jehovah will smite the nations that go not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all the nations that go not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLY UNTO JEHOVAH; and the pots in Jehovah’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be HOLY UNTO JEHOVAH of hosts; and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and boil therein: and in that day there shall be no more a Canaanite in the house of Jehovah of hosts.

The chapter outline of Zechariah 14 will be as follows:

Chapter 1: The Great Assault on God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 2: The Deliverance of God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 3: The Means of Deliverance of God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 4: The Absence of Darkness Among God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 5: The Living Water of God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 6: The King of God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 7: The City of God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 8: The Judgment of All Who Attack God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 9: The Judgment Upon All Who Don't Join God’s Chosen People.

Chapter 10: The Holiness of God’s Chosen People.

In short, it is evident that no events have literally occurred in history to which this prophecy is applicable, and this includes the first two verses which many have said either refers to the time of the Maccabees in 167 BC, or of the Romans in 70 AD. And so it seems most natural to interpret the first verses of this chapter in the same way that we would interpret the rest. As one writer has well said, “It seems arbitrary to espouse a literal interpretation at first, but then to switch to a symbolical one later.”[3] With that said, in context, the Jerusalem described in the first portion of these verses is actually the New Jerusalem described for us also later in this very same chapter in verse 8: “in that day living waters shall go out from Jerusalem.” This isn’t literal waters bubbling up from within the literal city of Jerusalem in the future. This city is what St. John referred to in Revelation as the bride or church of Christ (Rev. 21:2, 9) through whom this water of life flows (Jhn. 7:38; Rev. 22:1-2, 17). Ezekiel likewise pictured this water that gives life as gushing forth from out of the threshold of a future temple of God, unlike any other temple in previous times; and a temple in which the apostles and Christ have now said we are. Where was such a “spiritual” temple and city predicted in the Old Testament? Why, in these natural types and shadows, of course. Where else do you think Christ and His apostles garnered such spiritual ideas from? From the Law and the Prophets! Hidden in ages past, but now revealed to the apostles, and to us, by God’s Holy Spirit.

Another important “key” to understanding the meaning behind these words that God is using here in Zechariah 14, is in the fact that the Feast of Tabernacles is said to be observed as a prerequisite for all who would be allowed to enter into God’s holy City. Again, this cannot be taken literally without it contradicting the teachings of Christ and His apostles of the passing away and the temporary nature of those natural and carnal ordinances and ceremonies. When Paul said, “Let no man judge you with regards to a festival, a new moon, or Sabbath days” (Col. 2:16), he and the apostles were not just saying this with regards to one’s justification for salvation, but even after we are saved as well. This is clearly made evident in the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 with regards to keeping circumcision. If all they meant was that someone did not have to be circumcised in order to be saved, then they would have mandated that circumcision should have still been observed afterward. What was physically required under the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, is no longer required of us today; nor will it ever be hereafter. This is the tragic mistake of all dispensationalists and false teachers in the Church today. They, in agreement with all natural thinking Jews, still believe that these things will continue to be in force for all natural Jews (and even for Gentiles) in a future earthly millennium, while the Church will be in her own city in heaven and not required to do any of these things at all. This is just simply remarkable to me. We have brethren in our midst that are acting and believing more like natural Jews without the Spirit, than the new creatures in Christ that they are suppose to be. Paul and all the apostles encountered the very same dilemma; only in their case it was coming more from “Jewish” brethren in the faith that were still trying to hold out that all of those carnal ordinances and ceremonies were still to be observed by believers under the New Covenant. Today we have supposed believers who are supporting, and teaching, the same Jewish philosophies, myths and ideologies; but now only reserved for the Jews in the future, apart from what the Church has to observe. What we have here is no different than what Paul encountered with Peter when he as a Jew separated himself from the Gentiles while eating. It’s hypocrisy. What is hypocrisy? It is telling others what they have to do, while you yourself do not do it. You do not practice what you are telling others that they must do. Paul couldn’t be anymore clearer to us here. Very bluntly he tells us: “If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker” (Gal. 2:18). In other words, Paul is saying that if we no longer do what was previously mandated for us to do, but then begin to do it again (and even tell others that they are to do it as well), then we are saying by our actions (and even by our words) that those old commandments and ordinances still stand (whether now or later), and we are thus affirming to ourselves and to others that we are lawbreakers for our non-compliance. Do you see what these so-called “brethren” in our midst today are holding out to all natural Jews in the future? They are “rebuilding” and holding out for them in the future what Christ and the apostles have “destroyed.” All of those former shadows were exactly that―a dim shadow of the actual reality and body of Christ. God’s Word Translation couldn’t say what Paul is telling us in Col. 3:17 any better: “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the body [that casts the shadow] belongs to Christ.” (words in brackets theirs). Do you see that? The types and shadows were a very vague and dim image (even a “mystery”) of the true and very real image of the spiritual realities found in Christ. The shadows have passed, and we now stand directly in the face of the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. We no longer see and observe shadows, we now see and observe Christ! Do we keep the Feast of Tabernacles in Christ? Sure we do! We are tabernacled with Him as we sojourn here on earth on our way to our heavenly promised land. Do we observe the Feast of Passover? Sure we do, Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us (1Cor. 5:7); and we are told by Paul to “keep the festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (v. 8). We are to “keep the Feast of Tabernacles” no differently in Zechariah than how we are told by Paul to “keep the feast” of Passover. How so? Spiritually speaking of course―and with spiritual sacrifices at that! (Rom. 12:1). No longer with carnal animal sacrifices, but now with the spiritual sacrifices of our own bodies of which those carnal ceremonies were but a type. All of these things that we are to now observe, we are to observe them spiritually and not literally. Again, are we observing the Feast of Pentecost? You bet we are, by the fact that everyone of us are Christ’s firstfruits as depicted in that ceremony and have been identified as such by receiving His blessing of being baptized, anointed and sealed by His Holy Spirit where He now dwells within the tabernacle of our bodies (cp. 2Ths. 2:13).

There are no more further covenants with the Jews that will change all of this back to the way it was before, with some minor alterations. The New Covenant is the last and final covenant which speaks of “better” things than all of those worldly carnal things could ever hope to do. We are not taking one step forward and then two steps backwards. The days of the observance of all of those old types and shadows are over with brethren. A new day has dawned. The darkness is past. And we do well to take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arises in our hearts.

For those who say that the Jews will again in the future, under Christ’s rule and reign, offer literal bloody animal sacrifices that Ezekiel also says are to make “atonement” for sins (43:20, 26; 45:15, 17 20), are grossly mistaken. And for them to say that they will not expiate sin, but just be offered as a “memorial” is also a misnomer; for now it is they who are the ones who are not taking Ezekiel’s words literally, because now it doesn’t fit within the confines of their strict literal hermeneutic that these animals will literally atone for sin, since Christ has already done that for us once and for all. But either these sacrifices literally make “atonement” for sin, or they are a story (or vision) given by God to Ezekiel to explain to us in typological form what God in Christ was going to do for His people. Clearly, the latter is to be preferred. Do we understand all of the details of Ezekiel’s vision? Of course not. But neither do we understand all of the details of the Tabernacle of Moses or of the Temple of Solomon. But no one would argue that all of those things do not point somehow or in someway to Christ and His Church. And since Christ as the reality of all of those former shadows has appeared on the scene, then it stands to reason that anything that seems to allude to us that they will once again be literally observed in the future―just because we cannot contemplate such ethereal language in our own minds as being anything but literally understood―must not be understood in that manner. Like I said earlier, Christ often spoke in terms that were interpreted literally by others, but were not to be understood as referring to literal things at all. This wasn’t something new that just came in with Christ; God had been doing this all along in the Old Testament as well. Jesus (or God) was just following His own protocol. We of necessity must look for the essential meaning of the Old Testament symbols in the New Testament truths to which all of those symbols so mysteriously pointed to―every single one of them, right down to the smallest of details! And if we do this with Zechariah 14, then all of us in the Church will become the better for it. What is the children’s bread has been cast to the dogs (Isa. 56:10-11; Php. 3:2; Rev. 22:15). What is a rich and spiritual nourishment for the spiritual Israel of God, has been handed over to those to whom it should not be handed over to.

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Footnotes:

[1] Some believe that when Jesus said “within” that He was referring to Himself within their midst. But if that were so, it would go against what He had just said about the kingdom of God coming NOT with any physical observation. Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom that was NOT to be witnessed with physical eyes, but with spiritual eyes.
[2] For more on this, see my article: Jesus and His People are Israel.
[3] Zechariah 14: A Dialogue With the History of Interpretation by Al Wolters (2002). Accessed online 7/2/18 at: http://www.midamerica.edu/uploads/files/pdf/journal/13-wolters.pdf.

Is Covenant Theology Replacement Theology? (1 of 3)

It makes no sense theologically whatsoever to separate the Church from Israel, or Israel from the Church. Thus, this article will conclude the following:

1) That there is only one Body of Christ (or of the Messiah), and not bodies (plural) of Christ.

2) The teaching of dispensationalism, as originally formulated by Edward Irving in England, promulgated by J. N. Darby, incorporated into C. I. Scofield’s reference bible and carried forward by his disciple, Lewis Sperry Chafer, who is the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, and even propagated by the likes of Dwight Pentecost, John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, Thomas Ice, Mark Hitchcock, Charles Ryrie, many Messianic Jews, Chuck Smith of the Calvary Chapel organization and even by John MacArthur, is to be realized as a gross error (and even heretical[1]) when compared to the Apostles’ doctrine. It is no secret that dispensationalism’s roots are associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement in Great Britain through the teachings of John Nelson Darby (1800-1882 A.D.), and who is also considered by many to be the father of modern dispensationalism and even futurism (the belief that Revelation is speaking about all things future with no past fulfillments of prophecy at all, except for only what is said about the seven churches).

Let me just say right from the start here that this article is not intended to be a complete analysis on all the errors of dispensationalism (for they are “legion”), but the goal here is to bring to light the resulting Scriptural inconsistencies that are generated by this faulty man-made theological framework, and to remove dispensationalism’s supporting pillars by using the sharpness of the truths of God’s own Word.

So, what is dispensationalism? Dispensationalism is the teaching that Israel and the Church are separate entities. Dispensationalism is a theological system that teaches that biblical history is best understood in light of a successive number of wholly distinct and separate administrations of God’s dealings with mankind which it calls: dispensations. It maintains fundamental distinctions and differences between God’s plan for natural Israel and the Jews, and His plan for the New Testament Church. And it also emphasizes a prophecy of an end-times pre-tribulational rapture of the Church, just prior to Christ’s Second Coming, so that God can do what He wants to do with natural Israel later apart from the Church, and even give everyone a second chance to repent who didn’t do so prior to the rapture (absolutely the opposite of what God did in the historical examples of Noah and Lot).

Lewis Sperry Chafer in his book, Dispensationalism, writes: “The essential elements of a grace administration…are not found in the [literal] kingdom administration,” and that this “kingdom administration” with Israel in the future, “is declared to be the fulfilling of the ‘law and prophets’ (Mat. 5:17, 18; 7:12), and is seen to be an extension of the Mosaic Law into realms of meritorious [or works] obligation.”[2]

Again, Chafer writes:

Judaism has its eschatology reaching on into eternity with covenants and promises which are everlasting. On the other hand, Christianity has its eschatology which is different at every point…. In the case of Israel, the thing to be desired was a long life “upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,” whereas the Christian’s hope is the prospect of the imminent coming of Christ to take away His Church from the earth.[3]

W. R. Newell, a dispensationalist, articulates this position very well in his commentary on Romans:

When we reflect that, after He has “caught up in the clouds” His Church saints, our Lord is coming back to this earthly people Israel and will establish them in their land, with a glorious millennial temple and order of worship, to which the Gentile nations must and will submit: then we see that the present time is altogether anomalous! It is a parenthesis, in which God is to make a “visit” to the Gentiles, to “take out of them a people for His name”; after which, James tells us, our Lord “will Himself return, and build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen” (Acts 15:16), on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, where David lived.[4]

We will address some of these topics later. But in short, the relationship between Old Testament Israel and New Testament Israel (the Church) is not one of a strong dichotomy, but one of an organic unity with a developed continuity—and that by God! If the teachings of Christ and His apostles present any group as being in a dichotomous relationship with the Israel of God not according to the flesh, it is not with those who make up the New Testament Church, but with natural Israel, Judaism, and New Testament Pharisaicalism. The New Testament age differs from the Old Testament age only in its non-bloody sacrifices and in its greater spiritual fulfillments. But the saints of both ages have always constituted the one true people of God (or the Israel of God) for which natural Israel was only but a type of God setting apart a nation of people for Himself.

Again, Chafer, in agreement with most dispensationalist’s, disagrees. To him the dispensation of law and grace “sets up its ground of relationship between God and man—the Jew by physical birth, the Christian by spiritual birth; each provides its instructions on the life of its adherents—the law for Israel, the teachings of grace for the Church; each has its sphere of existence—Israel in the earth for all ages to come, the Church in heaven. To the end that the Church might be called out from both Jews and Gentiles, a peculiar, unrelated age has been thrust into the one consistent ongoing of the divine program for the earth. It is this sense that Judaism, which is the abiding portion of the nation of Israel, has ceased. With the completion and departure of the Church from earth, Judaism will be again the embodiment of all the divine purpose in the world.”[5]

And it is again that Chafer says with regards to these dispensations of law and grace for entirely two different groups of people, that God’s plans for natural Israel “become such by natural birth while Christians become such by a spiritual birth; that Israelites were appointed to live and serve under a meritorious legal system, while Christians live and serve under a gracious system; that Israelites, as a nation, have their citizenship now and their future destiny centered only in the earth, reaching on to the new earth which is yet to be, while Christians have their citizenship and future destiny centered only in heaven, extending on into the new heavens that are yet to be.”[6]

Clearly, a consistent dispensationalist is a theologian in the grip of an idea: an “idea” that is absolutely unwarranted, unbiblical and not from above. In short, like I said, it is absolutely heretical! And after having just read all of that, who wouldn't agree? Let's move on.

Now according to many dispensationalists there are seven dispensations (though some would claim less, some more).

Number one: there is the dispensation of innocence prior to Adam’s fall. Number two: there is the dispensation of conscience between Adam and Noah. Number three: of human government from Noah to Abraham. Number four: of the patriarchal rule of promise from Abraham to Moses. Number five: of the Mosaic Law from Moses to Christ. Number six: of grace, the current Church age. And number seven: of a 1,000 year literal earthly kingdom rule and reign of Christ with all natural Jews who come out of the seven-year tribulation that is all yet future, but soon will occur in the not-to-distant future. In fact, in 1978, Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, in a not-so-well-known publicized book of his, stated: “If I understand Scripture correctly, Jesus taught us that the generation which sees ‘the budding of the fig tree,’ the birth of the nation of Israel, will be the generation that sees the Lord’s return. I believe that the generation of 1948 is the last generation”[7] ; and that, “since a generation of judgment is forty years and the Tribulation period lasts seven years, I believe the Lord could come back for His Church any time before the Tribulation starts, which would mean anytime before 1981 (1948 + 40 - 7 = 1981).”[8]

There are many things made in Chuck Smith’s statements above that are very troubling. But his statement “I believe that the generation of 1948 is the last generation,” leaves no margin for error for anyone to misunderstand what it is he is referring to. According to Smith (and many others of his persuasion), he emphatically and unequivocally states that WE ARE THAT GENERATION! Now the question remains: “How long is this generation suppose to be?” Again, Smith is undeniably emphatic, “a generation of judgment is forty years” (ibid). Again, there is no room for any ambiguity or margin for error here. WE are the generation; and “forty years” is the length of it. Forty years have now come and gone; Chuck Smith has passed away; and everyone who has believed in his teachings is left holding the bag trying to figure out what to do with it. Like with many cult leaders who have similarly stated the same things in one form or another, and for which Chuck Smith himself has labeled as “false prophets,” their followers just suppress these false teachings and false prophecies of their prophecy gurus only to go on still believing that what they stated will all eventually come to pass just as they predicted, but only in another era of another time. For many, though, who had attended Chuck Smith’s church on the final eve of 1981 in anticipation of the Lord’s return, that was it for them. They skedaddled out of there. And everyone should still be skedaddleing out of there. But time has a way of erasing and masking over these errors of judgment. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are no different. When they are asked about the false prophecies and date setting of their founding leaders, they just shrug it off as an error in judgment, while still holding to the rest of what they have taught and never questioning it for one minute.

Are we “the last generation” that Chuck Smith and every dispensationalist claims that we are? He and pretty much all dispensationalist’s claim that “the generation which sees ‘the budding of the fig tree,’ the birth of the nation of Israel, will be the generation that sees the Lord’s return” (ibid). But is “the birth of the nation of Israel” in our day what Jesus had in mind when He makes this statement about the budding of the fig tree? Nothing could be further from the truth. Concerning the “budding of the fig tree and all the trees” in Luke 21:29, Christ explains what He means by this statement when He immediately afterward says: “So too when YOU [His apostles] see all these things, know that it is near, right at the door” (Mat. 24:33). What “things”? And what will be “near” and “at the door”? Not the singular thing or event of Israel becoming a nation, but all the things (plural) that He said were to precede and lead up to the door of Israel’s season (or “summer”) of desolation by the Roman armies in 70 A.D., and not their restoration at all; and surely not their forming as a nation all over again. To read into this statement of Christ's about the budding of the fig tree as the birthing of Israel as a nation is an outright eisegesis of Scripture and not an exegesis at all. Wow, talk about adding to Christ’s words—this takes the cake! And people call these men bible scholars? Where on earth in the immediate context does it support such a notion like this? You can’t find it anywhere!

The year of 1948 as being "this generation" is flawed; the time-frame of "forty years" is flawed; the generation as being "our generation" is flawed; and the budding of the fig tree and all the trees as denoting "Israel becoming a nation" again is likewise flawed. The one card that has held up this house of cards, now removed, can no longer continue to allow these other cards to stand. The land of Palestine being re-designated as a nation and called “Israel” today has nothing more to do with God dealing with them as a people or as a nation that belong to Him, than with any other nation that the Bible says God has formed. For He “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26). A people self-proclaiming themselves as “a nation” proves nothing.

Clearly, Israel as a nation today is to be understood no differently than any other nation. And if the truth were really known, Israel even as a pure-blooded race of people no longer exists. Not a single one of them can trace their genealogies back to the initial twelve tribes. All genealogies were destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. Even John MacArthur, a dispensationalist, agrees: “today, much to the chagrin and sadness of the Jewish people, nobody knows their lineage, none of them know their lineage because all the records have been destroyed…. And that by the design of God because the system was done with at that point, there was no reason to keep genealogies anymore.”[9] And the 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica states with regards to the Jews as being a pure race any longer: “The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to popular view, there is no Jewish race.”[10] Even the Jew's own 1971 Jewish Encyclopedia emphatically states: “It is a common assumption…even in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the Jews of today constitute a race, a homogeneous entity easily recognizable…. The diversity of the racial and genetic attributes of various Jewish colonies of today renders any unified racial classification of them a contradiction of terms. Despite this, many people readily accept the notion that they are a distinct race.”[11] Who are these “many people” that “readily accept the notion that they are a distinct race”? By the Jew’s own estimation, not them! It is men from our own selves, from within the Church, that Paul talked about in Acts 20:30, who are teaching and propagating all of this and who are referred to by many today as “Christian Zionists.” And, finally, if all of this were not enough, even the 1977 Collier’s Encyclopedia writes: “A common error and persistent modern myth is the designation of the Jews as a ‘race.’ This is scientifically fallacious, from the standpoint of both physical and historical tradition.”[12]

God is no more going to deal with the Jews as a nation in the future anymore differently than He is going to deal with any other nation now or in the future. Today is the day of salvation for everyone, not later. Just like the days of Noah and the days of Lot, God is not a God of “second chances.” God is through with Israel (if they can even be termed as such anymore) as a nation and as a theocracy under Him. But this does not mean that these pseudo-Jews in our day still do not have a chance to repent now and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is still a future for them, it is in that fact, and in that fact alone! But the dispensationalist’s bone of contention that God has another dispensation of law again for the Jews that is to be separate and distinct from the age of grace for the Church made up of both Jews and Gentiles is a fallacy and a complete distortion of the Truth. It is “another” gospel that must be vehemently denied and spoken against at all costs. Being saved by grace through faith has existed since the time of Adam and Eve, something that most dispensationalist’s will vehemently deny. This is very troubling indeed. But this is the crux of Covenant Theology. Grace has always saved everyone; and grace will lead us all home. No works ever saved a man internally. They may have preserved Adam and Eve and others physically to live on the earth for a very long time, but it could not save them internally. And the fact that they fell to the wiles of the Devil, proved that without God’s Spirit within them and helping them, they were only destined to failure. Man left to himself, without the help of the Holy Spirit, will inevitably and always miss the mark.

Now each one of these dispensations is said to represent a different way in which God deals with mankind. They are specifically different and individual testings and requirements for man to be right with God that are associated with each of these dispensations. As Scofield denotes: “These periods are marked off in scripture by some change in God’s method of dealing with mankind, in respect to two questions: of sin, and of man’s responsibility. Each of the dispensations may be regarded as a new test of natural man, and each ends in judgment—marking his utter failure in every dispensation.”
(www.theopedia.com).

The biblical (and not the dispensationalist’s) definition of “dispensation” from the Greek oikonomia means “an administration” or “stewardship,” and not “periods of time” in which God has a new and distinct way of dealing with mankind that are separate and distinct from one another, with varying plans or ways for people to be saved. In other words, salvation by grace alone through faith alone has always been in existence as the plan of salvation since the beginning of Adam and Eve. This gracious plan was revealed to Adam and Eve in the sacrifice of an animal as an atonement for their sins and in the covering of their bodies by God with the skins of those animals. Genesis 3:15 is also another allusion to this, as well as the fact that the Scriptures say that Christ was considered as a lamb that was slain from the very foundations of the world. Clearly, grace alone in Christ alone was a covenantal pact or concept developed in the mind of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit before the fall of Adam and Eve; and which eventually began to be unveiled and articulated over time throughout the Law and the Prophets.

So, let’s just forget about the phrase “Covenant Theology” for a moment here and focus on the main issue at hand. Dispensationalism is a system that holds out to people a totally new and different paradigm for understanding Israel and prophecy. To be sure, there has always been only one plan of salvation and one people that truly belong to the Lord (the seed of the woman vs. the seed of the serpent) who have experienced “administrative” (or dispensational) changes throughout their history. These varying administrations never changed the overarching truth that God has always had only one true people that belonged to Him (and not two) who are saved by faith. And God’s plan to save a people for Himself by grace through faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin, runs like a scarlet thread throughout redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation. But dispensationalists deny that the gracious redemption through Christ is the unifying purpose in Scripture of God’s plan of salvation in both the Old and New Testaments. So they place a distinction (or a separation) between an earthly people (natural Jews) who are saved by a legal system or covenant of law, and a heavenly people (the Church) who are saved by a gracious covenant through faith. On the other hand, Covenant Theology has always maintained that people were never saved by law at all, but only by grace; and that this gracious covenant has been in the mind of God before Adam and Eve were ever created, and even in existence throughout history since that time for Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, and all the prophets---to name just a few.

In addition to all of these dispensations mentioned above, the real theological significance between dispensationalism and the truth can be seen in the following four basic tenets which undergird classic dispensational teaching, verses the historic orthodox teachings of the Church. The tenets of dispensationalism are this:

The first tenet is that there is a fundamental distinction between Israel and the Church. According to dispensationalists, there always has been and always will be two peoples of God with two entirely different destinies. One is earthly for earthly or natural Israel or Jews; the other is heavenly for the spiritual Church of both Jews and Gentiles who were saved in the age of grace. Dispensationalist Lewis Sperry Chafer, as noted earlier as the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, again, articulates this position very well:

It should be observed that though Judaism and Christianity have much in common, they never merge the one into the other. Having each its own eschatology reaching on into eternity…The Word of God distinguishes between earth and heaven, even after they are created new. Similarly, and as clearly, it distinguishes between God’s consistent and eternal earthly purpose, which is the substance of Judaism; and His consistent and eternal heavenly purpose which is the substance of Christianity. And it is illogical and fanciful to contend that Judaism and Christianity ever merge as it would be to contend that heaven and earth cease to exist as separate spheres.[13]

At least Chafer got one thing right: "it is illogical and fanciful to contend that Judaism and Christianity ever merge." But they only "never merge" to natural Israel's detriment, not to their credit. And we'll discuss this in more detail later.

Chafer continues:

The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved, while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity.[14]

The second tenet is that there is a fundamental distinction between the dispensation of the Law of Moses and the dispensation of Grace. For dispensationalists, they are mutually exclusive ideas (something the reformers fought hard against to be inclusive in many ways, and not exclusive; albeit not without some problems as to what is to be deemed “inclusive” or “exclusive” for us to practice today). For dispensationalists, the natural Jew is saved by keeping the Law; the Church is saved by grace alone in Christ alone. And in a future seven-year tribulation and in the millennium, “the law” will once again reign over grace. Grace will be non-existent during these times. That age was for the Church age. And since the Church is raptured, that gracious covenant goes with her. In the millennium, the Jews, with the help of Christ, will once again build a fourth temple (after the third one is destroyed during a future seven-year tribulation) after the pattern of Ezekiel's visions in his last eight chapters. And according to a literal interpretation and application of Ezekiel's visions, literal circumcision will once again be reinstated, literal atoning animal sacrifices will once again be offered, and the Festivals, New Moons and Sabbath-days will all be reinstated and mandated to be literally observed again. And for any who do not literally observe these things, they will be cursed with a curse according to a literal understanding and application of Zechariah 14 (which, by the way, speaks of the present Church age and not a dispensation of law again in the seven-year tribulation or throughout a future earthly millennial reign of Christ).[15]

Even a future seven-year tribulation is entirely based upon a faulty presupposition that the personal masculine subject pronoun “he,” in Dan. 9:27, is referring to a future Antichrist who will confirm or give strength to a covenant; when, if the truth were really known, it is Christ (or the Messiah) in verse 26 who actually confirms or gives strength to His New Covenant; with the personal subject pronoun “he” in verse 27 having as its antecedent noun the more distant antecedent subject noun “Messiah” in the first part of verse 26, and not the “prince” in the second part of that verse at all which is an object noun. You can always tell who or what is the subject in a sentence by knowing who or what is doing the action of the verb. The “people” are doing the destroying “of the Prince” who is an object noun, and which is denoted by the use of the preposition “of” (or "the prepositional object"; also referred to as "a prepositional phrase"). And as grammarian Robin L. Simmons notes here with regards to a prepositional phrase: “Sometimes a noun within the prepositional phrase seems the logical subject of a verb. Don’t fall for that trick! You will never find a subject in a prepositional phrase.”[16]  

So, since the “prince” is the object of “the people” who are the subject noun in this sentence, and “the people” cannot be the antecedent subject noun of the masculine subject pronoun “he” in verse 27, then naturally what is known in grammar as a more distant antecedent subject noun is to be sought after. That singular, masculine, antecedent subject noun can be none other than "the Messiah" in the first part of verse 26. Christ, not an Antichrist, upon His 3 ½ year ministry and death, gave strength to, and confirmed, this covenant “with many” (cf. Mat. 26:28; Heb. 9:16-17)—putting an end to both bloody and non-bloody sacrifices and oblations—with the remaining 3 ½ years left for Him to confirm it with both Jews and Gentiles. This has been the teaching of the Church historically—even among those who were premillennialists but never “dispensational” premillennialists. George Eldon Ladd was one of them. And he articulates this historic position of the Church in his book The Blessed Hope and in his Commentary on the Revelation of John. And, so, while it is true as dispensationalists contend that pronouns must agree with nouns, this doesn’t really truthfully tell the whole story. “Subject” pronouns must agree with “subject” nouns, and “object” pronouns must agree with “object” nouns. If the object noun “prince” were the antecedent noun to the person being described in verse 27, then the pronoun would have to say “him,” as all singular masculine object pronouns do, and not say “he” which is a singular masculine subject pronoun. And of course it would not make any sense at all to say, “And him shall confirm a covenant with many.” Not only is this unnatural for someone to speak like this, but it is also just not good grammar. All of this is basic grammar 101. But, anyway, enough with English grammar lessons. Let’s move on.

Now, while we are on this subject of things future (which are really to be understood as having either already occurred in the past or in the present), let’s take the supposed future literal earthly reign of Christ in the millennium as another example. Even with regards to Christ being indeed now a king on the throne of David in heaven, Christ acknowledged to Pilate: “You are right in saying that I am a king. In fact, for this reason was I born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth,” and, “everyone on the side of truth listens to me” (Jhn. 18:37). And listen to what “everyone on the side of truth” is to listen to in verse 36: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is from another place.” This is where the paradigm shift came for me in beginning to contemplate all of this. Either I believe Christ’s words, or I believe the words of those who are all liars and claim in tandem with all unregenerate Jews that His kingdom will be a political kingdom on earth, and in His glorified body no less at that. Christ had earlier stated that His kingdom did not come with “observation” (Lke. 17:20), was “within” (Lke. 17:21), and could only be “seen” when a person becomes “born-again” (Jhn. 3:3). It is a kingdom that is not to be seen with the natural eye but with the eyes of the Spirit. Therefore, all those verses in the Old Testament that dispensationalists (in tandem with all unbelieving Jews) claim must be interpreted and carried out literally---such as in Isaiah 11, 65-66, Joel 3, Zechariah 14 and Ezekiel 40-48---must by the very nature of the case be understood as figuratively portraying spiritual truths and ideas, using concepts that were naturally familiar to the Jews, but used to denote things far more ethereal than the natural mind and ear can possibly understand or perceive. But all dispensationalists, such as Charles Ryrie, would counter all this by saying: “Based on the philosophy that God originated language for the purpose of communicating His message to man and that he intended man to understand that message, literal interpretation seeks to interpret that message plainly.”[17] Can these people really be serious? You bet they are! All one needs is natural eyes to see and natural ears to hear and, viola! All becomes naturally self-evident to them. While it is true that God “originated language for the purpose of communicating His message to man and that he intended man to understand that message,” the understanding of it can only come through the eyes and ears of those who have been spiritually enlightened to understand it. And being a Christian does not make one necessarily all of a sudden “enlightened” either; for then Paul would not have prayed that the eyes of the Christians at Ephesus would be enlightened (cf. Eph. 1:17-18).

All that was natural and typical in the OT, pointed to that which was spiritually antitypical. And God took advantage of all that through the words of His prophets which, for the most part, remained a mystery until Christ and His apostles came on the scene. Of such a “spiritual” kingdom now is the kingdom of Christ; and it is only such wisdom as this from above that is truly justified of all of God’s true children of promise who are born from above. All others will only “stumble” over such wording, wrestling the Scriptures to their’s and everyone else’s own destruction, and not for any literal or physical restoration in the future for natural Israel at all. Mark my words, and mark them well: I am now 65 years old and will probably see myself live another 20 or so years. By now it has been 70 years for me since Israel became a nation in 1948, and 51 years since the seven-day war in Israel in 1967 (the day that some have re-calculated to be the year that the 40 year generation started from and, which, by the way, has also failed to materialize). But all of these prophecies of their’s have, and will, fall to the ground. Not a single word will be fulfilled except for Christ coming again a second time. They are all false teachers and false prophets with false hopes for natural Israel. And instead of the Jews seeing their restoration over in Palestine, they will most likely see their desolation again continuing as it did in the past when all natural unbelieving Jews resisted their enemies and tried to take back what God has said is no longer their’s to take back. For unless the Lord builds the house, they that labor, labor in vain. The day that Israel tries to reclaim the area where the Muslim’s Dome of the Rock now stands will be the day when they will surely see their demise once again. As Jesus stated, “Look, your house is left abandoned” (Mat. 23:38). It is no longer His house, but their’s. The rending of the veil by God no less, and not just another destruction by another nation (such as by the Romans), proved beyond all doubt that God himself was “finished,” even as Jesus declared, with the old way of doing things in order to begin with a new way of doing things. The body of Christ made up of both Jews and Gentiles is now deemed by God to be His temple and His house. Don’t think for one minute that God is behind any rebuilding programs of natural stone temples anymore. We, “like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1Pet. 2:5). As such, we (not them) “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you [we] may declare the praises of Him who called you [us] out of darkness into His wonderful light” (v. 9). Again, not natural Israel according the flesh, but US!—the true and spiritual Israel of God made up of both Jews and Gentiles. As one writer notes, “It would be an egregious expression of the worst imaginable redemptive regression to suggest that God would ever sanction the rebuilding of the temple. It would be tantamount to a denial that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It would constitute a repudiation of the Church as the temple of God and thus an affront to the explicit affirmation of Paul here in 2 Corinthians 6 and elsewhere.”[18] When John says “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jhn. 1:14), the Greek word for “dwelt,” skenoo, literally means “to pitch a tent” or “to live in a tabernacle” and undeniably points back to the Old Testament types when God’s glory took up residence in the tent or tabernacle of Moses, the portable moving tent of meeting, and eventually also in Solomon’s temple. The point being in all of this is that God has chosen to now dwell in His people in a more intimate and personal way as exemplified in Christ’s body as both “tent” and “temple” (cp. Jhn. 2:19) in which those OT types pointed to. And to resort back to the old way of doing things is, in the words of Paul, to “rebuild what I destroyed” (Gal. 2:18). God has never lived in a temple or tabernacle built by men’s hands (Acts 7:48), nor ever will. His presence is no longer to be found in temples of stone marble, silver, or gold. His presence is now found in the tabernacles and temples of our bodies, all the ones in whom (like Christ) God has finally pitched His tent.

The third basic tenet of dispensationalism is the view that the New Testament Church is a “parenthesis” (as noted by Newell earlier) in God’s plans, and that really had to do with His plans for natural Israel according to the flesh. And according to them, it is a “parenthesis” that was NOT foreseen or foretold by the Old Testament prophets. What the prophets foretold had to do with Christ and natural Israel, and not with the Church at all! If the Jews had been obedient to the Law of Moses, there would have been no need for Christ to go to the cross and no need for grace. Now if all of this doesn’t begin to strike you as being “odd,” I don’t know what will. And if you don’t believe me, then just listen to the words of dispensationalist S. D. Gordon:

It can be said at once that His dying was not God’s own plan. It was conceived somewhere else and yielded to by God. God has a plan of atonement by which men who were willing could be saved from sin and its effect. That plan is given in the Old Hebrew code. To the tabernacle or temple, under prescribed regulations, a man could bring some animal which he owned. The man brought that which was his own. It represented him [i.e., himself].[19]

So, for S. D. Gordon, the Jew never needed Christ as the Substitute for his sin. He could bring that which was "his own," as prescribed under the law, and save himself. Their own works could save them. God's plan of atonement was only through animal sacrifices. There was no need for Christ as the Savior and Atoning sacrifice for our sins. Christ was an afterthought, due to the Jew's rejection of Christ as their King. So Christ, according to dispensationalists, has "postponed" the "kingdom of heaven" (which for dispensationalists is a kingdom "on earth") for another day, when future Jews upon physically seeing Christ literally cleave the Mount of Olives accept Him as their political King, and then reign with Him as their political King on earth for a thousand years. All of this is nothing short of "nonsense," to say the least. It's like I have said elsewhere in this article: it is as if we were hearing Jews speak, and not supposed Christians at all.

The fourth tenet is that dispensationalists also teach a distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming of Christ; with the “rapture” being Christ’s Second Coming split into two parts with Christ coming “for” His saints “in the air” and then later “with” His saints at the end of the seven-year tribulation. After this, the Church will reign in heaven while all natural Jews (including the 144,000), along with Gentiles who are saved by keeping the law in the seven-year tribulation, will reign with the glorified Christ on the earth in the millennium. Again, there will be an earthly people as opposed to a heavenly people that maintains this “distinction” between both natural Israel and the Church that the dispensationalists so vehemently, and I might say, “erroneously” contend. If all this doesn’t strike you as “another” or “different” gospel, then I don’t know what does. For anyone to truly believe that, then it is really questionable whether such individuals are actually saved or not. Such a person, like Judas, is more in league with the Jews than with the Church. They are truly different folks of a different stroke. They are birds of a feather who really do not flock together with Christ’s Church, but with the Jews. And they want to refer to us as “anti-Semitics” for being otherwise. Sounds more like natural unbelieving Jews among the Church reviling the Church, than those who are supposedly in or of the Church reviling the Church; for those who are of the true Church should NOT be reviling her own people in such a manner as this, and then accuse some of us as teaching a "replacement theology" at that. Theirs is truly a "theology" that has "replaced" the true gospel for a false gospel; true doctrine for false doctrine.

Now let’s test these four tenets of dispensationalism with the Scriptures. Are there really to be two “bodies” of people, one natural and one spiritual? One heavenly and one earthly? One worldly and one from another world? The apostles taught us that we are all (both Jews and Gentiles) one body in Christ, who is the Jew's promised Messiah (cf. 1Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 3:6; Jhn. 10:16). This one “body” (not bodies) is called the Church (cf. Col. 1:24; Eph. 5:23). The Church comprised of both Jews and Gentiles is this one “body,” and the Messiah is the Head and Savior of this one body. Therefore, anyone who has ever been saved during both the Old and New Testament eras is a part of this one body, and therefore, part of the Church. And because Christ is the only way to spiritual salvation and eternal life in eternity, whether it was with Adam and Eve, or with Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, the apostles, Paul, Peter or you and me, we all claim Christ as our Savior sent by the Father to redeem His elect who are all jointly of the one and selfsame body of Christ called His Church (or called-out ones). Everyone who is saved by faith in Christ, both past and present, is part of this one body of believers. This is why Christ could say in Luke 13:28-29 to all natural unbelieving Jews: “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.” And again, “But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mat. 8:12). One unbelieving group or body of natural Jews who are just physical descendants directly through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is “cast” or “thrown out,” not to sit and feast with Abraham, Isaac or Jacob at all; while another group or body of individuals is to be joined with the Old Testament saints and patriarchs of old through faith in Christ. People will come from the east, west, north and south to enter in this heavenly city called New Jerusalem from above and sit and partake of the feasts spiritually with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the same manner that Paul said we are to “keep the Feast” of Passover in a non-literal and spiritual manner in 1Cor. 5:8. So it should also stand to reason that we are to “keep the Feast of Tabernacles” (and all the feasts) as foretold by God's prophet Zechariah in chapter fourteen, verses 16, 18-19 in a non-literal and spiritual manner as well. The days of future literal feast keeping are over with. And this alone should get us to start thinking differently about what God is truly saying to us through His prophets. Truly, our "senses" need to be exercised to think differently---to think spiritually as a spiritual man and not as a natural man. For the natural man cannot understand the things of God, for they are "FOOLISHNESS" to him. Click here for part two.


Footnotes:

[1] The Greek word for “heresy” (hairesis), often translated “sect,” properly “denotes…a choosing, choice…then, that which is chosen, and hence, an opinion, especially a self-willed opinion which is substituted for submission to the power of the truth” (Vine’s Expos. Dict. of Old & New Testament Words, p. 217). It is “a predilection either for a particular truth, or for a perversion of one, generally with the expectation of personal advantage; hence, a division and the formation of a party or sect in contrast to the uniting power of ‘the truth,’ held in toto” (Ibid, p. 335). Peter refers to them as “destructive heresies” (2Pet. 2:1) which divide us rather than unite us. In secular dictionaries it is defined as that which is “unorthodox, unconventional, dissident and radical” (www.dictionary.com). It is “a person who maintains beliefs contrary to the established teachings of the Church” (Ibid). Dispensationalism that is being taught today in most churches has pretty much become “the established teachings of the Church,” so most would now deem it as orthodoxy. But it is really heterodoxy. The natural Jew might maintain that many of the dispensationalist’s tenets are for the most part their orthodoxy. But what should that tell us? Not to rely on a natural Jew without the Spirit! And the reason why so many have believed in it in our day is because it has surfaced among men from our own selves who are supposedly believers who have the Spirit, subtly convincing many as an angel of light that it must be truth, and thus overthrowing the faith of many. Never before, until the early 1800’s, has dispensationalism ever appeared in Church history. You won’t even find it in the teachings of the early church fathers. Like the Azusa street revivals in Los Angeles, and everyone being told that they must be filled with the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, this is a new thing. Only this time it has come out of England from the Lady Powerscourt meetings in which the predecessor to J. N. Darby, Edward Irving, attended regularly. This makes John MacArthur’s present-day “strange fire” teachings that are against the charismatic movement seem like nothing in comparison; and for which he, ironically, so vehemently defends (i.e., dispensationalism) as some of the strangest fire yet!
.

[2] Dispensationalism, p. 416.

[3] Ibid, p. 57; bold and italics mine.

[4] Romans Verse by Verse, p. 335.

[5] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 4, pp. 248-249.

[6] Ibid, p. 30.

[7] Chuck Smith, End Times (Costa Mesa: The Word For Today, 1978), p. 35. Bold and italics mine.

[8] Ibid.

[9] From Grace To You sermon on Luke 3.

[10] vol. 12, p. 1,054.

[11] Encyclopaedia Judaica Jerusalem, 1971, vol. 3, p. 50.

[12] Collier’s Encyclopedia, 1977, vol. 13, p. 573.

[13] Dispensationalism, pp. 40, 41.

[14] Ibid, p. 107.

[15] For more thoughts on all of this, please read my book: Zechariah 14. I would also highly suggest reading some of the older commentators who also saw a lot of what is being depicted in this chapter as referencing the Church age and not another future dispensation of Law with a literal observance of all of these ceremonies.

[16] Accessed online at: http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/prepositionalphrase.htm).

[17] Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, p. 96.

[18] Sam Storms, Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative (Christian Focus Pub., 2013).

[19] Quiet Talks About Jesus, p. 114.

Is Covenant Theology Replacement Theology? (2 of 3)

Two Bodies—One Earthly and One Heavenly?

Col. 1:18 says of Christ and His body: “And he is the Head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy.” And in Eph. 3:6, Paul writes: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ [or the Messiah] Jesus.” And again, Paul says that the Gentiles are no longer “excluded from citizenship of the Israel” (Eph. 2:12, lit. trans.); that they are no longer “foreigners to the covenants of promise” (ibid); and that they are “no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens[1] with the saints, and members of God’s household” (v. 19, HCSB). This promise of Jesus Christ is unto all in all ages, both past and present: “Unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” (Eph. 3:21, KJV). And notice how that Paul says we are “citizens of the Israel” in verse 12 which is also being “fellow citizens of the saints” in verse 19. Is Paul saying we are citizens with natural Israel? How absurd is that. They are not “the saints.” We are no more citizens with natural Israel than we are citizens with the Germans, Swedes, the Chinese or Japanese. If such is the case that we are “citizens of the Israel,” which is synonymous to being “fellow citizens of the saints,” then what “Israel” is Paul talking about that we Gentiles are said to be one body with? With “the Israel of God” in Gal. 6:16 that Paul says is a new creation born of the Spirit. We are citizens “of the Israel” according to the Spirit, and not citizens of Israel according to the flesh. Our association isn’t with Israel according to the flesh whom Christ says is rejected and “cast out,” but our association is with the Israel that is born from above by the Spirit God, and who is of the free woman that Paul articulates for us in Gal. 4:28-31. We are not a part of the Jerusalem (or Israel) below and of the earth, but are a part of the Jerusalem (or Israel) from above which Paul also says has her citizenship in heaven (vv. 25-26; Php. 3:20). If we are “sharers,” “heirs,” “fellow citizens” and “members together” with Israel of the one body (and not two), then what does that make us? Still Gentiles, and them Jews? Of course not. Paul now says there is “no difference” (Rom. 10:12). The Greek word for “foreigners” used by Paul above in Ephesians denotes one who is “beside (or outside) the house,” and Paul is now saying that Gentiles with Israel are “of the house” (v. 19). And it is of this same “house” that the author of Hebrews says Christ the Son is now "over" as opposed to Moses who use to be "over" only as a servant (cf. Heb. 3:3-6, NASB). As citizens of Israel we have also been grafted into the one cultivated olive tree of Israel and thus take on the name “Israel,” just as any other citizen of a country or someone adopted into a family would do. And this is just another glaring example that the “Israel” that Paul has in mind here in Ephesians is not “Israel” according to the flesh at all, but Israel according to the Spirit. These are all the “children of promise” that Paul denotes in Rom. 9:8 who are “all Israel” in verse 6, and whom he says of Gentiles are also called “children of promise,” just like Isaac, in Gal. 4:28. All “children of promise” such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all of us are this true and spiritual “Israel” of God.

We know for a fact that the apostles considered those in the Old Testament as part and parcel with the Church. Even Jesus had alluded to this when He spoke of many coming from the four corners of the globe to sit and feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Many dispensationalists, on the other hand, have said that “Israel is not the Church and the Church is not Israel.” And a lot of their doctrines and eschatology are built upon this premise. Yet, when one examines the Scriptures themselves, one is truly surprised that the Israel in the Old Testament is repeatedly referred to as “the Church” in the wilderness.

For example, in Acts chapter seven, Stephen tips us off to this fact when he was falsely accused of teaching as heretical that Israel’s promised Messiah (or Jesus) would destroy the Jewish temple and change the customs handed down to them from the Law of Moses. Stephen declares: “This is he [Moses] that was in the Church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us” (7:38, ASV). Stephen clearly, using new testament Greek, refers to Israel in the wilderness as “the Church.” The “Church” has existed ever since the time of Adam and Eve. And all believers like them are assembled together as God’s called-out ones, chosen and elected specifically by Him for His own purpose and good pleasure (cp. Eph. 1:5). “The Church,” or these, “called-out ones,” is not a new development in the so-called “dispensation of grace.” All who are of the faith, whether they be Jews or Gentiles (both past and present), are this “Church” who are called out as God’s one true and spiritual nation called Israel. Being a “child of promise” such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and thus referred to as “Israel” was no novel idea created by Paul. Even though many in times past may have not been specifically referred to as the Israel of God from above, this “Israel” born of the Spirit was nevertheless around since the beginning of creation, and even in God's mind before the foundation of the world. There has always been a holy nation and remnant of God’s chosen people within the nations, and even within the natural nation of Israel. It is just as First Peter declares of what was promised to the Jews in Exodus 19:6, “But you [all of us believers in Christ] are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (2:9). All of the Old Testament saints along with all New Testament saints make up this one nation, or body—the one “nation” that Christ also describes in Mat. 13:43, “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you [natural faithless Jews] and given to a nation who will produce its fruit.” And notice how that Peter says there is only one holy nation made up of both Jews and Gentiles. It’s singular. There are not two bodies and two nations who are God’s true people, called “saints”; there’s only one body and one true people or Israel of God. We are called out of the Gentiles, out of the nations, to be joined together as one holy nation with all believing Jews.

First Peter 2:10 also says concerning all former unbelievers: “which in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God”—in other words, Israel! No one doubts that God's people here are Israel. But they are "Israel" according the Spirit and not according the the flesh. If Peter had only converted Jews in mind in verse 9, as some dispensationalists also claim, then how could he claim they were "not a people, but are now the people of God?" If all natural Jews are "God's people" by default, as many erroneously claim today, then these words of Peter make no sense whatsoever when applied only to Jews. No, Peter has the Church made up of both believing Jews and Gentiles in mind whom he says have now received God's "mercy," the same thing that Paul has said of both Jews and Gentiles in Rom. 11:30-32. It was no accident, that Stephen, a Jewish believer of the house of Judah and who understood Greek customs and culture, would now call Israel, “the Church”; for Stephen’s Greek version of the Bible, the Septuagint, regularly uses the Greek “Ekklesia” (or Church) to refer to “Israel” in the Old Testament. Many believers back in those days relied heavily on the Septuagint, and the New Testament is filled with quotations from it. Thus, those in the first century were all very well acquainted with the biblical concept that God’s “Church” in the Old Testament times was the true nation of Israel within the natural nation of Israel; just as the “Church” in the writings of the New Testament is also denoted as the very same “Israel of God” among many in the churches who are not this Israel of God. Always remember this: there is an Israel according to the Spirit, and an Israel according to the flesh; a people who are identified outwardly as the Church, and a people who are identified inwardly as the Church (Judas is a glaring example of this "outward" association). Jesus and His apostles clearly make this distinction throughout their writings. And although for the most part hidden from the natural eye, it is in the writings of all the prophets for those who have the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it.

It would be hundreds of years later, from the early beginnings of the Church, in which the theological interpretive framework of dispensationalism would be invented and taught in mainstream Christianity today, even though it is absolutely contrary and diametrically opposed to the Apostles’ doctrine. In fact, it is really Judaism being taught in the Church all over again, but now only infiltrating us under a different guise. For instead of Jewish wolves entering into the Church and not sparing the flock, men from our own selves have arisen and have distorted the truth (cf. Acts 20:29-30). And instead of now being called Jewish Zionists, they are now commonly denoted as Christian Zionists. They are Christians who teach and uphold the cause of Judaism in the defense of all natural Jews. This is just simply remarkable to me. Talk about a people being “bewitched.” This takes the cake!

The Greek word “Ekklesia” (or, called-out ones) is the Hebraic equivalent of the word “Qahal,” which likewise means called-out congregation or assembly; and it is also related to one who provides a witness or testimony. In every instance where “congregation” or “assembly” is found in the English versions of the Old Testament, the Greek “Ekklesia” (or “Church”) is used by the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament Hebrew.[2] The Israel of God in the OT is referred to as the “Ekklesia” or, the “Qahal”—i.e., the Church! Isn't this what Jesus, Paul and all the apostles taught us as sound doctrine and as rightly dividing the Word of Truth? Much of what has already been stated has already proved this to be the case. But let’s probe a little further into Jesus’ and the Apostles’ doctrine.

First of all, in Romans 11 Paul teaches that salvation by faith alone through grace alone brings us into the kingdom of God or of heaven.[3] Paul in no uncertain terms states that Gentiles are grafted into the one “Olive Tree” (Romans 11), which is Israel (cp. Jer. 11:16). Once a “wild” olive tree, or branch, Gentiles are now grafted into the cultivated olive tree, Israel, God’s nation of saints within national Israel that have always made up His actual one holy nation. Paul does not teach us that there is a new tree called, the Church, that is distinct and separate from this Israel of God. On the other hand, Paul teaches that we are grafted into the already existing olive tree, which is “Israel.” If Paul were a dispensationalist, would we expect him to use the one olive tree figure? No, we would expect Paul to say that all of the natural olive tree branches were cut off forming an entirely new tree. But he doesn’t! What he says is that some natural branches are cut off while the rest remain intact, with some Gentiles also now being grafted into or assimilated into them. All the believing remnant of both Jews and Gentiles remain intact, while all the rest are only hardened, cast off and away from us only to be burned. This is basically what Paul says in Rom. 11:7: "So what does all this mean? It means that Israel has never achieved what it has been striving for. However, those whom God has chosen have achieved it. The minds of the rest of Israel were closed" (GWT), just as Isaiah wrote concerning God giving them eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear (cf. v.8).

Secondly, the root of this one olive tree is said to now support us Gentiles, as well as all believing Jews who continue to be partakers of this one spiritual olive tree. Some theologians say that this “root” is the patriarchs who now support us and from whom we all have our origin of faith from, but Paul has already established that they are themselves likewise the natural “branches,” and not the root at all! They cannot be both the branches and the root, for “the root” is said here to be that which sustains both the "natural" olive branches and the "wild" olive branches. Therefore “the root” can only be Christ in which this entire olive tree called “Israel” is now supported and obtains its nourishment from. Jesus illustrated this idea for us in John 15: “I am the Vine, you are the branches.” And He was talking to His Jewish apostles at this time whose natural descent was from the patriarchs. There is no ambiguity here as to who supports and supplies nourishment to whom. And it is only in such a manner as this (i.e., in Christ) that all natural born Israelites, as well as all Gentile foreigners, shall be saved. But the whole point that Paul is making here is that Gentiles are to be grafted into “Israel.” As Peter said earlier, becoming one holy nation, not two. So we have seen so far that there is only one body, one nation, and one olive tree referred to as Israel, Christ’s body and Ekklesia (or the Church).

Thirdly, again Paul teaches in Ephesians 2 that we, the Church, are now Israel. Notice first of all that he says we were once Gentiles. Secondly, he says we are now citizens of the Israel through Christ. And thirdly, if one is part of “the covenants (plural) of promise,” then one is a part of Israel, right? Let’s take a look at these verses again in Eph. 2:11-13:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)—remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

How could we not be called “Israel” if we are now called “citizens” with Israel? As I stated earlier, when a person becomes adopted into a family or a citizen of another nation they take on the name of that family or nation. For instance, Paul says Abraham is our father and that we are his children. Doesn’t this make us “Israel” by association? Granted, Ishmael was Abraham’s son but this did not make him “Israel.” So how is that we can be called “Israel”? Paul says that it is by our association with Christ, and not through someone like Ishmael at all. For “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). What promise? The everlasting covenant that was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of all such “children of promise” (cf. Rom. 9:6; Gal. 4:28) that, “in thy seed shall all the nations be blessed” unlike all natural Israelites who are born only according to the flesh, and whom Paul says are not the “children of promise” and likened more unto Hagar and Ishmael who are only to be “cast out” (Gal. 4:30). Again, this agrees with Christ’s words in Mat. 8:11-12 and Lke. 13:28-29.

Clearly, dispensationalism (in tandem with all natural Jews who have not the Spirit of Christ) has introduced some serious doctrinal errors into the Church. Paul, on the other hand, understood that all who are of the same faith as Abraham, are the Israel of God according to the Spirit, because even the teachings of the Prophets had taught Paul this one thing: that the New Covenant was for the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which are the two representative kingdoms that make up the one whole nation of Israel. For Jeremiah had stated: “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people (31:31-33; cf. Heb. 8:8-12). Therefore, clearly, if one is part of this "new covenant" which Jesus is NOW the mediator of (again, see Heb. 8:6) as Israel’s promised Messiah, then one is grafted into Christ via either the ministrative efforts of the house of Judah or of the house of Israel, thus becoming even one with Israel. Ironically, many dispensationalists circumvent this understanding by claiming that the “new covenant” with Israel and Judah will be a different new covenant altogether that God makes with them alone in the seven-year tribulation and on into an earthly millennial reign with Christ. So it just goes to show you at what great lengths these deceivers will bend and distort the truth in order to accommodate their doctrine, not unlike the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons. And, I might add, not unlike all natural Jews who have not the Spirit and understand all of this in a similar manner as the dispensationalists do. So, can you NOW see how it is that Judaism has once again crept into the Church all over again? And this little leaven that began in the late 1800's through the teachings of J. N. Darby, C. I. Scofield, and Lewis Sperry Chafer and the like that have come out of Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, has practically leavened the whole Church. But Jesus has said, “if it were possible,” such false teachers and false prophets would deceive the very elect. But I truly believe the “elect” are truly seeing all of this for what it really is. It is a “powerful delusion” that has come upon many unsuspecting and uneducated Christians, not unlike upon those whom Paul mentions in 2Thes. 2:11 which causes many to “believe the lie” and, “have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” Have no doubt about it, the doctrine of dispensationalism is a “powerful delusion” and a “lie” that causes many to “not believe the truth” but delight in “wickedness.” To be sure, this doctrine is a doctrine of demons (cf. 1Tim. 4:1); thus it's roots are in “wickedness,” proclaiming and teaching a pseudo-wisdom that is not from above and very wicked indeed; even overthrowing entire households of faith, just as the apostles had claimed that such people would do.

As the prophet Jeremiah above declared, the New Covenant is not stated to be made with anyone other than with Israel (and thus the dispensationalist’s bone of contention that this must be some other new covenant with them). So, one either becomes a part of this one holy nation called Israel, as Jesus, Paul and Peter have declared to us, or then one is not a part of this New Covenant with Israel at all. As one can very well see, it is a little difficult to subscribe to a theological interpretive framework that separates Israel from the Church (or the Church from Israel), when the Scriptures clearly state that we are grafted into Israel via Christ and actually made citizens and "one" with her; and for which Paul can now say there is “no difference” between us. This is why Jesus could now say in Rev. 22:15 that all who are outside of us, His holy city called New Jerusalem (or Israel), are “dogs.” Normally this was a phrase reserved for Gentiles who were outside of the commonwealth of natural Israel. But now Jesus, and even Paul I might add (see Php. 3:2), refer to all those who are outside of this heavenly city of Israel called New Jerusalem, as “dogs.” In fact, all of this wasn’t just stated in a vacuum, for the Lord through His prophet Isaiah had alluded to this of Israel according to the flesh in chapter 56:10-11:

Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain.

So far, tenet number one of dispensationalism that was listed in the opening statements of this article of putting a distinction between Israel and the Church, and with there being two peoples of God with two entirely different destinies of one earthly and one heavenly, has been absolutely and unequivocally destroyed by the Scriptures. Yet bible colleges and seminaries (or I should say, cemeteries in most cases) continue to teach this aberrant doctrine with absolute and unequivocal resolve to the contrary.

Two Means of Salvation---One by the Works of the Law and One by Grace?

If tenet number two, as noted earlier in this writing of there being a distinction between God’s Law and Grace as being exclusive of one another is correct, then why is the New Covenant all about writing God’s law that was on the tables of stone, on our hearts. This is the whole point of the New Covenant: that the Law of God would be written on our hearts by the very finger of God. And that we may obey it and no longer disobey it as Israel only according to the flesh could only ever hope to do. The head, Christ, does not give out two sets of instructions and commandments for two different bodies of believers. Dispensationalism’s sharp distinction between Israel and the Church (or even between law and grace) clearly is unwarranted and, for the most part, unbiblical. All of those laws written on stone we now actually keep. Even the Sabbath, which Paul said was an outward observance and a shadow or type of that which was spiritually to come in Col. 2:16-17, is now a rest that is spiritually realized in our hearts when we cease from our own works in order to be saved and enter into Christ's gracious rest for us (cp. Mat. 11:28-29; Heb. 4:9). All of the other ceremonial laws are no different. We now spiritually keep every single one of them in the person and work of Christ. Their “everlasting” perpetuity is realized in this: in their spiritual application in the Church today.[4] And so the words of the prophet Isaiah still stand:

In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem (2:2-3).

And, again, the prophet Ezekiel writes concerning this time that we are now living in wherein formerly the law was not written in the Jew’s hearts until the new birth, also known as the new nature, the new heart, or the new man was in place through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ (where God’s Spirit would baptize Christ’s disciples and no longer just be “with” them as denoted in John 14:17, but “in” them[5]). The Lord through Ezekiel writes:

I will give them [Israel] an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. They will be My people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD (11:19-21; cf. 36:25-28).

These verses above are just a handful of verses quoted by the dispensationalists to prove that the law of Moses will once again reign supreme over grace with regards to one's salvation in a future seven-year tribulation and in a future earthly millennium. But as we can very well see, when all of this (including the mountain and the Lord's temple) is understood of what God was going to do "spiritually" with Israel in the future, in the days of Christ and His apostles, then we can better see how keeping God's laws would be a thing of the heart and not just by outwardly observing such things. And this is to be the case with many more passages of Scripture that the dispensationalists will stumble over when understood literally of Israel in the future, and not of the present spiritual realities of the Church age. And the purpose of this article is to try and expose this, using many of the verses that they cite to prove their point, and then show the fallacy of their arguments. And by the way, just as a sidebar, the law of Moses never displaced grace and faith. It was to reveal the need for it. Grace through faith was even taught in the law of Moses, and Paul refers to this in Rom. 10:5-8 when he describes the righteousness of the law vs. the righteousness of faith:

Moses writes this about the righteousness that is by the law: “The person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the deep?’ ”(that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is the message concerning faith that we proclaim...

The truth of the just living by faith was a truth exclaimed even by the prophet Habbakuk (cf. Hab 2:4). And Paul tells us that "David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.'" (Rom. 4:6-8).

So what support is used mainly by dispensationalists that the Church is a new individual group or entity (a parenthesis) apart from Israel? In the absence of applying any other guiding principles or Scriptures, the foundational cause of their error is founded in the poor, reckless and unbridled interpretation of even Matthew chapter sixteen, where Christ says:

I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it (16:18).

It has already been established above that the Lord’s “Church” has existed since the beginning, and that the “Church” is referred to by God in His Word as “Israel.” If so, then we must ask ourselves this question: How can Jesus (the Jew’s Messiah) build a new Church that doesn’t conflict with everything else that He and His prophets have already taught us? The Scriptures teach everywhere that Israel which had fallen in disrepute and disrepair would be “rebuilt” or “restored.” It is clearly stated over and over again in the prophets that the division in the kingdom related to the house of Israel and the house of Judah would be repaired, and that they would once again be reunited as one stick, and not two (cf. Ezekiel 37:15-28). In fact, Jesus said that He specifically came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel in Mat. 15:24. The whole goal of Christ in the New Covenant is to bring His lost sheep (with the emphasis on "His" sheep) of the house of Israel back to obedience to God’s law, by writing His law on their hearts. Clearly, the whole point and purpose of all of Scripture teaches the central theme of a rebuilding and a restoration that is for "all Israel" born only according to the Spirit, and not a rebuilding and restoration program for Israel born only according to the flesh. Paul is very poignant and to the point concerning all of this: "For not all who are of Israel, are these Israel" (Rom. 9:6, lit. trans.), but only “a remnant” is saved from out of them (v. 27; 11:4-6). And just in case anyone should misunderstand or misinterpret any of this, Paul uses Jacob and Esau who were identical twins and born of the exact same mother and father. And Paul emphasizes that all such “children of promise” (9:8) are not born of any human will or effort (v. 16), with the testimony and witness of St. John also agreeing to this fact in John 1:13. And if that were still not enough, Paul adds later in his epistle to the Galatians that all Gentile believers, just like Isaac, are also “children of promise” (4:28), being part and parcel with the same “children of promise” in Rom. 9:8 that Paul had just earlier said in verse 6 are “all Israel” and who are not just of a natural Jewish ethnicity (see verse 8a). Paul is very clear, “what Israel sought so earnestly for it did not obtain, but THE ELECT did. The rest were hardened” (Rom. 11:7). And again, “So too, at this present time there is a remnant chosen by grace” (v. 5). In Isaiah 49, Jehovah speaks of His Servant (or Christ), “who was despised and abhorred by the nation” (v. 7), but who would no less “raise up the tribes of Israel and restore the preserved ones of Israel” (v. 6a); becoming also “a light for the Gentiles so that You may bring My salvation to the ends of the world” (v. 6b) in order that "a remnant" of "preserved ones" might be saved from the Gentiles as well (Rom. 9:24-26; 11:25; cp. 2Tim. 2:10).

So, did Jesus come to do in the Scriptures what He said He would come to do? In the natural, no. But in the spiritual, yes. All that natural Israel was in type and shadow Jesus fulfilled with them in a spiritual manner. This is the teaching of the Apostles in all of their letters. If anyone is guilty of “spiritualizing” all of this, it was them! And this is all in agreement with what Christ said He came to do in establishing a kingdom that cannot be seen with the natural eye, was within, and from another world or place. Christ did not fail to do what He came to do. He fulfilled every word of it, as pronounced by His holy prophets. The problem was not with Christ, but with men who both then and now “fail” to see the kingdom for all that it really is. The problem is with men who are “dull of hearing,” and who have not the eyes to see it or the ears to hear it.

Jesus was not contradicting the Scriptures in Mat. 16:18, as if He was building some "new thing" with the Church, apart from Israel, and then just deal with them some two millennia later off into the future during a supposed seven-year tribulation and in a thousand-year reign on the earth.

Again, are we Gentiles grafted into the one olive tree denoted as "Israel" or, are both Jews and Gentiles in the so-called "dispensation of grace" grafted into an entirely new tree now designated as “the Church”? If we answer this question honestly, then we have answered the previous question in tenet number one as noted earlier above of the dispensationalists of there being a "dispensation of law" strictly for all natural Jews, and a "dispensation of grace" strictly for the Church. Romans 11 and Ephesians 2 should serve us well for anyone struggling with this issue. Jesus never spoke outside of the Law and Prophets. He fulfilled them, and is still fulfilling them to the last letter of the Law. But in a spiritual manner now; no longer in a literal manner, which were nothing more than types and shadows. The kingdom of heaven is now here on earth. But in listening to many Christians, they would rather have it be an earthly, worldly kingdom, rather than a heavenly one. They would rather believe in a kingdom in and of the earth, rather than in a kingdom in and of heaven. In fact, I hear this from their very lips all the time: “It is evident to the natural eye that Christ’s kingdom isn’t on earth yet.” This is their bone of contention: physically seeing is believing for them. They are looking in all the wrong places, forgetting that Christ said His kingdom does not come with any physical observation at all.

All of Christ’s teachings were in perfect harmony with all that the Law and the Prophets had foretold. If God’s purpose was to create a new body of people and give them a different set of laws, He would have told us this somewhere in His Word. The problem with many today is that they do not understand how something could be stated in the Law and the Prophets, that was to still be observed in our day, and as NOW being understood and observed in a spiritual manner rather than in a literal manner. When we read of circumcision, the priesthood, sacrifices or what-have-you as being “everlasting” or “eternal,” it begins to make sense as them being “everlasting” when they are understood as being typical of that which is spiritual and is in fact “everlasting” and “eternal.” God knew what He meant when He was saying those things. They were all pointing to Christ and His “everlasting” work. Nowhere does God say He was going to create a new law and a new people. But He was going to use the same law with the same people (but with some changes) to form one body in Himself, and which now includes the Gentiles as well. Naturally, all of this is to be understood spiritually, and not literally at all. The temporary types spoke of and pointed to the everlasting antitypes; the temporal earthly things spoke of and pointed to the eternal heavenly things; and the natural and carnal things spoke of and pointed to the spiritual things that were to come and become manifestly more evident and no longer a mystery. Again, it is only in this sense that all of those things instituted by God in the past can ever be understood as being “everlasting.” This is why the author of Hebrews says we have come to a kingdom and a mountain that cannot be “shaken.” Earthly kingdoms and mountains can be “shaken” or removed. Christ’s heavenly kingdom and mountain of His spiritual people and house, cannot. It remains for all eternity, "everlasting."

In conjunction with the idea of the “building” and “restoration” of Judah and the house of Israel spoken of in the Law and Prophets, the Hebrew language uses the word “banah” sometimes translated “to build,” which can also be rendered at times “to rebuild” or “to restore.” Thus, Christ’s declaration to Peter in Mat. 16:18, and likely speaking Hebrew when He first uttered these words to Peter, could be translated “I will rebuild my assembly…I will rebuild my Church,” without stretching the underlying thought of the text at all.[6] And, in fact, this translation of the text has so much to commend for itself, particularly when we consider how at numerous times the Prophets spoke of the re-establishment and the rebuilding of the house of Israel which had fallen in disrepair.

Let’s go to one such statement by one of God’s prophets announcing this “rebuilding” program of spiritual Israel. The prophet Amos speaks of this rebuilding of the house of David, not so dissimilar to Isaiah 10:33-34 and 11:1ff. Amos 9:9-12 says:

For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. All the sinners among My people will die by the sword, all those who say, “Disaster will not overtake or meet us.” In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and BUILD IT as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear My name, declares the LORD, who will do these things.

Here, in Amos, the house of Israel is spoken of as disciplined and scattered among the nations on account of their sin. And, in the same context, God informs us that He will one day “restore” (and notice, “build”) David’s fallen tent, which is a reference to the house of Israel. God says He will “restore” and “build” it as in the days of old. But be careful on how you interpret “David’s house” that God says He is going to “restore“ and “build.” This is the dispensationalist’s, and all natural Jews, fatal mistake and death knell for them. This is where they both stumble over God’s words very badly here, as Christ said many would. It is not with natural Jews only according to the flesh that God is going to “build” David’s house with. They are not the ones that God is referring to here as “David’s” house. The ones that God is referring to here are all of His spiritual “children of promise” like Isaac and Jacob—a remnant (or His “pebbles”) out of natural Israel (and even eventually from the Gentiles as well) whom the Lord hand picks for Himself to be His peculiar people, spiritually speaking, and not based upon any natural genealogies at all. The nation of Israel is the only entity that the prophets mention that God would “restore” or “build” back up. There is no mention of any other structure in the Old Testament that God said He would “build” in the last days, and thus the reason for the dispensationalist’s bone of contention that the Church is not mentioned in the Old Testament. But she is! The “Church,” or assembly of God’s called-out ones, is “the Israel of God” according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh. And this mystery is that it would include a "remnant" from the Gentiles as well who are adopted as sons through Christ and thus become actual sons of David, of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob and of all of God’s chosen people called “Israel.”

Now it is specifically with reference to this prophecy in Amos that James describes the “building” of the New Testament Church called "Israel," with the inclusion of the Gentiles as if they were native-born citizens with Israel, and in agreement with Ezekiel’s vision of these last days wherein he states in a parabolic manner: “You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the alien settles, there you are to give him his inheritance, declares the Sovereign LORD" (47:21-23). All of this agrees with Paul’s words in Ephesians 2 that were noted earlier. Paul got his teachings by revelation of this hidden “mystery” foretold through the prophets, and more particularly by Ezekiel above.

In citing Amos chapter 9 in Acts chapter 15, James in agreement with the prophets states:

Brethren, hearken unto me: Symeon hath rehearsed how first God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, after these things[7] I will return, and I will BUILD again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; and I will BUILD again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men may seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom My name is called, saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old (Acts 15:13-18, ASV).

And get this: all of this was “known from of old”! What has been “known from of old”? What God was then and now doing with Israel born according to the Spirit along with the inclusion of the Gentiles as being part and parcel with this house of David (or with this one olive tree). No wonder Isaiah the prophet spoke of “descendents” as “surnaming” themselves with the name of “Israel” in chapter 44:5, as accurately translated for us in the King James Version. No natural Jew would have to do this, for they were already deemed “Israel” by natural birth. Only those who were to join Israel and become as “native-born” citizens of the Israel of God were to be the ones described here as ascribing to themselves the name of “Israel.” It is just one of the many “new names” that God is accustomed to giving to His people. Gentiles who are wild olive trees by nature are being grafted into the cultivated olive tree of Israel, with them no longer being referred to as Gentile foreigners anymore, but as “Israel.” Israel maintains her exclusivity and importance in God’s overall scheme of things; but it is only with Israel after the Spirit and not with Israel after the flesh. They are not all the Israel of God who are being spoken of here who are just of natural Israel. Gentiles, just like Isaac, are also called "children of promise" (Gal. 4:28). And who are "children of promise"? They are "Israel" according to the Spirit! Click here for part three.


Footnotes:

[1] Same Greek word as in verse 12 but now with “fellow” in front of it.

[2] In the Greek Septuagint of the OT, and in the Greek Apocrypha, the Greek ekklesia occurs nearly 100 times. And a careful examination fails to discover an incident in which it is used otherwise than to designate Israel in their religious association as the covenant people of God. And it is in this sense that it also passed over into the NT. The word is justifiably appropriated to designate an assembly with God, while in a secondary sense to people as related to an assembly or a gathering of some kind. And in one place in the NT, there is an exception to its normal usage of the Church in Acts 19:39 and 41 where it denotes the assembly of the freeman of the city. But in every other case it is applied either to Israel in the wilderness (Acts 7:38), at the temple (Heb. 2:12), or to believers in the NT who were called-out by God to gather together.

[3] To prove that the New Testament knows of only one kingdom (and not two) as denoted by two synonymous terms as “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven,” is to prove based upon the dispensationalist’s own arguments that the kingdom is now a present reality in the Christian community, and not in the future with natural Israel. Many Scriptures could be cited to prove that these two terms are synonymous, but one will suffice. In one sweeping breath and statement Christ uses both terms interchangeably: Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mat.. 19:23-24). I rest my case. Many of the stories that Jesus tells in Matthew's gospel, with Matthew using "the kingdom of heaven," are in Mark's and Luke's gospels denoted as "the kingdom of God." Thus, they are used interchangeably to denote the one and selfsame kingdom. The words "of God" denote that it is God's kingdom; whereas, "of heaven" denotes that its origin is from heaven and not from earth.

[4] There is another way that “everlasting” is used in the Scriptures without necessarily referring to a future and eternal spiritual application at all. Sometimes the Lord actually uses the term with conditions attached. Dispensationalists often want to claim unconditional “everlasting” covenants and promises to all natural unbelieving Israelites according to the flesh, while ignoring all the other verses that claim: “Therefore, I will surely forget you and cast you out of My presence along with the city I gave to you and your fathers. I will bring upon you everlasting disgrace—everlasting shame that will not be forgotten” (Jer. 23:39–40). Or, Jer. 25:9, which says, “I will summon all the peoples of the north and My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, declares the Lord, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin.” What all of this tells us is that we either take all of these words literally or conditionally based upon natural Israel’s faith, or a lack thereof, as outlined in the law and the prophets. This is how Solomon understood an “everlasting” promise from God to him and to his seed as always having a king ruling and reigning over his throne: “If you walk before Me in integrity of heart…I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever….But if you or your sons turn away from Me…then I will cut off Israel from the land” (1Kings 9:4–7). And it was because of their disobedience that God cursed Solomon’s natural descendant Jeconiah (also called Coniah), stating that no descendant of his would ever sit on the throne of David, “For no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah,” (Jer. 22:30). But Jesus, of course, was to sit on David’s throne ruling from heaven over His heavenly kingdom. So Jesus circumvents the curse of Jeconiah by being born through Mary. Thus, the legal adoption of Jesus by Joseph reckoned the legal rights of Joseph to Jesus as a son to rule on David’s throne, and not of the biological curse. This is why there are two genealogies mentioned in Matthew and Luke: Luke’s was of Mary (the actual biological line according to prophecy), with Matthew’s of the legal line through Joseph; otherwise the curse of Jeconiah would stand. All this goes to show us that Jesus was not a biological descendant of Jeconiah, but no less a biological descendant of David through Mary. Thus, the prophetic curse upon Jeconiah stands fulfilled, and the conditional aspect of Solomon no longer having a literal flesh and blood son to sit upon his throne for lack of obedience, is maintained.

These same conditional promises are seen concerning Eli, the High Priest: “I promised that your house and your father’s house would minister before Me forever. But now the Lord declares: ‘Far be it from Me!’” (1Sam. 2:30). Clearly, “everlasting” in everyone of these instances above does not mean “everlasting” regardless of any conditions being met. Dispensationalists can’t claim that the blessings for natural Israel according to the flesh are to be unconditional and everlasting when other verses counter that they won’t be if they are disobedient. And if anything “everlasting” is to be understood via Abraham, or even through David, as being unconditional, then it is only through Christ and all of His "children of promise" and not with those who are born only according to the flesh. Again, this is where the dispensationalist, and I might add, the Jews, stumble badly. It is the old classic “blind leading the blind” scenario. Only this time the roles are reversed: it is now blind Christians who are leading and coaxing blind Jews.

[5] See also John 7:38-39 and 1Cor. 12:13.

[6] The Greek word for “build,” oikodomeo, is on some rare occasions translated “rebuild” in the NASB in Mat. 26:61; 27:40 and Mk. 15:29; for Jesus had intimated that if they had destroyed the temple of His body that He would build it [again] in three days. If this isn’t a “rebuilding” of something that was to be torn down, I don’t know what is. In fact, Thayer’s Geek Lexicon even lists these verses above as being “contextually equivalent to restore by building, to rebuild, repair,” with Lke. 11:47 being also listed by him as another example (p. 440, italics his). In John 2:20, the Pharisees had told Jesus that it had taken 46 years “to build” the temple; and, clearly, this was a restoration and "rebuilding" of the former old temple still standing, not a completely new building at all. So, it is no stretch of the imagination to speak of something as being "built" as if it had not been formerly been built before. In Acts 15:16, James adds the prefix “ana” before “oikodomeso” which can mean either “up, above or again,” and can simply be translated “build up.” God is going to “build up” what had “fallen down” (which is the natural juxtaposition to the Greek “kata” for “down”), just like Herod is said to have built [up] the old temple which had fallen down in disrepair without using the prefix “ana” at all.

[7] As a side bar, the conditions surrounding Peter’s evangelistic efforts in verses 7-11 upon which James summarizes his speech—“how first God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name”—have been grossly misrepresented and recklessly abused and mishandled in the defense and interests of dispensationalists. It is one of their leading pillars in their defense that natural Israel will en-mass, in the future, be saved and delivered by Christ. In the words of F. F. Bruce, “If it is true, as the Scofield Reference Bible says (ad loc.), that ‘dispensationally, this is the most important passage in the N.T.’, it is strange that it should have come from the lips of James…. James meant that God had clearly shown His pleasure that the new community which was to display His glory in the world should be drawn from Gentiles as well as from Jews” (New Inter. Comm. on the NT, p. 309-310). But the argument of dispensationalists, in the words of one of their adherents, John MacArthur, reads like this: “After Israel is temporarily set aside, God will [first] gather Gentile believers for Himself, then (‘after these things’) He will restore and reclaim His ancient people Israel (figuratively, ‘the tabernacle of David’), and finally He will establish His glorious kingdom on earth” (MacArthur NT Comm., Romans 9-16, p. 129; words in brackets mine). In other words, natural Israel was “temporarily set aside” due to their unbelief and rejection of the Messiah (saying nothing of those Jews who did in fact receive Him), thus allowing Gentiles to "first" be gathered in, only to be followed again later in our future with a national belief and acceptance of Christ who will reign with them in His millennial kingdom on earth; from a fourth rebuilt temple, with a reinstated Levitical priesthood, with atoning bloody animal sacrifices, and with the literal observance again of circumcision, festivals, new moons and Sabbath days.

But the words, “after these things” in James statement do not mean that after all Gentiles first come in, then all natural Jews will come in later during a future seven-year tribulation who are of the house of David, as all dispensationalists erroneously contend. As one can readily see, in context, Amos says Gentiles come in upon the heels of God building up the house or tent of David, not before, and so we are not talking about a literal tent or building at all here either that God is going to “build” up. It is people or descendants of David that are to be given to him, like unto Abraham, in the person and work of Christ which is what all of this is about. It is “the sure mercies of David” that Isaiah talks about, wherein nations would be summoned through David (or through his descendants, the first Jewish followers of Christ) whom David “knew not, and nations that do not know you will hasten to you” (55:3, 5); and where,“the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon” (v. 7). And so James concludes, using Amos as just one of all the “prophets” who “agree” with this: “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (v. 19). The Gentile believers were then and now turning to God upon Jewish believers having turned to God first—and who all continue to be turned unto God “now” as Paul in Rom. 11:30-31 agrees with using the adverb “now.” The apostle Paul has stated that the gospel was “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 2:10, et al). And Jesus said the very same thing to His disciples (cf. Mat. 10:5-6). So, the word “first” used by James does not mean first in order, for then this would contradict that the gospel went to the Jew “first” in order to save some of them first, such as Paul, the Apostles, and other Jewish converts. Therefore, “first” in this instance can only mean “at the beginning” in the early formation of the Church comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. As Lenski notes in his commentary, the verb “visited” (or “looked”) “has no personal object, and hence we translate, ‘first looked to it’” (p. 607). In other words, the Greek here denotes how that God in the beginning of the formation of His Church “first looked to it” to include Gentiles along with the Jews. It should also be noted here at this venture that Gentiles become joined with the spiritual house of Israel, and not Israel with the Gentiles; with Israel retaining her name and identity, while the Gentiles lose theirs and ascribe to themselves with the new name of “Israel,” as all citizens and children do who are joined to another nation or family. And with regards to the words, “after these things,” James is clearly just referring to what Amos had said prior to this statement of his in all of the previous verses, which describe all of the calamities that would befall the natural nation of Israel in their being scattered and driven away. But God promises to “not totally destroy the house of Jacob” (Amos 9:8); “in that day I will restore David’s fallen tent” (v. 11). In what “day” dare we again ask? In the days of the gospel of grace, peace and mercy—to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God.