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WILL JEWS RETURN TO JERUSALEM?

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From Tennessee comes this question: “Do the Scriptures teach that the Jews will return to Jerusalem and then Christ will come and rebuild the temple there?”

We learn from a note accompanying the question that a Holy Roller or some similar kind of preacher is creating a little confusion by teaching that the Jews will return to Jerusalem and Christ will soon come and rebuild the temple.

There is no way to keep fanatics from making wild guesses, nor to keep speculators from perverting the word of God. But if people studied the Bible as they should, such fellows would create very little confusion. It is hard to tell just why such a high fever has lately developed about the future of the Jews. Some preachers seem not to have much thought for any one but the Jews.

God promised Abraham to make of his seed a great nation and to give to them the land of Canaan. (Gen. 12:1-3; 13:14-17.) After Israel came out of Egypt, God entered into a covenant with them, promising to make of them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, on condition that they obeyed his voice and kept his covenant. (Ex. 19:5, 6.) But as they neared Canaan, Jehovah said to them: “And it shall be, if thou shalt forget Jehovah thy God, and walk after other Gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations that Jehovah maketh to perish before you, so shall ye perish; because ye would not hearken unto the voice of Jehovah your God.” (Deut. 8:19, 20.) The nations spoken of perished permanently, never to inhabit Canaan again. Israel was to perish as they did, if they turned from Jehovah in rebellion against him. I think one can safely say that not a future-kingdom advocate believes that Scripture just as it reads.

Some, at least, of those who look for the return of the Jews to Palestine and the restoration of their old kingdom tell us that the land promise to Abraham and his seed was an unconditional promise. If so, why have the Jews been deprived of their land for eighteen and a half centuries? If the Jews were driven out because of their conduct, then the land covenant, or promise, was conditional. It seems to me that their theory virtually charges God with a failure to carry out an unconditional promise. Just here the interested reader should read carefully Deut. 27 and 28. But some will tell us that the land promise and the national promises have not yet been fulfilled to the Jews; but in so contending they run squarely against plain statements of Scripture.

After Israel had conquered the land of Palestine and each tribe had entered into its inheritance, Joshua called the people together and made an address to them, in which he said: “And behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which Jehovah your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, not one thing hath failed thereof.” (Josh. 23:14.) Joshua had already declared: “So Jehovah gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.... There failed not aught of any good thing which Jehovah had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.” (Josh. 21:43-45.) Hence, they had come into possession of all that God had sworn to their fathers to give them. All of God’s promises to them have been fulfilled, even though they never again see the land of Palestine.

Some centuries after they came into possession of Palestine the Israelites became so corrupt and rebellious that they were carried into captivity. Many of the prophets foretold this carrying away into captivity, and there were numerous prophecies that they would be brought back into their own land. These prophecies, long ago fulfilled, are now brought forward to prove that the Jews will again be brought back into their own land. It is a miserable perversion of prophecies that have had their fulfillment in the restoration of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. Why should any one call it speculation about unfulfilled prophecy?

The contention that the Jews are yet God’s chosen people, and that he yet has in store for them special blessings that are not obtainable by other people, is in direct contradiction to God’s whole plan of salvation through Christ. The plain teaching of the New Testament is against such an idea, and yet it is God’s final revelation to man, and shows the full development and perfection of all the plans and purposes which God began in the Old Testament to outline in promise, prophecy, and type. Hence, if God has yet in store some special blessings for the Jews, he certainly would have told us about it in the New Testament; but instead of giving us such information, the New Testament distinctly and emphatically teaches that now fleshly relations count for nothing. Although Paul was “of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews,” he counted such fleshly relations as but refuse, and declared that he had no confidence in the flesh—that is, in any fleshly relations. (Phil. 3:2-8.) In 2 Cor. 5:14, 15, Paul declares that Christ died for all, and because of that fact he adds, “Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh”—we give no distinction to any man because of his nationality. “Even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.” (verse 16.) No one thinks of Christ as a Jew with a Jew’s narrow nationalistic traits, but as a world savior. That he so often referred to himself as the Son of man, and not as a Jew, is more significant than many think. It sets him before us as equally related to all men and as equally interested in all men. Jehovah is not a tribal God and Jesus is not a tribal king, as most of the future-kingdom folks seem to believe.

Jesus himself gives us a picture of the latter end of the Jews. Read Matt. 12:43-45. The unclean spirit, having been driven out of the man, returns to the man with seven other spirits worse than himself. “And the last state of that man becometh worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this evil generation.” If the word here translated generation means race, as it often does, the future of the Jewish race is dark indeed.

In applying the lesson of the parable of the householder, Jesus said: “Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” (See Matt. 21:33-43.) This nation is the new Israel of God, the church. Christians are now the circumcision. (Phil. 3:3.) Christians are now “Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.” (Gal. 3:29.) The promises and prophecies that have not been fulfilled to fleshly Israel are to be fulfilled to the church, which is now God’s Israel.

It has already been shown that there is no ground for expecting the Jews to return to Palestine. Instead of finding any teaching to that effect in the New Testament, as we would expect to find if such is to take place, we find the weight of New Testament teaching to be against such an event.

The return of the Jews to Palestine, the rebuilding of the temple, and the restoration of the Jewish kingdom are all so interwoven in the program of the future-kingdom advocates that they stand or fall together. It is a significant fact that the prophecies relied on to prove the fore-going propositions were all uttered before the Babylonian captivity or during that captivity. The Babylonian captivity had often been foretold. Therefore, when any prophet spoke of the regathering of the Jews to Palestine and the rebuilding of their temple, every Jew of that time would understand the prophet to be speaking of their return from Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding of their temple then. Ezekiel prophesied during the captivity, being himself one of the early captives. Of course, anything he said about the return of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple would be understood by every Jew of that time as referring to their deliverance from their present captivity. Without some special words of explanation they could not have understood it otherwise. But no such words of explanation were given. The prophets knew how the Jews would understand them, and yet they let it go at that. Are we to understand that God, through his prophets, deceived the Jews? Surely not. The prophets foretold the return of the Jews from captivity. The Jews would understand them to refer to their return from Babylonian captivity. What then? Sound principles of exegesis demand that these circumstances and conditions be taken into consideration in the application of these prophecies. This the future-kingdom advocates fail to do. But they tell us that some of the promises in these prophecies concerning the return of the Jews from captivity have not yet been fulfilled. But such an affirmation ignores the conditionality of God’s promises. It is the same blunder that is made by the advocates of the impossibility of apostasy. Even if it could be shown that some things promised to the Jews on their return to Palestine were never fulfilled, that would not prove that they will yet be fulfilled. The human side must be taken into consideration. Hear the Lord through Jeremiah: “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel.... And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” (Jer. 18:5-10.) This is God’s warning to Israel, but it has no weight with the future-kingdom advocates.

The Lord brought the Jews back from captivity and planted them in their land. They would have had God’s choicest blessings had they obeyed his voice; but they failed him, and plunged into the grossest sins. This criminality culminated in their murdering the Son of God and many of his saints. It was not the crimes of individuals here and there, but the deliberate crimes of the nation. Death is the punishment for deliberate murder. National murder demanded national death. The Jewish nation suffered that death in the destruction of Jerusalem.

When God sent his Son into the world, he did not send him to reorganize the Jewish kingdom, but to open up a way of salvation for sinners. He did not fail to accomplish what he was sent to do, as the future-kingdom advocates claim. Hear his own words: “I glorified thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which thou hast given me to do.” (John 17:4.) That statement should settle a lot of speculation about the rejected king and the postponed kingdom.

When Jesus comes again, he will not come to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, but to render judgment. (Matt. 25:31-46; 2 Thess. 1:6-10.) His temple is here now. “Upon this rock I will build my church.” (Matt. 16:18.) That church is his temple. “Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, and such are ye.” (1 Cor. 3:16, 17.) “Being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:20-22.) In the old material temple, animal sacrifices and other material sacrifices were offered; in this new spiritual temple, spiritual sacrifices are offered. “Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Pet. 2:5.) Can any one believe that we are to give up this glorious spiritual temple for the old material temple? this spiritual worship for the carnal ordinances of the material temple? If so, he has poor taste for the spiritual.

The temple in Jerusalem was but a type, a shadow, of this glorious spiritual temple. (Heb. 9:1-10.) This spiritual house is a “greater and more perfect tabernacle.” (Heb. 9:11.) Now, we are gravely told that in the millennium we will exchange this glorious spiritual temple for the material temple with its animal sacrifices, give up the substance for the shadow, give up the gospel of grace for the law of the temple, which means the law of Moses. That temple, we are informed, will be again sanctified by the blood of animals. Such material conceptions as this whole future-kingdom idea suits very well such materialists as the Russellites, but has no place in the thinking of one who glories in the cross of Christ and in his blood-bought church.

As a sample of the passages relied on to prove that the Jews are yet to be restored to Palestine and their temple rebuilt, read Ezek. 34:11-31; also chapters 37; 39:21-29, and to the close of Ezekiel. Remember, as you read, that Ezekiel prophesied while he and his nation were in captivity. In the temple of which Ezekiel speaks there were to be all the offerings and ceremonies required by the law of Moses. The blood of the animal sacrifices served the same purposes as the law specified. The priests were of the tribe of Levi. This cannot refer to the future, for no Jew now knows to what tribe he belongs. With the blood of animals atonement was to be made for the people. If a man can believe all this is yet future, he can believe anything that suits his fancy; facts will be no barrier to anything he wants to believe.

The Kingdom of Promise and Prophecy

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