Can we trust God’s promises? Throughout the Old Testament, God made strong statements and specific promises to national Israel; a nation which was more often than not disobedient.
Isaiah 60
God made specific declarations about Israel in the entirety of Isaiah chapter 60. Here is how it finishes:
Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. The least one shall become a clan, and the smallest one a mighty nation; I am the LORD; in its time I will hasten it. Isaiah 60:21-22
David Guzik’s commentary HERE
Jeremiah 31
Jeremiah 31 has God declaring His intentions towards the nation of Israel.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar– the LORD of hosts is his name:
If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the LORD, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus says the LORD: “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, declares the LORD. Jer 31:31-37
David Guzik’s commentary HERE
Ezekiel 36 “For my name’s sake”
Just as above, Ezekiel 36 provides us with God’s heart towards the recalcitrant Israel.
Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. Ezekiel 36:22
I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. (Verses 24, 25)
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Verses 26, 27)
You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. (Verses 28, 29)
David Guzik’s commentary HERE
Artful dodges
Faced with these passages, proponents of Covenant Theology employ a variety of dodges. We’re directed to verses alleging God’s divorce of ethnic Israel, and told that the church now is Spiritual Israel. Or they’ll assert that Israel was the OT church, and those promises now flow to believers. Another tactic is to affirm that the promises to Israel have been expanded into something greater, or fulfilled in Christ.
But the passages above tell how God will change the heart of Israel (the nation), make a New Covenant with it, and return it to the land promised to its fathers. They’ll possess the land forever, once they’re redeemed.
Sometimes we’re told that God spoke in a certain manner so that the prophets’ audiences could understand something greater; as if the kind of re-imagination of the promises articulated by supersessionists couldn’t have been understood back then as we do now. These dodges are really an attempt to impose a non-fitting theology onto the passages.
Can we trust God’s promises? If we can trust God with our salvation, we ought to trust God to deliver on His Word to Israel.
Maranatha!
Further reading
Learning about Evangelical Zionism
Israel in the Biblical Worldview
Sharing is caring!
