Israel in Bible Prophecy

The New Testament Fulfillment

of the Promise to Abraham

By Brian Godawa

Israel in Bible Prophecy: The New Testament Fulfillment of the Promise to Abraham

2nd Edition c

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

Warrior Poet Publishing

www.warriorpoetpublishing.com

ISBN: 978-1-942858-37-9 (paperback)

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001, except where noted as the NASB:

New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. (LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995).

Table of Contents

1 Who Are the Children of Abraham? 5

2 Father of Many Nations 10

3 Children of Abraham 14

4 Everlasting Covenant 20

5 Land Promise 22

6 Conditional Covenant 33

7 Circumcision 42

8 The Temple 47

9 Blessing and Cursing 54

10 The Regathering of Israel 56

11 Old Testament Shadow, New Testament Reality 87

Get the Theology behind Chronicles of the Apocalypse 96

Get More Biblical Imagination 98

Chronicles of the Nephilim 99

Chronicles of the Apocalypse 100

Chronicles of the Watchers 101

About The Author 102

1 Who Are the Children of Abraham?

Many Christians believe that the Jews of today are still God’s “chosen people.” Yet most of these same Christians maintain that personal salvation can only be received through faith in Jesus Christ. They hold to the belief that God still has a special plan for the geographical entity of Israel and those they believe are the physical descendants of Abraham.

Every day, prophecy pundits in the media exegete newspapers tirelessly proclaiming that current world events “are all prophesied right in the Bible” and now being fulfilled “right before our eyes.” They’ve been doing this for over 170 years, changing their interpretations as their predictions failed to occur. Prophetic speculation is upgraded and updated for the next go-round. The merchandisers of prophecy know that sizeable financial rewards can come from the right kind of alarming message in what has become a business I call the Bible Prophecy Industrial Complex. Millions of dollars flows into the coffers of prophecy ministries every year through conferences, books, dvds, and other media, teaching their peculiar viewpoints in relation to newspaper headlines. This kind of big business Bible preaching can be corrupting, through blurring motives and creating a need for constant sensationalism, that often vulgarizes the real intent of prophetic passages, completely out of their original contexts.

The dominant prophetic scheme, usually called Dispensationalism (and it’s grandfather, Premillennialism), teaches that the modern ethnic or genetic people called Jews and their modern geopolitical land called Israel are still the center of God’s redemptive plan because, after all, God made a promise to Abraham about multiplying his descendants and giving them the Promised Land, and God isn’t about to change his mind. Dispensationalists cite Exodus 32:13 where God says to Moses:

Exodus 32:13

“Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”

This verse says that God’s promise of inheritance to Abraham’s offspring is “forever,” so it logically follows that it is still in effect, right? After all, God doesn’t fall back on his promises. So, He must still be intent upon giving a physical Israel that physical land He promised so long ago, or else God is a liar, right?

Wrong. This Dispensational viewpoint is not merely unbiblical, it is a serious negation of the glorious New Covenant that God established with the coming of Messiah/Christ. Dispensationalists advanced their novel belief, after 1800 years of church history, that God has two separate plans, one for Israel after the flesh and one for the New Testament Church after the spirit. So they attempt to maintain special status for Israel while also affirming the New Covenant. It’s as if God has two covenants, one with the Jews and one with the Church. But this attempt at simultaneous plans for different “people of God” is ultimately a repudiation of the very concept of the New Covenant in Christ that has abolished all distinction between Jew and Gentile. To say that the physical descendants of Abraham are God’s chosen people after Messiah has come and fulfilled the Old Covenant types and shadows is to negate the New Covenant itself and replace it with a return to the types and shadows that it has replaced.

At about this point, a common knee jerk reaction assumes that such a viewpoint is “anti-Semitic” bringing on some future persecution of the Jews, a “road to holocaust” as one merchandiser of prophecy proclaimed. Well nothing could be further from the truth. Let me state at the outset that I support the modern state of Israel’s right to exist and right to kill terrorist peoples and nations whose sole intent is to “drive the Jews into the sea,” (obliterating them as a people and a nation). I believe modern Israel is a legitimate sovereign nation and has every moral and legal right to self-defense against the tyranny of Muslim oppression that surrounds Israel and seeks to destroy her. I support the modern state of Israel because she is the sole representative democratic ally of the United States in the Middle East surrounded by monstrous tyranny. And I consider the anti-Semitism of Left Wing politics that demonizes Israel to be itself a revival of demonic Nazi thought patterns.

But a moral right to the land is not the same thing as a “divine right” to the land. And to understand that difference, we must see what God himself says about the promise to Abraham.

The Promise

Exodus 32:13 is really a reference to the original promise God made to Abraham in Genesis. Let’s take a look at it and see what we can learn:

Genesis 17:4–10

“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” 9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

Now, what we see here are several elements to the one Promise made to Abraham by God. One, He will be a father of many nations (v 5). Two, the Promise is to Abraham and his offspring (literally: seed), which is stressed over and over throughout the passage (v 7). Three, it is an everlasting covenant, one that does not change (v 7). Four, Abraham’s descendants shall inherit the land of Canaan, the land of Promise (v 8). Five, the covenant is conditioned upon their obedience (v 9). Six, the covenant is sealed by circumcision (v 10).

1) Father of many nations

2) Children of Abraham

3) Everlasting Covenant

4) Land Promise

5) Conditional Covenant

6) Circumcision

What I want to show is that each and every one of these elements of the Promise made to Abraham, is shown in the Scriptures to be fulfilled completely in Christ and his spiritual international body on earth, not in a physical or geographical nation of Israel.

Some have called this by the pejorative title, “Replacement Theology,” as if God replaces Israel with the Church. But while this vulgar oversimplification may be helpful in targeting a Straw Man easy to take down, it does not reflect what the Bible is actually saying nor what I am saying. It is not a replacement that occurs, but rather a fulfillment and transformation in Christ that results in an exclusion of those who mistakenly consider themselves part of the Promise.

In short, from the beginning, God always intended that those who are of faith are his true Chosen People, not those who are of physical descent from Abraham. God’s Promise to Abraham is fulfilled and applied to those who are in Christ, and the seal of that covenant is circumcision of the Spirit, not of the flesh.

2 Corinthians 1:20–22

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him…And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning.

2 Father of Many Nations

Genesis 17:4–5 (NKJV)

“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.”

Genesis 26:4

4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.”

It is common to misunderstand this promise of blessing to the nations as meaning that Israel will become an exalted geopolitical entity sometime in our future, and therefore a shining example to the Gentiles to join or emulate. As if they will remain a separated people from the other nations. But this view is mistaken, because God was not referring to the physical generation of peoples from Abraham’s loins, but to the spiritual regeneration of peoples through faith. Look at how the New Testament declares how this promise was actually fulfilled:

Romans 4:13–18

13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”… 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

Notice that Paul is saying that the promise to Abraham’s descendants is fulfilled “through the righteousness of faith,” not through the Law (or Torah, which was the distinguishing mark of being Israel). In Romans 3 and 4, he makes the case that the physical Jew who received the Law of God and circumcision is not at an advantage over the Gentile because all are under sin. The Law cannot make the Jew righteous, but can only reveal sin and drive one to faith in Christ. By the time Paul gets to Abraham in chapter 4, he shows that even Abraham himself was not made righteous through the act of circumcision, but through his faith which he had while being an uncircumcised Gentile.

Therefore, God’s promise of multiplying descendants and being a father of many nations is explicitly declared by Paul to be fulfilled through the righteousness of faith (the New Covenant), not through physical generation. He goes so far as to say in verse 14 that if the inheritance was through the Law made to the physical Jews, then the promise would actually be nullified! “Those who are of the faith of Abraham” (v. 16) are the inheritors, not mere physical descendants. Abraham’s descendants are believing Christians, both Jew and Gentile, not unbelieving Jews.

The complaint may arise that verse 16 indicates God maintains separate relations or two different covenants with the physical Jews and Gentile believers. Doesn’t the verse say, “in order that the promise may be certain to all the descendants, not only those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all”? So are there not two lines of descendants, physical and spiritual?

Not in context. Don’t forget Paul’s main point that just because the physical Jews received the Law and were circumcised, does not make them righteous or even Abraham’s children. He is trying to show that faith is the common denominator between the Jewish believer and the Gentile believer.

Romans 3:29–30

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

So Paul is trying to explain that just because one is a physical Jew and has been circumcised, does not mean he is righteous or saved. The circumcised must also have faith. So in the verse just before the controversial one we are discussing, he explains what he means by saying,

Romans 4:12

and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

So he is not talking about two plans in verse 16, one for Jews and one for Gentiles, he is not saying that there are two peoples of God through two different physical identities, but rather that the two physical identities are irrelevant, and they are one entity through faith in Christ. The circumcised Jew must not only have the Law (circumcision) but must also have faith or Abraham is not his father.

In the book of Galatians, Paul writes to Christians who have been hoodwinked into thinking that they must add to their faith an obedience to the distinctive laws of Jewish identity, or they are not saved. He addresses the very same Genesis Promise to Abraham and blessing of the nations by explaining that the blessing of the nations was not in Jewish identity but in faith. All the nations are blessed through justification by faith in Jesus Christ, not by a physical Israel with worldly power and glory.

Galatians 3:8–9

And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Paul is very clear that “In you shall all the nations be blessed,” means Gentiles will be justified through the faith of Abraham, not through his loins or through a national Israel separate from the Gentiles. Abraham is the father of Gentiles who come from all the nations and believe in Jesus Christ.

This is not to say that Gentiles alone are who God is saving or justifying, but rather both Jew and Gentile who believe. There is no favor of one over the other, there is only favor of those who believe. And those who believe are from “every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev 7:9). That is how Abraham is a father of many nations. He is the father of those who have faith from all the nations.

Which leads us to the second element of the Promise fulfilled.