The Nation of Israel Will Be a Nation Again
Every time the situation in Israel-Palestine hits the news, for Christians one of the bug that emerges is whether or not the modern State of Israel is a fulfilment of biblical prophecy. The main prophetic text appealed to is the later chapters of Ezekiel, particularly Ezekiel 39. Only in order to empathise whether there is connection between these texts and events in the modern world, we demand to look advisedly at what Ezekiel says, how it was understood, and about chiefly of all, how the writers of the NT understood these passages in relation to the ministry of Jesus.
Colin Chapman, who has written widely on the subject of the Heart East, engages with but these questions in the latest Grove Biblical booklet B 87Prophecy Fulfilled Today? Does Ezekiel Have Anything to Say Virtually the Modernistic State of Israel?He starts by noting that this question has been a business organization of Christians for most 400 years.
It is in discussion about the fulfilment of prophecy in contempo history that there is nearly sectionalisation amongst Christians. Since the time of the Puritans in the seventeenth century many have believed that prophecies in Ezekiel and the other prophets concerning the render to the state and the restoration of Israelwould i mean solar day exist ful lled literally. This view is by and large known as 'restorationism.' And since the beginning of the Zionist movement in the 1880s many Christians have been convinced that these prophecies—together with biblical promises about the country—were being fulfilled.
To engage with this question, the showtime thing Chapman does is to put Ezekiel and his prophecy in its context—when Ezekiel was writing, what was the situation, and what questions he is seeking to address.
Ezekiel's first task was to explain to his people that the fall of Jerusalem and the exile were God's judgment for the ways in which they had broken the covenant. God had taken abroad 4 of the most fundamental and significant gifts included in the covenant—the land, the metropolis of Jerusalem, the temple and the monarchy. Having explained the reason for the exile, in the second part of the volume Ezekiel gives his people hope for the future (chapters 33–48). Non only volition they be able to return to their land, but they will see that God is going to do something radically new in and through the restoration of the land, the city, the temple and the monarchy.
Merely when we look at the history of the people in the country after the return and in the next four centuries, it is hard to run into much evidence of the national and spiritual renewal and revival that Ezekiel had envisaged. It was non surprising, therefore, that in the intertestamental menstruation people began to dream of a time when God would intervene in miraculousways to ful 50 the visions of the prophets. Some of these hopes centred round the gure of a messiah, who would be either a supernatural effigy coming on the clouds or a war machine effigy overcoming oppressive foreign rulers and restoring State of israel's independence.
These were the kind of hopes of a better future that were held by many Jews in the first century, and summed up by Luke in expressions like 'the alleviation of State of israel' (Luke 2.25), 'the redemption of Jerusalem' (Luke two.38), 'the 1 who was to come' (Luke vii.18) and 'the ane who was going to redeem Israel' (Luke 24.twenty). People must have thought, 'If the visions of Ezekiel and the other prophets have hardly been fulfilled in the history of the nation until now, surely God has to arbitrate in a dramatic manner to demonstrate his faithfulness to his promises!'
Chapman'due south central chapter then looks at seven major themes that are associated with the restoration from exile, detail in Ezekiel 34 to 37, and to run across how these themes are taken upwardly in the NT. These themes include God acting through a shepherd-rex, the hallowing of the proper name of God, enjoying prosperity in the land, cleansing from sin, the souvenir of a new heart leading to obedience, a covenant of peace, and God's temple presence among his people. The most pertinent of these relates to the country.
The promise to bring exiles dorsum to the state looks at starting time sight as if it has no echoes in the NT. Just scholars like N T Wright have argued that Jesus' utilise of OT texts concerning the return from the Babylonian exile—taken mostly from Isaiah—suggests that Jesus saw his people as still in a country of exile, and announced that he was going to atomic number 82 them out of exile. The clearest examples come in his address in the synagogue in Nazareth ('The Spirit of the Lord is on me…' Luke 4.18–xix, quoting Isa 61.one–ii), and his response to the disciples of John the Baptist, in which he describes his healing miracles in the poetic language used by Isaiah to describes the exiles returning to the land ('The blind receive sight, the lame walk…' Luke 7.22, quoting Isa 35.v–half-dozen).10 Information technology may seem foreign to include the words of Jesus nearly the Son of Homo sending his angels to 'assemble his elect' (Mark 13.27) in this context. But since the word angelos can be translated as either 'angel' or 'messenger,' it is perfectly possible that Jesus could be speaking most the proclamation of the gospel every bit a way of gathering the elect into the kingdom of God…
NT writers apply OT terminology about the land (in item the give-and-take 'inheritance,' kleronomia) to speak about what all believers possess in Christ. Thus Paul in his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, echoing Joshua'south good day address (Josh 23.1–xvi), speaks about 'the word of his [God'southward] grace, which…can requite you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified' (Acts xx.32). Peter speaks of how all believers experience 'new birth into a living hope…and into an inheritance that tin can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for y'all…' (1 Pet 1.3–4). The Letter to the Hebrews was addressed primarily to Jewish followers of Jesus, who might take been expected to hold onto the hope that promises and prophecies about the land would one day be fulfilled in a very literal way. But the writer gives no hint of any expectation of a literal fulfilment, and instead develops the theme of the land in a completely new direction. He speaks of the land as 'that rest,' maxim that 'Nosotros who have believed enter that rest' (Heb 4.iii). And traditional Jewish hopes about Jerusalem for the author are no longer centred on the bodily city of Jerusalem: 'But you take come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the urban center of the living God…to the church of the first born…to God…to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant…' (Heb 12.22–24)…
Christians generally have no difficulty in seeing most of these themes of Ezekiel'southward prophecy—about the Davidic shepherd-rex, the sanctification of the name of God, the nations knowing that he is God, cleansing from sin, the gift of a new heart and of God's Spirit, the covenant of peace and God'south sanctuary being among his people for e'er—as being fulfilled in the coming of Christ. If the themes concerning the nation and the state tin can also exist related to Jesus and to everything that is offered to every human being being through him,it becomes much harder to believe that prophecies about the people and the country are in a special category, divide from all the other themes of Ezekiel'sprophecy, and therefore demand a literal fulfilment.
In the final section of the booklet, Chapman turns the lens the other way around, and asks whether the modern cosmos of the State of State of israel actually matches what Ezekiel predicted—and he expected the return to be marked by peace, by repentance (in fulfilment of the weather condition set out in Deut 30), and with all the other features noted above—which are notably absent-minded from the current situation. And in contrast to Ezekiel, when Jesus talked of the devastation of Jerusalem in Marking 13, Matt 24 and Luke 21, he brand no mention of the possibility of return and restoration. And Luke'south gospel is the one that sets out most clearly thatall the promises of restoration are met in Jesus.
Ezekiel'south visions of the restoration of Israel led to a glorious climax in the temple in which God was going to 'alive among the Israelites for always' (43.seven) and in the city whose proper noun would e'er exist 'The Lord is there' (48.35). If nosotros believe, therefore, that information technology was uniquely in Jesus that God has come to live amid united states of america, we should not exist looking to see the fulfilment of Ezekiel's visions either in the twentieth-century return of Jews to the state, or the establishment of the land of Israel, or the present metropolis of Jerusalem or in a future millennial reign of Jesus in Jerusalem. Maybe Ezekiel, the priest turned prophet, was using the only language and imagery that were available to him at the time (related to the state, the nation, the metropolis and the temple) to hint at something much more glorious than a return to the state, the revival of the nation and the restoration of a building. Perchance God was using him to prepare his people and to open their minds for what it would mean when, ve centuries later, 'the Discussion was made flesh and dwelt among the states' (John 1.fourteen) and 'God was in Christ reconciling the earth to himself' (ii Cor. 5.xix). And the Volume of Revelation tells us that the all-time is notwithstanding to come up—not in the land or in Jerusalem, merely in 'the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God' and in 'a new sky and a new earth' (Rev 21.1–4).
This booklet will exist of interest to anyone trying to make sense of the current situation, and wanting to relate information technology to Scripture in whatsoever manner. The claim that Ezekiel prophesied the being of the modern Land of Israel is made by many, and this booklet is an essential tool in assessing whether than claim is valid.
You tin can guild the booklet for £three.95 post-costless on the Grove website, or purchase an e-book PDF delivered by email.
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