Part I
Understanding God's Plan of Universal Reconciliation for All
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Part I Understanding God's Plan of Universal Reconciliation for All |
CHAPTER 6 GOD’S PURPOSE FOR ISRAEL - PART 1 The Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants
Israel plays a key role in God’s Plan to reconcile all things in heaven and all things on earth to God, having made peace through the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. Jesus Christ Himself was born a Jew, an Israelite. The Israelites are the direct physical descendants of Abraham through the line of Isaac and Jacob. The Bible uses the word Israel to mean both the nation and the land. Scripture says again and again, hundreds of times, that God is the God of Israel, and the Holy One of Israel. In fact, the word Israel is mentioned over 2500 times in the Bible. We all need to grasp the tremendous importance of Israel, of why and how God is using Israel to demonstrate His love, His justice and His Plan of Salvation for all people. God made a covenant promise with Abraham, known as the Abrahamic Covenant. This is a covenant of faith by which God is unconditionally bound to make Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites, a great and blessed nation, and also to bless all the families (nations) of the earth through the Seed of Abraham, who is Jesus Christ Himself. God also made a covenant with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai, 430 years after the Abrahamic Covenant. This is known as the Mosaic Covenant, which is a conditional covenant promising blessings for obedience to God’s laws, but incurring God’s curses and judgements for disobedience. It is very important to understand both of these covenants, the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant, because they are at the heart of God’s Plan to judge and then to reconcile to Himself, all Israel and all nations of the earth. God has a wonderful plan for all people, which He is working out in seven biblical ages. The Plan of God consists of both separation and reconciliation for all people; separation because of sin and reconciliation because of the free gift of God’s Righteousness through Jesus Christ. The history of Israel started when God called one man, Abraham. Genesis 12:1 God called Abraham out of his native land of Haran to go to the land of Canaan. This is estimated to be in the year 1921 B.C.
Genesis 12:2-3 3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. These verses state the Abrahamic Covenant. God has put a tremendous importance on this covenant. He affirmed, re-affirmed and then renewed the covenant with Isaac and Jacob (Genesis 13:14-17, Genesis 15:1-21, Genesis 17:1-11, Genesis 22:15-19, Genesis 26:2-5, Genesis 28:13-17). The Abrahamic Covenant contains three important parts: firstly, an unconditional part, ‘I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing’; followed by a conditional part, ‘I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you’; followed by an unconditional part, ‘And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’. We see that the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant has a conditional part within it. However, this in no way takes away from God’s unconditional parts of the Abrahamic Covenant. We will comment on each part of the covenant later in this chapter. When God promised Abraham that He would make him a great nation, Abraham was 75 years old and childless. For Abraham to become a great nation, he would have to have multitudes of descendants and land. God promised him both of these. Genesis 15:5 Genesis 15:18 As the Abrahamic Covenant was made circa 1921 B.C., this means that almost 4000 years have passed since God promised Abraham that his descendants would be a great and blessed nation, living in the land with boundaries from the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates. The important question facing us is, ‘Has God fulfilled His promise to Abraham yet?’ The answer is an absolute ‘no’. God has not fulfilled this promise yet. To date, Israel has never been a great and blessed nation occupying the full extent of the land promised to Abraham. Also, all the families of the earth have not yet come into the blessing of the Seed of Abraham, who is Jesus Christ. Galatians 3:14, 16 16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds” as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your Seed’, who is Christ. The first unconditional part of the Abrahamic covenant, ‘I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing’, will be fulfilled by Jesus Christ when He returns at His Second Coming to establish His Millennial Kingdom on this earth. During Christ’s Millennial Kingdom, Israel will be a great nation of blessing occupying the full extent of the Promised Land as we explain in Chapter 11. The second unconditional part of the Abrahamic Covenant, ‘And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ is universal in scope and refers to both phases of the Kingdom of God, the Millennial Kingdom and the Eternal Kingdom of God of the New Heaven and the New Earth. Ultimately, Adam and Eve and all of their descendants without exception, whose numbers are like the stars of heaven, will be blessed and reconciled to God through the Seed of Abraham who is Christ. Full details are given in Chapters 11 and 14. Let us now clearly understand the conditional part, of blessings and curses, in the Abrahamic Covenant, as it is greatly misunderstood by most Christians. Many Christian Zionists misapply the Abrahamic Covenant and unwisely get involved in supporting the politics of the State of Israel against the Palestinians because they fail to understand that God’s promises to Israel will not be fulfilled in this age, but only in the Millennial Kingdom, after Jesus Christ returns. Blessings and Curses in the Abrahamic Covenant The conditional part of the Abrahamic Covenant says, ‘I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you’. God blesses those who bless Abraham and He curses those who curse Abraham. It is important to understand that the Abrahamic Covenant is a covenant of faith. Romans 4:13, 16 16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. All those who have the faith of Abraham to believe in all parts of the Abrahamic Covenant come under the Abrahamic Blessing. They believe that God will make Abraham, meaning Israel, a great nation of blessing and that God will bless (save) all the families of the earth, meaning all people, through the Seed of Abraham, who is Jesus Christ. However, all those who do not have the faith to believe in all parts of the Abrahamic Covenant come under the Abrahamic Curse. Only true believers, God’s Elect, have the God given faith to fully believe in all parts of the Abrahamic Covenant. Only true believers will rise in the First Resurrection, in their saved immortal bodies, to join the returning Jesus Christ as His Bride. They will rule and reign with Him for a thousand years during Christ’s Millennial Kingdom on this earth. All unbelievers, both from the nation of Israel and the Gentile nations, past, present and future, remain under the Abrahamic Curse of unbelief. Being cursed means that they will miss out on the Abrahamic Blessing of entering the Millennial Kingdom of God as the Bride of Christ. Also, being cursed means that they will have to face God’s judgement in the Lake of Fire when they rise, in their unsaved immortal bodies, in the Second Resurrection at the end of the Millennial Kingdom. It is only after they have been judged and refined in God’s Lake of Fire that they will have the faith to believe the Abrahamic Covenant. This is when all unbelievers, in their risen immortal bodies, will be saved and reconciled to Father God through the work of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross. Most ‘Christians’ remain under the Abrahamic Curse. They do not believe in the coming Millennial Kingdom of God on this earth, and they do not believe that God will bless (save) all the families of the earth through the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. Most ‘Christians’ believe in the unbiblical doctrine of hell or the unbiblical doctrine of annihilation. On the Day of Judgement, these ‘Christians’ will be shocked to hear that Jesus Christ never knew them because they did not believe the Abrahamic Covenant, which is the will of the Father (Matthew 7:21-23). The will of the Father is nothing less than the universal salvation of all people through Jesus Christ, the Seed of Abraham (1 Timothy 2:3-6).This is the Gospel.
The Mosaic Covenant is a covenant based on the keeping of God’s laws, unlike the Abrahamic Covenant, which is a covenant based on faith that God has promised to fulfil Himself. The Mosaic Covenant was made following the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt around 1491 B.C. This was 430 years after God made the Abrahamic Covenant. The most important commandments in the Mosaic Covenant are the Ten Commandments, given to Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai. However, there are hundreds of additional laws, rules and commandments in the Mosaic Covenant. Exodus 24:3 The children of Israel agreed to keep all of God’s commandments. However, they did not understand that in their self-righteous state it was impossible for them to obey these commandments as God required. God pronounced both blessings and curses: blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience to the Mosaic Covenant. Leviticus 26:3-13 Leviticus 26:14-43 The list of curses given in the scripture above continues with frightening details in Deuteronomy 28. The story of Israel from the Exodus to the present day is a story of Israel’s failure to keep the Mosaic Covenant, thereby incurring God’s judgement, wrath and punishment. God understood right from the start that the children of Israel would not and could not keep the Mosaic Covenant because God had not given them a heart of faith, as He had given to Abraham who was one of God’s Elect. Deuteronomy 29:4 It is within God’s plan and purpose to punish His chosen people for their sins and rebellion, but never to reject them totally. He continues to work with them. The time will come in the future when God will save all Israel by giving them new hearts to believe under the New Covenant, which is the outworking of the Abrahamic Covenant. God’s Judgements on Israel for Disobedience Let us now go on to see how God has been working with His chosen people Israel since the Exodus to this present day, and understand God’s plan for them. This is powerfully and wonderfully described and summarised in the book of Ezekiel Chapter 36. We shall start from verse 16. Ezekiel 36:16-18 After the Exodus from Egypt in 1491 B.C. the children of Israel finally occupied a part of the Promised Land known as Canaan, under the leadership of Joshua. Only those who were under the age of twenty, with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, entered the land after forty years of wandering and judgement in the wilderness of Sinai. The rest of the Israelites could not enter because of their unbelief. After entering the Promised Land, the children of Israel failed to keep the Mosaic Covenant, so God judged them severely. He allowed foreign armies to invade and remove most of them from their land, and scattered them among the Gentile nations. Ezekiel 36:19 God says that He scattered the Israelites from their own land. The Greek word diaspora means ‘a scattering of seeds’ and this word is used to describe the scattering of the Israelites to other countries. Let us see the relevant dates of when this scattering historically took place. Israel was divided into two kingdoms, a Northern Kingdom and a Southern Kingdom. In 721 B.C. the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom, which comprised the ten tribes of Israel, and took them captive. All of the Israelites who were taken captive never returned to the land of Israel. However, a remnant of the ten tribes managed to escape captivity and joined the Southern Kingdom, which comprised two tribes of Israel, Judah and Benjamin, known as the Jews (2 Chronicles 30:6-11). In 586 B.C. 135 years after the fall of the Northern Kingdom to the Assyrians, the Babylonians conquered the Southern Kingdom comprising the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, plus the remnant of the other ten tribes of Israel who had escaped captivity by the Assyrians. The Babylonians took the Jews captive and removed them to Babylon. However, once again a remnant escaped and remained in the Southern Kingdom (Nehemiah 1:2). In 538 B.C. Babylon fell to Persia. By this time the Jews had been 48 years in captivity in Babylon. Cyrus, king of Persia, freed these Jews and gave them permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Under the leadership of Zerubbabel, many Jews returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, which was completed in 516 B.C. In 301 B.C. Ptolemy, the Greek general, who succeeded Alexander the Great, took Jerusalem from the Persians and ruled over Judea. In 63 B.C. Pompey, the Roman commander, took Jerusalem from the Greeks and Judea then became a Roman protectorate. The period circa 4 B.C.-27 A.D. saw the birth, the crucifixion and the resurrection of the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. This is the most important and central event in God’s Plan for All, which will lead to the fulfilment of all parts of the Abrahamic Covenant. In 66-70 A.D. the Jews revolted against the Roman Empire under Emperor Titus. This revolt was crushed in 70 A.D. when up to one million Jews died and the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. In 132-134 A.D. the Jews again revolted against the Roman Empire under Emperor Hadrian. The Romans also crushed this revolt, and approximately 580,000 Jews were killed. This revolt is known as Bar-Kokhba’s revolt after the name of the Jew who led it. Most of the Jewish population who survived these two revolts were either sold into slavery or exiled to other countries. Ezekiel 36:20-21 It is amazing what God is saying in these verses. God is saying that the land of Israel is His land, and that any Israelite living outside of His land is profaning His holy name. Ezekiel 36:22-23 We know that the land of Israel was given, through the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant, to Abraham and his descendants through the line of Isaac and Jacob. As long as Jews live outside the Promised Land of this Covenant, from the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates, the name of the God of Israel is being disgraced and profaned in the eyes of the nations. God says that He will sanctify His great name by making sure that the Jews, spread throughout the world, will return to their own Promised Land. Jews have endured much persecution for centuries whilst living in other countries, but they have always remained a separate and distinct people who could not be assimilated into other nations because of their traditions under the Mosaic Covenant. This is how God intended it to be. Traditional Christianity, both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, has misunderstood Scripture when it believed for centuries that God had rejected His people, Israel. It believed that the Jews had been replaced by the Church comprised mainly of Gentile Christians, which it believed to be the New Israel of God. This belief is known as ‘Replacement Theology’ and it is still prevalent today. It is this unbiblical belief, which fuelled anti-Semitism in Europe for centuries. Jews suffered much persecution during the Crusades (1099-1244) and the Inquisitions, including the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834). They suffered expulsion from many countries including England, France, Spain, Lithuania, Portugal and Germany. Jews were blamed for the Black Death plague (1347-1351), which decimated the population of Europe. They were charged with having provoked the plague through their unbelief in Christianity. The persecution of Jews during the Black Death resulted in an eastward migration of many Jews to Poland and Russia, where they remained until the twentieth century. Anti-Semitism climaxed in the Holocaust of Hitler’s torture chambers, where more than six million Jews died during 1940-1945. The Holocaust led to the return of many Jews to Israel, and the country of Israel was re-established in 1948. The re-establishment of Israel has ‘woken-up’ many Christians to acknowledge the fact that God has not totally rejected Jews, as believed by traditional Christianity for centuries. Some Christians have now become very strong supporters of Israel. In 1600, it was estimated that only 1% of Jews lived in the land of Israel, whilst the remaining 99% lived in other countries throughout the world. However, by 1991, the ‘Historical Atlas of the Jewish People’ estimated that 32% of Jews had returned to Israel. This still left 68% living outside Israel. The current estimate is that 50% of Jews now live in Israel, which means that God’s work of gathering Jews out of all countries back to Israel is not yet complete, and it will only be completed when their Messiah, Jesus Christ, returns. Israel is now once again a nation in its own land. It is a tiny nation with only a few million people, yet it is the most powerful nation militarily in the Middle East. Israel is leading the world in many technological developments, such as in biotechnology and the internet. It is also a world leader in environmental research. Over a hundred Israeli companies are listed on NASDAQ. Israel’s importance and contribution to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance and medicine is greatly out of proportion to its small size and numbers. However, God’s plan to make Israel a great nation of blessing not only to themselves but also to all nations of the earth, as promised in the Abrahamic Covenant, has not even begun yet. It can only begin when their Messiah, Jesus Christ, returns to this earth as the King of the Jews. Israel remains an unbelieving nation except for a few Elect believers. In God’s eyes, the vast majority of Israelites still have unbelieving hearts of stone, and their list of sins is still as long as that recorded by their prophets in the Old Testament. God has not yet finished judging and punishing His people. The Bible prophesies that God will punish and judge the whole world including Israel, before Jesus Christ returns to this earth. This will be the time known as the Great Tribulation, lasting for three and a half years, when there will be worldwide cataclysmic events and destruction of peoples. The Great Tribulation will be the most horrific unprecedented time that this present world will ever experience (Matthew 24:2). Daniel also refers to this time of trouble when the power of the holy people, meaning Israel, will be completely shattered (Daniel 12:1, 7). Also, Jeremiah refers to this time as ‘The Time of Jacob’s Trouble’ (Jeremiah 30:7). The final battle to be fought on this earth before Jesus Christ’s return is called the battle of Armageddon. God Himself will gather many Gentile nation armies (Magog) under the leadership of Gog to battle against Jerusalem and use them to judge and punish His people for their sins (Ezekiel 39:16-17). Jerusalem shall be taken and half of the city shall go into captivity. However, this will be the last time that God will use foreign armies to punish His people. God will then fight against these armies of the nations and destroy them (Zechariah 14:1-3). We are living in momentous times leading towards the fulfilment of God’s covenant with Abraham, when God will make Israel a great nation of blessing both to itself and to all the nations of the earth. The Fulfilment of the Promised Blessing to Israel Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, will return to this earth immediately after the battle of Armageddon, and His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4). This marks the beginning of the really Good News. Jesus Christ will return to bring complete fulfilment of the Abrahamic Covenant in all its parts. The first unconditional part of the Abrahamic Covenant, which is to bless the nation of Israel and make it a great nation, will be fulfilled during the wonderful prophesied Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Ezekiel 36:25-27 Jeremiah 31:31 How beautiful and how wonderful are God’s reassuring words to Israel. God’s promise of the New Covenant should bring tremendous rejoicing in the heart of every Jew. The New Covenant is the outworking of the Abrahamic Covenant of faith. God will give a new heart and a new spirit to His people to believe in the Seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. Ezekiel 36:28-30, 35 During the Millennial Kingdom, all of the Jews who survive the coming Great Tribulation and their descendants will live in the full extent of the land of Israel, as promised to Abraham. Israel will be blessed both spiritually and physically, and Israel will in turn bless all the nations of the world. Chapter 11, The Millennial Age of the Kingdom of God gives details about this glorious age. |
Part II Complete and Comprehensive Answers to Why, When, & How the Doctrine of Hell crept into Christianity Part III Additional Important Information for Understanding God's Plan for All |
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God's Plan for All |
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