Does God Still Have a Future for Israel? — End Times Discussion

In this special Reasoning Through the Bible discussion, we step away from the normal verse-by-verse format for an informal conversation on eschatology and end-times systems. This session compares views such as premillennialism, amillennialism, covenant theology, preterism, and postmillennialism, while asking a central question: Does God still have a future plan for Israel?

The discussion focuses on the sequence found in the Old Testament prophets: Israel’s sin, God’s judgment, the nations gathering against Jerusalem, Israel crying out to the Lord, and God restoring His people. We examine passages and themes from Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joel, Daniel, Romans 11, Acts 1, and Revelation 20, showing why we believe the biblical pattern points to a future restoration of Israel and a future kingdom ruled by Christ.

A major emphasis in this episode is that there is only one way of salvation. Israel is not saved apart from Christ. Gentiles are not saved apart from Christ. Salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone. At the same time, God’s national promises to Israel, the Abrahamic covenant, and the future kingdom should not be erased or replaced by the church.

Topics in this episode include:

• eschatology and end times
• premillennialism
• amillennialism
• covenant theology
• preterism
• postmillennialism
• Israel and the church
• Abrahamic covenant
• Romans 11 and Israel
• Ezekiel 36 and restoration
• Zechariah and the pierced Messiah
• Revelation 20 and the millennium
• Jesus reigning from Jerusalem
• one salvation through Christ

Reasoning Through the Bible is a verse-by-verse Bible teaching ministry committed to careful exposition, biblical context, and faithful application.

Transcript

An Unplanned End Times Conversation

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If you're a normal listener here on Reasoning Through the Bible, you'll know that we usually do verse-by-verse Bible studies through books of the Bible. And today we're going to hear something a little different. We were in our studio just talking amongst ourselves, and we turned on the recorder and had an informal, unprepared discussion on end times. So what we were doing was just comparing end times eschatological systems one with the other and talking about the strengths and weaknesses of them. And so I think from a systematic perspective, that today you'll find this quite interesting. But just remember, it was just an informal, unprepared, off-the-cuff conversation that we just turned on the recorder, and that's what you're going to hear. So without further ado, this is our talk on comparing end time systems.

Does Pentecost Replace Israel’s Promises

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Or at least the remnant that's continued is the way they phrase it, right? But all that starts on the day of Pentecost. So all these blessings for God's people from the Old Testament, so they say, are all fulfilled in the church. Starts on day of Pentecost. Then 70 AD is the day of destruction where God comes in and judges ethnic Israel for disbelief. Now it seems to me that when we've gone through in detail so far, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Joel, that the pattern that gets presented for all of that, the prophecy that supposedly fulfilled there, has the sequence being God's judging ethnic Israel and causing all this destruction, all those passages about all this horrible day of the Lord destruction happens, and then Israel's restored. The remnant, if you will, is restored. So the sequence in the Old Testament prophets is Israel sees all the horribleness that caused by the day of the Lord things, God's judgment raining down on people. And then comes the restoration. And the all millennialist covenant theologians have it flip-flop, do they not? In the sense they're trying to put the the blessings at the day of Pentecost and a whole generation 40 years later comes the destruction of Jerusalem. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm seeing it flip-flopped, right? The sequence presented over and over again in the prophets is all these nations gathered against Jerusalem, and Jerusalem's gets the brunt of this horrible war, and God has to come in and rescue them. And the sequence of the restoration of Jerusalem that the covenant guys are all trying to put on day of Pentecost, that's afterwards. So do they not have it flip-flopped?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, I agree with everything that you've said there. I see a direct parallel to the book of Judges and this

Prophets Put Judgment Before Restoration

SPEAKER_00 4:10

time of Jacob's trouble or the tribulation or the great tribulation, as Jesus had put it, in this way. In Judges, you had the cycle where the people were doing what was right in their own eyes. You had some other nation or group of people that were coming in and marauding or oppressing the people of Israel in a particular area of Israel. There were those seven cycles, and it got so bad that the people cried out to the Lord to be delivered from it, and he sent a judge. So what's happening at the tribulation period? You have all these nations that are coming into Israel and oppressing it, and even to the point of focusing on the city of Jerusalem to the point of destruction. And it tells us that the people, the Jewish people, are going to cry out to God in some of these uh prophets that we've that we've seen. And in those prophecies, it talks about God coming and rescuing his people and setting up his kingdom then and ruling from Jerusalem from that point forward. And that's after the day of destruction of Jerusalem. Correct. Well, yes, I mean it's at that point, is when God comes in and rescues them. So, yes, that is that is all true. So that's how I see the best way I see fitting it is think of what happened in the time of Judges. I see a direct parallel to that type of a situation. And then when the Jewish people see it's going to be Jesus, Jesus is manifested as Yahweh, as God, he is God, when they see him, then they will recognize, look upon the one that they had pierced, and the ones that are there will then become believers, acknowledging he is the Messiah, he is the one who came. And what does that mean? Does that mean that they'll come to a belief, they'll change their mind, they'll come to a belief that Jesus is their true Messiah and become believers. And I think that that's what the term means in all Israel will become saved. I think that that's the type of situation that we will have. That is, as you pointed out, all at the time of destruction and the nations that are coming, and what's described in the prophets are not just one nation, such as in Rome, it's multiple nations that are coming in. It's all the nations that are coming against, it's a culmination of Jew hatred and God hatred coming to a point, and it's like the final battle that is taking place there. And then the other thing is that as you gave the description of how they view it, well, Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected between 30 and 32 AD, depending upon where you put it. Well, 70 A.D. is 40 years later. So there's a gap because I've heard some of them talk about well, the siege around that the Romans put around Jerusalem. It took three and a half years to do that, and then it culminated with them actually destroying the temple, and that was the abomination of desolation, and then you had a follow cleanup of three and a half years. And so they try and put that 70th

Judges As A Tribulation Pattern

SPEAKER_00 7:55

week of Daniel of seven-year period there. Well, that's a gap between Jesus arriving and being cut off, the Messiah being cut off, which is at the end of the 69th week of Daniel, and 40 years later. Well, now if there can be a 40-year gap, why can't there be a multi-millennial gap or multi-century gap? You see what I'm saying? A gap is a gap, whether it's 40 years or several hundred years. So to me, their argument starts to fall apart when they do some of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

So to me, one of the major issues is the sequence in covenant theology and on millennialism is is is just backwards from what it says. Clearly, when we were going through Ezekiel, it's Israel sinned, therefore, God's sending these nations in in judgment, and Jerusalem gets destroyed, then the renewal of the Jews and the new Jerusalem happens, right? Right. They're trying to make it where the new people of God, or the remnant, if you will, is blessed at the day of Pentecost, and a whole generation 40 years later comes the destruction of Jerusalem. The the other seems to me major flaw is that okay, I get it, the unbelieving Jews get judged, and it's the believing remnant that the Gentiles get grafted in. Sure. The problem is that the covenant, again, covenant guys and the all-millennialists and the preterists are all saying it's right and good for God to judge the unbelieving ethnic Jews. And I would agree. It's the same people that get regathered and blessed. It's not a remnant, it's not a just a believing remnant, it's it's the same people that got judged. That was the entire point of Ezekiel chapter 36. The same people that sinned, I judged you, and you responded by blaspheming my name among the nations, and not because of your sake, but because of my name. Because of the promise that I made, I am going to regather those same disobedient people and bless them and put a new heart within them and cause them to keep my statutes, is what he says. So that same sequence that's in Ezekiel 36, we were seeing in Zechariah, we saw it in Joel. It's the pattern that's over and over again. It's the same people that were disobedient and got judged Israel was the same Israel that got regathered into the land and blessed. And there's no, you know, add on top of that, there's all the specifics in all those chapters about, you know, the land of your father Jacob and Judah and the specific geographic features that get mentioned over and over again. That to me, all of those add up to just major issues that just I haven't seen, at least me, I don't read everybody in the world, but I haven't seen an intelligent explanation of that. They flip-flop the sequences and then skip over the fact that it's the same people that get regathered into the land.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

To add to what you're saying is that it's the same people, is that that is the sequence. He comes and then the kingdom is ushered in. The one where he is gonna uh reign from Jerusalem, and that's another recurring theme, is that the the central point is gonna be Jerusalem, and that's where God is gonna reign from. He's gonna reign

Daniel’s Seventy Weeks And Gaps

SPEAKER_00 12:25

and restore the Davidic throne, and he's gonna reign from there. And that's what we see in the prophets. Another argument that they make is that in Revelation 20, it gives this time period of a thousand years. So when they make their argument, they say, well, that's the only time that we see a thousand-year kingdom, this millennial uh kingdom, is in Revelation 20. No, that's the that's when we're given the time frame of how long this kingdom is gonna last, right? Is a thousand years. But the actual setup of the kingdom is given to us all through these other prophets that we've gone through and the other ones that we're gonna go through because we've kind of done a cursory look at some of them, that that this is God talking about restoring it. Now, this was also the mindset of his disciples, because what do we see in Acts chapter one, verse six? Jesus has been resurrected, he's visiting with them for this 40-day period, and he appears in this room to them, and one of them says, Lord, is now the time that you're gonna restore your kingdom? Well, why did he ask that question? Is because that's what the prophets all said. The prophets are all said the Messiah is gonna come and the kingdom's gonna be set up. Now, Paul describes as somewhat of a mystery that we do have this interim period where we have Jews and Gentiles together in this what's known as the body of Christ, also known as the church. And Paul says that is a mystery, meaning that that wasn't explicitly noted in the Old Testament, but here in the New Testament period, this church aid period, that was a mystery that had been revealed. So I don't think there's any flaw in still believing that Jesus is going to return again, that he came the first time as the suffering servant. He's gonna come the second time as this as the conquering king to restore the nation of Israel, but he's also restoring all the nations, which you just mentioned. There's this other theme that we've talked about several times of God restoring the nations. That was the whole reason of him creating the nation of Israel out of nothing, was so that they could be an example to all the other nations. So if God has replaced them with the remnant and the and the church uh age, then yes, we're representing God now, but it's not a physical kingdom here on earth. We we Jesus is not ruling from Jerusalem at this time. I think it's inconsistent for them to say no longer is God going to fulfill those things that he talked about in the prophets of ruling from Jerusalem and all these other things, and by saying that he's done with them, and that some of them even go further to say that the Jewish people that are there aren't really truly Jewish people. We've heard all those arguments and everything else. It just seems to me to be ridiculous on some of the things that they come up with. And with the post-millennial people, their view for the most part is that

Kingdom From Jerusalem And Revelation 20

SPEAKER_00 15:54

it's us, human beings, that are going to build the kingdom. And once we get to the kingdom to a point where all the other nations are Christian and believing Jesus Christ, then Jesus will come, which really puts the church, the body of Christ, as the ones that are ushering in the kingdom. And that is directly against what all these prophets say. It's not us that usher it in, it's Jesus Christ, the Messiah. He is the Messiah and He is God. He's the one that ushers in this kingdom, not us.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

So the sequence that gets presented is exactly flip-flopped from what the scriptures teach in multiple Old Testament sources, the primary prophecies that are supposedly getting fulfilled. The same people that are judged are the ones that's being regathered, and the nations that are mentioned, the people that would disagree with what we just said quickly follow up with, oh, you guys are coming up with a second way of salvation because we say nations are going to be regathered, and that the especially the Jews are largely unbelieving. They think that we're saying these people are saved apart from Christ. And that's not the case. We always have to keep repeating this. We can't view everything God does through one lens. Yes, individual salvation is quite important. We're not minimizing that in the slightest. We are saved only through Christ, only through faith in Christ. That doesn't mean that God's not going to do other things too, which is these nations that are mentioned repeatedly over and over again. Because God is doing something with a nation, doesn't mean that they're all saved as individuals. And so that's that's what would come in. If all Israel is saved, as it says in Romans, it's through faith in Christ.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yes, because the prophets say that it's going to be in the Messiah. They look upon the one who they pierce. Now that's Jesus. At the time, they didn't know exactly who that was, but they understood that to be a messianic person. So, yes, that is the one that they look upon. That is the one they mourn, and that is the one that they change their mind about, and the one that they come to a belief in is Jesus Christ. These other viewpoints, some of them try to say that what we have outlined here. Some say that we say there's two different types of covenant, one with Israel, one with the church, which is not true. It's the new covenant. We're members of the new covenant, and the way that Paul describes that is that we have been grafted in to the olive tree. He's very explicit that the root is Jesus. Who is Jesus? He's the Messiah, their Messiah. As Gentiles that are grafted in, we didn't have this concept of a Messiah, an anointed one. That's what Messiah uh means. But we are grafted in. He, Jesus, is their Messiah, the Jewish people, the nation of Israel. And uh He's also the root of that olive tree. So the olive tree hasn't been chopped down, the olive tree hasn't been destroyed. We're grafted into it, which means that the olive tree continues. Now I can see some of them nodding their heads there saying, yes, that's what we're saying. It's the remnant of the Jewish people that have continued on. We agree with that. How are they the remnant? They're the remnant through believing in Jesus Christ for their salvation. So we agree with that. How are the ones that are going to be regathered at the end times and become believers? They're going to become the remnant at that time of believing in Jesus Christ, in the olive tree. And Paul puts that that way when he says, you who have been grafted in, don't get so looking down your nose at the Jewish people that are not believers right now, because just as much as he pruned the olive tree and cut them off, he said, You that he can also graft them back in as well. So we're at wild olive branches as Gentiles grafted into the olive tree. The uh ones who are non-believing, when they come to a belief in Jesus Christ, they're of the same olive tree, natural one that is grafted back into that olive tree as well. So to me, it that's the progression, and that's the way to make sense of it. We're not teaching two different ways of salvation,

One Salvation In One New Covenant

SPEAKER_00 20:55

we're not teaching two different covenants. The covenant that we're under is the covenant from Jeremiah 31 that's made, by the way, with the Israelite people, the Jewish people. And so we're partakers in that, we're benefactors of that covenant. And in Ezekiel as well as Zachariah, there's mentioned a covenant there that we made a case for it, that that's the same covenant that's talked about in Jeremiah. So he tells, you know, in Ezekiel, he talks about it as being a covenant of peace. And so it's described in a different way, but it's still a covenant, a new covenant that God makes with them to bring them back to himself.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

And that new covenant, again, the the place that I always like to point people is Ezekiel 36 because it's just so clear. The people were judged because of unbelief. Those same people brought back to the land. I'll take out your heart of stone, give you a heart of flesh, put my spirit within you, cause you to keep my statutes. It's the same people. It's not A different people, it's not the believing remnant that is only the ones that are done that to. It's it's the same people that were judged. So I kind of tie all this up with a bow. I and we've dealt with all these passages over in Galatians. It talks about the seed of Abraham being fulfilled through Christ, not seeds. And so therefore it's it's those that follow through Christ. And we would agree with that. We would just merely point out once again, go through Genesis in detail. There's three parts to the Abrahamic covenant. I will build a great nation through you. Through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and your descendants will have this land forever, and forever means forever. So Abraham, through Christ, fulfilled the middle one of those, which was all the nations of the earth will be blessed through

Abrahamic Promises And God’s Faithfulness

SPEAKER_01 22:58

your seed, but the other two were not fulfilled through the church. And again, forever means forever. So we we find that uh in and just again go back to passages like Genesis 17, where I think it's like eight or nine times in as many verses, God says, I will do these things, I will do these things. And he had the the great sealing of the covenant where only he, only God walked through the things. So the Abrahamic covenant was clearly unconditional, made by God, and it had three parts, one of which was this ethnic nation of Israel in the land forever. It's repeated in Zechariah, it's repeated in Ezekiel, it's repeated in Joel. We've covered all of that. And it it just surprises me that people can just start in the New Testament with nothing but a, okay, I've I've read Romans 2, right? So we're and I've read Ephesians, we're we're we're saved through Christ, but then just ignore all of the nation stuff that happens in the Old Testament. It's just because they're I can think of no other reason other than just not dealing with the text.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

When we went through Genesis, we saw that that Abrahamic covenant was reconfirmed with Isaac. Then later it was reconfirmed with Jacob. So God is very specific on those promises that are passed down through Isaac and Jacob. And of course, Jacob had 12 sons. That's where we get the uh nation of Israel, and his name was changed to Israel. So that's where we get the nation of Israel from, is through that. So God is very specific that that's the lineage that it's coming through, and that all of those promises were carried over to Isaac and Jacob and down. And as we go through other parts of scripture in what we call the Old Testament or the Hebrew Bible, God over and over says, I'm going to do these things so that the other nations will know that I am your God. He also says that you are my people, I am your God. So he confirms with the people themselves as he works with them, as they're uh rebellious and stiff-necked. That's how the book of Ezekiel starts out. You're a very stiff-necked people and with a hard heart. And when you go over to Deuteronomy, as Moses is recounting to the people what's going to happen, and this is before they actually get into the promised land, he he tells them on behalf of God, God speaking through Moses, I am giving you this land, being the nation of Israel. You Israelites that are here that have come out of Egypt and are fixing or are going to go into this promised land, I'm giving it to you not because you're the greatest of all the other nations, you're a very small nation. Not because of something that you've done. I'm doing it because I had I promised it, and it's my land to give to you, and that's why it's being done. And then the second thing that Moses recounts as he goes through some of this in Deuteronomy is his he tells them, You're going to go into the land, I'm going to go before you, I being God, I've given this land to you. But then Moses says, again, on behalf of God, but you're going to rebel against God. Once you get in there, you're not going to keep the ordinance and statutes, and you're going to rebel against God. So this theme of rebellion and being stiff-necked is something that we see carry through from the time that they get into the land as the time it progresses to a split kingdom and that northern kingdom, all of those kings were rebellious kings on through up until the New Testament of Jesus' time, they were rebellious through that time. So why is it now, at this time that they're rejecting Jesus, who is God, that all of a sudden God says, No, now I'm not going to fulfill the promises I made to you.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

And we get it. I mean, Jesus is the culmination of God's thing. We're not dying that. It's just that, okay, if we say that God is done, as many do, if we say that God is done with ethnic Israel because they've rejected Christ, well, find me a time where they ever did believe in God. I mean, like you just listed them off. Going all the way back to forever, they were in constant disobedience. And he always brought them back. I mean, the the golden calf was a complete, total rejection of God Almighty. But yet, and he was ready to cut them off. And Moses appealed and said, God, remember, you promised that you were going to take them into the land forever. And over and over and over again, they were in constant disobedience. I mean, you just go down through the list of the entire Old Testament, they were in constant disobedience and disbelief. And he kept bringing them back because of his promise.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Let me add to what you just said with at the time that he uh went to Moses of the golden calf, he said, your people down there. God wasn't even claiming them at that time. He said, Your people down there are disobeying, and they're attributing to that golden calf uh as the one that had brought them out of Egypt. They're not even attributing it to me. So I'm gonna start over with you, Moses. And in that appeal to Moses, that's an argument that Moses made. He said, God, don't do that. What are all the other nations going to say? They're gonna say, Oh, you just brought your people out here so that you could kill them and cut them off. Don't do that. So this theme of God working through with all the other nations through the nation of Israel is a part of the Old Testament theme. We've mentioned it before. There's three types of redemptions. There's redemption of man, which is the most common one. There's a redemption of creation that's going to happen in the new kingdom, the millennial, what we call the millennial kingdom or the messianic kingdom, but there's also going to be the redemption of nations. And I think that's another thing, Glenn, because that isn't talked about, God dealing with the nations, I think that's how it's easily taken of people of believing that God is through with Israel as a nation because they don't understand that God is working with all the other nations too to redeem them, to bring them back to Himself. And primarily He's doing that through working with the nation of Israel.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

I don't think people today realize how severe the rejection by Israel of God was in the Old Testament. I think it's just not understood. Besides places like Golden Calf, which is just flat-out rejection of God. I mean, read Ezekiel, read the last parts of Jeremiah. By by the throughout the Old Testament, they were worshiping idols over and over and over again to the point where towards the end they had uh idols in the temple. I mean, read read Ezekiel, they had Baal worship, they had uh sex worship, they were sacrificing their children on the sacrificing their children to Molech, and that's why God judged them and sent them to Babylon, but yet he brought them back. So, how could that rejection be any worse? Yes, Jesus is the culmination, but it's still rejecting God over and over and over and over again, and yet he says, Because of my name, not because of your sake, because of my name, I

Why We Land On Premillennialism

SPEAKER_01 31:12

will bring you back. So to me, it's just quite clear that if we tie together all these passages, we end up with a premillennial view. It's really the only way to be consistent without wrenching the text from its moorings or just skipping over parts, which I'm convinced they do.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Correct. I'm in agreement with all of that. And I believe that you come to this premillennial view when you read through the text and don't take some other system and put it back into the text, or you don't take the New Testament and read it back into the text. You go through the text and read what it said, which is what we do in our ministry. We go verse by verse, chapter one, verse one, through the end of the book. And as you do it, you have to deal with these texts. And as we've done and we've seen, we've also brought in other views as we've gone through those texts, but you just come to the conclusion that God is going to come and rescue his people and then set up his kingdom and rule from Jerusalem. That's I don't know how to put it any other uh simpler way than that, because that's what the text actually says in these prophets that we go through.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

And if you're listening to just this, this is a little different than what we normally do. So we'd encourage you to look at our other material. The vast, vast majority of what we do is just start at chapter one, verse one, and explain our way through. And along the way, we talk about all these same ideas. It's just in this session we've put them all in one place. But I would encourage you to go back and listen to some of our other materials as we reason through the text at length. Thank you so much for watching and listening.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

May God bless you.