One of the most important implications for how we view the Book of  Revelation is how we are to regard the place of Israel today. In the  Dispensational camp we have people who teach that God is currently  restoring the Jews to their homeland of Palestine. In the Reformation camp  we have people who claim that God’s exclusive and primary dealings with  Israel are finished and that He now deals with the Church (made up of Jews  and Gentiles). Dispensationalists often disparagingly label this teaching as  “Replacement Theology”.

DISPENSATIONAL CLAIMS

"And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your  descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting  covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 

Genesis 17:7

Dispensationalists claim that God has made an “everlasting” covenant with Israel. Therefore, God still has a redemptive purpose for the world through Israel. Intrinsic to this assumption is the belief that Jews have an incontestable and exclusive right to the land of Palestine.

Fundamental to the Dispensational claims about Israel is a unique method of interpreting Bible prophecy called Double Reference. This Dispensational claim is integral and peculiar to its system of hermeneutics.

If it can be shown that there is no such hermeneutical principle as Double Reference (also referred to as “Partial Fulfilment”) then the entire argument for Dispensationalism collapses. The reason for this is that Reformed scholars point out to Dispensationalists that all of the prophecies regarding Israel have already been fulfilled and there is no Scriptural need to await for another fulfilment.

Some Dispensationalists acknowledge this, but claim that these prophecies will have a yet future implication. Other Dispensationalists do not acknowledge that all prophecies regarding Israel have been fulfilled and are still forced to appeal to their principle of Double Reference to those prophecies which have clearly been fulfilled.

Therefore, these Dispensational claims of an everlasting, unbreakable, covenant with Israel and the land of Palestine being Israel’s divine right, demands to be investigated in the light of Scripture.

AN EVERLASTING, UNBREAKABLE COVENANT?

Dispensationalists claim that God’s covenant with physical Israel is still valid today since it is continually described as an everlasting covenant.

Genesis 17:7

But covenants, even everlasting covenants, can be broken.

The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants,
Because they have transgressed the laws,
Changed the ordinance,
Broken the everlasting covenant.

Isaiah 24:5

Covenants should not be confused with the Testament. It is true that the Testament of God has not changed (note Hebrews 9:16). The Older Covenant was a necessary component of the Testament of God. Some have claimed that if this Older Covenant with Israel could be broken, then so could the New Covenant with the Church. The problem with this argument is that it fails to understand that the Older Covenant was always designed as an adumbrated covenant for the New Covenant which completed the Testament. This means that within the Testament of God there was a (i) A will (God’s instructions, His Word), (ii) Provisos (first the Older Covenant, then the New Covenant), (iii) an inheritance (salvation), (iv) the Testator (God Himself), and (v) heirs (the redeemed). Differentiating between the Old Covenant and the Testament helps us to understand how the Scripture could describe the Old Covenant as everlasting, yet able to be broken and made obsolete.

In fact, this is largely the main point of the Book of Hosea which describes the unfaithfulness of Israel and its blatant breaking of the everlasting covenant. Hosea’s description of how God acknowledged Israel’s unfaithfulness is both graphic and intimate when his own wife is used as a type of Israel committing adultery.

Then God said: "Call his name Lo-Ammi,
For you are not My people,
And I will not be your God.”

Hosea 1:9

Hosea then declares that God would take the typology of all that the Older Covenant represented and fulfil it by superseding the Old Covenant with a newer one. Thus Hosea foresaw that God would one day embrace Gentile people into His covenant-

Hosea 1:10

This is confirmed in Romans, which cites this passage to make this point that God’s everlasting covenant would be superseded by a new one and embrace Gentiles as well as Jews.

Romans 9:24-26

Hebrews 8:13

Hosea foresaw that the “everlasting” covenant would one day be superseded as stated in Hebrews 8:13. He states this in very poetic language, which symbolically speaks of God introducing Gentiles (“beasts” and other unclean animals which the food laws typified of Gentiles) into this New Covenant.

In that day I will make a covenant for them
With the beasts of the field,
With the birds of the air,
And with the creeping things of the ground.
Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth,
To make them lie down safely.

Hosea 2:18

Dispensationalists claim that if God would break His “everlasting” covenant with the nation of Israel, then it might be possible for Him to similarly abolish the New Covenant as well. Perhaps this argument could be reworded to more accurately reflect sound theology, since God clearly did cut Israel off without simultaneously abolishing the Old Covenant ­

Romans 11:17

Therefore, the thought that New Covenant people who similarly break covenant with God could be cut off, is actually stated in Scripture ­

Romans 11:21

 

WHO REALLY OWNS PALESTINE?

Psalm 105:10 - 11

Some claim that Israel is yet to possess all of its Promised Land. Therefore, based on this assumption, a case is built for modern Israelites to aggressively take by force what they consider to be their divine right. But this claim is instantly dispelled by the very clear teaching in Joshua 21:43-45 -

Joshua 21:43-45

Some Dispensationalists feel that New Testament statements regarding the  “fullness of the Gentiles” solve the lack of any direct New Testament reference to Israel regaining its Promised Land or “the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled”.

Luke 21:24

Roman 11:25 - 27

In regard to Luke 21:24 this refers to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and has nothing to do with Jews returning to their homeland. Romans 11:25-27 refers to Gentiles coming into the New Covenant with God and thus fulfilling the original call of Israel to be a light to the world. Once again it has nothing to do with Jews returning to Palestine to reclaim it for Zion’s sake.

 

WHO IS THE ISRAEL OF GOD?

Galatians 6:16

Paul introduces the expression the Israel of God in Galatians 6:16 to contrast those who were natural Israelites with those who had become the spiritual Israelites. Indeed the Epistle to the Galatians emphasizes that relationship to Abraham, which qualified someone as a Jew, was through faith in Christ not ancestry.

Galatians 3:28 - 29

Paul stressed something similar to the Romans when he said -

Romans 2:28 - 29

Romans 9:6

I grew up in a church where I was taught that to be a Jew and a Christian was an extremely privileged position. This Dispensational teaching is however countered by Paul’s following statement-

Romans 10:12

To endorse what Paul wrote about true Jews and the Israel of God as referring to those in the New Covenant is not replacement theology, but more aptly described as continuation theology. It is clear from Paul’s writings that he regards Christians as entering into the original purpose for Israel.

We have established that the claims made by Dispensationalism require a unique set of creative hermeneutical manoeuvres that are both unbiblical and illogical. Secondly, the claims of an everlasting and unbreakable covenant with physical Israel are shown to be selectively interpreted when they ignore the vulnerability of covenants in the light of one party breaking the conditions of the covenant. Thirdly, the claims made about God’s promises to Israel possessing their land can be shown from Scripture as already having been fulfilled. Fourthly, the New Testament teaches that the Church indeed is the will and plan of God and as such is referred to as the Israel of God. Added to this is the complete absence of any New Testament teaching on God restoring Israel to its land with a re-instituted form of Temple-based worship.

Therefore, while it is right to condemn any form of Anti-Semitism, it is surely equally wrong to condone any action taken by modern Israel to use violence or terror against Palestinians. While it is right to support the land claims of any people unjustly deprived of their native land, it is equally wrong to naively base such support on a faulty understanding of Bible prophecy. [1]