One glorious inheritance

Dispensational writers are sufficiently committed to the hermeneutic of literalism that even if the result is a dichotomy or dissection of Israel and the church, it is accepted and defended for the sake of literalism. "If the dispensational emphasis on the distinctiveness of the Church seems to result in a 'dichotomy,' let it stand as long as it is a result of literal interpretation," C. C. Ryrie insists. ¹

Such a dichotomy becomes most conspicuously evident in dispensationalism's projection of separate, compartmentalized hopes and eschatological programs for Israel and the church. In such a view, the church can hope only for heaven and Israel only for Palestine as their respective eternal inheritances. Dispensationalism calls God's covenant promise to Israel in Deuteronomy 30:1-10 "the Palestinian covenant" ² because God clearly laid down the boundaries of the Promised Land in His covenant with Abraham: " 'To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates'" (Gen. 15:18; cf. Deut. 11:24).^* The destiny for national Israel in this Middle East land is seen as being unfolded in Isaiah 32: "See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice." "My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed
places of rest" (verses 1, 18).

In sharp contrast with Israel's "Palestinian" covenant, the church can claim only heaven as her destiny and hope. God "has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). "God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (chap. 2:6).

The marked contrast between Isaiah 32 and Ephesians 2 brought John N. Darby in 1868 to infer "an obvious change of dispensation" ³ on the basis of literal interpretation. It led him to the conclu sion that the royal reign of righteousness and peace on earth was God's destination for the Jewish nation only.

Unity of Biblical eschatology

Instead of seeking our own independent solution to the different aspects of Biblical eschatology by means of compartmentalizing two eschatological programs, we are duty-bound to ask how Christ, the true Interpreter, and the New Testament writers understood the Old Testament hope for peace and righteousness in relation to the church of Christ.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ assured " 'the poor in spirit"" that they would receive " 'the kingdom of heaven' " (Matt. 5:3; also called "'the kingdom of God,'" in Luke 6:20), and "'the meek'" that they " 'will inherit the earth'" (Matt. 5:5). Two conclusions must be drawn: (1) Jesus assigns to His spiritual followers the whole earth together with the kingdom of heaven (or of God)⁴ as their inheritance; (2) He applies Israel's territorial inheritance to the church by enlarging the original promise of Palestine to include the earth made new. In ancient Israel, David had assured those Israelites who endured suppression by evil men and who hoped that God would vindicate their trust in Him that "the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace." "The righteous will inherit the land" and dwell in it forever" (Ps. 37:11, 29).

Clearly, Christ applies Psalm 37 in new and surprising ways: (1) This "land" will be larger than David thought; the fulfillment will be the entire earth in its re-created beauty (see Isa. 11:6-9; Revelation 21,22); (2) The renewed earth will be the inheritance of all the meek from all nations who accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Christ is definitely not spiritualizing away Israel's territorial promise when He includes His universal church. On the contrary, He widened the scope of the territory until it extended to the whole world.

The apostle Paul understood the territorial covenant promise just as Jesus did as universal from the outset and as a gift of grace. He says: "It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith" (Rom. 4:13). Paul declares that this worldwide territorial promise was the essence of the Old Testament covenants, even of the Abrahamic covenant. God's invitation to Abraham to look " 'north and south, east and west'" in the land of Canaan set no limits. " 'All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted'" (Gen. 13:15, 16).

In order to understand Paul, one must view the land of Palestine as a down payment, or pledge, assuring national Israel the larger territory in order to accommodate the countless multitudes of Abraham's offspring. The Abrahamic covenant contained the promise of an off spring and of a land for that offspring. These promises have found a gradually increasing fulfillment since Israel's settlement in the land of Canaan under Joshua. W. C. Kaiser, Jr., rightly interprets Israel's conquest of Canaan: "This, in turn, became a token or pledge of the complete land grant yet to come in the future even as the earlier occupations were simultaneously recognized as 'expositions, confirmations, and expansions of the promise.'" ⁵

Notice that Paul reckons Abraham to be the father of all believers who are justified by faith in Christ among all the nations of the world (see Rom. 4:13, 16-24). Abra ham "is the father of us all [both believing Jews and believing Gentiles]. As it is written: 'I have made you a father of many nations.' He is our father in the sight of God" (verses 16, 17). Paul interprets God's promises to Abraham concerning land and offspring "in the sight of God," that is, through Christ Jesus. That is not literalism, but Paul's theological exegesis. The land becomes the world; the nations become the believers who trust in God and who are justified by faith as was Abraham.

Daniel P. Fuller's conclusion regarding Romans 4 seems therefore correct: "Paul understood that Abraham would father a multitude of nations through Christ." ⁶ This is in agreement with the apostle's statement that the land or world that is promised "comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring" (verse 16). Israel's territorial promises are made sure in Christ and guaranteed through Him to all believers, whether Jew or Gentile. Consequently, Israel's covenant is conditional with respect to those who qualify as recipients. The condition is: faith in Jesus as the Messiah of Israel.

This conclusion militates against the assertion of the dispensationalist J. Dwight Pentecost: "This covenant made by God with Israel in regard to their relation to the land must be seen to be an unconditional covenant." ⁷ Even The New Scofield Reference Bible (p. 251) acknowledges the explicit conditional nature of Deuteronomy 30:1-10, stating, "The Palestinian covenant gives the conditions under which Israel entered the land of promise." W. C. Kaiser expresses this tension in perhaps the most pointed words: "The conditionality was not attached to the promise but only to the participants who would benefit from these abiding promises. . . . The promise remained permanent, but the participation in the blessings depended on the individual's spiritual condition." ⁸

This conditional aspect on the part of the recipients does not infringe in the least upon the unconditional foundation of God's promise regarding the kingdom of God in terms of a redeemed earth (see Isa. 11:6-9; Amos 9:13-15). Isaiah describes it in cosmic terms: " 'Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. . . . For I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy'" (Isa. 65:17, 18; cf. chap. 66:22). Here the prophet unites heaven and earth together as one glorious inheritance for eschatological Israel.

The New Testament declares emphatically that Abraham and his believing descendants (spiritual Israel) looked forward "by faith" not to some human conquest of Palestine or a rebuilt Jerusalem, but to a heavenly inheritance: "By faith he [Abraham] made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country. . . . For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. . . . All these people [spiritual Israel] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised. ... If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them" (Heb. 11:9-16).

Paul and Israel's future glory

Commenting on Romans 11:26 ("And so all Israel will be saved"), The New Scofield Reference Bible declares: "According to the prophets, Israel, regathered from all nations, restored to her own land and converted, is yet to have her greatest earthly exaltation and glory." Page 1226. It is true that Paul appeals to the Old Testament Scriptures to substantiate what he had just said regarding the salvation of Israel: "As it is written: The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins'" (verses 26, 27).

As explained earlier (see "Is The Church Spiritual Israel?" MINISTRY, September, 1981), the apostle reveals the "mystery" that God will still save many Jews by making them "envious" of the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus as bestowed on the Gentiles (see verses 11, 14, 31). Through the living witness of Gentile Christians many Jews will believe in Christ Jesus and thus be saved and regrafted into the true Israel of God (see verse 23). Appealing to a combination of scriptures (Isa. 59:20, 21; 27:9) promising a spiritual renewal of Israel through the forgiveness of sins, Paul argues that such a conversion of Jews to God by faith in Christ as Israel's redeemer will be in agreement with and a fulfillment of Old Testament promises. These passages express also, however, the condition for Israel's restoration to God. God's promise of redemption in Isaiah reads: " 'The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,' declares the Lord" (chap. 59:20).

God promised that the Redeemer, or the Messiah, would come to " 'Zion' " for those " 'who repent of their sins.'" This repentnce of natural Israel was necessary because systematic injustice in Israel had brought its people into exile among the nations (see verses 2-8). From the very beginning true repentance was the condition for any return to the Promised Land under God's theocratic government on earth (see Deut. 30:1-10).

Paul, therefore, stresses twice the spiritual nature of Israel's redemption by calling the ancient covenant promises a redemption from "'godlessness'" and a taking away of " 'their sins'" (Rom. 11:26, 27). And Jeremiah promises a new heart in order to obey God from a loving heart (see Jer. 31:31-34). These are the very gospel blessings that Christ offers to both Jew and Gentile through His cross, resurrection, and exaltation as the king of Israel. Christ is the redeemer who now has come " 'from Zion.'" (Isaiah in the Hebrew has the expression "to Zion"; the Septuagint says "for the sake of Zion.") Paul, it seems, purposely modifies Isaiah's phrase because of the historical reality of the first coming of Christ. R. C. H. Lenski concludes, "If this God comes 'out of Zion,' as Paul says, he will not come 'out of heaven,' as the millennialists think. 'Out of Zion' refers to Christ's first advent." 9 " 'Salvation is from the Jews'" (John 4:22). According to the gospel of Paul, Christ now comes continually to Zion to redeem her from her sins of unbelief and hardening of heart. "And so all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26).

Leading New Testament scholars have pointed out that in Romans 11, although Paul speaks about Israel's return to God by faith in Christ, he says nothing about Israel's return to glory in Palestine, "nothing about the restoration of an earthly Davidic kingdom, nothing about national reinstatement in the land of Israel. What he envisaged for his people was something infinitely better," according to F. F. Bruce. ¹⁰ The testimony of Herman Ridderbos during the 1971 Jerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy is also significant: "I cannot find any scriptural guarantee for the national restoration and glory of Israel as the people of God. . . . Romans 11:26 proclaims that all Israel will be saved; I understand this to mean that pleroma of believers in Israel; by God's grace all those who believe will be gathered into His kingdom, together with the pleroma from all other nations." ¹¹

Abraham, Israel, and the church

To Abraham and his believing offspring was promised, not Palestine in its present sinful condition, but a heavenly country with a heavenly city (see Hebrews 11); in short, they looked beyond Palestine to a new heaven and earth, and to a new Jerusalem. This eternal inheritance is not restricted to the Israel of God coming literally from the houses of Judah and Israel. The comforting message of the letter to the Hebrews is, "God had planned something better for us [the church] so that only together with us would they [Israel] be made perfect" (Heb. 11:40; cf. chap. 13:14).

This apostolic letter to the Hebrew Christians now applies the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34, which God had promised to the twelve tribes of national Israel, to the church through Christ (see Heb. 8). The inspired writer even declares to natural Israel the shocking message that the Mosaic covenant is antiquated, the Levitical law has been abrogated, and the earthly Temple with its ritual of sacrifices "set aside" as "obsolete" by Christ (Heb. 8:13; 10:9). Because of the cross of Christ the earthly Temple has "no longer any sacrifice for sin" before God (chap. 10:18). All Hebrews must, from now on, turn their eyes upon Jesus, the king-priest sitting on God's throne of grace and serving as the only mediator in the only true temple, the one in heaven. He provides the true rest for the soul and a place of rest for eternity (see chap. 4:9).

In Christ "we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" and are "looking for the city that is to come" (chaps. 12:28; 13:14). But the unassailable certainty of the coming New Jerusalem and kingdom of God on earth does not annul the conditional aspect as far as the participants of the coming Messianic banquet are concerned. Jesus Himself stressed this conditional feature in unambiguous terms: "'I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth'" (Matt. 8:11, 12; cf. Luke 13:28, 29).

In other words, according to Christ, natural (unbelieving) Israel has no part whatsoever in the territorial-kingdom promise. Believing Gentiles will take the empty seats of Israel at the eschatological festival of Israel and the church.

The church of Christ has no other hope, no other destiny, no other inheritance than the one that God gave to Abraham and Israel a redeemed heaven and earth (see Isa. 65:17). This could not be confirmed more conclusively than by the words of the apostle Peter: "That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness" (2 Peter 3:12, 13). With apostolic authority Peter transfers the hope of Israel to the church; the new heaven and new earth that Isaiah 65:17 predicted to be Israel's inheritance has now become the promised destiny of the church.

The question arises, How can the church triumphant, glorified and taken to paradise with God at the second advent of Christ (see 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; John 14:1-3), receive the earth as her eternal home? The answer is found in Revelation 21 and 22, where divine inspiration reveals that the New Jerusalem by God's power will descend from heaven to the earth: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.' ... He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making every thing new!' Then he said, 'Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true'" (Rev. 21:1-5).

A new earth is the final goal of all redemptive history. Man's ultimate destiny focuses upon a regenerated earth (see Matt. 5:5; 19:28). According to Paul, "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21). Only then will Abraham's hope be fulfilled and the saints of all ages, Israel and the church, live together throughout eternity as one flock under one Shepherd.

This final realization of perfect unity between God and His people (see Rev. 21:3) is the glorious consummation of His covenants with Abraham (see Gen. 17:7), with Moses (see Ex. 6:7; Deut. 29:13), with David (see 2 Sam. 7:24), and of the new covenant with Israel (see Jer. 31:1, 31; Eze. 36:28; 37:23). In Revelation 21 and 22, God's continuing covenant promises find at last their perfect fulfillment in the new earth of the age to come. 12 Through Christ Jesus both Israel and the church are one and meet together in one new city, the New Jerusalem, which has gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel and foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of Christ's church (see Rev. 21:12-14).

The lesson for Christians is therefore profound, as John Bright concludes in his book Covenant and Promise: "So, like Israel of old, we have ever to live in tension. It is the tension between grace and obligation: the unconditional grace of Christ which is preferred to us, his unconditional promises in which we are invited to trust, and the obligation to obey him as the church's sovereign Lord." ¹³