A History of Prophecy in Israel

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I will also gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; they have also divided up My land. (Joel 3:2)

To be clear, I am not saying you are wrong per se, but my observation is there’s a worrying trend to treat criticism of Israel as de facto antisemitic unless otherwise justified, when there is plenty of objective criticism of Israel that gets lost in the fog of lazy accusations and undue caution. And speaking of the New Jerusalem, in Revelation you will find that features of it are sourced in Ezekiel’s temple. Remember when reading OT visions it is probable that they involve symbolism. Are we to literally understand a river beginning in the temple and flowing out or are we looking at symbolism. In John’s New Jerusalem are we to take its 15000 miles high walls literally or are we to look for a symbolic meaning. Indeed we are told that the bride is a city. Well it can’t literally be both. We are looking at metaphor. But to understand what is at stake in this current episode of Israeli aggression, it is important to place Israel’s latest incursion on Palestinian territory in its ideological context. Yahusha IS from Galilee so He IS a Galilean and was known as such and called as such throughout the New Testament!As a teenager I was interested in timelines. I inherited some books from a grandfather who was a Brethren. I find the whole thing futile now in my mid 60s. 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 consolation of Israel’ (Luke 2.25), ‘the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 2.38), ‘the one who was to come’ (Luke 7.18) and ‘the one who was going to redeem Israel’ (Luke 24.20). 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 intervene in a dramatic way to demonstrate his faithfulness to his promises!’ It was hyperbole, which I thought was obvious. There are a great many theological disagreements of which this one is rather minor in the grand scheme of things, and I don’t, sincerely, consider any of them worthy of litigation. You do not make clear (in your haste) why that passage seems clear on the question. Paul is talking about who counts as Israel spiritually. Indeed he begins by saying ‘the word of God has not failed’, so why suggest that the promise in Gen 17:8 about being given the land is nullified. If only you had started a couple of verses earlier! ‘My brothers are Israelites and to them belong … the covenants … and the promises.’ Paul completes his argument in Rom 11, which includes the key point that the Gentiles are grafted into Israel’s olive tree, not the Israelites grafted into the Gentiles’ tree. Jesus’ homily in John 15 says the same. The Old Testament image of Israel is that of a vineyard filled with vines rooted in the soil of the Holy Land. You can see this outlined beautifully in Isaiah 5. But Jesus upends this. We see a vineyard again, but now we learn that there is one vine—Christ—and the only concern is not on gaining access to the land but being attached to him.

Incidentally, CMJ still exists today .It is active in Israel and , moreover, is a bona fide organization within both the C of E and the C of I. Two further points about CMJ: it is manifestly not dispensationalist and , more significantly , it upholds as a central tenet that salvation is only through Jesus Christ – for “Jew and for Greek.” The rush to respond, and the statements in support of Israel, were not surprising to those aware of the deep feeling evangelicals have for Israel. Ezekiel’s visions of the restoration of Israel led to a glorious climax in the temple in which God was going to ‘live among the Israelites for ever’ (43.7) and in the city whose name would always be ‘The Lord is there’ (48.35). If we believe, therefore, that it was uniquely in Jesus that God has come to live among us, we should not be looking to see the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s visions either in the twentieth-century return of Jews to the land, or the establishment of the state of Israel, or the present city of Jerusalem or in a future millennial reign of Jesus in Jerusalem. Perhaps Ezekiel, the priest turned prophet, was using the only language and imagery that were available to him at the time (related to the land, the nation, the city and the temple) to hint at something much more glorious than a return to the land, the revival of the nation and the restoration of a building. Perhaps God was using him to prepare his people and to open their minds for what it would mean when, ve centuries later, ‘the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1.14) and ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Cor. 5.19). And the Book of Revelation tells us that the best is yet to come—not in the land or in Jerusalem, but in ‘the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God’ and in ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Rev 21.1–4).John Hagee, an evangelical pastor and influential founder of Christians United for Israel, explained the prophecy to TBN Networks in December 2022. The Lord’s return will fulfill a prophecy the angels gave when He first ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives: “‘This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.’ Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet” (Acts 1:11-12).

The word “Jew” and its modern meaning did not even come into existence until the 17th Century when the letter “J” was first invented. And at the time the word “Jew” was first put into the Bible (in the 2nd draft copy of the KJV Bible in the 18th Century…. the 1st edition of the KJV Bible in 1611 used the word IEWE to describe Judahite Hebrews – not “Jews”) it was to be understood in one context only – the word “Jew” was an abbreviation for Judean. There is a sense in which Christ is the land. At least we are seated with him presently in heavenly places. There we receive the spiritual blessings of the land. However there is a physical land to come- a new heavens and new earth. Thank you. I accept that that was not your intent; but I hope you understand that given that Israel has, baselessly, been accused of genocide and such other slanders, it needlessly muddies the waters to use as your example a state which (almost certainly) is guilty of genocide; especially if, as you claim, there are many other examples you could have used.I’d suggest that this is the place where continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New meet. Or as Steve more memorably puts it, the mid point of an hour glass.