You and I might say the promises about the land weren’t fulfilled, but Nehemiah said they were — all of them. The very promise you quote in Ezekiel is tied to the new covenant– the covenant of peace. Heb. 8 teaches the new covenant is fulfilled now. The specific promise in Ez. 37:27 is fulfilled ultimately in Rev. 21 as this post declares, but it also is fulfilled in God’s people the church according to my post today, which discusses 2 Cor. 6.

I ask you to follow the posts in this series a little further, and see if you can’t understand where I’m coming from in all of this.

Blessings brother,

Bob

I agree with Mr.Dudding that God did His part concerning the land of promise. He delivered all of Israel’s enemies into their hands, but they did not complete their end of the deal in many cases, failing to destroy their enemies completely. However I disagree that Israel is still being treated as a “chosen people”. The very idea that we are waiting for the temple to be rebuilt and sacrifices to be resumed as a plan of God is an affront to the final sacrifice of Christ! The Bible says Christ died for sin “once for all”. (Romans 6:10, Hebrews 9:26 and 10:10). God would never subjugate His Son’s work to the shadows again!

As for Abraham looking for a heavenly city, this comes into complete agreement with what Paul says in Romans 4:11-14. Abraham was promised he would be the father of MANY nations in verses 17-18 which pointedly disallows that the descendants of Abraham would be the “designated” heirs of the promise.

The whole dispensational argument depends on Israel still being under covenant, and this premise, like that of a pre-tribulation rapture leads many to look for signs and an escape from persecution. Jesus plainly stated that the end would come at and hour “when you think not” meaning no one can pinpoint or even guess as to when Christ will return – one last time. Not two or three times.

By the way, The Contemporary Calvinist has a post about a book written in response to Dr. MacArthur’s claim that every Calvinist should be a premillenialist. Sounds like it might be good.

After I get post 3 up, I’ll respond to some of your points here. I’m not certain how 1967 is clearly ending the time of the Gentiles, though. That seems a stretch, and an extra-Biblical one at that.

Blessings, brother.

Bob

Note St. Paul always taught: “to the jew first” (Rom.1:16) See also Acts 26:6-7. This has nothing to do with any dispensationalism, but the honor, glory and purpose of God to redeem His once and still chosen people! (See Isa.60:21-22 / Isa. 66:8…)

God will be glorified in all people!

Judges 2:1-3 And an angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you. 2 And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? 3 Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.

Abraham expected physical land where his physical descendants would abide. God didn’t promise him a heavenly land where a heavenly Israel would abide.
Reading Hebrews 11:10 back into the covenant to change it into something that the Reformers made up is not good hermeneutics. Up until this point, the all the promises about the land of Israel to the physical people of Israel have not happened yet. For example:

Ezekiel 37:24-28 24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. 25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. 26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. 27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

The people of Israel returning in 1948, the end of the time of the Gentiles in 1967 (Luk 21:24) has not taken place by coincidence. We Gentiles are not the new Israel, we have been grafted in, and the Jews will acknowledge Him whom they have pierced and accept Jesus as Messiah nationally. (Zech. 12:10) I am not saying this as a dispensationalist, I really don’t care about that system of theology. But, I say this because prophecies are being fulfilled pertaining to the nation of Israel to this day and God is still dealing with them as a nation. I think that too many of us think that the Reformers and their systems of theology are close to flawless. No matter how we revere them, their theology wasn’t fully informed by the Jewish understanding of Old Testament, therefore much of their conclusions concerning Israel, the end times, etc. come from the theological systems of their own making.

In, under and by God’s good mercy & grace,
Fr. Robert

Nice name by the way. I’m American through and through, although I flew through London once, and spent a year in Zambia, Africa with my parents who are missionaries there. I have an English (or Scottish??) name, however, coat of arms and all.

Heb. 13:20-21 are indeed a blessing to us. Your temple passages remind me of one of the passages I’ll share in tomorrow’s post, Lord willing.