Are the Jews to be restored to their own Land ?

By CHARLES HODGE, D.D.

THE arguments against the assumed restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land are:—

1. The argument from the ancient prophecies is proved to be invalid, because it would prove too much. If these prophecies foretell a literal restoration, they foretell that the temple is to be rebuilt, the priesthood restored, sacrifices again offered, and that the whole Mosaic ritual is to be observed in all its details. (See the prophecies of Ezekiel from the thirty-seventh chapter onward.) We know, however, from the New Testament that the Old Testament service has been finally abolished; there is to be no new temple made with hands; no other priest but the high-priest of our profession; and no other sacrifice but that already offered upon the Cross. It is utterly inconsistent with the character of the Gospel that there should be a renewed inauguration of Judaism within the pale of the Christian Church. If it be said that the Jews are to return to their own land as Jews, and then restore the temple and its service, and then be converted; it may be answered that this is inconsistent with the prophetic representations. They are to be brought to repentance and faith, and to be restored to their land, or, to use the figure employed by the Apostle, grafted again into their own olive tree, because of their repentance. When Christ comes, “He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds from one end of the heaven to the other” (Matt. xxiv. 31). But further than this, in Zechariah xiv. it is predicted that after the restoration, all the nations of the earth “shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” In Isaiah lxvi. 22, 23, it is said, “As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.” The literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies relating to the restoration of Israel and the future kingdom of Christ, cannot by possibility be carried out; and if abandoned in one point, it cannot be pressed in regard to others.

2. It is undeniable that the ancient prophets in predicting the events of the Messianic period and the future of Christ’s kingdom, borrowed their language and imagery from the Old Testament institutions and usages. The Messiah is often called David; His church is called Jerusalem, and Zion; His people are called Israel; Canaan was the land of their inheritance; the loss of God’s favour was expressed by saying that they forfeited that inheritance, and restoration to His favour was denoted by a return to the promised land. This usage is so pervading that the conviction produced by it on the minds of Christians is indelible. To them Zion and Jerusalem are the Church and not the city made with hands. To interpret all that the ancient prophets say of Jerusalem of an earthly city, and all that is said of Israel of the Jewish nation, would be to bring down heaven to earth, and to transmute Christianity into the corrupt Judaism of the apostolic age.

3. Accordingly, in the New Testament it is taught, not in poetic imagery, but didetically, in simple, unmistakable prose, that believers are the seed of Abraham; they are his sons; his heirs; they are the true Israel. (See especially Romans iv. and ix. and Galatians iii.) It is not natural descent, that makes a man a child of Abraham. “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” (Rom. ix. 8). The Apostle asserts that the promises are not made to Israel after the flesh, but to Israel after the spirit. He says in the name of believers, “We are the circumcision” (Phil. iii. 3). “We are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. iii. 29). The promise to Abraham that he should be the father of many nations, did not mean merely that his natural descendants should be very numerous; but that all the nations of the earth should have the right to call him father (Rom. iv. 17); for he is “the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised” (Rom. iv. 11). It would turn the Gospel upside down; not only the Apostle’s argument, but his whole system would collapse, if what the Bible says of Israel should be understood of the natural descendants of Abraham to the exclusion of his spiritual children.

4. The idea that the Jews are to be restored to their own land and there constituted a distinct nation in the Christian Church, is inconsistent not only with the distinct assertions of the Scriptures, but also with its plainest and most important doctrines. It is asserted over and over again that the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile has been broken down; that God has made of the two one; that Gentile believers are fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God; that they are built up together with the Jews into one temple (Eph. ii. 11-22). “As many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. iii. 27-29). There could not be a more distinct assertion that all difference between the Jew and the Gentile has been done away within the pale of the Christian Church. This, however, is not a mere matter of assertion, it is involved in the very nature of the Gospel. Nothing is plainer from the teachings of Scripture than that all believers are one body in Christ, that all are partakers of the Holy Spirit, and by virtue of their union with Him are joint and equal partakers of the benefits of His redemption;

that if there be any difference between them, it is not in virtue of national and social distinctions, but solely of individual character and devotion. That we are all one in Christ Jesus, is a doctrine which precludes the possibility of the pre-eminence assigned to the Jews in the theory of which their restoration to their own land and their national individuality are constituent elements.

1. The Apostles uniformly acted on this principle. They recognise no future for the Jews in which the Gentile Christians are not to participate. As under the old dispensation proselytes from the heathen were incorporated with the Jewish people and all distinction between them and those who were Jews by birth, was lost, so it was under the Gospel. Gentiles and Jews were united in undistinguished and undisguisable membership in the same Church. And so it has continued to the present day; the two streams, Jewish and Gentile, united in the Apostolic Church, have flowed on as one great river through all ages. As this was by divine ordinance, it is not to be believed that they are to be separated in the future.

2. The restoration of the Jews to their own land and their continued national individuality, is generally associated with the idea that they are to constitute a sort of peerage in the Church of the future, exalted in prerogative and dignity above their fellow believers; and this again is more or less intimately connected with the doctrine that what the Church of the present is to look forward to is the establishment of a kingdom on earth of great worldly splendour and prosperity. For neither of these is there any authority in the didactic portions of the New Testament. There is no intimation that any one class of Christians, or Christians of any one nation or race are to be exalted over their brethren; neither is there the slightest suggestion that the future kingdom of Christ is to be of earthly splendour. Not only are these expectations without any foundation in the teaching of the Apostles, but they are also inconsistent with the whole spirit of their instructions. They did not exhort believers to look forward to a reign of wealth and power, but to long after complete conformity to the image of Christ, and to pray for the coming of that kingdom which is righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Ghost. Any Christian would rejoice to be a servant of Paul, or of John, of a martyr, or of a poor worn-out missionary; but to be a servant of a Jew, merely because he is a Jew, is a different affair; unless indeed such should prove to be the will of Christ; then such service would be an honour. It is as much opposed to the spirit of the Gospel that pre-eminence in Christ’s kingdom should be adjudged to any man or set of men on the ground of natural descent as on the ground of superior stature, physical strength, or wealth.

The Scriptures then, as they have been generally understood in the Church, teach that before the Second Advent, there is to be the ingathering of the heathen; that the Gospel must be preached to all nations; and also that there is to be a national conversion of the Jews; but it is not to be inferred from this that either all the heathen or all the Jews are to become true Christians. In many cases the conversion may be merely nominal. There will probably enough remain unchanged in heart to be the gum of that persecuting power which shall bring about those days of tribulation which the Bible seem to teach are to immediately precede the coming of the Lord.