Was Israel’s return to their land in 1948 a fulfilment of God’s promise?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1999.

The question you raise is certainly a very important one. I am afraid that many good believers, in their desire to believe and proclaim what Scripture teaches about the future of Israel, as distinct from what Christendom has taught over many centuries, nonetheless allow themselves to become somewhat starry-eyed.

The general teaching of Christendom for many centuries promulgated the view that there was no future for Israel whatsoever; and that the Jewish nation must endlessly be punished for their sin in crucifying the Messiah; and that God had appointed the church to take the place of Israel on earth. That false teaching resulted in a number of grievous evils. Since Israel in its day had been a sacral state, authorized to punish heretics with death, Christendom likewise supposed that it was appointed as a sacral state, to govern the whole world; and with great energy and zeal proceeded to burn thousands of what they regarded as heretics at the stake. Just as the Israelites fought against the Moabites and others, Christendom sent forth its armies to slaughter the Turks and, indeed, any portions of Christendom with which they did not agree.

It was therefore a very gladsome thing when believers recovered the plain teaching of Scripture according to Romans 11, that Israel is not finished. There is, as Paul says, at the present moment a remnant according to grace, and the very existence of that remnant implies God's gracious determination to restore Israel as a whole at the second coming of Christ.

It is also a good thing to see Christendom's academic theologians coming round to the view that Israel has not been permanently set aside and destroyed by God—though, alas, many of them now teach that Judaism is an equally valid way to God as is Christianity; and that, therefore, Jews do not need to accept and trust Jesus as the Christ and can come to God direct, without Christ. How the devil does enjoy, in his masterly fashion, pushing people from one extreme to another.

But to come to the question that you raise in your letter. According to Genesis 15 and Paul's interpretation of God's covenant with Abraham in Galatians 3, the 'promised seed' to whom the inheritance was covenanted is our blessed Lord himself. It is only in him that we become heirs according to God's covenant promise. The same, so it seems to me, applies to modern Israel. Modern Israel cannot claim the inheritance as long as they reject Christ. It is he who has the title deeds to the land.

The idea—currently accepted and preached by many evangelicals—that the land has been given by God to Israel, whether they accept Christ or not, seems to me to be quite contrary to holy Scripture. Therefore, God has promised to give the land to Israel, but they will only be granted full enjoyment of it when in repentance they turn to the Messiah.

Perhaps we have a good illustration of the matter in Jacob's life story, as given in the book of Genesis. It was certainly God's intention to give Jacob priority of role in God's plan of redemption. He, and not Esau, was to be the one through whom God would send the Messiah. But that did not justify Jacob nor his mother Rebekah in deceiving Isaac and stealing the blessing from Esau. In those days, you should remember, the blessing entailed a great deal of material goods and money. Jacob so angered Esau that he had to run away from the promised land in order to save his life, and God certainly promised to be with him and to bless him. Jacob thought, however, that that meant that God was prepared to overlook all his crafty and immoral business dealings; and when Jacob prospered down amongst his Gentile relatives, Jacob imagined that God was conniving with him in his very doubtful business dealings.

But then God intervened. Jacob's ruthless business dealings turned his Gentile relatives against him, to the extent that he had to run away to escape their wrath; and, there being nowhere for him to run away to except to come back to the promised land, he proceeded on his journey to the promised land, only to find that he had to face Esau once more. Alarmed at the prospect, he was moved to send over in advance to Esau enormously large presents of cattle and so forth, as a present for Esau. In other words, all the financial gain he had gotten from cheating Esau out of the blessing was now having to be handed back. God's promise to Jacob that he would bless him did not depend on Jacob's clever cheating of Esau for its fulfilment. Moreover, when Jacob eventually got back into the promised land, his sons, in the name of religion, committed a foul atrocity, and massacred all the people of Shechem and brought upon themselves and their father the odium of all the Palestinians.

So, yes, Israel was back in the land, but his behaviour did not command the approval of God.

When the Lord comes, he will assert his rights to the land, and his rights take precedence over even the Palestinians; and when Israel is restored, they shall prove to be a marvellous blessing to the nations at large, including the Palestinians. In the prototype of Genesis, Egypt and all the surrounding nations were eventually blessed through Israel's son Joseph, and saved from what otherwise would have been economic ruin and starvation.

I hope this is helpful.

Affectionately in Christ,