I love the Jewish people. They have endured so much pain and suffering through the centuries. They were the original chosen people of God. Every person of Jewish ancestry that I have met and gotten to know has been intelligent, friendly, and very tolerant of my Catholicism. Having said that, which I truly mean, I do not believe that the modern-day nation of Israel has anything to do with the Kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus took the Kingdom away from the Jews:
“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but when it falls on any one, it will crush him.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. (Matthew 21:43-45)
And to whom did He then give the Kingdom of God? The recipient was no less than the Church that He founded on the Rock of Peter:
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18)
Old Testament Land Promise
The philosophy that God will return land to the Jewish people today, in fulfillment of Joshua 1:4, is believed by a group of Protestants known as dispensationalists. Some call them Christian Zionists. This philosophy of the Jews returning to Israel to get their land that was promised by God was first espoused by an English Pastor named John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. Dispensationalism was further promoted in the first Protestant Bible with footnotes, the Scofield Bible. (So Luther was wrong, because he claimed that the Bible could be understood with no instruction from a “magesterium,” or teaching authority.) What Darby and Scofield missed is that, per the Bible, the land that was promised to the people of Israel was from a Covenant relationship, that being of Abraham in Genesis 15:18. In Deuteronomy 28, the blessings of the Covenant, if kept, as well as the curses of the Covenant, if broken, were enumerated. One of the curses said that if the Covenant were broken, then the land would be taken away from the Israelites. This taking away of their promised land occurred in 722 BC, when the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, were taken captive by the Assyrians. (These ten tribes became the lost tribes of Israel, later referred to as the hated Samaritans.) Later, in 587 BC, the remaining two tribes of Israel in the Southern Kingdom of Judah were taken captive by the Babylonians.
Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and having taken possession of it, they settled there. (Joshua 21:43)
Not one of all the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)
And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you; and you shall be plucked off the land which you are entering to take possession of it. And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; and there you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. (Deuteronomy 28:63-64)
Nation-State of Israel Today
Some people look on the nation-state of modern Israel that was created in 1948 as the beginning of the Old Testament land promises to Israel by God and as the reincarnation of the Davidic Kingdom of Israel, which, according to dispensationalists, has been missing for 2000 years. BUT, Benjamin Netanyahu is not a King, only a prime minister. And the nation of Israel is not a Kingdom. (A kingdom controls other nations in addition to itself.) Besides that, Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark were:
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)
Notice that Jesus didn’t say anything about the Kingdom of God being fulfilled 2000 years in the future! So what is the Kingdom of God? It is the Church that He created, when He said:
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:19)
In Galatians 6:16, Paul calls the Church “the Israel of God.” So did the Church as the New Testament Kingdom of God “replace” the Old Testament Kingdom of God as the nation of Israel? NO! Rather, the Church as the Kingdom of God “fulfilled” the Nation of Israel in Christ. We know this for a fact:
“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17)
So Jesus came to fulfill, not to replace. everything in the Old Testament. This statement means that all of the promises in the Old Testament were fulfilled by Jesus. He isn’t concerned with giving ethnic Jews a strip of land in the Middle East, the old Promised Land. In the New Testament, there is neither Jew nor Greek (Gentile), only one FAMILY in Christ. The Promised Land today isn’t acreage in the Middle East for ethnic Jews; rather, it is Heaven itself, where we, Gentiles AND Jews, become One spirit with our Creator (1 Corinthians 6:17) and where we also become partakers in the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4).
Rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple
Dispensationalists claim that the Temple in Jerusalem, built by Herod and destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, must be rebuilt before the second coming of Christ. They say this because of what St. Paul wrote:
Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)
So the literal fulfillment of the above verse says that the Antichrist will take his seat in the temple of God; therefore, the temple of God must be rebuilt before the second coming of Jesus. And that is a very good point UNTIL you consider the law of unintended consequences. Instead of believing that the one-time sacrifice of Jesus replaced all of those dead animals, are we really going back to animal sacrifices again IF the Old Testament temple is rebuilt? Are we going back to circumcision again, after Paul railed and railed against useless Jewish works of the law, ESPECIALLY circumcision? In short, will the Jews be saved by resurrecting (pardon the pun) Old Testament Judaism? Didn’t Acts 15 with the Council of Jerusalem put to death all talk of Christian circumcision?
“Therefore thus says the Lord God: No foreigner, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, of all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, shall enter my sanctuary. (Ezekiel 44:9)
But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. (Hebrews 10:3-4)
And besides all of that, Jesus is the new Temple that was destroyed and rebuilt!
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19)
Some Protestants right now are spending a lot of money to create all of the clothing and furniture of the Solomon Temple, and they think they are doing the Lord’s good work in preparing for its rebuilding. And, indeed, a new temple may be built in Jerusalem for the Antichrist. This temple won’t be a Christian temple, because Christians believe that the one-time sacrifice of Jesus replaced all of the animal sacrifices; that Jesus is the New Testament Temple who was destroyed and rebuilt; and that circumcision has been replaced by baptism as an entry rite into the Kingdom of God. So if a temple replaces the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, this temple will be an Antichrist temple.
Additionally, we, the Church members, are a temple of God:
…and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)
So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)
One New Covenant for Jews AND Gentiles
Dispensationalists believe in a dual-path salvation track: one for the Jews, and one for the Gentiles. They think that the Church (Gentiles) will be raptured away ahead of the Jews, and then the Jews who are “left behind” will come to Christ. This false reading of scripture is heretical. Only one second coming of Christ will happen, only one event where the believers on earth will be taken up into the heavens above, Jews and Gentiles alike. Nowhere in scripture are two occasions mentioned. This Protestant “tradition” is nowhere to be found in the Bible. Jews like Paul, Peter, Mary, John, Matthew, and others will all be saved by coming into the Church that Jesus created for ALL. Jesus gave one and only one New Covenant, which means that all who wish to be saved, Jew and Gentile, need to become members of His Church.
And even the others (the Jews), if they do not persist in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. (Romans 11:23)
For if you (the Gentiles) have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches (the Jews) be grafted back into their own olive tree. (Romans 11:24)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (The Church comprises the new “chosen” people.) (1 Peter 2:9)
Summary
Dispensationalists believe in the rebuilding of the Solomon Temple and that all Jews need to return to the nation-state of Israel. They believe these events signal the beginning of the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom and are a separate path for salvation for ethnic Jews and Gentiles. All of these beliefs come from John Nelson Darby in the 1830s. No one believed any of this before him.
In reality, Jesus is the new temple that was destroyed and rebuilt. His Church will save both Jews and Gentiles, wherever they happen to be on planet Earth. God is to be found in the nearest Tabernacle in the nearest Catholic Church. Blessed be all Jews and all Gentiles!
