The Hope of Israel by
Philip Mauro, 1922
CHAP.III: HOW THE OT. PROPHECIES CONCERNING ISRAEL ARE INTERPRETED BY PAUL
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We shall be
the better prepared for an examination of the OT prophecies concerning
"the hope of Israel"
if we first observe how those prophecies were interpreted by the NT writers,
especially Paul. When Festus remanded Paul for trial before King Agrippa on the
charges lodged against him by the Jews, the king gave the apostle leave to
speak for himself:
"And now I stand and
am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which
promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night hope to come.
For which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews" (Acts 26:6-7).
This is very
definite. It proves that Paul, in preaching the gospel
of Christ crucified and risen from the dead, was
proclaiming to the people of Israel
the fulfillment of God's promise to that people; a promise that had been
made, not only to them through Moses and the prophets, but also directly to
their fathers - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And this is in exact agreement with
the testimony of Peter, who, writing to converted Jews of the dispersion and
speaking of the prophets of Israel, said: "Unto
whom it was revealed that, not unto themselves but unto us, they did minister the
things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel
unto you" (1 Pt.1:10-12).
Paul's
statement further proves that this gospel-salvation was and had been the hope
of every true Israelite - "all our twelve
tribes." Therefore the true hope of Israel was not,
and is not, an earthly kingdom which some future generation of Jews, men
of flesh and blood, are to inherit. Furthermore, the true Israel of God, as
Paul himself had previously explained in his epistle to the Romans, is composed
of believing Israelites according to
the flesh, with believing Gentiles added to them, forming one body, as represented by the olive-tree of Rom.11.
The above
statement also makes clear what Paul meant by saying: "Israel
hath not obtained that which he seeks; but the election hath obtained it, and
the rest were blinded" (Rom.11:7). For the true hope and expectation
of all Israel
- "our twelve tribes" - lay in
the resurrection, where the promise of the "sure mercies of
David" was to be fulfilled (Acts 13:34). It matters not that, as
individuals, they were nearly all "blinded" to it and were looking
for a kingdom of earthly grandeur, suited to their carnal ideas; for the truth of their own Scriptures was that the kingdom of
God, promised by their prophets, was a spiritual kingdom, to be
realized in the resurrection of the dead and to be entered only by those who
are born again of the Word and Spirit of God.
The Lord
Jesus Himself had given the same teaching concerning the Kingdom of heaven (or Kingdom of God - the two expressions being used by
Him interchangeably). Thus He taught His disciples, saying, "Verily I say unto you, except ye be
converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven" (Mt.18:3); and He goes on to show that to enter into that
kingdom is to "enter into life" (v.8-11). And this he followed
up by declaring how hard it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom (Mt.19:16-26),
calling it in one verse (23) "the kingdom of heaven," and in the next, "the kingdom of God." And He concluded the
lesson by saying to those who had forsaken all and followed Him; "Verily I say unto you, that ye which
have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the
throne of His glory, ye shall also sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve
tribes of Israel"
(v.28). From this it appears that the "all
Israel" of Scripture here designated as "the twelve tribes of
Israel," is a spiritual nation;
and that it shall come into its inheritance in the day of "glory," when
the kingdom of God shall be manifested, and when Christ, who is now upon His
Father's throne in heaven, shall occupy the throne of His glory.
Returning to
Paul's defense before King Agrippa, his concluding words: "Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day,
witnessing both to small and great, saying" - not a new thing, a
mystery never before revealed, but - "none
other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come"
- not that Christ would restore earthly dominion to
national Israel, as now is widely taught amongst Christians, but - "that Christ should suffer, and that He
should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the
people [Israel] and to the Gentiles" (Acts
26:22-23).
Here
is clear proof that the gospel proclaims nothing that was not foretold by the
prophets; for, as from
Paul's teaching elsewhere, the "mystery" of the gospel was that
believing Gentiles were to become
"fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God," being
made "fellow heirs [with saved Jews] and
of the same body, and partakers [with saved Jews]
of His promise in Christ"; and that all this was to be accomplished
"by [means of] the gospel"
(Eph.2:11-22; 3:6, 9).
And the last
quoted passage also proves that the predicted manifestation of light to the
people of Israel
and to the Gentiles was to come after the sufferings of the promised Messiah
and his resurrection from the dead. Here we have the
statement of an inspired apostle as to what was the order of revelation as it stood when Christ
appeared to the Jewish people; - not "the setting up of the Davidic
kingdom," as stated by the leading exponent of modern dispensationalism,
but - the sufferings of Christ and His resurrection from the dead, followed by
the showing of Gospel light to the Jew fist, and also to the Gentile. In other
words, that "the next thing in the order of divine revelation"
was precisely what came to pass. By this, Paul's
statement as to what was "the next thing in the order of revelation as it
then stood" flatly contradicts that of the Scofield Reference Bible, quoted above.
Likewise the
apostle Peter, in a passage already quoted (1 Pt.1:9-12), makes known what was
"the next thing in the order of divine revelation" as it then
stood; namely, the "salvation" concerning which the prophets of
Israel had enquired and searched diligently, searching what the Spirit of
Christ, who was in them did signify when He testified beforehand "the sufferings of Christ and the glories
[plural]
that should follow."
Paul, when he
arrived in Rome, sent for the leading Jews of
that city and declared to them that it was "for the hope of Israel" he
had been brought thither in chains (Acts 28:20). The succeeding verses make evident
that the hope of Israel was the Kingdom of God as Paul had preached it everywhere (Acts 17:3,
7; 19:8; 20:25), and as he had expounded and defined it in Rom.14:17. For the
account in Acts 28 continues:
And when they had
appointed him a day there came many to him to his lodging; to whom he expounded
and testified the Kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus both out of
the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning till evening"
(v.23).
Inasmuch as
those Jews were thoroughly indoctrinated with the then current Jewish teaching,
it needed much exposition and persuasion and the enlightenment of the Spirit of
God, to make evident to them that what Moses and the prophets had foretold was
a spiritual kingdom, which was to be established through the sufferings
and death of the expected Messiah of Israel. But it
is extraordinary that, after the truth in this regard has been clearly set
forth in the NT Scriptures, and has been apprehended by successive generations
of Christians for nineteen centuries, there should have arisen in these days a system of doctrine which
takes for one of its foundation stones the
very same error touching the true hope of Israel which turned Paul's fellow
Israelites against him. To those at Rome who "believed not" the things
spoken by Paul, he used great plainness of speech, saying to them:
"Well spoke the Holy
Ghost by Esias the prophet unto out fathers, saying,
Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye hear and not understand; and seeing ye
shall see and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and
their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they
should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their
heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore
unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles and that they will
hear it" (v.25-27).
By
this it appears that the hope of Israel, the kingdom of God
and the salvation of God are three different names for one and the same
thing. And it shows
that a supernatural and punitive blindness concerning
the kingdom foretold by the prophets had been laid upon the unbelieving
part of the natural Israel, even as the same prophets had predicted; which
blindness, as we learn from Rom.11:25, is to continue "until the fullness
of the Gentiles be come in." But the very same error which Paul here
denounced and suffered persecution and imprisonment for has found advocates
among orthodox Christians of the twentieth century.
The
Scriptures reviewed make it plain that "the hope
of Israel"
was to be realized in the resurrection. Christ was to suffer, to die,
and to rise again; He the first, and afterward they that are His (1 Cor.15:23).
There is no other hope for Israel
and never was. If the promise of God to Israel
had been earthly dominion, or if that had been even a part of the promise, it
is impossible that Paul should not have declared it on the occasions to which
we have referred, and should not have spoken of it in his Epistles - especially
Rom.
Nor could he possibly, in that case, have used the language we have quoted
above.
There are
indeed certain prophetic passages in the Old Testament which, apart from the light afforded by the New, might be
taken as relating to "Israel
after the flesh," and as foretelling the restoration, at some future day,
of their national greatness; for there is in those passages no distinct
reference to the resurrection. But that goes for nothing. For the natural
intelligence could not possibly have discerned that Ps.16 and Isa.55:3 were to
be fulfilled in the resurrection. The Holy Spirit, however, by the apostle
Peter, has given us to know that David, in the 16th Ps., was foretelling that
God "would raise up Christ to
sit on his throne" (Acts 2:30-31); and by the apostle Paul the same Spirit
has made known that the broad promise of "the sure mercies of David"
was to be fulfilled in the resurrection
of Christ from the dead (Acts 13:32-34).
The
erroneous doctrine
of the teachers of Israel
which we have been discussing, was based upon an unspiritual interpretation of their own
Scriptures; for "they knew not the
voices of the prophets which were read every Sabbath day" (Acts 13:27).
That doctrine was fatal to everyone who received and
clung to it; and also to the nation as a whole. Therefore, its revival amongst
orthodox Christians in these days is a proper cause for serious misgivings.