We are living in the last days of God’s timeline, with the nation of Israel being called “God’s Timepiece.” Fulfilling prophecy, Israel became a nation in 1948, on the original piece of land God gave them. In the Bible, it is recorded in 46 places that God gave the land of Canaan to the nation of Israel, with the land then being called Israel. (Derek Prince, The Destiny of Israel and the Church). The Lord God of the Bible called Abraham to Him and, as is recorded in Psalm 105:8-11, “He [the Lord] remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac, and confirmed it to Jacob [Israel] for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan.’”
Throughout the Old Testament, prophecies concerning the destiny of Israel abound, at least 80 percent of which have already been accurately fulfilled. (Prince) Many other prophecies telling of the coming of the promised Messiah (See Genesis 3:15) have been fulfilled. There are actually three groups of great significance in the Bible: Jews, Gentiles, and the Church. Jesus and all the first disciples were Jews, descendants of Abraham. Many Jews in the time right after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension also became believers in Jesus; The apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16)
After Peter’s experience (Acts 10) which demonstrated that God meant salvation to be offered to the Gentiles also, the Gentile (non-Jewish) populations became the majority in the original body of believers. Jews refused to accept Jesus as having been their long-awaiting Messiah. Sometime in the twentieth century, Jews began accepting the gospel that Jesus had been their Messiah. The third group is made up of all believers in Jesus, who are the Church.
St. Augustine (about 400 A.D.), wrote The City of God, in which he espoused a “doctrine” which came to be known as “replacement theology,” a belief that the Church has replaced the unbelieving Jews and that the nation of Israel will no longer receive her covenantal promises from God. Proponents of this idea also teach that prophecies foretelling a special place for Israel in the last days events in the land of Israel are now null and void, with the Church taking its place in all ways. A lot of the confusion stems from the fact that the New Covenant (New Testament) is promised to all true believers and that it replaces the Old Covenant. A lot of the misunderstanding concerns the two covenants God established with Israel: the Abrahamic and the Mosaic. The Abrahamic Covenant, which includes the gift of the land, still stands, whereas the Mosaic Covenant which established the Law that would govern Israel, was replaced by the new covenant in Christ. (Hebrews 8:7-9) As Zola Levitt, author of Broken Branches, Has the Church Replaced Israel?” stated, “Israel also has a specific role to fulfill in End Times prophecy.”
Though the Reformation, begun by Martin Luther, caused people to read the Bible for themselves, the error of replacement theology continued and flourishes today. It is good that a lot of churches have gotten back to verse-by-verse study of the Scriptures and many reject this unbiblical theology.
People, get ready! Jesus is coming soon!
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