ISRAEL’S ROLE IN THE END TIMES
ANYONE PAYING EVEN a second’s worth of attention to the news cycle knows that Middle East affairs continue to dominate discussion within the sociopolitical landscape, but it’s on the theological front, as well, that the region is also a dominant focal point. Israel, in particular, serves as the impetus for a great deal of discussion, as understanding the Jewish people is clearly core to comprehending the themes and central lessons embedded in the Old and New Testaments.
It’s also quite clear that one’s views on the meaning of prophetic texts in both Testaments are directly tied to how he or she will understand the current state of Israel, both theologically and politically speaking, as well as many of the events that are continuously unfolding in the Middle East more generally.
As we’ve explored thus far, Israel’s emergence back on the international stage in 1948 continues to be quite stunning and is seen as a fulfillment of prophecy by premillennial dispensationalists, among others.
If we’re taking an honest look at the reformation of Israel, even an objective observer must concede that it is, at the least, quite curious and captivating to consider that a nation that had been absent from the international stage for centuries found itself officially reclaiming its historical place on May 14, 1948. The situation becomes even more mystifying when considering the tragic events surrounding the Holocaust—the murder of around 6 million Jews—that led up to the mass return to the homeland.
Rosenberg told me that, for centuries before the 1948 re-creation of Israel, there was a “longing deep in the Jewish soul” for a return to the Promised Land to rebuild, but that, as time went on in the centuries following the destruction of the temple in AD 70, Jews subsequently spread to various nations throughout the world, making such a prospect seem implausible. “Over time, the Jewish people suffered so much pain and heartache and it seemed so impossible to ever see these prophecies come true,” he said.1
But then, centuries later, the horrors of the Holocaust led many Jewish people to immigrate back to the region, joining smaller groups of Jews who had previously moved back in an effort to once again realize a Jewish homeland.2 It’s an event that Rosenberg believes to be truly remarkable.
“For nineteen hundred years, it didn’t happen. Think about that . . . maybe you could not be discouraged as a people for the first five hundred years, but like six hundred, seven hundred, nine hundred, one thousand years go by, and nothing happens,” Rosenberg said. “That’s why the church abandoned these prophecies.”3
When it comes to eschatology, Israel clearly plays a key role in how many Christians view God’s relationship to mankind as well as the scriptural narrative at large.
One of the biggest debates surrounding the Jewish state centers on a key question, as Rhodes wrote in The 8 Great Debates of Bible Prophecy: “Will God’s promises to Israel in the Old Testament covenants be fulfilled literally by Israel or figuratively by the church?”4
It’s essentially a debate over whether God still has promises for the state of Israel and the Jewish people, or whether the Christian church has essentially inherited those promises without such a prospect separately unfolding.
Those who embrace the latter idea believe in something that some critics call “replacement theology”—also known as supersessionism. Critics say that this is, in practice, exactly what it sounds like: the church takes the place of ethnic Israel and, thus, becomes the recipient of God’s promises in the Old Testament.
Rhodes, who flatly rejects replacement theology, pointed in his book to pastors like Kenneth Gentry who Rhodes said would cite verses like Galatians 6:16 in which Paul referred to the church as the “Israel of God” as well as “the circumcision” in Philippians 3:3 to back the replacement paradigm.5
Douglas Wilson, a postmillennial theologian, said that he embraces supersessionism and delivered a pointed definition in an effort to explain some of the central beliefs associated with this perspective: “The supersessionist position is that the Christian church is Israel now, that God only has one people,” he said. “The Jews were that people in the Old Testament, and the Christian church is the new Israel now.”6
Wilson added, “That would mean a supersessionist could not be a Zionist.”7 As you may or may not know, a Zionist is a person who supports the creation and building of a Jewish homeland in Israel; those supporting the modern-day state would fall under that category, believing that its founding is a fulfillment of prophecy.
As a supersessionist, Wilson said that he believes that all of the promises that God made in the Old Testament to Israel were fulfilled in Christ and are now “available and offered to the Christian church today.”8
Now, that’s where the discussion gets a bit dicey in terms of the overarching eschatological debate. Replacement theologians would likely dismiss any notion of Israel’s current existence being a definitive part of biblical prophecy, seeing Old Testament projections involving land being given to the Jews as having already been fulfilled in the distant past, according to Rhodes.9
Those who embrace the replacement paradigm—and they include some Catholics and Protestants, alike—believe that the church should be the sole focus, with many seeing modern-day Israel as a merely political institution.
Considering how many centuries it took before Israel found itself back on the map, it isn’t surprising that scores of believers throughout church history have come to view the Christian church as the sole continuation and central body.
One of the more intriguing pieces of the debate centers on the fact that some critics reject the term “replacement theology.” Hank Hanegraaff is among those who patently reject the term “replacement theology,” claiming that it is a descriptor that was created by dispensationalists in an effort to negatively frame their critics.
“It’s just a moniker that is designed to be an insult,” Hanegraaff said. “In fact, it is the ultimate pejorative leveled at those who deny the heart of dispensationalism, or the notion that God has two distinct people, one of whom will be raptured before God continue[s] His plan with the other.”10
The theologian then dismissed some of the ideas embraced by dispensationalists as “embarrassing” and mere “sensationalism,” saying that dispensationalists use the “replacement” label in an attempt to shut down anyone who disagrees with their worldview by framing those critics as “peddler[s] of godless heresy.”11
Hanegraaff also argued that the use of “replacement theology” as a term is in itself “very inaccurate,” adding that the individuals that it attempts to frame “neither believe that the church has replaced Israel, nor the other way around.”12
“Instead, they hold that all clothed in Christ constitute one congruent, chosen covenant community, beautifully connected by the cross,” he said. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female—you are all one in Christ, according to the apostle Paul. If you belong to Christ you are then Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.”13
And he wasn’t done there, saying that those who embrace dispensationalism are actually the ones who are guilty of a replacement theology of sorts, further breaking down some of the issues that he sees with their worldview.
“Use of the term replacement I think is highly ironic, because the very people who wheeled the term as an insult, themselves, believe the mistaken notion that Israel . . . will soon replace a raptured church during seven horrific years of tribulation,” he said.14
Hanegraaff spoke about these dynamics further in an interview for this book, tying many of the beliefs embedded in the dispensational worldview to John Nelson Darby, a nineteenth-century Bible teacher.
No stranger to pushing back against dispensational theory, Hanegraaff explained that the idea is rooted in the notion that God has two distinct groups of people and that they have “two distinct plans and two distinct destinies.” His central argument is that this has never been the traditional understanding of Scripture.15
“Prior to that, the historic Christian church had never even considered such a thing. There was the notion of premillennialism, but there was not the notion of the secret Rapture,” he said. “That idea actually is a function of John Nelson Darby believing in the two people of God theory, as though God is some kind of a racist, or a land broker.”16
Hanegraaff then laid out evidence for his perspective, proceeding to invoke the Old Testament, saying that when the “children of Israel” left Egypt in the Exodus, it wasn’t an ethnic group and was, instead, a “mixed multitude.”17
“When the children of Israel start looking at entering into the Promised Land, you meet Rahab and her household,” he added. “She too, though a Canaanite, sees that Yahweh is the real God, and so she puts her allegiance with Yahweh, the God of Israel. And then you find her in the lineage of Jesus Christ.”18
Hanegraaff continued, “You have Ruth, who was a Moabite, the archenemy of Israel. She’s in the lineage of Jesus Christ too, because she sees all the types and shadows in the Old Testament, pointing forward to a Savior, so she believes in Yahweh, the God of Israel, [and] becomes a friend of God.”19
He reflected on a similar paradigm that he believes unfolded in Esther 8 after Esther saved the Jews from Haman, saying that there were many individuals from different nations who became Jews.
Verse 17 reads: “In each and every province as well as in each and every city, wherever the king’s edict and his decree reached, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast, and a holiday. Furthermore, many of the people of the land professed to be Jews because the dread of the Jews fell on them.”
It is here that Hanegraaff sees a parallel scenario.
“It says on that day, many different people from many different nations became Jews. How did they do that? Did they change their birth mother?” he said. “No. They believed in Yahweh, the God of Israel, and therefore they were brought into all the types and shadows, the civil and ceremonial laws, the temple priests and sacrifices, et cetera, pointing forward to Jesus Christ.”20
In the end, Hanegraaff said that “God never had two people” and that he believes that there’s a “horrifying theology” coming from many church leaders when it comes to biblical end-times paradigms.21
“The takeaway from all of that is that the notion of John Nelson Darby . . . that God has two people . . . He has to Rapture the one, so He can go back to work with the other. It’s simply nonsense,” he said. “There’s no biblical basis for it whatsoever.”22
R. Scott Clark, a Bible expert who has taught church history, also tackled this subject on his website, pushing back against those who use the term “replacement theology.” Clark explained that Reformed theology contends that the Mosaic covenant “was never intended to be permanent.”23
“With respect to salvation, Reformed covenant theology does not juxtapose Israel and the church. . . . The church has always been the Israel of God,” he wrote. “Reformed covenant theology distinguishes the old and new covenants (2 Cor. 3; Heb. 7–10). . . . The church was temporarily administered through a typological, national people,” but the church has existed since Genesis and it continues to exist today.24
Rather than the New Testament church replacing the Jews, Clark said that God “grafted” the Gentiles into the “people of God”—something he likened to adding rather than replacing.25
Clearly, the argument is complex and multifaceted, with one side using a label—“replacement theology”—that the other side rejects.
This debate aside, Pastor Douglas Wilson doesn’t ignore the potential for a prophetic future for Israel in light of the nation’s return to the land of its forefathers, though there’s a caveat when it comes to his views on Jewish people.
“I believe that there is a prophetic future for ethnic Israel still, but I don’t believe that ethnic Israel is currently the anointed people of God,” he said. “I’m pro-Israel, non-Zionist.”26
He also drew a distinction when it comes to an event happening for God’s purpose versus an event unfolding with a definitively prophetic purpose.
“I’m a Calvinist, so I believe that everything that happens is God-ordained,” he said. “I believe that God caused Israel to come back together in the land for a purpose, and I believe that that purpose relates to Romans 11, but I don’t believe that their return to the land was a fulfillment of prophecy.”27
This debate is clearly a fierce one, with the emergence of modern-day Israel reigniting wonder and curiosity about the potential role that the political state will play in the theological end game. Some will dismiss such a connection, though others—as evidenced from the arguments in this book—are prepared to see many of the events surrounding the end times take form in Israel and the Middle East.
“I think the final conflict will occur over Zion, over Jerusalem, over that territory, and for that reason—for that fundamental reason—I do look at the founding of the state of Israel as being significant,” Dr. Michael Heiser told me. “I don’t view it as a fulfillment of prophecy. I view it as related to things to come, so it’s related to prophecy.”28
Heiser said that Revelation very clearly has Israel as a national entity that plays a role in the end times, and he expects world events to unfold as such. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Israel as a land and Jerusalem as a city has a very central role to play in the day of the Lord and the Second Coming and events like that,” he said.29
Other theologians with a futurist mentality, though, dive a bit deeper in seeing the prophetic significance of Israel, laying out very clear parameters for the nations, events and key players that they believe will be central to the end times. These individuals believe, contrary to what Hanegraaff said, that “the church is the church and Israel is Israel,” as Rhodes simply put it.30
Laurie, who noted that he and Hanegraaff are friends, pushed back against the theologian’s views on the matter, appealing to the Bible to also corroborate his outlook on God’s relationship with mankind.
“I don’t think it’s an issue of race here as much as it’s an issue of God chooses who He chooses and does what He does,” Laurie said. “This is called the sovereignty of God. God says in Deuteronomy 7:7, speaking of Israel, ‘The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other people[s], for you were the fewest of all people[s]’ (NIV), but then He goes on to say He chose them because He loved them.”31
Laurie called it an “undeniable fact” that the Jews are God’s chosen people, expressing his belief that God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis is still in effect and is relevant even today.
“You can look back historically on those nations that have made it their business to try to eradicate the Jewish people going back as far as Spain and the more modern days, go back even further, go back to Babylon, go back to Egypt, and then quasi-modern day Spain and Germany and others,” he said. “They were diminished dramatically as nations, and so I think that God loves the Jewish people, and I believe that the Jewish people being gathered into their homeland against all odds and the aftermath of the Holocaust is an undeniable, modern-day miracle.”32
It was with that latter regathering that Laurie believes “the prophetic clock started to tick.”33
And author Tim LaHaye had pointedly stronger words for anyone who might embrace the notion that the church replaced Israel, and that there’s no future fulfillment of prophecy involving the modern Jewish state.
“I think that’s a lie of the devil,” he told me. “The church is not Israel and Israel is not the church.”34
Rather than one continuum in which Israel morphed and dissolved into the church, these individuals see a theology in which each body is distinct from the other, with the modern-day Jewish state slated to still fulfill Old Testament prophecy.35
They would argue that Paul’s writings actually looked at Israel and the church as distinct and separate, with Rhodes citing 1 Corinthians 10:32, which reads, “Give no offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God,” and mentioning Paul’s writings in Romans 9–11.36
Kinley also looked to these chapters to explain why he believes that Israel and the church are distinct. While he said that Jews and Gentiles are saved through Christ in the very same way, he said that the Bible clearly segments national Israel from Gentile Christians: “There are future promises yet to be fulfilled to that nation,” Kinley said. “For me, covenant theology—the part of it that thoroughly equates the church as the ‘new Israel’—hits a brick wall in 1948 when Israel becomes a nation after twenty centuries of being scattered.”37
In fact, he feels so strongly about national Israel’s prophetic role in the end times that he believes that “almost all the prophecies we see in Revelation are irrelevant unless Israel is back in the land once again,” arguing that seeing Ezekiel 37 come to life in the reemergence of modern-day Israel actually helps understand the future fulfillment of Revelation 5 through 19.38
“I cannot fathom how this modern-day prophetic fulfillment—a ‘super sign’ of the end times—can be ignored,” Kinley told me.39
Like Rhodes, he looks to Romans 9 through 11 to understand the segmenting of Israel and Gentile Christians, explaining that the current age—which began with Paul and extends to the present time—features “a partial hardening... on Israel, causing her to be placed on the back burner until the ‘fullness of the Gentiles’ is complete.”40
Kinley believes that this completeness will come at the Rapture, at which point God’s attention will once again turn to Israel and He will “collectively call her back to Himself.”41
“So while individual Jews are currently being saved, God’s relationship with the nation Israel will be revisited more fully during the Tribulation period,” Kinley said.42
It was here that Kinley was careful to note that, while he believes that God will turn attention to Israel during the Tribulation, he does not believe that the Lord is currently inactive in dealing with the modern Jewish state. Kinley cited Israel’s reemergence, Jews heading back to the land, and preparations based on the hope of a future third temple as evidence of God’s hand at work within Israel.
“I do see Him putting the pieces in place for the last days’ scenario,” he said.43
Similar to Kinley’s arguments, Rhodes also pushed back against replacement theologians’ views on the land, citing later prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel that spoke to Israel holding on to the land well after Joshua 21:43–45—verses that are commonly cited by those who believe that the church replaced Israel.44
Written centuries before Ezekiel, these scriptures seemingly indicate that God’s land promises to Israel had all been fulfilled with the writing of Joshua in chapter 21, verses 43–45. They read:
The LORD gave Israel all the land that He swore to give to their fathers. They took possession of it and lived in it. The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He swore to their fathers. Not a man among their enemies stood before them, and the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hands. Not a single word of all the good things that the LORD had spoken to the children of Israel failed. They all came to pass.
However, Rhodes maintained in his book that “every Old Testament prophet except Jonah speaks of a permanent return to the land of Israel by the Jews.”45 LaHaye agrees, believing that “Israel is fulfilling prophecy.”46
“It helps us to understand that God keeps His word by the way [in] which He’s kept Israel alive,” he said. “When you think [about it], the children of Israel have been persecuted more than any nation in the history of the world.”47
LaHaye also pointed to the astounding notion that the Jews remain after many centuries, despite the essential disappearance of other ethnic groups mentioned in Old Testament scriptures. “Where are all the Hittites, and all the Amorites, and all the many people referred to in the Bible?” he rhetorically asked.48
Pastor John Hagee too made similar comments about the reemergence of the state of Israel, adding that it is “the only nation in the world created by a sovereign act of God in a blood covenant recorded in Genesis 17:6–8 with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants forever.”49 Verse 8 proclaims that the “land of Canaan” would be given by God to Abraham and his descendants “for an everlasting possession.”
“The significance of modern-day Israel in Scripture is that all believers are directed by the Word of God to bless the Jewish people (Genesis 12:3); to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6), and to remember that all nations of the world will be judged by how they treat the nation of Israel (Joel 3:1–3),” Hagee said.50
Making his way through the Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, and British Empires, Hagee noted that the first five are “gone,” while the latter has been “reduced from a global empire to one small island.” He said, “World history can be explained in one sentence: The nations that blessed Israel were prosperous of God; the nations that cursed Israel perished.”51
People on both sides of the Israel debate look to Romans 11 as an important chapter in the prophecy debate. The Apostle Paul speaks in the text about Jews and Gentiles, with verse 26 reading, in part, “And so all Israel will be saved.”
GotQuestions.org, a website founded by S. Michael Houdmann, notes that a central debate arises surrounding the question of whether “Israel” is referring to the literal nation or whether it is, instead, a discussion about the church after its emergence and growth.52
The Bible resource, which with 12 million monthly visitors and 275,000 newsletter subscribers has great influence, explains that those who take a literal approach believe that the Jews who are physical descendants of Abraham will be restored to God, saying that Christ’s millennial kingdom will unfold after Israel’s spiritual restoration.53
Supersessionists, though, will settle on the church being the actual replacement for Israel; the covenants are then fulfilled in a strictly physical sense, and not through a physical fulfillment of Israel, according to GotQuestions.org.54
“I do believe that ethnic Israel has a role to play in the evangelization of the world,” Wilson said, though, as stated, it’s evident that futurists would take that rhetoric further in practice.55
Kinley, for instance, sees a much deeper role for Israel to play in the end times.
“One role Israel plays today is somewhat of a ‘prophetic countdown calendar,’” he said. “And while there are no specific dates on that calendar, events in Israel do serve as additional storm clouds gathering as the world ramps up to Revelation.”56
Kinley also took some time to explain that, in the Old Testament, Israel’s role was to live in a covenant relationship with God, “steward His revelation, and be a conduit through which the Messiah would come for all nations.”57
He believes that modern-day Israel will continue to be a “lightning rod in the last days,” as the nation will increasingly come into the crosshairs of anger from nations around the globe. “Hatred for her will grow as she defiantly defends herself in a world experiencing a resurgence of anti-Semitism not seen since [World War II] Germany,” he said.58
As for the continued rise of the Islamic State, ongoing terror attacks, and other increasing concerns for the Jewish state, Kinley said that these acts have actually had a stunning impact, bringing more Jewish people to flee to safety in Israel.
“Though Satan means it for evil, God is using it, not only for good, but also to fulfill prophecy in these last days. That’s how sovereign He is,” he said. “And yet He has done it before as global sympathy toward Jews following [World War II] played a part in the Jewish state of Israel being reborn in 1948.”59
With his eyes set on Revelation, Kinley said that both Israel and the land in which it resides will most certainly be the focus of end-times events. “As [the] Antichrist’s political and military power grows, his wrath and hatred for God, Jews, and Christians will reach a climax during the last half of the seven-year Tribulation.”60
Some pre-Tribulationalists like LaHaye also see a political necessity in America’s continued support for Israel. The author explained why he teamed up with fellow prophecy expert Dr. Ed Hindson to pen Target Israel, a book that provides context for Israel’s role during the end times: “I’m trying to get the church . . . to put pressure on their congressmen and senators, not to let Obama . . . throw Israel under the bus,” LaHaye said.61
Detailing his belief that American exceptionalism is predicated upon two things—that the nation was founded on Judeo-biblical principles and has been “better to the Jew than any nation in all of history”—he strongly argued for continued US support of the Jewish state.
LaHaye openly expressed fear over what could happen if America abandons Israel, warning that “we’ll lose the blessing of God” if that eventually comes to pass. “What the people don’t understand is our greatest future line of defense is to protect Israel,” he said.62
It’s clear that the debate over Israel’s role in prophecy is anything but settled, with experts landing on a variety of conclusions regarding what role, if any, the modern-day state will have in the unfolding of God’s end-times plans. Interpretations of the textual references to Gog and Magog are very clearly directly tied to how one feels about the Jewish state; likewise, one’s views on the Jewish state clearly play a key role in the eschatological timeline that he or she embraces.
As the battle rages on, it is clear that people like Rosenberg, Kinley, Rhodes, and LaHaye will likely continue looking at contemporary events to try and find fulfillments of Scripture, both old and new.