Mt. 12:31
This reading fits with the multitudinous passages in the New Testament that communicate that God was done with (divorced) Israel. First we have the parable of the non-productive fig tree (Luke 13:6-9) which finds the servant conceding to cut down the barren fig tree (Israel) if it does not produce fruit after a year (it didn’t). Then there is Jesus cursing the fig tree, saying; “May you never produce fruit again (Matthew 21:18ff) .”
The most clear indication that God was done with the Jews is seen in Matthew 21:33-46. Here it is clearly and unmistakably taught that the Jews are divorced and cast out. In the story a landowner plants a vineyard, lets it out to farmers, and moves far away (33). The landowner represents God and the farmers represent the Jews (45). When harvest time comes, the owner of the vineyard sends servants to collect his share of the fruit, but the farmers beat, kill, and stone these servants (35). These servants represent the prophets (Luke 11:47) God sent to the Jews through the centuries, and how the Jews mistreated such prophets (Luke 13:34). Lastly the landowner sends his son to collect, but the farmers kill him also. This son represents God’s son Jesus Christ of course.
Jesus asks his audience in verse 40 “When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?” His audience correctly answers “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen ….” Jesus reaffirms this conclusion by saying in verse 43 “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Precipitated by their longtime disobedience, with the final straw being the killing of the son of God (Matt 23:37-38), the kingdom of God would be taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles. In AD 70 the Lord of the vineyard came in His judgment coming and He miserably destroyed Israel, scattering them to the wind in the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. In this judgment coming of the Lord Christ the Jews as a people were eternally divorced by God never to be grafted in again to the Olive Tree as a nation. Certainly, individual Jews can be, and praise God are saved but as a people God is done with the Jews.
Also, one has to consider the mistake it is to read Romans 11 as if it referred to physical Israel because in Romans 9 God had clearly stated that “not all of Israel is of Israel.” So, this idea that God still has work to do with the Jewish nation that is tied to His eschatological clock is just bollix. National Israel is in no way tied to God’s eschatological clock, though as postmillennialists we believe that what Jews remain upon the coming of Christ many will be saved as being part of other nations.
We note this final thought above due to the fact that it is an open question as to how many genetic Jews exist yet today. The book, “The Thirteenth Tribe” by Arthur Koestler, as one example, questions whether those whom we call “Jews” today are really, in fact, genetically Jews. Most of them seem to be from Khazaria or are Edomites. The ironic thing is that lately there are reports that the Palestinians in Israel who are being slaughtered by “the Jews” are indeed more Semitic than the Israelis killing them. Of course if it is true that those called “the Jews” today are Khazaria then the whole infrastructure of much of Evangelical and evene Reformed theology has the ground cut out from underneath of it. For the Reformed, if this is true, they will definitely need to re-adjust their interpretation of Romans 11.
This is excellent, thanks for posting this.
Again, I concur. I’m reading Giles Corey’s ‘The Sword of Christ’ right now and am surprised you haven’t included it on any of your recommended reading lists. It seems that Northern Europeans (sons of Japheth) were the beneficiaries of the vineyard, but now I wonder if it’s being taken from them in that the white race is being extinguished.
Hello Ron …. I read Giles not long after it was released. It’s just that I’ve forgotten to put it on my “to read” lists. It is a excellent book.
I too agree that we might be living through the “being taken from them” stage for our rebellion to God’s covenant over the scores of decades.
Blessings on your reading,
Bret
The part about Romans 11 being future tense to Paul (writing at that time) but past tense to those living after 70 AD was a good point that I had never considered. I too doubt the racial purity of the “Jews” of our time, and if they are indeed pure, then it just places them more fully under the curse of rejection that Jesus Christ gave to them as a people. Excellent article!
Jews, Judeans, were practiceing Babylonian mystery religion with a Hebrew veneer in Jesus day, they were not the chosen even then.
The other branches of the Hebrew religion, the Samaritans and the Galileans, came to Christ in such droves that they ceased to identify as anything other than Christians. They are the core of the early church, the heirs to the promise of Abraham both by faith and bloodline.
How was this forgotten?
How was this forgotten?
Can you say Dispensationalism and Bagel Printing presses printing Scofield Bibles?
Late reply, sorry.
Yes thank you… I suppose that’s it.
Question. Because the church is the true Israel, would it be correct to consider the Hebrew people as being grafted into the Israel?
Sure … as they repent and turn away from their false religion(s).
But they would not be who St. Paul was speaking of in Romans 11. What Paul speaks of there was future to him but past to us. It is prophecy that has been fulfilled.
I have defended Doug Wilson against all comers for many years, but in the last two I have become increasingly concerned about his blind defense of Israel and the “post war consensus” and in the last year he has teamed up with an unhinged James White to denounce “Revoice Nazis” like Joel Webbon, Brian Sauve, Eric Conn and others. It has become an obsession with Wilson bordering on mania. He and White drafted that poorly crafted “Antioch Declaration” and followed it up with multiple barrages issued by Canon Press, dragging his daughters and other CREC ministers into the fray. He genuinely speaks and writes as if he is the pope of protestantism and expects to be acknowledged as such. Judging by the comments I see following his every pronouncement, I believe he is destroying his reputation and will drag the CREC down with him.
Hello there, a lot of thought provoking content on this site.
If Japhetic races can be preserved for thousands of years, why can’t the Jewish race?
The argument against an intact Jewish ethnicity seems the same as the argument against racial differences – “there aren’t any races anymore, they are all mixed together.”
I agree that the Jews as a people were cut off soon after Christ’s warning that the kingdom of God would be taken from them. But He implies their return in Matt. 23:39 “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
Professor David Brown comments: “that is, till those “Hosannas to the Son of David” with which the multitude had welcomed Him into the city – instead of “sore displeasing the chief priests and scribes” (Matt. 21:15) – should break forth from the whole nation, as their glad acclaim to their once pierced, but now acknowledged, Messiah. That such a time will come is clear from Zech. 12:10; Rom 11:26; 2Cor 3:15, 2Cor 3:16, etc. In what sense they shall then “see Him” may be gathered from Zech 2:10-13; Ezek. 37:23-28; Ezek. 39:28, Ezek. 39:29, etc.
One of the strongest arguments for kinism and ethnonationalism is the current national or ethnic preservation and future conversion of the Jews.
Maybe give this book a read Joshua
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteenth-Tribe-Khazar-Empire-Heritage/dp/1939438993/ref=sr_1_2?crid=129TVWJW15DCE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.QoogTyXWZYjpc9RgVVupDdC_I4-yC_-9pqoueb33qptfzGeEpuzvBf8xkTTsXwg82RYs11nU3wymoRLFpgmUMabxaSUvCwAVILk7NLI62fBTwsjNkbtYkCX5nNRLoFRjeVb-6wLhbU-UKAo5Q6R9yJY0AUYfbrru_qpe4qNfA9XW-7N17nbMV66tupewCOlSLfRL-_u5jB8CjCzYhsGxJUGIhXkusXULRGU-J9yjwvc.GEnbQ_Md2mkWlw63a1uXFAZD2DKRHOwW2dNBHMeC8Hc&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+thirteenth+tribe&qid=1738900320&sprefix=the+thirteenth+tribe%2Caps%2C178&sr=8-2
Sorry, this part of my comment is ambiguous:
“He implies their return…”
Better to say,
“He implies their national/ethnic repentance and restoration.”
It would be a massive time investment to read this book by an unrepentant Jew, womanizer, and self-murderer.
Romans 11:28 says that the Jews as a people are enemies of the gospel. If they no longer exist, then this verse is irrelevant now, correct?
Ethnic Jewish enmity to Christianity no longer exists? Pinay’s argument that the Jewish communist plot to destroy the Church is all wrong then.
A Partial Preterist reading of Romans 11 would say that it is no longer relevant.
Pinay could still be correct if those who call themselves “Jews” but are not are still seeking to destroy the church…. right?
And the Thirteenth Tribe is not so large a book that reading it would be a “massive time investment.”
I see your point.
Every subject has no end of books on it, so to save time I prefer to go to the area where the truth is most likely to be found. The reformers were largely historicist post millennial, and the Westminster Larger Catechism teaches that we should pray for their national conversion.
Preterism, on the other hand was developed by a Jesuit priest, and makes the same mistake that Futurist premills make – interpret symbols literally when they are figurative. Eg the the temple in Revelation 11, and the outer court given to Gentiles, somehow proves that Revelation was written while the temple was still standing, contra all external evidence and universal testimony of the early church fathers.
Preterism is also embraced by Doug Wilson which automatically makes it suspect.
It makes the same error as Futurists (also developed by a Jesuit priest) in assuming that most prophecy is for a specific period, and says little or nothing about what the Church will experience in other future ages. Unlike Daniel its counterpart, which provided a prophetic guide for the Church to follow from the time of Daniel to the time of Christ. In other words every generation of believers could go to Daniel and figure out roughly where they were on the prophetic timeline.
The verse you quote is from Revelation ch 2 – a prophetic book filled with symbols taken from the old Testament, indicates that it should not be taken literally, just as Jezebel in is clearly symbolic of an evil influence resembling that of Jezebel in the OT. Is he not speaking of unregenerate people claiming to be regenerated? Cf Romans 2:28-29
Finally, if any race would be inclined to marry their own kin and preserve their bloodline, it would be the unbelieving Jews in the early centuries. Their rabbis taught that the descendants of Ham were cursed and that the Japhethites were Gentile dogs. That didn’t leave them with many options for marrying outside their own kin.
Good thing I’m not a full Preterist but only a Partial Preterist like countless others from previous generations.
Indeed, it was R. C. Sproul Sr. along with Ken Gentry as they exegeted God’s Word that convinced me of the golden truth of Partial Preterism.
Take Care Joshua
Last comment. Correct me if I’m wrong, but partial preterism still requires me to believe
That all Protestants were wrong about the papacy being the ultimate antichrist? [Turretin says in his book on the papacy -separate from his three volume set – that no Protestant differed from this view.]
And the view that the current Jews are all fake means that the Church fathers, Luther, Calvin etc were all wrong in assuming that the Jews of their day were descended from the Jews who rejected Christ?
We younger guys can be forgiven being skeptical, when time and again, modern seminary profs and PhDs tell us that “the reformers were all wrong about race, ethnonationalism, church and state relations, the papacy, etc etc”
Then old books get translated/republished and their ignorance is exposed.
Joshua wrote
Last comment. Correct me if I’m wrong, but partial preterism still requires me to believe
That all Protestants were wrong about the papacy being the ultimate antichrist? [Turretin says in his book on the papacy -separate from his three volume set – that no Protestant differed from this view.]
Bret replies
Yes … all Protestants were wrong who believe that the Pope was the one and only Anti-Christ. And the fact that Turretin said what he said is irrelevant in terms of being correct.
Joshua writes,
And the view that the current Jews are all fake means that the Church fathers, Luther, Calvin etc were all wrong in assuming that the Jews of their day were descended from the Jews who rejected Christ?
Bret responds
Yes, just as Luther and Calvin were both wrong on this issue just as they were both wrong in thinking that Mary continued to be a virgin after the Birth of Jesus Christ.
Joshua wrote
We younger guys can be forgiven being skeptical, when time and again, modern seminary profs and PhDs tell us that “the reformers were all wrong about race, ethnonationalism, church and state relations, the papacy, etc etc”
Bret responds
You younger guys need to read Eusebius the Partial Preterist. His dates were c. 260-c.340. He was one of the early Church Historians.
Now there’s some old writing that could be translated and republished with your ignorance being exposed on this subject.
Also you might want to read …. if it doesn’t tax your time. It goes into more chaps besides Eusebius who were partial Preterist in the Early Church. It will help you realize how silly it is to claim that Preterism was invented by a Jesuit Priest.
https://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Interpretations-Apocalypse-Christianity-2012-08-02/dp/B01K3KSXT6/ref=sr_1_9?crid=QJ1KFKI9TDXC&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.TsIb-3SkDeFB7ar_fOu9oaCDexG2rM1hwIz9TSE8FAkdcN8KNMN4cjwnoe2Y3gJor4L6exf0_UTCNCsHJoq8ZYrfaOws-1dfuh_Nn2xsiCGMS8IVqpavkqZxBEMNvN0uVsT8J5lpF38MMiB1ElEX5A.r1oLEO952acR-6aMFFMfORN3-5rS2nLvCE_RFJ0GrI4&dib_tag=se&keywords=Francis+X.+Gumerlock&qid=1738961536&s=books&sprefix=francis+x.+gumerlock%2Cstripbooks%2C132&sr=1-9
These old books need to get translated/republished and then ignorance will indeed be exposed.
Happy Reading Joshua
No they did not say that the pope is the only antichrist. They said he is the ultimate one. Church fathers wrote about antichrists, but warned that the Roman Empire was holding back the manifestation of the ultimate antichrist. This is explained in Turretin’s book and more fully in Fairbairn’s book on prophecy.
Re preterism – of course some older divines held to preterist like views. Nothing new under the sun. A bit like Crawford Gibben screeching that Darby was not the father of dispensationalism and premilennial, because a few Westminster Divines held views akin to it. He scores technical points, but it’s a fact that Darby developed and popularized the views of prophecy that predominate today.
Yes church fathers dabbled with both preterism and futurism, but the exegetical firepower of modern preterism and futurism was provided by Jesuit scholars, with the explicit purpose of undermining the Protestant doctrine of antichrist.