Transcription
Some of the most common questions I get today are about Israel, God's covenant with Israel, and whether or not there's a future role for the nation of Israel. We can take this back to Genesis in chapter 13, verses 15. Uh and I'll read verses 14 before it to lead up to it. It says, "The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward." And then verse 15, "For all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever."
Now, you're an Old Testament professor, one of my colleagues here at Talbot School of Theology. Do you believe from this text and or others that there's a future role for Israel? And is that land Is this promise that it'll be theirs forever one that exists today?
Yes, so I would say yes, there's a future role for Israel. And the way you posed the question to me before we started recording was did God give the land to Israel forever? Yes, this this verse definitely affirms God's promise to give it to them forever. There are other questions we could ask that I think follow from that, which is does any individual Israelite or does any individual generation of Israelites automatically get to have it? And that depends on covenant faithfulness. So, the promise is forever, the the the participation in the blessings of receiving the land is contingent on faithfulness. And I think what we we see that really clearly in other passages in the Torah. So, what came to my mind was Leviticus [clears throat] 26. I'm going to go Leviticus 26, verses 20 verse sorry, 26, verses 32 and 33. Um this is right in the middle of the punishment for disobedience section of the covenant curses and it says, "I myself will lay waste the land so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste and your cities will lie in ruins."
So, clearly, uh that this chapter opens up the possibility uh that of repentance and restoration, but there may be a time when you lose the land because you've lived out of alignment with God's with God's requirements.
Okay, so that's really interesting. There's so much involved in this question. So, part of it is the Abrahamic covenant, which we have in 12, 13, 15, 17, which seems to imply forever. And then you get to Exodus 19 and you have the Mosaic covenant that some would argue is more conditional and possibly replaced by Jeremiah 31 with the new covenant. So, is this a part of the Mosaic covenant, which is Leviticus' clearly a part of that, or is this pre making a promise for Israel whether or not they are in the land or out of a land that continues through that period of unfaithfulness? [clears throat] I think this is the root of the question where people are going to differ.
And I And I'm My guess is that you and I even differ on this question.
Um so, I see quite a bit of continuity between the covenants. So, the promise to Abraham is inherited by the whole nation at Sinai. So, I don't see Sinai as being a different covenant than God's promises to Abraham, but that they're now being ratified with all 12 sons of Jacob. So, we have Abraham passes it on to Isaac. Isaac passes it on to Jacob. Jacob passes it passes it on to all 12 sons. Actually, there's 13, but that's another question.
He passes it on to all 13. And so, then what we end up with is a people who are heirs of God's promises to Abraham. That's why God brings them out of Egypt because of his promises that he made to Abraham to bring them into the land. So then they ratify it at at Mount Sinai and God warns them in Leviticus 26 and then again in Numbers 28 uh to the next generation. Moses reiterates the consequences for covenant disobedience. I'll just read those real quick. Uh Deuteronomy 28 verse 41.
You will have sons and daughters, but you will not keep them because they will go into captivity. Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land. The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head and you will be the tail. All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey Yahweh your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. And then later in the chapter verses verse 63, just as it pleased Yahweh to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then Yahweh will scatter you among all nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods.
So the the promise of land is forever, but the accessing the benefits of that promise is contingent, I would say, on covenantal faithfulness.
Okay, I think so just for clarity, this is not a deep dive. And again, if people want us to come back and do a deep dive on this, maybe we could. The debate is about really or the disagreement is about two things. Is the Abrahamic covenant distinct from the Mosaic covenant in one sense? And when you said there's these examples, you read Leviticus, you read Numbers. I've been reading through Isaiah, there's clear examples where you'd would sent from the land and scattered, is there a remnant that stays in the land that still would be a part of that faithfulness, so to speak, amidst the masses being exiled, hence carrying the Abrahamic covenant through? And is that initial covenant with Abraham broken when the people are disobedient, or is it just the Mosaic covenant that is broken? Now, you don't have to perfectly answer that, but did I at least clarify where some of the differences would be as it goes to the promise of Israel and the land?
Yes. I think the way I describe it to students, I don't think that the language of conditional or unconditional is all that helpful, because what I see with all the covenants is God is making promises, and those promises are sure. And individuals opt out or opt in based on whether they give their allegiance to Yahweh as God or not. And so, yes, there are faithful resident There are are faithful covenant keepers all the way through. And so, while the nation goes into exile, there are individuals that are that are good examples of covenant faithfulness. I would say when they go to exile in Babylon, when the when the um nation of Judah goes into exile in Babylon, God They don't all go. Only the brightest and best are taken to Babylon, and the the lower class people stay in the land. Uh you know, Daniel describes who's taken, and they take some of the elite to work in government and all of that. Um but Ezekiel describes those who have been taken as being in safekeeping, so that they can then come back and inherit the land later. So, it's not necessarily the ones who are in the right who are still there. Um God says, "No, I'm protecting my people by bringing them to Babylon for a while, and I'll bring them back."
So, I guess the difference is it's not If there's a remnant in the land, it doesn't imply that that remnant is necessarily right, and the people aren't protected.
but which would take us aside. So, okay. This is good. Part of me is like, am I really having a friendly debate with an Old Testament scholar writing a commentary on the book of Exodus. And so, [snorts] maybe this is just where we differ, we could circle back to this, is I would look at the covenant in Genesis 15 with Abraham
as God is the one who's ratifying this in the means that he did, which is top-down.
Exodus feels more if-then to me.
Now again, sounds like we differ on that. We don't have to hash that out right now, but where we do agree is that there is a future role for Israel independent of its current role. Now, would you view Israel being back in the land as a fulfillment of the of prophecy, or would you not take that from Ezekiel, for example?
What era are we talking about?
1948.
Okay. And a fair question.
Yes, I would I would not view that necessarily as a fulfillment of prophecy for the reason that when Israel is in the land in the Old Testament, they are a theocracy. They're They're They're in covenant with Yahweh and they're gathered around his presence. There's no temple. The modern-day state of Israel is a secular state, and so I don't think it's automatic that we should see the secular modern state of Israel as the heirs of those covenant promises.
Okay, That I think that's where the debate is. Is the Is there enough continuity with the language
enough continuity with the traditions
enough continuity in other ways to carry it through, and I think that's where the the difference ultimately would be.
Yeah. It It was interesting to me to learn last year that calling it Israel, the the modern state calling it Israel was actually a last-minute change at the White House. Harry Truman was overseeing this conversation about creating a Jewish state, and he actually you could you can look online and see the document they they crossed out Jewish state and penciled in Israel before they signed it.
Oh, that's interesting.
was some concern that by calling it Israel people might think we mean Old Testament Israel. And that this isn't that. And so it's a really interesting debate around it.
So that is interesting me. By the way, whether or not it's fulfilled is somewhat irrelevant to what people call it and what their intentions are. But that's fair that they were trying to make that distinction. Okay, I'm guessing people right here here thinking, okay, wait a minute. We want a deep dive on the covenants and make your case. That's one we could talk about. Let us know if you want that. Maybe I bring another Old Testament scholar even more savvy on these than I am. But let us know if that would be helpful. Tell us where I know we do agree that there's a future role for Israel and why you think that.
Yeah, I think the scriptures are clear that God has promised the land forever. I take that as God's intention was always for the land for sacred space to expand and expand and expand until it covered the whole earth. So I actually in my mind am not limiting God's promises to a certain strip of land in the Mediterranean. But actually that that the the boundaries of sacred space are meant to encompass the whole earth. So that when we see the new Excuse me, when [clears throat] we see the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, it's it has the dimensions of the Holy of Holies. It's it's cubic just like the Holy of Holies is as if to say now the very presence of God encompasses everything. So I think uh So I wouldn't be looking for a specific plot of ground saying this is the particular land because I think God's intention always was for the his the knowledge of him to cover the whole earth and for him to be worshipped everywhere.
All right, I'm guessing people right now cuz we're at our I don't know how long this has been 8 to 12-minute difficult passage time. Some people are going, you raised more questions than you actually answered. But I think we at least clarified where some of the differences, how people take these passages, invite people to think a little bit deeper on it. So, thanks for coming. Super interesting and helpful to me.
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