Prophecy

6. The Church and Israel Problem

 

Like The Imminence Problem, this problem is easy to address, because I agree with the Pre-Wrathists. Any Pre-Tribbers who say that God can't work with the Church and Israel at the same time are just wrong. But again, that does not mean that they are wrong about the Resurrection/Rapture happening 7 years before the "end of the age." Apparently, some Pre-Tribbers argue that since God is working with only the Church now and will work only with Israel in the last 7 years, it is further evidence that the Resurrection/Rapture will occur at the beginning of those 7 years.

 

While I do believe that there is a significant division between the "times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24) and Israel's 70th "week," the last 7 years, that does argue for the Resurrection/Rapture occurring before the last 7 years, I do not believe in God working only with Gentiles before the last 7 years and only with Jews and Israel during those last 7 years. Obviously, the Christian Church or New Testament Church began with a minority of Jews in Israel that God saved through regeneration by His Holy Spirit and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and then grew by the Spirit to include Gentiles, almost entirely. However, God has saved a very small minority of Jews in the last almost 2000 years and, in more recent decades, is saving more. For example, I have heard that there are about 100 Messianic Jewish congregations in Israel.

 

In Israel's last 7 years, it appears that God will save many more Jews/Israelis. If the 144,000 saved, chaste, Jewish men of Revelation is to be taken literally, as is my guess, it probably means that a similar number of Jewish/Israeli women and a similar number of Jewish/Israeli children will be saved for perhaps a total of half a million. Will God save Jews in other parts of the world in the last 7 years? I don't know, but I would guess so. Will He save any more Gentiles after the "times of the Gentiles are fulfilled"? I don't know, but I would guess so. Romans 11 says this:

 

 

These verses certainly suggest that God is going to soften and open some Jewish hearts to believe in Jesus as their Messiah and Savior and Lord after He saves many, many Gentiles. But it doesn't say that He will only save one group of people at a time. And when it says "and so all Israel will be saved," remember that saved Gentiles have been "grafted into" saved Israel. So, the saved invisible Church is really the same as saved invisible Israel. National Israel, the nation and the whole Jewish race, always has had a minority of true, saved, Spiritual Israel, saved Jews, into which saved Gentiles have been and are being grafted. So, the "all Israel" simply means all of God's regenerated, saved, chosen people, Gentiles and Jews from Adam and Eve onward. It is the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Israel, over which King Jesus, son of King David, reigns.

 

Here is how God's marvelous plan to reveal His righteousness, including both His justice and His mercy, has played out in the last almost 6000 years:

 

1. In my view, God didn't put His Holy Spirit in perfect Adam and Eve, and so they naturally fell and became unholy, facing the temptation of Satan, to whom God also did not give His Holy Spirit. The whole human race was basically condemned, put on death row, justly heading toward death and hell.

 

2. But God immediately began to save a minority of the human race by breathing His Holy Spirit into them (John 3), which produced true saving faith in the one true God in adults of sound mind and many children of sound mind. (John the Baptist even received the Holy Spirit in the womb.) R. C. Sproul thought that Eve, "the mother of all living," was the first one God saved, but we certainly know that He saved Abel but not Cain (Hebrews 11:4; 1 John 3:12; Jude 1:11). It also appears that God often saves through family lines. It seems that He saved many in the line of Seth, but none or few in the line of Cain. This is the distinction between the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" in Genesis 6. It is the distinction that Jesus made in referring to the "children of God" versus the "children of the devil" or the "children of Satan."

 

3. Remember that for the first 2000 years of human history there was no Jewish race, since it began with the line of Noah's son, Shem (from whom we get the term Semite), leading to Terah and Abram on both sides of 1970/69 BC, 4000 years before the 6000th year in 2030/31 AD. And during the 120 years of demonic activity (1 Peter 3:18-20), while the Spirit strove with man, before Noah's 600th year, 2309 BC, God did not save anyone, except Noah and 7 others who went into the ark 7 days before the Flood (picturing Christ and the 7 churches going into heaven 7 years before the Fire). At least, any of the likely saved were dead before the Flood, including Noah's father, Lamech, and his grandfather, Methuselah.

 

4. For the next 2000 years of human history, 1970/69 BC to 30/31 AD, God saved mainly Jews and converts to Judaism, under what is known as the Old Covenant. During that time, the Law was written on tablets of stone, convicting of sin and necessitating its covering by bloody sacrifices, foreshadowing the "once for all" sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus in 30 AD. Daniel's 7 and 62 "weeks" of years from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem in 445 BC ended then. (Anything over 6 and 61 "weeks," the Jews would round up to 7 and 62, so it put the Messiah's "cutting off," crucifixion, between 24 and 38 AD.)

 

5. For the last 2000 years of human history, 30/31 AD to 2030/31 AD, God has been saving mainly Gentiles. Certainly, the New Covenant began with God saving a minority of Jews, but then the Holy Spirit began to save mostly Gentiles. R. C. Sproul put the beginning of the New Covenant at the Lord's Supper in the upper room, but I suggest the crucifixion itself marked the beginning. The New Covenant is characterized by the Holy Spirit actually "writing" God's Law in the spirits or hearts of God's chosen ones (Jeremiah 31:33). There is also perhaps a greater filling and gifting of the Holy Spirit for the average saint, compared with average Old Covenant saints.

 

6. Christ bound Satan and the demons not active in Noah's day in hell in 70 AD. The "synagogue of Satan," unregenerate Jews, essentially were also bound in their dispersion in 70 AD, as well, and in hell at their deaths. However, Satan and these demons were released from hell in 1903/4, 120 years before the Resurrection/Rapture, when King Jesus will descend invisibly with Moses (who was resurrected) and Elijah (who was raptured) to receive the "dead in Christ" (all dead Gentile and Jewish saints from Adam and Eve onward) and those "who are alive and remain" (all living Gentile and Jewish saints) in the clouds. The "synagogue of Satan," unregenerate Jews, were also released from their dispersion at that time to begin returning to Palestine in greater numbers, especially after the Holocaust. This is the dual meaning of the "locusts" from hell in Revelation 9.

 

7. After the Resurrection/Rapture in 2023/24, Moses and Elijah will immediately descend further to Jerusalem to preach King Jesus for 1260 days. This will begin Daniel's 70th "week," the last 7-year period before the Second Coming of Christ "with power and great glory." During this time, we know that God will save many Jews/Israelis, about half a million in Israel is my guess. Will He save Jews elsewhere in the world? I don't know, but I would guess so, because the Jewish Antichrist makes "war with the rest of her [Israel's] children" (Revelation 12:17) after being unable to destroy the roughly half million Israeli saints. I would guess that it also means Gentile saints around the world that God saves during that last 7 years.

 

By the way, here is an excellent article on the New Covenant as it relates to the Old Covenant:

 

 

In summary, God has saved and will save a minority of Gentiles and a minority of Jews from condemnation for all of the 6000 years of human history. Any Pre-Tribbers who think that God hasn't and won't save a minority of both at the same time in the last 4000 years are just wrong. But they are not wrong about the Resurrection/Rapture initiating the last 7 years before the "end of the age."