Episode Synopsis:

Whenever you discuss biblical eschatology and the end times, you must address the future of Israel and the Jewish people. The subject is greatly complicated by the fact that along with the longstanding biblical debates over Israel’s future, there is also the complicated history of Zionism. The unprecedented events surrounding the establishment of a Jewish state first conceived in the Balfour Declaration in 1917 (as a consequence of the Great War), came to fruition with UN Resolution 181. The resolution was approved on November 29, 1947, and established the “formal partition” of Palestine into Jordan (the Palestinian state), and the nation of Israel (a Jewish state). Debates over biblical expectations for the future of Israel, along with the geopolitical conflict between Israel and her Middle Eastern neighbors have raged ever since.

The return of the Jews to Palestine had a profound effect upon American evangelicals and fundamentalists, pushing eschatological speculation surrounding Israel to the fore. Whenever you mention the end times, people want to know about your views about Israel, which inevitably leads to the intermixing of biblical expectation with political matters and American foreign policy. Israel’s security and survival are constantly in the news, because the nation exists in a largely Muslim region which is very unhappy with the presence of a Jewish state in Palestine, an area which had been in important part of an Islamic caliphate from the 7th century until 1948.

Indeed, the return of the Jews to the nation of Israel is a remarkable thing, and has given great credibility to dispensationalism and the long-standing belief that the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and thereby set into motion God’s prophetic end times blueprint that will unfold until the Lord’s return.

Rather than focus upon the fascinating historical developments surrounding Israel from the First World War until now, I am going to tackle the one place in the New Testament where Paul speaks about the future course of redemptive history, specifically what God has decreed for his people–including Jew and Gentile. No, God is not finished with his ancient people, the Jews. And yes, dispensationalists get much of this wrong.

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