The Mystery Of The Hardening Of Israel

by DORRICOTT, K. O. | Category: Opened Secrets | Jul 2005

Why is the nation of Israel so often in the news? Why have the Jewish people suffered such atrocities over the centuries, and yet survived? Is it true that they were (or still are) God's chosen people? Do they have a future? It can all seem so perplexing.

Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Rome and said he didn't want them to be ignorant about it: 'For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness (RV: hardening) in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved.'(1) What is God doing with Israel?

Israel is a unique people

Four thousand years ago God began by giving Abraham covenant promises that he would have numerous descendants and they would have a land of their own to occupy, from the Nile to the Euphrates.(2) But this territory has never been fully occupied. Then, five hundred years later, God told Israel through Moses at Sinai that if they would obey His voice and keep His covenant, they would be a special treasure to Him above all people.(3) God also gave promises to David about a future descendant who would one day be Israel's greatest king, and His reign would never end.(4) Yet from the initial promise to Abraham, God had given intimations that He had something planned for other nations (the Gentiles) too.(5)

Paul summarized Israel's unique position by saying that to them 'pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises'.(6)

Israel's hardening

But Israel repeatedly disobeyed and rebelled, bringing about God's discipline - defeats, occupation, division and captivity. They resisted God's word through His various prophets.(7) They hardened their hearts against His word, until He eventually hardened them.(8)

This culminated in their rejection of their Messiah when He came, in the person of Jesus Christ. They were stumbled at Him, and they cast Him aside. As a result, they found themselves cast aside by God as His people, although not permanently. The Jewish people have been dispersed throughout the nations of the world, and subjected to numerous atrocities, for the best part of two thousand years.

The Scriptures describe Israel as like an olive tree, which is a beautiful tree, with fruit that is good to eat and also produces an oil that is used for cooking and for ceremonial anointing. Without its fruit, the olive tree is useless, good only to be cut down and burned. Its individual branches die off, and others take their place. And so branches of the olive tree, disobedient Jews, were cut off.

A small minority is preserved

However not all Jews were disobedient. God preserved a remnant, a small core, as He always does to continue His purposes. Christ's apostles (all Jews) were given the kingdom, after His ascension to heaven, under a new covenant that can never expire. The basis of acceptance under this covenant was faith in Jesus Christ, and some Jews responded. And so the root of the olive tree was preserved.

The fullness of the Gentiles

And then the gospel was opened out to Gentile people, and God's long-standing purposes for them began to emerge. Those Gentiles who put faith in Jesus Christ were able to be grafted in, without distinction, as branches of the existing olive tree of Israel, taking the place of those Jewish branches which had previously been broken off. And so came to pass the prophecy '�Then I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they shall say, 'You are my God!'"'(9) This was hard for many Jews to accept; they had looked down on Gentiles as uncircumcised heathens, and now they were accepted just on the basis of faith.

The Jews still in unbelief

This is the phase in which we are now living in the twenty-first century. The nation of Israel at large has been set aside by God as His earthly people, due to the hardening of most of their hearts to Jesus Christ. The veil that Paul spoke of in 2 Corinthians 3 is over their eyes; they cannot see that the old covenant has passed away. This state of affairs will continue until 'the fullness of the Gentiles'(10) - until all of the chosen Gentiles have been added through faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Israel has a future

After the return of Christ to the air for believers in this age, God will resume His calendar of seventy weeks of years (490 years) for Israel's final judgment(11) and the restoration of the city of Jerusalem. The 'times of the Gentiles' will be brought to completion.(12) Israel (and Gentiles) on the earth at the time will suffer a time of great tribulation,(13) when they will pay dearly for what they did to Christ when He came to them. It will however be cut short in order to preserve the 'elect' ones, and their salvation will come out of the heavenly Zion(14) to the earthly Zion in the person of Jesus Christ as He concludes His second coming. He will come to purge and restore His people and to establish His kingdom among them for a thousand years. During this time the full territory promised to Abraham will be occupied by Israel as a nation, and He will sit as King in fulfilment of the promises to David. Repentant and converted Israel will again be functioning as the people of God on this earth.

And so will unfold the 'fullness' of Israel - the times of their 'riches' and 'life from the dead'.(15) They will mercifully have been grafted back into God's olive tree, repentantly coming to belief after having been provoked to jealousy by God blessing the Gentiles who never had the privileges they had. Another generation of Israel's faithful children will yet be the chosen earthly people of God, and even today we should love the current generation for their faithful fathers' sake.(16)

God, in His great purpose and goodness, is using the present hardening in part of Israel, so that both Jews and Gentiles will come to 'fullness'. Not only Jews, as in Old Testament times, nor Christians to the exclusion of the Jews as God's earthly people, as it is today.

References

(1)Rom.11:25,26 (2)Gen.15:18 (3)Ex.19:5,6 (4)2 Sam.7:12,13 (5)Gen.12:3 (6)Rom.9:4 (7)Is.65:2,3 (8)Is.63:17; Rom.11:8 (9)Hos.2:23 (10)Rom.11:25 (11)Dan.9:24-2(12)Luke 21:24 (13)Mat.24:21 (14)Ps.14:7; Rom.11:26 (15)Rom.11:12,15 (16)Rom.11:25,28

DORRICOTT, K. O. | Jul 2005
Opened Secrets