To be honest, when I started this short series I had it all neatly planned out, and thought everything would be wrapped up in about three or four posts. After reading through the comments on the last article however, and a few other conversations I been in recently, I’m just going to give things a bit of a free rein to wander a little.
The first thing I’d like to say however is in reference to a comment made on the last post, which suggested an intention to warp things by using the ESV translation to quote from. This is utterly ridiculous I’m afraid, and have to say that any further comments along this line will not be allowed to remain published. I have decided to use my translation of choice ESV to quote from, and for ease of reading. However please feel free to use the KJV 1611 version, or any other version for that matter, because the main thrust of the message will be identical. Namely that there are promises in the Bible made to an earthly nation that have been fulfilled, and yet these fulfillments were purely types and shadows of the future fulfillment that alone can be found in Christ Jesus, as the true and rightful Heir.
I would like to remind you that in the last couple of posts, I have pointed out how the Bible shows that the promises made to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15 & 17 were worked out as a covenant through a specific lineage, and not simply to all physical descendants of Abraham without qualification. I have shown how the covenant made with Abraham was passed down through to Isaac, and on unto Jacob, who was then renamed Israel by God, after wrestling with the angel of God for his blessing and prevailing. This is confirmed in the following text:
God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him. And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” So he called his name Israel. And God said to him, “I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”
[Genesis 35:9-12 ESV]
One of the main arguments I have heard from premillennialists for the case of an earthly millennium, is that somehow the full land given to Abraham must be restored the earthly nation of Israel, for to some it is claimed that the promise has never been truly fulfilled. Bearing in mind that the text directly previous speaks about this to Jacob, who is Israel in the flesh, then we must trace the text of the Bible from this point onwards to see if this claim of the premillennialist is actually true. Please understand that I am aware that there are eternal aspects of the land promise that I am not talking about, for I believe wholeheartedly those promises to be found in Christ alone, and His Kingdom yet to be revealed upon His return in glory. But with regards to an earthly fulfillment in the flesh, it is not too long after this point that God speaks directly to Jacob, that the fulfillment comes to pass.
After the nation of Israel are led out of slavery to Egypt under Pharoah, and at the leading of Moses. And after their wandering in the wilderness for forty years until the rebellious generation were no more, it was Joshua that led them into the promised land for the first time since being promised to Abraham. In Joshua’s own words we read the following acknowledgement:
Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers. And they took possession of it, and they settled there. And the LORD gave them rest on every side just as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the LORD had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.
[Joshua 21:43-45 ESV]
If one truly accepts the authority of God’s Word, then it is undeniable that the land promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was literally fulfilled under Joshua. As I previously said, I’m not talking about the eternal aspects of the promise, but with regards to the promise being fulfilled literally to the physical descendants of Abraham, is unarguably true.
Another promise that God made to Abraham was that he would become a great nation [Gen 12:1-3], which was fulfilled whilst Israel still resided in Egypt.
But the people of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us.
[Exodus 1:7-9 ESV]“And you shall make response before the LORD your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.
[Deuteronomy 26:5 ESV]“But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt
[Acts 7:17 ESV]
Also as the Israelites were led out of Egypt by Moses, the promise made to Abraham in Gen 15:4-6 was fulfilled too:
The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven.
[Deuteronomy 1:10 ESV]Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.
[Deuteronomy 10:22 ESV]Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
[Hebrews 11:12 ESV]
My hope in this post is to make a strong case against those who claim that promises remain outstanding to the physical descendants of Abraham, and therefore certain promises to the earthly nation of Israel are yet to be fulfilled. I realise that I may not convince everyone, or even many for that matter, but nevertheless I will endeavour to raise a voice against the errors so clearly and loudly proclaimed as the truth today by so many in the dispensationalist camp, for I believe it is a voice that needs to be raised by as many as are willing to do so.
In the following posts I will no longer focus on the earthly fulfillment of the covenant promises made with Abraham, for I believe this post deals with that as fully and finally as I’m prepared to. But instead I will take a step back to the immediate descendants of Jacob (Israel), and explore what the Bible has to teach us with regard to the way that covenant is worked out through the specific children of Jacob. Hopefully this being the path that will show how eventually the fullness of these promises are summed up in the revelation of Jesus Christ as the true Seed of Abraham, and the rightful heir of the promises.
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John, I was not saying it was your intention to bring confusion. I said, it does bring confusion because the ESV does not agree with the KJV. I am simply saying that God’s word is holy and when it gets “revised” it brings confusion because it is no longer holy it is now just a private interpretation. I was not assaulting you, I was saying that the ability to trust what you are saying is undermined by the fact that you are using an unreliable source document. I was interested in what you were trying to teach until I realized I couldn’t trust the accuracy of what you were trying to teach because I haven’t done my own studying on this subject and since the ESV says “will gather” and the KJV says “not gather” it brings confusion before you have even gotten to your point.
So, Lord bless you, I will not return to comment since we are obviously not speaking the same language. But, really I was trying to give you a heads up about a serious problem in the Body of Christ. The doctrines are polluted. There is no longer any knowledge of the foundations of the faith because the 20th century versions have opened the doors to every kind of false doctrine. There are serious reasons for this. I have every belief that you are sincere and in no way would say that you are trying to bring confusion. On this subject, I have done my own homework but it just seemed so obvious that the subject you were discussing was in opposition to the King James 1611 Bible that I thought I would mention it. But, if God can use a donkey, I suspect he can use the ESV!
Hi Sherry,
Firstly and foremost, please accept my apologies if it comes across your comments are not welcome here, for they most certainly are. The only reason I began this article with the statement I did was to show that I had not ignored your comment, but did not want that objection to stop anyone in their tracks with regards to seeking the truth for themselves. I had initially started to use the KJV for this post, but then felt it would be wrong to alter the whole thing because of an objection by one person. But as for your objection, it is one I know of quite well, and it is one we have discussed at length on the forum. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, I think it was myself who brought the whole Westcott and Hort thing to our attention. On the flip side however I’ve also found some disturbing history on the KJV translation too, so have decided to use the ESV by personal choice, but when studying use a few, along with concordance and dictionaries to check suspect translations.
With regards to what I have written here though, is that regardless of the translation you use, the overall message can be picked up in context from various passages from the Old and New Testaments. This is the reason I didn’t want any objections boiling down to a specific word or phrase in one passage of the Bible text, as I have tried diligently not to simply base my own arguments on one passage here or there taken out of context.
I sincerely do hope you come back Sherry, for you are obviously earnest in your desire for the truth, and I honestly do respect and commend that. Also should you be willing to discuss the objections you’ve raised on translations further, I’d be more than happy to give you access to our forum to bring whatever you wish to the table. Are you up for that at all?
God bless you,
John.