The Jews Back in their Ancient Land? That Isn’t Gonna Happen! Sometimes Our Best Guys Get It Wrong

Every eschatological position has sharp edges which don’t seem to fit neatly within the system. I am of the conviction that Reformed amillennialism (AKA the “Dutch school”) has the fewest and least consequential of these “sharp edges.” One of these sharp edges associated with amillennialism is the binding of Satan—how can you claim Satan is bound when there is so much evil in the world? This can be readily explained—see my essay, The Binding of Satan.

But the presence of Israel as a nation living back in their ancient homeland is always the pink elephant in the room whenever amillennarians discuss eschatology with dispensationalists. This is a sharp edge for amillennialism for several reasons. One is that the Reformed are not in full agreement among themselves about the role and place of national Israel in the new covenant era, especially in the days before the Lord’s return. Another reason is that the hermeneutic (the operating assumptions) underlying the various millennial positions assigns widely varying roles to a future nation of Israel in redemptive history. Dispensationalists assert that Israel’s return to the land of Palestine in 1948 is the fulfillment of the land promise of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 13:14-17; 15:1-21; 17:1-8), and is therefore thought to be a fatal weakness of amilliennialism.

I recall receiving an email claiming that Reformed amillennarians get the question of a future for Israel terribly wrong—embarrassingly so. In fact, two of our stalwart theologians both dismissed premillennialism largely on the grounds of the expectation of a return of the Jews to Palestine. The author of the email cited two well-known Reformed theologians, Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof, both of whom did dismiss the very possibility of such a thing, yet such a thing did happen. Oops . . . On the basis of UN Resolution 181, Israel became a nation in 1947, Jews returned to their ancient homeland, survived three major wars, which in anyone’s estimation is a monumental event that dispensationalists have always expected, and which they say commences the events associated with the time of the end.

Lets start with Bavinck’s discussion of the future of Israel, much of which is sound and with which I largely agree. But he was wrong about Israel becoming a nation.

Chiliasm [premillennialsim] includes the expectation that shortly before the return of Christ, a national conversion will occur in Israel, that the Jews will then return to Palestine and from there, under Christ, rule over the nations. In this connection there is some difference among chiliasts over whether the conversion will precede the return or vice versa. Since it is hard to imagine that the dispersed Jews will first be converted successively and then jointly conceive the plan to go to Palestine, some believe that the Jews will first gradually return to Palestine and then later be jointly converted to Christ there. Others attempt to combine the two views in such a way that first a large part of the Jewish people will go to Palestine and that, after having first restored the city and the temple and the temple services and then converted to Christ, they will be gradually followed by their remaining fellow Jews . . .

Furthermore, in the hearts of many Jews, as is evident from the Zionism that has emerged in recent years, there is a longing to return to Palestine and to form an independent state there. Finally, the greatly improved modes of transportation—which they read Nahum (2:3–4) and Isaiah (11:16; 66:20) as having predicted—make such a return simple and convenient . . . However we may view these political combinations, the New Testament furnishes not the slightest support for such an expectation (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2008), 665.

Bavinck completed this text in 1901, well before World War One and the Balfour Declaration, which emerged from the Zionism of which Bavinck took notice. At the time, Bavinck was writing, Arabs and Jews generally co-existed in Palestine. Any disruption of the status quo would have been seen as a terribly consequential geopolitical move.

Louis Berkhof, who’s own Systematic Theology closely followed Bavinck wrote in 1938;

Both the Old and the New Testament speak of a future conversion of Israel, Zech. 12:10; 13:1; 2 Cor. 3:15, 16, and Rom. 11:25–29 seems to connect this with the end of time. Premillennialists have exploited this Scriptural teaching for their particular purpose. They maintain that there will be a national restoration and conversion of Israel, that the Jewish nation will be re-established in the Holy Land, and that this will take place immediately preceding or during the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. It is very doubtful, however, whether Scripture warrants the expectation that Israel will finally be re-established as a nation, and will as a nation turn to the Lord. Some Old Testament prophecies seem to predict this, but these should be read in the light of the New Testament. Does the New Testament justify the expectation of a future restoration and conversion of Israel as a nation? It is not taught nor even necessarily implied in such passages as Matt. 19:28, and Luke 21:24, which are often quoted in its favor (Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1938), 698-699.

Okay, so both Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof got the return of Israel to Palestine and the formation of a Jewish state wrong. But several things need to be said.

One lesson to be learned is that those of us who work in the field of eschatology need to be careful to separate our opinions about what may happen from dogmatic declarations about what can and will happen in the future. Any book written on eschatology which does not need significant revision 50 years later, is a very successful book.

Another lesson to be learned is that if you take the predictions about Israel returning to the land and becoming a nation out of the preceding discussion, Bavinck and Berkhof got much of this right. Dispensationalists must reckon with the fact that according to Joshua, the land promise made to Abraham has been fulfilled when Joshua led the people of God back into Canaan (Joshua 1:2-9). As Joshua himself later puts it: “So the LORD gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and settled there” (Joshua 21:43; cf. also 1 Kings 4:20-21). After the exile, when the Jews return from the Babylonian diaspora (the era of Second Temple Judaism), they now dwell in the land as vassals of a series of Gentile kings who occupy and control the land. The property deed is no longer theirs and the land is no longer “holy.” As for the perpetual nature of the land promise, Paul is pretty clear that in the new covenant era the original promise of a land between the Red Sea and the Euphrates river has been universalized to include the whole world (Romans 4:13).

Therefore, there are two important conclusions here. Bavinck and Berkhof were clearly wrong about Israel’s return to the land. But they were right, and dispensationalists are wrong, about the role of the land promise in the Abrahamic promise. The land promise has been universalized in the new covenant era and is typological of much greater heavenly promises yet to be received. To keep the land promise in place on a “literal” interpretation, you must gut the Abrahamic covenant of its universal eschatological force in the new covenant—just one of the very sharp edges within the dispensational system.

Yes, in the mysterious providence of God, Israel is a nation back in their ancient land. The ultimate reason for this has not yet become clear. But one day it will. I’ll leave it there.