O. Palmer Robertson. The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Phillipsburgh, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2000.
I found this book to be much clearer and more direct than the previous O. Palmer Robertson book that I read: his 1980 The Christ of the Covenants (read my review of that here). But there was significant overlap between the two. Robertson
argues against a dispensationalist view that God will literally fulfill
God’s Old Testament promises to Israel—-that God will restore Israel to
her land with sovereign rights to it and will set up a worldwide
millennial kingdom in which the nation of Israel is the most prominent
among the nations.
In both The Christ of the Covenants and The Israel of God, Robertson regards Old Testament Israel’s experience with God as a foreshadowing of greater New Testament realities.
Hebrews 11:10 indicates that Abraham was not primarily focusing on the
land of Palestine, but was looking to another city, one that God built.
The Jerusalem of God and Zion in the New Testament are not primarily
earthly places but rather are heavenly (Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 12:22).
Whereas the Old Testament promise is that the meek shall inherit the
land (Psalm 37:11), presumably Palestine, Jesus says that the meek shall
inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Paul even understands God’s promise
to Abraham to be about more than inheriting Palestine, and to concern
the inheritance of the world (Romans 4:13). Within the Old
Testament, God says that Israel will spend time in the wilderness before
being restored to her land (Ezekiel 20:35; 34:25; Hosea 2:14), a
promise that Robertson says inspired the Qumran community and Messianic
movements; within the New Testament, that wilderness is the experience
of believers in Christ in this world (I Corinthians 10; Hebrews 3-4).
Significant elements of Israel’s religious structure are interpreted in
Hebrews as foreshadowing the work of Christ: the sacrifices, the
priesthood, etc.
I think that Robertson makes a decent case that the New Testament
often interprets God’s Old Testament promises to Israel in a spiritual
manner and applies them to believers in Christ. Robertson still thinks that God is committed to physical Israel,
on some level, for Paul said that salvation was for the Jew first
(Romans 1:16), and in the Book of Acts Paul often preached to Jews
before he preached to Gentiles. Plus, Paul affirms in Romans 9 that God
has preserved a remnant of Jews who believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
Yet, Robertson argues that “Israel” in the New Testament is broader than
the Jewish people and the nation of Israel (the unbelievers of which
Romans 9 and Revelation 2-3 deny are even truly Israel, according to
Robertson), but that it encompasses Gentiles who believe in Christ.
Robertson believes that Jesus himself was ushering in a new
understanding of Israel, in that Jesus selected twelve disciples
(echoing the twelve tribes of Israel) and affirmed in Matthew 21:43 that
the Kingdom of God was being taken away from the Jewish leaders and
given to another nation. And yet, Robertson maintains that this
new understanding was not entirely new, for there are indications in
the Old Testament that being an Israelite is a matter of God’s grace
rather than being part of a specific nation. Robertson refers to Amos
9:12, where God says that God’s name will be put onto Edom, which
Robertson interprets as God’s election (similar to God’s election of
Israel).
I not long ago read a book by John MacArthur and others, entitled Christ’s Prophetic Plans: A Futuristic Premillennial Primer. You can read my review of that here.
Its authors were arguing that God’s promises to Israel in the Old
Testament should be interpreted literally, and the book appealed to
passages in the New Testament to make its case. There is Matthew 19:28,
where Jesus says that his disciples will sit on thrones and judge the
twelve tribes of Israel. There is Luke 1-2, where Israelites are
expecting for God to restore the nation of Israel, and John the Baptist
and Jesus are believed to play a role in that. There is Acts 1:6-7,
where Jesus’ disciples have received instruction from the risen Jesus
concerning the kingdom, and they still presume that Jesus would restore
the kingdom to Israel; and Jesus does not tell them that they are
wrong. And there is Romans 11, where Paul appears to suggest that God
is still committed to physical Israel, including the Israelites who do
not believe in Christ, and that all Israelites will eventually believe
in Jesus and be saved.
Robertson in The Israel of God attempts to address these
passages, and others. One argument Robertson makes is that Jesus did
not always correct his disciples’ or other people’s misunderstandings
right off the bat—-Peter in Acts 10, after all, had to be taught not to
regard the Gentiles as unclean, and this was after Christ had risen from
the dead and gone to heaven. According to Robertson, Jesus in
Acts 1:7 does not explicitly correct the disciple’s view that the
kingdom would be restored to the nation of Israel, but he does seek to
give them a broader understanding—–that the role of Israel in God’s plan
is that the disciples would start their preaching in Jerusalem and
would then spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth. As far
as the Book of Acts is concerned, Robertson notes that apostles in that
book are talking about the Kingdom of God and entrance into it even to
Gentiles, and Robertson thinks that would not make much sense if the
church still understood the Kingdom of God to concern the nation of
Israel’s restoration and preeminence.
Robertson’s interaction with Romans 11 was, well, interesting. I had
heard before the view that “all Israel shall be saved” relates to the
salvation of the church—-the new Israel, which includes Jews and
Gentiles—-rather than the future salvation of physical Israel, but it
was not until I read Robertson’s The Israel of God that I saw
arguments for that position. Romans 11:25-26 is significant in
Robertson’s argument. The passage states in the KJV: “For I would not,
brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be
wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel,
until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall
be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer,
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” Robertson does
not believe that this is saying that part of Israel has been temporarily
blinded but will spiritually see again after the fullness of the
Gentiles come in. Robertson notes that “until the fulness of
Gentiles be come in” does not necessarily mean that the situation of the
spiritually blind Israelites will change after the Gentiles come in;
it’s similar to how many Catholics argue that Mary was perpetually a
virgin, even though Matthew 1:25 states that Joseph did not know Mary
UNTIL she gave birth to Jesus: they say that Matthew 1:25 does not mean
that Joseph knew Mary after she gave birth to Jesus, but is simply
saying that Joseph did not have sex with Mary up to the time that she
gave birth to Jesus, indicating that Joseph had nothing to do with
Jesus’ conception. Robertson also argues that Romans 11:25-26 does not
say that the fullness of Gentiles will come in and THEN all Israel will
be saved, but rather that they will come in and THUS all Israel will be
saved. For Robertson, the inclusion of the Gentiles into God’s
community alongside the remnant of believing Israelites (and the
Israelites who become Christians as a result of jealousy towards the
Gentile believers) is the salvation of all Israel.
I don’t know. I will admit that I have been puzzled by
certain interpretations of Romans 9-11. Why would Paul imply in Romans 9
that unbelieving Jews were not a part of Israel, only to say in Romans
11 that God is committed to them because they are still his people, and
thus they will be saved? Why would Paul in Romans 11 hope that Jews
would come to Christ out of jealousy towards Gentile believers, if he
thought that Christ would come back and soften their hearts, anyway?
Moreover, I am open to Robertson’s argument that Paul in Romans 11
could view the salvation of all Israel in reference to the salvation of a
remnant of Jews, for that is often how restoration works in prophecies
of the Hebrew Bible: God preserves a remnant of Israel and builds
restored Israel on that. But I have a hard time denying that
Paul in Romans 11 is envisioning a future softening of the hearts of
unbelieving Jews to the Gospel, for Paul in Romans 11:28 states
regarding unbelieving Jews: “As concerning the gospel, they are enemies
for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the
fathers’ sakes” (KJV). As far as I could tell, Robertson did not
address that verse.
Robertson’s books make me think about why I struggle with the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments. While
I have to respect dispensationalism for interpreting the Hebrew Bible’s
passages about Israel literally, I have to acknowledge that the New
Testament often treats them as spiritual or as symbolic of aspects of
Christian theology. But I have issues with passages of the New
Testament that do this, for they seem to me to violate the intentions,
the spirit, and the messages of the Hebrew Bible. If Abraham or God in
the Hebrew Bible truly understood the Promised Land to be symbolic of a
heavenly reality or of the entire world, why are we not explicitly told
this in the Hebrew Bible? That makes me wonder if the New Testament is faithful to the Hebrew Bible’s own messages.