Israel’s Reconciliation

God promises to restore his kingdom and place His salvation in Zion “for Israel My glory.” But He also requires a few things from Israel.
Scripture places much emphasis on Israel’s reconciliation with God through faith in His promised Son. Beginning in Genesis 12, we see God working His redemptive plan exclusively through the nation of Israel.

God promised to send a Messiah to redeem the nation, after which He will restore His Kingdom on Earth. To this end, He made covenants with Israel and Israel alone (including the Abrahamic, Davidic, and New). These divine promises ensure the Jewish people’s centrality to God’s redemptive plan for all mankind.

Just as salvation flows through Israel, so, too, does the restoration of God’s Kingdom. The covenants teach us that God raised up the Jewish people, through whom He would (1) provide salvation for humanity via His promised Son, the Messiah of Israel, and (2) provide a ruler, the Messiah, who would restore His theocratic Kingdom.

When Jesus came to Earth, He declared Himself to be the Son of God and the promised One, the Messiah, who would take away the sins of the world. Before He ascended back to heaven, He promised to return someday to restore God’s Kingdom.

The founders of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry understood this truth in 1942 when they published the first issue of Israel My Glory. The magazine’s name comes from Isaiah 46:13: “I will place salvation in Zion, for Israel My glory.” They explained their purpose in choosing it:

We are naming this periodical Israel My Glory to call attention to the fact that God is not through with the Jewish people. . . . In naming our quarterly Israel My Glory, we desire to remind ourselves of God’s irrevocable promises to Israel and of His benevolent purpose in choosing them to be the human channel through which Christ should come and the channel also of future blessing to the world.”¹

Our future blessings—God’s full blessings to the world—depend on God placing His salvation in Zion. According to the Jewish prophets, when Israel will face its most desperate time, the nation will cry out to God for help; and God will not disappoint. He will send Jesus back to Earth to fight for His people (Zech. 14:1–5). Speaking of Israel, God said, “They will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn” (12:10). That is when Israel will finally recognize and accept its Messiah and believe in Him.

Jesus will descend from heaven to rescue the nation, defeat His adversaries and Satan, judge the nations for their sin, and restore God’s Kingdom on Earth. Sitting on the throne of King David, Messiah Jesus will rule and reign over Israel and the world from Jerusalem, “a priest on His throne” (6:13).

The Importance of Repentance
After Messiah’s resurrection and ascension into heaven in the 1st century AD, the Jewish apostle Peter preached to an exclusively Jewish audience on the Temple Mount (Acts 3:17–21). His message was simple:

1. Christ fulfilled all that the prophets foretold about His suffering (v. 18).

2. They needed to “repent . . . and be converted” (v. 19). In other words, they needed to repent of (regret and turn away from) their rejection of Jesus and convert (change their minds) concerning His Messiahship.

3. If they did so, God would blot out their sin (cleanse them), send to Earth the “times of refreshing . . . from the presence of the Lord” (v. 19), and send Jesus Christ to Earth for the “restoration of all things” (vv. 19–21). This is what the prophets spoke about for centuries.

Peter taught that Jesus will not return to Earth to restore and refresh God’s Kingdom to its prefall condition until, and unless, Israel repents of its rebellion against God and believes Jesus is the Promised One who saves. Peter drew his message from the Old Testament prophets.

But was Peter talking about individual or corporate cleansing of Israel?

Actually, it was both. In the future, wrote the prophet Zechariah, as Israel’s enemies lay siege to Jerusalem and Israel has nowhere to turn, God will pour out His Spirit of grace and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (12:10). This action is both corporate (house of David) and individual (inhabitants of Jerusalem). Zechariah even repeated this promise of grace for sin and uncleanness (13:1).

It is because God pours out the Holy Spirit that the people of Israel will have a change of heart and look on Him (the Messiah) whom they pierced. They will recognize He is the true Messiah and see their error in rejecting Him at His First Coming. Zechariah prophesied a time of great mourning, as each family mourns alone. He even listed family names: David, Nathan, Levi, Shimei, indicating corporate repentance.

But he also said men will mourn by themselves “and their wives by themselves” (12:12–14), pointing to individual repentance. Other prophetic passages also relate to Israel’s repentance and acceptance of the Messiah (Jer. 31:31–37; Ezek. 36:25–32).

Both aspects of repentance, corporate and individual, are important because, for Jesus to ascend to David’s throne, the Jewish people must accept Him individually as their Messiah and King. A king cannot rule over people who are in rebellion.

Likewise, Jesus must be recognized nationally as the rightful heir to the throne. He must rule over both individual hearts and the nation of Israel before He can restore God’s Kingdom and usher in the times of refreshing on Earth. That is the point Peter made in Acts 3.

A Sign of Hope
The apostle Paul also believed a time would come when “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26). Being Jewish himself, Paul had a heartfelt burden to see Jewish people come to faith in their Messiah.

In Romans 11, he explained that God loves Israel and is using Israel’s rejection of its Messiah in a positive way: to bring salvation to the Gentiles (v. 25). Why is He willing to delay Israel’s individual and corporate salvation? Because Israel’s salvation ushers in the restored Kingdom, and the gospel would not go out to the world. Gentiles would be lost in their sins. Sharing the gospel with the Gentiles is a fulfillment of God’s promise that, through Abraham’s Seed, He would bless all the nations (Gal. 3:8).

But in a sign of hope, Paul emphatically declared, “Certainly not!” to the question “Has God cast away His people?” (Rom. 11:1). When God completes bringing to faith all the Gentiles He has predetermined, then all of Israel will be saved (v. 26). Paul quoted from the prophet Isaiah: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins” (vv. 26–27; cf. Isa. 59:20–21).

Eventually, God will bring an end to His great gospel outreach to the world and turn His attention back to Israel. That is when all Israel will be saved, and God will send His only begotten Son from heaven back to Earth to deliver Israel and restore His theocratic Kingdom.

Today, Jewish people around the world are coming to faith in Jesus; but they constitute a mere remnant. Because their numbers are few and there is no evidence of widespread, corporate repentance, their salvation is not sufficient to be seen as a fulfillment of the words of Zechariah and Peter. That fulfillment lies in the future, and then the Lord will richly bless the world.

ENDNOTE

1. 1. Dr. Joseph Taylor Britan, “An Introduction, Explanation, and Appeal,” Israel My Glory 1, no. 1 (December, 1942), 3.

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Jim Showers is the executive director and president of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.