Israel Will Return to God...

Fulfilled During Christ's First Advent!

Hosea 3:1-4 Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.”

(2) So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. (3) And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man – so, too will I be toward you.”

(4) For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim.  Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king.  They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.

New Geneva Bible Study Notes:

3:1 love…just like the love.  God’s apparently unreasonable request is patterned after His own loyal, protective, and bountiful love for undeserving Israel.

Raisin cakes.  These delicacies, made from raisins pressed together, were associated with special occasions (2 Samuel 6:10), and may have been used in Baal worship as an aphrodisiac (cf. Song 2:5).

3:2 bought.  Christ similarly fulfilled this picture of love in action when He redeemed His saints from the slave market of sin.

Shekels.  The payment, roughly half in silver and half in produce amounted to about thirty shekels and approximated the price of a slave in Exodus 21:32.  The New Testament teaches that the actual cost of redemption was Christ’s blood (1 Peter 1:16).

3:4 many days.  The waiting period until the coming of Christ, the great and final King of the Davidic dynasty (v.5).

Without king…teraphim.  Israel’s basic political and religious institutions, both legimate (sacrifice and ephod, Exedus 28:31) and illegimate (sacred stones or pillars. Deut. 16:21, idols or teraphim, Zech. 10:2).

3:5 return and seek.  Many Israelites repented with a full desire for intimacy with God at Pentacost (Acts 2:38-41).

David.  This reference points to Jesus Christ, Son of David 2 Sam. 7:12-16; Matthew 1:1; Romans 1:3).

The latter days.  Micah 4:1 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And peoples shall flow to it.

4:1 the latter days.  Micah’s prophetic vision shifts from impending judgment in the short term to the “latter days”, when the messianic reign of God is established in Zion.  The expression points to a new epoch, which, though in the hidden future, decisively alters the course of history.  Here it refers to the messianic age, begun at Christ’s First Advent (Acts 2:7; Heb. 1-2) and consummated in the new heaven and earth (Rev. 21,22).

“All Israel shall be saved.”

Romans 11:26

The physical nation of Israel in the Old Testament was, like all other things under the law (the tabernacle, the paschal lamb, the mercy-seat, etc.), was typical. It was chosen of God to be typical of his Church, “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:14). The natural nation was typical of God’s “holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). The physical seed of Abraham was typical of his spiritual seed, God’s elect scattered among all nations, who are the true “children of Abraham” (Romans 9:6-8; Galatians 3:29).

All the covenant promises God made to Abraham’s physical seed, the nation of Israel, were conditional promises. The promises were all conditioned upon obedience. The nation failed miserably. Yet, they inherited the land of Canaan and God fulfilled every covenant promise to that typical nation. Not one thing was lacking (Joshua 23:14). Why? Because one faithful man (Joshua, who typified our Lord Jesus) obeyed God. For Joshua’s sake, God brought Israel into the possession of all the good things God promised to their fathers. Even so, all the promises of God to the Israel of God are yea and amen in our great Joshua, the Lord Jesus, for whose sake we shall possess all things eternally with him!

“The Israel of God” is the whole body of God’s elect, Jew and Gentile, who must be saved. When Paul says, “All Israel shall be saved,” he is simply declaring that the whole purpose of God regarding the salvation of his elect must be fulfilled. Not one of the chosen can ever be lost. Certainly, he is not talking about the salvation of all national Israel, or of all Abraham’s physical seed. Many of them have already perished! He is not asserting that all the physical descendants of Abraham living at the time of Christ’s second coming will be saved when they see his appearing. Nowhere in the Bible does God promise salvation to people who physically see Christ! Salvation is promised only to those who look to Christ in faith (Isaiah 45:22).

            The Israel of God is the church of God, the kingdom of God. It is a holy, spiritual nation, not an earthly, political nation. The Israel of God is the household of faith. If you are born of God, if you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you are a child of Abraham (Galatians 3:6-9). “He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly...But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly” (Romans 4:28-29). The promises of God are not made to Abraham’s physical seed, or to any upon the basis of earthly distinctions (John 1:13), but to Christ, his spiritual seed, and to all who are in him. The adoption, the covenant, the glory, and the promises of God pertain not to the physical seed, but to the spiritual, to the Israel of God (Romans 9:4-6).

            The Israel of God is the true circumcision (Philippians 3:3). They have three things in common, three identifying characteristics by which they are known— (1) They worship God in the Spirit. They worship him in a spiritual manner, in their hearts, without the use of carnal objects (icons and idols), by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. — (2) They rejoice in Christ Jesus. They trust the Lord Jesus Christ alone as their Savior in whom they have complete acceptance with God (1 Corinthians 1:30). — And (3) They have no confidence in the flesh. They do not trust their pedigree, performances, or piety, but Christ alone! The Israel of God is that body of elect, redeemed, regenerate people who live before God by the power of the cross, Christ crucified, and by the rule of the cross.

Don Fortner

PRE-MILLENNIALISTS

Many pre-millennialists hold that Christ intended to establish the kingdom of His father David when He was on earth – a national kingdom.  Because the Jews refused to repent, this kingdom was postponed till His second coming, when it will be set up, and He will reign at Jerusalem. 

This view is open to very serious objection indeed.  It tends to challenge Job’s affirmation, ‘No purpose of Thine can be restrained.’  It supposes that Jesus made a national offer of an earthly kingdom to the Jews, whereas He made no such offer; indeed, when they would have made Him a king, he would not have it (John 6:15).  Moreover, it makes the kingdom an earthly and national institution, while the New Testament preaches entirely a spiritual and eternal kingdom from every nation and tribe and tongue. 

It also fails to explain how glorified saints and people still in the flesh can live and associate together during the thousand years.  Instead of ‘people still in the flesh,’ we might have said ‘sinners in the flesh,’ for though righteousness is supposed to prevail in the millennium, yet at its close Satan is to lead a host to battle from the four quarters of the earth whose number is as the sand of the sea (Rev. 20:8)! 

Lastly, as Louis Berkhof states, this pre-millennial view ‘erroneously seeks its main support in a passage (Rev. 20:1-6) which represents a scene in heaven and makes no mention whatever of the Jews, of an earthly and national kingdom, nor of the land of Palestine.’

(The Momentous Event by W. J. Grier)