The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Does Scripture Promise A Future Revival For The Jews？

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00:00:26.800 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise

00:00:32.620 in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the 0.95

00:00:38.900 Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, the Deliverer will come 0.97

00:00:46.700 out of Zion, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my covenant with them,

00:00:53.920 when I take away their sins. Concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.

00:01:00.560 But concerning the election, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and

00:01:06.820 the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained

00:01:14.900 mercy through their disobedience, even so these also have been disobedient, that through the

00:01:22.280 mercy shown you, they also may obtain mercy. For God has committed them all to disobedience,

00:01:29.720 that he might have mercy on all. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge

00:01:37.900 of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who has known the

00:01:45.880 mind of God, or who has become his counselor, or who has first given to him, and it shall be repaid

00:01:54.060 to him. For of him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

00:02:03.200 Throughout the history of the church, there have been a few ways to understand what Paul

00:02:06.960 is saying here. Some take it as Paul saying somehow Israel will be saved apart from Christ.

00:02:15.880 This is obviously incorrect.

00:02:18.620 Others believe that it means Israel will be preserved

00:02:21.620 timelessly in its apostate condition

00:02:23.720 until all the other peoples of the world are evangelized.

00:02:27.760 This, of course, would imply, at least in some fashion,

00:02:31.000 that the Old Covenant never really came to an end,

00:02:34.020 despite Hebrews 8.13 telling us

00:02:36.120 that it would pass away imminently.

00:02:37.700 The most coherent way to interpret Paul

00:02:40.960 is to recognize that the Old Covenant

00:02:43.680 was decisively ended first in the resurrection

00:02:46.380 and interim period after Pentecost,

00:02:49.380 and finally in 70 AD at the destruction of Jerusalem.

00:02:54.260 Paul wrote all this in the decade or so

00:02:56.340 before Jerusalem was destroyed

00:02:57.840 and the Old Covenant came to its complete end. 0.98

00:03:01.040 Jews and Gentiles still were categories 0.89

00:03:04.120 that the Old Covenant world operated in 0.99

00:03:06.400 as the New Covenant was breaking this world apart.

00:03:10.940 Paul's use of the phrase earlier in Romans 11.5

00:03:13.620 at the present time, and 1131 now are clues to his meaning.

00:03:20.460 so we've outlined right now in the cold open three main views you've got the um

00:03:48.200 the insufferable Zionist John Hagee view.

00:03:51.380 That was kind of the first one. 0.97

00:03:53.420 So it's, you know, the old covenant

00:03:54.880 really hasn't ended at all.

00:03:56.420 And there's really kind of like two paths to salvation.

00:03:59.260 You know, it can go that extreme.

00:04:00.760 Yeah, it can go that.

00:04:01.760 And that's not all dispensation.

00:04:03.100 Certainly not.

00:04:03.780 Obviously, John MacArthur would reject that.

00:04:06.360 He is a dispensationalist or by his own,

00:04:08.900 you know, admission, a leaky dispensationalist.

00:04:11.980 But there are some that go so far as to say,

00:04:14.180 you know, people can be saved by faith in Jesus

00:04:16.260 or they can be Jewish.

00:04:18.200 You know, there's two different tracks of salvation. 0.89

00:04:21.180 So that would be an extreme form of dispensationalism.

00:04:23.920 But still, dispensationalism as a whole would reserve that the Old Covenant is still in great detail.

00:04:31.100 It's still in effect, not merely for this futuristic spiritual revival of salvation among a particular people, namely the Jews,

00:04:39.640 but that there are still land promises and physical promises and all these things made

00:04:44.720 to the descendants of Abraham. And so that would be physical descendants of Abraham. And that's

00:04:53.020 still at play and still not merely in Paul's future at the time of his writing, but in our

00:04:57.820 future, still 2,000 years removed. So that's the first view. The second, covenant theology,

00:05:03.280 fulfillment theology, right? Replacement theology is just a pejorative.

00:05:07.660 a slur for it. Right. It's just a straw man, boogeyman, pejorative. And a caricature of it 0.88

00:05:13.840 as well. Right. Yeah. Because it doesn't, and we'll get into that, but it's not replacement

00:05:17.640 theology. It's fulfillment theology. Yeah. That God from A to Z, it's not that he changed his

00:05:22.760 mind. Behold, I am the Lord, I changeth not. God is not a man that he should change his mind or lie.

00:05:28.760 God, from the very beginning, before the foundations of the world were laid, he had a

00:05:32.100 plan and the plan was the church to redeem people for himself and Israel was used in the old covenant

00:05:37.860 to build the scaffolding. It's kind of the way that I would word it in this project and then in 0.66

00:05:42.840 the new covenant the scaffolding gives way to the actual building but then everybody who was working

00:05:48.440 laboring on the scaffolding is warmly invited into this building and yet we know from Isaiah

00:05:54.880 we know from the gospel narratives that Christ came to his own and they received him not

00:05:58.920 at least initially during his earthly ministry. And so many of the Jews, some were saved,

00:06:04.920 some did receive him, but many of the Jews rejected Christ, rejected their Messiah. 0.59

00:06:11.120 And yet the second position would still hold that, you know, there's no more land promises.

00:06:15.860 The covenant is done away with, but there's still a hangover. There's still a little bit

00:06:19.220 of the covenant that's lingering in the ether because there's still no land promises,

00:06:25.040 no physical promises remaining, but there are spiritual promises. There is, not merely in Paul's

00:06:29.960 future, but in our future, 2,000 years later, still on the table, a futuristic revival,

00:06:36.100 spiritual revival. And then the last position, the one that you and I hold, and you helped me

00:06:41.720 come to this conviction, and I think it was good, you, James B. Jordan, others.

00:06:47.120 Give all the credit to you.

00:06:47.980 Is that the covenant really is done, completely done, and that there is no future land promises,

00:06:57.140 no divine right to this little strip of land in the Middle East, but there's also no future

00:07:01.780 spiritual promises of a future revival. And yet, at the same time, these people, whether or not

00:07:09.720 they're the genetic descendants of Abraham, we might get into a little bit of that. We probably

00:07:13.360 will. But regardless of that, what we know for sure is that they're human beings made in the

00:07:18.300 image of God. And as post-millennial Christians, what do we believe for Israel? Same as Brazil

00:07:24.880 and China. And we believe they'll be saved eventually. They will be saved and they need

00:07:29.300 Christ. They will be saved and they need Christ. But in the meantime, there's no Bible verse that

00:07:35.720 obligates us to billions of dollars of taxpayer money. There's one takeaway is that. Amen.

00:07:41.320 Speaker Mike Johnson, hardest hit, you know, but that's, so these are, so those are the three big

00:07:46.420 positions is, you know, dispensationalism, obviously different stripes and colors, different,

00:07:51.540 that's a sliding spectrum. There are different dispensationalist forms, but in general,

00:07:55.640 they would say the old covenant is still, if not completely, it's still mostly intact and there

00:08:01.300 are physical and spiritual promises for Israel in our future. And then the, you know, the fulfillment

00:08:08.500 theology, a supersessionism, they would say, well, you know, there are still spiritual,

00:08:14.160 a spiritual revival in our future, but the physical promises are done. And then maybe a

00:08:18.740 hard supersessionism, the position that you and I would take would say, no, the whole covenant

00:08:24.360 really is done. And yet these are people made in the image of God and we pray for their salvation

00:08:29.160 and eventually they will be saved. But in the meantime, there is no special third position

00:08:35.700 of Christian adjacent. There are Christians, the people of God, and then there are enemies of God. 0.72

00:08:40.720 And you and I were once enemies of God. Yeah, so the Bible describes us. Right, but he saved us,

00:08:45.680 but God, who is rich in mercy, Ephesians do. So he saved us, and he can save them. But in the

00:08:51.000 meantime, it's helpful to know who they are. They're not our greatest ally. They're not Christian

00:08:55.600 adjacent. They don't have a whiff of Christ, but are actually, like all unbelievers, hostile towards 1.00

00:09:01.240 God, and perhaps because of the influence of the Talmud, even uniquely hostile towards the person 1.00

00:09:07.520 of Jesus Christ. And the influence of the Torah, too. If you don't accept the law and what the law

00:09:12.780 teaches you, it'll actually make you more hostile to God. Right. And we see that as a clear pattern

00:09:19.720 throughout all Scripture, especially for those of the Reformed tradition. This is something we

00:09:22.960 should know. This is Romans not just 11, but this is Romans 1. What happens to a person, the more

00:09:29.000 they're subjected to God's gracious revelation and yet choose willingly to lie and suppress the

00:09:36.040 truth and deeds of unrighteousness, the heart doesn't get softer, it gets harder. You actually

00:09:40.840 are building, you're actually programming yourself to be predisposed with a greater hostility and

00:09:48.460 callousness and rejection towards the goodness of Christ. So that's kind of laying everything out.

00:09:55.860 let's go to you where do you want to start oh there's a lot there just from what you said

00:10:01.340 already i mean i think going into the different views even a little more detail of romans 11 is

00:10:06.880 important um especially you're right this idea of yes the old covenant is has ended it's over

00:10:15.380 um either the promises and i wouldn't even necessarily say that there are no uh promises

00:10:22.900 from the old covenant left.

00:10:25.580 In one sense, that's true, of course.

00:10:28.180 But also, you know, Genesis 12 or Genesis 17, right?

00:10:32.640 It's not as though God says, all right, Jesus came

00:10:35.160 and I'm going to renege on these promises.

00:10:37.780 It's that they're fulfilled in him, right?

00:10:41.200 Jesus is the fulfillment.

00:10:42.540 So you're right.

00:10:43.280 The promises continue for God's people. 1.00

00:10:45.280 It's just, that's Christians. 1.00

00:10:46.920 Well, who are the people of God? 1.00

00:10:48.080 It's Christ and his people, but Jew and Gentile. 1.00

00:10:51.700 And so you look, 1.00

00:10:54.220 well, I make you an everlasting promise of this land, 0.65

00:10:56.840 right, the land of Canaan. 0.67

00:10:57.880 This will belong to you and to your seed. 0.56

00:11:00.300 Well, Paul says that the seed of Abraham is Christ. 0.75

00:11:06.000 Right.

00:11:06.380 And if you were Christ, you were Abraham's seed. 0.90

00:11:09.060 Right. 0.85

00:11:09.240 Right.

00:11:09.540 So-

00:11:10.200 It's not plural seeds, but singular.

00:11:12.840 Who does the, like,

00:11:13.600 if you want to talk about that particular land,

00:11:15.680 all the land, right, all the nations,

00:11:18.120 according to Psalm 2-

00:11:19.440 China.

00:11:19.780 belong to jesus right that's his inheritance including the land of canaan or israel or

00:11:26.780 palestine or judea or whatever you want to call it right that stretch of land that real estate

00:11:31.160 there along with every other stretch of real estate on the planet belongs to jesus and his

00:11:36.280 peoples right because we are co-heirs with christ it belongs to christians who does that land belong

00:11:41.120 to uh that particular stretch of land well it belongs to christians right right it's their

00:11:45.960 their land they're the one but by this divine promise that belongs to them which is interesting

00:11:50.860 yeah you brought up the dna stuff and things like that we could we definitely should go there like

00:11:55.140 obviously like we're not going to go there and say oh definitively 100 we're not going to say

00:12:00.640 that but i do think there's some good holes to poke yeah it's interesting with the like you bring

00:12:04.740 up the land promises and we'll get back to romans 11 in a second hopefully but the the land promises

00:12:09.460 right to the to your seed to your sin even if you take it that way that in the new covenant no it's

00:12:15.540 still the descendants of abraham who get that land well right palestinian christians have more 0.86

00:12:23.300 um ancient israelite dna than modern jews do explain that flesh that out how do we know that

00:12:29.900 uh there recently in the last year or two there were you know wide dna studies of all the different

00:12:35.880 peoples in in uh the area of israel and the levant uh different populations um were taken

00:12:43.740 and um they they tested their blood against like archaeological sites and things like that

00:12:49.320 where they have records yeah where they have records of this was a jewish person from the

00:12:53.420 first century right right what what dna are they able to compile and then tested against these

00:12:58.400 populations and the palestinian christians were near the top and all of the uh various christian

00:13:05.020 groups the beautiful divine irony in lebanon iraq all the different places they had the most

00:13:09.500 it was then um other groups right uh were much uh further down including um israelis and and so

00:13:17.160 you think of that if you think okay it's based on these dna you know the blood descent well who has

00:13:22.760 the greater claim right if we're gonna go down that road who is the greater well the palestinian 0.57

00:13:27.820 Christians that didn't convert when Islam came in, right? They remained Christian, right? Well,

00:13:36.740 these are people, you go back 2,000 years ago, these are the people that after the Romans came

00:13:41.940 in and destroyed Jerusalem that survived, and what did they do? They converted to Christianity.

00:13:48.520 These are all Jews that converted to Christianity. Exactly, because our position, we'll get into

00:13:52.120 this with Romans 11, like you said, getting back to that, the position is not that what Paul's

00:13:58.120 writing in Romans 11 fell flat. We're not saying that Paul wrote something inspired by the Holy

00:14:03.400 Spirit that didn't come to pass. Paul says that there is for a time, so temporary, and also

00:14:09.000 partial, a partial hardening. So even at Paul's time, maybe, you know, I don't know about you,

00:14:14.740 but I would pin it at like maybe 8050, 8055, the writing of Romans. Yeah, or even maybe a little

00:14:20.360 bit earlier later later okay possibly uh yeah so at that time you know 10 15 20 years out from 80

00:14:28.940 70 in the destruction of jerusalem even at that time it's still a partial hardening which means

00:14:33.700 that um with the ministry of paul which at this point had shifted primarily to the gentiles but

00:14:38.760 the ministry of the other apostles peter james john still jews were being saved yeah um but it

00:14:44.340 was a trickle and yet there was a stream a flood of gentiles that were being saved and coming in

00:14:49.400 So partial hardening, meaning that even in Paul's at the time of his writing, there are still Jews

00:14:54.280 being saved. But it happens to be in the large scope, the minority report by comparatively to

00:15:00.720 the Gentiles. But then Paul says that this is not only a partial hardening, but it's only a partial

00:15:06.080 hardening for a temporary period of time. But that the natural branches will eventually be grafted

00:15:12.520 back in. And so we're not saying that that didn't happen. We're saying, but maybe what Paul's

00:15:18.400 writing about isn't something that's going to happen 50,000 years from then. Or 2,000 years.

00:15:24.100 Or 2,000 years from then. 1950 years. But maybe that's something that actually happened in AD 70, 0.59

00:15:30.060 and that it pairs so well with that partial preterist hermeneutic of just reading a lot

00:15:35.760 of the New Testament, not all of it. We're not hyper-preterist. There's a massive problem with

00:15:39.860 that. But we are partial preterist, and so we're reading Romans 11 the same way that we would read

00:15:44.120 Matthew 24 with the Olivet Discourse that Jesus says, I tell you the truth, not one stone of the

00:15:48.660 temple will stand on one another. And he also says, you'll see the Son of Man coming on the

00:15:54.040 clouds. And that's not cherubim, you know, little baby angels playing harps on the cloud. It's not

00:15:58.480 pretty, but that's Joel 2. It's clouds signify judgment language. And the reality is that Christ

00:16:04.620 did come. He came, his parousia, his coming was a spiritual coming. So he didn't come a second

00:16:10.720 time in the flesh he will a final return yeah that's right but he did come in 80 70 spiritually

00:16:16.040 upon the clouds what are the clouds well it was smoke and desolation the destruction of the clouds

00:16:20.960 the clouds are the heavenly host the angels right the glory cloud is made up of all these angels and

00:16:25.800 coming in destruction and josephus even said that like uh he interviewed people eyewitness accounts

00:16:31.080 that said that in the desolation and all all the the clouds and smoke from all the destruction

00:16:36.660 in Jerusalem that they saw silhouettes. Some of the people said they saw silhouettes of like

00:16:40.580 chariots and like heavenly hosts going back and forth in the clouds. Really interesting. So what

00:16:45.760 we're saying is that Paul says, look, there's a partial hardening temporarily on the Jews. Some

00:16:50.860 are getting saved. A lot aren't. But these natural branches will be grafted back in. And we're not

00:16:56.100 saying, uh-uh, Paul's wrong. No, we're saying, uh-huh. And I think it maybe happened like 10 or 15

00:17:01.820 years after he wrote it yeah and and not we're still waiting 2 000 years now removed so all that

00:17:08.140 back to the the christians in palestine to what you were saying um these may be the descendants

00:17:12.620 of jews that converted who converted to christ in 80 70 and leading up to all right the clock 0.93

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00:19:23.340 right response ministries but yeah you have that and it isn't just right the area of judea samaria

00:19:29.600 galilee um you know israel in the first century where jews were located in the empire there were

00:19:36.140 there were millions of them all throughout the roman empire maybe as much as a fifth of

00:19:41.020 the population of the Roman Empire was Jewish or Gentile God-fearers that are connected to

00:19:47.520 worship in the synagogue. You're telling me this for the first time. Yeah, massive numbers, 0.97

00:19:52.020 right? Massive numbers there. So this is a very large minority population in the Roman Empire.

00:19:58.100 So it isn't just, we always, I think mentally in our head, think like there's just a couple,

00:20:02.140 you know, Jews here and there scattered all throughout. There's a reason why when Paul went 1.00

00:20:06.480 to every city in Asia Minor and Greece and throughout the Roman Empire, right? He would

00:20:12.320 go to the synagogue and there wouldn't be a synagogue. There'd be lots of people there,

00:20:16.200 but Jews and Greeks worshiping there and be able to preach and bring people out. That's,

00:20:22.640 it's part of his strategy that he's ministering to his people. And you see this, you know,

00:20:26.480 in Romans 11 that he's talking about this point that why am I going to the Gentiles? Why is God 0.71

00:20:35.080 going to the gentiles it's to provoke jealousy among them and and the key word you know we 0.95

00:20:42.400 mentioned it in the in the reading in the cold open jealousy among who his people the jews yeah 0.95

00:20:48.960 the jews are the ones who were supposed to be yes yeah and they were like you read acts

00:20:54.540 right what happens uh everywhere he goes right there are riots and fights he gets stoned or he 0.93

00:21:03.900 gets uh imprisoned uh and who are the instructors it's it's jews because they're angry that paul

00:21:10.640 goes and preaches and and in the synagogue many people believe him and hear the gospel and are

00:21:17.180 saved uh the majority of the synagogue eventually drives him out right but who comes along with him

00:21:23.280 it's the the gentile god fearers who are worshiping in the synagogue they come along with 0.50

00:21:29.380 him many of them do and he begins preaching to the gentiles right to the jews first and to the

00:21:33.880 into the Greeks. And that was the ministry mode that he operated in. And they resented that now 0.55

00:21:41.680 what is going on? The Gentiles, they receive the Holy Spirit and they see Gentiles doing these 1.00

00:21:49.700 great works of the Spirit, these sign gifts in the first century. And they become envious and 0.99

00:21:57.020 jealous. Um, this is right. This is the point, um, you know, I make what we'll talk about,

00:22:02.940 um, Matthew later, I think in other episodes, but, uh, the, the point that Jesus makes

00:22:09.740 about the sign of Jonah, I think is extremely important and relevant to this passage in Romans

00:22:17.180 because Jesus is talking about the sign of Jonah and a lot of people, um, maybe misunderstand it.

00:22:23.140 They think, okay, well, that's about Jesus being, you know, crucified and then being buried in the ground and being resurrected, right, three days and three nights.

00:22:29.960 And that's an aspect of it, of course.

00:22:32.440 That further fulfills the typological argument that Jesus is making.

00:22:39.820 But what is the sign of Jonah?

00:22:41.240 Like, if you understand the book of Jonah, right, Jonah, right, if it's beyond just, like, the VeggieTales understanding of Jonah, it's not, they don't hit people with fish.

00:22:50.480 That's not why he doesn't want to go there, right?

00:22:52.260 Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh for, for one, for one reason, right? He has read the book of

00:22:58.840 Deuteronomy, right? And in Deuteronomy, right? Moses tells them, you're going to get to this

00:23:04.640 land. You are going to reject your God. You're going to start worshiping idols and you're going

00:23:09.260 to face all of these curses, right? You're going to be spat out of the land. You are going to go

00:23:15.100 into exile army, foreign army is going to come occupy you, kill you. I mean, all of these horrible 0.99

00:23:20.140 things are going to happen. And how are you going to know when this is going to occur? I'm going to

00:23:25.840 give you a sign, right? The sign is I, God, am going to go to a people who I do not know, to a

00:23:34.760 nation I do not know. I'm going to go to the Gentiles. And so here is Jonah. God says, Jonah, 1.00

00:23:41.640 get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, because my anger has risen against it. And Jonah,

00:23:46.640 right it's amazing he's able to piece together like god if you want to destroy Nineveh you don't 0.58

00:23:51.620 need to send me to go tell them right right you sending me to tell them is actually really gracious

00:23:58.220 right and I don't like that so he runs away right and the whole story explicitly tells us in chapter

00:24:04.200 four he says um if there's any you know if there's any lingering question about whether or not you

00:24:09.900 know why Jonah is reluctant to go yeah that question is definitively answered in the beginning

00:24:15.660 of chapter four where Jonah says this is why I chose to flee to Tarshish make haste to Tarshish

00:24:22.680 because did I not say that I knew you were a gracious God slow to anger abounding in love

00:24:29.660 and he also adds this relenting in sending disaster yeah most Christians think that Jonah was

00:24:36.560 reluctant to go to Nineveh because he was afraid the Ninevites would reject his message yeah and

00:24:43.800 they would turn on him and kill him no he was afraid that they would accept his message knowing

00:24:49.280 his own people and their hardness of heart that they had rejected god's message time and time

00:24:54.260 again and he knows he's adding up the prophecies teasing deuteronomy and isaiah isaiah talked about

00:25:00.700 how like he knew that and and here's the other thing jonah the the first half of the tenure

00:25:05.460 if we could say that of his prophetic ministry his prophetic uh you know um vocation uh god

00:25:13.500 used him to prophesy blessing the expansion of borders in israel and these kinds of yeah so jonah

00:25:18.500 was was actually probably well liked which is pretty rare for a prophet for a prophet so it's

00:25:24.580 like he's got like this really sweet gig he's a prophet who's actually liked yeah who's that you

00:25:29.380 know gets to prophesy good things for once yeah he's got the big mega church and the private jets

00:25:34.240 but the whole exactly but the whole time um he's a you know he's a kenneth copeland prophet you know

00:25:39.840 But then the whole time, he knows there's this ticking clock because he's read Isaiah.

00:25:45.860 And so then when he starts seeing the pre-invasion attacks from the north,

00:25:50.700 and that's where he was in Gath-Hephir, was in the northern tribe, in the northern kingdom.

00:25:56.740 And what's north of them is Assyria.

00:25:59.620 And so as these pre-invasion attacks start ramping up in Assyria,

00:26:02.900 starting to affect and even perhaps capture or brutally kill people that Jonah knows,

00:26:09.000 his neighbors, his friends, maybe even family members. We don't know for certain. But as he

00:26:13.040 sees this, not only is he angry towards Assyria because of their pre-invasion attacks and the

00:26:17.620 damage they begin to do, but he's especially, exceedingly angry. The whole thing, you just

00:26:23.860 see him angry. He's angry about plants and bugs and this. He's angry about everything. But he's

00:26:28.220 angry because not only has Assyria inflicted a blow as a pre-invasion, knowing that there's more

00:26:34.620 damage to come with Israel, his people, but he also knows because of the teachings of Isaiah, 0.73

00:26:39.700 he knows that this signifies that Assyria is just getting started, that it's not going to stop. 0.93

00:26:46.280 And so he knows, and now where is he sent? A lot of Christians don't make this connection either,

00:26:50.980 but Nineveh is one of the capital cities of Assyria. And so he's called to go to this place

00:26:56.560 that's already preparing for war against Israel, and not just that, but preparing it for war

00:27:01.760 against Israel that has been prophesied previously about by Isaiah. And Jonah knows they're going to

00:27:08.080 win. They're going to be successful. And then God says, go to them. And Jonah, again, he's not like,

00:27:14.880 I'm scared to go because they might hit me with a fish or I'm scared to go because they actually

00:27:19.000 might take my life. You know, the adult version of Jonah. But no, he's like, it's not I'm scared

00:27:23.760 to go. It's I hate them. I hate these people and I don't want God to show his grace to them.

00:27:28.160 that's right and he hates them and he also knows that this means bad stuff for israel right it 0.81

00:27:35.520 means bad stuff for his people it means that the judgment is a sign of the judgment coming for his 0.69

00:27:41.000 so when jesus invokes jonah he's not just talking about uh you know the story of a fish and being

00:27:48.400 in the ground right right that he what he's doing there is is amplifying the typological connection

00:27:56.040 between him and Jonah, but you see, and you see this all throughout the gospels, all the synoptic

00:28:01.700 gospels, you know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, especially, that wherever Jesus goes, everywhere

00:28:08.680 he goes, when he does miracles for Jews, what does he do? He says, hey, don't tell anybody about

00:28:17.880 this. Just keep it to yourself, you know, just stay quiet about this. And they don't always,

00:28:22.160 sometimes like can you believe what jesus did right he's always telling them charging them to

00:28:27.440 keep quiet about everything but when he does miracles for the few occasions for for for

00:28:34.380 gentiles or samaritans right he does not charge them to keep quiet at all he says go yeah go tell

00:28:40.220 everybody i don't care um and and you think oh why is why is that well you get to into uh matthew

00:28:47.180 after his people are rejecting him, right?

00:28:49.620 Jesus starts speaking in parables, right?

00:28:52.060 And we'll talk about this more

00:28:52.960 when we get into the gospels,

00:28:54.100 but like he starts speaking in parables,

00:28:55.380 which are not like a cute little illustration

00:28:58.400 to explain more.

00:29:00.540 It's not a helpful way to,

00:29:01.700 it's not a way to make something easier to understand.

00:29:04.320 It's the opposite.

00:29:04.700 You can feel it, yeah.

00:29:05.840 It's a, when the Bible speaks of parables,

00:29:09.200 we read helpful illustrations for kids.

00:29:12.660 Isn't this cute?

00:29:13.580 What we should read is parables

00:29:15.020 are more more likened to riddles yeah than explanations it's like the riddles of the

00:29:20.560 sphinx right he goes from speaking plainly and openly to you know just telling people riddles

00:29:26.420 like he's the riddler out there right and it's and that is itself a judgment right he quotes

00:29:32.800 isaiah this is a judgment on israel they're rejecting me so i'm not gonna i'm gonna judge

00:29:37.380 them but not speaking openly anymore the miracles i do i'm gonna i'm gonna bury those he does the

00:29:43.200 opposite like he tells right put your light on the stand don't hide it under under a bushel

00:29:46.980 well he's doing that to israel on purpose and for a reason and the reason is is that they are

00:29:52.980 heart of heart and rejecting him and what do his people do right after after pentecost in the book

00:29:59.280 of acts right they leave judea they leave the samaria they leave the galilee the land of israel

00:30:05.100 and they go to the gentiles right that's what there were there were 12 really 13 apostles

00:30:10.600 and which one do we see the entire time in the book of Acts?

00:30:18.520 Like God, the Holy Spirit could have had us, you know, see where James or Andrew or any of them

00:30:24.540 went. We are following Paul. We're seeing his journey. Why?

00:30:27.820 The book of Acts, about halfway through, it really is kind of the halfway mark,

00:30:31.040 the epicenter. It goes from geographic epicenter of what God is doing being Jerusalem and Peter,

00:30:37.200 and then it shifts about halfway through to Antioch and Paul.

00:30:42.420 And that also is, that's a sign.

00:30:46.260 That's communicating something.

00:30:48.180 It's saying that the work of God has shifted 0.97

00:30:51.200 from the Jews to the Gentiles. 0.91

00:30:55.060 Yeah, and you see even from the beginning of Acts, right?

00:30:58.220 You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea

00:31:02.240 and then to Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.

00:31:06.080 And the plot of the book follows that same pattern, right?

00:31:11.240 You start out in Jerusalem, then to Judea,

00:31:14.160 and then to Samaria and Galilee,

00:31:16.500 and through to Antioch and the ends of the world.

00:31:19.140 And it ends in Rome.

00:31:21.200 And so that's deliberate.

00:31:23.140 It's not by accident.

00:31:25.180 And so, yeah.

00:31:25.940 Well, that's part of what this life from the dead, right?

00:31:29.920 So the cutting off of the natural branches

00:31:32.540 because of unbelief,

00:31:33.940 uh what that meant was it provided in the mercy of god the opportunity for a wild the branches

00:31:40.300 of a wild olive shoot to be grafted in their place that's us that's the gentiles and we're

00:31:45.540 so grateful for that and and we should be that's the proper response you might call it the right

00:31:50.040 response uh the wrong response would be to be haughty or to be arrogant if god did not spare

00:31:55.640 the natural branches then he will not spare you right so so he cut them off because of unbelief

00:32:00.420 And so do not be arrogant that you have been grafted in their place.

00:32:04.040 But the root is strong.

00:32:06.620 And there's plenty of room on that vine for both the natural branches and the wild branches.

00:32:14.460 And so we see the Apostle Paul saying in Romans 11 that the natural branches will be added back on.

00:32:21.340 And not at the expense of the wild branches that have all been added, but they'll be added together.

00:32:25.740 And so the natural branches will not be cut off forever.

00:32:28.300 But then Paul goes one step further. He says, if they're cutting off, if God's cutting off for a

00:32:33.540 time, a partial hardening of the natural branches, that is Israel, according to the flesh, if God's 0.96

00:32:39.400 cutting off of them meant your inclusion, which is a really good thing, then what will God adding

00:32:46.960 them back on mean? And you might think logically, well, them being removed was good for us, our

00:32:52.140 inclusion. Them coming back in might mean our exclusion. But Paul says, he throws a curveball

00:32:57.180 surprises us and says, oh, no, no, no. Their re-inclusion, when they come back, will actually

00:33:03.520 mean even better news. So them being cut off for a time was good news for you, Gentiles, inclusion. 0.80

00:33:10.360 Them coming back is even better news, life from the dead. And what I wanted to say is this, 1.00

00:33:15.880 the more and more I study history, particularly church history, and I look at what God has done

00:33:22.100 through christen for 1500 years from constantine to alfred to um great britain and england and

00:33:31.840 america and you know the covenanters the pure puritans that when i look at the history of

00:33:37.500 christen i don't know about you but i see life from the dead yeah i i think that the reason 0.96

00:33:43.920 that the christian gospel this mustard seed has grown into uh as large of a tree as it already

00:33:51.320 has. I think there's a lot of Christians who are still kind of waiting for, it's like being a 0.98

00:33:56.500 newbie racer, a terrible illustration. You're going to make fun of me. Last time you were here, 1.00

00:34:00.680 I quoted the Avengers. Now I'm going to quote Fast and Furious, even worse. Oh, no, it's better.

00:34:04.500 Okay, it's better. Okay. But it's like, hey, you're a newbie racer. It's like too soon on

00:34:08.960 that NOS, right? You're too soon on that NOS. And I think a lot of the post-millennial guys who I

00:34:13.660 love, Brothers in Christ, they're still thinking like, we need the NOS. And the NOS is that,

00:34:20.880 you know uh this you know modern nation state of israel that these people are still somehow the

00:34:27.280 descendants of abraham and they're going to get saved and then we'll get life from the dead and

00:34:31.720 i guess what i want to say is no i think i think we've been getting life from the dead

00:34:36.480 global evangelization for for 2 000 years particularly the last 1500 years of christendom

00:34:45.020 with Western civilization, that was life from the dead. Let's preserve that, cultivate that,

00:34:50.940 see more of that. And one of the things that's harming that is Christians' bad understanding of 0.99

00:34:56.680 Israel. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think you're right. And the difficult thing is, I mean, 0.51

00:35:06.000 going, just thinking again about Romans 11 and the different views, right? Ours is a preterist

00:35:14.120 view, a preterist interpretation of that passage. And then you have multiple futurist views,

00:35:19.840 some of them better than others. But looking at that, I mean, this point of

00:35:26.560 where Paul says, at the present time, now, right? Like he's giving time parameters in that passage

00:35:35.420 that we should look at. We usually just gloss right over that because we're, I mean, maybe

00:35:41.120 understandably, right? We're thinking about ourselves today, right? What does this mean

00:35:44.940 for us today? That's the first question we usually ask. We don't ever ask, what does that mean then

00:35:50.500 for Paul in that moment? And he's calling us to that, saying at the present time and now,

00:35:59.320 his time. And all of this set within the context of the old covenant is still chugging along.

00:36:07.480 there's still a temple there's still a high priest there's still sacrifices they're all

00:36:11.580 still keeping the mosaic law and clean and unclean and everything else and that is about to come to a

00:36:20.120 complete end forever right very soon right that's the now that's the present time that paul is

00:36:27.820 talking about and so hebrews has this language oh yeah like in stark language yeah hebrews 10

00:36:35.720 Hebrews 8.13 in particular says, right, what is growing old, right, or what is obsolete is growing

00:36:42.220 old and will soon pass away. Quickly, yeah. And it's like, well, does soon mean 2,000 years later?

00:36:48.680 Right, exactly, which is crazy. It's like the beginning, whether it's the first chapter of

00:36:52.200 Revelation, you know, these things which are soon to come to pass. And we think, oh, well,

00:36:56.880 we're living in a parenthetical moment where, you know, God has this, you know, he has this love

00:37:01.360 affair with israel and you know and the gentiles you know through christ are really just his 1.00

00:37:06.280 stepchildren you know yeah but he really loves you know israel and yeah israel's been a terrible 0.90

00:37:11.180 rebellious son but he loves israel a lot more than you know than the stepkids than the redheaded

00:37:15.900 stepchild over there you know but israel's been so particularly rebellious that you know as much

00:37:20.760 as god wanted to have this this love affair and this story with israel he you know he had to put

00:37:25.340 on a 2000 parenthetical pause click pause on that to do something with the step kids yeah not even

00:37:31.800 because he really likes the step kids that much you know they have some inclusion but but really

00:37:36.340 just because uh it's not that hey i'll pause the the love affair with with the biological son for

00:37:42.600 2000 years um because i i fell in love with the step kid no it's because the biological son is

00:37:48.180 so rebellious that i just have to wait yeah even longer until maybe maybe his heart softens

00:37:55.240 you know and uh well yeah it's just a bad way of reading the bible yeah you see like yeah

00:37:59.420 revelation soon i mean the point i have to make like you come to chapter 20 and talking about

00:38:04.160 the millennium and that's where the people who when they read soon in verse one of revelation

00:38:09.920 that things that soon must take place like ah here's like 15 ways that doesn't literally mean

00:38:16.440 soon right you do all the gymnastics same as matthew 24 this generation well this kind of

00:38:22.860 generation yeah rebellious people will always have those right but then you get to you get to

00:38:28.080 chapter 20 and it's like it 100 definitely must be a literal thousand years right anyone who

00:38:34.780 doesn't believe that is a heretic right and it's like well one of like one of those two things

00:38:40.580 regardless of your view you have to take figuratively right right either soon or

00:38:45.620 millennium right right one of those two you're going to take a figurative view so you can't say

00:38:49.920 i'm a biblical literalist i just believe in it says it literally and so i'm gonna believe it

00:38:55.580 well and you can't say that but uh as the cool kids would say uh that's not the brag you think

00:39:01.120 it is exactly yeah when you say i'm a biblical literalist i like i understand that yeah right

00:39:06.200 like when the bible says no female pastors we take that literally we're not we're not saying

00:39:12.720 but that would be a part of a part of the problem here a big part of the problem where jesus says

00:39:17.040 i'm i'm the door we don't think that like he's he's a literal door exactly yeah so um we we are

00:39:24.120 that's a part of our hermeneutic um but but i think you tell me what you think but i think that

00:39:29.340 a well-rounded good uh biblical hermeneutic is historical grammatical literal but then lastly

00:39:38.460 this is the piece because macarthur would say that historical grammatical literal uh and then

00:39:42.880 we would say it's not something else as a substitute for those three things i've just listed

00:39:47.560 but a fourth thing in addition which would be historical grammatical literal and typological

00:39:53.740 yeah um that that uh the bible contains symbols yeah and symbols have to be understood as symbols

00:40:03.060 otherwise you just come away with some really crazy takes and and there's biblical license for

00:40:09.660 this. At the end of Luke's gospel, when Jesus is on the road to Emmaus, he's talking to these two

00:40:15.420 disciples on the road about the whole Old Testament and how it pertains to him. And it's like, well,

00:40:23.500 how does King Og having an iron bedstead that's however many cubits long pertain to Jesus?

00:40:30.260 Well, there's some typological way that it does, and Jesus was talking about it on the road to

00:40:35.160 Emmaus, right? I mean, maybe I'm sure he didn't literally cover all, you know, the whole Old

00:40:39.700 Testament, but you have, I mean, you see this and you see these types and figures and they're right

00:40:45.720 there, right? I mean, and Jesus makes it, I mean, even going back to Jonah, like he's making a

00:40:49.800 typological argument about Jonah, about what he is doing, that the gospel is going to go to the

00:40:54.400 Gentiles, that my grace is going to go to the Gentiles, and that will make you angry and envious, 0.53

00:40:59.000 and that will be the thing that draws you back in. And that anger and envy, here's the whole thing 0.93

00:41:04.740 that we're getting at, that anger and envy, not of the Gentiles towards the Jews, but the Jews 0.94

00:41:10.320 towards the Gentiles as they see the blessing of God shift to the Gentiles because of the Jews' 0.88

00:41:16.000 unbelief and hardness of heart and their rejection of the Messiah. As the Jews sit and witness this, 0.98

00:41:20.820 they witness miracles breaking out in Gentile cities, not their own. They witness Gentile 1.00

00:41:26.780 families and homes being put together and strengthened and the bond of love and churches

00:41:31.200 planted and all these different economies beginning to improve and all the things that

00:41:35.400 the gospel, the fruit of the gospel eventually brings about by way of consequence. As the Gentiles 1.00

00:41:40.760 or the Jews rather are sitting and watching this, it's not the Gentiles that will envy the Jews, 0.97

00:41:45.480 but the Jews will envy the Gentiles. And the final point is that that envy, it'll work. It'll 0.82

00:41:53.840 do exactly what god uh ordained it to do namely it will provoke the jews not just to uh and a 0.92

00:42:02.660 perpetual envy for the sake of envy but that in this jealousy that's roused that would stir them

00:42:09.420 up to say that's it i've had enough yeah like you know like the older brother you know watching the

00:42:13.960 party for the son you know that's it i'm coming in where's my party i want to have a party too

00:42:19.300 You know, I want to be a part of this, that eventually it would work.

00:42:21.880 And our position is simply that it did.

00:42:25.200 Not that it eventually will in 2,000 years or 2,000 more years, but that it actually did work.

00:42:31.720 And it worked precisely when Jesus said it would work, right? 0.95

00:42:34.980 Matthew 24, this generation, the same generation that said crucify him, 0.94

00:42:40.800 that they would see their crucified Messiah coming in judgment for their unbelief and rejection.

00:42:47.280 and that in that judgment that there would be a sweet mercy of the Lord

00:42:53.340 that many of them would repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ.

00:42:56.240 And they did.

00:42:57.480 And some of their descendants perhaps are Christians in Palestine now. 0.98

00:43:01.200 Yeah, I think that is exactly the case. 0.91

00:43:04.040 I mean, you look at the Christians that have been in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon,

00:43:09.380 in the area that is now Israel and Palestine.

00:43:14.520 um these are they they converted right uh tens of thousands millions of people converted that

00:43:22.180 were jews became christians and um and and that was you know that then they carried forward right 0.99

00:43:30.840 the christian faith um there in in that region until the muslims came in and and and forced most 0.98

00:43:38.740 of them to most of the people in poverty at least that couldn't pay the the jiza um to convert to

00:43:44.700 islam and and so it's i don't know it's just fascinating to me right you see this and even up

00:43:50.480 up until this point right up until 70 a.d right you have you have continual ministry happening

00:43:56.340 in jerusalem and in judea um right up until right about 66 a.d right and when james is uh

00:44:07.100 thrown from the temple down and then beaten and killed. And then that's the point. And Eusebius

00:44:17.180 records this after James was martyred, right? All the Christians said, all right, that is like, 0.96

00:44:25.460 Jesus talks about seeing the abomination that makes the temple desolate, right? What is that? 0.98

00:44:31.860 Well, the high priesthood just murdered our leader.

00:44:35.600 It's time for us to head for the hills,

00:44:37.440 just like Jesus told us to. 0.99

00:44:38.880 They did, and then the Romans came 0.97

00:44:41.440 and surrounded the place 0.83

00:44:44.520 and either killed or enslaved everybody in there.

00:44:48.380 All right, well, thank you guys for tuning in,

00:44:49.860 and we will see you in the next episode.

The NXR Podcast - February 01, 2025

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Does Scripture Promise A Future Revival For The Jews？

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