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No.18.
pp. 109 - 114
We have been studying the Acts, and have found that the people of Israel are dealt
with by God right through to the last chapter. The Apostle Paul put them first because of
their important covenant relationship with God, but at the end they are laid aside in
unbelief and hardness of heart. We now ask the question--have they any part in God's
future plan for world blessing and the establishment of his Kingdom on earth? We find
that evangelicals are largely divided on this. Some will say yes, definitely, there is
coming a time when this nation is at last going to be saved and restored and made useable
by the Lord. Equally, there are others who say--no, there is no future for them as a
nation in God's redemptive plan; all the blessings that God promised to them have been
transferred spiritually to the Church. The Church now is the real Israel; they are the
Israel of God--the spiritual Israel. Now this is very important because we are, together,
trying to search out the revealed plan of God in His Book, past, present and future, and
we cannot afford to err on such important points of doctrine.
We have, in past studies, looked at the covenant that God made with this nation. In
Exod. 19: we saw that God made some remarkable statements concerning what He was
prepared to do for them, but it was a conditional covenant. God said, you shall be a
peculiar people to me, a peculiar treasure, above all people. You shall be a kingdom of
priests; there had never been such a thing before--a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.
But it was conditional, to be realized only if they kept the law. They had already
received the ten commandments through Moses, but they broke them. We would admit
that, if this was all God had revealed for Israel, then there is no future for them as a
nation. They broke the conditions for the fulfillment of the covenant and they have no
claim at all upon God from that standpoint.
However God did not let the matter rest there; later on He made another covenant
with the same people and this time there was no `if' about it. It all concerns God's actions
for Israel, and this time it is not conditional. Let us turn to Jer. 31: 31 and see.
This reads: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:". Obviously this is the same nation
that we have mentioned in the Book of Exodus as the following verses clearly show.
We read on: "Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which My covenant
they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will
put My law in their inward parts". When God writes His truth in the heart of an
individual something lasting is going to happen. God says, I will do this for this people;
I will put My law in their inward parts, and "write it in their hearts; and will be their
God, and they shall be My people". There are no `ifs' here; God says He will do all
these things without conditions. "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour