Here are just some pf the places where God EXPLICITLY and UNCONDITIONALLY promised the ancient nation of Israel that He would bring them back to their ancient homeland, and would bless them there.
Two things need to be noticed about these promises. One is that they involve absolutely ALL of that ancient nation, and that the promised return is promised to take place AFTER the Lord returns, not BEFORE He returns.
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you." ' " (Ezekiel 36:24-29)
This was not just implied a time or two, but was repeatedly and unconditionally promised, in plain, clear words, as we see in the following passages.
“ ‘I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,’ says the LORD. ‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
“ ‘Therefore, behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD, ‘that they shall no longer say, “As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,” but, “As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.” And they shall dwell in their own land.’ ” (Jeremiah 23:3-8)
“ ‘I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return, and will rebuild those places as at the first. I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned and by which they have transgressed against Me. Then it shall be to Me a name of joy, a praise, and an honor before all nations of the earth, who shall hear all the good that I do to them; they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and all the prosperity that I provide for it.’
“Thus says the LORD: ‘Again there shall be heard in this place--of which you say, “It is desolate, without man and without beast”--in the cities of Judah, in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who will say: “Praise the LORD of hosts, For the LORD is good, For His mercy endures forever” -- and of those who will bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD. For I will cause the captives of the land to return as at the first,' says the LORD.
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘In this place which is desolate, without man and without beast, and in all its cities, there shall again be a dwelling place of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the lowland, in the cities of the South, in the land of Benjamin, in the places around Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, the flocks shall again pass under the hands of him who counts them,’ says the LORD.” (Jeremiah 33:7-13)
“But I will bring back Israel to his home, And he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan; His soul shall be satisfied on Mount Ephraim and Gilead. In those days and in that time," says the LORD, "The iniquity of Israel shall be sought, but there shall be none; And the sins of Judah, but they shall not be found; For I will pardon those whom I preserve.” (Jeremiah 50:19-20)
“ ‘For thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so will I seek out My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land; I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the valleys and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in good pasture, and their fold shall be on the high mountains of Israel. There they shall lie down in a good fold and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed My flock, and I will make them lie down,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in judgment.’ ” (Ezekiel 34:11-16)
“Indeed, what have you to do with Me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia? Will you retaliate against Me? But if you retaliate against Me, Swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head; Because you have taken My silver and My gold, And have carried into your temples My prized possessions. Also the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem You have sold to the Greeks, That you may remove them far from their borders.
“Behold, I will raise them Out of the place to which you have sold them, And will return your retaliation upon your own head.” (Joel 3:4-7)
“ ‘I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them. I will plant them in their land, And no longer shall they be pulled up From the land I have given them,’ Says the LORD your God.” (Amos 9:14-15)
Many imagine that this promise of a restoration of Israel to her ancient homeland was fulfilled in the return from Babylon. But that return did not include the ancient sub-kingdom of “Ephraim,” which, even to this day, has never returned. The return from Babylon was only the ancient sub-kingdom of Judah, and only a very small part of that. For “Altogether the whole assembly was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, besides their male and female servants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven; and they had two hundred and forty-five men and women singers.” (Nehemiah 7:66-67) That is a total of only forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety two persons. By comparison, 2 Chronicles 17:12-19 informs us that, in the days of Jehoshaphat, the army of Judah was one million, one hundred and sixty thousand men, to say nothing of those that were not in the army. Compare this very small return with the return that God had promised:
“And you, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel, and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD: “Because the enemy has said of you, 'Aha! The ancient heights have become our possession,” ’ therefore prophesy, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Because they made you desolate and swallowed you up on every side, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations, and you are taken up by the lips of talkers and slandered by the people”--therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! Thus says the Lord GOD to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, the valleys, the desolate wastes, and the cities that have been forsaken, which became plunder and mockery to the rest of the nations all around--therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Surely I have spoken in My burning jealousy against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave My land to themselves as a possession, with whole-hearted joy and spiteful minds, in order to plunder its open country.’ ” Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and My fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations.’ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘I have raised My hand in an oath that surely the nations that are around you shall bear their own shame.
“But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come. For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. I will multiply men upon you, all the hiuse of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt.” ’ ” (Ezekiel 36:1-10)
Here, we need to notice the words, “all the house of Israel, all of it.” In the Hebrew text, the word “כֹּל,” “kol” in our alphabet, is doubled, stressing that the meaning is absolutely all of “the house of Israel.” Yet the return from Babylon was only a very small part of “the house of Judah.”
We also need to notice that the promised return was to “the mountains of Israel,” along with “the hills, the rivers, the valleys, the desolate wastes, and the cities that have been forsaken, which became plunder and mockery to the rest of the nations all around.” (Ezekiel 36:4) And eleven chapters later, God went so far as to define the future borders of that land.
“Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘These are the borders by which you shall divide the land as an inheritance among the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph shall have two portions. You shall inherit it equally with one another; for I raised My hand in an oath to give it to your fathers, and this land shall fall to you as your inheritance. This shall be the border of the land on the north: from the Great Sea, by the road to Hethlon, as one goes to Zedad, Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim (which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath), to Hazar Hatticon (which is on the border of Hauran). Thus the boundary shall be from the Sea to Hazar Enan, the border of Damascus; and as for the north, northward, it is the border of Hamath. This is the north side. On the east side you shall mark out the border from between Hauran and Damascus, and between Gilead and the land of Israel, along the Jordan, and along the eastern side of the sea. This is the east side. The south side, toward the South, shall be from Tamar to the waters of Meribah by Kadesh, along the brook to the Great Sea. This is the south side, toward the South. The west side shall be the Great Sea, from the southern boundary until one comes to a point opposite Hamath. This is the west side.’ ” (Ezekiel 47:13-20)
This is nothing less than the definition of a specific plot of real estate, first by description (chapter 36) and then by precisely specifying its borders. (chapter 47) Some people demand why we are so interested in a mere plot of real estate on the other side of the world. And the answer, of course, is, because God is so interested in it. We can hardly overstress the fact that God has explicitly promised this specific plot of real estate to a particular “nation.” And that promise is unconditional.
But in spite of all these explicitly stated scriptures, there are many who imagine that this is only symbolic language. That when the prophetic scriptures say “Israel,” they mean “the church,” and when they speak of “the land,” they mean “heaven.” Major sources of this erroneous notion that we have not yet examined are the scripture that says “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” (Galatians 3:7-9) And another that says, “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.” (Romans 4:13-16)
Many reason that, since these scriptures plainly call those who share “the faith of Abraham,” his “sons,” then , when the prophetic scriptures say “Israel,” they mean “the church.” But the Bible does not say that being a child of Abraham by faith makes a person an Israelite. The concept of being “an Israelite by faith” is not taught anywhere in the Bible. This indeed, seems like a reasonable conclusion. But all such reasoning about the scriptures is dangerous. And this notion, which is nothing but mere human reasoning, leads to a seriously false conclusion, that “the church” is “spiritual Israel,” (a term found nowhere in the entire Bible) and thus, that the promises made to the ancient “nation” of “Israel” actually belong to “the church.” This, as we have seen, is seriously wrong, because it makes God out to be a liar. God did not make these promises to His people generally, but to a specific ancient “nation.” And He promised to give that ancient “nation” a specific plot of real estate.
