THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: 'What Is It? 15
ing which the Jewish nation will be reconstituted and
will have the place of headship over a world occupied
by God-fearing and peace-loving Gentiles, base that expectation
upon certain Old Testament prophecies
which, they think, are to be fulfilled "literally"; and
since they cannot possibly be fulfilled in that manner
during this era of the Gospel, there must needs be an
age to come of an entirely diiferent character from
this day of gospel salvation.
This argument, however, is utterly fallacious, because
based upon a false premise. Those who make use
of it take for granted that in order to interpret a
prophecy "literally" its fulfilment must be located in
the realm of nature, and not in the spiritiuil realm.
Thus they assume that the "literal" interpretation is
in contrast with the "spiritual" interpretation thereof ;
and they denounce and repudiate what they refer to
disparagingly as "the spiritualizing" of the prophecies.
Undoubtedly our natural bias is in favor of the socalled
"literal" interpretation of the prophecies in
question; for to the natural man the things that are
seen are the real things ; and to that view we are disposed
to cling tenaciously, notwithstanding the plain
teaching of the New Testament that the seen things
are but the fleeting shadows of things unseen, the latter
being the spiritual and eternal realities with which the
promises of future blessing have mainly to do. For the
New Testament Scriptures state, in the most unambiguous
language, that "the seed of Abraham," to
whom "all the promises of God" belong, are those who
believe the gospel of Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:7, 29; 2 Cor.
1:20). Further, in the New Testamerit it is plainly
revealed that, even as "Abraham had two sons" (which