THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: What Is It? 151
in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the
outmost branches (Isa. 17:6).
It may mean (and I think does mean) that, just
as there was at the beginning a short season that was
distinctly Jewish (during which, however, some Gentiles
were saved) ,
and then a much longer season that
has been distinctly Gentilish (although some Jews
were saved during its course), so will there be at the
end another period distinctively Jewish in character,
during which, however, there will be some Gentiles
brought into the Kingdom.
In yet another passage, written to Gentile Christians,
(2 Cor. 3:12-18) Paul speaks of the spiritual
blindness that had fallen upon the great mass of the
Jewish people. Referring to the Old Covenant, which
was but temporary, and comparing it with the New
Covenant, which abides forever, the apostle recalls
the occasion when Moses put a vail over his face, thereby
foreshowing that the children of Israel would be
unable to see "the end of that (covenant) which is
abolished." And he adds: "But their minds were
blinded; for until this day remaineth the same vail
untaken away in the reading of the Old Covenant;
which vail is done away (for them who are) in Christ.
But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail
is upon their heart" blinding them to the fact that
the Mosaic covenant is come to an end (and it is so even
to this day, nineteen hundred years later) "Nevertheless
when it (the heart) shall turn to the Lord, the
vail shall be taken away."
This passage seems to imply, or at least it leaves
room for, a coming time when the heart of natural
Israelites will "turn to the Lord" on a scale not hitherto