THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: What Is It? 183
be saved in a body, but that the first thing on the
program of the second advent will be that all Jews
who have not believed the gospel will be "destroyed
from among the people."
This is in exact agreement with what Christ had
taught His Jewish auditors, namely, that at the end of
the age the reapers should "gather first the tares and
bind them in bundles to burn them" (Mat. 13:30).
This earliest of the utterances of Christ's apostles
concerning God's future dealings with the Jews is in
striking agreement with what Paul subsequently
stated at greater length in Romans XI. Peter declares
not that God would utterly destroy or cast off that
people, but that those of them who would not believe
in Jesus Christ were to be "destroyed from among the
people"; which would leave only the believing Jews,
corresponding to the few "natural branches" of Paul's
olive tree, that were not broken off. This word of Peter
plainly forbids the expectation of any salvation for
Jews after the second coming of Christ.
This proclamation by Peter is in striking agreement
with the Lord's answer to the prayer of King Solomon,
to whom He said (after promising a reward for fidelity),
said:
"But if ye shall at all turn from following Me, ye or your
children, and will not keep My commandments and My statutes
which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and
worship them; then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I
have given them; and this house, which have hallowed for My
Name, will I cast out of My sight; and Israel shall be a proverb
and a byword among all people."
No recovery is hinted at; and so it is with them to
the present day.