THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

200 The Hope of (
Israel: What Is It?
of God' as well as an Israel after the flesh' ; but may it
not be that some of the blessings promised of old by
the prophets of Israel are intended for the natural
Israel, and are reserved for a yet future day ?
And is
not the gift of the land of Canaan to Abraham and his
seed a promise of that sort?"
We believe a clear answer is to be found in the very
passage we are now considering. For to begin with,
if what Israel was then seeking after was the restoration
of its nationality and the re-possession of the land
of Canaan and undoubtedly that is what they were
most ardently seeking then manifestly the words,
"the election hath obtained it," would be a complete
bar to their hopes. But we look further into the matter.
The promises of God were numerous and were expressed
in various ways; yet they were often viewed
in their totality as a comprehensive whole. For example,
in Galatians 3 :7 we find the words, "heirs according
to the promise" ;
as if all the promises scattered
through the messages of the prophets constituted in
the aggregate a single all-inclusive "promise," which
in due time was to be fulfilled to "the seed of Abraham."
Doubtless it is this comprehensive, all-embracing
promise that Paul had in mind when he wrote of
"that which he (Israel) seeketh for." And it is also
quite certain, both from the Scriptures and also from
Jewish history, that what that intensely patriotic people
were ever seeking for was the repossession of the
land of Canaan. And one of the Scriptures upon which
their hopes were founded is this:
"For lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again
the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord;
and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their
fathers, and they shall possess it ... "For it shall come to pass