THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: What Is It? 201
in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke
from off thy neck, and shall burst thy bonds, and strangers shall
no more serve themselves to him; but they shall serve the Lord
their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto
them" (Jer. 30:3, 8, 9).
This is
a typical expression of "the promise," and
of what Israel was seeking after, according to their
interpretation of it. Hence it is what they had failed
to obtain, and what the election had obtained.
God's original promise to Abraham and his seed of
a territorial possession is recorded in these words :
"And I will give unto thee, and unto thy seed after thee, the
land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for
an everlasting possession" (Gen. 17:1-8).
Upon a close examination of this passage it will be
seen that the promise is so worded that it would have
been literally fulfilled had God thereafter given that
land to the descendants of Ishmael; for Ishmael was
as much the seed of Abraham as was Isaac. Later
Scriptures, however, limit the promise to Isaac's descendants
"which things are an allegory" and
still later Scriptures limit it to the children of Jacob,
excluding the offspring of Esau. But as between the
twelve sons of Jacob no distinctions were made; and
God should give that land to any single de-
hence, if
scendant of Jacob, it would be a literal fulfilment of the
And is not that precisely what God has done?
promise.
But let us go a little further in quest of what the
Scripture says concerning God's promise to Abraham.
In Romans 4, immediately following the verse quoted
above, which tells
are, we read:
who the real children of Abraham
"For the promise that he should be the heir of the world, was
not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the
righteousness of faith" (Rom. 4:13).