THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

36 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
cendants into that land was punctually fulfilled. For
it is recorded in the Book of Joshua that "the Lord
gave unto Israel all the land which He sware unto their
fathers to give them, and they possessed it, and dwelt
therein . . . There failed not ought of any good thing
which the Lord hath spoken unto the house of Israel"
(Josh. 21:43-45). But the possession of that land by
later generations was forfeited through disobedience,
apostasy, and idolatry, even as Moses and Joshua foretold
;
and ,
in consequence of their complete repudiation
of Jehovah their God, they were "plucked off the land"
(Deut. 28 :63, 64 ;
Josh. 12 :13)
. And thus was fulfilled
the prophetic "allegory" of Abraham's family history,
according to which the bondwoman and her son, representing
Israel after the flesh, were to be "cast out"
(Gal. 4:30) ; which is the end of their history as a
nation.
It was not until centuries of time had passed, not until
faith had vanished from among the children of Israel,
not until the true spiritual and eternal character of
the promises had faded out of sight, and fleshly lusts
had taken the place of heavenly hopes and longings,
that there arose among the natural seed of Abraham
the ruinous doctrine that "the hope of Israel" was an
earthly thing. That doctrine was the product of degenerate
times. It was tenaciously held and zealously propagated
by the scribes, Pharisees, rabbis and lawyers of
first century Judaism that "generation of vipers" ;
and it wrought in them such devilishness that they eagerly
carried out the will of their "father, the devil"
(Mat. 23:33; John 8:44) in compassing the crucifixion
of the Lord of glory. Should we not therefore regard
that odious doctrine with abhorrance and with fear?
And should it not be a matter of anxious inquiry as to