THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: What Is It? 11
that we search the Scriptures from beginning to end.
But in order merely that we may have in mind a general
idea of the answer while we pursue our study, it
will suffice to refer to a few incidents in Paul's ministry,
as recorded in the last chapters of Acts.
The subject is very prominent there, and indeed it
was because of Paul's views and his preaching in regard
thereto that he was so furiously persecuted by the
Jews, and was finally sent in chains to Rome. For we
have his own testimony to "the chief of the Jews"
at Rome, to whom, when he had called them together,
he said: "For this cause therefore have I called for
you, to see you and to speak with you; because that,
for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain"
(Acts 28:17-20).
inasmuch as what Paul had been preaching, both to
the Jews and also to the Gentiles, was the gospel of
Jesus Christ, and nothing else, it follows that the true
"hope of Israel" is an essential part of that gospel;
and therefore it is a matter regarding which we cannot
afford to be mistaken.
The above quoted statement of Paul to the Jewish
leaders at the imperial city is very illuminating. It
shows, to begin with, that, whatever it was he had
been preaching as "the hope of Israel," it was something
so contrary to the current Jewish notion thereof
that it caused the people to clamor for his death (Ac.
22:22), and led to his being formally accused before
the Roman Governor as "a pestilent fellow, and a
mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the
world" (Id. 24:5). Had he been preaching what the
Jews themselves believed to be, and what their rabbis
had given them as, the true interpretation of the prophecies
(namely, that God's promise to Israel was a