Part 3 of You Might Be a Covenantalist and Not Know It
*In this post I will use both ESV and KJV. My preference is the ESV and I will use it in most cases. However, I was raised on the KJV and much of my theology is shaped on that verbiage. So, in cases where nuance matters, I may defer to the KJV for myself and my KJV-only readers.
This is the final part of a three-part series regarding Covenantalism and Dispensationalism. In the first post I established the hermeneutical principles by which we may engage this conversation without needlessly talking past each other, presented some common views that Dispensationalists tend to hold that seem to align with a Covenantal understanding, and I plead for fairness in our disagreements and characterizations of those with whom we disagree. In part two I addressed what I believe to be the most Biblically compelling argument for Dispensationalism, the “All Israel” of Romans 11. In this part, I will examine an argument that carries a more emotionally and personally compelling justification, that being the 1948 fulfillment of Ezekiel 37.
I was raised in a small Baptist church in the 1980’s and 90’s. One of my earliest memories of doctrinal differences was the division between the majority of the preachers in our small association who were Pre-Trib, Pre-Millennialist and my pastor and his close friends who were Pre-Wrath, Pre-Millennialist. I, of course, was in the Pre-Wrath camp. If you have followed this blog, you may have come across my post arguing for this view. I no longer hold this view, but my prior post is still available. I explain this so that you know this is not purely academic for me. I was right in the middle of the “Left Behind” mania that was sweeping across the American Evangelical world. Yes, I read all the books (maybe more than a few times), and I might have even watched some of Kirk Cameron’s movies. As a late teen and into my early 20s, I watched the news looking for signs of prophecy being fulfilled. In the 80s we were sure Russia was Gog. By the early 2000s Iraq was “rebuilding Babylon.” And after 9-11 we all wondered if the 13th Imam was going to be the Anti-Christ. This type of “newspaper prophecy” was not new in Western Christianity. There are examples of this eschatological hysteria in the 1800’s, but it really went mainstream after 1947-1948. And the reason for this ramp-up was not without cause.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 which divided the British controlled territory of Palestine into two independent states, one Arab state and one Jewish state. And by May 14, 1948, Israel declared their independence. The immediate response was war, and the Middle East has existed in a constant state of flux between uneasy cease-fires and all-out war ever since. The establishment of a Jewish nation in a land that was predominantly occupied by Arabs was seen by Islamic Nations as a violation of the UN’s Charter itself. While the Middle Eastern Nations were fighting politically at the UN and physically on the ground in Israel, Western Christians were pulling out their Bibles and re-engaging in Ezekiel’s prophecies and the Book of Revelation.
Ezekiel 37 and 1947/1948
With the end of WW2 just two years earlier, the American populace was scared with images from Auschwitz, Dachau, and other camps where mass graves of victims were discovered and the survivors looked almost as skeletal as the dead. With the images of extreme starvation, ethnic devastation, and mass propaganda against the European Jews firmly ingrained in their imagination, American Christians were reading these words;
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? (Eze. 37:1-3, KJV).
Then suddenly in the winter of 1947, those bones began to come together, “bone to his bone.” The Jews were returning to the land God promised to their father Abraham. Not only did the bones begin to shake and come together, but muscle and skin developed. A Nation, a political system, a people who were not a people yesterday are fellow citizens of their ancient Nation;
Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (Eze. 37:9-10).
A great army! Yes, within this infant nation arose an army that not only stood their ground but defeated their enemies and took control of a much larger area than had originally been granted them. As the news spread from the Mediterranean coast across the Atlantic, Christian preachers were reading the signs of the time in their very newspaper. And on Sunday mornings they were preaching;
And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore (Eze. 37:21-28, KJV, emphasis added).
If God was fulfilling the first half of Ezekiel 37 right before their eyes, then surely the second half would soon follow. God will rebuild his temple in Jerusalem, just as he promised to Ezekiel. And once that happens everything will be ready for Daniel’s seventieth week, and the rapture of the Church.
Continued Expectation
In 2015 my wife and I were able to visit Israel with others from our Baptist churches. It was a great trip. While there we were able to hear the stories about how God miraculously delivered the new nation of Israel out of the hand of their enemies and how they continue to see his hand moving in their continued existence today. Everywhere we went someone would comment something like “can’t you just see God moving here!,” or “isn’t it exciting to be here at a time like this, when God is fulfilling prophecy right before our eyes!” Back home, my fellow preachers and I would discuss how quickly the temple could be rebuilt in Jerusalem and how exciting a time we live in. We were waiting for this final step of God’s last days program before Christ would return and take us all to heaven. A decade after that trip and eighty years after Israel became a nation we still are waiting. But we are unable to question if our understanding of the timeline may not be as sure as it seems lest we be like the scoffers who say, “where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Pet. 3:4, ESV). But this begs the questions, doesn’t it? Or, at least, it hinders us from asking an important question, are we really allowing the Bible to teach us, or are we too busy reading our own expectations back into the Scriptures? And, if we are only seeing what we want to see, is that so bad?
Plenty have made the argument applauding Dispensationalism for the urgency in evangelism. And there is no question regarding the sincerity and passion of dispensationalists and the work they have done in spreading the Gospel across the world. That being said, the history of this movement regarding the topic at hand speaks for itself, and the story it tells is not a good one.
In 1844 William Miller was convinced Jesus was returning to claim his church on October 22nd. Those who followed him sold homes and land because they were not going to need them. But when the sun rose the next day, hope began to fade and the reality of their dire situation began to set in. Sadly, Miller was not the first, nor the last to fall down this eschatological trap. Years later Hal Lindsey would destroy his reputation when he explained that Jesus promised that the generation that sees the last days signs, which according to him the clock started in 1948, would not pass away before his return. Which put the timeframe within 40 years of Israel’s declaration of independence. Lindsey did not put a firm timing on his prediction, but his estimate still proved to be too firm, and wrong. Edgar Whisenant, however, didn’t hold back when he published his book 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988, which obviously did not happen. Today the internet is full of date-setters asking, “is this the year Jesus returns?,” and giving all their reasons why the timing now fits. And every time, they are wrong. For a more detailed account of why this is a problem for the Church and her creditability you can see my paper that is posted on this blog, “Sensationalism in Eschatological Scriptures: The Dangers of Newspaper Prophets.”
With all the disappointment from the false prophets that Dispensationalism has given birth to, we might think that they would take Jesus at his word that no one knows when he will return and just stop the madness. But the madness continues. But for those who have a desire for Truth, and not just hyped-up speculation disguised as Bible teaching, we need to take a step back and evaluate whether we are using the right interpretive lens when we read our Bibles? And, when we read it in its own context, what can we know, and at what are we still left to wonder?
Ezekiel in Context
I have already quoted much of Ezekiel 37. So, rather than quoting large passages I will let you consult your own Bibles as we work through this section. Much of what we need first is a proper application of our hermeneutic or interpretive method rather than a systematic, verse-by-verse analysis. We need to consider the big picture before we can understand the nuance. So, allow me to apply a little Socratic logic and let’s ask the questions that must be asked.
- Who wrote Ezekiel, and when was it written?
These are easy. In the first few verses of Ezekiel, we are told that the author is Ezekiel the priest and that this first vision took place in the “fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin” (Eze. 1:2, ESV). This puts it around 593 B.C. - Where was he writing from?
He was in Babylon, or as he says, “in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal” (Eze. 1:3, ESV). - Who was he writing to?
Chapter 2 tells us that he was told; “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God’” (Eze. 2:3-4, ESV)
So, we understand that he is writing to the Jewish people, in captivity in Babylon.
We could now ask, the what and why questions, but the answers to these questions are just what we are evaluating. So, let’s not try to answer that just now. Rather, we should ask specifically about Chapter 37.
- Who was Ezekiel writing chapter 37 to?
The same people God sent him to in Chapter 2, the Jewish people, those captive in Babylon and those dispersed among the nations. - What is the message in Chapter 37?
Ezekiel is given a vision of a valley of dry bones, which he is told is the whole house of Israel. If it could be said this way, they are past dead, they are nothing but bones. Yet, with God there is not only hope, but assurance of deliverance, and a future for the house of Israel. - Does God explain this vision to Ezekiel or is it shut up from him leaving him to wonder when and how it will be fulfilled?
Yes, God does explain it to him. Ezekiel writes, “then he said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel’” (Eze. 37:11-12, ESV). - Does this explanation tell us to whom the message is for? Is it for the Jewish exiles in Ezekiel’s day, or some future fulfillment?
If we read it closely we see that “they say,” which would tell us that this was the current feeling of those in Ezekiel’s day, and God promises to bring them into the land of Israel.
But does this mean that it could not have a future fulfillment as well?
That is a good question and one we will need to return to. But for now, let’s stay in what the Bible does tell us. - Did God fulfill this promise to the Jewish people of this time?
If we assume Ezekiel wrote Chapter 37 around 585 B.C. and Cyrus allowed the exiles to return in 538 B.C., this was only 47 years which would have been within the lifetime of some of those to whom Ezekiel was writing. So, yes. This was fulfilled. - Must we then look for a future fulfillment?
No, according to God’s own word, he has done what he promised. But does this mean that there is not a future application?
This is a valid question and one that gets asked often regarding the near/far application of prophecy, and therefore we need to address these questions. Now that we have established the proper context, we are better suited to do just that.
A Critical Challenge
I can hear the Dispensational response already. “Even if we grant what you just said, that is just the first part of Chapter 37. There is another prophecy that doesn’t clean up so nicely for your Covenantal theology.” And, yes that is true. Once we move into verses 15 through 28 there seems to be a change of context. Here the Dispensationalists will argue that Judah and Israel were not unified after the return from Babylon (15-22), in fact the division was worse, God did not save them “from all their backslidings” (23) as they rejected their Messiah, and they still have not had a King from the Davidic line over them which was to be their reality “forever” (24-28). All of this is true, but I then must ask, how much of this was the reality in 1947/1948?
It is possible to make the claim that Judah and Israel are united in one nation now and that this was somehow fulfilled in 1947/1948 as well as the promise to “take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel” (Eze. 37:21-22), but then I must ask that we continue with the rest of that paragraph which says;
And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God (Eze. 37:22-23).
Here our hermeneutical method must insist that we understand this first as a whole before we begin to pick it apart for different applications.
First, we should admit that a 1947/1948 understanding of the first part of Chapter 37 is not as clean as we might like it to be. God promises to “take the people of Israel from the nations.” Not some of them, but “the people of Israel” implying as we read earlier, “the whole house of Israel.” We know that not all of ethnic Israel is dwelling in the land of Israel even today. And as even the Dispensationalists will admit, Israel has not had a proper King since before the Babylonian exile. So, here I ask, is it possible that the miraculous events that took place in 1947-1948 and even down to today are not the events that God revealed to Ezekiel?
Modern Application of Eschatology
Wait a minute, did I just admit that the return of the Nation of Israel was a “miraculous event” even while separating it from its prophetic justification? Yes, I did. It seems to me that the survival of Israel as a nation is nothing short of a miracle. And this raises a question, does God need Biblical justification in order to perform a miracle? I think we all agree that the answer to that is no. We know from the Bible itself that not everything Jesus did was recorded (John 21:25). God has chosen what to reveal to his creation via his word, but he is not constrained by his word. If God had to communicate everything he does, not only could the world not contain it, the ever-expanding universe would bust at the seams. And if this is true, then God is able to miraculously restore the nation of Israel to its ancestral homeland, without having foretold it in prophecy. He certainly could have but absolutely did not have to.
So, where does this leave us with the second half of Ezekiel? It is here I may turn the tables and upset some of my Covenantalist friends. Let’s refresh our minds to the text in question;
Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore” (Eze. 37:21-28, ESV, emphasis added).
When we look at this passage, it is clear that what Ezekiel is prophesying has not been fully fulfilled. So, it is only right to project that fulfillment to some future time. Even though all of it has not been fulfilled, some of it has. Israel, and all believers, have one shepherd, Jesus Christ. Jesus has brought unity not only to Judah and Israel, but between Jews and Gentiles when he saved us from all our sins and cleansed us at the cross. The covenant of peace was initiated at the Lord’s Supper and sealed at Calvary. All of this has been fulfilled in Christ. Yet, we look for the eternality of the promise. John the Revelator was also looking for this fulfillment when he echoes Ezekiel as he describes the New Heaven and New Earth saying;
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4, ESV, emphasis added).
So, yes, I am a Covenantalist that believes there is prophecy left to be fulfilled. However, my view is quite different from Dispensational Pre-Millennialism, but this is not the time to go into that.
For many of my friends, I know that reading this series raises some uncomfortable questions. And I am sorry to cause you grief, but I believe the Proverbs to be true that say, “Open rebuke is better than secret love,” and “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Prov. 27:5-6, KJV). I hope that I have been fair and that I have been faithful to God’s word. I have endeavored to uphold a proper exegetical framework and maintain a consistent hermeneutical methodology. If you have found me lacking in either, please let me know. I do not consider this the final word, rather the beginning of a fruitful conversation between brothers. So, I invite you to come let us sharpen one another’s swords and save the killing blows for our real enemies.
God Bless