Session 6: The Promised Regeneration of Israel

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1. Prayer

2. Purpose of Today’s Class: to understand...

   1. [Show schedule, timeline]
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   2. ...Israel has not been cut off or replaced in God’s program.

   3. ...the promise of the spiritual regeneration for Israel.

   4. …the national character of the promises.

   5. …the means by which Israel will be regenerated (God’s initiative, the Holy Spirit).

   6. …God’s promises to us today are only as good as His promises to Israel in the past.

3. Israel has not been cut off or replaced in God’s program.

   1. Theologians of the Past

      1. Jonathan Edwards
         Nothing is more certainly foretold than this national conversion of the Jews in Romans 11.¹

      2. Charles Hodge
         The second great event, which, according to the common faith of the Church, is to precede the second advent of Christ, is the national conversion of the Jews…. That there is to be such a national conversion may be argued… from the original call and destination of that people…. As the rejection of the Jews was not total, so neither is it final… The future restoration of the Jews is, in itself, a more probably event than the introduction of the Gentiles into the church of God. [emphasis added]²

      3. Charles Spurgeon
         I think we do not attach sufficient importance to the restoration of the Jews. We do not think enough of it. But certainly, if there is anything promised in the Bible it is this.³

   2. The Jewish Remnant, Rom. 11

      1. [covered in full detail in session 10, The Church in Relation to Israel]

      2. vv. 1-2, not cast away

      3. vv. 5,7, a remnant! For what purpose?

         1. Why is a seed or ‘start’ of a plant kept through the winter?

         2. This is Israel’s ‘winter,’ but the spring will surely come!

         3. The remnant today is Messianic Christians, ‘completed Jews.’

      4. v. 11, stumbled but will not fail

      5. vv. 25-29, the promised regeneration of the OT repeated by Paul

         1. v. 26, the Deliverer does the work

         2. v. 28, our attitude toward Israel

4. The Spiritual Regeneration, The New Covenant

   1. [OVERHEAD of covenants, session 2]
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   2. Gen. 1:2, the ministry of the Holy Spirit

      1. creating paradise from wilderness

      2. bringing light (to those who are dark, cf. Isa. 9:2)

   3. Jer. 31:31-34

      1. v. 31, made with Israel as a nation

      2. v. 32, replaces Mosaic covenant (made and broken as a nation)

      3. v. 33, I will put my law in their minds, write it in their hearts

   4. Eze. 36:24-27

      1. v. 24, gathered to your own land [see session 4, The Promise of a Land]

      2. vv. 25-27, Who does the work? [God!]

      3. v. 27, how does this conversion come about? [the Holy Spirit]

   5. Eze 37, valley of dry bones

      1. Eze. 37:1-14

         1. v. 3, total dependence upon God’s intervention (cf. Gen. 1:2)!

         2. v. 11, bones are the whole house of Israel (the nation)

         3. v. 8, reassembled, but without the Spirit

         4. v. 14, My Spirit in you (the New Covenant)

      2. Eze. 37:21-28

         1. v. 21, gathered back to the land

         2. v. 23, cleansed of sin

         3. vv. 24-25, Davidic king rules in their midst

         4. v. 28, God’s sanctuary in their midst

5. National Repentance of Israel

   1. Lev. 26:40-42

      1. v. 40, iniquity is singular, a specific sin (the crucifixion of Messiah?)

   2. Hos. 5:15-6:3, God returns to His place

      1. until they acknowledge their offence

      2. until the seek him (compare with Mat. 23:39)

      3. the tearing and healing

   3. Zec 12:10

   4. Rev. 1:7

6. The Priority of Evangelization of the Jews

   1. Romans 10:1-2, Paul’s prayer for the evangelization of the Jews.

   2. Romans 10:14-15, the key passage on evangelization is given in a Jewish context.

   3. To the Jew first⁴

      1. Acts 1:8, (1) Jerusalem, (2) Judea and Samaria, (3) the world

      2. Peter preaching to the Jews

         1. Acts 3:26 "To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."

      3. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles

         1. Paul’s pattern of going to the synagogue first (Acts 17:2,17; 18:4-6,19)

         2. Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

      4. Greater responsibility for the Jews means greater judgment

         1. Romans 2:9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek;

         2. Even for the church: judgment begins with the house of the Lord⁵

7. God’s Character and His Promises

   1. God’s promises to us today are only as good as His promises to Israel in the past.

   2. In the same way God extends grace to us, so too He continues to extend grace to Israel.

      1. Neither party deserves anything from God.

      2. Rom. 11:30-33

8. Implications

   1. Israel has not been cut off or replaced in God’s program.

   2. The nation will undergo spiritual regeneration.

   3. The means of the regeneration is one and the same as our new birth.

   4. God’s promises to us today are only as good as His promises to Israel in the past.

   5. Israel today should be seen in the context of the valley of dry bones (Eze. 37), being reassembled, but without breath (God’s Spirit).

   6. The One reassembling Israel is God. Wise believers will not get in His way or side with those who are opposed to Israel!

9. Prayer

   1. Israel will be reassembled, but remain spiritually dead. And so are we without God’s Holy Spirit. We need His ‘breath of life’ in order to see with new eyes and become a new creation.

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