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Not that this will change your mind, but allow me to offer a Pascal’s Wager alternative.

There are two possibilities: one is that present-day Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, and the other is that it is simply a political unit that happens to consist mostly of Jews.

This leaves four options.

1) Israel is a political unit, and I don’t think of it as the fulfillment of prophecy. I happen to be correct, and not out of God’s will.

2) Israel is the fulfillment of prophecy, and I think of it that way. I happen to be correct, and not out of God’s will.

3) Israel is a political unit, and I think of it as the fulfillment of prophecy. I happen to be incorrect. I am not necessarily out of God’s will, since I still think of the church as being grafted to the vine, and by supporting a political unit of Jews I am not blaspheming God’s people.

4) Israel is the fulfillment of prophecy, and I think of it as a political unit. I happen to be incorrect. I also am outside of God’s will, since I do not support the fulfillment of His prophecy, and I am not standing with those who are the apple of His eye.

Of the four above options, #4 has the greatest risk for the least reward, while #3 has the least risk for the greatest reward. I am better off assuming Israel is the establishment of God’s chosen people in the fulfillment of prophecy, even if I were to find out as I enter the pearly gates that I was incorrect, since I would still be able to enter.

well, I don’t quite agree with the article.

Present day Jews are genetically descended from the pre-70 AD population. The same markers are also found amongst other peoples as well as Judeans have intermarried with other peoples through the millenia.

God’s chosen people expanded from 1 man (Abraham), to his family, to his clan, to his tribe, to his nation, to all nations.

So, the tree is Abrahams genetic children to which we have all been grafted. Jesus fulfilled and did not cancel the old covenant.

The modern country of Israel is not a “fulfilment of prophecy” - as the regathering of his people was fulfilled at the end of the Babylonian exile. Jews have never NOT lived in what is once again Israel - in 70 AD it was the devastation of Jerusalem, while other Jewish communities in Israel remained. In 132 AD after the 3rd Jewish-Roman war, most Judeans were exiled, but not all. There are Jews reported in Roman and later Byzantine chronicles. And, when the Arabs invaded in 637, they opened the gates of Jerusalem to Jews.

Good points.

It seems that very often, people have too much confidence in their personal views on spiritual matters, or any other matter. They don’t consider how objective, or not, those views are. Then they latch on to them, and don’t seek out or hear the views of others, or to have their views developed or corrected.

In spiritual matters, especially, people should be “swift to hear, slow to speak,” (James 1:19).

I’ve been letting the Lord lead me for a long time on all these questions about the Old Covenant and Israel, etc. There is so much to them, so much to consider, and if we don’t have definite answers, we shouldn’t be in a rush to declare just what we think, our opinion, as “the truth”.

For myself, I’ve not ever been able to put Israel in the same place as other nations. And I often come back to what Paul wrote in Romans 11:25:

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”

While Christ did break down the wall of separation, and make a new man, that work was not finished in some senses — similar to how Jesus’ death on the cross is a finished work, and yet there was still and still is much Kingdom work to do. Romans 11:25 supports that.

Then, we can and should ask, how were the Old Testament saints saved?

We see that they had faith. We’re often inspired by their faith.

Then, too, 2,000 years have transpired. That doesn’t mean truth changes, but God does new things continually, and He is accomplishing things continually.

We often say, too, that the New Testament is the Old revealed, and the Old is the New concealed.

I take comfort ultimately in that I’m not God, He knows what He’s doing, I need to remember I’m just a creature, and He knows those who are His.

You can consider, too, what it took for Paul and Peter, for example, to change their views: the divine intervention of God. Paul needed to be knocked off his horse and have Jesus appear to him. Peter needed a vision to accept Gentile believers.

It would be hard for me to not see the reestablishment of Israel as part of God’s divine plan.

And His ways and thoughts are higher than ours, as it says in Isaiah. It’s not even easy to try to put these issues into words.

It seems that, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in, and God completes all His work of reconciling people to Himself, that all these questions won’t be reconciled either. Gentile believers really should consider, too, that the Gospel, under present conditions, is likely harder for faithful Jewish people to accept. And again, God shows us faithful believers in the Old Testament.