Episode Details

God has worked with Israel and the church simultaneously in the past. I described three prophecies that were given to Israel, and about Israel, that have been fulfilled in the past during the church age. The point of this was two-fold: (1) to demonstrate that God does indeed work with Israel and the church at the same time, and (2) to show that it is inconsistent to claim that Daniel’s seventy-weeks prophecy made to Israel excludes the church from being on earth during the final seven years of that prophecy.

The first prophecy examined was the new covenant prophecy, which was predicted in Old Testament through the prophecy Jeremiah:

“Indeed, a time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the LORD. “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the LORD. “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people. People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the LORD. “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.” (Jeremiah 31:31–34)

Notice this passage says that the covenant was made with “the people of Israel and Judah.” It was not made with the church, but we learn in the New Testament that the benefits have been extended to Gentiles who are not part of Israel. The church is governed under the new covenant. The point here is that if pretribulationists want to be consistent they must insist that the church cannot be a part of the new covenant by virtue of the Jewish new covenant being made with Israel, which was prophesied in the Old Testament. They end up possessing one interpretative standard for Daniel’s seventy-weeks prophecy and a different one for Jeremiah’s new covenant prophecy. To put it another way, they take the fuller New Testament revelation into consideration for the new covenant prophecy applying both to Israel and the church, but they will not do the same for the Daniel seventy-weeks prophecy limiting its application only to Israel. They claim that because Daniel’s prophecy says it was made to Israel, and about Israel, therefore it can only be applicable for Israel, even excluding the church from being on earth being raptured before the seven-year period begins. Yet, my counter example about Jeremiah’s prophecy to Israel renders the pretrib h