that the Jews are to return to their own land as Jews, and there restore their temple and its service, and then be converted; it may be answered that this is inconsistent with the prophetic repre- sentations. They are to be brought to repentance and faith, and to be restored to their land, or, to use the figure employed by the Apostle, grafted again into their own olive-tree, because of their repentance. When Christ comes, " He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." (Matt. xxiv. 31.) But further than this, in Zechariah xiv., it is predicted that after the restoration, all the nations of the earth u shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." In Isaiah lxvi. 22, 23, it is said, " As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord/' The literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies relating to the restoration of Israel and the future kingdom of Christ, cannot by possibility be carried out ; and if abandoned in one point, it cannot be pressed in regard to others.
2. It is undeniable that the ancient prophets in predicting the events of the Messianic period and the future of Christ's king- dom, borrowed their language and imagery from the Old Tes- tament institutions and usages. The Messiah is often called David ; his church is called Jerusalem, and Zion ; his people are called Israel ; Canaan was the land of their inheritance ; the loss of God's favour was expressed by saying that they forfeited that inheritance, and restoration to his favour was denoted by a return to the promised land. This usage is so pervading that the con- viction produced by it on the minds of Christians is indelible. To them, Zion and Jerusalem are the Church and not the city made with hands. To interpret all that the ancient prophets say of Jerusalem of an earthly city, and all that is said of Israel of the Jewish nation, would be to bring down heaven to earth, and to transmute Christianity into the corrupt Judaism of the apostolic
age-
3. Accordingly in the New Testament it is taught, not in
poetic imagery, but didactically, in simple, unmistakable prose,
that believers are the seed of Abraham ; they are his sons ; his
heirs.; they are the true Israel. (See especially Romans iv. and ix.
810 PART IV. Ch. III. — THE SECOND ADVENT.
and Galatians iii.) It is not natural descent, that makes a man a child of Abraham. " They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God ; but the children of the prom- ise are counted for the seed." (Rom. ix. 8.) The Apostle asserts that the promises are made not to the Israel Kara adpKa, but to the Israel Kara 7rvev/xa. He says in the name of believers, " We are the circumcision." (Phil. iii. 3.) " We are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. iii. 29.) The promise to Abra- ham that he should be the father of many nations, did not mean merely that his natural descendants should be very numerous ; but that all the nations of the earth should have the right to call him father (Rom. iv. 17) ; for he is " the father of all them that be- lieve, though they be not circumcised." (Rom. iv. 11.) It would turn the Gospel upside down ; not only the Apostle's argument but his whole system would collapse, if what the Bible says of Israel should be understood of the natural descendants of Abra- ham to the exclusion of his spiritual children.
4. The idea that the Jews are to be restored to their own land and there constituted a distinct nation in the Christian Church, is inconsistent not only with the distinct assertions of the Scrip- tures, but also with its plainest and most important doctrines. It is asserted over and over again that the middle wall of parti- tion between Jew and Gentile has been broken down ; that God has made of the two one ; that Gentile believers are fellow-citizens of the saints and members of the household of God ; that they are built up together with the Jews into one temple. (Eph. ii. 11-22.) " As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. iii. 27-29.) There could not be a more distinct assertion that all dif- ference between the Jew and Gentile has been done away within the pale of the Christian Church. This, however, is not a mere matter of assertion, it is involved in the very nature of the Gos- pel. Nothing is plainer from the teachings of Scripture than that all believers are one body in Christ, that all are the partakers of the Holy Spirit, and by virtue of their union with Him are joint and equal partakers of the benefits of his redemption ; that if there be any difference between them, it is not in virtue of national or social distinctions, but solely of individual character and devotion. That we are all one in Christ Jesus, is a doctrine