New Covenant Interpretations of Old Covenant Promises

[VERITAS]

I'm reading a fabulous book: Whose Promised Land? The Continuing Crisis Over Israel and Palestine by Colin Chapman, the following is from Appendix 2:

The planting of Israel in the land (Amos 9:8-15)

Surely the eyes of the Sovereign LORD are on the sinful kingdom. "I will destroy it from the face of the earth--yet I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob," declares the LORD. "For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. All the sinners among My people will die by the sword, all those who say, 'Disaster will not overtake or meet us.'

In that day I will restore David's fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear My Name, [as quoted in Acts 15:16-17]" declares the LORD, who will do these things.

"The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back My exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God."

The prophet Amos came from the southern kingdom of Judah, but was called to exercise his prophetic ministry in the northern kingdom of Israel. After preaching in the capital of Samaria from approximately 760 to 750 BC... He warned the people of the northern kingdom of a severe judgment to come (Amos 9:8), and this was fulfilled in 721 BC when Samaria was captured and the people taken into exile in Assyria.

Most commentators find it difficult to point to any clear fulfillment of this prophecy of a return of the exile in Assyria. It would seem that the exiles were scattered all over the Assyrian Empire, and that the vast majority were assimilated with the local population. Even if a few individuals were able to return to their land, there was nothing resembling the return of the exiles from Babylon to Judah in the mid-sixth century BC.

At the council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15, Peter and Paul argue that the way in which the Gentiles had received the gospel message and the way in which God had given His Spirit and worked signs and wonders among them proved beyond dbout that He intended them to be accepted as full members of the church. James, apparently acting as a kind of chairman to the Council, accepted their argument, and went on to quote from Amos 9:11-12 to support his position.

The two verses quoted cannot be isolated from the rest of the passage. So, for example, verse 11 ('I will...restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be') is echoed in verse 14 ('they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them'). The original passage in Amos speaks about the restoration of the people of Israel to the land, the rebuilding to the ruined cities, and the permanent replanting of the people in the land. When James quotes the passage, he is trying to show that the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church is the fulfilment of the prophecies of Amos.

The restoration of Israel is not understood as something still in the future, but as something that has already taken place. And the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church is described as a result of the restoration of Israel ('...that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who bear My Name' - Acts 15:17).

 

[VERITAS]

4.1 The Birth of Jesus the Messiah

We need to begin our study of the land in the New Testament by noting once again the hopes of the Jewish people as they developed during the period of the Old Testament and until the first century AD. These hopes are summed up by N.T. Wright as follows:

The 'salvation' spoken of in the Jewish sources of this period has to do with the rescue from the national enemies, restoration of the national symbols, and a state of shalom in which every man will sit under his vine of fig-tree. 'Salvation' encapsulates the entire future hope... For first-century Jews it could only mean the inauguration of the age to come, liberation from Rome, the restoration of the temple, and the free enjoyment of their own Land.

We may state categorically that what Jews in general were expecting and longing for was the release of Israel from exile and the return of YHWH in Zion.

This, therefore, is the context in which we need to read the accounts of the life of Jesus in the four gospels.
Luke's account of his birth, for example, contains many important clues about whom he thought Jesus was and what he was going to do for his people - all of them related to promises and hopes in the Old Testament.

The annunciation to Mary
The words of the angel announcing the birth of Jesus contain a very clear echo of the original promise concerning the line of David described in 2 Samuel 7:

You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." --Luke 1:31-33

The promise to David
The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son... Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. --2 Samuel 7:11-14, 16

Whereas David was told that his kingdom would last for ever through an unbroken line of his descendants, Mary, is told that Jesus himself will reign for ever. He is to reign over the 'the house of Jacob' - which means the whole house of Israel. His kingdom will not be limited to 'the house of Judah', as was the kingdom of all David's descendants who ruled in Jerusalem after Solomon; he will reign over the whole nation, united into one.

The Song of Mary
In her song of praise to God (the Magnificat), Mary speaks of the 'great things' that God has done for her personally and relates them to the fulfilment of what God had promised to Abraham:

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me-- holy is his name. ...He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers. --Luke 1:46-49, 54-55

The Song of Zechariah
Soon after the birth of John the Baptist, his father Zechariah connects all that is happening with the promises given to the prophets and the covenant with Abraham:

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us-- to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. --Luke 1:68-75

The Song of Simeon
One person who recognized the significance of the birth of Jesus was the aged Simeon, who was present when Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to be presented in the temple on the fortieth day after his birth:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. --Luke 2:25-26

When he took Jesus in his arms he praised God with the words:

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel. --Luke 2:29-32

Simeon clearly understood that Jesus was to be 'the Lord's Christ', the one who would bring about 'the consolation of Israel' (or 'the restoration of Israel'). He also believed that the consolation or restoration of Israel was about to take place in the person of Jesus.

Anna the prophetess
Another person who recognized the identity of Jesus was Anna:

There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. --Luke 2:36-38

There must have been a circle of people known to Anna who were looking forward to 'the redemption of Jerusalem', or 'the liberation of Jerusalem'. Anna's message to them after seeing Jesus was that he was the one who would have a vital role to play in the fulfilment of their hopes.

If Mary, Zechariah, Simeon and Anna, like the vast majority of their fellow-Jews in the first century, thought of 'the consolation of Israel' and 'the redemption of Jerusalem' as historical events which would one day take place in the city of Jerusalem and the land of Palestine, they now believed that the restoration of Israel and the liberation of Jerusalem had already begun to take place through the birth of Jesus the Messiah.