Why We Believe with Certainty in the Premillennial View (Part 3)

God Did Make Promises to the Nation Israel

We have already demonstrated that the nation of Israel was chosen by God. They were His elect nation. Some would say “yes” they were elected by God, but the church replaced them in that election. In fact some would go so far as to say that everything in the New Testament can only be explained through the New Testament. My first exception to this is that if nothing in the Old Testament stands alone as inspired with application to the time it was written, Jesus and all of the Jews of his time, including the apostles were reading scripture that had nothing of value to them either. In the New Testament when the word Scripture is used it is making reference to the Old Testament books that the Jews read. The only place that we see the New Testament books made reference to as being of the same importance is in 2 Peter 3:16. There, Peter is clear to define the writings of Paul as being scripture. He does not put one above the other, but puts them on equal status.

Also, if the Old Testament can only be looked at through the New Testament, then all that is taught about how God dealt with his people the Jews would have no application to us today. It would in a sense be saying that God has changed, and we now are living under grace, and sin is no longer a negative. We also know that this is not true.

Both of these are not to say that we do not learn anything about what we read in the Old Testament as we read the New Testament. Much of what is given in the Old Testament is given as a picture of what will happen later in the New Testament, but it always had application in the present time of the Old Testament. An example would be the sacrifices of the temple. Why did they do them? Was it just to demonstrate, or give a picture of the sacrifice of Jesus? Obviously, we learned much about sacrifices from the practices of the Jews, but to say that they were only pictures is to miss the contextual application of the sacrifices. That God told them to do the sacrifices and that if they did not they would live in their sin, and there fellowship with God would be broken. We could not see the significance of their not listening to God at times and the result of that disobedience if we did not have the Old Testament. What happened to the nation of Israel and their responses to the things and words of God were real and not only teaches us, but also taught them. Because this is true and the Old Testament is inspired and true for all times both in its application in the context of the time it was written and in the future things that it speaks of, the promises that God made with the nation of Israel are still promises that either were fulfilled or will be fulfilled.

These promises can be summed up in three covenants. Let’s start in Genesis 12:1-3, the Abrahamic Covenant.

Genesis 12:1-3 1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and (I will ) curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

This is the covenant that God made with Abraham 2000 years before Christ. Note the underlined phrases. God says, I will .. I will.. I will.. I will.. I will. He does not say, I will if you do something. He says I will, and this is totally dependent on one thing. That He said it. This is called and unconditional covenant that will be fulfilled and it is given by all mighty sovereign God and is empowered by His authority and His power. Therefore, what do you think are the chances of it coming to fulfillment?