The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. . . . In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

What do you think? Was Jesus—who once fasted forty days without being overcome by appetite (Mat. 4:1-4)—so hungry that, when He reached the fig tree and found it without fruit, He had a temper tantrum and cursed the tree out of spite? I think not. I think Jesus was performing an object lesson, a parable in action.

The Fig Tree Represents Israel

The fig tree represents Israel. In Scripture, fig trees (as also vineyards and olive trees) are associated with Israel, and sometimes symbolize Israel (Hosea 9:10, Micah 4:4, 1 Kings 4:25). In fact, Jesus told another parable earlier in his ministry that featured Israel as a fig tree:

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” Luke 13:6-9

This parable and Jesus’ later cursing the fig tree constitute one object lesson. The parable in Luke 13 sets up and explains Jesus’ later action in cursing the tree. Placing the fig tree in a vineyard ties the story to the parable of the tenants, and tells us that it is dealing with the same subject matter as that parable.

Jesus tells us that the owner of the vineyard (God) is frustrated with the lack of fruit on the fig tree, yet he also wants to give the tree every possible chance to produce fruit. But the owner’s patience is not infinite; there is a limit. His overseer convinces him to let the tree grow for one more year, giving it fertilizer and everything else that might help it bear fruit. Note that the owner, who has been expecting fruit from this tree for three years, is convinced to give the tree one more year.

What are the Four Years?

The four years seem significant, but it is not clear just what they signify. Some argue that four years are the years of Christ’s earthly ministry; the parable in Luke 13 was told late in Jesus third year of ministry, meaning that the Jews had one more year to repent and accept Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. But the Jewish religious leaders, the Sadducees and Pharisees, never accepted Jesus and in the end the mass of the people would also reject him and call for his crucifixion. So, in his passion week, Jesus cursed the fig tree to close the book on his earlier parable, signifying that the tree of Israel was to be cut down.

That is a plausible explanation, but there is one problem: Christ’s earthly ministry was closer to three and a half years, from the autumn of 27 AD to the spring of 31 AD. I believe the four years represent four parts of Israel’s history. Let us begin that history a little after 2,000 BC, when God called Abraham out of Ur. (Ussher says 1,921 BC, others say 1,954 BC—chronologies vary, but it seems that Abraham was called out of Ur in the 20th Century before Christ.) If we divide this time it into four, each of the four segments would be a little less than 500 years duration.

Thus divided, the fourth and final “year” in Jesus’ parable corresponds perfectly with the seventy weeks prophecy of Daniel Nine. Daniel tells us that 70 prophetic weeks, or 490 literal years, are decreed, or marked off, for Daniel’s people, the Jews. (Daniel 9:24-28). In other words, the Jews were being given a final 490 years as God’s chosen people, beginning in 457 BC and ending in 34 AD. The purpose of this final probationary period was:

“To finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” Dan. 9:24.

Did Israel do these things? Obviously not. When the Anointed One (Hebrew: Messiah), arrived, instead of anointing Him, they killed him. And just a few days before they would kill Him, Jesus acted out the completion of the Luke 13 parable by cursing it and causing it to wither and die in less than a day.

What does it Mean that the Fig Tree Was Not in Season?

According to Mark, the fig tree was not in season. Why would Jesus expect to find fruit on tree that was not in season? It turns out that a fig tree does not have to be “in season” to bear fruit. Bible commentaries tell us that fig trees in that region can produce “breba” figs, meaning an early crop of figs that grows on the previous year’s shoots before the main crop arrives. If leaves are in abundance, early fruit might also be present. Hence, Jesus was not wrong, when He saw the fig tree in leaf, to hope to find some fruit on it.

What does the detail about not being “in season” signify? Perhaps Israel was not “in season” because it was occupied by the Romans, and hence not free to pursue its own national agenda. In fact, during much of the half-millennium since the end of the Babylonian Captivity, around 538 BC, Israel was part of a pagan empire, first the Persians, then the Greeks, and finally the Romans. How could they be expected to “bear fruit” under these circumstances?

Before addressing this argument, let us first see if Israel did any better when it was independent of the great world empires. They did not. Israel under the judges was constantly falling into idolatry. There was a brief golden age under David and the young Solomon, but it did not last. Solomon was corrupted by numerous idolatrous wives, and his son, Rehoboam, lost the northern tribes.

The northern kingdom was always idolatrous; the solemn judgment, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord” was pronounced on all its kings (and there were 19 of them). In 722 BC, the Assyrians scattered that people to the winds. Because some of its kings heeded the prophets’ warnings, Judah, the southern kingdom, lasted another two centuries. Still, of its 19 kings (and one queen) only eight did “what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” So being independent did not help Israel “bear fruit.”

Moreover, if we look closely at the empires that ruled Judea during the last fourth of Israel’s prophetic existence, we find that—with one infamous exception—they generally did not interfere with Israel’s religion; to the contrary, they often facilitated it. Cyrus the Great was incredibly helpful to the Jews in allowing them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple, and subsequent Persian rulers generally followed Cyrus’ magnanimous example.

The Greeks took no interest in the Jewish religion, with the exception of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who profaned the temple by sacrificing a pig and erecting an altar to Zeus. But Antiochus’ oppression led to the successful Maccabean Revolt, at the end of which the temple was reconsecrated (Hanukkah commemorates the reconsecration of the temple). The Maccabean Revolt inaugurated a century of Jewish self-government under the Hasmonean Kingdom; these monarchs ruled under nominal Greek Seleucid suzerainty from 141 to 110 BC, then independently from 110 to 63 BC, and finally as a client of Rome from 63 to 40 BC.

Herod the Great took advantage of a Parthian invasion to dislodge the Hasmoneans and install himself, in 37 BC, as Rome’s client ruler. Although he was an Edomite (a descendant of Esau, not of Israel) and was sometimes disrespectful of the office of high priest (he once appointed a high priest solely so that he could marry the man’s daughter), Herod spent lavishly on the temple and the city of Jerusalem. Over the course of 46 years, Herod rebuilt the temple on a grand scale, making it one of the great wonders of the ancient world.

Herod stayed in Rome’s good graces by constantly bribing and lobbying first Mark Antony (Herod named the fortress overlooking the Temple Mount the Antonia fortress in Mark Antony’s honor) and later, after Octavian (Caesar Augustus) defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, Herod bribed and sucked up to Octavian. The result was that Rome largely kept its hands off of Israel’s religion, allowing the Jews to collect a temple tax (Mat. 17:24-27), and have an armed police force to protect the temple and the national religion (Mat. 26:55; Acts 4:1-3; 21:27-30). In fact, Rome was proud to have Herod’s magnificent temple within its imperial domain.

After reviewing this history, can we say that Israel, during the final fourth of its existence as God’s chosen people, was not “in season” because of foreign domination? Not at all. To the contrary, this period was a high point in the history of the Jews—not the golden age of David and Solomon, but Israel could still have born much fruit. God had every reason to expect fruit from Israel, just as Christ had reason to expect fruit from the fig tree.

Will Carnal Israel Ever Again Play a Role in Salvation History?

So Jesus said, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Within a day, the tree had withered from the roots. Its death was obviously supernatural, awing the disciples. Just so with the Jewish nation; its death was clearly a divine judgment. In His grace, God extended them another 36 years after the close of the 490-year prophetic period, but the end in 70 AD was cataclysmic. The beautiful temple was destroyed utterly, with not one stone left upon another. A million Jews were killed and thousands more enslaved.

Is the nation of Israel ever again to play a role in salvation history? Jesus’ curse was, “may no one ever eat from you again.” Could that be any clearer? Just as no one would ever eat from that dead fig tree again, so no one will ever find the fruit of the gospel in the Jewish nation. Looking there for truth or salvation is like looking to a dead, withered tree for fruit. Individual Jews will be converted to Christ, and some of them will do a great work for the Lord, but the Jewish nation is a dead, withered tree.

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

The vineyard is present in this parable, just as in the parable of the tenants, and just as in that parable it represents people who might be saved if they are brought to the knowledge of saving truth.

The second son represents carnal Israel, who promised God, “all that you say, we will do.” (Ex. 19:8. See, also, Deut. 5:27; Jos. 24:24; Ex. 24:7; Jer. 42:6, etc.). But Israel did not do what they promised. Israel had been placed in an ideal location at the crossroads of the ancient world, but they failed of the purpose for which they were placed there. Their repeated unfaithfulness, and repeated descents into gross idolatry, led to the kingdom being split in two, with the northern 10 tribes swept away by the Assyrians in 722 BC. The remaining two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were eventually taken captive to Babylon. But God gave them one more chance. They finally sealed their fate when they rejected and killed the Messiah.

The first son represents the gentiles. The gentiles never made any promises to God. In fact, they were usually actively opposed to the God of the Bible, worshiping idols and false gods, and engaging in sexual debauchery (Psalm 2; Rom. 1:18-32). But in the Christian era, the gentiles made Christianity into a world religion. Over the course of nineteen centuries, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was introduced to the world not by their physical descendants but by their spiritual descendants, spiritual Israel, which is the Christian Church.

Now, it is true that the very first Christian evangelists were all Jews. The twelve disciples were Jews, most of the writers of the New Testament were Jews, and Paul was a Jew. But these men (1) faced fierce opposition from most of the Jews of their day, and (2) began to identify more as followers of Christ than as Jews. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, documents the change in his thinking and identity, which ends with him viewing his Jewish credentials as “garbage”:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Phil. 3:4-9.

After the first century, Jewish converts to Christianity became ever more scarce, and the work of evangelism for the past 1,900 years has been done almost exclusively by the gentiles.

So the gentiles, who said “I will not work for you,” had a change of heart and went into the Lord’s vineyard to work, with great results, carrying the gospel throughout the world and translating the Scriptures into hundreds of languages. By contrast, the Jews, who said, “we will go,” have acted as an obstacle to Christianity wherever they can. They cling to their status as descendants of Abraham and to their traditional legalistic righteousness, and have little interest in converting others to their stunted religion.

The most striking of these parables is the parable of the tenants, which is recorded in Mattew 21:33-45:

Now listen to another story. There was once a man, a land-owner, who planted a vineyard, fenced it round, dug out a hole for the wine-press and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it out to tenants and went abroad. When the vintage-time approached he sent his servants to the tenants to receive his share of the proceeds. But they took the servants, beat up one, killed another, and drove off a third with stones. Then he sent some more servants, a larger party than the first, but they treated them in just the same way.

Finally he sent his own son, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ Yet when the tenants saw the son they said to each other, ‘This fellow is the future owner. Come on, let’s kill him and we shall get everything that he would have had!’ So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Now when the owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will kill those scoundrels without mercy,” they replied, “and will lease the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him the produce at the right season.”

“And have you never read these words of scripture,” said Jesus to them: ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes?’

“Here, I tell you, lies the reason why the kingdom of God is going to be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its proper fruit.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables they realized that he was speaking about them. They longed to get their hands on him, but they were afraid of the crowds, who regarded him as a prophet.

Could this be any clearer? The Jewish religious leaders understood the parable instantly. They would have killed Jesus then and there had they been able to, because Jesus said three things they hated to hear: 1) Jesus was the Son of God, 2) the Jews were going to kill him, just as they had killed or persecuted a long series of prophets, and 3) that the work of salvation was to be taken from the Jews and given to the gentiles.

In terms of the symbolism of the vineyard, the hedge or wall around the vineyard symbolizes the moral law, or Ten Commandment law, which was a major part of what separated Israel from the nations around it. The watchtower symbolizes God’s watchfulness and protection of His people. The winepress symbolizes God’s judgment and wrath against those who reject Him, His Son, and his messengers (Isa 63:3; Rev. 14:19-20).

God had given Israel tremendous advantages, advantages given to no other people on earth. “Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises,” writes Paul in Romans 9:4. Not only was Israel “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom. 3:2), God placed them in the Levant, in the heart of the ancient world, with Sumer, Babylon, and Persia to the east, Egypt to the south, the Phoenicians and Hittites to the north, and Greece and Rome to the west. God intended to use Abraham’s descendants to bless the world. (Gen. 12:2-3)

But Israel did not give God a fair return on His investment. Israel hoarded those blessings, preventing them from reaching the other peoples of the ancient world. The Jews erected a wall of prejudice against the gentiles that prevented the truth from reaching the world beyond Israel. In so doing, they cut God out of his share of the harvest.

But the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ was far too important to hoard. The responsibility of sharing that gospel could not be left to only one nation, but must be spread among the believers of all nations. This parable is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels; in addition to Mathew, it is found in Mark 12:1-12 and Luke 20:9-19. The Holy Spirit impressed the gospel writers that this parable was a key to understanding the truth that, although salvation had been “of the Jews,” it was now to be given to followers of Christ of every nation, tribe, tongue and people.

One reason the Pharisees would have understood the parable is that Isaiah narrated a similar one (Isaiah 5:1-7), and Jesus used the same structure:

Now let me sing to my Well-beloved A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:

My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.

“And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?

And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste; It shall not be pruned or cultivated. But there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds That they rain no rain on it.”

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, And the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression; For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help. Isaiah 5:1-7.

Isaiah was prophesying the Babylonian captivity; it was to last for 70 years, during which time the vineyard of the House of Israel would lie fallow and “not be pruned or cultivated.” When Isaiah said, “I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will lay it waste,” he is referring to the physical destruction the Babylonians would wreak on Jerusalem.

A noteworthy between Isaiah’s parable and Jesus’ parable is that, in the latter, there is no threat to the structure of the vineyard. The owner (God) will not tear down the tower, the hedge, the winepress and all the good things He had built. Rather, he would kill the current tenants and lease the vineyard to others.

So Jesus’ version emphasized the continuity of the vineyard; it would continue as before, only with new tenants. The Ten Commandment law continues, but it is given to the Christian Church; God’s watchfulness and protection continues, but for the Christian Church; God’s wrath against rebellion continues, but it is directed at the enemies of Christ’s church on earth. Even the ceremonial law, the law of the sanctuary and of sacrifices, is still studied by Christians, but only to show how it was fulfilled in Christ in his death on our behalf, and how it illuminates the many aspects of Christ’s earthly and heavenly ministries. The problem was not the vineyard, but the tenants.

Jesus’ “parable” was really more of a prophecy. Everything Jesus said came true: Yes, Jesus was the Son of God; yes, the Jews killed him, yes, new tenants, including all who believe in Jesus, both Jewish and gentile, would take over the vineyard, which would come to be called the Christian Church.

Jesus’ listeners correctly guessed what the landowner would do to the current tenants: “He will kill those scoundrels without mercy.” (Phillips translation) The King James Version renders it, “He will miserably destroy those wicked men.”

Josephus recorded the fulfillment of this prophecy in his history of the Jewish Wars. The Jews rebelled against Rome in 66 AD, and legions under Cestius came to put down the rebellion. Cestius suddenly abandoned his siege of Jerusalem—allowing the Christians to escape the city—and a period of instability in the Roman Empire followed, with 69 AD becoming known as the year of four emperors. But by 70 AD, Vespasian was firmly ensconced as emperor, and sent his Son Titus to put down Judea.

Titus invested Jerusalem just days before Passover in 70 AD, and the city’s population was almost double its normal number. This led to famine and great suffering during the siege. Josephus records that during the siege some 600,000 dead bodies were thrown outside the city walls near the gate, in addition to the dead whose families were affluent enough to bury them. Both Tacitus and Josephus estimate that up to 1.1 million were killed in the siege and subsequent destruction of the city and the temple. Slavery was the fate of the women and children.

One of my favorite authors wrote:

“After the destruction of the temple, the whole city soon fell into the hands of the Romans. . . . Both the city and the temple were razed to their foundations, and the ground upon which the holy house had stood was “plowed like a field.” Jeremiah 26:18. In the siege and the slaughter that followed, more than a million of the people perished; the survivors were carried away as captives, sold as slaves, dragged to Rome to grace the conqueror’s triumph, thrown to wild beasts in the amphitheaters, or scattered as homeless wanderers throughout the earth.

The Jews had forged their own fetters; they had filled for themselves the cup of vengeance. In the utter destruction that befell them as a nation, and in all the woes that followed them in their dispersion, they were but reaping the harvest which their own hands had sown. Says the prophet: “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself;” “for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.” Hosea 13:9; 14:1.

This is also my belief, and the basis for my book on dinosaurs. But I seldom see this view expressed outside of my own religious tradition (or, for that matter, within it). Two evangelical books that explore this view are, “The Puzzle of Ancient Man” by Donald E. Chittick, now in its second addition, and “The Genius of Ancient Man” by Don Landis. But de Young comes from a religious tradition not only outside my own, but far removed from evangelical Christianity. Here is an Orthodox priest articulating this belief as something widely understood among scholars, and really not even controversial.

He notes that every civilization and culture has a story of the Flood—I reproduce many of these stories in Chapter Ten of my book. Several of these near eastern Flood legends predate the writing of the book of Genesis. For example, the Epic of Gilgamesh predates Genesis by over 300 years.

So the Genesis narrative is not trying to convince people that a global flood happened; everyone already knew that. Rather, Genesis is putting a different emphasis on the story. The Genesis narrative seeks to de-glorify that lost epoch of high achievement, and explain that God’s wrath against the world of that time was a just response to an intensely sinful people, a people whose every thought was “only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5)

de Young: “We have to understand that the flood story is not a new story when Genesis is telling it. . . . Everyone had a flood story in the ancient near east. . . . You could have asked anybody from Greece to Mesopotamia to Egypt, they would have all agreed, at that point, that, yes, there was this advanced civilization, there was a Flood that destroyed it, current civilization is rebuilt after that.

Carlson: Yes.

de Young: Now, one of the key differences in Genesis 6, that you already have in those first four verses, is Genesis recasts what that civilization was like. So, in the pagan sources, that pre-Flood world was this golden age of, for the time, high technology . . . losing that world was this great tragedy.

Carlson: But everyone agreed it was a more advanced world than the world they lived in.

de Young: Yes, yes. That there was knowledge there that had now been mostly lost.

Carlson: Interesting.

This view of history has a very important apologetic resonance. In the Darwinian story, mankind works his way up by thousands of generations of striving and struggle from a simian to a human, and once we achieve humanity, then we go from simple tools to high technology. It is a story of tremendous, really miraculous achievement, without the help of any superior being. It also totally removes the notion of God, a “Fall” into sin, and the need for a Savior.

The view I espouse is that when God created man, mankind was as good as he was ever going to be: taller, stronger, longer-lived, and much smarter than he would ever be again. When that humanity fell into sin, he sinned in an outsized ultra-violent way; he had the intelligence to tinker with, and re-engineer, the life forms God had created, and he used it. That kind of fallen humanity was simply intolerable, and God had to destroy him. After the Flood, mankind grew rapidly smaller, weaker, shorter-lived, and much, much less intelligent. We have less time and ability to do good, but also less time and ability to do evil, which, sadly, is what fallen humanity is so prone to do.

I do not endorse everything de Young says. For example, there is a fairly lengthy discussion of the Nephilim; both men believe the Nephilim were the products of the mating of fallen angels or demons with human women. As discussed at length both in my dinosaur book (see, Chapter 18, pages 395-404, and footnotes 18, 23, and 26) and in my series on giants, here, I do not agree with their views on the Nephilim or many other things in this video.

De Young concedes more to atheistic origins science than he should, and than Tucker wants to concede. At the 1:01 minute mark, Tucker mentions the well documented 19th century finds of giant skeletal remains in mounds, caves, and elsewhere, and that the Smithsonian Institute covered up the evidence:

There are a million reports from the 19th Century in North America and the U.S. of people finding nine foot-tall skeletons in some cave in Nevada. They were all destroyed by the Smithsonian. Is any of that true?

De Young demurs, saying that science has found no hard evidence. But Tucker is right. I’ve researched and written on this topic extensively. There are many reports of such finds, more than enough to conclude, in a biblical model of history, that mankind has gradually evolved from larger to smaller. It is almost as though Tucker read my article.

Like Pastor Ron Kelly, I am impressed that Tucker Carlson is a genuine seeker for truth. He is seeking truth on topics I would not expect him to. The heresy of Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism have pushed Tucker away from conservative American evangelicalism and toward the Orthodox, who at least get that issue right. But he is going to need to keep seeking.

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Here, we will explore the Christian Zionist claim that carnal Israel persists, and is not superseded by spiritual Israel, the Christian Church. We will begin with John the Baptist. When some of the Jewish religious leaders came to see what John was doing, he told them to repent and demonstrate the fruits of repentance, and that they could not fall back on their ancestry:

“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Mat. 3:7-10.

The Pharisees did not think they needed to repent, because they were Jews in good standing, descendants of Abraham. John anticipated this, and told them that descent from Abraham, being of carnal Israel, was worthless, of no salvific value whatsoever. God could turn the rocks into descendants of Abraham—if He wanted more carnal descendants of Abraham, which He doesn’t. God wants more spiritual descendants of Abraham, those who demonstrate Abraham’s faith. (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:1-22; Gal. 3:6-9; Heb. 11:8-10, 17-19).

The only thing that saves is an individual decision for Jesus Christ. If these Pharisees and Sadducees did not make that decision, they would be cut down and thrown into the fire, just like any tree that does not produce fruit. “The ax is already at the root of the trees,” said John, meaning that the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the temple—and the death or enslavement of a million Jews—were but 43 years away. What was going to matter in the coming years was not one’s bloodline, but only conversion to Christ. Not one Christian died in the cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and no true Christian will be burned in the coming lake of fire.

I quoted this story from Matthew 3, but there is a parallel passage in Luke 3. Importantly, both Matthew and Luke are careful to point out that John’s ministry was a fulfillment of Isaiah prophecy in chapter 40, verses 3-5:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way for the Lord,

make straight paths for him.

Every valley shall be filled in,

every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight,

the rough ways smooth.

And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

Here is more evidence that the Old Testament prophesies point to the Christian era, and another nail in the coffin for the notion of trying to interpret the Old Testament without reference to Jesus Christ.

Jesus also tried to make the Jews see that what mattered was faith and obedience, not ancestry. John chapter 8 records a jarring confrontation between Jesus and some Jews who, John writes, “believed him.” Or at least they said they believed in him. But the subsequent conversation indicates otherwise. Jesus told them that the truth they would find in Him would set them free. But the conversation turned immediately to ancestry, which the Jews believed justified them and set them free:

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” John 8:31-33

Jesus responded by clarifying that He was speaking about slavery to sin, and that only He, Jesus, can impart that kind of freedom:

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:34-36

As to their claim that freedom came from the ancestry, Jesus was even more cutting than John the Baptist had been:

I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

“Abraham is our father,” they answered.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.” John 8:37-41.

“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, but they were not Abraham’s children in the spiritual sense, and that is the only sense that matters. Being fleshly descendants of Abraham caused the Jews to lean on something they thought had value, instead of making the spiritual decisions and commitments that really do have value. Being a physical descendant of Abraham, because of the false sense of security it entails, did far more harm to the Jews than good. It was and is a trap. They thought, and think, that they are safe as a physical descendants of Abraham when they were, and are, spiritual children of the Devil!

John the Baptist taught that being a physical descendant of Abraham was as worthless as a pile of rocks; Jesus taught that being a physical descendant of Abraham was worse than worthless, because, for most of them, the Jews’ faith in their carnal descent from Abraham precluded saving faith in Jesus Christ.

The Christians are now the heirs of the promises made to Abraham and his descendants: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3:28-29. Clearly, carnal Israel has been superseded by Spiritual Israel, which is the Christian Church.

No Confidence in the Flesh!

Anyone putting his faith in carnal Israel, in being a physical descendant of Abraham, is lost eternally. Salvation by faith in Christ is the only salvation there is (John 3:16; 14:6; Acts 4:12; Rom. 10:9). And salvation means means putting away faith in the flesh or in the rituals of the flesh:

“Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.” Phil. 3:2-3

“If you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no use to you at all!” Gal. 5:2.

The early Christians Paul was addressing were called “Judaizers.” These Judaizers were hedging their bets; they were building a syncretistic Christianity in which faith in Christ is supplemented by faith in Judaism and its rites. Paul nipped that in the bud with his stark warning against circumcision, and other things (Col. 2:16).

Yet today we find the “Christian Zionists” constructing their own syncretistic religion, blending elements of Christianity and Judaism, searching for a perfect red heifer to sacrifice and inaugurate the resumption of the temple sacrifices—as if it were not a blasphemous denial of the efficacy of the once-and-for-all death of Christ as our atoning sacrifice to re-start temple sacrifices! To paraphrase Paul, if you let yourselves search for a red heifer, Christ will be of no use to you at all!

In one of the most poignant passages in all Scripture, Paul says this about confidence in carnal Israel:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God through faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Phil. 3:4-11

Those fleshly qualifications that seemed so important to Paul before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus—of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee—he now views as what? Garbage! Trash! None of it matters at all! None of it has any importance next to being found in Jesus Christ.

The Children of the Promise are Israel

As Paul was at pains to make clear in several passages, carnal Israel never mattered. It was not Abraham’s genes that mattered; Ishmael was Abraham’s first-born son, and every bit as much a physical, carnal descendant of Abraham as Isaac was, but Isaac was the child of the promise:

“Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” (Rom. 9:7-8)

The promised one, the Messiah, is Jesus Christ (John 1:41; 4:25-26; 11:27; Luke 2:11; Mark 14:61-62; Mat. 16:16). If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. We Christians are children of the promise. We and we alone, are Israel.

Dispensationalism, or Christian Zionism, rests upon five main pillars regarding how Scripture is to be interpreted:

1. Christians may not interpret an Old Testament narrative or prophecy from a Christian perspective. We must interpret it as applying only to physical, carnal Israel.

2. Spiritual Israel, the Christian Church, does not supersede carnal Israel, in terms of the promises made to “Israel” in the Old Testament

3. The Christian church is not the new or true Israel. Israel and the Christian church remain two distinct groups, and God has a different way to the Jews than to the Christians.

4. Although most Dispensatonalists will grudgingly admit that personal salvation, for both Jews and Gentiles, depends upon faith in Jesus Christ, they nevertheless maintain that God has a special relationship with the Jews who reject Christ; Christ-rejecting Jews are still God’s chosen people.

5. God will save and restore carnal Israel, as a nation, and give it a unique role and identity in a future millennial kingdom.

In this episode, we will discuss the first pillar of Christian Zionism.

Pillar No. 1: We must Not Interpret the Old Testament Through a Christian Lens??

The claim that Christians must not interpret the Old Testament writings through the lens of Christianity runs up against two serious obstacles.

First, we know that the writers of the Old Testament were inspired (1 Tim. 3:16) by the same Holy Spirit who inspired the writers of the New Testament. Hence, there is every reason to expect that the Holy Spirit inspired both sets of writers to produce a document united in its doctrines, in the truths it teaches. There is every reason to expect that the Old Testament writers were given messages with dual application, applying not only to the Hebrews but to Christians as well.

To reject the idea that the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures could have been writing for a future Christian audience is to reject the unity of inspiration of the Scriptures. In effect, it is to approach the study of the word of God with naturalistic, atheistic assumptions. It is to approach the Scriptures as a skeptic rather than as a believer.

Second, Jesus Himself and all the New Testament writers taught us by their example how to interpret the Old Testament. They quoted Old Testament passages in support of Messianic and specifically Christian teachings. They did this continually, throughout the New Testament.

Even before His death, Jesus began the process of interpreting the Old Testament along Messianic lines, when He taught that He fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures. He said:

“You pore over the Scriptures because you presume that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very words that testify about Me.” John 5:39

“But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” John 5:45-47.

Jesus’ disciples, even while Jesus was still alive, understood that He was fulfilling what was written in the Old Testament:

“Philip found Nathanael and told him, ‘We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law, the One the prophets foretold—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.’” John 1:45

While He was on the cross, Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mat. 27:46. Although Jesus quoted only the first verse, from a reading of the whole chapter, it is obvious that Psalm 22 is a Messianic prophecy pointing to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ:

All who see me mock me;
they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
“let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
since he delights in him.”

Dogs surround me,
a pack of villains encircles me;
they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display;
people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment.

Then, after His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus intensified the process of explaining how the Old Testament prophecies applied to Him:

“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then to enter His glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself.” Luke 24:26-27

“Jesus said to them, ‘These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.’” Luke 24:44.

So Jesus has clearly stated that what is written in the Torah, and the Prophets and the Psalms—which is the entire Old Testament—points forward to Himself, Jesus Christ.

In addition to Jesus—who ought to be enough—the other writers of the New Testament did the same thing, interpreting the Old Testament to apply to Jesus Christ. Paul opens the book of Romans by writing:

“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God, the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 1:1-4.

Who was foretold by the prophets in the Old Testament Scriptures? Jesus Christ our Lord. This is a constant refrain in the book of Acts:

“And now we proclaim to you the good news: What God promised our fathers He has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.’” Acts 13:32-33, quoting Psalm 2.

So the Second Psalm was pointing forward to Christ and was fulfilled in Christ.

Peter preached at Pentecost that Psalm 110 was a Messianic prophecy fulfilled by Christ:

“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:

“Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.”’ Acts 2:29-35.

And Peter continues in this vein in his Pentecost sermon:

“Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer. Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. . . . For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’[Deut. 18:15,18,19]

“Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.’[Gen. 22:18; 26:4]” Acts 3:17-26.

All the Old Testament prophets foretold Christ, and many foretold His death on the cross.

Can anyone read Isaiah 53 and not see a very poignant portrait of Jesus Christ? Dr. Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, tells us that, yes, Isaiah 53 is a Messianic prophecy that was fulfilled in Christ. Philip is told to stay near the chariot of the Eunach, who is the treasurer of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia:

This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,

so he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” Acts 8:32-35.

How dare anyone say that we must not interpret Isaiah 53 as applying to Jesus Christ when Holy Spirit clearly states that Isaiah was writing of Christ?

In Acts chapter 13, we find Paul preaching at a synagogue in Antioch (Acts 13:13-41), showing the people how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures, including Psalm 2:7, Isa. 55:3, Psalm 16:10, and Habakkuk 1:5. Paul and Barnabas were invited back for the next Sabbath, but in the meantime the Jews organized against them, and prevented them from teaching in the synagogue the next Sabbath:

“Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.” Acts 13:46.

“To the Jew first, and then to the Greek,” does not go on forever. It applied to the apostles during the period from 34 AD, when the Gospel was first preached to the gentiles, until the destruction of the Jerusalem in 70 AD. During this time, the apostles almost always followed the pattern of going first to the Jewish synagogues, and only later to the Gentiles.

And when they went to the Jewish synagogues to preach Christ, they always preached out of the Old Testament. Those Jews who were willing to study the Hebrew Scriptures with fresh eyes were converted to the faith:

As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men. Acts 17:10-12

Remember, there was no New Testament at this time, so the Hebrew Scriptures were the only Scriptures; the Greek Scriptures (the New Testament) although they were being written as letters and other writings during this time, did not exist as an accepted canon until centuries later. Let’s think about this “Berean” passage carefully, using a dialog or question and answer format:

Q: What did Paul and Silas do when they arrived at a new city?

A: They went to the synagogues to preach Christ to the Jews.

Q: What did they preach out of the when preaching Christ in the synagogues?

A: They preached out of the Old Testament, because a), the Old Testament was the Scriptures, and b) the Old Testament was, and is, all about Jesus Christ.

Q: Which Jews were Paul and Silas able to convert?

A: The ones who “fact checked” Paul and Silas out of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures.

Q: So you’re telling me that what converted these Berean Jews (as opposed to most of the other Jews the apostles preached to) was that they went back and re-read the Old Testament passages and saw that they clearly pointed to Jesus Christ as the Messiah?

A: Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. The Berean Jews were converted to Christianity because they went back and read the Hebrew Scriptures with “fresh eyes,” and they saw Jesus in those Scriptures. They saw how the messianic prophecies, such as Isaiah 53, and Psalm 22, pointed to Jesus Christ.

In his last sermon recorded in the book of Acts, Paul quotes Isaiah 6:9-10:

They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus. Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet:

“‘Go to this people and say,

“You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.”

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears,

and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes,

hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts

and turn, and I would heal them.’

“Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!” Acts 28:23-28.

Clearly, Jesus and the apostles interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures along Christian lines. Christ repeatedly emphasized that the entire Old Testament—Law, Psalms, and Prophets—was about Himself. The apostles in their missionary journeys adopted a pattern of going first to the synagogues and explaining to the Jews, using the Hebrew Scriptures, that Jesus was the Messiah who fulfilled the prophecies. They showed how Christ fulfilled everything written in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Instead of following the example of Christ and the apostles, the dispensationalists have based their theology on a non-Christian—one can fairly say anti-Christian—interpretation of the Old Testament. They demand that the Old Testament not be re-interpreted in the light of the New. Without being clear about what they are doing, the dispensationalists privilege the Old Testament over and above the New Testament.

Non-dispensationalists, by contrast, form their theology from the explicit teaching of the New Testament. We insist that the teaching of the New Testament be used to interpret the Old Testament, which is what Christ, His disciples, and the apostles all did.

Dispensationalism is a non-Christian belief system. It seeks to interpret the Scriptures in a non-Christian manner. It is doing a great deal of damage.

God in Christ ended the distinction between Jew and gentile. (Gal. 3:28; Rom. 10:12). The “chosen people” are now whoever believes in Jesus Christ, regardless whether he be genetically Jew or gentile. (Col. 3:11-12; 1 Pet. 2:9-10)

Through Christ God is making a new humanity that includes believing Jews and believing gentiles, an issue discussed is in Ephesians 2:11-18:

“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” Eph. 2:14-18

God made the two groups, Jew and gentile, into one, and not into one nation (ethnos) or ethnicity, but into one new humanity (anthropon), and that new humanity is based upon a living and vital faith in Jesus Christ, not upon genetics or genealogy. We are no longer believing Jews and believing gentiles, we are now one people called spiritual Israel.

If you do not understand the concept of spiritual Israel, you cannot properly interpret Scripture. Every prophecy in Scripture that applies to the time after 70 AD and uses the term “Israel” is referring to the Christian church. The Israel of God in prophecy consists of those who follow Jesus Christ.

It is the failure to understand the concept of spiritual Israel that leads to absurditiess such as the idea that the temple at Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and the temple sacrifices, including the famous red heifer, will resume—as though all those sacrifices and rituals had not been fulfilled in Christ!

Unfortunately, many argue that conservative Christians are bound to support the modern state of Israel, no matter what that state does, and for the last few years Israel has been pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. My point is not a political one, but a spiritual/theological point: Christians must dispense with the pernicious and discrediting idea that we are bound to support whatever the modern state of Israel does. That idea is destroying the witness of American conservative Christianity; the need to clarify that the modern state of Israel is not biblical Israel has never been more acute, never been more urgent.

The Jews, as a people, were given a probationary time of 490 years, ending in 34 AD. (Daniel 9:20-27) After the expiration of the 490 years, the gospel was to go to the gentiles; the Jews, as a biological or genetic nation, exit Bible prophecy. God could not have made any clearer that the Jews’ probation ended in 34 AD than by allowing the pagan Romans to destroy the temple and kill and enslave much of the Jewish nation, in 70 AD. The Jews as a nation rejected Christ; hence their destruction at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD was a judgment they brought upon themselves.

They had plenty of chances to repent, as Jesus told them in no uncertain terms:

He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.

Christ’s death and resurrection is one fulfillment of the “sign of Jonah,” but there is another:

“When God saw [the repentance of Nineveh] and how they turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Jonah was angry with God for extending grace to Nineveh. He claimed it was this very threat of God’s mercy being extended to the gentiles that caused him to run to Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh. In the end, Jonah thought it better to die than to live with the ignominy of God forgiving the gentiles. This, ultimately, is the Jews’ corporate position with regard to Christianity: they would rather die than see God save the gentiles, and lose their special “chosen” status.

The idea that Israel continues on as a chosen nation, parallel to the Christian Church, is simply not tenable. We all come to Christ as individuals, not as nations or groups. Believing Jews come to God just as believing gentiles, through faith in Christ. Whoever believes in Christ is part of Israel; whoever rejects Christ is not Israel, even if he can trace his genealogy back to Abraham.

“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Col. 3:11-12