Witnesses of Israel’s ‘Resurrection’
By: David Parsons, ICEJ Vice President & Senior Spokesman
“For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (Romans 11:15)
As Israel prepares to mark 75 years since its modern-day rebirth in May 1948, the impact of that dramatic event is still reverberating to this day. So, what does Israel’s return to the world stage mean for us as Christians today?
To begin with, Israel’s national rebirth did involve birth pangs, as it is forever linked to the Holocaust. The ‘miracle’ of restored Jewish sovereignty in the historic Land of Israel took place just three years after the Nazi genocide against the Jews ended.
The Holocaust marked the lowest point of the Jewish people’s long, hard journey of wandering among the nations. Yet only three years later, they suddenly managed to attain national independence back in their ancestral homeland.
Amazingly, the Apostle Paul declared long ago that Israel’s last-days ingathering would be like “life from the dead!” (Romans 11:15) This means the rebirth of Israel is nothing less than the resurrection power of God still at work in the earth today!
Paul based his teaching on Israel’s revival in Romans 11 on numerous Old Testament passages, such as Isaiah 6 and Jeremiah chapters 24 and 31. The Hebrew prophets describe Israel’s final restoration as a two-phase process, starting with the physical ingathering of the Jews back to the Land of Israel in unbelief, and then their spiritual ingathering back to God by a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. “Return to Me and I will return to you”, the Lord states quite plainly in Zechariah 1:3 and Malachi 3:7. But perhaps the clearest prophetic passages on how Israel’s promised restoration would play out can be found in Ezekiel chapters 36 and 37.
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