Does The Church Replace Israel - Part Three

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Did you ever play the game “Blind Man’s Buff”? Some call it “Blind Man’s Bluff,” but originally, the word was “Buff” because those taunting the blinded man would buffet or strike him. I never particularly liked this game since it involved being blindfolded, spun around, and sometimes tripping or running into a wall while trying to tap one of the taunting kids so they would become “it.”[1] But notice, without the blindfold, there was no game.

 

Many say life is a game, yet in reality, it’s a plan—God’s plan. The Creator desired a love relationship with His creation, but love cannot exist without free will. Therefore, God gave angels and humans freedom to choose: Love or hate, acceptance or rejection.

 

Satan chose hate and rejection, and then incited the first humans to disobey God’s command. Deceived or not, Eve and then Adam ate the fruit and brought sin into the world. Did sin catch God off guard? No, He had a plan in place before creation to punish sin and Satan, and to bring all people back to Himself.[2] Yet how He would do this was a mystery, a hidden truth, something people wouldn’t fully understand. Why? Because…

 

God’s plan included a translucent blindfold

for His chosen people, Israel

 

Paul penned, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”[3]

   

So, if Israel’s partial blindness would last only UNTIL the fullness of the Gentiles came in, when did it begin? Was it before or after Israel rejected Messiah Jesus? And when would it end?

 

As the second generation of Israelites stood in the wilderness ready to enter the Promised Land, God had Moses remind them of the LORD’s goodness in their deliverance from Egypt, the intense trials, the signs, and great wonders their eyes had seen. But then Moses spoke a puzzling statement. He said, “Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.”[4]

   

What? Yes, the LORD had not given Israel full spiritual understanding, hearing, or eyes to see, even way back then. And when God commissioned Isaiah, He echoed the same. “…Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.’”[5]

 

Jesus, God the Son, said Israel’s blindness continued. So, His baffled disciples asked, “…Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given…Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled…”[6]

 

You have to wonder what kind of person would create and choose a people group, deliberately blind them so they have trouble seeing or understanding truth, then punish these people by cutting them off for the very same reason of being blind. It’s kind of like “Blind Man’s Buff,” striking the blinded man. It’s cruel, and seems inconsistent with God’s character, for He is LOVE.

 

So, there must be something more.

 

Oh, I understand our sin nature, free will, and everyone’s opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And I know it’s by God’s grace through faith that both Gentiles and Jews are saved, spiritually becoming Abraham’s seed.[7] That’s why Israel’s blindness was partial. In this church age, Jews can choose Jesus and become part of the church, destined to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, before Daniel’s 70^th week begins.[8]

 

God sent Gabriel to give Daniel a timeline for His plan. “Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city…”[9] These are seventy weeks of years or 490 years, divided into three portions: seven weeks – 49 years, sixty-two weeks – 434 years, and one week – 7 years.[10]

 

But notice, these weeks are for Daniel’s people, Israel, and Daniel’s holy city, Jerusalem, NOT the church. With Jesus’s crucifixion, sixty-nine of the seventy weeks were fulfilled.

 

And the LORD hit pause.

 

For almost 2,000 years, the world has been waiting and wondering when the remaining One week—the time of great tribulation and Jacob’s trouble—would begin.[11]

 

We’ll talk more next month.  

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[1] https://empoweredparents.co/blind-mans-bluff-game/

[2] I Peter 1:18-20; Revelation 13:8; John 12:32

[3] Romans 11:25

[4] Deuteronomy 29:3-4

[5] Isaiah 6:9-10

[6] Matthew 13:10-15

[7] Galatians 3:26-29

[8] John 1:12; Ephesians 2:8-9; I Thessalonians 4:15-18; Dan 9:27

[9] Daniel 9:24a

[10] Daniel 9:25-27

[11] Matthew 24:21; Revelation Chapters 6 – 18; Jeremiah 30:7