What is the necessity of physical Israel?
1 - It was established by YHVH as a people group separated out from all others and identified by their worship of YHVH alone.
2 - This set apart people would be host to the seed established at Creation that would bring redemption and defeat death
3 - Physical Israel would be a mirror image of Eternal Israel - as in heaven, so on earth. It would present shadows, types, and patterns of the heavenly to be seen on earth.
Covenants of YHVH with His people:
1- Abrahamic Covenant - Both natural and spiritual in scope. Abraham would father the Physical people of Israel, YHVH’s inheritance, through physical sons. He would also be the Father of spiritual Israel through adoption, accepting by faith what was promised.
2 - Mosaic Covenant - Reiteration of Torah codified on tablets of stone for the set apart people in order to exemplify the Truth of their God, for all physical descendants of Jacob as well as those of other nations who would join themselves in covenant with YHVH Elohim.
3 - (Re)New(ed) Covenant - Re-establishing of the Torah AND the prophets through the Living Word of Messiah Yeshua in conjunction with the pre-existing spiritual covenant with all mankind.
RETURN VS RESTORATION
Israel’s current return to the Land did not include repentance for breaking the Mosaic Law OR for rejecting Messiah. Israel was formed as a secular state, self-determined, and founded on democratic principles - a Greek system. The return cannot be viewed as the restoration of Israel as it stands today without satisfying YHVH’s requirement for repentance. This is not to say YHVH’s hand is not involved.
YHVH uses many things to accomplish His purpose. We know that He is righteous, but it does not follow that what He uses is righteous. His employment of something does not define or validate that He approves it or takes pleasure in it. The fact that He has been instrumental in the return of Israel to the Land is witness to HIs faithfulness, not the arrogance of unrepentant men. To interpret what He has done as proof that He has restored Israel in spite of her idolatrous heart, is a grave misunderstanding and lack of awareness in rightly dividing the Word of Truth.
restore: bring back into existence or use; put back into former or original state; put again in possession of something
regenerate: spiritual renewal or revival; restoration of a body part after injury
Returned Israel is predominantly unbelieving - a people whose unbelief is being disciplined by their God who is pleading with them for regeneration. He has brought them back to the place where they rejected His son and giving them an opportunity to reconsider and repent. As long as Israel competes with world powers for political dominance, they will remain divided along party lines. YHVH’s purpose has and always will be establishing a physical and spiritual Israel as a unified people in Covenant relationship with YHVH Elohim, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The return is not about laying claim to the Land. The Land is YHVH’s and only conditionally, Israel’s.
Isaiah 43
Israel has been brought back to answer for her unbelief. The focus is on redemption (v.1). Just as this prophecy presents claims against Israel under the Roman occupation of Yeshua’s time, it speaks of Israel today needing redemption as they sit under United Nations and world political domination. Is YHVH picking up where He left off?
Matt 13:13-14
See Yeshua’s words re: Israel. Isaiah prophesied the unbelieving generation of Messiah and we see the cycle of prophecy repeating itself today. Just as the Jews of Yeshua’s day occupied the Land but were not regenerated - so today Israel is occupying the Land without the Spirit of regeneration, of redemption and repentance.
The occupation of the Land by Jews is definitely YHVH’s doing. Without this precursor and subsequent lack of peace due to unbelief, there is no hope of a completed Israel, both physical and spiritual. YHVH’s plan unfolds in degrees of kindness and severity designed to reveal Himself to His people as their God and Savior.
YHVH is clear. HIS land is not inherited by unseeing, unhearing, unbelieving, and unrepentant Israel. YHVH has been patient. His people have longed for a homeland, the Land promised to Jacob (Israel) through Abraham. This desire is part of how they are created, however the greater longing for YHVH and His Redeemer is veiled behind a political desire for national prominence, among other things. They are “blinded” as it were. The longing will not, indeed cannot be satisfied until they see past the Land as their ultimate objective and surrender to the deeper innate longing for the God of their Father’s, the only One who can complete them.