A Covenant to Come

“Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23. Scriptures from RVIC unless otherwise noted).

— Len Griehs

In October 2004, a group of more than 70 rabbis tried to reestablish the Sanhedrin, the high tribunal of ancient Israel disbanded in the 5th century following Christian persecution of Jews. The goal of this modern Sanhedrin was to act as the upper house of the Knesset and become the supreme court of Israel. Their agenda included rebuilding the temple on the Temple Mount, using the Torah to make moral decisions for Israel, identifying the Messiah, and announcing him to all of Israel. Generally opposed by Israel’s ultra‑Orthodox Jews (the Haredi) and following four years of debate, the group’s leader resigned, bringing the effort to a close.

Announcing the Messiah

In contrast, the holy prophets Zechariah and Jeremiah prophesied that Jehovah will reveal the Messiah to Israel. This will result in Israel’s great remorse, when they learn their Messiah, was indeed Jesus: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication … and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for the firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10).

While this desire to follow the scriptures is notable, the ruling council that Jehovah will raise up to lead Israel is a far greater group‑‑the resurrected Ancient Worthies. They will be the faithful men and women promised to be resurrected on earth soon after the Church is completed (Psalm 45:16, Micah 5:5). These faithful men and women of ancient times are prophesied to become Christ’s visible representatives on earth during God’s righteous Kingdom. At the same time, Jesus and his Church will rule from the heavens. The Divine government of God’s Kingdom will be established in the heavens with its earthly representatives in Israel. This Divine government will rule over all secular governments.

Jehovah’s righteous government will be the administrative branch of God’s New Covenant made with Israel. “Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them; saith Jehovah” (Jeremiah 31:31, 32).

This New Covenant will replace the old Law Covenant, under which Israel and all Jews have been held accountable. “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first covenant old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away” (Hebrews 8:13).

Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah at his first advent were released from the rigors of the Law Covenant. When the New Covenant is inaugurated, Israel will also be released from it as they accept their Messiah. What the first covenant could not accomplish — eternal life on earth — the second can and will. Since the Law Covenant did not promise spiritual life, neither does the second. The New Covenant does, however, promise eternal life‑on earth‑for those who can keep it. Eventually, all men and women will recognize Jesus. It will be evident to all that Israel will have become the center of God’s kingdom, and they, too, will opt into the New Covenant themselves (Zechariah 8:23).

Preparing Israel for the New Covenant

Although establishing a New Covenant with Israel will be the first work of the Messianic Age, the preliminary work began over 150 years ago. In 1868, Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew, was appointed Prime Minister by Queen Victoria of England when the previous Prime Minister, Lord Derby, resigned. Disraeli suffered defeat within months, but in 1874 he ran again and became the first and only elected Jewish Prime Minister. (He would not have been eligible, except as a youth, his father became enraged at the synagogue and had his sons baptized in the Anglican Church.) His election would prove to be an incredible turning point for Jews and the land of Palestine. The Jews had suffered God’s disfavor for the previous 1845 years for their rejection of Jesus in 33 AD. “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate” (Matthew 23:38). In December 1917, British General Allenby captured Jerusalem from the Turks, and the Ottoman Empire, which had controlled Jerusalem, soon fell.¹

(1) This ended 1335 prophetic years (a prophetic year is 360 days) of Islam power which had desolated Israel and trodden down Jerusalem.

A dark period of antisemitism, from 1924 to 1945, gave rise to a reborn Israel in 1948.² Only 600,000 Jews returned to Palestine when the nation was reborn, but emigration exploded after the War of Independence and has produced a 12‑fold growth in the Jewish population of Israel, which will soon reach seven million.

(2) See RVIC Daniel 11:45.

Sins Must Be Removed

No other nation that had been destroyed had ever risen again. For students of scripture, Israel’s rebirth is a strong and visible sign that we are in the final days of this present evil world and on the verge of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ and “the restitution of all things” (Acts 3:20‑21).

However, Israel is not yet ready for the New Covenant. First, the nation must be cleansed from its sins. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people” (Hebrews 8:10).

Paul said that the Torah could not “make perfect” (Hebrews 10:1). Only Jesus, without Adamic sin, could be sinless under the Law. Martin Luther King Jr. captured the idea by saying, “laws cannot change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” Jesus had a pure heart because he knew God personally (Matthew 5:8) and, as God’s son, although human, did not inherit Adam’s sinful condition. Jesus could keep the Covenant. Those 613 laws could not remove inherent tendencies. From the beginning, the Law was a “schoolmaster” to bring the Jewish nation to Christ (Galatians 3:24). The New Covenant, when implemented, will change the heart. “ I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:33, 34). In the time of deliverance
during Jacob’s Trouble, God will demonstrate to the nation that He is the God of Abraham, and that He is now ready to fulfill all the promises made to Abraham.

As the Logos, the pre‑human Jesus needed to be born human to redeem Adam and his progeny (Philippians 2:6‑8; 1 Timothy 2:6). However, more was required; he needed to relieve the burden of the Law. That required that he be born a Jew (Galatians 4:5). “And for this cause he is mediator of a new covenant, that a death having come for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:15). The Apostle Paul explains that Jesus’ death not only provided a ransom for Adam and thus a release from sin for the whole world, but it also provided the release of the nation of Israel from the burden of sins under the Law Covenant.

Biblical Zionists First

Zionism is the movement for the self‑determination of the Jewish people and national statehood in their ancestral homeland of Israel. The first generation of Jews who settled by 1948 have all but disappeared. They had survived the Holocaust and embraced Zionism. The majority of Jews around the world feel a connection or kinship with the land of Israel, whether or not they explicitly identify as Zionists, and regardless of their opinions on the policies of the Israeli government.

In the late 1800s, the “father” of modern Zionism, Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl, consolidated various strands of Zionist thought into an organized political movement, advocating for international recognition of an independent and sovereign Jewish state. Today, with a powerful Jewish sovereign state a reality, Zionists believe in and support the right of the democratic State of Israel to exist as a Jewish homeland. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world.

Being a Zionist is distinct from supporting the policies of the Israeli government. Jews embracing and returning to a nation of their own is testimony that God’s promises to Abraham and his offspring are real (Amos 3:2).

According to the Jewish Virtual Library, almost half of those under 20 years of age living in Israel today identify as secular. A recent poll found that only two‑thirds (66.6%) of the nearly seven million Jews living in Israel were “very proud” to be Israeli. One quarter (25%) of the current population are non‑Jewish. While there is a growing commitment to the nation of Israel, there are still several Jews living in Israel today wo do not possess the commitment to Zionism that drove early settlement. Perhaps this vulnerable group will be especially subject to the difficulties described in the prophecies of Zechariah 14 and Ezekiel 20:33‑44.

“For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (Zechariah 14:2).

Some may flee Israel during the attack of Gog and its associates. “And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me; I will bring them forth out of the land where they sojourn, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am Jehovah” (Ezekiel 20:37, 38).

Return of the Rebels

Zechariah 12 portrays the resurrection and rise to prominence of the Ancient Worthies before the attack by Gog and Magog, as described in Ezekiel 38. It will be these men and women of old who will convince the people to stand back and watch God rescue them in a mighty show of power. God’s miraculous salvation from certain ruin will bring about a day of awakening like never has been. They will then recognize their past sin of rejecting Messiah and “shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for the firstborn … In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad‑rimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; the family of the Shimeites apart, and their wives apart, all that families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart” (Zechariah 12:10‑14).

Finally, the New Covenant will go into effect. “And you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you. Instead, I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations” (Ezekiel 36:28‑30 NASB95).

At that time, Zechariah says there will be an observance of the Feast of Tabernacles in the land. This feast is called Sukkot, or The Feast of Booths. It was observed in ancient Israel to celebrate the ingathering of the year’s crops. It was first celebrated in recognition of the prosperous settlement in the land after its sojourning (Leviticus 23:34‑36).

Any who left Israel during the last days of trouble (Ezekiel 20:38) will return, ready to participate in this life under the New Covenant. “And they shall bring all your brethren out of all the nations for an oblation unto Jehovah, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters. and upon mules, and upon dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, as the children of Israel bring their oblation in a clean vessel into the house of Jehovah” (Isaiah 66:20).

Today, this may seem like a fable to unbelievers. Yet God’s Word is sure and our faith should be strong. Let us echo the prayer for God’s hasty installation of His Righteous Kingdom, beginning with the New Covenant inaugurated in Israel. The closing words of a discourse titled, Jacob’s Trouble by Bro. Albert O. Hudson, picture it this way:

“The time may seem to be prolonged, as men measure time, but the development of the things which now are seen into those that shall be is ordained and irrevocable. This world will one day perceive the reality of that which was presented in pictorial prophetic form by Joel, by Isaiah, by Ezekiel, by Daniel, by Zechariah, by John the Revelator, and in that perception realize that the arena has been cleared for the greatest and most soul‑stirring event with which this indifferent and unbelieving modern world could possibly be confronted.”