By Cris D. Putnam
In Vatican City, on October 10, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI opened the Synod of Bishops’ Special Assembly for the Middle East at St. Peter’s Basilica. The synod took place at the Vatican from Oct. 10–24 under the theme: “The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness.” Speaking as the alleged Vicar of Christ, the pontifex maximus said the Promised Land is “not of this world” and that Israel is not an earthly kingdom. His words are not surprising as the Roman Catholic Church has historically led the way in promoting supercessionism (replacement theology) by denying ethnic Israel’s place in God’s plan. According to the pope’s biblical eisegesis, “He reveals Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (cf. Ex 3:6), who wants to lead his people to the ‘land’ of freedom and peace. This ‘land’ is not of this world; the whole of the divine plan goes beyond history, but the Lord wants to build it with men, for men and in men, beginning with the coordinates of space and time in which they live and which He Himself gave them.”[1]
While it is true that God’s plan ultimately transcends time and space, it simply cannot be denied that the Lord meant a literal land in His promises to the patriarchs. However, the pope is not so naïve; rather, he is promoting an agenda by painting the Promised Land as a metaphysical abstraction. His political and theological overtones reflect the Vatican’s consistent position that “Jerusalem cannot belong to one state.”[2] Rome ostensibly pleads the case of Palestinians and Catholics who want to make pilgrimage but in truth, there is a wealth of evidence that the Vatican wants to possess Jerusalem as its own
Furthermore, the pope’s homily is harbinger of the coming tribulation or “time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7). Like Paul in Romans 11:25, Jesus also said that Jerusalem would be occupied by gentiles until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled, just prior to His Second Coming.
“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Lk 21:24).
Several important points can be derived from this statement by Jesus. First, it is a prophecy of the diaspora, which occurred in AD 70. The Romans spread the Jews all over the known world, selling many as slaves. Jesus’ prophecy could have been easily falsified but its fulfillment is verifiable. Second, the text uses the Greek term achri, rendered “until,” that clearly implies one day Jerusalem will be back in Jewish hands.[3] Thus, it is also an inferred prophecy about the reclamation of Jerusalem which began in 1967 and is still being contested by the Vatican. Jerusalem certainly was under Gentile control until 1967, and today it is the most fiercely contested piece of real estate on the planet. This should give skeptics pause because there are existing copies of Luke’s Gospel dated to the second century.[4] The fact that Jerusalem is ostensibly in Jewish hands speaks to the lateness of the hour in God’s prophetic plan. Recognizing the end-time markers “the fullness of the gentiles” (Ro 11:25) and “times of the Gentiles” (Lk 21:24) which were qualified by “until,” we now examine the current state of affairs to if they are lining up with the predicted arrival of Petrus Romanus.
One way to examine that “until” is in reference to Romans 11:25 and the spread of the Gospel and there are many competent sites like the The Joshua Project doing that.[5] One rather astonishing indicator is the success of the Gospel in China where it is reported that there are currently sixteen thousand, five hundred new converts per day![6] Africa reports similar numbers where sixteen thousand Muslims leave Islam per day for Christianity.[7] (While these numbers are exciting, there are still many unreached people-groups and languages with no Bible translation. To that end, we strongly encourage Christians to support missions.)
Still yet, another way to quantify that “until” might be to look at Israel and see if there is any movement in that sector. There were no more than a dozen or so Messianic believers in the Jewish homeland when they declared statehood in 1948 and only around 250 when they retook Jerusalem in 1967. Writing in the year 2000, Brent Kinman reported that, “Now there are in the neighborhood of six thousand believers in more than fifty congregations.”[8] Has this trend continued? As of May 26, 2011 The Baptist Press reported:
“Now there are an estimated 150 Jewish congregations around Israel meeting in different languages. The number of believers is estimated to be around 20,000, growing exponentially from 1948 when 12 Jews who believed in Jesus could be counted, to 1987 when there were 3,000 and 1997 where there were 5,000.”[9]
If you know anything about exponential growth then this strongly implies an event horizon when the line goes vertical, meaning that 
the time of national repentance and recognition is close-at-hand. The Old Testament contains a vivid prophecy of that eventuality, “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, 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 his firstborn” (Zec 12:10). The Hebrew term, dāqar, which is rendered “pierced,” is derivative of madqārâ which appears ten times in various forms and always denotes a puncture wound. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament states, “The weapon associated with dāqar is usually the sword, though a spear is the instrument in Num 25:8.”[10] So according to the Hebrew prophet Zechariah, God was pierced and only Jesus Christ meets that characteristic. Tensions in the Middle East seem to forecast this prophesied national repentance sooner rather than later.
Next week: The Vatican’s Designs on Jerusalem
[1] Robert Moynihan, “The Vatican Synod on the Middle East Begins,” Spero News, October 10, 2010, http://www.speroforum.com/a/41366/The-Vatican-Synod-on-the-Middle-East-begins.
[2] Chiara Santomiero, “Prelate: Jerusalem Can’t Belong to Just One State,” Zenit: The World Seen from Rome, October 12, 2012, http://www.zenit.org/article-30628?l=english.
[3] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 948 ἄχρι.
[4] P4 is likely the earliest existing copy of Luke’s Gospel but his silence on the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 leads most to conclude it was written prior: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_4.
[6] “Fastest-Growing Christian Population,” Worldmag, last accessed February 10, 2012, http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13748 .
[7] Ali Sina,“Islam in Fast Demise: In Africa Alone Everyday, 16,000 Muslims Leave Islam,” last accessed February 10, 2012, http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/sina31103.htm.
[8] Brent Kinman, History, Design, and the End of Time: God’s Plan for the World (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Pub, 2000), 71.
[9] Ava Thomas, “Among Israeli Jews, 20,000 Embrace Christ,” Baptist Press, May 26, 2011, http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=35389 .
[10] Robert Laird Harris, Gleason Leonard Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, electronic ed. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999, c1980), 195.
About Cris Putnam
The current people who say they are jews may not be jews at all. If that is so then the events may be orchestrated by the NWO (Establishment of the nation of Israel etc.) and have little to do with the end time events. I am not convinced the people in Israel are the ones who will experience the time of Jacobs trouble.
@Cris- Thanks for posting a reply, especially since it’s your article and your contribution of course, provides more substance to the debate.
I would state however that the scripture you quoted, doesn’t support your assumption that the ethnic Jew has special status, but in fact, supports my own arguement.
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
“and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
Zion is the coming city upon where the Lord will rule and reign during the 1,000 yr reign in which ungodliness will not be tolerated and of course, banished. Remember, He will rule with an iron sceptor and nothing that is not of Him will be allowed or tolerated. His covenant has always remained the same, always points to Jesus and to the provides a ‘Way’ back to Him for all mankind, should they choose that narrow path. National, or ‘natural’ Israel has already received their promise and turned their backs from Him, but they will have the one chance at the end of the tribulation if they haven’t taken the mark of the beast, when they see Him come through the east gate (which has been blocked off by 2 cheribum…the east representing religion and religious entities which the Lord blocks from seeping into His Church), in victory. Prophetically, we can reference the brothers of Joseph in Genesis to whom Joseph reveals himself…and with a short pause, they finally recognize who Joseph is. Joseph in this manner, is representitive of Jesus.
Israel today, under the pagan symbol of the Star of Remphan for the god Molech, is not a fulfillment of biblical prophecy..there are too many pieces of the prophecy not yet fulfilled, but they do have an end times role to play…absolutely…we probaby agree on that, but there is no special status. Jacob…..was a Gentile….he became a spiritual ‘Jew’ when he obeyed God, fought w/ God and man ‘for’ the blessing from God, and this blessing only comes by obeying God…and Jesus is the point at which all men pass through, including religious/ethnic/cultural Jews. All the Covenants of the OT point to Jesus.
Stephen,
Context???
We can agree that it all does focus in on Jesus and that all Jews must accept the Gospel to be saved. But you said I took the scriptures out of context and you have not supported that claim. I still do not see where I have taken anything out of context in regard to Jerusalem which was your original charge. When Paul wrote Romans I do think he had a millennial city in mind. That is not the context of the chapter. There is nothing in Romans or even in Paul’s other writings that supports your claim. The context of the chapter is “what happens to the Jews.” Read Romans 11:1 for pete sake! That is the context of the chapter. In the quote about “Zion,” Paul is quoting Isaiah 59:20 and there is little doubt what Zion means in Isaiah’s context.
The charge of taking the passages out of context applies much more to you as you are imposing a millennnial eschatology from the book of Revelation (written probably 30 years after Paul wrote Romans) on to Paul and Isaiah whose subject was clearly the Jewish nation. What you are doing is called eisegesis. The context is ethnic national Israel in Romans 11. Even the headings of all Bible translations indicate that context.
Here is the ESV study bible’s note:
about mr.leach’s comments, and to the other uninformed ignorant people out there, that jews are not God’s chosen people. for your information, jews are God’s chosen. if you believe that the land of israel is God’s promised land, then how much easier is it to believe that jews are God’s people and as you say they have been driven out not once, twice or even three times, but yet, they are where God said they would end up, in the land of israel. he promised in the latter days, that all his people, the people of israel, will be gathered into his land, the land of israel.
@Sarah, Hi there, I think you are misunderstanding me, of course I absolutely agree and totally believe Jesus IS the only saving grace and I know what the word gentile means. What I was responding to was someone saying the Jewish people had no part in the end times and that it’s only metaphorical, it’s not. Oh the 144,000 Jews, it’s in revelation, they are 144.000 not defiled by lies or woman so that tells me they are male by not being defiled by woman.. I didn’t realize God hated Esau, never read that, I do remember it being foretold to their mother while they were in the womb that Jacob would be the one blessed, Just like Isaac and Ishmael, God didn’t hate Ishmael, just Isaac was the one blessed. We gentile were grafted in because the Jewish people didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah, so he blinded them and then told the Apostles to start preaching to the gentiles. That is why Jesus hand picked Paul. Paul did say though that the Jewish people would be brought back into the fold as a lot of them are today called the completed Jew or the Messianic Jew. Please don’t misunderstand me, I totally know what God is capable of and of course he wants his chosen people with him, which they will be.
I, with all my heart believe and love Jesus, and I have actually cried thinking how he died on the cross for all of humanity who asks forgiveness of him. Just thinking of my own sins made me cry let alone the whole humanity. All of us who read the Bible have different levels of understanding it so there are arguments over it, heck i have arguments over what is in the Bible from someone who has never read it, but one thing is for sure that all of here on this site and in society who are Christians believe the saving grace of our Lord Jesus and that is what is important.