I read your post, I actually have the Hendrickson commentary set. He still doesn't deal with some other verses and prophecies in scripture. It is easy to say the church replaced Israel, and then fit everything into that statement, but the church hasn't replaced Israel in the overall scheme of things. Remember, I'm talking about God taking a people and choosing them to glorify Himself, can He not do that to Israel once again?
Oops... I think I'm going to bow out of this thread too for various reasons!
1)Hendriksen in other writings does deal with this issue but I'm not able to reproduce them all.
However, you might want to peruse what I do have online here:
Eschatology - The Doctrine of Last Things.
2) I certainly don't hold to anything even remotely associated with "the church has
replaced Israel".
The physical nation of Israel was a "vehicle" to serve God's several purposes and WITHIN Israel the Church lived, beginning with Adam & Eve, Seth, etc... The NT focus is now upon the Church which is gathered from the four corners of the earth (new universality and greater spirituality). Israel is GONE... gone... and ever shall be gone! It is the Kingdom of God that is here and is being furthered through the preaching of the Gospel. Like Paul I yearn to see many Jews converted to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. But the
nation, IMHO is no longer part of the plan.
3) Can God do anything He wants? Of course He can. But what He isn't going to do is to contradict what He has already revealed He is going to do. And in case you haven't figured it out by now I'll briefly say it again... There is nothing I have read anywhere in Scripture that would teach that the
nation of Israel is going to be re-established as the "people of God", i.e., a setting up once again of a Theocracy here on earth in contradistinction to the world and/or the Church.
In His grace,
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