Study – Grow – Know

Ezekiel 37 Fulfilled says Netanyahu

February 16, 2010 at 4:12 PM 3 comments

According to Netanyahu, Ezekiel 37 has been fulfilled.  What makes him think so?

Those unfamiliar with Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, the prophet is shown a visual of a valley filled with bones.  Ezekiel is told to walk around the bones and agrees that they were “very dry.” 

There have been any number of interpretations put forth based on the alleged meaning of the passage.  One camp believes the bones relate to the entirety of the invisible Church, while another camp believes that this is a vision of what will occur for Israel.  Is there any way to know for certain?  Yes, but it all depends upon the hermeneutic a person uses during the interpretation process.  It is of the utmost importance to understand that when approaching any area of Scripture, we need to seek God’s meaning, not what we think He says, but what He is actually saying to us.  Admittedly, it is difficult for most of us to approach Scripture without any biases whatsoever.

For instance, if we approach Scripture believing that God is completely finished with Israel, then passages like this one in Ezekiel will of necessity be understood to say something that is inline with our presupposition.  Conversely, if we firmly believe that God is not done with Israel, but certain things await fulfillment, then we may also fail to understand important aspects of passages like these.

This does not mean that we come to Scripture with an empty head.  It means we come to Scripture with the ability to be flexible.  We will never come to the end of our learning in this life, so to be absolutely dogmatic about everything we believe may leave little room for the Holy Spirit to teach.  If someone approaches this particular passage  believing ahead of time that God is done with Israel, there is really only one meaning they can gain from this passage.  This is true of those in the opposite camp as well.  The tragedy is that obviously only one position can be correct and just as obviously, God means one thing in this and every other section of Scripture.  Depending upon how we view this particular passage will cause us to act and/or think a certain way about Israel, the Land, as well as Israel, the nation.

In this chapter, Ezekiel sees the bones come to life, in three stages:

The bones will come to life by (Ezekiel 37:5-6):

• sinews will be placed on the bones
• flesh will be placed over the bones and sinews, and
• breath coming into them

This process is a three-stage process.  When Ezekiel prophecies, first the bones rattle and come together, then Ezekiel sees the sinews cover the bones, and finally, he witnesses the skin covering the bones and sinews.  There is no breath in them though. 

God tells Ezekiel to prophecy over the newly formed bodies so that breath could come into them.  Ezekiel does so and breath comes into the bodies.  These bodies, which were far passed being dead (the bones were completely dry), have literally been raised from the dead.  Where there once was no life, life now exists.

When this is completed, God says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts,” (Ezekiel 37:11; emphasis added).  It is important to understand the passage the way God means it to be understood.  In this case, God specifically says to Ezekiel that the bones ARE the whole house of Israel.  God says without equivocation that the bones are the entire nation of Israel.

People have some interesting ways of interpreting the passage.  More and more people today are saying that this passage and particularly the phrase “whole house of Israel” represents not just Jewish believers, but the entire invisible Church of Christ; all believers.  In order to get to that point however, the “whole house of Israel” phrase must of necessity be viewed allegorically.  The people who do this are then required to cause Scripture to jump through a number of interpretive hoops to make it all gel.

It is stated first of all that the Church is revealed in the Old Testament, when it is not.  This is normally based on the promise to Abraham where God tells him that through him (Abraham), all the people of the world will be blessed (cf. Genesis 12:1-3; 15; 17, etc.).  This, say many, is God indicating that the Church would eventually come to fruition.  Actually, the individual who believes this is hard pressed to be able to prove it.  We know without doubt from God’s promises to Abraham that all the people of the world would be blessed, but it does not stand to reason that the Church is being revealed here.

What is likely being revealed here is that from Abraham would come a great nation, as God has revealed to him.  Though God is saying that through Abraham (and ultimately through the nation created from Abraham), the world would be blessed.  This could mean two things:

1. that God is referencing the fact that the Savior of the world would eventually be born into the nation of Israel, or
2. that Israel would be the light of the world and those who wanted to know Israel’s God would have to come through Israel, which is the way it was done in the OT

It could also mean both of these things.  It is impossible to state that God was revealing the Church here, especially considering the fact that Paul tells us that he and he alone is reveals the mystery of the Church.  So, what should I believe, God’s Word, or people’s interpretation?  To me, it seems perfectly clear that in Ezekiel 37, God is speaking about the nation of Israel only.

People constantly charge that normative Dispensationalists teach two modes of salvation, which is absolutely untrue.  There is only one form of salvation, which is revealed to us in Genesis through Revelation and that is faith in God’s Word (written or spoken).  There is no other method of salvation, in spite of what many Covenant and Reformed Theologians teach (that Adam and Eve were to have been saved by obedience, which is a work, but after Adam and Eve, it was switched to faith only).

Taking the text as it is, allowing it to speak for itself, it is difficult to understand God to be saying anything but what we read in the next – that the bones represent (or ARE), the entire nation of Israel.  If we understand it to be saying something else, then we are in danger of changing God’s meaning and that is nothing to fool with.

Netanyahu said recently, “Armed with the Jewish spirit, the justice of man, and the vision of the prophets, we sprouted new branches and grew deep roots. Dry bones became covered with flesh, a spirit filled them, and they lived and stood on their own feet.”[1]

The interesting thing here is that it appears that these bones did not realize why or who was raising them.  It was not until God literally placed His spirit within them did they come to understand the reason.  If we consider Israel today, it seems clear enough, in spite of the fact that the majority of professing Christians disagree, that Israel came back from the dead in 1948.  In spite of the obviousness of the situation, there are many who continue to deny this and look at this as either an accident of nature, or simply due to Israel’s stubborness.  However, in spite of the all the odds, Israel once again became a nation.  Not only this, but since that time, the language of Hebrew (also dead as a language prior to that point), was resurrected.  This is unheard of that dead languages are resurrected!

Today, continuing against all odds, Israel exists.  She has fought off many of her Arab/Muslim neighbors, leaving them scratching their heads.  During the Six-Day War of 1967, the world expected Israel to be taken down in short order.  Instead, after two weeks of fighting, tiny Israel against the Goliaths of the south, took back the land she had lost in the past two weeks and then began to gain even more ground.

To this day, Syria, Lybia, Jordan and others are extremely angry that Israel took what they believed was theirs.  Because of this, there is no forgiveness, no willingness to really participate in open dialogue to solve the problems in the Middle East, and a deep-seated hatred of Jews that forms the very reason these anti-Semitic and Anti-Zionist groups exist.  They want Israel destroyed and they want the Middle East purged of Jews.

Here is the rub though.  The Land of Israel is God’s Land.  He owns it, just as he owns this entire planet.  As far as God is concerned, Jerusalem is the center of our world (cf. Ezekiel 5:5).  The idea that warring factions believe they can waltz in and either take or split up Israel into parts is the highest form of arrogance.  In the past, God judged Israel’s disobedience and rebellion by expelling them from the Land.  He always brought them back; always.  Since 1948, God Himself brought life to those “dry bones,” by putting life in them and bringing them back to the Land (Ezekiel 37:14).  God has done this.  While the people of Israel may believe they did it, or that God is on “their side,” the reality is that God is on HIS side.

The people who believe that God is done with Israel are in essence, calling God a liar.  They don’t like to hear that, but if we understand the entire book of Ezekiel, God seems to be clear.  He states on numerous occasions in that book that He will bring Israel back, He will make them a nation, and He will do this or that for one reason, and for one reason only:  for the sake of His holy Name, (cf. Ezekiel 36:23, 32; 38:23).

Throughout the entire book of Ezekiel, God makes His plans known.  He tells us what He is going to do with Israel and with the heathen nations that surround her.  There are many judgments upon Israel in this book, but there is also the time when God will lift them up from the grave.  He did that in 1948.  He promises to put His spirit within them, something He has not yet done.  When He does that, they will know that He is their God.

But something many people miss repeatedly is that the only reason God continues to have a plan and purpose for Israel is because of His Name, which the nation of Israel has profaned.  If God were to leave that alone, and decided to deal with the Church and never even think of Israel again, then there is absolutely NO way that His Name would be honored.

In other words, it was Israel that received all the judgments due to their rebellion and their willful sin.  It was because of that rebellion and sin that they brought disgrace onto God’s Name.  In fact, His Name became an epithet because of the way the nation of Israel lived.  They did not care if God was profaned.  They did not care how He looked to the rest of the world.  What they cared about was their needs and wants.

Since God made Israel, His Name has been made a joke throughout the world.  His Name is routinely blasphemed by being used as a curse word.  This is due to Israel’s failure to live the life that God created them to live.  Did this surprise God?  Did it take Him by surprise?  Because of it, did He have to go to Plan B, which was the Church?  Hardly.  Everything that God has ever done is doing and will ever do is for one reason only:  His glory.

“And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes,” (Ezekiel 36:23).

“Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD, be it known unto you: be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel,” (Ezekiel 36:32; emphasis added).

“Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it,” (Ezekiel 36:36).

In chapter 38 of Ezekiel, God speaks of something He will do with respect to Gog and Magog.  “And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes,” (Ezekiel 38:16; emphasis added).  Here God promises to create a situation where He will be glorified.  Note that He refers to the Land of Israel as HIS Land and the people of Israel as HIS people.  Yet, we have people today who say this is not what it means, and that God is referencing the Church in an allegorical way.  There is great danger in changing the meaning of God’s Word to make it mean something else.  If these folks are wrong, they are very wrong indeed.

In verse 18, even though God creates this event, when this alliance led by Gog (a title), God’s fury is poured out onto that alliance because Gog and his armies dared to come against Israel.  God’s jealousy for His Land and His people will be so aroused that the Land will shake (earthquakes) and Gog and his allies will be wiped out by God Himself, with fire, brimstone, the earthquakes (which will also likely knock the Dome of the Rock mosque way off its foundations.  This would allow Israel to build the third Temple), civil war and more.  Israel will not have to raise a finger to help themselves here.  God will do it because of His holy anger.

Verse 23 of chapter 38 states, “Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.”  The only unfortunate part of this is that these nations will come to understand that it was God who did what He did, but they will very quickly forget.

In chapter 39, God states unequivocally, “So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel,” (Ezekiel 39:7).

It should be clear that the ONLY reason God stands for Israel is because of His holy Name.  He will have come to the end of His patience when this event occurs, and He will remove the pollution found on His Name, put there by Israel herself.

Too many people think that people like me support Israel unconditionally.  They believe that we do not see Israel’s faults and that we have placed Israel on a pedastal.  None of that is true.  Israel is filled with fallen, depraved, corrput Jews and Gentiles.  They all need God, yet most will die without Him.  Being a Jew guarantees nothing.  Becoming a believer is the only thing that provides any guarantee.

We are coming to a time in this world’s history, when God will act to restore the beauty, splendor and majesty of His holy Name, which has been and continues to be profaned by Israel.  He has brought them back into His Land and He has done so in order to purge them of their sinful dependence upon themselves.  The victory’s that Israel has gained since 1948 have come because God supports HIMSELF, His LAND, and His holy Name.  Israel has much to go through yet before God is able to separate the Remnant from the rebels.

In the end, God will receive all the glory.  In the end, His Name will be cleared.  What a tragedy that the very human beings He created have responded to the Creator with treachery, deceit, hatred and malice.  This is true of all of us, unless and until God opens our eyes.  God will have His way with Israel and He will have His way with this world as well.  He will be the Victor and He will be fully vindicated.  He will do all of this for the sake of His holy Name and for no other reason.

And that is the reason I support Israel, because of what God is doing and what He will do.  Praise to our heavenly Father for His love, His patience, His chastisement, His justice, His willingness to stoop, and for His salvation.  May our lives reflect all of these things, as He endeavors to fill us with His Spirit, creating within us the image of His one and only blessed Son, the second Person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!

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Entry filed under: Atheism and religion, dispensationalism, Life in America, Posttribulational Rapture, Pretribulational Rapture, Religious - Christian - End Times, Religious - Christian - Prophecy, Religious - Christian - Theology, salvation, temple mount. Tags: ezekiel 37, ezekiel 38, for the sake of his name, gog and magog, israel, netanyahu says ezekiel 37 fulfilled, northern alliance, northern invation of Israel, salvation.