EXCERPT: “FROM THE RIVER TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH” – Zechariah 9:10b - By Doug Krieger Chair, COI Foundation
(from free Winter 2023-2024 Newsletter)
What we are advocating is an eschatological (prophetic) SEA CHANGE wherein our Catholic-Reform understanding of what constitutes Israel is void of Jews wherein the True Israel of God is constituted by adherence to One Olive Tree. Furthermore, and although well-meaning brethren among Evangelical
Dispensationalists wish the Jews well in their “separate plan” versus the Church’s plan even to the extent that there is one “wife of Jehovah” for Old Testament saints and Jews in general, and the Bride of Christ for New Testament saints, aka Christians, wherein “Jacob’s Trouble” is a “Jewish problem” and the “Valley of Dry Bones” in Ezekiel 37 is reserved for “Jews only” is flat-out theologically wrongheaded!
No, “Jacob’s Problem” is OUR MUTUAL PROBLEM and the Valley of Dry Bones—if ever Judah and Ephraim needed reviving—is just as much Ephraim’s Revival as it is Judah’s, to wit: “Son of man, these bones are the WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel . . . Again, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’ Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand” (Excerpts, Ezk. 37).
Dispensationalists wish the Jews well in their “separate plan” versus the Church’s plan even to the extent that there is one “wife of Jehovah” for Old Testament saints and Jews in general, and the Bride of Christ for New Testament saints, aka Christians, wherein “Jacob’s Trouble” is a “Jewish problem” and the “Valley of Dry Bones” in Ezekiel 37 is reserved for “Jews only” is flat-out theologically wrongheaded!
No, “Jacob’s Problem” is OUR MUTUAL PROBLEM and the Valley of Dry Bones—if ever Judah and Ephraim needed reviving—is just as much Ephraim’s Revival as it is Judah’s, to wit: “Son of man, these bones are the WHOLE HOUSE OF ISRAEL. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel . . . Again, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’ Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand” (Excerpts, Ezk. 37).
