Does Acts 1:6 prove that ethnic Israel has a future as a nation based on physical descent?

Extract from: The Great Consummation, pp36-37 [58-61 in the on-line edition] by Arthur Carver, and lightly edited.

Apostolic Teaching - Testimony to Jerusalem

...We now proceed to examine the statements in the Acts relative to our subject, coming first to Acts 1:6.

"When they therefore were come together, they asked of Him saying, 'Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel?' "

We feel this Scripture requires care rather than dogmatism. We observe that the Lord refused to gratify the spirit that prompted the question, thus counselling the student to a watchful app-roach. We discern no such attitude in Scofield's approach. He tells us (p. 1147):

"Forty days the Lord has been instructing the apostles 'of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God', doubtless, according to His custom, teaching them out of the Scriptures. One point was left untouched, viz., the TIME when He would restore the Kingdom to Israel; hence the apostles' question."

We wonder when will men learn to look carefully at what the Scripture actually says, and not indulge in flights of imagination, jet-propelled by their beloved theories? That Christ had left one point untouched is pure conjecture, born of a prophetic obsess-ion. But there is a still more dangerous conjecture in Scofield's statement, for he assumes, without a shred of evidence, that our Lord's forty days' instruction "in the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God", involved teaching that a future earthly Kingdom, with Israel supreme, would be established by Christ. There is not the slightest hint that this was so. On the contrary, the whole tenor of our Lord's post-resurrection ministry is a rebuttal of this carnal idea. Once again we ask the reader, search carefully through the records of our Lord's ministry during those forty days (recorded in the four Gospels), and see if you can find any trace of "the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel" as alleged by Dispensationalists. The search will be futile. Then why draw a conclusion about that ministry which is completely unsupported by what the Spirit saw fit to record?

The finest summary of that ministry is found in the matchless 24^th of Luke, including the Emmaus story. I believe it was Russell Lowell who said that, if ever any story carried in itself unquestionable evidence of divine inspiration, it was this one. Luke 24 must be a nightmare for futurists. Look briefly at some of the things it affirms:

1. Verses 25 & 26

The theme of "all the prophets" was "that Christ should suffer these things, and enter into His Glory". The Messianic glory was not something following the Second Advent, but something that immediately followed His Great Atonement.

2. Verse 27

Going right through the O.T., "Moses and all the prophets", our Lord spoke only "of Himself". He said not a word about the Jewish nation. What a contrast to futurists who see "the Jew" on every page.

3. Verse 44

A striking statement: "These are the words which I spake unto you WHILE I WAS YET WITH YOU, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and in the prophets and in the psalms, concerning Me." Here our Lord affirms that the great prophetic promises of the O.T. had now been brought into fruition, and this was in line with His own earthly ministry.

4. Verse 47

Shows that the great blessing for Israel was, not an earthly Kingdom, but the forgiveness of sins. This was to be accom-panied with the wonderful blessing of "the Promise of the Father" (v. 49). This was the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. How was this "the promise of the Father"? I suggest what seems the most rational interpretation. Throughout the O.T. there was a great line of prophetic promise of a day when God would visit His People with the fullness of His Spirit. It was spoken of as "waters", "rivers", "showers" and "floods" (see Isaiah, Ezekiel and Joel ). The whole body of these promises constituted the “promise of the Father”, and this was now to be the portion of the New Israel.

This, then, was the substance of the forty days' ministry. But a further point emerges; at the close of this momentous ministry, He sends them forth "into all the world". He defines clearly what their ministry is to be: "teaching them…all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Mt. 28:20 ). When we turn to the Acts, we are assured they had faithfully preached "the kingdom of God" (20:25; 28:23-31). We have no option but to conclude that this Apostolic ministry was based on what He had taught them during the forty days—and what He had commanded them to preach. Then where, in the whole of the teaching of the Apostles, is there any declaration that earthly Israel was to be restored to a Kingdom of unparalleled splendour? The absolute silence can be fairly interpreted on no other ground than that our Lord gave no such teaching, and Scofield's assertion that He did so, and "left only one point untouched", is a Dispensational fantasy.

In the light of this, what is the correct understanding of Acts 1:6? We feel the following is the most satisfactory, and the fairest in the light of the rest of the Apostolic record. The forty days' ministry of O.T. exposition about Messiah's sufferings and glory, the fulfilment of the promised blessings for Israel, and worldwide evangelisation, was over. Evidently, the Lord had made no reference to the nation of Israel, and hence the Apostles, being Israelites, full of the zeal of their fathers, were puzzled. Quite possibly they remembered His statement that "the Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to another nation." It may be that the identity of this nation had not yet been properly grasped by them, as it was after Pentecost. Hence their question, asked as Jews not yet fully emancipated from earthly ideas, as to whether Israel was to return to her former glories.

The Lord's answer was gentle and suggestive, evidently intended to turn their hopes away from an earthly kingdom to the great task that lay ahead, "to receive power…to be witnesses…unto the uttermost part of the earth." The whole incident is crowned by the Ascension of the Lord, and the "two men" proclaiming the great Hope, "This same Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." This was to be the object of their hope as they evangelised the world—not an earthly Kingdom, but the heavenly Advent.

We wonder if, in the minds of the Apostles, this incident and teaching represented a strong parallel to part of the Olivet discourse. It is worthy of consideration:

One final thought occurs. It is significant that after Pentecost, the Apostles never uttered a word about any restoration of a kingdom to natural Israel. It is worthwhile drawing the reader's attention to a strange statement by our Lord: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when He, the Spirit of Truth is come, He will guide you into all truth." (Jn 16:12-13) What were those things they could not bear then? In the light of their subsequent ministry only one answer seems to reasonably fit the case - the passing away of the whole Jewish economy, Temple, Land and people, to be replaced by the New, Spiritual, Heavenly Realities. Surely, these were the things they "could not bear" whilst still cherishing earthly ideas?

But when the Holy Ghost had come, and their minds were opened to "the mystery" only partly seen by the prophets, that the Jewish people were only a temporary phase in God's great Kingdom plan, to be replaced by the great reality of Messiah's Kingdom incorporating Jew and Gentile, then all thought of the earthly-Israel-restoration disappeared. Henceforth the only Israel they knew was the New Israel.