If people understood what Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum is saying in this one article about God’s unfilled covenants there would be no amillennialism, post millennialism or Replacement Theology and everyone would know that God still is fulfilling His plan for natural Israel. They would know that the final stage is being set for the covenants to be fulfilled. The timing is playing out in God’s prophetic sequence.
People can pretend that they have some deeper spiritual truth that nullifies the covenant promises given to Israel but their presumptuous allegorizations of God’s promises given without conditions will not change the natural fulfillment to Israel.
Pre-Trib Research Center: Premillennialism in the Old Testament
The first basis for the belief in a coming Kingdom rests on the four unconditional, unfulfilled covenants God made with Israel. These covenants are unconditional and so rely solely on God for their fulfillment and not on Israel. They are also unfulfilled, and since God is One Who keeps His promises, they must be fulfilled in the future. They can only be fulfilled within the framework of a Messianic Kingdom or a Millennial Kingdom. More will be said about these covenants later, but the main points will be summarized here.The first of these is the Abrahamic Covenant, which promised an eternal Seed developing into a nation that will possess the Promised Land with some definite borders. While that nation-??the Jews-??continues to exist, never in Jewish history have they possessed all of the Promised Land. For this promise to be fulfilled, there must be a future Kingdom. Besides, the possession of the Land was not merely promised to Abraham’??s seed, but to Abraham personally when God said, to you will I give it, and to your seed for ever (Gen. 13:15). For God to fulfill His promise to Abraham (as well as to Isaac and Jacob), there must be a future Kingdom.
The second covenant is the Palestinian Covenant, or Land Covenant, that spoke of a worldwide regathering of the Jews and repossession of the Land following their dispersion. While the dispersion has already occurred and is in effect today, the regathering and repossession of the Land still awaits fulfillment in the future. This, too, requires a future Kingdom.
The Davidic Covenant is the third covenant, and it promised four eternal things: an eternal house (dynasty), an eternal throne, an eternal kingdom, and one eternal Person. The Dynasty became eternal because it culminated in a Person Who is Himself eternal: Jesus the Messiah. For that reason the Throne and Kingdom will be eternal as well. But Jesus has never yet sat on the Throne of David ruling over a Kingdom of Israel. The reestablishment of the Davidic Throne and Messiah’??s rule over the Kingdom still awaits a future fulfillment. It requires a future kingdom.
The last of these covenants is the New Covenant, which spoke of the national regeneration and salvation of Israel, encompassing each individual Jewish member of that nation. This, too, awaits its final fulfillment and requires a future kingdom.
It is the extensive prophetic writings, as well as all of these covenants, that provide the basis for the belief in a future Messianic Kingdom, and not merely one chapter of a highly symbolic book. Unless they are understood literally, they lose all meaning in the context in which they are found. To allegorize such a vast amount of material is to render a major part of the Bible meaningless.
To summarize, the basis for the belief in a Messianic Kingdom is twofold: the unfulfilled promises of the Jewish covenants, and the unfulfilled prophecies of the Jewish prophets.
