The Last Days of the Kingdom of  Carnal Israel

The Last Days of the Kingdom of  Carnal Israel

Writer: Evangelos D. Kepenes (July 30, 2021 10:30)

1. The Last Days

Popular and religious beliefs regarding a supposed “consummation of the physical world,” the destruction of planet Earth, and the end of human history—which chronologically place the appearance of a global, mythical “Antichrist” in the distant future—do not derive their origin from the Bible. On the contrary, they align with the eschatological projections of ancient ethnic religions, the oracles of Apollo, the prophecies of the Mayans and Nostradamus, and the hypotheses of secular/scientific eschatology.

The Holy Scripture affirms the eternal stability of God's creation:

“Forever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven. To generation and generation is your truth; you established the earth, and it abides. By your ordinance the day abides, for all things are your servants.” (Ps. 119:89–91)

In biblical language, the phrase “in the last of the days” (ἐπ’ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν) does not refer to the end of the material universe, but to the final days of the Jewish theocracy and the validity of the Old Covenant:

“In many parts and in many ways of old God spoke to the fathers in the prophets, at the last of these days he spoke to us in [his] Son...” (Heb. 1:1–2)

2. Carnal Israel, the Land, and the Ritual Elements

The national identity of the biological descendants of Abraham was given by God (“I will make you into a great nation”) and was certified by written genealogical records. This national existence was inextricably bound up with their covenantal obligation:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Deut. 6:4)

The geographical boundaries of the dwelling land of the theocratic Hebrew nation (formerly the land of the Amorites) were determined covenantally (“to your seed I will give this land”). This land was named the “Holy Land” or “Land of Israel,” but it was defiled by the lawlessness of its inhabitants: “and the land was polluted with blood” (Ps. 106:38, Num. 35:34).

Upon the demand of the people, Saul was appointed as the first king of carnal Israel. During his fallen reign, the prophet Samuel anointed David as his replacement from the tribe of Judah—the most significant foreshadowing figure, concerning whom God testified: “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart” (Acts 13:22).

Symbols, types, and shadows (Heb. 8:5) constituted the cohesive bonds of the ethno-religious identity of the Jews: the Old Covenant with its promises, earthly Jerusalem, the handmade Temple, carnal ordinances, Levitical sacrifices, and worldly elements.

However, the Old Covenant had a finite temporal duration, bearing elements of growing old and abolishment: “Now what is growing old and aging is near disappearance” (Heb. 8:13). The prophetic utterances were fulfilled in the person of Christ (Matt. 3:15, 5:17, Acts 3:18). The Levitical priesthood ceased permanently and the earthly models were completely destroyed in 70 A.D. with the Judeo-Roman War, irrevocably sealing the last days of the kingdom of carnal Israel:

“And when you see Jerusalem surrounded by encampments, then know that its desolation has drawn near. Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains [...] because these are days of vengeance, for all the things that are written to be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:20–22)

3. The Prophetic Testimony Concerning the Last Days of Israel

Both the Patriarchs and Prophets of the Old Covenant, as well as Jesus Christ with the Apostles, prophesied from the beginning concerning the last days of the kingdom of carnal Israel:

• The Patriarch Jacob: “Assemble yourselves that I may report to you what will happen to you in the last of the days.” (Gen. 49:1)

• Moses: “[...] and evil will meet you in the last of the days, because you will do what is evil before the Lord...” (Deut. 31:29)

• The Turning Away of God: “And he said: I will turn away my face from them and I will show what will happen to them in the last [days]; for they are a turned-aside generation, sons in whom there is no faith.” (Deut. 32:20, LXX)

• The Apostolic Warning: Peter implored the Israelites of his generation: “Be saved from this crooked generation.” (Acts 2:40)

• The Prophet Daniel: “...I am reporting to you the things that will be in the last of the wrath upon the sons of your people...” (Dan. 8:19, LXX). And he adds: “Seventy weeks have been cut short upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish sin... and to seal vision and prophet...” (Dan. 9:24). “...I came to show you what will meet your people in the last of the days; for the vision is yet for days.” (Dan. 10:14)

• The Transfer of the Kingdom: “...and holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and shall hold it unto the age of the ages.” (Dan. 7:18). This was confirmed by Christ: “The kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.” (Matt. 21:43)

• The Apostle James: Addressing the wealthy and unrighteous Jews of the ruling class shortly before the Roman siege, he foretells the impending judgment: “Come now, you rich, weep howling over your miseries that are coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten; your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be a testimony to you and will eat your flesh like fire. You treasured up in the last days. Behold, the wage of the workers who mowed your fields—which has been withheld by you—cries out, and the shouts of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You lived luxuriously upon the earth and lived in self-indulgence; you nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You condemned, you murdered the righteous one; he does not set himself in opposition to you.” (Jas. 5:1–6)

• The Day of Pentecost and the Outpouring of the Spirit: The Apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, confirmed that the outpouring of the Spirit marked the arrival of these very “last days” of the Old Covenant age, fulfilling the prophecy of Joel: “And it shall be in the last days, says God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your elders shall dream with dreams; and even upon my bondservants and upon my bondwomen in those days I will pour out of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17–18)

4. The End of the Law and the Fulfillment of Wrath

Christ is the end/completion of the Law (Rom. 10:4), which brought about wrath because of transgressions (Rom. 4:15). The Assembly (Church), as the Body of Christ, constitutes the true, spiritual Israel of God (Gal. 6:16).

Foreknown before the foundation of the world, Jesus was manifested in the last of the times of the kingdom of carnal Israel and the validity of the Levitical ritual system:

“Foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last of the times for your sake...” (1 Pet. 1:20)

The theocratic leadership of the Jews knew the Scriptures and feared the loss of their privileges and land: “If we leave him thus, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” (John 11:48)

The utter destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Roman armies was a divine act of vengeance and the execution of wrath for the blood of the Prophets, the Apostles, and Jesus (Rev. 16:6, 18:24):

• “Truly I say to you, by no means shall there be left here stone upon stone that will not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:2)

• “And the king was angered, and sending his armies he destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire.” (Matt. 22:7)

Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Ezekiel to the Land of Israel:

“And you, son of man, say: Thus says the Lord to the land of Israel: An end has come, the end upon the four wings of the land. Now the end is upon you, and I will send my wrath upon you...” (Ezek. 7:2–3, LXX)

Prior to that day, the prophesied “Elijah” arrived (Mal. 4:5) in the person of John the Baptist, as the Lord Himself confirmed: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John... he is Elijah who is to come.” (Matt. 11:13–14)

5. Conclusion

The completion of biblical Judaism and the last days of the kingdom of the carnal descendants of Abraham were definitively fulfilled in the first half of the 1st century A.D. The Hebrew prophetic tradition concerned the history of biological Israel and its eschatological conclusion within the old age of the Law.

Jesus Christ, the man from heaven, was the final Judge of the Jewish system and not the destroyer of the physical history of the world. Since then, the existential eschatology of every human being is defined individually and spiritually:

“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12)

Ancient and modern heretical trends, Christian Zionism, as well as the theory of Dispensationalism, recycle extra-biblical myths of Orphism, Zoroastrianism, and Rabbinic Judaism, serving secular geostrategic purposes. These theories present God as a transgressor of His own completed works:

“For if what I tore down, these things I build again, I demonstrate myself to be a transgressor.” (Gal. 2:18)

Parallel eschatological/economistic fantasies regarding “three ages” are found both in philosophical schemes (such as triadic dialectics) and in the Marxist view of the three stages of history ((a) primitive communism, (b) class society, (c) final classless communism which will be the realm of freedom without a state). All these human constructs fail to grasp the spiritual nature of the Kingdom of God, which was established definitively through Christ and His Assembly (Church), “which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23).

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