3 VIEWS ON GOD’S END TIMES PROMISES
Christians generally hold one of three views of how God will fulfill his promises to Abraham, Israel, and Christians.
God’s promises to Abraham. Free Bible Images
Dispensational.
The “dispensational” view is that God has two plans with two people groups, Israel and the Christian church (Christians). God will fulfill his promises to Abraham (that Abraham would be the father of the great nation of Israel and many other nations)(Genesis 12:1-3, 17:2-9) and Israel by giving to ethnic Jews the land that he promised to Abraham and Israel (Genesis 12:7, 13:15, 15:18-21, 50:24; Exodus 3:17, 12:25, 32:13, 33:1, Deuteronomy 6:23, 8:1).
God made a separate promise to the Christian church (Christians). Christians are children of Abraham by God’s spiritual adoption of them by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. After God’s spiritual adoption of Christians, God fulfills his promise to Christians of an eternal relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in heaven. (Romans 8:15, 23, 9:4; Galatians 4:5; Ephesians 1:5).
Covenantal.
The “covenantal” view is that God has one covenant for one people. Specifically, God always had only one plan for one people group. God’s people of every age are those who had faith in God and Jesus Christ as the divine spiritual Messiah, King of kings, Savior, and Lord. In the Old Testament before Jesus arrived on earth, people believed and trusted in Jesus by looking forward expectantly for the Messiah who was yet to come (Hebrews 11:13, 39-40). In the New Testament after Jesus arrived on earth, anyone could become a true child of Abraham and enter into an eternal relationship with God by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ as the divine spiritual Messiah, King of kings, Savior, and Lord (Galatians 3:7-9). There is only one covenant of divine grace from God’s promise of the Messiah in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15) to return. The Messiah will defeat Satan and all evil at the end of time (Revelation 20:6-10). God’s purpose for Israel was to prepare a way for the Messiah’s coming and to demonstrate God’s attributes, character, and glory as he interacted with Israel.
New Covenantal.
The “new covenantal” view is that God has one purpose that he has worked out in two covenants. Specifically, God’s interaction with Abraham and Israel in the Old Testament is a separate covenant with Abraham and Israel for the purpose of pointing people to the new covenant that God made with all people, to redeem them of their sins through Jesus and to have an eternal relationship with them in the new heaven and new earth (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 3:5, 8:5-13, 9:8-10, 10:9; Revelation 21:1-4). The apostle Paul also distinguished between “God’s two covenants … where the people received the (Old Testament) law that enslaved them” and the new covenant in the New Testament of the “heavenly Jerusalem” of those who are “free” from the law of sin (Galatians 4:24-26 NLT). Paul also emphasized God’s promises to Abraham were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. “God gave the promises to Abraham and his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn’t say ‘to his children,’ as if it meant many descendants. Rather, it says ‘to his child’-and that, of course, means Christ” (Galatians 3:16, NLT, see also Genesis 12:7).
Timothy Paul Jones, Rose Guide to End-Times Prophecy (Peabody, MS: Rose Publishing, 2011), 54-63.