The Transition

The leadership of the Church throughout the first century was by far primarily Jewish, with the Apostles of the Lamb as an overseeing Council residing in Jerusalem at first, then scattered abroad later. The Apostle Paul, though on many missionary journeys, reported back to the Apostolic Council in Jerusalem. However, when the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and the Jews experienced their second exile into the Diaspora in 70 AD, the Church Council at Jerusalem was also eventually de-centralized.

From the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, a subtle view began growing among Gentile believers that God had forsaken His relationship with the Jewish people and replaced them with Gentile believers. To be clear, God did send the Jewish people out of the Land of Israel as a punishment for their national unfaithfulness to Him, but He did so with a promise to bring them back. There was also a concern among some in the Early Church that the rapture had already happened. 

To address these concerns, the Apostle Paul taught the Early Church, in circulating letters known as epistles, outlining our position in Christ and giving very profound and basic instructions on how to live godly in Christ Jesus. 

He also, very directly, taught that the rapture and the resurrection would happen at the same time.  He taught that the present Age of the Gentiles had a very clear beginning and ending for the purpose of grafting believing Gentiles into the THE ISRAEL OF GOD. And at the close of the Age of the Gentiles all Israel would be saved -- this rapture and resurrection would take place. 

The main event in end-time prophecy, both in the Old and New Testament, is the restoration of ethnic-national Israel and their final redemption. In Paul’s own words: 

AGE OF THE GENTILES BEING GRAFTED INTO ISRAEL…

…having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. Eph 1:9, 10

…once Gentiles in the flesh…that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Eph 2:11-13

…that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel… Eph 3:6

NATIONAL ISRAEL RESTORED AT THE CLOSE OF THE AGE OF THE GENTILES…

For I do not desire, brethren (Gentile believers), that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.” Rom 11:25-27

THE RESURRECTION AND RAPTURE HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME…

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord…   1Thes 4:15-17

Israel’s falling away as a nation and their return as a nation was simply a timing issue, not if, but when they would be restored. This was Paul’s fundamental teaching as we have already reviewed extensively in Section Three. 

So if the Early Church was doctrinally sound ( and they were), deeply rooted in the fulfillment of Hebraic patterns and teaching, the Gospel being proclaimed in the Age of the Gentiles, and that Israel would be restored at the end of that age, when did the shift in our collective psyche happen that we departed from looking for the Jew’s restoration by replacing them all together?