Will Jesus restore the Kingdom to Israel?

Verse 6 says,

⁴ And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; ⁵ for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” ⁶ Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Acts 1.4-6

That seems a bit out of place. Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit and going out into all the world to preach the Gospel, and the disciples come and ask this question.

A lot of commentators say that’s a dumb question which means they think the disciples really didn’t understand what was happening and that they would understand it when they received the power of the Holy Spirit.

But they’re asking this ‘dumb’ question about Israel. And people like Calvin wrote and said that it was a mistake that they asked this question and Jesus, just putting them right replied, ‘forget about Israel. No, it’s the church’.

But if you look at the context, you see that it’s not quite like that. It was not actually such a dumb question.

If the disciples had had this Bible study with Jesus, he might have told them that there are two comings of the Messiah, one in which He’s coming as a suffering servant to suffer and to die for our sins, fulfilling Isaiah 53, and there’s another set of prophecies which speak about the Messiah/Jesus coming to reign with power and to bring peace and justice to the world, saving Israel from their enemies, setting up His Messianic Kingdom.

Now the disciples might have thought, ‘Well, OK, we get that. First time you came, you came to suffer and you suffered and died at the cross. Now you’ve risen from the dead. Why don’t you now bring in the Kingdom from Israel?‘

OK? ‘Go, appear, and punch this Pilate, and tell him and the chief priests and all those other guys that you’re risen from the dead; maybe they’ll be a bit shocked. And you can call down fire from heaven if they don’t like it. And you can establish the Kingdom of God and save us immediately.‘

Maybe that was what they were thinking, we don’t know. But Jesus doesn’t say, ‘I’m not going to restore the Kingdom to Israel’. Do you notice that? He doesn’t say ‘forget about Israel’, Israel is now the church‘.

⁷ … He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. Acts 1.7

That implies to me that He’s saying that there will be a restoration of the Kingdom to Israel, there will be a fulfilment of those prophecies of the reigning King Messiah, but not now. Not now, because now, your job is to receive the Holy Spirit and to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.

⁸ But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1.8

But just keep it there, because there are many prophecies which do speak about Israel being scattered, being restored, brought back into the land through a time of trouble, and then the Messiah coming with power and glory and setting up His Messianic Kingdom.

Jesus says “It is not for you to know times or seasons“.

Can you think of any other scripture which speaks about an event which is going to take place at an unknown time in the future? Matthew 24 speaks about the Second Coming. He says,

³⁶ “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. ³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. ³⁸ For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Matthew 24.36-39

‘You do not know the day or the hour of the Second Coming of My return. So, be ready at all times’. But He’s saying that it’s coming at a time which God has fixed. He’s not saying it’s not going to happen. That’s the point I’m trying to make now.

The main point of this passage is not to deal with the question of Israel even though it is used by some people to say that God has finished with Israel on the basis of Jesus’ response in Acts chapter 1 verse 7. My interpretation is that that is NOT what He’s saying, He’s saying it’s not happening now.

And often, we want something now, but we have to wait for it, don’t we? Jesus is saying: ‘Your priority now is to receive the power of the Holy Spirit and to go and preach the Gospel to all nations‘. Which is still our priority.

I believe that we should stand by Israel, and we should have an interest in Israel but, in the end, the priority we have is the priority of the Gospel, to take the message of the Good News to the Jews first and also to the Gentile, that people might be saved before the Second Coming of Jesus.