His response to this was a big copy and paste from his WT material on his iPod.
Hi Gary
I am sorry it has been a while. I have been involved with the interior design of a Kingdom Hall being built in Gordonsville, VA, and haven’t had a lot of free time.
So, I will give you a partial answer now and more later. Below my seven comments I have reprinted an article from our Bible reference work Insight On The Scriptures, volume I, entitled Israel of God. This is to comment on the “fundamentalist” or literalist view that the 1948 establishment of Israel constituted the end of the “Gentile Times” or the “appointed times of the nations” that Jesus spoke about, and which Daniel prophesied about in the Tree Dream. That dream presented the Seven Times chronology, about which you and I spoke, and after which the Kingdom would be restored to Israel.
1-It is good to remember that the Tree Dream in its fulfillment would result in a restoring of the Kingdom to Israel after the passage of Seven Times, which we calculate to be 2520 years.
2-The promise was made to King David that his kingdom would be to “time Indefinite” and would not turn aside from his House, or family.
3-When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the conception and birth of Jesus, he said Jesus would have the throne of David. At that time there was no Jewish king in David’s line, as the Jews were dominated by the Romans and their puppet kings, the Herod family. Jesus was a lineal descendent of David.
4-As the article below makes clear, the “kingdom” was to be taken away from the Jews and given to a nation producing the right fruitage of that kingdom. That “new nation” was Israel in a spiritual sense, made up of all those who became spirit anointed sons of God, whether natural born Jews or Gentile Christians. Jesus was to be the king of a new Israel, and it no longer mattered what a person’s natural birth ethnicity was. People of all nations were acceptable provided they accepted Jesus as Ransom and King. Acts 10:34,35,45.
5-Religious Jews today, like many in the first century, do not accept Jesus as Christ and King in a religious sense. And even in a political sense theirs is not a theocratic state. It is a secular state. They have no special standing with God, so that the establishment of the state of Israel is inconsequential to the biblical prophecies about a restored Kingdom. The 1948 establishment of the state of Israel was a political fulfillment of the “ Balfour Declaration of 1917 : An official letter from the British Foreign Office headed by Lord Arthur Balfour , the UK's Foreign Secretary (from December 1916 to October 1919), to Baron Rothschild , who was seen as a representative of the Jewish people. The letter stated that the British government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
The British Government had attained standing to assert this desired objective as a result of having defeated the Ottoman Turkish Empire in World War I, and gained controlling influence In the Middle East, Suez, etc. The political objective was to sustain a Western presence in this part of the world.
6-God’s purpose in “choosing” Abraham’s descendants as a special people to be preserved, had an objective, namely to produce a “seed” who would bless all nationalities of mankind. (Genesis 3:15; Genesis 22:15; Galatians 3:29; Romans 9:7,8; Revelation 12:7-13, 17)This Revelation account occurs in context with the establishment of God’s Kingdom by the heavenly enthronement of Jesus, and the end of the Seven Times of the Gentiles in 1914. After this time, the Devil is cast to the Earth where he is said to have great anger knowing he has a short period of time. We believe we are living through that “short period of time”, and that world events show they constitute the last days of 1 Timothy 3:1-5, and further fulfill the sign of Jesus presence as explained in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. The Great Tribulation comes after this short period of time.
7-Since God’s purpose in choosing the Jews ended in a fleshly sense once the Christ was revealed, and since people of all nations can only have salvation by accepting Jesus as Christ and King, and since the state of Israel and the Jews do not accept Christ, then we conclude that their various political intrigues are simply an interesting side-show and a political anomaly no more significant than the 70 year Communist experiment in Russia. The natural Jews still exist, but they are no longer the chosen people. That purpose was fulfilled in Jesus, and Jehovah God has moved on.
Please read the article below, and I will write again in a few days about the “generation” question.
Scholar
ISRAEL OFGOD
This expression, found only once in Scripture, refers to spiritual Israel rather than to racial descendants of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. (Ge 32:22-28) The Bible speaks of “Israel in a fleshly way” (1Co 10:18), as well as spiritual Israel made up of those for whom descent from Abraham is not a requirement. (Mt 3:9) The apostle Paul, when using the expression “the Israel of God,” shows that it has nothing to do with whether one is a circumcised descendant of Abraham or not.—Ga 6:15, 16.
The prophet Hosea foretold that God, in rejecting the nation of natural Israel in favor of this spiritual nation, which includes Gentiles, would say “to those not my people: ‘You are my people.’” (Ho 2:23; Ro 9:22-25) In due time the Kingdom of God was taken away from the nation of natural Jews and given to a spiritual nation bringing forth Kingdom fruitage. (Mt 21:43) To be sure, natural Jews were included in spiritual Israel. The apostles and others who received holy spirit at Pentecost in 33 C.E. (about 120), those added on that day (about 3,000), and those that later increased the number to about 5,000 were all Jews and proselytes. (Ac 1:13-15; 2:41; 4:4) But even at that, they were, as Isaiah described them, “a mere remnant” saved out of that cast-off nation.—Isa 10:21, 22; Ro 9:27.
Other scriptures elaborate on this matter. With the breaking off of some “natural branches” of the figurative olive tree, there was a grafting in of “wild” non-Israelite ones, so that there was no racial or class distinction among those that “are really Abraham’s seed, heirs with reference to a promise.” (Ro 11:17-24; Ga 3:28, 29) “Not all who spring from Israel are really ‘Israel.’” “For he is not a Jew who is one on the outside, nor is circumcision that which is on the outside upon the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit.” (Ro 9:6; 2:28, 29) Natural Israel failed to produce the required number, so God “turned his attention to the nations to take out of them a people for his name” (Ac 15:14), concerning whom it was said, “You were once not a people, but are now God’s people.” (1Pe 2:10) The apostle Peter quoted what had been said to natural Israel and applied it to this spiritual Israel of God, saying it is in reality “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for special possession.”—Ex 19:5, 6; 1Pe 2:9.
The 12 tribes mentioned in Revelation chapter 7 must refer to this spiritual Israel for several valid reasons. The listing does not match that of natural Israel at Numbers chapter 1. Also Jerusalem’s temple and priesthood and all the tribal records of natural Israel were permanently destroyed, lost forever, long before John had his vision in 96 C.E. But more important, John received his vision upon a background of the aforementioned developments from and after Pentecost 33 C.E. In the light of such events, John’s vision of those standing on the heavenly Mount Zion with the Lamb (whom natural Israel had rejected) revealed the number of this spiritual Israel of God to be 144,000 “bought from among mankind.”—Re 7:4; 14:1, 4.
