Augustine’s Legacy Blinds to Israel’s Future

25-08-2025 - Posted by Geert-Jan
Originally posted on August 21, 2025 – by Andre Piet

In the Nederlands Dagblad (Dutch Newspaper) of August 21, 2025, professor Hans van Oort was interviewed under the telling headline: Nowhere does the New Testament promise a state of Israel. Van Oort says he was “astonished” at his own conclusion. But anyone who reads the piece sees hardly any astonishment. Van Oort openly admits: “I had no strong opinion on this theme.” How then can someone who has never really studied the expectation of Israel suddenly be so “astonished”? The headline suggests a journey of discovery, but in reality Van Oort merely repeats the church dogma since Augustine: Israel no longer counts; the church has taken its place.

The First Mistake: Beginning Where You Should Not Begin

Van Oort’s mistake is fundamental: he begins in the New Testament and confines himself to it. He writes:

“I myself decided to go through the entire New Testament, in Greek, to reach a sound judgment.”

But that is not how it works. The New Testament does not stand on its own—it builds on the Old. The expectation of the prophets is crystal clear: when the Messiah comes, He will gather Israel, restore them to their land, and reign from Jerusalem over the nations. And the writers of the New Testament pick up on exactly that; nowhere is that expectation revoked.

The Throne of David – Not in Heaven

Whoever goes back to the beginning of the Gospel of Luke sees this immediately. When the angel came to Mary, he said about the child she would bear:

“The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David.”
— Luke 1:32

That throne of David is not in heaven, but in Jerusalem. The Messiah is the Son of David and will reign there, in the city of David. This is no symbolic metaphor, but the very core of Israel’s expectation.

Acts 1: A Legitimate Question

The Nederlands Dagblad article summarizes Van Oort with the claim that “the writings of the New Testament leave no room at all for a state of Israel.” But read Acts 1:6. There the disciples ask Jesus:

“Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The question was not whether that restoration would come, but when. Jesus does not rebuke them; He only affirms that the Father has fixed the times and seasons. If even the disciples, after forty days of instruction from the mouth of the Risen Lord, still held this expectation—how then can one maintain that the New Testament knows nothing of it?

Acts 15: First the Nations, Then Israel

Acts 15:16–17 leaves no room for ambiguity. When God has first gathered a people from among the nations, He will then fulfill the promise, just as the prophet Amos had spoken:

“After these things I will return, and will rebuild the tabernacle of David that hath fallen… that the residue of men may seek after the Lord.”

First God gathers a people from the nations; afterwards He restores the fallen royal house of David and of Israel. James is in complete agreement with the prophets.

Romans 9–11: A “Until”

In Romans 9–11 Paul argues that Israel’s present unbelief has an until (11:25). For now, the nation in the majority says “no” to her Messiah (“their hardening”); but that is temporary.

“And so all Israel shall be saved; according as it hath been written, The Deliverer shall come out of Zion, and He shall turn away impiety from Jacob, and this to them is the covenant from Me, when I may take away their sins.”
— Romans 11:26–27 (YLT)

Here Paul explicitly recalls the prophets. Israel will yet come to faith, and the New Covenant—promised to them (!)—will be fulfilled.

Blind to the Literal Fulfillment

Van Oort presents the message of the New Testament as the worldwide scope of salvation, embracing both Jews and Gentiles. That is true—but it is only half the story. Today the nations indeed share in salvation—but that is because of Israel’s unbelief and rejection. Soon, however, the nations will share in salvation because of Israel’s faith and acceptance:

“For if the casting away of them is a reconciliation of the world, what the reception is—if not life out of the dead?”
— Romans 11:15 (YLT)

Revelation: Too Difficult for His Framework

It is no surprise that Van Oort does not know what to do with Revelation either. He says:

“Revelation cannot be read as a road map for the end times.”

But why not? Does Revelation not speak precisely about the time of the end? And does it not set out a sequential series of events (seals, trumpets, bowls) that accompany this period? And how can anyone reading Revelation miss the role that earthly Jerusalem plays? Revelation 11, for example, describes two witnesses who prophesy for 42 months in the city “where also their Lord was crucified”—is that not Jerusalem? That the city is spiritually called “Sodom and Egypt” does not take away from that geographical reality.

Augustine’s Lens

What astonishes is that Van Oort still reads the New Testament through Augustine’s lens. Since that time the church has appropriated Israel’s role and rationalized away all the concrete promises for the people, the city, and the land. The problem is not that prophecies also have a spiritual meaning—they do—but that this must never be at the expense of their concrete, literal fulfillment.

Conclusion

As much as Van Oort knows about Augustine, so little awareness does he show of the expectation of Israel’s prophets, to which Jesus and the apostles seamlessly adhered. Take their word seriously, and you know: God’s promises to Israel have not lapsed but still stand. The restoration of the people in their land, Jerusalem as the capital, and the Messiah on the throne of David—that is the line of Scripture and the prophets.

And this is only a glimpse. In the New Testament alone the confirmations abound (consider Matthew 19:28, Luke 22:30, Acts 3:19–21, Revelation 20:1–6). Van Oort’s denial is like someone failing to see the trees in the forest.

Delen: