Bible Science Forum

My critique of Jack Hibbs’ heretical sermon claiming that there is coming a time for the national salvation of Israel, a message contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ confirmed the new testament in His blood, which is the whole gospel to those who believe.

Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, California, gave a sermon titled “Is It Time to Give Up on Israel?” on August 25, 2024. A friend asked me to watch it. The sermon is available on YouTube. The following is my response.

I took notes all the way through. Now reading through those notes I realise that he offered very little biblical support for his claim that God is not finished with Israel. He means Israel as a nation as it has existed since 1948. There is not much to biblically respond to. Where there is, I share my reactions and critique any biblical arguments I can find.

At the start of the sermon he gets the audience to read Romans 11:1-6 but makes only a few comments on that passage, which if you read it in context, it does not support national salvation of the Jews. However it does support that some, a remnant of Jews, will be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Read Flesh or Spirit, Grace or Works on all of Romans 11.

Hibbs only used one word from Romans 11:1, the word “I” referring to Paul saying he is a Jew and is now saved. That does not support his claim of national salvation. It simply states, like the rest of Romans 11, that by grace God saves some Jews and not by works (ethnicity). Read Romans 11:6.

Hibbs asked: “How did Paul get saved?” “How did Jews in Israel get saved?” Of course by being the elect of God, who are saved by grace. No dispute there, but it does not prove his claim at all. Everyone Jew or Gentile is saved by grace. And all the early disciples were saved Jews.

Hibbs makes statements many times like “God is not finished with Israel” but he does not define who Israel is. Those being circumcised of the heart and not of the flesh, is not mentioned. In Jesus Christ ONLY God completes His plan with Israel. John 15 tells us that Jesus Christ is the true Vine. If we abide in Him we are in the Israel of God. Read The True Israel of God and The Vineyard of God.

Hibbs makes an idol of the nation of Israel. Instead of seeing the Bible’s message is all about Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus we are complete. In that sense God completes His work in Israel if the Israelites come to Christ and put their trust in Him.

Then Hibbs used Romans 11:5b “a remnant according to the election of grace” but he does not exposit on the whole verse. It states:

5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

Romans 11:5 AKJV

To which Paul is saying there are a chosen group of Jews in his time, 2000 years ago, who are saved. Of course most of the early disciples were Jews.

One more verse Hibbs uses from Romans 11 is verse 25b “blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” Hibbs makes the following statement about it without proof:

“Satan blinded the eyes of the Gentiles but God blinded the eyes of the Jews”

Very strange because only the second part is supported by scripture.

God is sovereign and He acts according to His will. That fact is explained in Romans 9 and Hibbs quotes Romans 9:31-33,

31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.
32 Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone;
33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense: and whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed.

Romans 9:31-33 AKJV

The Lord tells us salvation not by law but by grace through Jesus who is the Stumbling Stone of offence for the Jews. Israel failed to find righteousness by the law but by trusting in Jesus, salvation is available through grace. This is true for anybody, Jew or non-Jew.

Hibbs said, “There is only one chosen nation on Earth and we’re not in it“. To the Jewish people he said “let me in!” His meaning is that you have to be a Jew to be in it. As if they have some special privilege because they are Jewish. This is contrary to scripture; actually it is heresy. It is antithetical to the gospel.

All saved believers are part of God’s new nation under the new covenant, or new testament, through Jesus’ shed blood on the cross.

7 To you therefore which believe He is precious: but to them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner,
8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.

1 Peter 2:7-10 AKJV

This is a reference to all saved believers in Christ. The stone of stumbling is Jesus, the Jews are those who stumble over Him.

All believers are God’s holy nation. Hibbs seems to be ignorant of this basic truth of salvation in Jesus Christ.

Hibbs quotes Jeremiah 31:33-36 but if we read from verse 31 the meaning is obvious.

31 Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will make a new covenant [a new testament] with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was an husband to them, said the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, said the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, said the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 AKJV

God’s law written in the heart is by grace and not the works of the flesh. The new covenant is the new testament in Jesus blood.

28 For this is My blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

Matthew 26:27 AKJV

Christ paid it all on the cross. Those Jews who accept Jesus and trust in Him, along with the Gentile believers, are the fulfillment of these verses in Jeremiah 31.

35 Thus said the LORD, which gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divides the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is His name:
36 If those ordinances depart from before Me, said the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever.

Jeremiah 31:35-36 AKJV

Simply put, God promised that the seed, meaning offspring, of Israel who believe will never cease from being God’s nation. So who are they? The God haters? The unsaved Christ rejecters? No! The nation is Christ’s nation which includes all believers who are the true Israel of God. They have the law written on their hearts. Read Is Modern Political Israel God’s Chosen Nation?

Also Hibbs claimed that these verses in Jeremiah 31 are about Jesus’ second coming but they are clearly a prophecy on His first coming to Israel. The section I bolded in verse 33b reads “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Only through Jesus can the law be written in the hearts of men and women, either Jew or Gentile. This is the gospel. So who are “My people”? They are all those who believe. How can they be anyone else? Romans 11 says the same.

6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

Romans 11:6 AKJV

Salvation is only by grace and not by works of the flesh. The Lord is trying to show us the clear distinction here. There is no privilege in the flesh. Only those chosen of God, the remnant He chose will and can be redeemed.

Hibbs then made a very strange claim. His audience must be quite ignorant of the Bible and the etymology of the words used. He said:

“Believing Jews are Messiah followers BUT believing Gentiles are Christ followers!”

He said this implying that there is a difference.

But the word ‘Messiah’ (from Hebrew) and the word ‘Christ’ (from Greek) have exactly the same meaning. One is Hebrew, מָשִׁיחַ mashiyach, meaning anointed and one is Greek, Χριστός Christos, meaning anointed. There is absolutely no difference, both point to Jesus. He is the Jewish Messiah, the Anointed-One of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is the Christ, Christos, the Anointed-One.

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28 AKJV

Hibbs said that not one of God’s covenants is based on man’s performance. That is totally false. Most of the covenants were conditional. God said many times to follow Him, follow the law, keep Him in their hearts, be merciful, care for the poor and operate in love and justice etc.

From Genesis 17:1-10 we read that God said the land is an ‘everlasting possession’ but He also said ‘I will be their God’ (17:8) and Abraham and his offspring shall keep His covenant (agreement) and be circumcised as a sign (17:9-10). But we know that God requires ‘circumcision of the heart’, and not of the flesh, to be truly His children (Romans 2:29). If they are not obedient to their agreement with God then how can they be His children? Because of their unbelief they can’t be. And their land rights are forfeited! Read The Blessings of God on Abraham.

The land rights covenant with Abraham was conditional on obedience. Only the covenant of promise, confirmed in Christ, is without works. It had to be because Israel could not keep the old covenant under the Mosaic law, which was by works.

24 Why the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

Galatians 3:24-25 AKJV

In Christ, wherein justification is only by grace, the Jews are no longer under the law of Moses.

16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He said not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ.
17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before [previously ratified] of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot cancel, that it should make the promise of none effect.
18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise.

Galatians 3:16-18 AKJV

The covenant, that was confirmed before [previously ratified] of God in Christ, is the covenant of promise with Abraham. The ESV may be clearer on the aspect that the law could not nullify the covenant of promise to Abraham, though it misses the point of Christ confirming the promise.

17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.

Galatians 3:17 ESV

What was that covenant with Abraham? The AKJV states it was confirmed or ratified in Christ.

Jesus is the seed of Abraham, only in Him do we inherit the promises to Abraham. In Christ we are made near to the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:12-13). The law could not do it, so God did it in Jesus. And now we are part of His Israel of God (comprised on both saved Jews and Gentiles).

Hibbs mentioned replacement theology, but that is a straw man. We should believe the scripture (Galatians 3:17) which is fulfilment theology or call it confirmation theology. All the promises are fulfilled or confirmed in Jesus, and that happened on the cross.

Hibbs said: “The star factor in this is the Jews. ” Absolutely false doctrine. The star factor in this is Jesus Christ. It is all about Jesus and His atoning work on the cross.

Hibbs quotes Psalm 89:31-34.

31 If they break My statutes, and keep not My commandments;
32 Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
33 Nevertheless My loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail.
34 My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips.

Psalm 89:31-34 AKJV

That is correct, the covenant Jesus fulfilled in His sacrifice on the cross. The Jews could not obey the law so God in His Son provided the perfect sacrifice for sin. In Christ, if they accept Him as Saviour all the promises, and covenants are fulfilled. The focus is on the Son not on Israel or the Jews. In the Son we are in the true Israel of God and as such all promises and the covenant is kept with those believers.

Some Zionists even say Jews don’t need Jesus’ sacrifice because they have this eternal covenant and they will be saved by that. They miss the whole point, taught by the Apostle Paul, that through Christ the old covenant is confirmed or fulfilled. Not broken. Because there can be no atonement without a perfect sinless sacrifice, which God provided in His own Son on the cross. That is the gospel.

Hibbs’ statement about “God pressed pause” is not in the Bible. That is totally from John Nelson Darby’s theology. That statement is about the end time eschatology of J.N. Darby and Cyrus Scofield’s Reference Bible notes, which are the source of much confusion.

Hibbs claims without proof that when Christ returns He will set up His kingdom of the Jews on Earth centred on Jerusalem.

No, He won’t. Old Jerusalem is bondage to the flesh, new Jerusalem is from above, where we are free by promise.

22 For it is written, Abraham had two sons, one out of the slave woman and one
out of the free woman. 23 But, indeed, the one of the slave woman has been born according to flesh, and the one out of the free woman through the promise, 24 which things are being allegorized, for these are two covenants, one, indeed, from Mount Sinai bringing forth to slavery (which is Hagar, 25 for Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, and she slaves with her children), 26 but the Jerusalem from above is free, who is the mother of us all;

Galatians 4:22-26 KJ3

Read Old Jerusalem is Bondage, New Jerusalem is Free

Hibbs completely misunderstands Genesis 15:5, which is not about many descendants of Abraham, but about the singular seed of Abraham, that is, Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:16).

5 And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you be able to number them: and He said to him, So shall your seed be.

Genesis 15:5 AKJV

God told Abraham that prophesied in the stars, or their names, is the record of the Christ to come, who will be his offspring. There is no doubt that this is a prophesy of Christ, the singular seed of Abraham.

For a full exegesis on this read God’s Promise to Abraham.

He said “If you don’t believe in Israel you don’t believe the Bible”. As explained above you need to define Israel for this statement to have any meaning.

Hibbs stated that after a 7-year tribulation (JN Darby doctrine) God will establish Israel as a believing nation under Christ’s rule. He believes in national salvation of Israel but previously he stated in contradiction that God only saves individuals, not in bulk. He is correct that only individuals are saved, but regardless of their ethnicity.

The idea of one salvation for Gentiles and another for Jews is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is only one gospel, it is not separately given to Jews and Gentiles. Galatians chapter 3 deals with this as does all of Romans 9-11.

I note Hibbs avoids hundreds of scriptures in the New Testament, even many from Jesus own teaching on this topic. “But the children of the kingdom, shall be cast into outer darkness: …” (Matthew 8:12) etc. Not mentioned.

Read Salvation Is For All, Regardless of Race. Nearly every verse in that piece is from the New Testament. The New Testament is where we find the doctrine of Jesus and His Apostles. It is not in the Old Testament. Read The Apostles’ Doctrine.

My conclusion is that Hibbs offers very little scriptural support for his claim. He makes a lot of motherhood statements in his sermon and gets the audience to repeat them like a mantra. “God has a plan!” “Do we give up on Israel?” But he does not use sound exegesis. But the answer to the title question is: No, God did not give up on Israel, because He gave His Son. In Christ all the promises of God are fulfilled.

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Building the Third Jewish Temple

The following was written 20 years ago but it gives you some insight into the Darbyite Christians who support the building of the Third Jewish Temple, which is an anathema to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

With the deployment of Dr. Asher Kaufman to Jerusalem in 1967, just weeks after the conclusion of the Six-Day War in June, another dimension was added to the Temple Mount assault. An extensive network of American-based Christian fundamentalists, largely associated with the Darbyite movement and its Dallas Theological Seminary, soon were linked up to the Temple Mount operations under way inside the Old City of Jerusalem, which was now in the hands of Israeli authorities.

Through Temple Mount Faithful founder Stanley Goldfoot, a member of the Stem Gang terrorist underground, Dr. Lambert Dolphin, a physicist at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., was brought to Jerusalem in the early 1980s. Dolphin had already been in correspondence with Kaufman, but it was Goldfoot who put the Quatuor Coronati field operative, Kaufman, together with the Darbyite fundamentalist, Dolphin. During World War II, Goldfoot had worked for Lord Martin Charteris, then British Intelligence station chief for the Middle East, and later, private secretary to Queen Elizabeth IL

Soon, massive amounts of money from American-based Darbyite Christian fundamentalists began pouring into the Jerusalem operations, aimed, ultimately, at blowing up the Muslim holy sites at the Temple Mount, and building the Third Temple. The American Jerusalem Temple Foundation was one early source of financing for this insane effort. According to Dolphin’s exhaustive writings, now posted on his website, another big source of largesse has been Chuck Missler, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and CEO of a string of U.S. defense companies, who runs a Darbyite publishing firm, Koinonia House, which propagandizes for the building of the Third Temple.

Dolphin set all of this down in a written account of his 1994 visit to Israel, accompanied by Missler and 70 “pilgrims.” “My specific responsibility on this tour,” he wrote, “was to organize and host the Third Annual Temple Conference in Jerusalem where Jewish scientists and religious leaders presented ten papers concerned with the location of the First and Second Temples and plans and projections concerning the coming of the Jewish Messiah.”

Dolphin revealed his own views on the current state of affairs inside Israel: “Now, strangely, the Jews have become their own worst enemies. The present government is openly, blatantly anti-Biblical and has set about dismantling the state of Israel piece by piece, giving it all back to Israel’s own sworn enemies in exchange for peace promises everyone knows are empty and meaningless. Even more amazing is that the public is well informed about all these issues and chooses to do nothing.”

Dolphin was referring to the Oslo Accords, recently signed by Prime Minister Rabin, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, and President Clinton.

Dolphin made no bones about the fact that a great deal of blood would have to be shed for the Temple project to be completed. “Some things are clear,” he wrote. “Sinful man can not approach a holy God without a suitable sacrifice. The shedding of blood is somehow necessary to make atonement for human evil. Even forgiven sinners need washing and regular cleansing in order to enjoy fellowship with their Creator…. God in His love wishes to teach us the depths of his love and forgiveness and mercy through the symbolism of the Temple.”

Dolphin ended with an ominous warning: “The time is fast approaching when the Temple Mount will (by one means or another) be accessible both for full-scale geophysical exploration, and for digging and exploring.”

It is no small irony that the Darbyism preached by Dolphin, Missler, and the other central figures in the American Jerusalem Temple Foundation, is deeply anti-Semitic. At the core of the Gnostic “dispensational premillennarianism,” advocated by 19th-century Anglican clergyman John Nelson Darby, is the belief that the extermination of the Jews, in a final battle of Armageddon, brought on by the rebuilding of Solomon’s Temple, is the Biblical precondition for the second coming of the Messiah and the Rapture. Pastor Chuck Smith, Dolphin’s mentor at the Calvary Baptist Church, when asked by EIR whether he had any compunctions about unleashing a holy war that would lead to the possible extermination of millions of Jews and Muslims, replied, “Frankly, no, because it is all part of Biblical prophecy.”

Smith was also full of praise for the Jewish zealots of the Temple Mount Faithful, and their founder, Goldfoot: “Do you want a real radical?” he added. “Try Stanley Goldfoot. He’s a wonder. His plan for the Temple Mount is to take sticks of dynamite and some M-16s and blow the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosques and just lay claim to the site.”

Source: Quatuor Coronati, Satanism and the British Occult Bureau, by Michele Steinberg (from page 5) Bold are my emphases.

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The Chosen People as Understood by Jewish Dr. Naomi Wolf

A Jewish woman, but not a believer in Jesus, Dr. Naomi Wolf, understands the concept of a chosen people. I share her words below. The chosen people that Jews and the church has been sold is an easily disproven lie. (My emphases added)

Dr. Naomi Wolf:

“Okay, so I was challenged below: “Read the Bible! God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people.” So….I may get crucified for this but I have started to say it — most recently (terrified, trembling) to warm welcome in a synagogue in LA: Actually if you read Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy in Hebrew — as I do — you see that God did not “give” Israel to the Jews/Israelites.

We as Jews are raised with the creed that “God gave us the land of Israel” in Genesis — and that ethnically ‘we are the chosen people.” But actually — and I could not believe my eyes when I saw this, I checked my reading with major scholars and they confirmed it — actually God’s “covenant” in Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy with the Jewish people is NOT ABOUT AN ETHNICITY AND NOT ABOUT A CONTRACT. IT IS ABOUT A WAY OF BEHAVING.

Again and again in the “covenant” language He never says: “I will give you, ethnic Israelites, the land of Israel.” Rather He says something far more radical – far more subversive — far more Godlike in my view. He says: IF you visit those imprisoned…act mercifully to the widow and the orphan…welcome the stranger in your midst…tend the sick…do justice and love mercy ….and perform various other tasks…THEN YOU WILL BE MY PEOPLE AND THIS LAND WILL BE YOUR LAND.

So “my people” is not ethnic — it is transactional.

We are God’s people not by birth but by a way of behaving, that is ethical, kind and just. And we STOP being “God’s people” when we are not ethical, kind and just. And ANYONE who is ethical, kind and just is, according to God in Genesis, “God’s people.” And the “contract” to “give” us Israel is conditional — we can live in God’s land IF we are “God’s people” in this way — just, merciful, compassionate.

AND — it never ever says, it is ONLY your land. Even when passages spell out geographical “boundaries” as if God does such a thing, it never says this is exclusively your land. It never says I will give this land JUST to you.

Remember these were homeless nomads who had left slavery in Egypt and were wandering around in the desert; at most these passages say, settle here, but they do not say, settle here exclusively.

Indeed again and again it talks about welcoming “zarim” — translated as “strangers” but can also be translated as “people/tribes who are not you” — in your midst.

Blew my mind, hope it blows yours.”

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Recommended Reading

• Book: Apocalypse Now: On the Revelation of Jesus Christ
• Book: Merchants of Death: Global Oligarchs and Their War On Humanity

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