Textual Requirements

The following list is from the Wikipedia article on Jewish Eschatology.  Commentary is added to demonstrate Jesus Christ as the fulfillment, and where and how each of these were or will be fulfilled.

  • The Sanhedrin will be re-established (Isaiah 1:26)
    • Fulfilled today and in the future through the church.  Possibly as future Jewish leaders as well, but ongoing yet now.
  • Once he is King, leaders of other nations will look to him for guidance (Isaiah 2:4)
    • Now, in part, through the church.  Throughout the middle ages, very much so.  Yet in the future, more so.
  • The whole world will worship the One God of Israel (Isaiah 2:17)
    • Speculative intepretation.  The text reads, “And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.”  The Lord alone being exalted does not necessarily mean all the world will worship.
  • He will be descended from King David (Isaiah 11:1) via King Solomon (1 Chron. 22:8-10)
    • Jesus Christ.  See the geneologies in Matthew and Luke.
  • The messiah will be a man of this world, an observant Jew with “fear of God” (Isaiah 11:2)
    • As above.
  • Evil and tyranny will not be able to stand before his leadership (Isaiah 11:4)
    • Could be referring to his earthly ministry, where no disease or evil could stand before him.  Or, in his ministry now, as Matthew 28 says that He now has all authority.  His reign is spiritual in heaven on God’s throne.
  • Knowledge of God will fill the world (Isaiah 11:9)
    • Possibly fulfilled.  Often quoted today as a yet-to-come.
  • He will include and attract people from all cultures and nations (Isaiah 11:10)
    • The Gospel went to the Gentiles, beginning with the encounter of Peter at the house of the Gentiles.
  • All Israelites will be returned to their homeland (Isaiah 11:12, Zechariah 10:6)
    • Appears to be going on in our day.
  • Death will be swallowed up forever (Isaiah 25:8)
    • Revelation 20 and 1 Corinthians 15 both speak of this.  This will happen after the Gog Magog war.  The defeat of death will be followed by the bodily return of Jesus at the end of the world.
  • There will be no more hunger or illness, and death will cease (Isaiah 25:8)
    • After the Gog Magog war, there is an unspecified amount of time between the end of it, and the return of Christ in Revelation 20:11-15.  The Jews will be saved as a nation (Ezekiel 39:28-29), satan will be finally and completely bound (Revelation 20:6-10), and what the state of this will be revealed.  This could likely describe a portion or all of this time, or the Eternal state.
  • The dead will rise again (Isaiah 26:19)
    • At the end of the world, the righteous will rise to glorification, and the wicked to punishment.
  • The house of David shall be as God (Zechariah 12:8)[7]
    • This will be in the time after the Gog Magog war.
  • God will seek to destroy all the nations that go against Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:9, Isaiah 60:12)
    • This is on-going.  Especially in Zechariah 14.
  • Israel and Judah will be made into one nation again (Zechariah 11:12-14, Ezekiel 37:16-22)
    • They are, in modern Israel.
  • The Jewish people will experience eternal joy and gladness (Isaiah 51:11)
    • Once the Jewish people come into salvation in Jesus Christ, realizing Him as their Messiah, God will pour out His Spirit upon the whole nation.  This will result in “life from the dead” according to Paul, resulting in the joy of the Holy Spirit.  God will not remove His Spirit from His people.
  • He will be a messenger of peace (Isaiah 53:7)
    • Christ was the messenger of peace, and is today.
  • Nations will recognize the wrongs they did Israel (Isaiah 52:13-53:5)
    • After the Gog Magog war, and the salvation of Israel, the deceiver of nations will no longer be in the world.
  • The peoples of the world will turn to the Jews for spiritual guidance (Zechariah 8:23)
    • They are the people to whom the Word was given.
  • The ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezekiel 16:55)
    • Happening now, but more so.
  • Weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezekiel 39:9)
    • This will be the outcome of the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog Magog war
  • The Temple will be rebuilt (Ezekiel 40) resuming many of the suspended mitzvot (commandments)
    • Disagreed.  This is interpretational bias.  The rebuilding of the temple likely constitutes not a physical rebuilding, but a spiritual “restoration of all things”.  It is unlikely that the church, then with the Jewish branches grafted back into their own root, would return to the shadow, when we have the reality, which is Christ.  A third, physical temple is irrelevant, when we are builded together a spiritual temple.  We are that temple, and with them, it will be great.
  • He will then perfect the entire world to serve God together (Zephaniah 3:9)
    • The fulfillment of the “one new man”.  Jew and Gentiles serving together.
  • He will take the barren land and make it abundant and fruitful (Isaiah 51:3, Amos 9:13-15, Ezekiel 36:29-30, Isaiah 11:6-9)
    • On-going.  Even more so in the days to come, when Israel is fully restored.