When Will Israel Receive The New Covenant?

Q. My heart is continually blessed and my spirit lifted as I continue with you in the word of our Lord.  I am eternally grateful for your work and for your dependent spirit upon the Lord and for the work God is able to do in us as we yield and trust in Him and His word.

In Ezekiel 36:26 the Lord Said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.   Thus says the Lord God: “I will also let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do this for them.”

When I was a new Christian I heard this word of the Lord and understood that this is what takes place in a Christians’ life at the time of salvation and continues throughout our sanctification and I was deeply blessed.  My question is: Exactly when does this take place for the house of Israel?  Is it in the Tribulation period after the Ezekiel 38: battle?

A.  Ezekiel 36:26 is essentially a promise to Israel that they would one day be “born again”.  This is being partially fulfilled through out the Church age as untold numbers of Jews have converted to Christianity. It will increase in intensity following the Battle of Ezekiel 38 when God promised He will pour out His Spirit on the house of Israel (Ezekiel 39:29), and will have it’s complete fulfillment toward the end of the Great Tribulation, as foretold in Zechariah 12:10, when their eyes are opened to Jesus their Messiah in preparation for the Kingdom Age to follow.

God also made this promise to Israel in Jeremiah 31:31-34 where He coined the phrase “New Covenant.”  This passage also finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Millennial Kingdom.

These Old Testament promises are what caused Jesus to criticize Nicodemus for not understanding that a person can not see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:10)