Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 109:436 (Oct 1952)
Article: Salvation in the Tribulation Part 2
Author: Donald W. Kopecky

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BSac 109:436 (Oct 52) p. 358

Salvation in the Tribulation
Part 2

Donald W. Kopecky

(Continued from the July-September Number, 1952)

{Editor’s note: Footnotes in the original printed edition were numbered 3–10, but in this electronic edition are numbered 1–8 respectively.}

The Fact of This Salvation

Predicted in the Old Testament. Salvation for the Jews is spoken of in the Old Testament prophecies as being future and as referring to the time when the kingdom of David shall be established again in the earth. The Old Testament does not indicate that any Israelite of the time before Christ possessed eternal life. Rather, they thought and wrote of eternal life as being a future inheritance, to be obtained at their restoration and resurrection (Dan 12:1–3).1 The orthodox Jews who lived during Christ’s earthly ministry held that viewpoint (Luke 10:25–29; 18:18–27) and were not rebuked by Christ for holding it.

As stated in the preceding section, the purpose of the tribulation period in regard to Israel is to prepare that nation to receive the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel’s conversion to Christ will be a definite event occurring at the end of the seventieth week of Daniel 9:24–27 (Zech 12:9–13:9). The conversion is spoken of as the nation’s being “born at once” (Isa 66:8). In the natural realm, birth is preceded by birth-pangs or travail. In the birth of Israel into eternal life, there will also be birthpangs or travail. Christ Himself declared that these birth-pangs will be the period of the tribulation (Matt 24:9, Greek text).

To this analogy of the conversion of Israel to a birth it may be objected that Israel will have existed as a nation long before the period of the tribulation. David Baron has furnished an answer to this possible objection,: “It is still the ‘Jacob’ period of Israel’s history. Not yet are they as a nation ‘Israelites’—princes having power with God and with men, and prevailing. There have indeed always been

BSac 109:436 (Oct 52) p. 359

individuals among them to whom the Lord Himself could bear witness and say: ‘Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile’; but as a nation it is the ‘Jacob’ name which still applies to them. And there is a man wrestling with them—unknown, His name not yet revealed to them—it i...

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