Westminster Assemblyman John Lightfoot Against
the Doctrine of a Future Conversion of the Jews
Excerpts from the writings of John Lightfoot (1602-1675) against the belief that the Bible teaches a great conversion of the Jews in the latter days of this age. Lightfoot was one of the Westminster Assemblymen. I have updated some of the punctuation and a few words to make it more readable.
“…the Jews had now forfeited their privilege. “Beauty and bonds” were broke. They were set under a peculiar favour at first (Christ owns that), till they forfeited it, by despising their highest privilege of all, i.e., Christ himself born of them, and his gospel. This is plain, by those words of Barnabas and Paul: “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.” And Christ had said to them before, “The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you.” They had sinned worse than the heathen; the prophets blame them so. For besides the contempt of means, which the heathen had not, they outdid them in the very sin that cast the heathen off. The Gentiles had refused the “invisible creator” but they had only small light. These had rejected God visible, and that for a murderer, when the light shone as clear as possible; as plainly as God could converse with men and show himself, i.e., in infinite goodness and holiness. They looked for power and glory; he showed that in his miracles, but that is not the highest way of God’s showing himself; the devils can show power, but he went about doing good and showing holiness — the greatest evidence and footsteps of God; and yet they rejected him.
This makes me not believe the call of the Jews; because they sinned beyond the Gentiles; because they sinned against such light as shall never appear to eyes again. Some have dreamed of some glorious appearance of Christ that shall convert them. If more shall be seen than they have seen already, I believe it. But more, certainly they cannot see.”
— John Lightfoot, Sermon, October 7, 1655
https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/lightfoot/vol06.pdf (pages 393-394)
“Since the New Testament doth ordinarily style that first generation [i.e., Jews of the 1st century] ‘antichrist,’ and since, as is apparent, the very same spirit is in the nation to this day, I see not how we can look upon the conversion of the Jews, under a lower notion than the conversion of a brood of antichrists. Therefore, can I no more look for the general calling of them, than I look for the general call of the antichristian brood of Rome. We see, indeed, by happy experience, that several nations have fallen off from the Roman antichrist, as the Protestant countries that are at this day: But antichrist is yet in being and is strong; and his end will be, not by conversion, but perdition. So can I not but conceive of the Jewish nation; that although numerous multitudes of them may, at the last, be brought to the gospel, as the Protestant party hath been, yet that, to the end, numerous multitudes also shall continue in the antichristian spirit of unbelief, and opposition, and blaspheming; and both parts of antichrist, the Roman and this, so to perish together. Nor doth this opinion any whit cross any place of Scripture, that is produced about the calling of the Jews, but rather settles its sense, and explains it. That eminent place of the apostle, Romans 11, carrieth such a limitation throughout: and the very intent of his discourse speaketh to such a tenor all along. For his drift, in that chapter, is not to determine, whether all the Jews should be once called; but whether all the Jews were wholly cast off; and this he states, that “there is a remnant” that “the election hath obtained, but the rest are blinded” and “that blindness in part is happened to Israel,” etc. And this is the mystery, that he there speaketh of; and not, as some would wrest it, their universal conversion.”
— John Lightfoot, The Fall of Jerusalem, Section XII, Concerning the Calling of the Jews
https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/lightfoot/vol03.pdf (pages 410-411; see the entire section, pages 408-412)
Excellent quotes that I’ll be adding to my own database. Thanks!
You’re welcome, Ron.
“…he [John Lightfoot] strenuously maintained that the Jews are utterly and finally rejected, that those of them who embraced Christianity in the time of Christ and the apostles were the “remnant to be saved,” and that there neither then was, nor ever shall be, any universal calling of them.”
— William M. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1878), page 293
Do you have any insights on how we’re to understand the phrase: “the fullness of the gentiles”?
I believe Paul is referring to the end of the Israelite nation with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. At that time, the fullness of the Gentiles came into being when the kingdom was to be extended to all nations (gentiles = nations).
Prior to this point, there was a transitional period that existed between the ascension of Christ and the destruction of Jerusalem, during which the Old Testament worship continued to be practiced alongside the worship of the newfound Christian churches. But the former was brought to an abrupt and permanent end in 70 A.D., and this is the point when the Israelite nation, the Temple, and the Mosaic ceremonial system of worship all passed out of existence. This is where, I believe, “the fullness of the gentiles be come in.”
Is there any Scripture that confirms this interpretation? Yes, if we look at Luke 21:24, we see a very similar phrase used, and there is no question that it is speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem. It is in the context of Jesus speaking of the “days of vengeance” that are soon to come. That is, God’s vengeance against the final apostasy of the children of Israel which culminated in their murder of His Son. In this passage, Christ says “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Notice the close similarity between “until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25) and “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24). “The times of the Gentiles” “were fulfilled,” or the “fullness of the Gentiles” “came in,” at the point when Jerusalem was “trodden down” (a metaphor for crushing or destroying, see Job 40:12; Psalm 44:15; 60:12; 108:13; Isaiah 63:6), for the final time by the Romans.
In other words, the age had fully come when all nations were to be brought into the kingdom which formerly had been mostly limited to the Jews, and the Jewish nation was cast off never again to be restored (though I don’t deny that some individuals identifying as Jews were saved after this point or that some such can be saved today.)
I agree. Signatories to the Antioch Declaration should be reading your site.
A little embarrassed I didn’t know John Lightfoot was a Westminster assemblyman.
And it’s not something I’m totally convinced of, but I lean toward the theory that modern “Jews” merely say they are Jews and are not, but do lie, and are Khazars, Ashkenazi’s etc., basically “Turkic” and not Israelites at all. And if that’s true, there is certainly no promise to Turks of “restoration” when they never were under any peculiar promise. And if modern Jews are genetically relevant to the question, it remains that they are antichrists, and therefore still not Jews at all, Rom.2:29 or there abouts. And no antichrist can ever be any part of “God’s Chosen People”, etc. God has no chosen antichrists. It is enough that if any of them repent and embrace the gloriously free and amazingly gracious promises in the gospel through the name of Jesus that they will have certainly shown themselves to be God’s Chosen People…. WHOEVER THEY ARE.
Good comment. A point seldom heard in the ‘Chosen People’ question, that should put an end to the discussion, is made by Benjamin Morgan Palmer:
“All the promises of grace are made to Christ as the trustee and representative of His people. … It is inaccurate to say that these promises were ever made directly to sinners considered as such. There is not one promise, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, which a holy God could speak directly to those who lie under the condemnation of the law. There can be no contradiction in the utterances of God. If, under a dispensation of the law He has proclaimed “the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” then as the lawgiver He cannot say to us, at the same moment, “ye shall live.” He appoints, therefore, His own Son to be the believer’s representative and surety; and the promises of the covenant are made to Him.” pp. 284-5.
Benjamin Morgan Palmer, ‘The Theology of Prayer’
There are no Chosen People. Just the Chosen Person of Jesus Christ. The Elect are adopted in Him. (That includes Abraham).
1 John 2:22-23
22Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. 23Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
It doesn’t matter who today’s Jews are and we don’t need to speculate about it. The fact is that no evidence exists for the claim that they are descendants of the Israelites. It’s not necessary for us to have an alternate theory of ancestry in order to deny a claim of ancestry that has no evidence to support it.