Starting at the end of the 16th century, however, some of Calvin’s theological descendants, mostly Puritans, … took seriously the Reformation’s emphasis on the plain sense of the Bible and therefore distinguished between promises made to Jewish Israel and those made to the new Gentile Israel. Thomas Draxe (d. 1618) was a disciple of the Puritan theologian William Perkins. He used Romans 11 and biblical prophecies to argue that Jesus would not come again until “the dispersed Jews generally converted to Christianity,” but that in the meantime they “would be temporally restored into their own country, [would] rebuild Jerusalem, and have a most reformed, and flourishing, church and commonwealth.” In his commentary on the book of Revelation, published posthumously in 1611, Thomas Brightman (1562–1607) wrote that Jews were the “kings of the east” in Revelation 16:12 who would destroy Islam. He was certain they would be restored to the land of Zion: “Shall they return again to Jerusalem? There is nothing more sure: the Prophets plainly confirm it, and beat often upon it.”
Discussion