The returns of the Jews

I think the present State of Israel in the land (of Judah) can be compared to the returning Jews from the Babylonian captivity (6th century BC).  Each return could serve to prepare the way for the fulfillment of prophecy concerning the two comings of Christ. 

With each return to the land of Judah, there was a significant number of Israelis still living among other nations as an identifiable people.

With each return, there was an opposition from those who did not want to see a self-governed presence in the land.

With each return, there was not a complete return to the land as prophesied in Ezekiel: 
“I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. ... Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”
Ezekiel 36:24, 28    

The first coming of Christ was at the right time:  the “fullness of time” (see Ephesians 4.4) when Israel existed in the land of Judah under Roman rule. There was an expectation of Messiah. He would come when Israel was in the land as an identifiable people with a functioning Temple service. 

The rejection of Jesus as the Christ by the majority of leaders would lead to the fulfillment of prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the leading of Jews into captivity again, with Jerusalem being “trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21.20-24) 

The slow return of Jews into the land, mostly starting in the late 1800s--though there was always a Jewish presence in the land--and their becoming a State in 1948, could serve to prepare the way for prophecy to be fulfilled again for the second coming of Christ. 

Though their present State is viewed as illegitimate by certain Jews—they anticipate the Messiah (Christ) to come and establish it-- and seen by many as unjust because of the many “Palestinians” who were expelled or left their homes in connection with the 1948 war between the Jews and Arab/ Muslim nations,  their presence in the land seems necessary for fulfilling those prophecies that lead up to the Second Coming of Christ.  But could these prophecies still have happened through a presence of Jews in the land without them having a homeland-State?  Maybe.

The prophecies of Daniel, Zechariah, and Jesus indicated a presence of Jews in the land and a functioning Temple or Holy Place where a significant event will transpire that will begin a time of "great tribulation" that will consummate with the coming of Christ to deliver the Jews and to fight the nations who have gathered together for battle at Jerusalem.

This future deliverance (and restoration) was spoken by Peter in the Book of Acts: 

"Men of Israel, ... The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.  But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,  and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.  And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

 Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.  But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.  Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,  and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." Acts 3:12-21

When Jesus comes again, Israel as a nation will be saved, as Paul said in Romans: 

"²⁵ For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 

²⁶ And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

"The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
²⁷ For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins."
²⁸ Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.

²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 

³⁰ For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, 

³¹ even so these also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.   Romans 11:25-31

Concerning "all Israel will be saved," Charles Hodge wrote:

"Israel here must mean the Jewish people, and 'all Israel' the whole nation. The Jews, as a people, are now rejected; as a people they are to be restored. As their rejection, although national, did not include the rejection of every individual, so their restoration though national, need not include the salvation of every Jew. All Israel does not mean all the true people of God, as Augustin, Calvin, and others explain it; nor all the elect Jews -- i.e., all that part of the nation which constitute "the remnant according to the election of grace" --but the whole nation, as a nation."   (Commentary on Romans by Charles Hodge... Charles Hodge was a Reformed Presbyterian theologian and principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878.)    updated 12/28/24