Is US embassy's move to Jerusalem a fulfilment of prophecy?

In case you don't know, US moved their embassy to Jerusalem few days ago, on May 14. 

President Trump’s December 2017 decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has spurred criticism from those who believe the decision will impede a broader peace settlement in the Middle East by denying Palestinian claims to the city. It has also brought fears of increased violence. 

At least 58 Palestinian deaths have been reported along Israel’s border with Gaza in protests against the embassy’s relocation while this article was being written.

But for some evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews, the embassy’s relocation is not only a smart political move but a fulfillment of divine prophecy. 

“We see the embassy as crucial to God’s timing to bring about the revelation of the messiah,” the Rev. David Swaggerty, the leader of CharismaLife Ministries in Columbus, Ohio, said following a joint Christian-Jewish Bible study session hosted at the Israeli parliament the day before the embassy ceremony. 

“For evangelical Christians the embassy move is part of eschatology,” the expectation of what will transpire at the end of times,” explained Rabbi David Rosen, director of the American Jewish Committee's Department of Inter-religious Affairs. 

“The return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland and the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in Jerusalem is seen as a stage ultimately leading to the full messianic era.”

 For religious Jews, too, moving the embassy from Tel Aviv represents a step toward redemption and the coming of the messianic era. 

“Certainly, when the world’s most powerful nation establishes its embassy in our eternal capital, we see the further realization of the ancient prophecy of how we have come home to rejoice in this ancient city,” said Rabbi David Stav, founder of the Tzohar rabbinical organization in Israel.

In 1948, when the United Nations voted to create both a Jewish state and an Arab state, it envisioned Jerusalem as an international city with no particular sovereignty. But after Arab armies attacked the fledgling Jewish state, Israel took control of West Jerusalem and Jordan took control over East Jerusalem. 

Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the disputed territory in 1980, but until December no nation had recognized Israeli sovereignty over any part of the city, which is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.  

But not all religious leaders are rejoicing at the embassy move. 

Franklin Graham has made note of prophecy surrounding the return of Jesus Christ as Christians and Jews mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Israel and the U.S. embassy’s official opening in Jerusalem. 

“Seventy years ago today, the State of Israel was established. In fulfillment of prophecy, God brought the nation into being, and He is sustaining them for the day when the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will return and establish His throne in Jerusalem as Scripture tells us,” Graham wrote on Facebook on Monday.

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