A professing Christian’s stance on the nation and people of Israel demonstrates just how much or how little he or she seeks truth from the Bible.

Today’s post is long! Scroll down to subheadings if you need to. In this article I will tackle claims that the Church has replaced Israel and that God has no more concern for the nation or the modern state. Forgive me for gaps or ugly ads inserted by WordPress software.

HUMAN, NOT PERFECT. A mistake I’ve seen many Christians make is to think that as the present-day nation of Israel is largely secular and in unbelief, it cannot be the genuinely Biblical nation of Israel. Vernon Mc Gee insisted that the nation must first be repentant in its lands of exile before God will consent to return anyone to the land of their ancestors’ origin: he was wrong. While it’s true that the nation of today lives largely in unbelief God’s plan seems to be firmly on track, as I’ll demonstrate. Some are quick to condemn the nation of Israel today, when in fact it’s no more evil than any other, and severely misrepresented in Western media. It certainly isn’t any more deserving of derision or extinction than any other nation of the West.

Ezekiel’s prophecy of the people of Isreal being regathered to their land confirms that they would be living in unbelief upon their regathering, and other Old Testament passages describe how their spiritual revival will not come until sometime after their physical return. To be sure, God berates the nation in Ezekiel’s prophecy, saying that the fulfillment of their miraculous return is not due to their righteousness, but to His own faithfulness:

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone'” (Ezekiel 36:22).

DID JESUS CHRIST REJECT ISRAEL? Jesus Christ of all people knew that he was being rejected by the religious Jews of his time (yet not all: consider Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea). In observing this he never once proclaimed his or his Father’s rejection of the nation as revenge or punishment. He did indeed predict the destruction of Jerusalem at the beginning of his “Olivet Discourse” in Matthew chapter 24, but not as a way of passing an eternal sentence on the nation. Instead, he told the people that they would see him again – at a time when they recognised who he was and is. This isn’t the same as saying “I’m finished with you, and you’ll never see me again”:

“Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:38-39).

Notice that little word, “until”. Jesus was not rejecting Israel forever, and as I noted, their return to the land is not conditional. God has a plan to cause the nation’s repentance subsequent to regathering. Jesus therefore said that Israel would see him again, and who wants to try to deny the Lord the moment He has in store to restore His people to Himself? More on that later.

PAUL THE JEW, THE ISRAELITE. If God rejected Israel because of the way religious leaders treated His son – sending him to the cross – it should be shown clearly in the remainder of the New Testament after the gospels. We gain much of our theology from Paul’s letters, from Luke’s Acts and from the other apostles’ letters We should, therefore, be able to see evidence from those writings whether the insistence of some of our denominations and pseudo-Christian cults who claim that God has replaced Israel is accurate.

Does it seem logical that God would wipe the nation and Jews in general from existence, or even that He would forsake His special consideration of them, considering that Jesus himself was Jewish, Paul was Jewish, Peter, John and James were Jewish, and the earliest and first organized Church was entirely Jewish? It’s not as if God was taken by surprise when the religious Jews rejected Jesus: He knew even before the incarnation exactly what was going to happen (Revelation 13:8). Post-resurrection we see Paul and Peter in the book of Acts reporting to the church council in Jerusalem – respecting their authority and answering to them. It was an entirely Jewish council, so that Paul had to explain his actions after preaching to Gentiles (Cornelius) for the first time.

Isn’t it obvious that if God could reject Israel because of sin He could perhaps do the same to us at some time? Will God reject us? Are we perfect? Are we sinless? Are we any better than they were? Not according to Paul:

“What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

‘There is no one righteous, not even one'” (Romans 3:9-10).

There has always been a “remnant” of Israel from the earliest times, and when Paul wrote that God had turned His back on Israel temporarily – later in Romans – he was clearly generalizing, since he himself was a Jew and a servant of Christ, as were the other apostles. God had not rejected Paul, and Paul continued to call himself a Jew (Galatians 2:15). He also called himself an Israelite, and named his tribe:

“I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin” (Romans 11:1b).

Paul said that Peter was an apostle “to the circumcised” (Galatians 2:8). Why would God commission Peter as an apostle to the Jews if He had rejected them? Here’s what God has to tell us through Jeremiah:

This is what the Lord says,

he who appoints the sun
    to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
    to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
    so that its waves roar—
    the Lord Almighty is his name:
“Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,”
    declares the Lord,
“will Israel ever cease
    being a nation before me” (Jeremiah 31:35-37).

Can you stop the sun shining? Neither can you or anyone end the relationship between God and the descendants of Jacob.

ISRAEL: THE NATURAL BRANCHES. Paul intimately addresses Israel’s apparent estrangement from the Lord over three intense chapters of Romans (nine to eleven). He tells us his heart’s desire is that Israel will be saved (Romans 10:1). How, then, can the Church be “Israel” since the Church already consists of the saved? In the following chapter he takes us directly to the point being considered today:

“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin” (Romans 11:1).

God did not reject his people, says Paul. The claim made today is that the nation is rejected, while individual Jews can come to faith and to the Church and in that way be a part of “Israel”. Paul obliges our study by going on to say that there is a remnant today of Israel, just as there always was a remnant. The Israel of God consists of Jews of faith. He is speaking of the Israel of the past and continuing those principles into the present and the future. He tells us that “salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious” (11:11). If there were no more Israel in distinction to Gentiles, this statement wound make no sense: Israel is still a distinct people group.

Paul goes on in chapter eleven to speak metaphorically of those of faith as being parts of an olive tree. The “natural branches” of the tree are Israel (verse 24), and Gentiles are “wild branches” which have been grafted in. Paul warns we Gentiles not to boast against the natural branches. Again, such statements are in complete opposition to claims that God has forgotten Israel so that now the Church is God’s “tree”:

“… do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in” (Romans 11:18-19).

Israel “has been hardened in part” and not entirely, says Paul (verse 25). It is therefore a huge mistake for Gentiles to abandon Israel. They are “loved on account of the patriarchs” (verse 28), but here is the most telling statement of Paul’s on the subject, which follows on in verse 29:

 “…for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable”.

This statement is made in the context of the nation and people of Israel. If God’s gifts and calling were tenuous and conditional, we would all potentially be in trouble and wondering if God was going to reject us when we fail Him. God “called” Israel out of Egypt to be His chosen people. Yes, Gentiles are also His chosen people, but remember, they are the “natural branches” and we have been grafted in: we Gentiles are not the entire tree!

NEITHER JEW NOR GENTILE. Paul, who had been trained in the law and who clarified much of Christian doctrine for us, continued to distinguish between Jew and Gentile decades after his conversion. While he told the Galatians that Jew and Gentile are “one in Christ” – just as male and female are one in Christ – he wasn’t saying that Israel as a nation has been erased, any more than “Gentile”, “male” or “female” designations have been erased.

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

While Paul writes, “nor is there male and female”, he commonly identifies believers as either male or female:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me” (Romans 16:1-2).

In Christ we’re all treated equally and are all equally blessed: this is Paul’s point. There are no natural divisions in the Church. Believers are one in Christ, but Jew, Gentile, male and female continue to exist as distinctive groupings. This is seen repeatedly throughout the New Testament, with no sign that “Jews” have vanished from the earth. Paul didn’t erase the Jew from his writings:

“There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism” (Romans 2:9-11).

ROMANS, JEWS AND THE NATION OF ISRAEL. A common accusation in our time is that the people who now occupy “Palestine” call themselves Jews but aren’t really Jews or descendants of Jews: they are posing as Jews in order to justify “stealing” Muslim lands. Tucker Carlson in his interview with Mike Huckabee went so far as to insist that Israelis should all have their DNA tested to see if they’re really Jews.

Can we impose our prejudices on another nation and expect them to submit to our accusations? Should we do the same to Americans and only allow those who have native American blood to remain in the United States? Should we test everyone in Britain and send all those who don’t have Barbarian blood in them home, including the Celts, the Angles, the Saxons, the Vikings and so on? Aren’t they now British? Didn’t the Barbarians originate from somewhere else also, and “invade” the British Isles? If you take this line of thought to its ultimate end eight billion people would have to move to Eden, but where is Eden? It’s a ridiculous and tyrannical suggestion which would lead to discrimination and segregation, and who has the right to administer such an upheaval? It’s born of extreme and Satanic bias.

THE EVIDENCE OF HISTORY. The fact that the segregation and persecution of Jews throughout history has maintained their distinctiveness is plain evidence of their origins and their descent from the land which Roman legions drove them from in 70AD. Who would volunteer to be Jewish when they are treated so badly wherever they go? What is it about them that people despise if they aren’t distinct: is it just the fact that they regard themselves as Jews? Is this the great sin? Hitler certainly seemed to have no confusion in identifying Jews when he attempted to extinguish their race, and the same can be said for other despots, tyrants and haters down through the centuries, including Muslims.

WAS EXILE A PERMANENT JUDGMENT? What about Biblical references to the judgment of Israel in the New Testament? Jesus told the nation “Look, your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:38-39) and he foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple which occurred in 70AD. You can see the remains of that temple today, upon which a Muslim holy site now stands, and you can travel to Rome to see the Titus Arch, built in the first century to commemorate Rome’s defeat of Jerusalem and destruction of the Jewish state. Was this destruction evidence that God had rejected Israel as a nation, as some today claim? Paul’s writings envisage no such thing. He told the Romans this:

“I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew” (Romans 11:1-2).

Defeat at the hands of Rome was a consequence which Jesus foresaw and which the Father allowed, because of the accumulated sin of the nation as a whole. Jesus didn’t rail against the nation or point fingers: he wept when he thought about what was to happen. “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it” The city would not be under His protection, since the nation as a whole had rejected it (Luke 19:41-44). 

OUTIES AND INNIES.

Another passage frequently misunderstood relates to the question of “who is a Jew” or an Israelite. Paul told the Romans that, “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical” He says, “No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code”

This quote has been used to declare that Christians are now the real Israelites, and Israelis are imposters. However, Paul was simply making the point that a Jew who lives by the Spirit is the real article: he’s a Jew inside and out, just as God intended. Anything other than this interpretation makes a nonsense of Paul’s other references to “Jews” who were opposing the gospel. It also makes a nonsense of his references to Jews in relation to Gentiles.

WHAT ABOUT THE LAND? Ask yourself this question: Since Israel is still a nation of distinct people according to our study, should that nation not have a land to live in? Should that land not be the one promised to them repeatedly over the past four thousand years, beginning with Abraham?

A nation requires a land. Critics are failing to read their Bibles or are reading them with a determined bias in favor of Islamic claims since the sixth century AD and not the promises and declarations of God since 2000BC. In speaking of a future time of great blessing for Israel, Isaiah said,

“He will raise a banner for the nations
    and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
    from the four quarters of the earth” (Isaiah 11:12).

Israel’s and Judah’s first exile was not to “the four quarters of the earth”, but to specific nations – Assyria and Babylon respectively. His promise here is of a far – future time. Ezekiel also speaks of this regathering: in detail, and through him God says that there would be an ultimate regathering from the nations in the land where Jacob had lived:

“They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their children’s children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant” (Ezekiel 37:25-26).

In 1948 the United Nations ratified the establishment of a new nation of Israel in “Palestine”. Since that time millions of Jews have immigrated from around the world, and the nation has grown exponentially, just as the prophets foretold. To deny that this is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy is, to say the least, a little risky, because if it is the predicted regathering, those opposing it are opposing God’s will.

FOREVER. This regathering, says God in the Ezekiel text above, will be “forever”. Some have attempted to dismantle such Old Testament passages by saying that “God didn’t mean what you think he means”. “He didn’t mean forever”. “Forever means for a limited time only”. Some even attempt to allegorize such passages, making nonsense of them. One man told me he didn’t know what this passage meant but he was sure it had nothing to do with a regathering of the literal nation of Israel. Some also tell us that God changed his mind once Christ was rejected. Does God renege on his promises? Is he two-faced and undependable? Is He unfaithful? Is his word a truthful testimony to the world or a collection of lies? IF forever isn’t forever, what does that say about our resurrection?

THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS UPON ISRAEL’S REGATHERING. God tells us through Joel that upon that ultimate regathering of Israel to the land the nations will be judged for dividing the land and attempting to deny Israel its rightful inheritance:

 “In those days and at that time,
    when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
I will gather all nations
    and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
There I will put them on trial
    for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel,
because they scattered my people among the nations
    and divided up my land” (Joel 3:1-2).

God tells us through Zechariah that the nations of the earth will come against Israel at the end of days (Zechariah 14:2). Ezekiel’s prophecy goes into great detail of the nation’s return, blessing and increase in the land immediately before an attack from the nations. God addresses those nations:

“In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate” (Ezekiel 38:8).

BLESSINGS AND CURSINGS. Critics forget that Israel and Judah had been ejected from the land once before because of their sin. Did God then reject Israel so that the nation had no right to go back? Did God give the land to another nation? No, He didn’t, but people who moved in quickly claimed the land was theirs: a pattern of future times. You can read about Israel’s restoration to the land at that time by God’s providence in Old Testament books such as Nehemiah and Ezra. God had expelled Isreal from the land as a punishment, but He restored them.

This was in line with HIs mercy and His love for them, and with a principle He had laid out in the time of Moses, fourteen hundred years before Christ. In three incredible chapters of Deuteronomy (28 to 30) you can read the warnings given to the new nation that if they as a people rejected God’s ways and lived like the world they would be removed from the land and persecuted wherever they went. Their history is a fulfillment of these warnings. However, there are also promises of restoration and blessing, so that God in no way foretold a total and final rejection of Israel. The only final rejection has been of individuals, not of the nation as a whole:

“Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it” (Deuteronomy 30:4-5).

The previous few verses to the above passage suggest that the nation’s return would always have to be conditional, but the passage I shared from Ezekiel earlier shows that the final regathering is unconditional.

THE RIGHT SIDE OF HISTORY. So much more could be said on this subject, but perhaps the most important comment regards your personal position. The Bible tells us in several places that in end times events the nations of the world will mount an attack on Israel in an attempt to wipe it from the land. This has been the intent of all hard – line Muslims, and with growing hatred of Jews and Israel in the West it becomes an increasingly likely event or campaign. Whose side will you be on when this occurs? Will you be with those who’ve embraced varying degrees of replacement theology – that the Church has replaced Israel and that the people living in the land now mean nothing to God – or will you stand with the people of Israel in their time of need, in reverence and obedience to the word of our God?

The following quote is lengthy, but it’s a sobering and inspirational declaration from God concerning His nation and HIs land – the land of Israel. We hear the Tucker Carlsons of the world attacking “Zionism”, yet these words of God’s through Isaiah refer directly and affectionately to Zion:

“But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
    the Lord has forgotten me.”

 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
    and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
    I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are ever before me.
Your children hasten back,
    and those who laid you waste depart from you.
Lift up your eyes and look around;
    all your children gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,” declares the Lord,
    “you will wear them all as ornaments;
    you will put them on, like a bride.

“Though you were ruined and made desolate
    and your land laid waste,
now you will be too small for your people,
    and those who devoured you will be far away” (Isaiah 49:14-19).

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