Q: Are we to treat the modern nation of Israel as if the prophetic program of Genesis 1 through Acts 7 were still in operation?
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Gen 12:1-3
Genesis 12:3 is not the operating principle for the Church, the Body of Christ, today. Israel as a nation is fallen and has no spiritual standing with God during this present dispensation:
I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
Rom 11:11
Jews and Gentiles are alike “under sin” (Rom 3:9) and are “concluded… in unbelief” (Rom 11:32). Inside the Body of Christ there is “neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:28). Access to God is no longer through the nation that once stood “nigh,” but is now “by the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13, 18). To treat unsaved Israelites as covenantally privileged because of the flesh is to ignore God’s will and bless unsaved men because of their flesh (Gal 5:13; 6:15). The only biblical way to bless a Jewish person today is to preach the gospel of the grace of God to them; to assist them with becoming a member of the Body of Christ.
In time past salvation was “of the Jews” (Jn 4:22) and the nations were to be blessed through Israel’s rise. After Israel’s rejection of their Messiah, Christ sent Paul to offer salvation without Israel. Being an Israelite today confers no advantage toward salvation by grace through faith. God has made no covenant with the Body of Christ; therefore the Church is not under the Abrahamic blessing-and-curse formula. The covenants remain God’s unfinished business with the nation Israel, to be fulfilled when He takes away their sins (Rom 11:27). Until then, Gentiles are fellow-heirs “by the gospel,” not by attaching themselves to Israel (Eph 3:6).
The Body of Christ does not appear in prophecy and is separate and distinct from the prophesied earthly kingdom of Christ, which is yet future. The Church has a heavenly purpose that is distinct and separate from God’s earthly purpose for the nation of Israel. Christians must reject the notion that the Body of Christ is ‘spiritual Israel’ and has replaced Israel in the purposes of God (a false interpretation of Romans 11). After the Rapture of the Church, God will resume the prophetic program and Christ will rule and reign with His chosen people, the nation of Israel. In other words, Israel is not replaced, but she is presently set aside.
Romans 11:7 and Romans 11:25 describe “blindness in part” that has happened to Israel. During this present dispensation there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek (Rom 10:12). The modern political state that arose in 1948 is not the covenantal “nation” of prophecy; it is a collection of people who, as a nation, remain in unbelief … they are unsaved. Individual Jews who believe Paul’s gospel (1 Cor 15:1-4) are baptized into the one Body of Christ and lose every ethnic advantage. Unbelieving Israel is, “as concerning the gospel… enemies for your sakes,” yet still “beloved for the fathers’ sakes” because “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom 11:28-29). The delay (Eph 3:2) is a change of timing, not a cancellation of the promises.
God will literally fulfill His promises to Israel (Rom 11:25-29). The distinctive feature of the present age is that Gentiles are “blessed through the fall of Israel” (Rom 11:11), not through Israel’s rise. Acts is primarily the record of the fall and diminishing of Israel and of the transition from the kingdom gospel to the gospel of the grace of God. Israel fell in Acts 7, after which a remnant according to grace was extracted before the nation was officially set aside in judicial blindness. The “fulness of the Gentiles” is the period in which God deals with the nations without Israel. When that period ends, Israel will again have the advantage and God’s focus.
Romans 9 through 11 are Paul’s official explanation of Israel’s present status. “They are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (Rom 9:6). National Israel stumbled at the stumbling-stone (Rom 9:32-33; 11:9). “Through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy” (Rom 11:11). Their “diminishing” became “the riches of the Gentiles” (Rom 11:12). They were “broken off” because of unbelief (Rom 11:20). “Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Rom 11:25). None of this is replacement; it is a temporary judicial setting aside.
Paul’s other prison and pastoral epistles confirm the same change. In time past Gentiles were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise” (Eph 2:12). “But now” both are “made nigh by the blood of Christ” and reconciled “in one body by the cross” (Eph 2:13-16). “There is neither Jew nor Greek… for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature” (Gal 6:15). The middle wall of partition is currently broken down; the old advantage of being a Jew (Rom 3:1-2) is suspended at this time.
Consequently, the Abrahamic Covenant, while still irrevocable for Israel’s future, is not the charter of this present dispensation. The blessing of Abraham now comes “on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ” by faith, not by blessing the physical nation of Israel (Gal 3:14). To import Genesis 12:3 into the age of grace is to put the Body of Christ back under a covenant God never made with it and to treat unbelief as if it were still the channel of blessing. Paul himself, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, counted that pedigree “loss” and “dung” that he might win Christ instead (Phil 3:4-8).
Christians are to view the nation of Israel today exactly as Paul viewed it: a people nationally fallen, partially blinded, and set aside while God forms the one new man (Eph 2:15). Individual Israelites are to be evangelized with the same gospel offered to every other sinner – Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again (1 Cor 15:1-4). They are not to be flattered as “God’s chosen people” while they remain in unbelief, nor is the modern state to be treated as the fulfillment of the land promises that await the return of the King. Political sympathy, humanitarian concern, or historical gratitude may exist, but covenantal obligation under Genesis 12:3 does not.
Where some Christians go massively wrong is in thinking that God has finished with Israel. “Hath God cast away his people? God forbid” (Rom 11:1). A remnant according to the election of grace exists even now (Rom 11:5). After the Body is caught up (raptured), God will resume the prophetic clock, purge the nation in tribulation, and He will save “all Israel” when the Deliverer comes out of Zion (Rom 11:26-27). The gifts and calling remain. The present blindness is “in part” and “until.” Right division therefore requires both truths at once: Israel is not the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ has not replaced Israel.
The practical fruit of this Pauline truth is that the Christian’s first duty toward any Jewish person – or any Gentile for that matter – is the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-20). Blessing an apostate nation with political or financial support while withholding the gospel of the grace of God is not obedience to the instructions and doctrine provided through the apostle Paul. Proclaiming that there is now no difference, that all have sinned and fall short, and that righteousness is imputed by faith in Christ’s finished work IS obedience.
