God's Heart for Israel

There is a theology out in the world that God has rejected Israel in favour of the church; that is to say that Believers in Jesus the Christ have taken the place of the nation of Israel in God's eyes, including inheriting all the promises to Israel. I am here today to state unequivocally that this theology is false. 

Hebrews 13:8 tells us that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Jesus was born a Jew, raised a Jew, worshipped as a Jew, taught the Jews as a Jew, and He died as a Jew condemned under Jewish Law by jealous Jewish leaders who only had authority over the Jews. Jesus came to the chosen people of God, through whom God promised to send a Saviour for the whole world. Jesus' ministry was primarily to the Jewish people whom He knew would reject Him, as had to happen. There is absolutely no indication in Scripture that the new covenant church of Believers will ever replace the nation of Israel. In fact, in Romans 11 the apostle Paul argues emphatically that this will never be the case. If only people would read their Bibles, they would know that the church will never replace Israel!

Romans 11

"I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. ² God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? ³ “Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” ⁴ But what is the divine response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” ⁵ In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice. ⁶ But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

⁷ "What then? What Israel is seeking, it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened; ⁸ just as it is written,

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,
Eyes to see not and ears to hear not,
Down to this very day.”

⁹ "And David says,

“Let their table become a snare and a trap,
And a stumbling block and a retribution to them.
¹⁰ “Let their eyes be darkened to see not,
And bend their backs forever.”

¹¹ "I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. ¹² Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! ¹³ But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, ¹⁴ if somehow I might move to jealousy my fellow countrymen and save some of them. ¹⁵ For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too.

¹⁷ "But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, ¹⁸ do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. ¹⁹ You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” ²⁰ Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; ²¹ for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. ²² Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. ²³ And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. ²⁴ For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?

²⁵ "For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; ²⁶ and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written,

“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
He will remove ungodliness from Jacob.”
²⁷ “This is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

²⁸ "From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; ²⁹ for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ³⁰ For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, ³¹ so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. ³² For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all."

I know that this is a long passage to develop a study on, but I think the entire thing is necessary to read and to understand. I have never understood the root of the doctrine that Israel has been replaced by the church. God revealed Himself to the patriarchs of the Israelite family line and made covenants with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that He would be their God and they and their descendants would be His people. More importantly, the covenant made with Abram in Genesis 15 was made in such a way that God was to bear the burden of a broken covenant even if Israel was the one to break the covenant; Israel would not bear the punishment for their own failings. I delve into this a little more in my article called "The Reasons, Method and Attainment of Salvation". If God was to bear the punishment for a broken covenant even though He was by far the greater of the two in the covenant relationship, that should indicate to us how valuable the Israelite people were, and still are, to Him.

Taking it a step further, we are told in the New Testament that the new covenant, based upon the shed blood of Jesus, was not the annulment but the fulfillment of the old covenant. The only thing that changed in God's relationship to Israel is that He paid the price of their failings, making the sacrificial system of the old covenant obsolete; Israel has just failed to recognize this change and that failure has kept them trapped in the old covenant way of thinking even though they have not fulfilled their duties under the old covenant for centuries.

Since Romans 11 seems to state the continual importance of Israel to God pretty clearly, I will not delve into it verse by verse, but I do want to pull a few things out.

We see Paul quoting Isaiah and David in verses 8-10; “God gave them [the nation of Israel] a spirit of stupor, Eyes to see not and ears to hear not, Down to this very day.” 9 "And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, And a stumbling block and a retribution to them. 10 “Let their eyes be darkened to see not, And bend their backs forever.” God recognizes that Israel is made up of an obstinate people; slow to change and stubborn in their hearts, but He uses this in order to grant the same salvation that is offered to them to the rest of the world. 

I believe that the table that David refers to is the tradition of their religious practices in general, and is possibly even the table of their Passover feast specifically. Even though the Passover feast points to their Messiah, orthodox Jews refuse to see it; their eyes do not see and their ears do not hear. Verse 11b states that, "But by their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous." Just prior to this in the same verse, Paul says that though Israel has stumbled in their obedience to God, they have not fallen. This means that they are not beyond God's reach to draw them back to Him, but their failings have made salvation available to everyone. They are simply playing their part in the story of mankind. 

The rest of that paragraph has Paul extolling how, if their failing is such a blessing to the world, how much moreso will their acceptance of the gift given to them be an even greater blessing to the whole world! There is the expectation, based on prophecy, that Israel will yet accept their Messiah and the whole world will be blessed! We are told that this will happen before Jesus returns, or potentially at His return, yet there is strong evidence that this will only happen in the last days of this earth, which we can get a glimpse of when we read "a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; 26 and so all Israel will be saved;" (vs. 25b-26a).

This meshes with my own understanding of the Scriptures. 2 Peter 3:9 states that, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." In this chapter, Peter is talking about the future coming of the Day of the Lord, or His second coming. If God is not willing that any innocent soul will perish, and we are told that Israel will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus' sacrifice for them once "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in", then does it not make sense that at the moment that the final Gentile who has not yet made a decision about Jesus makes that decision, whether to accept or to reject Jesus, sealing their fate, then Israel will come to the knowledge of Jesus, which is potentially, and maybe even likely, at the moment of His coming? What else could draw the eyes and the hearts of the entire nation of Israel to their Saviour but the sight of Him returning to earth, and not only in Israel, but around the world?

And we know that Jesus has a longing for Israel to accept Him and His gift for them. We read of His approach to Jerusalem just a week before His crucifixion in Luke 19, and in verse 41 we read that "When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it,". He wept over the knowledge that God's chosen people would reject their own Messiah. Though they were exalting Him at that very moment, they would soon turn on Him, and after the price for their sins was paid, they would still reject that payment for generations to come; for almost 2000 years so far.

Yet Peter, one of the three disciples that were the closest to Jesus during His life on earth, writes in the second chapter of his first letter to the diaspora Messianic Israelite church about Israel's place in God's heart, pulling proofs from different texts of the Jewish Scriptures. 1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen race [Deut. 10:15; Is. 43:20], a royal priesthood [Is. 61:6, 66:21], a holy nation [Ex. 19:6; Deut. 7:6], a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;"

God has never turned His back on the nation of Israel, and He never will. This was promised to them in Jeremiah 31:31-34, and it is repeated by the writer of Hebrews in chapter 8, verses 8-12;

“Behold, days are coming, says the Lord,
When I will effect a new covenant
With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
⁹ Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
On the day when I took them by the hand
To lead them out of the land of Egypt;
For they did not continue in My covenant,
And I did not care for them, says the Lord.
¹⁰ “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put My laws into their minds,
And I will write them on their hearts.
And I will be their God,
And they shall be My people.
¹¹ “And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen,
And everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
For all will know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
¹² “For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And I will remember their sins no more.”

So we see that there is a wealth of Scripture that we can use to refute the claims of replacement theology that some seem so eager to cling to. In verses 17-24 of Romans 11, Paul lays out that the Gentiles who believe in Jesus are not our own people; we are grafted into the root of Israel. We would not exist in our saved state without the nation and people of Israel. Our wild branches have been attached to the root while the natural branches have been cut off, but that is only for a time.

We are not to be conceited about our position (v.20), but it is promised that, "they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again". When Israel repents, as individuals and also as a nation, they will be returned to the root of their salvation. It is not only God's love for them, but for their patriarchs that God will not despise them. Verses 28 and 29 state that, "from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; 29 for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." And verse 30 wraps up the thought with this; "For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy."

I write all of this not because of the war currently going on in the Middle East with the U.S. and Israel against Iran, but I believe the timing of this article is according to God's plan. Whenever there is conflict in the Middle East surrounding Israel, there are always those who will pile on and blame Israel for causing it, correctly or not. The political and religious atmosphere of the area is multilayered and those of us who don't live there could never truly understand all of the complexities and conflicts that date back to Old Testament days. We are warned in the Scriptures that those who bless Israel will be blessed, but those who curse Israel will be cursed (Genesis 12:3; Numbers 24:9), so let's be careful about what our heart position is towards Israel.

This is not to say that Israel can do not wrong. We can call it out when Israel acts in unjustified ways, but we should also stand with Israel in regards to their right to exist in peace. The very creation of the modern nation of Israel is a prophetic fulfillment that was one of the last ones that was required before the last days come upon us, and it's very fulfillment was almost miraculous. 

All of this being said, Israel is not a theocracy and their leaders have largely failed to acknowledge God in their ways since the days of King Solomon; they are currently dangerously close to being a secular country, at least at the governmental level. Their religion is still held closely by the people, but the governance acts according to their own human knowledge and I don't know how much they seek the wisdom of God before they act. But that can be said about almost every government in the world.

The current war in Iran is a double edged sword. Freedom for the Iranian people would be amazing if they can attain it and hold onto it. It was only about 50 years ago that Iran was a modern and free society before Islam closed it's grip on the society. It appears that the people of Iran long for freedom again, and we should support them in that goal.

At the same time, we can recognize that there are numerous political machinations around this war. I don't think that we will ever know the true reasons why this war has started at this time. We hear the justifications, but they may be just that; justifications. If this is a quick conflict, if the Iranian war machine is quickly eliminated with minimal civilian casualties, if freedom is restored by the people and for the people, and if terrorist organizations will lose their funding because of this war, then there may be a justification for this action. But we will not know if any of these things will be the case until after the fact, so we must leave this in God's hand and watch to see how this will affect Biblical prophecy.

Either way, we know that God still has His eyes and His hands on Israel, and Israel will exist until the time of the end when "they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10b).