I have had two recent meetings and a couple of passing conversations at the coffee shop about the nation of Israel. It also came up at our Saturday morning men’s group. The two sit-down meetings were from visitors feeling out what kind of church we are. They were coming from two different churches who have recently taken a strong and vocal stand against the nation of Israel.
And the men’s group conversation seemed to come from a place of confusion about what we should think about Israel. I can only imagine that this level of interest in Israel is primarily fueled by headlines, political positions, and podcasts. It seems unlikely that these questions are coming from people encountering Israel in the Bible and just wanting to know more from their personal Bible studies.
This trend has troubled me. Why? Because of the way it conflates the spiritual and the political.
I have absolutely zero interest in conveying my own political opinions from the pulpit. I have plenty of strongly held convictions. But I would never want my political opinions to eclipse the glory of the Gospel and the revelation of God through the text of Scripture. Our world right now is a circus of political and entertainment attractions. Any clown can grab attention with extreme political statements in a world as divided as ours. And with the spirit of the age being “all press is good press”, this transforms into “who cares if it stirs the pot . . . As long as I keep the spotlight!?”
So my own opinions about Israel matter little. I am much more concerned with what the Scriptures say about the Old Testament people of God. God made a conditional covenant with Israel. If they would follow Him and honor Him, then he would bless them and make them shine. If they rejected Him and dishonored Him through idolatry, then he would curse them and send them into exile.
They rejected Him and dishonored Him. They suffered and went into exile.
But nestled into this simplistic covenant formula, was the promise of a Messiah from the Jewish line that would be a blessing to all nations. He would be the serpent crusher. He would be of the royal line of King David. He would bear the sins of His people. The nations would bow before this One.
The seeds of the new covenant of grace through the blood of the sacrificed Messiah were woven throughout the conditional covenant with Israel.
Now in this new age of a new covenant, forged by Jesus through His blood, there is no other name given under heaven by which any human may be saved. Jesus is the pathway, the door, the gate, the way, the truth, the life . . . And nobody, nobody, nobody can come to the Father unless they come THROUGH HIM!
Scripture certainly holds out hope that many of the descendants of Israel will, in the end, come to believe and trust in the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who came through their lineage.
I think many Christians can get twisted up at this point. Especially when Israel is so prevalent in our news cycle right now. When we see Israel, we think ‘people of God’. But the current nation is an ethnic identity without much reference to the religious Judaism of the Old Testament.
While God still has a future harvest of souls from among the Jewish people, this current national manifestation is NOT inerrant in all that they do. (Just read the Old Testament and tell me if the ancient Jews were EVER infallible and worthy of unswerving support!?) But asking what I think about the current nation of Israel is to ask me a political question. It is like asking what I think about Nigeria, or France, or Venezuela. I’m not sure why you would have any interest in me weighing in on that political question, and especially I am wondering why you would desire for me to answer this political question from the pulpit.
But religious Israel, as expressed through the pages of Scripture, is fair game for spiritual discussion. The modern problem is one of conflating the modern nation state of Israel with the Old Testament people of God. I have political opinions about the nation state, but I have significantly more interest in the lessons we can learn from the Israel of the Old Testament.
Whether you support the nation-state of Israel is up to you. And I just don’t want to weigh into the political circus with my clown opinions. But a Christian is called to respect the entire counsel of God as revealed in His Word. And this includes significant teaching about the old covenant people of God. If you want to know what I think about Israel, be prepared for discussion about Abraham and his descendants, the Exodus, the Law, Sinai, conquest, wandering in the wilderness, King Saul, King David, King Solomon, and the centuries of idolatry leading to ignored prophets and exile in Assyria and Babylon. There will also be some discussion about the restoration of Israel to the land under leaders like Nehemiah and Haggai and the preservation of the people up through Roman times . . . But shining bright over all of this history will be the Lord Jesus Christ who was not merely mentioned in the history, but who was the purpose, point, and CULMINATION of all of that history.
Jesus is such a big deal that ALL else takes a back seat. Why the whole history of Israel? There is ONE primary answer stated by an angel to a few shepherds and that answer echoes off of every Old Testament passage: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11
And He shall reign forever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever . . . All who will be saved from the wrath that is to come, will be saved through faith in Jesus, whether Jew or Gentile.