Israel in the Old Testament originally referred to the descendants of Jacob-Israel, who had twelve sons corresponding to the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  They were the chosen people of God through the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Israel was delivered from slavery in Egypt, received the Law of Moses, called to be a nation of priests, and conquered Canaan.  They gave us King David and the prophets.

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Israel next referred to the ten Northern Tribes of the Divided Kingdom after the death of Solomon, who succeeded David as king.  Because of their sins, they fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC.  The two remaining tribes in the South came to be called Judah, from which is derived the name of the Jews.

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There are, however, 63 references to Israel in the New Testament.  There was no land or kingdom called Israel.  But the Jews took that name for themselves.  So, it was almost entirely nostalgic and symbolic of an ideal relationship with God based on former glories, idealism, and ethnic heritage.

This article is about the modern nation-state of Israel, separated from the original Biblical Israel by 2644 years.  Conflict in the Middle East has been almost exclusively religious in nature for only a little over 100 years.  It’s relatively new but is now playing out on a global scale.

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Israel has existed DE JURE as a Jewish state since 1922.  After WWI, the League of Nations issued a resolution, using language of the Balfour Declaration, which called for a “Jewish homeland in Palestine” to be administered by Great Britain.  The Congress of the United States approved this arrangement.

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Israel has existed DE FACTO since 1948, when Jewish militants under David Ben Gurion declared independence from Great Britain, who withdrew from Palestine rather than fight for a mandate in which they had no national interest.  Israel adopted a constitution, established a government, and enacted a body of law, all of which affirmed the Jewish character of the new nation state.  Israel was immediately recognized by the United Nations, Great Britain, and the United States.

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They were also immediately attacked by surrounding Muslim nations!  Why did the Muslims attack?  The Prophet, Muhammad, said that Islam was to replace the Jews in the Promised Land, formerly called Israel.  If the Jews took and maintained a foothold in Palestine, calling their country Israel, it makes Muhammad a false prophet.  As long as the modern state of Israel exists as a Jewish nation Muhammad is a false prophet.

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The British and American interest in Israel was both humanitarian and theological.  This article speaks to the theological issue.  Before WWII, the West paid little attention to the plight of Jews.  News of the Russian pograms and German holocaust shocked the conscience of the West.  The Zionism of Theodore Herzog, and Dispensationalism of Darby and Scofield, seemed to provide a sound rationale for unquestioned support of Israel in the Post-War period.

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Evangelicals in the United States, for instance, were historically disengaged from politics.  But the collapse of social mores in the late 1960s and release of THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH by Hal Lindsay in 1970 set the stage for ascribing eternal consequence to the 1973 Yom Kippur War in which Israel was again attacked by Muslim countries.  Evangelical Americans began to identify with the struggles of Israel as fellow victims of a hostile world that does not understand Biblical religion.  This was never more fully expressed than in the election of the born-again Baptist Sunday school teacher, Jimmy Carter, as President of the United States in 1976.

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With the Camp David Accords in 1978, Carter broke the dam in the flow of U.S. arms and aid to Israel, along with repeated affirmation of Israel’s right to exist.  The result was the Iran Hostage Crisis.  In the first attack against America since the 18th Century Barbary pirates, radical Muslim students in Iran took American diplomats hostage.  In a military operation called Desert Claw, Carter committed Americans to a combat operation in the Middle East for the first time in modern history.  Though Ronald Reagan freed the hostages and absorbed the blow of the 1983 attack on American military barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 service members, the perceived insult of Israel’s existence and our support for them was not assuaged in the mind of radical Muslims.  America was added to their list of enemies as the Great Satan.

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In the meantime, American Neo-con war mongers and defense contractors made a lot of money from Middle East mayhem.  They simply do not care about the misery and suffering that endless wars cause.  Their wealth depends on the tit-for-tat religious grudge match between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East.  From Operation Eagle Claw in 1980 to 2025 with Operation Midnight Hammer, 55 years, the United States has inserted itself in military actions in the Middle East, which is really a local religious and ethnic problem between Jewish Zionists and Muslim Replacement Theorists.

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Legitimate self-defense is not a theological exercise.  It belongs to the moral category of natural law.  Just as one might rightly take violent action against a home invader to protect his family and property, so Israel, and any other country, has the right to defend itself against Muslim attacks and terrorism.  According to the same principle, Muslims rightfully defended themselves against “Christian” crusaders in the Levant and Egypt during Medieval times.  Indigenous peoples in North America and Australia had the right to defend themselves from European invasion.  But the strongest and most technologically advanced usually win in conventional warfare.  The entire history of the world is determined by such conflict.  Thomas Hobbes said that the natural state of man is war, “all against all.”  He rightly said that the existence of any nation is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

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The modern state of Israel, once established and well allied with Western powers, has been able to defend itself against extraordinary odds.  Some see in this a sign of divine intervention and fulfillment of prophecy.  Others are not sure of that.  The American public had been newly enamored with Israel because of books like EXODUS by Leon Uris (1958), and O JERUSLEM by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre (1972).  Blockbuster movies in support of Israel include THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956), and BEN-HUR (1959), whose hero is a man named Judah, an obvious appeal to Christian sentiment.

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But the question today is whether entertainment equals truth.  Is there a special divine right vested in Israel to which all must bow without question or hesitation?  Those who say “yes” like to quote Genesis 12:3 in which God promises Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you.”

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Enter Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles.  As a devout Jew he formerly persecuted Christians, arresting them and voting to have them killed.  Then he met Jesus on the Road to Damascus, who instructed him personally in the message he was to bear.  Paul wrote, Galatians 1:11-12, “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

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What did Paul say about Jesus, Jews, and Israel?

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Speaking in the synagogue at Antioch, Acts 13:16-41, he said:

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Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great … he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’ Of this man’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised … Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him, condemned him … And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed … But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people. And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus … Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

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In Romans 2:25-29, he wrote:

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For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

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In 9:6-8, Paul explains:

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It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

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He continues in verses 27-28:

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Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.”

 

In 11:2-5 Paul returns to the theme of a remnant of Jews who are saved by faith in Christ:

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God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

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Between the remnant passages above, and those identifying Christians as the true circumcision and real Israel, we can understand what Paul meant by “all Israel” in verses 26-27:

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In this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

 

The Deliverer will come from Zion,

he will banish ungodliness from Jacob;

and this will be my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.

 

Notice here it says that the Deliverer will not come “to” Zion, as if during the End Times, but that he has already come “from” Zion to the Jews and then, through Paul’s apostleship, to the whole world.  “All Israel” means, therefore, *true* Israel, anyone and everyone who believes in Christ.  He does not come to rule but to “take away their sins.”  Only Christ can take away sins.  Therefore, Jews are called to repent and believe in Christ today just as they were in New Testament times.

 

In Galatians we find two arguments that Paul makes for Christianity as the new and true Israel.  He begins with the promises to Abraham in 3:7-9, 16, and then 26-29:

 

It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

 

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 

 

In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

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The second argument in Galatians is found in the 4th chapter, verses 22-31:

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It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,

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Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.

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Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.

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Lastly, Paul wrote to his converts in Ephesus 2, verses 11-22:

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Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

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Whatever geo-political advantage American Christians might have for supporting Israel, this brief study of New Testament passages should convince us that there is no theological reason for doing so.  In fact, there is every reason for Jews to convert to Christ in fulfillment of their ancient calling and destiny.  Christianity does not replace or supersede Judaism but fulfills it.

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One of the great analogies about Israel is made by Paul in Romans 11:16-24, the root and branches of an olive tree:

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If the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

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How do we Christians help Jews become grafted back into the root stock?  It surely is *not* through antinomianism!  Jews cannot and should not respect those who have no law.  Jesus said, Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  The New Testament says that Christ “fulfilled” the prophecies of the Old Testament.  “Fulfillment” is the best bridge over which our Jewish friends might cross to Christ.  But our witness will not be convincing unless we ourselves have crossed over to Christ in seeking true righteousness and holiness.  Oddly enough, the very epistle that so many use to support a “faith alone” message says exactly the opposite.

 

Romans 2:13b says, "It is the doers of the law who will be justified.”  This is after verses 6-11, which say, “[God] will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.” 

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In 7:14 and 22-24, however, Paul wrote, "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin ... For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

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Then we have the answer that resolves the problem in 8:1-4, 13-14, and 16-17, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit … For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Whoever is led by the Spirit of God is the child of God … The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."

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Finally, in 13:8-10, Paul wrote, "Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law."