What About Israel?

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

—Romans 9:1–5

The Apostle Paul seems to abruptly change the subject of his epistle to the Romans as he begins chapter 9.

While chapter 7 ended in seeming despair as the apostle cried out “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24), we climbed a wonderful mountain in chapter 8.

Of course, his answer, as is the answer to how all of the blessings of God flow, is “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25).

Chapter 8 begins with no condemnation for those in Christ, and it ends with no separation from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What a wonderful place of eternal security the believer has in Jesus Christ our Lord!

But why the sudden change of subject?

The reader of chapter 8 can and should come to the conclusion that God’s promise is secure and unconditional. What God has said He will do, and it is not contingent on us. “It is God that justifieth” (Romans 8:33). The believer is not told to prove himself justified to enter this promise. The redemption is in Jesus Christ our Lord and justification is by grace (Romans 3:24). We never deserved it and never will. We are saved — justified — because Christ took the initiative in His grace to die for our sins while we were yet sinners and as such His enemies.

But with all this said, one might with genuine inquisitiveness or scoffingly say, “If all this unconditional grace and promise to you is true, and we can take God at His word to finish what He started with us, then what happened to Israel?”

Paul, the apostle of Christ, will now devote the ink of three chapters to explain the current state of affairs with regards to God’s dealing with the nation of Israel as a nation in the past and present. He will go on to explain God’s present dealings with individual Israelites and move on to explain how God’s promise to the nation of Israel will be fulfilled, even though the nation, sadly, has been blinded because of unbelief.

Three verses at the beginning of chapter 9 cover Paul’s sorrow for his nation’s unbelief. He wishes that he could himself carry the curse of their unbelief. He says in verse 4 that the adoption belongs to the Israelites:

“Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn” (Exodus 4:22).

“When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt” (Hosea 11:1).

But in Romans chapter 8, we read this:

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” — Romans 8:14–17

The Apostle Paul wrote Romans to “all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Romans 1:7). This spirit of adoption cannot be said to refer only to the Israelites (Jews) among the Romans. That would be creating a separation in the Body of Christ that the entire “spirit” of Paul’s epistles eliminates. In light of Romans 3:9, 3:22, 3:29–30, 4:9–12, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Ephesians 2:11–18, and a multitude of others, we cannot create this separation and build again the wall of partition that God has broken down — in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Is the Church of God then, the Body of Christ, now replacing Israel as the recipient of God’s blessing?

This view, called by those who hold it “supercessionism”, and by those who do not hold it “replacement theology” is incorrect, but it does not come out of thin air.

Let us start with a question for a moment. Can I, as a man, make a party a promise, and then make another party a same or similar promise without undoing or violating the promise that I made to the first party? Of course I can. Why would we limit God to say that He, the Sovereign of Heaven and Earth, cannot?

Can I make some of the members of the first party partakers of the promise that I made to the second party without violating the promise that I made to them in the promise to the first party? Can I keep two promises made to them? Can I say that these members are members of both parties?

The answer to all of these questions is very simply “yes”. While it would be contradictory for someone to be a member of two opposing or warring parties, there is no problem whatsoever with being a member of two or more parties that are not against each other, and even more as parties that are united to each other with some very important commonalities.

Off the top of my head, I am a member of employees group at my current employer. I am also a member of the employees group at my other employer. I am a member of my homeowner’s association. I am a member of several groups within the employees group of my employers. This is not difficult to understand.

I say this because within the group of “dispensational theology”, many will insist on an impenetrable wall between Israel and the Church which can in no way be crossed. In some cases, it is crossed too freely, without making the necessary distinction. In the first case, some find it abhorrent to consider that the Twelve Apostles could be in the Body of Christ, because the Twelve Apostles were called and commissioned under the gospel of the kingdom and not under the gospel of grace. This is true about their call. But were they and all that believed under their ministry left as orphans when the Kingdom was postponed because of Israel’s unbelief and rebellion? Did God make “of twain one new man” (Ephesians 2:15) only of new believers while those that were in Christ first were shut out?

In the second case, we have things said to Israel as a nation during their period of crisis (Christ’s ministry on earth as recorded in the four Gospels), and some will bring them into the present age making them directly apply to us, people saved by grace through faith in the finished work of redemption provided by Christ dying on the cross for our sins and rising again. This gospel of grace was unknown to even the twelve apostles when they were sent to preach the gospel of the kingdom. (Matthew 16:21–23; Luke 9:44–45; Luke 18:31–34). But there was a change in God’s dealing with men after this time that these chapters in Romans will address.

The glory belongs to Israel as the apostle Paul says in Romans 9:4, yet we who are in Christ now are predestined to glory, and it is apart from Israel. We are predestined in Christ. The covenants pertain to Israel, yet we believing Gentiles who were strangers to the covenants of promise, are now made nigh, not by being made members of Israel, but by being made members of Christ, of His Body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Ephesians 2:11–22; 5:30). Israel the nation was given the law, the service, and the promises. If we have become the new Israel, are we now under the law? We are clearly not under the law, as definitely stated in Romans 6:14 — “ye are not under the law, but under grace”. But we are not the new or replacement Israel — we are a new man created in Christ Jesus. Israel will be given a new covenant to relate to the LORD their God because they broke the first covenant. Under the first covenant they could only be under the curse of it. Under the new covenant they will be given power to walk under it with a new heart and a new spirit put within them (Jeremiah 31:31–33; Ezekiel 36:24–27; Hebrews 8:7–13). That new covenant is not about us in the present day but is for Israel waiting a future day. Yet God has sovereignly not withheld the Holy Spirit from us but has given Him as the earnest, or the downpayment, of our inheritance. We can be led by the Spirit to the full extent that we walk in the Spirit and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. The promises belong to Israel, but that does not keep God from giving promises to us in Jesus Christ that may be the same or similar, may be different, or may even be better. God is sovereign — He does not need to ask us — and we would do well to keep that in mind with these things.

Christ came to Israel according to the flesh. “For He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11). Had the nation received Him, the promise to Abraham was that in his seed shall all the kindreds of the earth would be blessed along with the nation born from him at the fountain head of that blessing (Acts 3:25). Since they did not repent and would not repent, turning from their iniquities, but continued in rebellion and unbelief against God and His Christ, God is calling a new people to Himself apart from those promises while still waiting to fulfil those promises to a future believing nation of Israel. We will see as we move through Romans 9, 10, and 11 that God is not done with the nation of Israel, but for the present, an Israelite must come to God in the same way as we do as Gentiles. He cannot come and claim the covenants, but he can only come by way of the cross through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:8–13 — “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

We will study the Scriptures above further in future writings, Lord willing. Until then, what will you do with the LORD’s Christ and His finished work of redemption on the cross for you? Will you believe on Him to salvation, or will you continue on in rebellion against the truth?

Christ died for our sins. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and THOU SHALT BE SAVED.