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Israel & Christians Today

Biblical understanding about Israel

Two Peoples
By David Pawson
Israel and the church, Jews and Christians, do exist side by side in the world today, as clearly differentiated entities. And there are nations in which Christianity is the ‘established’ religion as there is now a nation in which Judaism is, though neither is exclusively monofaith, as in some Muslim countries. No-one can deny the existence of Israel, either as a national state or a dispersed people. The question we are discussing is not the existence of Israel, which is self-evident, but whether Israel has been supplanted by the church as God’s chosen people on earth, virtually reducing Israel to the status of a Gentile nation, with no special privileges or responsibilities in God’s sight. This is the downside of ‘supersessionist’ theology, a downgrading of God’s ancient people.
However, the real question is not the continued existence of Israel, but whether the significance of Israel has also continued. Are they still God’s chosen people? Are they still part of God’s purpose for the world? Do they have a divine future?
Stephen Sizer and his like have laid down the axiom that God cannot possibly have two peoples on earth at the same time. Of course, when this statement is accepted, it inevitably follows that the church has superseded Israel as God’s people on earth and that settles the whole debate. But is it true to Scripture? Is it true at all? Before we look at Scripture itself, it may be helpful to ask why the proponents of ‘one people at a time’ are so adamant.
I believe it is because they are jealous to preserve the New Testament truths of salvation, which is found in Christ alone, as the way, the truth and the life. With this motivation I can wholeheartedly agree. They fear that acknowledging Israel is still God’s people in some way compromises the fact that salvation is exclusively found in Christ, introducing an element of flesh into what is a matter of faith alone.
Such a fear is not entirely groundless. Some Zionists, with more enthusiasm than understanding have slipped into the error called ‘dual covenant’ the idea that Jews are saved by their own ‘old’ covenant and Christians are saved by the ‘new’, through Moses and Jesus respectively.

But anti-Zionists need to be aware of another danger that of Israel’s ‘calling’. What was Israel chosen for? It must be stated emphatically that they were chosen for service, not salvation. They would be the channel through which salvation would be made available to a lost world. And this was fulfilled, through their prophets, priests and kings first, then through the prophet/Priest/King Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and His Jewish apostles, to say nothing of the Jewish Scriptures, the major part of our Bible. Truly, ‘salvation is from the Jews’ (John 4:22).

But all this never meant that an Israelite or later a Jew was ‘saved’ because he was a descendant of Jacob. From Abraham onwards they were ‘justified’ by faith, just as he was (Genesis 15:6). In that respect Israel was on the same basis as any other nation. Only those who believed and went on believing were accepted by God. Those who never believed or fell back into unbelief were rejected (Romans 11:20). Of course, their faith was in the words and promises already spoken to them, long before they knew that Jesus was the Word (John 1:1) and that all the promises would be ‘Yes’ in Him (2 Corinthians 1:20). But it was saving faith. And God can use unbelieving, and therefore unsaved, nations to demonstrate His power and fulfill His purposes.
We have just quoted a verse from Romans 11. That whole chapter, by itself, is enough to refute the notion that Israel is no longer the chosen nation of God, their special relationship with Him unchanged, even by their rejection of His Son, their Messiah. God has not rejected them; they are still ‘His people’ (11:1). They were ‘His’ in the past, are ‘His’ in the present and will be ‘His’ in the future!
Even anti-Zionists acknowledge that some Jews are Hi, that ‘at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace’ (11:5), as true today as in Paul’s day. Paul himself was part and proof of that faithful minority. Now, of course, their faith is in Jesus, the Son, as well as the father, and they are regarded as part of the church.
But what about ‘the others’ (11:7), the majority then and now, who are not believers? Have they not kissed their opportunity and forfeited their right to be God’s special people? The rest of chapter 11 is all about ‘them’, even though it is addressed to ‘you’ Gentile believers. They are still being dealt with by God, though in a negative rather than a positive relationship, their hearts judicially ‘hardened’, as Pharao’s had been (9:17-18). In both cases the hardening had been on the human side; the divine side had followed, confirming and reinforcing the voluntary choice involuntary. Jews are among the hardest people to save, but this did not discourage Paul from trying (11:14; cf. 9:3 and 10:1) and should not dishearten us either (though nit must be admitted that some Zionists do not share Paul’s yearning or make evangelism a priority).
The hardening is neither total nor permanent. The situation is not beyond redemption. They are still ‘His people’ and God has not given up on them. They are ‘broken off’ but can be grafted back in again and will take place in their own olive tree more readily that the ‘wild’ Gentiles that have taken their place.
Astonishingly, Paul not only affirms they can be but seems to assume that they will be, anticipating such a blessing for the whole world as they resume their calling (11:12 and 15). No less than the gifts God gave to the ethnic Israel, chief of which was their own land. The calling still belongs to them as well (11:29), and God has future plans for the faithless rump of Israel just as much as the faithful remnant. Both parts are still ‘His people’. To deny this is to be guilty of arrogant contempt (11:18,20,25), the very opposite of an appropriate attitude of faith in and fear of the Lord (11:20).
All this is building up to a statement, the importance of which cannot be exaggerated in this whole debate, namely 11:25-27. So crucial is the interpretation of it that we must take great care and much time to unpack it.
Paul calls it a ‘mystery’. Two mistakes in unpacking this word are common. One is taken from English usage and is akin to ‘mysterious’, something beyond human comprehension, inexplicable, contrary to reason, to be blindly accepted. None of this is in Paul’s mind, in spite of many sermons and preachers! For him, a ‘mystery’ is a secret that can now be made public; a divine intention which human reason could not have discovered, but which has now been revealed and may be repeated.
The other mistake is to assume that whenever Paul uses the word ‘mystery’ he is referring to the same revealed secret, particularly the one that incorporates Gentiles in His purposes (Ephesians 3:16). But here in Romans it is not about Gentiles but about Israel. And the essence of it is that some day in the future ‘all Israel will be saved’ (11:26). Each word is important so we must take it step by step.
‘Saved’ always means for Paul salvation from sin’s penalty, power and pollution; justification, sanctification and glorification, by grace and through faith, all exclusively in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what it means in this whole letter to the Romans and in this particular section of it about the Jewish people (see 10:1 and 11:14). It is the salvation which some Jews and many gentiles have already found by calling on the name of the Lord, believing in their hearts and confirming with their mouths (10:9-13). The verb is in the future tense so this had not yet happened when Paul wrote. Nor indeed has it yet happened in our day. While an increasing number of Jews are coming to Christ for salvation, it is still only a small minority, by no stretch of the imagination could it be called ‘all Israel’.
‘All’ – what does it mean? It cannot mean all Jews who have ever lived. Had it done so, Paul would not have suffered such pain over their state (9:1-3), nor prayed so much for their salvation (10:1), nor such an effort to win them (11:14). He clearly believed many of his ‘brothers of his own race’ were facing a lost eternity. He was even willing to be banished from Christ if it would get them to heaven. Zionists need to be constantly reminded of this.

Nor does it necessarily mean all Jews still living when it happens. It may indicate this, but a precedent for the phrase ‘all Israel’ exists in the Old Testament, forty-eight times, to be exact. Sometimes it is a reference to the general spiritual and moral state of a nation. At other times it refers to a large assembly representing every part of the nation, all twelve tribes or all elders. In neither case does it mean every single Israelite, every man, woman and child. We may therefore translate the New Testament phrase as ‘Israel as a whole’ or ‘Israel en masse’. We may add that Israel is the only nation on earth that can claim a biblical promise of a national revival (even though many Christians today try to claim 2 Chronicles 7:14 as a promise for ‘their land’).
‘Israel’ has been taken so far in its ethnic sense, referring to physical Israel and especially its unbelieving majority, which has been in view since verse 7. And ‘Israel’ means exactly this at the beginning of the statement we are examining: ‘Israel has experienced a hardening…’(11:25). It would be strange indeed if a word was to change so radically in meaning within the confines of a single sentence, to say nothing of the fact that every other time ‘Israel’ is used throughout this section of Paul’s letter (chapter 9-11) it is always used in an ethnic way.
‘So all Israel will be saved.’ Zionists are prone to think and even quote as if the word is ‘then’. That is, after the full number of Gentiles is in, then all Israel will be saved. But their critics are right to point out that the word is ‘thus’ rather than ‘then’. The Greek word houtos certainly means ‘thus’ or ‘in this way’ or ‘just so’ or ‘as a result’, and relates to a previous statement as the cause of the result (it is also the word translated ‘so’ in John 3:16; it does not mean ‘so much’ but ‘inn the same way’, referring back to verses 14 and 15, and ‘so’ should really come before “God’).
So what is the cause that has resulted in ‘all Israel’ being saved? Those who rule out a national revival of ethnic Israel point to the preceding clause, arguing that the fullness of the Gentiles (nations), together with any converted Jews has completed the church, the spiritual Israel. Israel as a whole, all Israel. But the clause about the Gentiles dullness is a subsidiary clause of the whole sentence, qualifying the main clause, which states that the judicial hardening of ethnic Israel is both partial and temporary, to be removed when all Gentiles are in. It is the removal of this hardening by the God who imposed it, that will cause the ready acceptance of salvation by Israel ‘as a whole’, who are so much more easily grafted into their own olive tree as ‘natural’ branches. ‘So’ makes entire sense in this way.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that God can and does have two peoples on earth at the present time – His church, made up of some Jews and more Gentiles, all of whom believe in Jesus, and His people ’Israel’, still in an unbelieving state. The former are the fruit of the gospel, having received the mercy of God. The latter are foes of the gospel, yet to receive His mercy. Their spiritual salvation is intertwined, each affecting the other, both negatively and positively (11:30-31). Both are loved by God.
But their separate identity is temporary. It is the divine plan ‘to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ’ (Ephesians 1:10, and ‘even’ is not kai, but en = in). This consummation includes Israel and the church, together having found salvation in Him. Surely this is what Jesus meant when He said: ‘I have other sheep which are not of this fold. [Gentiles outside Israel.] I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd’ (John 10:16). Then, and only then, will it be possible to use ‘church’ and ‘Israel’ as interchangeable synonyms. Until then we should keep them separate and distinct.
(Source: Defending Christian Zionism, by David Pawson, Terra Nova Publications, ISBN 978-1-901949-62-9)