The Weekly Perspective
by Burke Shade, Associate Pastor
With Iran and Israel in the news lately, there’s been a lot of hoorah on how the U.S. must support Israel, especially amongst us evangelicals. The claim is that Israel, and the Jews specifically, are God’s people, Abraham’s sons, and whoever blesses them will be blessed, etc. So you hear phrases such as “Support Israel” or “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (not that anybody is against praying for peace).
So the questions are: Who are God’s people today? And is it the Jews of today?
Let’s start with the last question. Jesus Christ was the last true Jew; all genealogies in the New Testament stop with him. Additionally, “for all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor 1); Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises in the Scriptures (see Luke 24 and Hebrews 1:1-4). Also, the Apostle Paul says that beginning in his day, “there is neither Jew nor Greek…for you all are one in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 3:28). How is that? Because the mystery of God was fulfilled in Christ, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body (Eph. 3). Of what body? Of the Christian body, Jew and Gentile united as “one new man in the place of the two…”(Eph 2). So there is no future for the Jews in God’s word, with regards to them being his people, after the coming of Jesus.
So who are God’s people today? Well, Peter says the church is, using language that used to describe Israel in the Old Testament as now applying only to the church: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…once you were not God’s people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Peter 2:9-12). Paul does the same in 2 Cor. 6:14-7.1, applying old covenant promises of God to the church (7:1)!