The prominence of Israel’s conflicts against genocidal Islamism and an unexpected surge of Western antisemitism, together with my recent studies in the Jewish roots of Christianity through Seth Postell, David C Mitchell and others, have brought into focus the wide range of views about “Israel” amongst those calling themselves Christians.
But what does “Israel” even mean? I may need to devote a separate post to that, since it is not as simple as you’d expect. But there has been much criticism of “Christian Zionists” supporting the war in Gaza, whereas others have condemned “replacement theology,” the latter apparently covering a range of views that “the Church” has replaced “Israel” in God’s concerns.
At the extremes (or maybe just among endless variants) are those who say that secular Zionism, and therefore the State of Israel, is both illegitimate and of negative spiritual significance, whilst on the opposite pole are those saying the Jews need no gospel because they have their own salvific dispensation from Mount Sinai. To some, Jewishness is synonymous with a sinister plot to rule the world (those forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion refuse to lie down, especially in the Muslim world). But meanwhile a good number of gentile Evangelicals love to celebrate Passover, throw Hebrew phrases around, and act as if Bibi Netanyahu or Mossad can do no wrong: the fashion for “Hebraic” worship songs a few decades ago is evidence for that.
There are now some 30,000 Messianic Jews in Israel, with their own varying ecclesiological positions, whereas British Israelism, essentially teaching that the real Israelites are white Westerners descended from supposedly lost tribes, has been surprisingly prominent not only in early Pentecostalism, but in the nineteenth century Holiness Movements that preceded it.
I imagine, also, that if you believe that the True Church is now centred on Rome, or Zion City NY, with a gentile Pope or a modern apostle as God’s vicar on earth, it might be hard not to consider that Mother Church has replaced disobedient Israel in God’s purposes.
Let’s start by considering what “church” is. Jesus uses the word only twice, in Matthew’s gospel, of Peter’s confession and of gospel discipline, though it is very frequent after Pentecost. But εκκλησια was not a new word, but was used extensively in the Septuagint Greek Bible for Hebrew qahal, the congregation of Israel. It is especially used when all Israel is called together before the Lord, as by David on bringing the ark to Jerusalem, by Solomon at the dedication of the temple, and by Ezra and Nehemiah after the return from exile.
Qahal seems virtually a synonym for the more common Hebrew edah, translated as συναγωγη, which Young says has the nuance of an appointed assembly. Jesus may, then, be deliberately distinguishing his gathered congregation from the Jewish Synagogue, which had of course acquired a technical sense in his time – though the NT once, and a few Patristic sources, use “synagogue” for Christian assemblies.
Be that as it may, Jesus, as the Davidic king, the priest like Melchizedek, and the prophet like Moses, sent by the Father to the lost sheep of the house of Israel according to the New Covenant promise, is clearly not founding a new institution, but gathering the faithful remnant of Israel around the new temple – which is Christ himself.
As far as Jesus was concerned, then, the Church is primarily a Jewish institution. Indeed, it has the same sense as the original Israelite congregation, consisting of those Hebrews who have listened to the new Moses, and have thereby avoided being called to account by Yehovah himself (Deuteronomy 18:19).
That, I guess, is why Jesus condemns the “synagogue of Satan” in Philadelphia (Revelation 3:9), not because they are especially wicked Jews, but because they oppose their Messiah and persecute his assembly. “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel,” (Romans 9:6).
The εκκλησια only begins to admit Gentiles after the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10, and that only by the grafting in of “wild olive branches, against nature.” Paul follows the Holy Spirit in acknowledging only one assembly of Christ (Galatians 3:26-9), recognising Gentiles too as children of Abraham (Galatians 3:7). It is therefore as absurd to regard the Church as replacing Israel, as it would be to say that the Synagogue replaced Israel. Rather, since Jesus is the true Israel, who alone fulfilled the law and to whom all his people are spiritually united, the Church is Israel – though in my next piece I will need to nuance that, for Scripture defines “Israel” in multiple ways.
I would go so far as to say that Gentile believers have been adopted, by sheer grace, into Israel – in the sense of the eschatological Israel of the New Covenant, whose original scope was the physical descendants of Jacob. But that Gentile inclusion by no means implies that the Jews, as currently constituting the State of Israel and the Jewish diaspora – are excluded from Israel defined in another biblical sense. And neither, as I hope to argue, does it mean that Israel, as a nation, has been permanently estranged from the congregation of the Messiah.
Romans 11:25ff has various interpretations, but to me the kind that envisages a final, radical, turning of the nation to Christ accords most with the character of our God. From the rest of Scripture, I find that God doesn’t ever do “Plan B,” but manages events so that the apparently stymied “Plan A” comes to pass after all. And so his plan for Adam to rule creation under his governance, subverted in the Garden of Eden, is nevertheless fulfilled through the new Adam – and Satan is destroyed to boot. The plan for Israel to be a priesthood to bring the whole world to God, apparently stalled by their persistent rebellion, is fulfilled in the true Israel, the Danielic Son of Man.
One may point to the oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being fulfilled by the raising up of (Gentile) children to Abraham “from these stones” (Matthew 3:9), saying that is sufficient fulfilment of prophecy, but how fitting it would be for the nation on whom “a hardening has come in part” to be as literally and completely saved from their sin as the prophets seem to foretell.
Those 30,000 Messianic believers are a blessing to the land of Israel and the world, but I have a feeling there are a lot more to come before this age is through.
