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Why Israel? “…for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be His treasured possession.” Deut.14:2
Israel first appears in Scripture as the new name God gave to Jacob (Gen.32:28). It means Prince with God. It was first used collectively (of Jacob’s descendants) in Gen. 34:7. Later, during Israel’s time of servitude in Egypt, Moses challenged Pharaoh with the words: “…Israel is my son, even my firstborn: And I say unto you ‘Let my son go, that he may serve me…’” (Exodus 4:22).
Whatever else we may say about Israel, we cannot deny that God chose Israel as His “treasured possession.” It must also be said that Israel has a unique relationship with God as defined by covenants. Some Christians will be surprised to learn that this includes the New Covenant which Jesus introduced and consecrated during the Last Supper. As far as we know, there were only Hebrews (Jews) present when He uttered those immortal words about His body and His blood being the means of the New Covenant, and the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy:
“Behold the days come, says thee Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant they broke…But this shall be the covenant which that I will make with the house of Israel…” (Jer.31:31-33).
In short, all of God’s covenants were made with Israel. If the Church wishes to lay claim to the New Covenant, she may do so, but only as a result of being “engrafted” into Israel’s established (covenant) root system through Christ (Rom.11:17; Ephesians 2:13). Hence, Paul’s warning that Christians ought not to boast about their relationship with God since it is Israel’s root system that supports the engrafted branches (Rom.11:18). While it is true that Israel broke that earlier covenant (and all other covenants for that matter), God nevertheless promised to give them a New Covenant.
The Apostle Paul struggled to understand Israel’s on-again, off-again, relationship with God, especially since the Jews, in a collective sense, rejected Jesus as their Messiah.
In the final analysis however, he concluded: “God has not cast away His people (Israel) whom He foreknew“(Rom.11:2). On the contrary, one day “…all Israel shall be saved: as it is written…For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” (Rom. 11:26.27).
Many Christians today struggle with Paul’s prophetic declaration that “one day all Israel shall be saved.” What did he mean? Did Paul mean all Jews whoever lived at any time? Surely not, since this would mean that unbelieving Jews who were already dead would be saved retroactively, while others yet unborn would be saved in future. This cannot be what Paul understood or intended. As one who came to faith through a face to face confrontation with the Risen Christ, Paul knew that the Cross was the only means of salvation. In other words, believing in Jesus as Saviour was a necessary means to personal salvation. Then it may be asked if, since Paul used a future tense, was he referring to those Jews who would be alive at the time of Christ’s return, when, according to Zechariah 12:10, God “…will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced…”
This is a more likely interpretation of what Paul meant, given Zechariah’s prophetic description of the Messiah to come. In other words, in that day God will remove the veil from Jewish eyes (Romans 11:8), so they will recognize the Crucified Christ - the Son of God, born of King David’s line. Either way, it remains that no one can come to the Father except by the Son, and no one can recognize the Son but by revelation from the Father.
Paul explains that God’s ultimate plans and purposes for Israel are a mystery not easily understood, especially given Israel’s ‘partial blindness’ (Rom.11:25) concerning the Gospel (Good News of Christ), and her inclination towards disobedience and rebellion. Yet, none of this negates God’s sovereign choosing of Israel, much less His commitment to keep His covenant promises to her.
It is important to note that Paul wrote all of this after the Cross, and following the Jews’ collective rejection of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah. He saw this rejection of Christ as one more piece in a mysterious puzzle, an opportunity for an unbelieving Gentile world to “…obtain mercy through their (Jewish) unbelief.” (Rom.11:30). He then concluded that if unbelieving Gentiles could receive God’s mercy, the same must be true for unbelieving Jews - as a result, not of their righteousness but rather, because of God’s mercy: “For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy on all.” (Rom.11:32)
Paul had already anticipated that some would question how God could extend mercy to those steeped in unbelief, be they Jew or Gentile. He answered by reminding His readers of what God said to Moses: "I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” (Rom. 9:15). Here again God’s declared sovereign right to do as He pleases.
As Israel struggles to survive as a Jewish homeland in an increasingly hostile middle-eastern neighborhood, no one dare underestimate God’s love for Israel, much less His plans and purposes for the only nation on earth he named and called into being - not once, but twice - the second time in 1948 after nearly two thousand years of exile among the Gentile nations, and following a European Holocaust which claimed the lives of six million sons and daughters of Israel.
Clearly, He is the God who keeps His covenant promises!
Rev. John Tweedie is the
Chairman of Christians for Israel