A Biblical and Theological Perspective of National Israel

Christ Over All ^ | 2024 | Brent Parker

[CondoleezzaProtege]

All Christians who study the Bible inevitably face the complexity of comprehending how the Old and New Testaments hold together. Interpreting the role of national Israel, and more generally the Israel-church relationship, is a test case of biblical theology, that is, how one synthesizes the Bible’s teaching about the people of God on the Bible’s own terms and in view of the overarching narrative and storyline of the whole Bible.

Serious Bible readers examine how the individual portions of the Bible fit within the whole and how biblical topics and themes develop across the biblical covenants from earlier to later divine installments of Scripture. Unsurprisingly, interpreters arrive at vastly different conclusions concerning national Israel.

Both can affirm that the state of Israel today is important as a geo-political entity, can rightly exist as a sovereign nation, and that her nationhood has occurred through the outworking of God’s general providence.

Some dispensationalists believe that Israel’s nationhood today has eschatological/ apocalyptic importance.

Which of these three perspectives best explains and accounts for Scripture’s unfolding drama of God’s redemptive covenantal purposes concerning Israel? How are we to understand Israel through the grand sweep of redemptive revelation in the Bible? Having recognized the diversity of evangelical views, I turn now to unpack the story of Israel through Scripture.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Anyone who reads the Bible knows that Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people. And God makes that
clear time and time again. He smites down those who would take Israel away from the Jewish people.

[nitzy]

John 8

[Captain Walker]

Anyone who reads the Bible knows that Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people. And God makes that clear time and time again.

This much is clear until one turns the page to the New Testament; we read about how Christ wept over the pending destruction of Jerusalem, because the people did not recognize His visitation.

[lurk]

A more accurate term is Genetic Israel. Other than that, thumbs up.

[dis.kevin]

The destruction of Jerusalem but not the Jewish State.

[Arlis]

Let me perhaps rephrase this:

Is the political Israel today, the political nation, the Israel that is the Hebrew people known as Israel in the Old Testament?

The political nation of Israel is a democracy made up of Jews (aprox. 75%, of which 65% are non-practicing Jews or atheists), and 25% are Arabs, Druze, Christians or other.

Does God today equate the political entity of today called Israel with the biblical Israel?

I doubt it.

But most “Christians” do equate them......

[fidelis]

Does God today equate the political entity of today called Israel with the biblical Israel? I doubt it. But most “Christians” do equate them......

I would say that many, if not most of Evangelical Christians (because of the influence of fairly recent millennial Dispensationalism) might equate them, but they are a minority of Christians in the world who would not equate the two.

[Lee N. Field]

Anyone who does not have the Son, cannot be said to have the Father.

[Lee N. Field]

The destruction of Jerusalem but not the Jewish State.

The decisive end of the Old Covenant cultic order.

[Arlis]

Should have added only about 26% of all Israeli citizens are practicing Jews.

If so, how can the political nation Israel be equated to the Hebrew people of Israel of the Bible?

[Arlis]

My question was not “what do people think?”, but rather “what does God think?”

I only want to see things as He does.........man’s views are irrelevant except in a very temporal sense.......

[imardmd1]

O O O	———————	GOD'S	DEALINGS	WITH	MAN	———————	O O O
DOCTRINE	MORALITY	RESPONSIBILITY	PROMISE	LAW – ISRAEL	LAW – ISRAEL	GRACE–	RIGHTEOUSNESS
				THEOCRACY	KINGDOM	CHURCH	AND PEACE
———————	———————	———————	———————	———————	———————	———————	—————————
1. COVENANT SPHERE	ADAMIC	NOACHIC	ABRAHAMIC	MOSAIC	DAVIDIC	NEW	EVERLASTING
	Gen. 1:28,29	Gen. 9:1-17;	Gen. 12:1-3;	Ex. 19 – 30	2 Sam. 7:15-19;	Mt. 26:26-28;	Jer. 32:37-40
	Gen. 2:15-17	Gen. 6:18	Gen. 15:1-16,18		2 Sam. 23:5	Heb. 8:6-13;	Ezek. 16:60
						Heb. 10:5-10	Heb. 13:20
2. SIN	Gen. 3:1-15	Gen. 9:20-25	Gen. 16:1-6	Ex. 32:1-14	1 Kings 10:28	1 Cor. 15:34	NO SIN PERMITTED
					cf. Deut. 17:16	Phil. 3:17-21
3. WICKEDNESS	Gen. 6:5,12,13	Gen. 11:6	Gen. 37:19-36	Judges (entire)	1 Kings 11:1-10	Rom. 1:21-32	NO WICKEDNESS
(Evil Imaginations)			Gen. 38:12-26	1 Samuel (entire)
4. TOTAL DEPRAVITY	Gen. 6:12	Jos. 24:2,15	Ex. 1:22	1 Sam. 8:6-7	Jer. 11:7-10	Jude 8-23	NO DEPRAVITY
					Isa. 1:4-20	2 Pet. 2:1-20
5. PRONOUNCEMENT	Gen. 6:13	Gen 11:7	Gen. 15:13-16	Jer. 7:21-26	Jer. 15:1-14	Heb. 10:26-31	Rev. 20:6
					Jer. 7:25-34	Lk. 18:19
					Jer. 25:4-11
6. JUDGMENT	Flood	Babel	Bondage	Bondage	Captivity	Candlestick	Rev. 20:7-15
	1656 yrs. AC	1758 AC	to Egyptians	to Philistines	in Babylon	removed
	Gen. 7:1-8:14	Gen. 11:8,9			to Rome	Rev. 2:5
	esp. Gen. 7:11					Rev. 3:16
7. NEXT COVENANT	NOAH	ABRAM	MOSES	DAVID	CHRIST	CHRIST AS KING	ETERNITY
			Abram 2095 AC	Moses 2510 AC	David 3065 AC
					Lk. 1:26-33
O O O	———————	———————	———————	———————	———————	———————	O O O

[Olog-hai]

It’s still their homeland. God established that forever, even if He puts them in captivity for punishment. The message of the New Testament is about the gathering of all other nations to Christ and Israel.

[af_vet_1981]

Maybe they are ignorant, but will their ignorance be an excuse for their behavior ? God forbid that they one day shall say "Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? and clothed thee?"

It seems to me that some of them claim the Name but deny the covenant in Jeremiah 31 (not to mention the second greatest commandment in Leviticus):

31. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
33. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
35. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
36. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
37. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.

It's a beautiful thing when God puts love in one's heart for Israel. It is one way to distinguish the wheat from the tares among the nations.

[cowboyusa]

The Juhda and Israel of the Bible were also rebellious. GOD made the Cpvenant, so it stands.

[himno hero]

Don’t be so short. It’s also the holy land for what’s his name, the most influential man of all time!

[Arlis]

Agree totally.

BUT question is, with whom did He make the Covenant?

The Hebrew people - not a secular state.

Began with a covenant with one man - Abraham. And that one extends to we Gentiles......who were “grafted in” in Paul’s words......

[Arlis]

Nice chart.

[mac_truck]

Anyone who reads the Bible knows that Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people.

Is Sammy Davis included?