Who is Israel in the Bible: a people of faith, or a modern nation-state?

The short answer

The strongest form of the objection is fair, and it should be answered in love. God is not a promise-breaker. Fulfillment does not cancel the promise. It locates the promise in Christ, the Seed of Abraham. In Scripture, Israel is a people of faith in Him, not a modern nation-state. The covenant made at Sinai was conditional, and it has been fulfilled by Christ. The land is read in the light of a better country. The hope of a future turning of Jews to Christ is real, and it is not the same as support for a state in the Middle East.

Who Scripture calls Israel

Paul will not let the word of God seem to fail. "they are not all Israel, which are of Israel". "the children of the promise are counted for the seed".

“Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.”

"they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham". The Seed to whom the promises were made is Christ: "And to thy seed, which is Christ". Those who belong to Christ are then Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”

“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

A Jew, Paul says, is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart. He blesses "the Israel of God". Gentiles who were once "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" are now "fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God", made "one new man" in Christ. That is not the cancellation of Israel. It is Israel gathered around the Seed, with the nations brought in.

The covenants and the Seed

"all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen". The law, coming later, "cannot disannul" the covenant "confirmed before of God in Christ". The later law cannot cancel what was already promised in the Seed.

The covenant made at Sinai was not without conditions. Deuteronomy 28 sets blessing and curse on the keeping or breaking of that word. Jeremiah 38:31-34 LXX (31:31-34 KJV) promises a new covenant, not according to the one they broke. They "abode not in my covenant, and I disregarded them". Hebrews follows that Greek reading: "they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not". In saying "A new covenant", the epistle says, "he hath made the first old".

Jeremiah 38:31-34 LXX2012

“Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they abode not in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the Lord, I will surely put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not at all teach every one his [fellow] citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them: for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.”

Hebrews 8:8-13 KJV

“For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when 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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”

The land and a better country

The promise to Abraham was larger than a strip of earth. He was to be "the heir of the world", and that through the righteousness of faith, not through the law.

“For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.”

Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country. He looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. Those who died in faith desired "a better country, that is, an heavenly".

“By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”

When the disciples asked, "wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?", the Lord said, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons", and then sent them as "witnesses unto me". That is not a charter for a modern state.

A future turning, not a second people

Paul does anticipate a future mercy. They shall be graffed in "if they abide not still in unbelief". "all Israel shall be saved" when the Deliverer shall "turn away ungodliness from Jacob". "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance". That is a door of faith, the same olive tree, not a second people with a separate destiny apart from Christ.

“And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

James reads the raising of David's tabernacle through the Greek of Amos. Amos 9:11-12 LXX speaks of "the remnant of men, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called". Acts 15:16-17 follows that reading, as those Gentiles are brought into the rebuilt tabernacle of David. That is the restoration the apostles proclaimed, not a later national track.

Amos 9:11-12 LXX2012

“In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and will rebuild the ruins of it, and will set up the parts thereof that have been broken down, and will build it up as in the ancient days: that the remnant of men, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, may earnestly seek [me], says the Lord who does all these things.”

Acts 15:16-17 KJV

“After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.”

A two-peoples system, treating a national Israel and the church as separate peoples with separate destinies, was systematized in the 1830s and later spread by the Scofield Reference Bible, first published in 1909. That system should not be read back into the apostles. Some earlier writers already hoped that Jewish people would one day turn to Christ. That hope is biblical. It is not the same as a national inheritance for a modern state.

This is written in love for the Jewish people, and for every nation. The hope is that they, and all, might be reconciled to Christ and escape judgment. The invitation still stands: come to the Seed in whom all the promises of God are yea, and be found among the Israel of God.

Further reading

• The Israel Deception: The Scriptures They Don't Want You To See Revealed by Henry Bechthold. A scriptural study of whether Israel is still a chosen nation in the New Testament era, written to stay out of politics.
• The Hyphenated Heresy: Judeo-Christianity by Joel Webbon and Jordan Hall. Traces how the phrase "Judeo-Christian" shaped modern Christian identity and its ties to political Zionism.