Conservative Christianity in America is currently being severely discredited because many influential conservative Christians believe in something called “dispensationalism,” which teaches that there are two paths to salvation: 1) faith in Christ, and 2) being a Jew in the modern state of Israel. They have somehow gotten it into their heads that the Bible’s promises to “Israel” apply to Jews in the modern state of Israel. This is utterly absurd and fantastically un-Biblical. Modern Israel is in Christ; anyone who is not in Jesus Christ is not part of Israel.
God in Christ ended the distinction between Jew and gentile. (Gal. 3:28; Rom. 10:12). The “chosen people” are now whoever believes in Jesus Christ, regardless whether he be genetically Jew or gentile. (Col. 3:11-12; 1 Pet. 2:9-10) Through Christ God is making a new humanity that includes believing Jews and believing gentiles, an issue discussed is in Ephesians 2:11-18:
“Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called ‘uncircumcised’ by those who call themselves ‘the circumcision’ (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.” Eph. 2:14-18
I am working on a commentary on Ephesians, which will be available as a kindle e-book in the next two to three months. But this passage needs little commentary. God made the two groups, Jew and gentile, into one, and not into one nation (ethnos) or ethnicity, but into one new humanity (anthropon), and that new humanity is based upon a living and vital faith in Jesus Christ, not upon genetics or genealogy. We are no longer believing Jews and believing gentiles, we are now one people called spiritual Israel.
If you do not understand the concept of spiritual Israel, you cannot properly interpret Scripture. Every prophecy in Scripture that applies to the time after 70 AD and uses the term “Israel” is referring to the Christian church. The Israel of God in prophecy consists of those who follow Jesus Christ.
It is the failure to understand the concept of spiritual Israel that leads into absurdities, such as the idea that the temple at Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and the temple sacrifices, including the famous red heifer, will resume—as though all those sacrifices and rituals had not been fulfilled in Christ!
Unfortunately, many argue that conservative Christians are bound to support the modern state of Israel, no matter what that state does, and for the last few years Israel has been pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. My point here is not a political one; it might be that driving all the Muslim Arabs out of Gaza is the only realistic path to permanent peace. The reality is that ethnic cleansing is the rule, not the exception, in human history, including recent history: Just three years ago, Azarbaijan drove 120,000 ethnic Armenians out of their province of Nagorno-Karabakh.
My point is a spiritual/theological point: Christians must dispense with the pernicious and discrediting idea that we are bound to support whatever the modern state of Israel does. That idea is destroying the witness of American conservative Christianity; the need to clarify that the modern state of Israel is not biblical Israel has never been more acute.
Adventists should be the most outspoken Christians in correcting this widespread error. We understand that the Jews, as a people, were given a probationary time of 490 years, ending in 34 AD. (Daniel 9:20-27) After the expiration of the 490 years, the gospel was to go to the gentiles; the Jews, as a biological or genetic nation, exit Bible prophecy. God could not have made any clearer that the Jews’ probation ended in 34 AD than by allowing the pagan Romans to destroy the temple and kill and enslave much of the Jewish nation, in 70 AD. The Jews as a nation rejected Christ; hence their destruction at the hands of the Romans in 70 AD was a judgment they brought upon themselves.
They had plenty of chances to repent, as Jesus told them in no uncertain terms:
He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.
Christ’s death and resurrection is one fulfillment of the “sign of Jonah,” but there is another:
“When God saw [the repentance of Nineveh] and how they turned from their evil ways, He relented and did not bring on them the destruction He had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah was angry with God for extending grace to Nineveh. He claimed it was this very threat of God’s mercy being extended to the gentiles that caused him to run to Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh. In the end, Jonah thought it better to die than to live with the ignominy of God forgiving the gentiles. This, ultimately, is the Jews’ corporate position with regard to Christianity: they would rather die than see God save the gentiles, and lose their special “chosen” status.
The idea that Israel continues on as a chosen nation, parallel to the Christian Church, is simply not tenable. We all come to Christ as individuals, not as nations or groups. Believing Jews come to God just as believing gentiles, through faith in Christ. Whoever believes in Christ is part of Israel; whoever rejects Christ is not Israel, even if he can trace his genealogy back to Abraham.
“Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Col. 3:11-12