BY GREG CRUM

“I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.” Romans 11:1-3

What book of the Bible is quoted above? Who made this statement? From which Covenant do these statements pertain? The answers? Romans, the most doctrinal of all New Testament books, written by Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, speaking to “born again” believers that lived in the same Age of Grace that you and I are living in today. Okay, so Paul was speaking to people living under the same covenant rules as you and me, well after the resurrection of Jesus, and well into God’s moving on and in the Gentile populations to build the Body of Christ.

What did he say? That God wasn’t finished with the nation of Israel yet. He had not cast them away. He had not forsaken them and replaced them with a new people. It was true then, and remains true today in large part, that this group of people had forsaken Him and rejected Jesus as their Messiah, but He wasn’t finished with them then, and He still has a great plan for their future.

Friends, we live in troubled times. Conspiracies abound. Wolves masquerade in wool. Digital shepherds lead media addicted masses for a price. There are ideas that are championed today as a matter of fact that only 40 years ago would have been so laughably ridiculous to the majority of the population that people wouldn’t dare spare them a moment in their mind. Sadly, there are a fair number of Christians today, especially those that either weren’t born or were newly born 40 years ago, that are falling for one such erroneous conspiracy. What conspiracy is that? That Israel is the cause of all the evil in the world. That God has replaced the Jews with Gentile believers in Jesus. That we are exclusively His people today.

Last week we wrote to you in an effort to give you Biblical evidence to counteract this end-time deception. It is true that Israel will become hated by all men for the Lord’s sake as we get closer to the end, but we, as Christians, don’t have to be a part of that group that hates those that God still loves. We mentioned that the Bible has much to say concerning the future of the nation of Israel, and what it says should give us reason to root for them to succeed, instead of wish for them to be destroyed.

So, what does the Scripture say about the Jews? First, as we noted last week, it declares that our Jesus is a Jew. Mary, Jesus’ mom, who he got his physical body from, was a direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jesus most definitely has Jewish DNA in that nail-scared body of his. The people of Israel were, are, and will always be the biological family of our Savior. Do you love your natural family in spite of their flaws? Yeah, I thought so. So does Jesus. I don’t know about you, but I love the Lord and I’m not going to actively hate those he loves.

What else does the Bible say about the nation of Israel? Well, contrary to the doctrine of some, the Christian Church did not become Israel in this New Covenant. We did not replace Israel; we became a new people of God, the Body of Christ. I Corinthians 10:32 gives us a New Testament categorization of people in this Age we live in. There it mentions to “Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God:” Three categories—Jews (descendants of Israel), Gentiles (unsaved non-Jewish people), and the church of God (born-again believers in Jesus).

You see, we didn’t replace the natural descendants of Israel as God’s chosen people in the Lord’s eyes; we became a new group of people never before in existence. A “new” covenant people that didn’t take the old seat of God’s chosen nation of days gone by, but a new, additional group of people that can live by a greater covenant established on better promises!

That said, our new position through Jesus does not erase God’s love and future plans for the people He once called out of Egypt, those children of Israel.

Greg Crum is the pastor at Calvary Temple in Lovely.