Synopsis: Despite widespread assumptions to the contrary, the Lord’s eternal plan and purpose involve spiritual Israel, not the modern State of Israel.
The modern State of Israel has helped to protect American interests in the Middle East and has been unfairly hated at times by various groups and governments who despise Western values. Israel is also hated by Palestinians who reject the United Nations Resolution which created and partitioned an Arab State, a Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem in 1947. The British had ruled the region since the League of Nations Palestine Mandate in 1923, which envisioned a national home for the Jews alongside a Palestinian State. The U.N. vote was met with Arab declarations that rivers of blood would flow in resistance to the plan. Civil war broke out and has continued to this day. It is doubtful Israel could have survived this long without the financial aid and military hardware provided by the United States. Yet, no one can safely predict Israel’s future based on any Bible prophecy because the Bible says nothing about the modern State of Israel.
The modern State of Israel has no genealogical connection to biblical Israel. Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 as Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:1-35 because of hardened hearts against God and His Son Jesus Christ. At that time, all the genealogical records of the Jewish tribes were destroyed. There is no person claiming to be a Jew today that can establish any relationship to the descendants of Biblical Israel. No person professing to be a Jew can identify a tribe of Israel from which he is descended. Modern Israel is simply a civil state or government like all others, and it has no claims to a special relationship to God or special protection by God. This modern State of Israel will someday fall like all nations of the earth including the United States. The principle upon which governments fall or survive is given in Proverbs 14:34, which says, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”
When Christ died for our sins, the old Mosaic system was completed and came to an end. The Old Covenant is the Law of Moses, but we live under a far better New Covenant. Read Hebrews 8 and especially notice verse 13, “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 old Israel was composed of the fleshly descendants of Abraham, but the new Israel in Scripture refers to Christians. Galatians 6:14-16 says, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” God’s new Israel looks to the crucified and risen Savior, Jesus Christ, not to Moses. The physical circumcision which identified Jews as Abraham’s descendants is no longer valid; rather, God is concerned that we be new creatures in Christ. Those who walk according to this rule are God’s true Israel today.
The true spiritual circumcision is performed when the Lord cuts away and casts away our sins, which he does when we submit to him in water baptism: “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:11-12).
The leaders and general population of modern Israel reject Jesus Christ and try to embrace the Law of Moses. They are nothing but an empty shell of the Biblical Israel, because they cannot even practice animal sacrifices—they have no temple on Mt. Zion, which is the place the Law of Moses designated for the temple and the sacrifices. The fact is that many leaders and inhabitants of the modern State of Israel are atheists. They view the Bible as a book of human history that preserves both facts and myths about the Jewish people and their unique survival.
All the talk about “end time” events involving the civil State of Israel is empty, vain, false religion. Christ is not coming back to set up an earthly kingdom in Palestine. He is coming back to raise all men from the grave and to judge them as Jesus Himself said in John 5:28-29, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
Instead of calling on people to prepare for this false earthly kingdom, we need to call upon all men to submit to Christ by faith by repenting of their sins and submitting to water baptism to prepare to enter heaven forever. Before Christ ascended back to heaven, here is what he said as recorded in Mark 16:15-16, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” Most inhabitants of the modern civil State of Israel are rank unbelievers—as such, they will be condemned to eternity in the fires of hell prepared for the devil and his servants. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8). That is the destiny of every soul who dies, having lived in disobedience to God’s Son, whether Jew or Gentile.
In the end, we must understand that all the kingdoms of men will fail and fall, but only the kingdom of Christ will endure forever. In 1 Corinthians 15:24, we read, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” Our hope is to be a part of this spiritual kingdom which endures into eternity. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).
All who share this hope must be faithful to serve and worship Christ to the very end of our lives. Then we can say with Paul, “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8). Like Paul, we can live and die in the confident hope that we will someday be assembled with all the faithful of all the ages in the very presence of God in heaven! “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
Author Bio: Ron Halbrook has shared preaching duties at the Hebron Lane church of Christ in Shepherdsville, KY since August of 1997. David Dann and Ron have worked together there since April of 2016. Ron has made 67 trips to the Philippines. The church website is http://www.hebronlane.com/. He can be reached at ronhalbrook@gmail.com.