Tag Archives: God is not finished with Israel

God Has Not Rejected Israel

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A Christian evangelist recently wrote to me and said, “Israel will never be restored as a nation, the jews are cooked, the church has replaced Israel, there is no special promise made to unbelieving jews today nor in the future except hell fire if they don’t repent (as other gentiles). Dispensationalism is junk and a man-made doctrine of the 1800’s by John Nelson Darby and Cyrus Scofield.” Sadly, there are numerous people who think this way.

That statement is not merely an attack on dispensationalism. It is a direct contradiction of Scripture. Worse, it reflects contempt for a people whom God loves with an “everlasting love” (Jer 31:3). God created Israel. God chose Israel. God established covenants with Israel. God gave Israel the land. God entrusted Israel with His word. God brought the Messiah into the world through Israel. Moses declared, “The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession” (Deut. 7:6). Paul states that to Israel belong “the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises” (Rom. 9:4). God established those realities. Human opinion does not cancel them.

Israel is presently under divine discipline because of unbelief (Matt. 23:37-39). That is biblical. But discipline is not rejection, and temporary judgment is not permanent abandonment. Paul asks, “God has not rejected His people, has He?” Then comes the emphatic answer: “May it never be!” (Rom. 11:1). Paul repeats the point: “God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew” (Rom. 11:2). Israel is presently under a “partial hardening” that lasts “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25). Partial means partial. Until means until. Words mean things. Israel has a future.

Paul goes further. Concerning unbelieving Israel, he writes, “From the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Rom. 11:28). Beloved. Not discarded. Not replaced. Not “cooked.” Why? “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). God made covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David. God will keep those promises because God cannot compromise His own character. God has integrity and keeps His word. Lewis Chafer states:

“That Jehovah loves Israel with ‘an everlasting love’ is assured in Jeremiah 31:3. An everlasting love includes a love from all eternity past and extends on into eternity to come. This nation is thus loved in spite of their evil and multiplied rejections of Jehovah. That everlasting love will yet prevail and this unworthy people will inherit all that Jehovah has determined.”[1]

This does not mean an unbelieving Jew possesses eternal life because he is Jewish. He does not. Jew and Gentile alike must believe in Jesus Christ for eternal life. Jesus said, “He who believes has eternal life” (John 6:47). Nor does biblical support for Israel require blind support for every decision of the modern State of Israel. The OT prophets loved Israel and repeatedly condemned Israel’s sins. Biblical love does not require political blindness. It requires divine viewpoint.

But saying “the Jews are cooked” is not divine viewpoint. It is certainly not Paul’s viewpoint. Paul wrote, “my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (Rom. 10:1). Paul grieved for unbelieving Israel. Paul prayed for Israel. Paul evangelized Israel. And Paul still called Israel “beloved.” There is no place for antisemitism in Christianity. None. Christians worship Israel’s Messiah. We read a Bible written by Jewish authors. We believe the Jewish prophets. We possess a salvation that Jesus said is “from the Jews” (John 4:22). Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died as Israel’s Messiah, rose from the dead, and will return as “the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5). Contempt for the Jewish people has no place in biblical Christianity.

The biblical position is simple. God loves Israel. God presently disciplines Israel. God has not rejected Israel. Israel remains beloved for the sake of the fathers. Israel still possesses the covenants and promises God gave her. Israel has a certain future because God keeps His word. Period.

Paul wrote Romans 9-11 eighteen centuries before John Nelson Darby was born. The issue is not Darby. The issue is not Scofield. The issue is not whether someone likes dispensationalism. The issue is whether God means what He says. “God has not rejected His people” (Rom. 11:2). They remain “beloved for the sake of the fathers” (Rom. 11:28). And “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29).

God said it. Believe God.

Steven R. Cook, D.Min., M.Div.

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[1] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1993), 317.