Is the Church Israel?
Open the New Testament and you meet three groups of people side by side. Paul told the Corinthians to give no offense neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God (1 Corinthians 10:32). The church had been gathering for some twenty years when he wrote, yet Israel was still Israel and the Gentiles were still Gentiles. How do these three relate? Is the church simply Israel under a new name, or has God done something new?
The answer shapes how you read a great part of the Bible. The prophets made many promises to Israel: a land, a King on David's throne, a nation cleansed and gathered home. If the church is Israel, those promises now belong to the church and are fulfilled in it spiritually. If the church is something distinct, the promises still belong to the people to whom God gave them, and He will keep them as He gave them.
In Scripture, the nation descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel (Genesis 32:28). God chose this nation and bound Himself to it by covenant, and within it He has always kept a believing remnant (Romans 11:5).
From the Greek ekklēsia, a called-out assembly. Christ's church is the company He called out and is building (Matthew 16:18), empowered by the Spirit at Pentecost and gathered in local churches. In it believing Jews and Gentiles are reconciled to God in one body by the cross (Ephesians 2:16).
Israel and the church are distinct in God's program. The church is not Israel, and it has not replaced Israel. Yet Jews and Gentiles are saved in exactly the same way, by grace through faith in Christ, and every believer belongs to one family of the redeemed. God's national promises to Israel still stand, and He will keep them when Christ returns.
This distinction is the second mark of a dispensationalist (see What Is Dispensationalism?), and it grows out of the first: a plain reading of Scripture (A Plain Reading of Scripture). No one must grasp it in order to be saved. It belongs to all the counsel of God (Acts 20:27), which a faithful church teaches and every believer can test with an open Bible.
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For Deeper Study
- There Really Is a Difference! A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational TheologyAmazon Renald E. ShowersA clear and gracious comparison of the two systems, with careful chapters on Israel, the church, and the biblical covenants.
- Israelology: The Missing Link in Systematic TheologyAmazon Arnold G. FruchtenbaumA thorough study of Israel past, present, and future by a Jewish believer, with a detailed answer to covenant theology's treatment of Israel.
- Has the Church Replaced Israel? A Theological EvaluationAmazon Michael J. VlachA careful survey of the view that the church has superseded Israel, its history and arguments, with a biblical case for Israel's future.
- DispensationalismAmazon Charles C. RyrieA standard explanation of dispensational theology, revised and expanded in 2007, with a full treatment of the distinction between Israel and the church.
- Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New TestamentsAmazon John S. Feinberg, editorEssays by dispensational and covenant scholars (Crossway, 1988), useful for hearing both sides make their case in their own words.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Is Dispensationalism?
Dispensationalism is a way of reading the whole Bible that takes God's words in their plain sense, sees Him ordering His household through distinct stewardships, keeps His program for Israel distinct from His program for the church, and trusts Him to keep every promise as He gave it.
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