"Thy Kingdom Come: Who Is Israel?" by Paul Garber

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

This is Strength to Strength, and we welcome you back to join us here to continue this theme of Thy Kingdom Come. It's our prayer here at S2S that our resources, our talks, and our books would be a catalyst for strengthening your love, faith, relationship with King Jesus, and also giving you solid footing in a shaky world.

And again, it's a pleasure to be here with you. Welcome to all of you from around the world here this afternoon. This afternoon we have Brother Paul Garber with us, and he is planning to do his first talk of three. So we're doing a four-part talk here this morning.

John D. shared on the Kingdom of God, or his title specifically was God's Kingdom Vision for the World. And as we know, he is passionate about God's Kingdom, has taught a lot here on Strength to Strength, kind of around this topic, and in this morning specifically on this, had a powerful message. If you haven't listened to it, definitely make sure you listen to that, of God's Kingdom Vision for the World. And then, yeah, the next three here will be Brother Paul, and we're going to be looking back thousands of years in the history of the world to some of the early covenants that God made with His people, and really looking into this important subject of who is Israel, and God's Kingdom promises to Israel, and then finally the last message will be Kingdom promises to Israel fulfilled.

And so we're going to be kind of bookending this little series with a call to God's Kingdom that's here right now. It is a spiritual, literal reality, and I like to tell people more real than even the United States. It's very real, but of course, you know, it's here but not yet, and this could be a call forward to a coming time when that would be here and it's fullness. And so I'm so excited about this.

I couldn't think of a better way to kick off 2024 here on Strength to Strength with looking at this very important subject, and really the most important subject when it comes to Christianity of God's Kingdom, His reign here on earth, and how we as His ambassadors can be faithful in being a proper representative, you know, bringing a piece of the home turf to foreign soil is our call. And so may God speak to us, inspire us, encourage us in this time.

So Paul, we're going to have Paul's prayer here, and then we'll look to you. Paul comes to us from Boston, and where it's probably colder than here in central Pennsylvania, where he's lived now for maybe six months, eight months there. Paul is somebody I've known for quite a while, maybe two, three years, and he's spoken here on Strength to Strength, I believe one other time on the subject of, was it Romans maybe? I forget exactly the title, Paul. What was that? It was reading Paul through first-century eyes. Yes, very good. And a message, a stimulating message as well. So if you get a chance, I'll go back and listen to that. So let's pray. Father, thank you that we can come to you this afternoon, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Father, we're unworthy to be called your children, but we know that through what your Son Jesus did, that we have been adopted into your family, that we have been made your children through this incredible work of your Son Jesus, the work of where he came to earth so many years ago and spoke and taught and showed us what it looks like to be the new humanity.

And he died and he rose again, and he's seated at your right hand. We can come to you boldly through this, through his intercession, through his work. We can come to you and let our burdens with you and cry out to you for wisdom and direction. And Father, we're looking into a deep subject here. We thank you for it. We thank you for how you have worked with humanity from thousands of years ago up to today. You've been so patient, so long-suffering, and you desire that we would experience your life and your ways and your health and your beauty on this earth. And we anticipate that time we can be in your presence. But in the meantime, Father, we have this privilege of working with you, partnering with you in this work of bringing heaven to earth.

And so Father, I pray you'll bless Paul in a special way as he is sharing here today, Lord. God indirect him, give him a clear mind, Father, and speak to our hearts through him. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Paul, if you don't mind, I thought I would share the description for your talk here. Is that okay? Yes, yes, that's okay. Okay. I thought it was so good and could potentially really lay a foundation for you as you start. So this is the description that Paul has for this talk. Throughout the Old Testament, we read of a unique and special nation called Israel.

God had a special relationship with this nation and even called them the apple of his eye. With the nation of Israel, God made special promises of land and prosperity if they continued faithful in his covenants. First, with God's covenant with their forefather Abraham, and secondly, with God's covenant given on Mount Sinai to Moses, the nation's founding prophet.

Reading about the special place that this nation had in God's heart, we need to ask the question, who is Israel? I'm sorry, what defined Israel as a nation in the Old Testament? And what defines Israel as a nation today?

God bless your brothers as you share. Okay. Well, thank you, Brother Brian. I appreciate being here, and I welcome to each one that's here and also to those who will be listening later on. I'm excited that you can be here and join us. First off, let me make a comment on something that you said, Brian, here early on. You said a spiritual, literal reality.

The kingdom is a spiritual, literal reality. And I love that. Oftentimes, we're told, we're given a contrast between the spiritual and the literal, and we're said something spiritualizing, something is not taken literally. And of course, we are told by Jesus that the Father is God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. So if God is a spirit, then he is also literal. So we need to take that literally.

So I'm excited to be a part of this series about the kingdom of God. And I want to thank Brother John D. Martin this morning for his message about God's kingdom vision for the world. One important point that John brought out this morning is that there is a present and future aspect to the kingdom. We are currently living in a mediatorial time, I think that's what he said, a mediatorial time of the kingdom. And one of the most common mischaracterizations of our kingdom theology is that if the kingdom that was promised to ancient Israel has been established, God made promises of land, he made promises of prosperity and blessings and so on. If those kingdom promises to Israel are fulfilled in the church, then this is all we got.

And we look at the world around us and we say, is this God's kingdom? Of course, we're not saying anything of the sort. We believe that God's kingdom that has been inaugurated in the way that Jesus said that it was, it just hasn't reached maturity yet.

Jesus gave several different kingdom parables. He gave the parable of the mustard seed, and he said the mustard seed is a small seed, and it's planted, and as it grows, it becomes a big plant or tree. But that takes a long time for it to grow. He also gave the example of leaven in a lump of dough, and it takes some time for this leaven to work its way through the lump of dough. So just because the mustard tree has not grown to full maturity yet, and because the lump of dough has not been fully leavened yet, doesn't mean that the process hasn't started.

So yes, the kingdom of God hasn't reached maturity yet, but it has been planted. It has been inaugurated.

So that is what kingdom theology is. Jesus inaugurated his kingdom when he came.

And how exactly that maturity happens isn't necessarily agreed upon by all kingdom Christians. What we all agree upon, however, is that the promised kingdom has been established by King Jesus, and heaven's laws are in effect for all his disciples today.

So the kingdom of God as promised to Israel has been inaugurated and is growing until the Father sees fit to send Jesus back to fully inherit the earth, his conquered planet. When we affirm that the kingdom of God has been established, this is not to say that the kingdom will not be brought to a greater fulfillment in the future, but we believe that the kingdom has been established. When we affirm that, we're not saying that the kingdom will not be brought to greater fulfillment in the future, whether in a millennial kingdom, such as is taught by historic premillennialism, or in the new creation, what I believe.

There is a legitimate and historical view of a future millennium that doesn't contradict the biblical view of the present inaugurated kingdom. It's called historic premillennialism. While I don't personally hold this view, I highly respect those that do. It is an early and respectable position.

Dispensational premillennialism stands in stark contrast to historic premillennialism. So that's what I'm coming against today. One of the most significant differences between dispensational theology and historic Christianity is their different views on the kingdom of God, and especially the timing and the nature of that kingdom.

So I will be talking more about the kingdom in my next two talks in two weeks from now. But my talk this afternoon is about Israel. We want to define Israel from a biblical perspective. Understanding Israel's role in the world is central to our understanding of God's vision for the world.

But before we talk about Israel's role, we must define who Israel is biblically. And when we define Israel biblically, this causes us to butt heads with those who do not define Israel biblically. Today, I will mostly be looking at the Old Testament, even though the New Testament has a lot to say about Israel. My main purpose for today is to see how Israel, under the old covenant, was defined by God and by Moses.

In this talk and the ones following, we will butt heads pretty hard with a system of interpreting the Bible called dispensationalism. Some Christians who are non-dispensational themselves see dispensationalism as quite harmless, just a view of eschatology or end times events.

Who of us knows exactly how the end is going to pan out anyways? So why would our end times theology really matter? Well, dispensationalism is a view of eschatology. It is much more than that. It is a framework or a worldview through which all of scripture is interpreted.

Our underlying framework through which we interpret scripture is of utmost importance in shaping the way we live our lives as ambassadors of Jesus Christ. So even if we see dispensationalism as merely an eschatological view, what we believe about the future is directly tied to what we believe about the past and the present.

So if we believe that Jesus established the kingdom at the time when he announced its arrival, then we see him as the reigning king and legitimate ruler to whom we owe our allegiance.

If, on the other hand, we believe that Jesus initially announced his kingdom to the Jews, but they rejected it and thwarted God's plan for establishing his kingdom, and he had to postpone the kingdom until a later date, then we won't view the authority and the kingship of Jesus in the same way that the New Testament describes.

And not only does the New Testament describe the kingdom of God as having arrived and Jesus as king, but the Old Testament is full of prophecies about a future hope when God's kingdom would be established on the earth with the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One.

This establishment of the long prophesied kingdom happened literally with the arrival of Jesus, the Christ. So dispensationalism is a very complex system with many moving parts, and it's always changing and morphing into new strains and mutations. Classic dispensationalism is what was taught by John Nelson Darby, Clarence Larkin, Schofield, Lewis Barry Schaefer, and others. That was the earliest form of dispensationalism.

And today we have many other forms. We have progressive dispensationalism, which is very common, and many different kinds of dispensationalism in the progressive kind. And then you have what we call hyper dispensationalism. And there again, we have many different kinds of teachings in that. So their viewpoints on different issues are fairly broad.

It's a very complex system with varying degrees of error. It almost takes a scientist to understand it all, but it doesn't take a scientist or a theologian to recognize its grave errors. All it takes is a basic understanding of Old Testament history and New Testament teachings.

If you're not sure if you are a dispensationalist or not, you can ask yourself a couple of simple questions and determine whether you are influenced by dispensationalism. What do you believe about Israel? Who is Israel? And does God have a special plan for Israel apart from his plan for all people, namely to bring them into his kingdom through Jesus Christ?

So it depends on how you answered those questions will determine whether you are a dispensationalist or not or have been influenced by that system. There are different areas of dispensational teaching that I could focus on, but I want to focus my talk today and the other ones after this to be focused on one of dispensationalism's most important distinctives, the difference between Israel and the church.

So we must ask the question, who is Israel and what defines Israel as Israel? Does God define Israel, or do we just make up something and say that's what Israel is? As it turns out, God does define Israel for us in the Bible. But before we look at what the Bible says, let's see how the dispensational authors define Israel.

So I'm going to read to you a few quotes here from some famous dispensational authors. The first one is from Hal Lindsay in his famous book, The Late Great Planet Earth. This book sold over 30 million copies in the 1970s and many more million since then.

This is what Hal Lindsay said, how he defines Israel. He says, "The nation of Israel cannot be ignored. We see the Jews as a miracle of history. Even the casual observer is amazed how the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have survived as a distinct race.

In spite of the most formidable odds, what other people can trace their continuous unity back nearly 4,000 years." So here Lindsay describes the Jews and Israel as a distinct race. That's very important for their system. Judaism or Israel must be a race for their system to work.

The next quote is from John MacArthur, and he is one of the most influential dispensationalists of our day. And this is what he says, "You have one very, very important reality to deal with in case you think there's no future in Israel, living Israelites.

What's that about? You never met a Hittite, an Amorite, a Hivite, a Jebusite, or any otherite. They have long since morphed into the melee and mix of the races, but we now have pure Israelites. That in itself is an indication of God's preservation for their future. It is the single most inexplicable story in human history that this small group of beleaguered people attacked and assaulted by everybody around them for centuries still exists as a pure ethnic race."

And in another place, he says this, "Scripture affirms the perpetuity of the elect church to salvation glory that all whom the Lord has chosen he brings to glory. In similar language, Scripture affirms the perpetuity of ethnic Israel to a future salvation and a future kingdom as a race of people.

And that in that salvation and in that kingdom will be the fulfillment of all divine promises given to them in the Old Testament." So that's how dispensationalists describe Israel or the Jews as a pure race or ethnicity.

So modern Judaism, aside for the moment, we'll come back to that if we can. But the question is, does the Bible ever describe Israel in this way as a race of people that one is born into? Did God ever express any desire to keep them as a pure race?

Because they started out as a family, as the family of Abraham, so did God ever desire to keep them as a pure race? And if not, is Israel defined by anything other than race? The entire basis for a distinction between Israel and the church falls apart if Israel is defined as anything other than a race. The basis for different plans of God for each group, one plan for Israel and one plan for the church, falls apart if Israel is not a race.

And the postponement of the kingdom, that theory falls apart. And their particular view of the millennium as a racial millennium with racial distinctions, that view also falls apart if the Bible does not describe Israel as a race or a pure ethnic race or ethnicity.

So the dispensational view is built upon certain unquestionable dogmas or preconceived assumptions. You just assume something from the start and then build everything upon it.

And one of those assumptions that dispensationalism is built upon is that Israel or Judaism must always be defined as a race of people, a physical race of people. And since they are defined solely as a race, all prophetic texts concerning Israel and the kingdom promised to them must be read with the forced and unnatural meaning that it has to be for a race of people. And in this way, they create this bedrock of their system, the distinction between Israel and the church, Israel being a race and the church being a diverse body of believing Jews and Gentiles. So the definition of Israel and the Jews is changed from being a nation in covenant with God, who anyone from any nation is welcome to join, to a race of people that one is born into.

So I don't want to be overly inflammatory here, but to put it very plainly, dispensationally is inherently racist. God separates people by race. There is forever a wall of separation, not by covenant, but by race.

So before we look at the way that the Bible defines Israel, let me read one more quote from one of the most influential dispensationalists of his day, Lewis Barry Schaefer, and he was the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary. He says this, "The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages, God is pursuing two distinct purposes, one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved, which is Judaism.

While the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity. It should be observed that though Judaism and Christianity have much in common, they never merge the one into the other, each having its own eschatology reaching on into eternity. The word of God distinguishes between earth and heaven even after they are created new. It is as illogical and fanciful to contend that Judaism and Christianity ever merge, as it would be to contend that heaven and earth cease to exist as separate spheres."

So this reasoning is entirely based upon the belief that Judaism is defined as a pure race. And so there is for all eternity a separation, a distinction made between Israel as a race and all other people purely upon the idea of race. So Israel will forever inhabit planet Earth, and the church will forever inhabit heaven. So it's almost like they're two different planets. And one modern dispensational teacher, Amir Tsarfati, calls Israel the wife of the Father, and he calls the church the bride of the Son. So you have the Father on earth with his wife, Israel, and you have the Son in heaven with his bride, the church. So there is forever a distinction based upon race, on someone's DNA.

So that's the dispensational view. And their entire system is built upon this idea that there is a racial distinction to Israel, and Israel is a nation based upon a race, being a race. Early on, before the nation of Israel was founded, there was a racial or ethnic element to the family of Israel. They were a large extended family from the 12 sons of Jacob.

So of course, it was racial, or rather we should say familial. But as soon as God formed them into a nation, they became multi-ethnic or multi-racial. So from the very start, we can see the errors of this viewpoint because Israel or Judaism has never been a race.

It started out with a family and then expanded from there. As Moses liberated the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and led them away to become an independent nation, from the very start, at their founding as a nation, they were a multi-ethnic nation.

So Exodus 12, verses 37 to 38, says this, "And the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succoth, about 600,000 men on foot, besides women and children.

A mixed multitude also went up with them and very much livestock, both flocks and herds." So as Israel was coming out of Egypt, they were a mixed multitude. So we see that from its very founding as a nation, they were a mixed multitude. What percentage of them were descendants of Jacob and what percentage were other enslaved people groups? We don't know. But most likely, many of them were other slaves and lower-class Egyptians that escaped along with the fleeing Israelites after seeing all the plagues and miracles that God did mightily through Moses.

The people of other nations that joined themselves to Israel were considered equal heirs to all the promises and privileges that the descendants of Jacob enjoyed. Exodus 12:48 says this, "If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, then he may come near and keep it, and he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it."

So someone of another nation comes and keeps the Passover and gets circumcised, all his males, then he will become an equal citizen like everybody else.

And since Israel was divided into 12 tribes, their land allotments were according to their tribes. So Ezekiel says this in Ezekiel 47, verse 13 and 14, "Thus says the Lord God, 'This is the boundary by which you shall divide the land for inheritance among the 12 tribes of Israel. Joseph shall have two portions.'" Okay, just jumping in here. Joseph, if you remember, had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. So those two each got a portion of land. And then I believe, if I'm correct, Levi did not get a portion of land. So there were 12 tribes, but Joseph had two tribes, and Levi did not get a piece of land. So anyways, so the land was divided up into 12 different pieces of land.

And so then continuing on here, Ezekiel 47, verse 14, "And you shall divide equally what I swore to give to your fathers. This land shall fall to you as your inheritance." And now jumping down to verse 21, "So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had their children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you, they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the sojourner resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance," declares the Lord God.

So here, the idea of a pure race is completely foreign to God's plan for Israel. Sure, they started out as a family, but it didn't stay that way as they grew and multiplied. So throughout Israel's history, many people joined this special covenant nation.

Ruth and Rahab are a couple of examples. And in the book of Esther, "Many people became Jews for fear of the Jews," it says. And of course, there's the famous story of King David taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

So Uriah was a Hittite. He was not a native-born, yet he was there an Israelite just as everybody else. So there's just no basis in Scripture for the idea of a pure Jewish race. God's design for them as a nation was for them to be a light and an example for those around them.

If we reject the idea that Israel is defined by race, but understand that true Israel was always defined by covenant rather than race. And we believe that Jesus is the Messiah that established the new covenant that superseded the Mosaic covenant, who then in the new covenant is Israel.

It is those who are in covenant with God, those who are heirs of all the promises given to Israel.

Let me read another passage here. Exodus 19, verses 3 to 6, "While Moses went up to God, the Lord called him out of the mountain, saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, 'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.

Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples of the earth, among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.'" Did you notice the condition in that passage? "If you obey my voice and keep my covenant." There's a condition, if. There's just nothing here or anywhere else about a pure ethnic race.

Israel was and is a covenant nation. If one is faithful to the covenant, gets circumcised, and keeps the Passover, they are added on to the nation. This is in the old covenant. If they are disobedient and rebellious, they are cut off from God's covenant nation.

Throughout Israel's entire history, it has been the case that the faithful remnant, sometimes a small minority, received God's blessings and covenants, while the unfaithful ones were cut off. In Psalm 50, the psalmist Asaph says this in verse 5, "Gather to me my faithful ones who made a covenant with me by sacrifice." So the faithful ones are the ones who are in covenant with God. And then verse 16 and 17, "But to the wicked, God says, 'What right have you to recite my statutes and to take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline and cast my words behind you.'" So who were the ones who would take God's covenant? The wicked ones who would take God's covenants on their lips.

Was it the Canaanites? Was it the Egyptians? Was it the Babylonians? No, it was those who claimed to be Israel, yet they were wicked. They did not have a right in the covenant.

God said, "You have no right to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips."

Do the wicked have a right to receive God's covenant? No, the wicked are cut off and destroyed. Many times throughout the Old Testament, we are told that certain sins or unfaithful behavior would get one cut off from Israel.

Remember the story of Korah and his rebellion. Did he receive God's covenants and God's promises, or was he cut off? There are many more examples of this. Another one is when Israel was preparing to leave Egypt and become a nation, and God had certain requirements for someone to be a part of this chosen nation.

One requirement was to refrain from eating leavened bread for a week. And here he says, Exodus 12:15, "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day, you shall remove leaven out of your houses. For if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel."

So let me ask the question, can someone be cut off from their race? No, they can't be cut off from their race. They can be cut off from membership in a nation in covenant with God. It has always been this way from the time that Israel was formed as a nation under Moses to the time of the establishment of the kingdom of God under Jesus.

Peter preached about Jesus from Solomon's portico soon after healing a lame man at the temple gates. He said this to the crowd, "Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.'" So here Peter is preaching that everyone who does not listen to the prophet Jesus will be destroyed and cut off from the people. What people? The covenant people of God, Israel. Similar to Moses establishing the nation of Israel and giving them laws and stipulations, so Jesus reconstituted Israel around himself.

Jesus didn't start a new religion. He presented himself as Israel's Messiah and gave them laws and stipulations by which to live in loyalty to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

So we see here that Israel was a nation in covenant with God from its very beginnings as God brought them out of Egypt and made them to be a nation, a special covenant nation. People could be added on, and people could be cut off.

One common theme throughout the Old Testament is the idea of a remnant. So oftentimes, many people within Israel were rebellious, and they went after idols. But there was oftentimes a remnant of faithful people who feared God. And those were the ones who were the heirs of God's promises of blessing.

In Micah 2:12, it says this, "I will surely assemble you, O Jacob. I will gather the remnant of Israel. I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men."

And let me also read Isaiah 10:20-22, "In that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. In truth, a remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness."

And then in Joel 2:32, "And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there shall be those who escape, as the Lord said, and among the survivors," that's the word remnant, "shall be those who the Lord calls." So we see this theme of the remnant throughout the book, throughout the Old Testament.

The faithful remnant received God's blessings and God's covenants, while the wicked ones did not and were destroyed.

Another picture that we can see of Israel is the olive tree. And Paul uses this picture in Romans. But in Jeremiah 11:16, it says this, "The Lord once called you a green olive tree, beautiful with good fruit. But with the roar of a great tempest, he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed." So Israel was called a green olive tree. And Paul picks up this idea of an olive tree in Romans 11.

And it's not another olive tree. It's not another kind of tree altogether. It is the olive tree of Israel. So this is what Paul says, "If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so also is the whole lump. And if the root is holy, so are the branches." So here is the root of the olive tree. "But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others, now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree. Do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you.

Then you will say, 'Branches were cut off so that I might be grafted in.' That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief. But you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear." So Paul uses this illustration of Israel being this olive tree.

The unfaithful ones were the branches cut off. And those who came to Israel and kept the covenant are those who came and were grafted onto the olive tree. And now they're supported by this olive tree.

Excuse me. There's so much more that we could say in the New Testament if we could look at. But I think that gives us an idea of who God considers Israel to be. And there's, yeah. And we could also look at, is Israel and the church the same thing? Excuse me.

And those are some questions that I'll be talking about next time about Israel and the church. And how does old covenant Israel and new covenant Israel, how do they work together? And how has one come into the other?

One picture that can help us, oftentimes we're told that the promises to Israel belong to Israel, not the church. So Israel and the church are not the same thing. So the answer to that is yes and no. So one picture that can help us in understanding what Israel is, is the idea of is a butterfly. So if you look at this caterpillar and you see this caterpillar crawling around on the ground, and you say to this caterpillar, "Someday you will fly high in the air, and you will fly over mountains and hills and cities and rivers. And you will fly over the mountains, and you will fly and winter in Mexico." And this caterpillar looks up at you and says, "No way in the world.

That's not me." But then the caterpillar gets transformed, and it matures into a butterfly. So the promises made to the caterpillar are made to the caterpillar. And yet they're also fulfilled to the caterpillar. The caterpillar and the butterfly are not exactly the same thing. And yet they are the same thing.

The promise made to the caterpillar is a promise made to the butterfly. And so it is with God's covenant with his people, Israel. Israel was in the old covenant, Paul uses the example of a child under age. And then the child grows into adulthood. And that is the church in the new covenant.

So that's a picture that can help us reconcile Israel and the church, Israel from the old covenant and the church in the new covenant.

So before we close off here, I want to just a little bit touch on the modern idea of a Jewish race. So modern Israel, we're not even talking necessarily in the Old Testament before Israel was scattered and so on. Just the modern idea of a Jewish race.

So a Jewish author named Carl Zimmer wrote a book on genetics. And I have quite a long quote here from him. And I think I have time to read this quote. And he talks about the beginnings of an idea of a Jewish race in the modern times.

Here's what Carl Zimmer says, "In the late 1400s, Jews in Spain found themselves defined as a race of their own. For centuries, Jews across Europe had been tormented for all sorts of concocted crimes against Christians. In 15th-century Spain, thousands of Jews tried to escape this persecution by converting to Christianity, becoming so-called conversos.

The self-proclaimed old Christians remained hostile, rejecting the idea that Jews could escape their sinful inheritance with a mere oath. Nor could their children, for that matter, because Jewish immorality was carried in their blood and embedded in their seed, passed down from one generation to the next.

Spanish writers began referring to unconverted Jews and conversos alike as the Jewish race. Christian men were warned not to have children with a woman of the Jewish race, in the same way that a fine stallion shouldn't be bred with a mare of a lower caste. In 1449, the Spanish city of Toledo began turning this hostility into law, decreeing that even a trace of Jewish blood disqualified a subject from holding office or marrying a true Christian. This ban spread across Spain, expanding its scope along the way. Jewish blood now barred people from getting university degrees, inheriting estates, or even entering some parts of the country. In order to define Jews as a separate race, the majority of Spain had to define itself as a race of its own.

Noble families now claimed that their genealogies extended back to the Visigoths. They boasted of the cleanliness of their blood, known as limpieza de sangre. They extolled this pale skin of old Christians, which revealed the sangre azul, or the blue blood, coursing in the vessels beneath. The phrase would survive for centuries and cross the Atlantic, becoming a label for upper-class New Englanders.

Anyways, I could read on, but that's enough of that quote. So this idea of a Jewish race came up in more modern times. And oftentimes, those of us who don't agree with the idea of a Jewish race inheriting God's promises are often called anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish or some other label like that. If we don't believe that there is a race of people that God offers future promises and a kingdom to, and we're called anti-Semitic. And it's really interesting because we, as Christians, believe that Jesus is the way of salvation. Entering into the kingdom of Jesus is the way of eternal life and salvation and blessing and covenant.

And so the idea of a race is just not even—it's not even in there at all in the Christian mindset.

And of course, we're told about the Nazis and all the terrible things that the Jews have suffered throughout the centuries. And it's, of course, a terrible stain upon the churches that persecuted the Jews throughout the centuries. But I would, in fact, argue that the idea of a Jewish race is, in fact, what did most harm, more harm than any other idea. Because if you have a false religion that is being persecuted for the false religion's sake, that is one thing. Of course, Roman Catholic and Protestant Europe did that for a long time. They persecuted those who they viewed as sectarian or false. But when you can label an entire people group as an inferior race, now you have entered a whole nother level of persecution.

And now people like the Nazis wanted to exterminate this inferior race because the Jews were now labeled as a race. And so they did a lot more damage than I think they would have if they would simply have seen the Jews as a false religion.

And so I think the idea of a Jewish race does a lot more damage to the Jews than simply seeing them as a religion that is against God. And one idea, one way to think about the modern Jewish people is it's more than just a religion.

It is a culture. It is a people group that is, even if you have non-religious Jews or even atheist Jews, they are still identified as Jews. And one way to think about it is my wife is from Brazil.

And Brazil is a very Catholic country. And most people call themselves Catholic, even though they haven't been to mass or confession in many years. They still call themselves Catholic. And it's a Catholic nation, and it's a Catholic culture, even though it's non-religious. Many people are non-religious. That's very similar to what Judaism is as a modern culture and religion. Even though you don't have to be religious to be considered a Jew, it's still a heritage and a culture. And so modern Judaism is anything but a race. You have blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jews from Germany and northern Europe and Russia.

And you have black Ethiopian Jews from Ethiopia. And you have Asian Jews from China and Japan. So Judaism is not a race even today. And it hasn't been in the Old Testament. It's not a race today. It's a religion, and it's a culture. And so they are a people that are loved by Jesus and are called by Jesus, just as any other religion and culture. So what is Judaism? In the Old Testament, it was a nation in covenant with God. In the New Testament, the new Israel is a nation in covenant with God, the church of Jesus Christ. And it's still that way. So when we look at God's promises to Israel in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, those promises are fulfilled in Jesus.

But anyways, more of that later on. So God bless you. Thank you, Paul, for sharing, for so clearly sharing on this very important topic. And there's a reason that we have you sharing on here. This idea of Israel has really been at the forefront, especially with what is happening in the Middle East. And those kind of things make us very sad to see Jewish people being killed and to see Palestinians being killed.

It's horrendous what is happening there. But times like this stir up, stir people up. Times like this, people who are dispensationalists, who see the nation of Israel today, the nation-state today, the secular nation-state of Israel, who believe that that is the Israel of God, really use these kind of times to perpetuate their doctrine, their teaching.

And so this is a word-indue season. So thank you, brother. I thought about your illustration. By the way, I'll open up here right shortly for questions. So please be prepared to ask those questions or comment or whatever you would like. But the illustration of the caterpillar is beautiful.

And I thought about how that I believe that the writer of Hebrews would agree with you, would agree. He would say, "That's a perfect illustration, brother." And right here, Hebrews 8:6, "But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to the degree that he is a mediator of a better covenant, which has been legally enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second one." And so we see this old covenant being fulfilled in Jesus and this new covenant. And so the gospel is at stake here in this understanding. And it's not just, "Oh, you're a dispensationalist." At the beginning, you talked about how some people say, "What's the concern?"

And there's a lot of peripheral things that we could talk about. We could talk about how dispensationalists are very political. They want to see a conservative president. They want to see a right-wing Republican president so they're behind Israel and so America gets blessed and whatever.

It really makes it very political and it's racist and all these things really that you were pointing out. But the heart of it is the gospel, Jesus fulfilling it. And it's not replacement, as you pointed out. It's fulfillment. It's expansion. It's an inclusion. It's just this incredibly exponential explosion into such beauty as a caterpillar is into a butterfly. So thank you, brother, for these beautiful thoughts here.

And I thought of this quote from David Berceau as well. "The ancient kingdom of Israel, which was predominantly earthly, was not intended as an end in itself. It was meant to be a tutor leading the Israelites to something far greater, a kingdom that would truly not be of this world."

I know that quote could be said for your next message, probably a better place there. But really, your teaching here is to lay the foundation for us looking at how it's fulfilled in Christ and in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. So thank you, brother, for sharing any questions here for Brother Paul, any encouragement questions, thoughts.

Hey, Paul. It's Kyle from Buffalo. Hey, Tim. Happy to see you. Very good to see you. I was very blessed by this talk, and I know you're passionate about this. Just had two questions for you in light of how you define Israel. I don't quite understand dispensationalism as much as you do, but do you find modern-day dispensationalists, do they have a need to convert the Jew?

Some of the more hyper-dispensationalists would not even try to convert. John Hagee is the first one that comes to my mind. He will say that—and there again, there's such a variety—but that he would have the idea of a parallel covenant, one for Israel and one for the Christians. So he would even discourage trying to convert Jews. But most of them would still say, "Yeah, they still need to embrace Jesus in this dispensation." But then in the next dispensation, it goes back to the dispensation of works. So in the old covenant, they were justified by keeping the law, or so they would say. And then in the new covenant, we're justified by grace. But then in the millennial kingdom, when God turns his attention back to Israel after the rapture of the church, then it would go back to law again.