Misapplying the Exaltation of Israel
by Terry Wane Benton
The “blessing” of Israel (Genesis12:3) as God’s favored nation was conditional on the nation of Israel obeying God (Deuteronomy 27:11- 28:2). He clearly told them that if they did not obey God, they would be cursed and destroyed, and no longer be “My people” (Hosea 1:9). But God held out a way for the number who would be “My people” to be innumerable (Hosea 1:10-11). These are the people who made Jesus their “one head.” So, the true Israel would not include unbelieving Jews. If they did not make Jesus their head, they were “cut off” from being the true Israel. So, the unbelieving people occupying the modern land of Israel are not the people we are to “bless” as God’s people. They are the remains of people that God cut off when they rejected Jesus.
The true Israel was represented by the 120 we see gathered in the upper room in Acts 1, and the 3,000 who joined in believing in Jesus and made Jesus their “one head” in Acts 2. This is the church, the true remnant of the true Israel that is “blessed” by God and should be “blessed” by all nations. Romans 11:20 says, “because of unbelief they were broken off.” They were the natural vine, and because of unbelief, they were “broken off” and Gentile believers were “grafted in.” So, believing Gentiles are grafted in with the believing Israel of Acts 2, which was the true Israel. The unbelieving Jews are not God’s favored nation. They are “broken off” from the blessings of God’s vine.
People have misapplied verses about the modern nation of Israel. The political move in 1948 to return them to their homeland was not a sign that God was “blessing” them, unless you are willing to believe that the holocaust was God showing his “curses” on them. Same people. Did God change His mind in 1948? No! If God was blessing them in 1948, why did He not allow them to rebuild the temple? Why does the Muslim “Dome of the Rock” still occupy the temple location? No! There is no program in the future to rebuild the physical temple in Jerusalem, and there is no program God has for the physical nation of Israel.
What modern false teachers do is take verses out of context and misapply them. Sometimes they take passages that refer to the return from Babylonian Captivity and apply them to our future, misusing the verses that were fulfilled in Ezra and Nehemiah’s day of the regathering of Israel in their time, and applying them to a future time for us. Sometimes they take verses that refer to the gathering of the spiritual nation in Christ and apply them to the future, making them about gathering the earthly Israel in earthly Jerusalem. 1948 was not God fulfilling promises to gather Israel back into that land. There is no prophecy about that that needed to be fulfilled. The unbelieving Jews are still “cut off.” The only “nation” God has is His spiritual nation, the church (I Peter 2:5,8). The cut-off Jews may be “grafted back in” to God’s vine by repenting toward God and being baptized into Christ (Romans 11:23; 6:3-6; Galatians 3:26-28). The church of Christ is the true Israel of God. It is a “spiritual nation” with a “heavenly Jerusalem” and a “spiritual temple” (Ephesians 2:19ff; I Peter 2:5,8-9) with a spiritual priesthood and spiritual sacrifices. Israel in the flesh is cut off. They are not God’s people. Yet all Jews and Gentiles who have gathered together in Christ make up the true Israel of God. This is the only “exalted” people of God on earth today.
God’s program for earthly Israel was to bring Christ into the world to bless all families of the earth. When that was completed and Jesus finished His work for remission of sins, it comes down to being a wise and obedient believer or being an unwise and disobedient unbeliever. God’s people are gathered in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3; 2:4-7; Hebrews 12:18-28). Earthly Israel has no prophetic role to fulfill. They are not the people of God! Don’t let politics fool you! The scriptures reveal their rejection of Jesus and God, as well as God’s rejection of them. At Jesus' death, God tore the temple veil from top to bottom, showing that He was out of there and unassociated with those people (Matthew 27:50-51). They can reconcile with God in Christ and rejoin the true Israel of God, but they are not God’s people just by virtue of any physical heritage.
Do not be deceived! They are misapplying the verses, confusing the earthly Israel that rejects Jesus as the Son of God, and failing to see the spiritual Israel that does indeed obey Jesus as their one head. If you enter into Jesus’ covenant, making Him the one head, you are part of the true Israel of God.
