The Role of Israel Today

 From The Narrow Truth by Bert Esslink.
There is a movement within Evangelicalism today that is enamored with the modern nation of Israel, which is struggling for survival in the midst of its Arab neighbors. Ministries like that of John Hagee are focused on a zealous support of Israel, no matter what. The basis for such a whole-hearted backing of Israel comes from their view that God’s promise to Abraham formed an eternal covenant. Let’s begin with that promise and move forward from there, looking to determine the Biblical place of Israel within God’s economy today.

The Promise

This begins God’s communication with Abraham (or Abram, as his name was at the time): “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee [this is one command with four parts]: And [then] I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing [this is a command to be a blessing]: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).1 God’s initial promise to Abraham, to multiply his descendants, was conditional upon his obedience to the specifics of what the Lord required of him. However, apart from that, God also instructs Abraham to be a blessing, and gives him His assurance that He will extend His blessings to those who bless Abraham, and, conversely, He will make contemptible those who curse him.2 Hagee, on his website, refers to this passage as being “an eternal covenant between God and the seed of Abraham to which God is faithful,” yet this is not a covenant between God and Abraham (that comes later in Genesis 17), and there is nothing here that would justify an unconditional support of the secular nation of Israel that is in existence today.3 It appears that Hagee’s focus is on blessing Abraham and being blessed by God, somewhat like endeavoring to hold God hostage by His own words – if you bless Abraham (in this case, his descendants according to the promise), then God just has to bless you. However, that is a misapplication of this passage; this was something that God gave to Abraham, and it was not repeated when the Lord formally established His covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17), nor do we see it ever being restated to any of his children. The much larger promise that is made here is that through (in) Abraham all the families of the earth will be blessed; this is a promise that extends well beyond Abraham, and carries an element of eternal application. In essence, this is the promise of God that through Abraham would come the One Who would defeat Satan and establish righteousness – a reflection of His promise in Genesis 3:15.

Twenty-four years later, the Lord confirmed His promise to make of Abraham a mighty people, and spoke of making a covenant with him. However, before the Lord begins to outline the covenant that He will make with Abraham, He states this: “I am the Almighty God; walk [a command; in a manner that is pleasing and good] before me, and be thou perfect [in integrity before God, i.e., faithfully obedient]” (Genesis 17:1). It was because of Abraham’s faithfulness that the Lord entered into a covenant with him, and it would be through his continued faithfulness that the covenant of the Lord would be binding. In many respects, the covenant was a reiteration of what the Lord had already conditionally promised to Abraham: “And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God [not a God, but simply God] unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto [have given] thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be [am] their God” (Genesis 17:6-8).4 It is important to notice that God’s covenant with Abraham hinges on one thing: his faithfulness to the Lord, and the faithfulness of his posterity. It is upon this premise that God tells Abraham that He has given him and his descendants all of the land of Canaan. As we look at the life of Abraham, we recognize that this was a promise that was not fulfilled in his lifetime, for he died without receiving any of the land. The writer of Hebrews explains this for us: “By faith he [Abraham] sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange [foreign] country, dwelling in tabernacles [tents] with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11: 9-10).5 Abraham’s faithfulness to the Lord gave him an upward look so that God’s promise of land was not his priority; it would seem that Abraham had caught the significance of the promise that through Isaac the everlasting covenant of the blessing would be kept (Genesis 17:19). Consider this: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3; cp. Genesis 15:6); he is commended for his faith in the Lord despite never owning more of the promised land than the burial plot in Canaan that he purchased. Therefore, if the physical aspects of the promises of God to Abraham didn’t see fulfillment in his lifetime (or that of the next two generations of his descendants), what then was the significance of the promises that God made to him?

As already noted, the greatest element of God’s promise to Abraham is contained in this phrase: “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). In the Garden of Eden, God promised Satan that it would be through the Seed of the woman that his demise would be accomplished; “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [He] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15)
.6 As Abraham receives God’s promise that through his family-line all of the families of the earth would be blessed, God is affirming the promise that He made to Satan. The universal blessing that would come through the lineage of Abraham was the Lord Jesus Christ Who would crush the head of the serpent, and make spiritual life available to everyone (all the families of the earth). As Abraham stepped back from offering his son Isaac unto the Lord, he again hears, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:18); it was through his obedience to the Lord, that the promised Blessing would come through his descendants. To Isaac (Abraham’s son by promise), the Lord confirmed His promise based upon Abraham’s obedience: “and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 26:4). As Jacob (Abraham’s grandson) fled to his uncle Laban, the Lord repeated the same words to him (Genesis 28:14). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were all promised the land of Canaan, yet none of them realized it – they spent all of their days living in tents; however, along with the promises of land ownership and multitudes of descendants, came the much greater promise that one of their lineage would be a blessing to all of the people of the earth! It would be through the family line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that God would bring the Savior of the world!

Fast forward to Moses, to whom God reveals that He is about to deliver His people Israel out of the hands of the Egyptians, to whom they were slaves (Exodus 3:8), and that He will bring them into the land of the Canaanites (hearkening back to the promise that He had made to Abraham – Genesis 17:8). When Jacob moved into Egypt to escape the severe famine in Canaan, the family of Israel was a total of seventy persons (Genesis 46:27); now as Moses was commissioned to bring Israel out of Egypt, their numbers were in excess of two million, by most estimates.7 Very shortly after leaving Egypt, they received instruction from the Lord as to how they were to live. Obviously, the Law of Moses, with all of its statutes and ordinances, was necessary for such a vast number of people to know what God required of them, and for there to be a determined form of justice – without a code of conduct, anarchy would have reigned. Therefore, God provided His newly released children with His Law (the Ten Commandments, providing a foundation for their personal relationships with God and their neighbors), and the Law of Moses (the detailed instructions regarding the priesthood of the Levites, the sacrificial system, specific festivals, and the numerous decrees concerning what was clean and unclean). Because these were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Lord provided them with a code of conduct that was in keeping with His enduring promise to bless all of the families of the earth through them. Although the Law of Moses was particularly focused on the physical activities of the people of Israel, that must not be considered to be its only emphasis; its effectiveness for the individual came only through faith. The tabernacle, the priesthood, and the sacrificial regulations all dealt with the individual’s relationship with the Lord, and it was this relationship that formed the foundation for all that was required of Israel. The Law of God begins with four laws that are a guide to a person’s relationship with the Lord, and the last six (dealing with his neighbors) build upon that living bond with Jehovah.  [Emphasis made in […] were that of the author. … now go to Part Two]