"Israel Means Israel"

The following post is adapted from comments I made in a Facebook discussion a number of years ago, wherein I was interacting with a number of Dispensationalists.

Some Dispensationalists understand “Israel,” as presented in Scripture, as only ever having one strict meaning: a meaning entirely dependent on ethnic and biological identity. This "Israel means Israel" approach by Dispensationalists gives me deja vu of debating Arminians. Arminians-arguing against the doctrine of Particular Redemption-often repeatedly pound the point that: "Christ died for the world! He died for all! World means world! All means all! Everybody knows what those words mean!" And the Reformed apologist says: well, we have to derive the meaning from the text of Scripture itself, not pre-suppose what the words mean.

The Arminian would say, concerning the assertion that "world" and "all" aren't universal in the way they imagine, that Reformed theologians are making God out to be a liar or a con artist when He uses those terms.

The Dispensationalist claims that "Israel means Israel" and that to suppose that the term "Israel" may sometimes include those who are not ethnically Jewish is to present God as a liar or a con artist. 

God is not a liar or a con artist.

Romans 9:6 explains, "But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel."

Spiritually and covenantally, incorporation of believing Gentiles into covenantal Israel is presented in the New Testament, in the ingrafting language of Romans 11. Romans 11:26 and Galatians 6:16 refer to the Church as Israel. This becomes especially clear when one traces the arguments leading to these verses.

The Dispensationalist objects that these verses may be considered “ambiguous”. But where is the single verse that unambiguously states that God is one is essence, while three in person? Contextual reading and synthesis are always necessary. When we look for evidence of Christ's deity, we do not limit ourselves to verses that say the three words: "Jesus is God". Another way that we prove the point is by looking to verses that use titles for Christ that are only proper for God. In the case of the Church–in a sense, through union with Christ–being identified with Israel, we see that the Church is called by names that are only fitting for Israel. Exodus 19:6 tells Israel: "you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” 1 Peter 2:9 tells the Church: "you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." The Old Testament–in passages like Hosea 2, Isaiah 54, and Ezekiel 16–calls Israel the bride of the LORD. In the New Testament, we see the Church as the bride of Christ.

The LORD is not a bigamist.

In Galatians 6:16 it is clear what the Apostle is doing in the argument leading up to that verse (erasing the distinction between Jew and Gentile regarding God’s promises), and therefore clear what the phrase “Israel of God” means in that context. On the other hand, I do think that some Reformed writers tend to identify Israel as the Church without adequate attention paid to the necessary Christological step. Just as we are only–in any sense–sons of God through our union with the Son of God, we are only–in a certain sense–Israel through our union with the One in whom all of God's covenant promises are fulfilled.

Jesus is the true Israel. As the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology notes:

"Matthew makes this point dramatically in his opening chapters, first by applying the Exodus verse Hosea 11:1 to Jesus (Matt 2:15), and then by telling the story in a way that makes Jesus re-enact Israel's history: the Exodus from Egypt (2:19-20), the crossing of the Red Sea (3:13-17), the temptations in the desert (4:1-11), even the arrival at Mt. Sinai to receive the law (5:1-2). Perhaps most pointedly, it is Jesus on whom the Spirit descends (Matt 3:16), although the prophetic expectation was of an outpouring of the Spirit upon Israel (Isa 44:2-3; Eze 36:25-27). Where Israel had failed the temptations in the desert, Jesus now remains faithful to God. 

"Here, at last, is a Son in whom God is truly pleased (Matt 3:17). 'I have not come to abolish [the law and the prophets], but to fulfill [them]', he claims (Matt 5:17): part of the meaning of this must be that, in Jesus, we see at last Israel's true response of obedience, worship, and love. 

"John develops the same thought, but from a different angle: he presents Jesus as the temple, the focus of Israel's life, the place where sin is dealt with and prayer is truly offered and heard (John 2:19-22; 8:34-36; 16:23-24). Paul's approach to the same idea is to see Jesus as the seed of Abraham, the one who truly and supremely inherits the covenant promises given to Abraham (Gal 3:16, 19). Israel fell under the curse of the covenant (Gal 3:10, quoting Deut 27:26), but the promise of blessing is not made void, because Jesus stepped into the position of those 'born under the law' to 'redeem' them (Gal 4:4-5), and so the promises are realized in Him."

Having established that Jesus is the true Israel, the same principal applies as with other truths for those who are united to Christ. Jesus is God's Son; in Him, we are sons, seated with Him in the heavenlies. Jesus is the high priest; in Him, we are a kingdom of priests. Jesus is the temple; in Him, we are the temple (1 Cor 3:16). Jesus is the true seed of Abraham; in Him we–even those of us who are not biologically descended from Abraham–are Abraham's descendants.

Jeremiah 31:35-37 declares:

Thus says the Lord, 
Who gives the sun for light by day
 and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, 
Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; 
the Lord of hosts is His name: 

“If this fixed order departs
 from before Me,” declares the Lord,
 “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease
 from being a nation before Me forever.”

 God is faithful to His people: "the offspring of Israel.” That "the offspring of Israel" would include ingrafted Gentiles was definitely somewhat a mystery in the Old Covenant administration, but there were certainly pointers to this fact, even within the Old Testament. God tells Abraham, "all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you," Jesus' own family line includes four Gentile women (or women with Gentile connections) who become grafted in to the covenant line, and–in His ministry–Jesus points to OT examples of Gentile faith in order to rebuke ethnic Jews who believed that they could presume upon their heritage while rejecting Him.

The Dispensationalist often asserts that the non-dispensationalist is "painting God as a promise-breaker.” (I’ve personally had this charge leveled against me on more than one occasion.) But consider: what promise do Dispensationalists imagine that non-dispensationalists think God has broken?

If I said to you, ‘I'm going to give you twelve crisp one dollar bills next Sunday,' then–when next Sunday comes–I say, 'Forget twelve dollars; I'm giving you one hundred and forty-four thousand dollars! In fact, I'm giving everybody in your church one hundred and forty-four thousand dollars!' If I gave out that gift, no reasonable person would charge me with promise breaking. (You could imagine how ridiculous the objection would sound: 'Oh, no: you didn't give just me just twelve dollars; you're obviously untrustworthy!')

Similarly, if–in the storyline of Scripture itself–we see an escalation of God's promises by which all believing Jews AND believing Gentiles [those who reject Christ–whether ethnically Gentile or Jewish–can expect nothing but fiery judgment] receive the promises of the New Covenant in Christ, culminating in inheriting the new heavens and new earth, then no reasonable person will charge God with promise-breaking just because the promise turns out to be even better than what was previously [typologically: Heb 4:8-11] understood.

God's people–ALL of God's people–receive Christ Himself and every New Covenant blessing in Him. "[God] did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all: how will He not graciously give us all things?" (Rom 8:32) As Charles Spurgeon wrote: "As the Anointed Redeemer of Israel, Christ Jesus holds nothing distinct from His Church, but all that He has He holds for her."

"All Israel"

Studying through Romans again a few years ago, I came to the following conclusion concerning Romans 11:26a (“and in this way all Israel will be saved”); namely, that “in this way” is referring to the entire proceeding outline of redemptive history among Jews and Gentiles (wherein a “partial hardening” comes upon [ethnic] Israel, Gentiles are “grafted in” to the covenant line, and–once “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in”–elect Jews–having been provoked to holy jealousy by God’s work among the Gentiles–trust in Christ and are grafted in again). Therefore “all Israel” refers to the elect: believing Jews and Gentiles (to use the Apostle’s analogy: both the wild and natural branches grafted into the one olive tree). I was surprised to find that basically nobody agrees with my interpretation of the text. Not G.K. Beale, not Dr. Tom Schreiner (under whom I was privileged to study Romans), not John Murray: all of these scholars–and many more!–take “all Israel” as referring to ethnic Israelites. Taking this view, however, they have to explain that “all” does not mean “all” but only all the elect ethnic Israelites. Which–in this case–may make one wonder why the Apostle bothered to write “all” at all! On my view, all is needed in the text because it qualifies “Israel,” so that the reader is meant to understand that “in this way” all of God’s chosen people–from Jews to Gentiles and finally to Jews again–will be saved.

Obviously, it’s rather disconcerting to find yourself virtually alone in an understanding of the text. And to find myself in disagreement with so many trusted teachers certainly made me re-examine the Scripture. But–looking at the passage again and again–I became convinced that I was viewing the argument in Romans correctly. ALSO–it turns out–I’m not quite alone in my interpretation of Romans 11:26a. See there is this one guy…

In his Romans Commentary, regarding Romans 11:26a, John Calvin writes: 

Many understand this of the Jewish people, as though Paul had said, that religion would again be restored among them as before: but I extend the word Israel to all the people of God, according to this meaning, — “When the Gentiles shall come in, the Jews also shall return from their defection to the obedience of faith; and thus shall be completed the salvation of the whole Israel of God, which must be gathered from both; and yet in such a way that the Jews shall obtain the first place, being as it were the first-born in God’s family.” This interpretation seems to me the most suitable, because Paul intended here to set forth the completion of the kingdom of Christ, which is by no means to be confined to the Jews, but is to include the whole world. The same manner of speaking we find in Galatians 6:16. The Israel of God is what he calls the Church, gathered alike from Jews and Gentiles; and he sets the people, thus collected from their dispersion, in opposition to the carnal children of Abraham, who had departed from his faith.

This is precisely how I had come to see the text! So, when it comes to Romans 11:26a, I am a Calvinist. (I have no idea how Arminius interpreted this text.)

Classical Design in Stories

In his excellent book Story, Robert McKee makes the following observations about the lasting importance of Classical Design in storytelling.

"The art of story is in decay, and as Aristotle observed twenty-three hundred years ago, when storytelling goes bad, the result is decadence....

"[Stories following principles of Classical Design] are 'classical' in the truest sense: timeless and transcultural, fundamental to every earthly society, civilized and primitive, reaching back through millennia of oral storytelling into the shadows of time. When the epic Gilgamesh was carved in cuneiform on twelve clay tablets 4,000 years ago, converting story to the written word for [perhaps] the first time, the principles of Classical Design were already fully and beautifully in place.

"CLASSICAL DESIGN means a story built around an active protagonist who struggles against primarily external sources of antagonism to pursue his or her desire, through continuous time, within a consistent and causally connected fictional reality, to a closed ending of absolute, irreversible change.

"...great storytellers have always known that, regardless of background or education, everyone, consciously or instinctively, enters the story ritual with Classical anticipation."

In order to recover the art of story, students should become thoroughly familiar with Classical Design. Students should study the classics like Gilgamesh, which McKee mentioned, and also other pillars of Western literature such as The Odyssey and Beowulf. While there is value in some stories that thoughtfully break with Classical Design (think: Rashomon or No Country for Old Men), there is an overall truth, goodness, and beauty in the conventions of Classical Design, and students are well-served to consider the classics as models for excellent storytelling.