It seems like just a land conflict. And it’s not even a very big piece of land. What’s more, it’s 6500 miles away from Athens, AL. However, it’s caused quite the stir in the church in our neck of the woods.
Now, I’m not qualified to interact with all the ins and outs of the Israel-Palestine relations, nor am I qualified to interject my opinions into the political relationships between the US and all groups involved. Besides, those things won’t help here anyway. There is one question, though, that some of you have asked, that has come up in a variety of contexts, that needs at least a little bit of interaction. To be fair, in this setting, it can only receive a little bit of interaction and not a thorough examination.
It seems that the default position of the broadly evangelical church in the United States today holds that Israel is the true people of God and the Church age is just a parenthesis in the timeline of God’s dealings with human history and salvation. There’s this assumption out there that everyone agrees that God is protecting Israel because they're his chosen nation, that God is obviously going to ensure that his special nation will win this latest conflict because he’s on their side. And this even spills over into the voting booth – the US is obligated to support Israel no matter what, precisely because and only because they are God’s people.
However, the New Testament epistles go out of their way to say that the true Israel doesn't consist only of those who descend from Abraham genetically, but who, like father Abraham, believe the promises of God and to whom it is counted as righteousness. To say it another way, all Christians are the sons of Abraham because all, like Abraham, are saved by grace through faith. True Israel is the Church and the Church is Israel. Israel was always about, not bloodline or genealogy, but about salvation by grace through faith. Just go read Romans or Galatians or Hebrews.
There is only one people of God, not two. There is only one plan of God, not two. There is no other way of salvation for anyone, Jew or Gentile, except through faith in Jesus Christ.
Want some resources to help you think more biblically about this issue? I’ll give you two, not one.
The first is a brief video, a snippet from a Q&A session at a Ligonier Conference, featuring Drs. Derek Thomas and Stephen Nichols.
The second is a book by O. Palmer Robertson called The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.