Israel
and the Tooth Fairy
by
Brian Hennessy
“When
I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I did away with childish things.” (1 Cor. 13:11).
Just as we
discarded our beliefs in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause when we left
childhood, so too there are many childish reasonings that the Body of Christ
must get rid of as we mature into Manhood. None more so than the idea that the
Church is “spiritual
Israel
.” Belief in this false concept has not only added to the division among
God’s people. It has also kept millions of believers from fully appropriating
their God-given heritage and blessings. And it has seriously distorted the
Church’s understanding of what must take place in the last days.
So allow me to share some of the
arguments I find in Scripture to help us put away this childish notion. And to
discover the marvelous truth it has long obscured.
The
Beginning of the Confusion
First, the term
“spiritual
Israel
” is not found anywhere in the Bible. Rather it is a theological term applied
to the Church in order to distinguish it from “physical
Israel
.” By “physical
Israel
” is meant the Jewish people, whether they live in
Israel
or not.
The
reason the theologians invented this term was because the New Testament left no
doubt that those who believe Jesus is the Messiah are heirs to
Israel
’s promises and blessings. “For if you
belong to Messiah, you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
(Gal. 3.29). Yet the Church, with its rapid gentilization, could no longer be
described as being Jewish - or seen as part of the nation of
Israel
. This was a dilemma for them. They solved it (they thought) by declaring that
there were two
Israels
: one physical and the other spiritual. The Scripture often used to support this
concept was God’s promise to Abraham that He would greatly multiply his seed
“as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore.”
(Gen. 22:17) The sand, we were told, represents physical
Israel. And the stars, spiritual
Israel.
But it didn’t stop there. Each
Israel
was ascribed a different end time scenario and reward. Physical
Israel
, the Jews, after being mauled by the Anti-Christ and brought to repentance by a
divine intervention, would enjoy an earthly
Kingdom
of
God
in the Promised Land.In the meantime, Spiritual Israel, i.e. the Church, would
be raptured out to enjoy a heavenly venue, at least until
the millennial reign of Christ when we would return to earth again with Jesus.
(After that the teaching is vague as to whether the Church would join the
re-born Jewish nation as one people or not.)
However, a quick look at this
doctrine reveals how flawed it is. Start with the apostles. All were Jewish. And
all were followers of Christ. So to which
Israel
do they belong? Do they get on the Church bus? Or the
Israel
bus? And what of the Old Testament saints like Isaac, Moses, David, etc.? All
were Hebrews and all are counted as the holy, faithful seed of Abraham who
believed in Messiah via the types and shadows. (Hebrews 11).To which
Israel
should they be assigned? Or what about today’s Messianic Jews?
Clearly the terms “spiritual”
and “physical
Israel
” are unhelpful. For all of God’s chosen people, Jew or non-Jew, are (or
will be) spiritually regenerated. Therefore all are “spiritual
Israel
.” As for “physical
Israel
,” Scripture is clear. In Christ, “there
is neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal.
3:28) So there can be no separation in the Church based on being Jewish or not.
Therefore, we must drop forever
the divisive, unbiblical term “spiritual
Israel
” and find another way to understand the Church’s inclusion into the concept
of
Israel
.
The
Israel
of God
In hindsight, the solution is so
obvious you wonder how we didn’t see it before. But for whatever reason the
Holy Spirit allowed Satan to blind us to the truth for so long, the time has
come to understand it now.
The simple truth, ironically, is
found in the Sunday School song sung by many Christians as children: “Father
Abraham had many sons, many sons had father Abraham, and you are one of them,
and so am I, so let’s get on with the show.”
This truth of course reflects the New Testament revelation that Abraham
is the father of ALL those in Messiah - whether
Jew or non-Jew. (Romans 4:1,9-17; Gal.3:29 ) Unfortunately, for non-Jews and the
Church in general, we just couldn’t believe that the words meant we were
literally his sons and daughters. So we took them figuratively. We spiritualized
our understanding to only mean we had the same faith as Abraham.
One reason we accepted this spiritual explanation was because we forgot
our biblical history. We didn’t recall after the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 12)
that
Israel
had split into two nations, the
Kingdom
of
Judah
and the
Kingdom
of
Israel
. We forgot that the Jews were only the descendants of
Judah
. And that all the descendants of the House of Israel were still unaccounted
for. Cut off from the olive tree for their idolatry, they had been exiled among
the nations and disappeared. But all the prophets said they would be found again
and re-united with
Judah
under Messiah. So the “wild olive
branches” (Rom
11: 17
) Jesus grafted into
Israel
from among the Gentiles are no doubt those lost offspring.
The truth is that all in Christ,
both Jew and Gentile, are “like Isaac,
children of promise.” (Gal. 4:28). We have been pre-chosen by God from
among the vast multitude of Abraham’s offspring to become One New Man through
faith in Jesus. This God-blessed family began with Isaac and continues right
down to today. There is only one
Israel
in God’s sight - “the
Israel
of God. “ (Gal. 6:16).
Which
means there’s only one bus leaving the terminal. And it will be going to the
land promised to Abraham that has been recently resettled by our
soon-to-be-awakened brethren.”In those
days the House of
Judah
will walk with the House of
Israel
, and they will come together from the
land of the north to the land I gave your fathers as an inheritance.” (Jer.
3:18).
We don’t want to miss that bus
because we were waiting for the Tooth Fairy.
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