Is The Church A Substitute For Israel?

            There is a widespread belief among Christians that Israel, the nation which God brought into being to be the instrument of His Purpose, has been replaced by the Christian Church. It is true that, as a result of disobedience and sin, the Israel nation fell and that her people were carried away into exile from which only a remnant returned (Ezra 3:8; 9:8; Neh. 1:3). It is also true that the few who did return, called Jews, refused to accept the Son of God and were consequently set aside by Him as the instrument of His Purpose (Matt. 21:43; Jn. 1:11-12).
            So with Israel “lost” (Jer. 50:6; Matt. 5:10; 15:24) and with the Jews’ rejection, it has appeared to some that God’s Plan of using Israel as the instrument of His Purpose has failed. Therefore they assume that He must have substituted the Christian Church for the people of Israel.
            However, before we charge God with having made a mistake, or say that He has had to change His mind and substitute a church for a nation, let us consider for a moment that purpose for which Israel was chosen.
            When read as a whole, the Bible shows very clearly that God brought the Israel people into being and formed them into a nation to demonstrate the righteousness of His Kingdom—that perfect social order and government which He designed for mankind; to show the benefits of obedience to His moral laws in ALL things, religious, political, social and economic; and to extend His Kingdom and the administration of His precepts throughout the earth.
            A moment’s thought will show that this Purpose can never be accomplished by the Christian Church. The Church could not function as a social order or even as a government. Neither could it demonstrate the righteousness of God’s kingdom, for it has no means of administering or enforcing His laws. Yet without doing so, how can it replace Israel in the fulfillment of God’s Plan?
            To quibble by saying that God has changed His Plan is to contradict His own Words, for the Bible quotes Him as saying, “I am the Lord, I change not.” (Mal. 3:6)
            The folly of presuming that God’s plans have failed and that substitutes are in order is shown in the Bible story of Abraham and his wife Sarah. When Sarah passed the normal age of child-bearing without giving birth to the son whom God had promised them, they lost faith and their attempt to provide a substitute ended in tragic failure.
            So also in this matter, we dare not attempt to substitute a Church for the Divinely-ordained nation. Each serves its own purpose in God’s Plan. The function of the Christian Church is to proclaim Christ and the gospel of salvation to all people, whereas Israel was chosen to demonstrate the righteousness of God’s kingdom and laws on a national basis and to extend and administer them throughout the earth. Thus each has its part to play in God’s Great Purpose and only evil can come of any attempt to substitute one for the other.
            When Abraham and Sarah could see no possibility of having the son whom God had promised, they ignored the promise and tried a substitute. Likewise many Christians can see no possibility of Israel fulfilling the Abrahamic covenants, so they ignore God’s promise and try to substitute the Church. Even as the other attempt ended in tragedy, so also will this, for, “God is not a man that he should lie; neither the son of Man that he should repent; hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Num. 23:19)
            Repeatedly and in the most emphatic terms God has promised that as long as the heavens and the earth remain, and as long as we continue to have day and night, Israel will continue as the instrument of His Purpose (Jer. 31:31-37). The heavens and the earth are still with us and we are still having day and night. Therefore Israel will fulfill her Divinely-appointed commission, and the claim that she has been replaced by the Church is false. For more information, see our "Introduction To The British-Israel Evangel"

Our Movement And Its Mission:

This website is sponsored by the Canadian British-Israel Association, an organization composed of Bible-believing Christians of many denominations who believe that the moral decline in our nation can only be reversed by a knowledge of our duties and responsibilities as God's Servant People. This will lead to a return to faith in Christ and obedience to the Divine precepts outlined in the Word of God. For more information about us, see our websites listed on the links page...

Introduction: The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel



The Bible clearly states that God’s Purpose for mankind is to be achieved through the instrumentality of a servant nation called Israel (Isa. 49:3). Nevertheless, Israel of old proved unfaithful, was exiled from Canaan and disappeared from the pages of history about 600 B.C. (2 Ki. 17), except for a small remnant called Jews. As a result, many Christians assume that Israel no longer figures in God’s Plan, and that the Divine Purpose is now to be fulfilled through the Christian Church.
            Yet this assumption ignores God’s solemn promises recorded in the Old Testament, many of them made long after Israel disappeared. In addition, it overlooks the significance of many of our Lords’s own statements. Thus, in rebuking the woman of Canaan for asking His help in terms which falsely implied that she was an Israelite, He said:    “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt. 15:24)
            This carries us back to the 34th chapter of Ezekiel where the prophet, writing after Israel’s disappearance, likens them to a flock of sheep whose false shepherds (political and religious leaders) have allowed them to become scattered and lost. Here, too, he records God’s promise that He Himself would come to seek and restore these lost sheep.
            Obviously then, our Lord’s statement that He was “not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” not only proves that the Israel people were still in existence in His day but further that He had come to restore them to God’s favor and function. The prophecies clearly show that it is through Israel that God’s Purposes will be accomplished.
            Yet to say that He was referring to the Jews of Palestine is illogical, for the Jews were not lost, they were all about Him. Further, they were not of the House of Israel but of the House of Judah. Originally Israel had consisted of twelve families or tribes, but following the death of King Solomon ten tribes rebelled against the rule of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, with the result that the Israel people were split into TWO separate and distinct nations, the House and Kingdom of ISRAEL (10 tribes), and the House and Kingdom of JUDAH (2 tribes). This story is found in First Kings chapter 12.
            Eventually both of these nations were conquered by enemies who carried their people away into captivity in distant lands, from which only a small remnant of the House of Judah returned (Ezra 3:8; 9:8; Neh. 1:3). It is from this remnant of Judah that the Jews of our Lord’s day were descended. This returned remnant of Judah was neither lost nor descended from the House of Israel, and could not therefore have been the “lost sheep of the House of Israel” to which He referred.
            It is important to understand that the generic term, “Israel,” or “Israelite,” referred to any or all of the twelve tribes; however, the explicit term, “House of Israel,” specifically referred to the separate kingdom of the Ten Tribes. With that being clear, let us now look at our Saviour’s command to His disciples when sending them forth to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom: “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 10:5-7)
            Here again we have proof that the Israel people were still in existence in our Lord’s day, for surely He would not have sent His disciples to a people who no longer existed. Further, His Words clearly show that the ten-tribe “House of Israel” still had a vital part to play in the fulfillment of God’s Purpose. These twelve disciples were not sent to the House of Israel to proclaim that the kingdom of God could not be restored to them!
            Christ was pointedly reminding them that the responsibility for demonstrating and extending the righteousness of that kingdom was theirs, and called upon them to accept it. The fact that we still await the second coming of Christ to physically take that ideal kingdom does not prove that Israel is non-existent but only that by following false shepherds she has failed to heed and implement the call.
            Thus those Christians who say that Israel no longer exists and that God’s Purpose for mankind is to be fulfilled through the Christian Church, or through unbelieving Jewry, not only deny their Lord’s own words but hinder the coming of the kingdom.

 



Fellow-Workers With God

“Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” –Exodus 19:6


            As someone has previously remarked, no greater honor could be conferred upon any portion of the human race than the privilege of being fellow-workers with the Lord of all creation in establishing justice and truth, righteousness and peace, upon the earth.

That God is working out a Great Purpose in human history and affairs designed to bring into being a perfect social order in which there will be health, wealth, peace, and happiness for all, and that this purpose is to be achieved through the instrumentality of a servant people, is clearly tought in the Sacred Scriptures. Thus, almost at the beginning of the Bible’s revelation of God’s Will and Purpose for mankind, we read of a long process by which He brought into being a new and distinct nation to whom He gave the name Israel and to whose progenitor, Jacob, He said:

“In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” –Gen. 28:14

It is certain, therefore, that God is planning some Good Thing for all mankind which is to be accomplished in and through the seed or descendants of Jacob—the Israel people. True, a great and important part of this blessing is already available in a Spiritual sense through the atoning sacrifice of the One Seed on the Cross of Calvary (Gal. 3:16), but another part only relatively less important is to be achieved through the instrumentality of Israel as a physical people. Consequently, they have a special relationship to God, distinct from that of any other people.

This is definitely stated in Deuteronomy 7:6, where we read: “Thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”

A further development of this special relationship came when God formed the Israel people into a nation. Note His own declaration concerning it: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” -Exodus 19:6

As used here, this word “holy,” in addition to its ordinary meaning, denotes something dedicated exclusively  to the service of God. A person so dedicated is called a priest. Thus, among the nations of the earth, Israel was to be God’s priest-nation or kingdom—a people and nation whose life and energies were to be devoted exclusively to His service and to the fulfillment of His Will and Purpose among men.

It is true that Israel of old spurned this great honor and became disobedient and rebellious. She was expelled from her holy office; however, God’s Word declares repeatedly and most emphatically that this expulsion is only temporary and that after a long period of exile and correction she will be restored to her former relationship.

Therefore, those who believe God are certain that Israel is still in existence today. Once this fact is recognized, it takes but a moment’s thought to identify God’s people in the world today. The Celto-Saxon peoples, and they alone, fit the prophetic descriptions of what the House of Israel was to become. They alone have developed into the “nation and company of nations” (Gen. 35:11) which God promised to Jacob. Numerous other prophecies have seen fulfillment only in this people. (See the sample list of prophecies on this website.)

In view of this identification, Israel’s special relationship to God becomes of vital importance to us, for the long sentence of exile pronounced against Israel has now come to an end and thus it is to us, in this generation, that God is offering the great honor of being fellow-workers with Him in establishing justice and truth, righteousness and peace, upon the earth.

Surely, therefore, in view of the appalling conditions in the world today, the time has come for us to awaken to our calling and in humble repentance return to God so that He, working through us, can establish and extend the righteousness of His Kingdom and Rule over the earth.

Then indeed will His Words concerning us be fulfilled: “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My Praise.” (Isaiah 43:21) Who in the world today is doing that which the House of Israel was prophesied to do?

Perhaps God has a place for YOU in the working out of His great Purpose?


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