There are few subjects that more quickly ignite controversy among believers and conservative thinkers than the question of Israel. The confusion is often less about the content of Scripture than about the context in which Scripture is read. “Grave errors,” wrote Augustine, “are resolved by attention to the context” (De Doctrina Christiana 2.14). The Reformed tradition has always agreed. William Perkins, in The Art of Prophesying (1607), affirmed that sound exegesis depends upon “the analogy of faith, the circumstances of the place propounded, and the comparing of places of like argument.” Context, in other words, is not a luxury—it is the very grammar of truth.
When speaking of Israel, we must therefore ask: Which Israel? Scripture speaks variously of the covenant nation, the dispersed people of God, and the spiritual Israel into which Gentile believers are engrafted by faith. To conflate these is to misread the text and, as history proves, to divide the Church. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once cautioned that “some make too much of the Jews, and some make too little.” The pendulum of error swings easily between these extremes—one exaggerating national Israel into infallibility, the other erasing her altogether. Both mistakes arise from a failure of contextual theology.
In my own earlier paper, “Engrafted, Not Replaced” (first published in Reformed Perspectives), I argued that the phrase “Replacement Theology” is itself a polemical invention of twentieth-century Dispensationalism—a rhetorical device that sought to marginalize the historic and majority understanding of the Church. From the earliest Fathers to the Reformers, the consistent testimony of Christian interpretation has been that Gentiles are grafted into Israel’s covenantal root (Romans 11:17-24). The Church does not replace Israel; she joins Israel’s story through union with her Messiah.
In the words of the Westminster Confession (1.9), “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself,” and Scripture presents one continuous covenant of grace culminating in Christ, the true Vine (John 15:1-5). This covenantal reading neither ignores nor diminishes ethnic Israel—the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It affirms them as the people through whom God brought the Redeemer into the world. From them came the prophets, the covenants, and, in Paul’s words, “the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever” (Romans 9:5). To love Christ, therefore, is to love His people. “My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them,” wrote Paul, “is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1).
Yet Paul also teaches that “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Romans 9:6), for “the sons of Abraham” are defined not by blood but by faith (Galatians 3:7). Thus, believers must read Israel’s story in both its literal and metaphorical senses: the Exodus as a figure of redemption, the wilderness as sanctification, the Promised Land as the rest of grace. Every Israelite narrative becomes, in Christ, the pilgrim path of every believer. Such a reading honors both the spiritual continuity of God’s people and the historical distinctiveness of the Jewish nation.
The modern State of Israel, restored in 1948 through acts such as the Balfour Declaration, represents another chapter in this providential narrative. As a constitutional democracy in the Middle East and an enduring ally of the West, Israel deserves our friendship and support. A true friend, however, retains the moral courage to speak truth in love when policies demand conscience. To critique a government action is not antisemitism; it is the duty of honesty among allies. Yet to condone or platform antisemitic rhetoric is to betray the Gospel itself, for from Israel came the Scriptures and the Savior. The Christian who loves Christ must oppose all hatred of the Jewish people.
In this age of polarization—even among conservatives—Ronald Reagan’s “Eleventh Commandment” still counsels restraint: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” The broader principle applies to Christians as well. Internal strife, whether in politics or theology, dissipates our witness. Winston Churchill, perhaps apocryphally, observed that “the opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you.” Long before him, the Roman historian Sallust warned, “In harmony, small things grow; in discord, the greatest fall to ruin” (Bellum Jugurthinum 10.6). Sun Tzu added the strategic corollary: “If his forces are united, separate them.” Division, spiritual or civic, is always a gain for the adversary.
It was our Lord who first said—and Abraham Lincoln who applied it to the American experiment—“A house divided against itself cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). The warning endures for the Church and for the Republic alike. Let us then stand together—Jew and Gentile, Church and Israel, citizen and statesman—bound by gratitude to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and united by the truth that freedom and faith are indivisible.
For if we surrender unity to anger, or charity to faction, then both the Church and the nation she nurtured will find that the adversary has gained the field. And so, with quiet conviction, let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem, work for the harmony of the brethren, and remember: in concord, small things grow; in discord, even the greatest fall.
The Crisis in England Is a Crisis for Civilization
The Power of Prayer in the Face of Tragedy
https://spectator.org/israel-the-church-and-the-unraveling-of-conservative-unity/
