The Church is Israel. Say this among most American Christians today and get ready for a fight. They will oppose this and usually refer you to Romans 9-11 and tell you in a very passionate even vitriol voice “ALL ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED!” They will try to correct your “error” and let you know that “Israel is the apple of God’s eye” and “He’s not done with the Jews yet.”
This is a very common conversation I’ve had for years with fellow Christians since I’ve realized Israel is the Church and not the people who call themselves Jews today. A lot of times they will let me know I’m a heretic and need to repent or it won’t be well with me. I’ve known now since 2009 that Israel is the Church and God hasn’t gotten me yet. In fact He was the One who led me into this understanding.
One of the greatest passages of Scripture to prove The Church is Israel is Christ’s parable of The Wicked Husbandmen in Matthew 21:33-46. The text reads:
33 Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.
37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
Verse 43 is extremely plain and I don’t know how people miss it but they do, it says The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. That is really plain and easily understood. The Church is the nation God has given the kingdom of God to.
God is saying in this parable that He sent prophet after prophet to His people and they rejected them, then He sent His Son and they killed Him.
Matthew 26:1-4
And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said unto his disciples,Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,And consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him.
Here in Matthew 26 we see who it was that plotted to have Christ The Messiah killed.
Does this all mean God is done with the Jews? Paul tells us plainly in Romans 9-11 that He is not but most of the Church world interprets these chapters of scripture wrong today. Paul is not saying The Jews have a pass because they are physical Israel he is saying that they can come be part of the Church that God set up in Abraham(Galatians 3). Paul says of his people in Romans 11:23 ….if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
The Bible says it is through faith in Christ that one is saved. There is no other way into the Kingdom of God but through Jesus Christ. God does not have a covenant with the people in the Middle East today yet. They have to come through the Cross of Christ like everyone else.