Whose Side Is God On?

Many Christians sit on the fence concerning Zionism. But we can’t afford to ignore God’s promises to Israel.

It has been more than a year and a half since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and many Christians are still waiting for their churches to express support of the Jewish state. Too often, churches draw a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas terrorists, calling on people to pray for both. Does God draw a moral equivalence?

Certainly, we should pray for all the victims of this conflict that Hamas started. But equating Hamas’s cause with Israel’s right to the land reveals a sore lack of understanding about God’s plan and purpose for Israel. It justifies Hamas’s evil, unprovoked torture and murder of Israeli civilians, as well as Hamas’s unrighteous determination to rid the Holy Land of Jewish people from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Hamas’s goal flies in the face of God’s stated love for Israel (Jer. 31:3) and His promise in Amos 9:15: “‘I will plant them in their land, and no longer shall they be pulled up from the land I have given them,’ says the Lord your God” (cf. Jer. 24:6).

Why are believers in Israel’s Messiah so unprepared to understand modern Israel and our responsibility to defend Israel’s right to the land? The simple answer is ignorance. The October 7 attack is connected to the spiritual warfare between God and Satan “in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). Israel is ground zero on Earth for this battle. Satan hates Israel because his destruction comes through it. Yet many don’t understand this fact and see no future for Israel.

Some people think God is finished with the Jewish nation. They believe He has rejected Israel and replaced it with the church. Therefore, they see no reason for modern Israel to exist. They sometimes go so far as to blame Israel for all of the violence in the Middle East. To their way of thinking, the world would be a safer, more peaceful place if the State of Israel had never been born.

This position is called Replacement Theology, and it has no room for Zionism—the belief that Israel holds divine promises from God concerning possession of the land and the Jewish people’s existence as a nation.

Replacement Theology is anti-Zionist, meaning it opposes the stance that the Jewish return to the Promised Land and modern Israel’s existence are part of God’s plan. One is left to wonder, Where is the sovereignty of God in the contemporary return of the Jewish people to the land and the reestablishment of Israel? If modern Israel isn’t God’s will, why did He permit its creation?

Back to the Bible
To understand which side God is on, we need to go back to the Bible. The Bible doesn’t teach Replacement Theology. No verse of Scripture says God has rejected Israel permanently, cast away the Jewish people, canceled His forever covenants with them, or replaced Israel with the church. But many people believe God took away Israel’s promised blessings and gave them to the church.

For people who hold a Replacement position, their opposition to Israel is theological. However, for Christians who don’t embrace Replacement Theology, their anti-Zionism is most likely due to ignorance. The doctrine of Israel permeates the Bible, and both testaments speak of God’s plan for Israel—past, present, and future.

If churches fail to teach about Israel and Christians fail to study Israel’s key role in God’s redemptive plan for the ages, they also will fail to understand why they should support Israel. Israel’s vital role did not end with Jesus’ ascension; it continues now and in the future. In fact, according to Scripture, our past, present, and future blessings all flow through Israel. The name of this publication, Israel My Glory, was chosen in 1942 to remind us of this fact (Isa. 46:13).

The apostle Paul understood the importance of studying the whole Word of God when he told Timothy, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15, KJV). Understanding Israel’s importance in our salvation produces appreciation for Israel and for God’s promises to the Jewish people. This understanding is the foundation of Christian Zionism.

Yet, recent surveys tell us support for Israel is declining in the evangelical church today, particularly among the younger generations. The cause? A decline in teaching about Israel. It’s not that younger believers are more anti-Israel than past generations; it’s just that they don’t know what to believe about Israel because they have not been taught. This problem is easy to rectify if we simply get back to teaching about Israel and the key role it plays in God’s plan for the ages. The job begins by helping pastors and church leaders understand the Bible’s unique teachings about His Chosen People.

Many popular authors and speakers within the Reformed Movement have captured the hearts of believers, and they have done much to focus the church’s attention on the gospel. But most of them are not Christian Zionists, and they have no biblical agenda for Israel’s future. Some even disparage Israel and claim it has no biblical right to the land.

What sets Zionists apart is our passion to study God’s Word in its literal, historical, and grammatical context, rather than allegorizing it. It was this passion for God’s Word that produced compassion for the Jewish people in the founders of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. Their study of Scripture shaped their love for the Jewish people and spawned their Zionism.

Scripture opened their eyes to see that Israel—the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—are God’s unique possession and that He raised them up for His purpose. He made everlasting covenants with them that provide for salvation, the redemption of mankind, and the restoration of His Kingdom that fell under the curse of sin.

In His covenant with Abraham, God made provision to share the gospel blessings with the families of the world (Gen. 12:3; 22:18). He also promised the land to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob via an everlasting covenant (Ps. 105:10–11). In the Davidic Covenant, God promised a descendant of David’s would sit on David’s throne to rule over Israel and bring peace through a restored Kingdom of God on Earth (2 Sam. 7:1–16). Through the New Covenant, also given to Israel, God promised to provide the forgiveness of sin necessary to restore man’s relationship with Him (Jer. 31:31–34).

The prophets gave definition to God’s covenant promises and gave hope that God would work through Israel to bring His Messiah, the One who saves, and to restore His Kingdom on Earth. They told us the curse will be lifted and Satan defeated when God’s Son rules. They foresaw a time when the world will be refreshed, and Israel will lead the world in worship of God and of His beloved Son (Zech. 8:23). But none of these events can take place without Israel. It is God’s channel through whom He is blessing the world.

‘Certainly Not!’
This knowledge led Paul to write his remarkable discourse in Romans 11 that settles the question of whether Israel has been replaced. Every Christian should be familiar with it and appreciate its significance.

The apostle began by dismissing any thoughts that God has rejected Israel: “Has God cast away His people?” His emphatic response: “Certainly not!” (v. 1).

Then he identified “His people” as the Israelites—the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 1ff.)—and revealed that it is God’s plan for this period in history to leave most Jewish people in blindness of His grace, saving only a remnant (vv. 5–7). God’s grace through Christ has become a snare and stumbling block to most Jewish people.

After making the point that grafting Gentiles into the Jewish covenant blessings of faith in Israel’s Messiah is an unnatural work that God is doing (vv. 11–24), Paul revealed a mystery: God has allowed the Jewish people to remain in their unbelief so that salvation can come to the Gentiles (v. 25). We are commanded not to be ignorant about this truth lest we become arrogant and conceited toward them. Paul, who was deeply burdened for the salvation of his fellow Jews, said their blindness will last until the full measure of Gentile believers is reached; then all Israel will be saved (vv. 26–29).

Clearly, God has not forsaken Israel. He is waiting until His program to bring Gentiles to faith has reached His predetermined measure, and then all of Israel will come to faith (v. 26). This moment is described in Zechariah 12:10, when the Jewish people “will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”

The obvious conclusion from Scripture is that God is a Zionist. He has not rejected Israel. He is simply waiting for the period of Gentile salvation to be completed before all of Israel comes to faith when His Son returns to Earth.

Our Responsibility
The church needs to recognize the high price the Jewish people have paid so that the Gentile world could come to faith. All of their suffering and persecution for the past two millennia would have been avoided if God had brought them to faith during Jesus’ First Coming. But then Gentiles would not have been grafted into His covenant promises with Israel and would have remained in their unbelief.

Gentile Christians should appreciate all the Jewish people have done for us. They taught us about the one true God of the universe. Inspired by God’s Spirit, they gave us His Holy Word and preserved it with great care and accuracy. Jesus called them the source of our salvation, “for salvation is of the Jews” (Jn. 4:22).

Our Zionism comes from our understanding that God is a Zionist; and, therefore, we should be as well. God gave the Jewish people the title deed to the Promised Land, and He has never taken it away. Even though their ability to live in the land and enjoy it is conditioned on their obedience (Dt. 28—29), it was God who led them into the land; it was God who exiled them from the land; and it is God who is bringing them back to the land. The Jewish people’s return and the establishment of the modern State of Israel are according to God’s sovereign will and leading.

It is our responsibility as Christians to stand with Israel and oppose those who seek Israel’s destruction. There is no justification for striking the apple of God’s eye (Zech. 2:8) or for drawing a moral equivalence for the actions of Israel’s enemies. God loves Israel with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3), and we should too. We are called to comfort God’s people (Isa. 40:1).

In October 2023, we should have seen the church rise up in support of Israel and defend God’s uniquely chosen nation. Some churches answered the call, but far too many kept silent. It is time for Christians to embrace God’s plan for the ages and stand firmly with the Jewish people. To do otherwise is to oppose the Lord and His sovereign plan.

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Jim Showers is the president and CEO of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.