Does the Bible command Christians to support Israel?

This issue has cropped up frequently through the years, and given what's going on right now, it's coming up more than ever.

It really hit a boiling point when Ted Cruz went on the Tucker Carlson show recently and tried to make the case that the Bible commands us to support the modern nation of Israel. Being that this came from an active U.S. Senator, it should raise eye-brows. I mean, what is the "theology" that's informing his policy really about?

Just a few months ago, I attended a Bible study where the guy leading the study tried to make the same claim. I probably didn't handle it as well as I should have, truth be told. But this is an issue I'm very adamant about. Because it's honestly a pretty dangerous view, in my opinion, and it undermines the primacy of the Gospel in our proclamation in some serious ways.

In fact, if you follow through with this kind of view, it really pulls the rug out from the Gospel, it undermines everything that Jesus was about, and that we're called to proclaim to the world. Big claim, I realize, and I don't make it lightly.

Now, I told you when you signed up that this e-mail list wouldn't be about politics. Let me reiterate that. Today's reflection is not about politics. Politically speaking, you are free to support Israel or not. As Christians, it's my position that we can freely disagree on that question, even debate it vigorously.

But when people claim that the Bible commands us to support Israel, and tries to connect it to the call of Abraham in Genesis 12... well... we have a problem.

So who are the children of Abraham, today?

It's an important question, not just for how our faith intersects with our politics, but for how we understand our place in the Kingdom of God.

[I wrote most of this yesterday, but it just so happened that shortly before I sent this out a friend of mine released a video all about this issue, and it's one of the best / clearest explanations I've seen. Probably clearer than my approach, honestly, but we touch on some different aspects of the issue so it's worth looking at. Check out Joe Herschmeyer's video, Does the Bible Command Christians to Support Israel. ] 

 

Genesis 12:1-3: The Abrahamic Covenant Examined

"Now the LORD said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" (Gen 12:1-3)

The Hebrew text reveals God's personal commitment through the cohortative verbal forms אֶעֶשְׂךָ ("I will make you") and אֲבָרֶכְךָ ("I will bless you"). This divine promise operates simultaneously on two levels: the particular (promises to Abram personally) and the universal (extending to "all families of the earth"). The phrase וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה (and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed) uses what's called the "Niphal form," in Hebrew. It effectively allows one of two readings: either passive blessing ("be blessed") or reflexive blessing ("bless themselves").

This covenant appears initially territorial and ethnic, but its final clause reveals a universal purpose that transcends boundaries. From the beginning, God's election of Abraham aimed beyond one family to embrace humanity. The particularity serves universality—Abraham's blessing was never meant to terminate with his biological descendants but to flow through them to all peoples. 

 

Rethinking Divine Promise

The interpretive question hinges on how we understand covenant fulfillment. Is God's promise to Abraham primarily about land rights for his physical descendants, or does it point toward a more profound spiritual reality that finds completion in Christ?

The sequential unfolding of biblical revelation suggests the latter. Scripture interprets Scripture, with later revelation illuminating earlier promises. The New Testament consistently reframes the Abrahamic covenant through Christ, not through ethnic or territorial categories. 

 

John the Baptist's Prophetic Challenge

John the Baptist confronted the presumption of covenant privilege based on ancestry:

"Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father,' for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Mt 3:9-10)

The Greek μὴ δόξητε ("do not presume") directly challenges ethnic entitlement. John's imagery of the axe at the root represents judgment that eliminates not just surface expressions but the fundamental system of ethnic privilege. The criterion for covenant inclusion becomes fruit-bearing (καρπὸν), not bloodline. 

This prophetic rebuke should give pause to any theology that emphasizes genetic descent over spiritual faithfulness. John's warning echoes through history: divine election never guarantees divine approval apart from faithfulness. 

 

Jesus Redefines the Family of Abraham

Jesus intensifies this redefinition of covenant membership:

"I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness." (Mt 8:11-12)

The "sons of the kingdom" (οἱ υἱοὶ τῆς βασιλείας)—those who claimed covenant inclusion by birth—find themselves excluded, while Gentiles from "east and west" join the patriarchs at the messianic banquet. The geographical universality ("east and west") directly counters any notion that God's favor remains confined to a particular territory or people.

Jesus further dismantles ethnic privilege: "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits" (Mt 21:43). The kingdom's transfer occurs not based on ancestry but on spiritual fruitfulness—a direct continuation of John's message.

 

Paul Drives it All Home

Paul provides the most systematic reinterpretation of the Abrahamic covenant, distinguishing between physical and spiritual Israel:

"For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring... This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring." (Rom 9:6-8)

This distinction between Israel κατὰ σάρκα (according to the flesh) and Israel κατὰ πνεῦμα (according to the Spirit) revolutionizes covenant understanding. Paul elaborates in Galatians: "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal 3:29). The ἐπαγγελία (promise) to Abraham culminates in Christ, not in ethnic identity or territorial claims.

Most significantly, Paul declares in Galatians 3:16: "Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many, but referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ." The singular זֶרַע (zera, "seed") in Genesis receives a Christological, not ethnic, interpretation. 

 

The New Covenant Reality: The Church is Israel

The letter to the Hebrews describes the old covenant as "becoming obsolete and growing old" and "ready to vanish away" (Heb 8:13). The new covenant represents not merely continuation but transformation—fulfillment that both honors and transcends the original promise.

This transformation creates a new community that transcends ethnic boundaries: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). The dividing wall of hostility between ethnic groups has been demolished in Christ (Eph 2:14), creating one new humanity.

The New Covenant is clearly inaugurated through the meal at the Last Supper, where Christ instituted the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper. The video I linked at the top of this message goes into that idea in more depth, but suffice it to say, that the promises of the "New Covenant" in Jeremiah reach their fruition in the body and blood of Christ in the upper-room.

The apostle Paul, wrestling with these same questions in the first century, provides inspired clarity in Galatians 3:

"Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.' So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith." (Gal 3:7-9)

Paul's exegesis revolutionizes our understanding of covenant membership. The Greek construction οἱ ἐκ πίστεως (hoi ek pisteōs), "those of faith," establishes faith—not bloodline—as the defining characteristic of Abraham's true children. Even more startling is Paul's claim that Scripture "preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham." This remarkable verbal form combines the prefix προ- (before) with the verb for evangelizing, suggesting that the Genesis promise itself contained the gospel message in seed form.

Paul then makes a grammatical observation that's pivotal to the question at hand:

"Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many, but referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ." (Gal 3:16)

His analysis of the singular "seed" (σπέρμα, sperma) in the original Genesis text allows for a Christological reading of the Abrahamic covenant. The blessing promised to Abraham finds its fulfillment not primarily in a nation, but in a person—Christ himself—and by extension, in all who are united to him.

Namely, the "body of Christ," the Church.

"And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." (Gal 3:29)

This passage establishes union with Christ as the decisive factor in determining who belongs to Abraham's family. This text effectively transfers the center of covenant blessing from ethnic identity to spiritual union with Christ.

The church, composed of believers from every nation, becomes the true heir of Abraham's promise. 

This doesn't diminish the importance of Israel in salvation history. Rather, it reveals that God's purpose was always greater and more expansive than we might have imagined. The particular (Israel) served the universal (all nations). The temporal (Old Covenant) prepared for the eternal (New Covenant).

How did that work? Does that mean that God abandoned or replaced Israel? Not at all!

In Romans 11, Paul employs a vivid horticultural image to further illustrate this relationship:

"But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches." (Rom 11:17-18)

The root (ῥίζα, rhiza) represents the Abrahamic covenant and its promises. The natural branches symbolize ethnic Israel, while the wild olive shoots represent Gentile believers. What's striking about this imagery is that Paul maintains the continuity of the covenant (one tree) while allowing for both the breaking off of unbelieving Jews and the grafting in of believing Gentiles.

This organic unity undermines any theological framework that posits two separate covenant communities with distinct destinies. There is one covenant community defined by faith, with Christ as its center. The tree doesn't die and get replaced by a different plant; rather, it undergoes pruning and grafting, maintaining its essential identity while incorporating new elements.

 

Theological and Ethical Implications

This New Testament reinterpretation of the Abrahamic covenant carries profound implications for how Christians approach modern geopolitical realities:

1. Divine promises cannot be divorced from covenant faithfulness. Throughout Scripture, God's promises to nations remain contingent on their response to Him. As Jeremiah declares: "If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it" (Jer 18:7-8).

2. Territorial promises find fulfillment beyond geography. The promised land points toward the greater inheritance of the new creation. As Jesus taught, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Mt 5:5). The part (Canaan) anticipated the whole (the renewed cosmos).

3. The church becomes the continuation of Israel's story. Peter applies Israel's covenant designations directly to the church: "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession" (1 Pet 2:9). The church doesn't replace Israel; it continues and expands Israel's covenant identity through Christ.

4. Ethics must align with eschatology. If God's ultimate purpose is to unite all things in Christ (Eph 1:10), then Christian ethics must prioritize reconciliation, justice, and peace among all peoples—not privileging one ethnic group's territorial claims over another's human rights.

 

Questioning Dispensationalism

These biblical insights challenge dispensational theology, which insists on a strict separation between Israel and the Church and maintains that God's promises to ethnic Israel remain unconditionally valid regardless of faith in Christ.

The dispensational approach faces significant (and dangerous) problems:

1. It minimizes the New Testament's consistent reinterpretation of covenant promises through Christ.

2. It overlooks the conditional nature of covenant promises throughout Scripture.

3. It creates a two-tier salvation system that undermines the Gospel's universality. It makes the Church a kind of "plan B," when that couldn't be further from the truth. The Church was always Plan A, the way that Jesus Himself proclaimed that the Kingdom of Heaven was breaking into the world.

4. It can inadvertently prioritize land claims over justice and human dignity. It can likewise compromise our mission when we ignore the political plight of certain people simply because they oppose a secular regime that happens to share the name "Israel," with the people of the Old Testament, but has nothing more than ethnic continuity with the biblical kingdom.

 

Finding Balance

Christians need not deny the historical significance of Israel or dismiss the ongoing geopolitical complexities in the Middle East. However, our theological reflection must transcend mere political allegiances and ethnic loyalties. We are called to embody the inclusive and transformative love of Christ, recognizing that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20).

As we navigate the intricate intersection of theology, politics, and human rights, let us remember that our identity as Christians is rooted in the new covenant established by Christ's sacrificial love. May we seek to be peacemakers, bridge-builders, and advocates for justice, embodying the radical inclusivity and universal scope of God's redemptive plan.

Our identity as Christians is rooted in the new covenant established by Christ's sacrificial love.

In a world fragmented by division and strife, may the church stand as a beacon of hope and reconciliation, reflecting the unifying love that transcends all earthly, ethnic, and national boundaries. Let us embrace our call to be ambassadors of Christ's kingdom, proclaiming a message of healing, restoration, and peace to all nations. 

 

In Jesus' name,

Judah