Two answers we do not give
Ask a room of Christians whether the church has replaced Israel and you will usually hear one of two answers. The first is replacement theology: Israel failed, so God set the nation aside and transferred its promises to the church, which is now the true Israel in a spiritual sense. On this view the Jewish people have no continuing place in God’s plan as a people.
The second is dispensationalism, the framework behind much popular teaching on prophecy. It says God has two distinct peoples with two distinct programs. Israel has earthly promises and the law; the church has heavenly promises and grace; the two are kept permanently separate, and the Torah belongs to Israel’s dispensation rather than the church’s.
These two views disagree about almost everything, but they agree on one point: the church is something other than Israel. We hold neither view, because Scripture describes a third thing. Believers from the nations are not Israel’s replacement and not Israel’s separate neighbor. They are joined to Israel.
God has not rejected his people
Paul, writing to a largely Gentile church in Rome, asks our question directly and answers it in the strongest language he has.
“I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God didn’t reject his people, whom he foreknew. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel:”
Romans 11:1-2
“Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
Romans 11:28-29
The adoption, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service, and the promises belong to Israel (Romans 9:4-5). Paul adds that “they are not all Israel that are of Israel” (Romans 9:6), so belonging is more than bloodline, but he never says the promises have moved to someone else. The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Replacement theology cannot survive Romans 11.
Grafted into one olive tree
Then Paul gives the picture we keep coming back to.
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree, don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, remember that it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you.”
Romans 11:17-18
“For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?”
Romans 11:24
There is one tree. Believers from the nations are wild branches grafted “among them,” into Israel’s tree, drawing on Israel’s root. The natural branches broken off through unbelief can be grafted back into what Paul calls “their own olive tree.” Nowhere does he plant a second tree for the church. That is why a permanent separation between Israel and the church cannot survive Romans 11 either.
Paul also warns the grafted branches not to boast (Romans 11:18, 20). We do not support the root; it supports us. That warning shapes how we speak about the Jewish people, who remain “beloved for the fathers’ sake,” and it leaves us praying with Paul for the day when “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26).
Abraham’s children and Israel’s commonwealth
How does a Gentile become part of Israel’s tree? By faith, the same way Abraham was counted righteous.
“Know therefore that those who are of faith are children of Abraham.”
Galatians 3:7
“If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring and heirs according to promise.”
Galatians 3:29
The promise is sure to all Abraham’s offspring, “not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all” (Romans 4:16). Paul spells out what this does to our standing in his letter to the Ephesians.
“that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.”
Ephesians 2:12-13
“So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God,”
Ephesians 2:19
Before the Messiah we were “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants.” Now we are “fellow citizens with the saints.” Paul does not say we were given a commonwealth of our own. He says we were brought into the one we had been outside of, as “fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of his promise” (Ephesians 3:6). Fellow with whom? With Israel.
One flock, one stick
Jesus described the same thing in a single sentence.
“I have other sheep which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.”
John 10:16
Other sheep, one flock, one shepherd. Not two flocks under two arrangements. Ezekiel had already been shown how God would gather a divided Israel back into one.
“tell them, ‘The Lord the LORD says: “Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand.”
Ezekiel 37:19
The two sticks, Judah and Joseph, become one stick in God’s hand. The people become one nation, no longer divided into two kingdoms, under one shepherd, and they “walk in my ordinances and observe my statutes, and do them” (Ezekiel 37:21-24). A reunited Israel walking in God’s statutes under the Messiah is the future the prophets saw. Nothing in it looks like a church standing apart from Israel.
The new covenant is made with Israel
This is the point that settles the matter for us. Ask who the new covenant is made with, and Jeremiah and the writer of Hebrews give the same answer.
“Behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah,”
Jeremiah 31:31
“For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days are coming”, says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;”
Hebrews 8:8
The new covenant is not made with the church as a third party. It is made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. So anyone who is in the new covenant is, by definition, joined to Israel. There is no other door into it. We say more about what is new in that covenant in Question 10.
John’s vision of the end confirms it. The city God prepares has twelve gates, and every one of them carries a name from Israel.
“having a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.”
Revelation 21:12
Whoever enters that city, from whatever nation, walks in through Israel’s gates.
What this means for how we live
We do not claim to be Jews, and we do not claim to have replaced them. We do not believe God cancelled his promises to Israel, and we do not believe he runs two programs with two standards. We believe we were far off and have been brought near, grafted into Israel’s tree, made citizens of Israel’s commonwealth, and included in a covenant made with Israel.
That is grace from beginning to end (Ephesians 2:8-10). It also explains why we keep the instructions Israel was given. A branch draws its life from the root it is grafted into, and citizens live by the law of their commonwealth. See Question 5 for how the Torah itself speaks to the stranger who joins Israel.
Next: What is the new covenant, what is the old covenant, and what is the difference?