With even further escalation of hostilities between Israel and its surrounding enemies, many Christians today believe it’s the beginning of the end. It might be better to read and study ROMANS 11 to put modern Israel in proper context. ◊

To be sure, many Christians simply believe we’re on the cusp of some end times calamity. It’s either World War III, or Armageddon, or the Rapture, or Jesus returning.

Pew Research Center reports that actually 39% of Americans believe that humanity is “living in the end times.”¹

Many will cite their own pastor or a famous figure who raise up end times issues whenever “wars and rumors of wars” or apparent “birth pangs” break out in the Middle East.

Many may cite the Book of Revelation, or reference the Book of Daniel, or even the Book of Ezekiel. Or maybe Zechariah. Many may point to parts of Matthew 24 or perhaps 1 Thessalonians 4.

To complicate things further, many will mix religion and politics (foreign policy) and insist that the US must support Israel politically and militarily, no matter what, because all of modern Israel are God’s People.

While everyone has good intentions, it really can get confusing and even boil up contentious debates.

While the Book of ROMANS will not settle the debate over end times issues, a good study pf chapters 1-11 should at least help bring some helpful perspectives on the subject of ethnic and national Israel, then and today.

Net It Out
As pointed out here in these studies of each chapter of the Book of ROMANS, this treatise by the Apostle Paul is written to clarify Christianity for first century Jews and Gentiles alike. The letter (book) was written in AD 57 while Paul was in Corinth, near Athens, Greece. As we also studied in the Book of ACTS, the historical account of the original growth of Christianity immediately after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul is dealing with a very hostile Jewish religious establishment until he was killed in Rome sometime between AD 64 and AD 68. This time was during the ruthless reign of the Roman emperor Nero who escalated the persecution of Christians until his death in AD 68.

Again, ROMANS chapters 1-3 highlight that Jews and Gentiles are ALL guilty in God’s view and in need of a savior. Jesus, the Christ, is that Savior who died the atoning death for all of mankind. ROMANS chapters 4-5 emphasize that only faith/belief in what Jesus accomplished is what saves any person, not any actions or human stature. ROMANS chapters 6-8 is about the human struggle in spite of our eternal saving and the full freedom, joy, and power we have now with access to the Spirit of God within us.

As noted, ROMANS chapters 9-11 cover Paul’s lament and hope for his fellow Jews who are among those who have rejected the saving gift of Jesus, the ultimate sacrificial Lamb of God. He points out that the Jews should have known better. After all, they were God’s designated people who lived alongside the Old Testament patriarchs and were given the Word of God through prophets who stood amongst them.

Yet they rejected their Messiah. The Jewish religious leaders killed Jesus in cahoots with the oppressing Roman authorities.

But Jesus arose and came back as promised in Holy Authority, per Daniel and Jesus’ own words in Matthew 24 in reference to the end of the Jewish/Mosaic covenant age or era. Read in context, Christ’s words mirror what He told Caiaphas in Matthew 26:57-66. The reference was to Jesus coming “on the clouds of heaven” in judgment. The High Priest, Caiaphas, and the other Jewish leaders, knew this bold reference to the esteemed Jewish prophet, Daniel, very well (see Daniel 7:13-14).

This “blasphemy” sealed Jesus’ fate.

The Jews’ fate was sealed, as Jesus predicted in Matthew 24, in AD 70 when the Romans decimated Jerusalem. Yet any Jewish person heeding Jesus’ warning 40 years earlier could have been saved if they simply left Jerusalem/Judea on foot when the Roman armies surrounded the city and began their siege to put down a Jewish revolt. Read in full context, Jesus in Matthew 24 was clearly talking about then, in His time, not now, 2,000 years later. 

The early Jews who converted to Christianity living in Jerusalem, did heed Jesus’ words and left the area. Those, a remnant, if you will, survived. According to Josephus, the Jewish historian living in Rome at the time, over 1 million people died during the destruction of Jerusalem – many of them Jews – a significant part of their population at the time. Read Zechariah 13:7-9 as a prophetic vision of God’s hand of judgment that was fulfilled in AD 70 in both the destruction of “2 parts” and the saving of “1 part.” ² 

In ROMANS chapter 11, Paul reminds Jews and Gentiles that the Jews’ mistake was a blessed opening for the Gentiles to come into the Kingdom. But the door is still open for the Jews to come back to Jesus – again, in faith, not via Jewish or any kind of works.

In that manner, all of Israel can be saved, and once again, like all of mankind, become part of God’s family.

So What About the Jews Today?
Should we support modern Israel? As a democratic nation in a non-democratic Middle East, yes, we/the US should and do support them. We should support them like we support Canada, and Mexico, and the UK, and Germany, and Spain, and Brazil – any and all democratic nations that believe in freedom for their people.

But is the nation of Israel a Godly nation? No. No more than Canada, or Mexico, or the UK, or Germany, or Spain and Brazil are Godly nations. Or even the US. We are secularly run nations filled with people of all religions, perhaps a majority of Christians even at a nominal level.

Modern Israel, like other nations in a difficult world, needs to cooperate with other civil nations and peoples to live in peace. Proven terrorist groups/nations should face resistance from imposing their own evil will on others. In that sense, we, Christian or not, should stand up and oppose regimes of terror and evil.

Like Paul is pointing out in ROMANS chapter 11, neither Israel or the Gentiles are innocent. We’re all guilty. But God in His overwhelming mercy and grace, has allowed all sides to come into the Kingdom. But under His terms.

We should just be thankful and grateful to be given the chance to live.

And with that, we should live in peace with each other, loving, praying and encouraging the salvation of all the world to the glory of Christ for His Kingdom’s sake.

Until He indeed does return, with the ending of this present world in final judgment and the ushering in of a completely new era of heaven and earth for eternity.

And as noted previously, we should each proactively live our noble, Holy Spirit-led and gifted Christian lives as if Jesus returns 100 years after we ourselves are long gone.

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Tags: Israel, Jews, Romans 11