The vicious attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel has divided many in this country and around the world. Israel is attacked and unspeakable atrocities were committed against its citizens by Hamas, yet much of the world, and some in the Christian church, side with Hamas. Let me be clear: there is no moral equivalence between the barbarism of Hamas and the victimization of Israeli citizens. Those in the Christian church who support Hamas cannot claim to be Christian and justify the actions of Hamas. Moreover, one cannot use excuses such as Israel is not Biblical Israel, the Jews are not Biblical Jews, or the Church replaces or becomes Israel as God’s chosen. Bad doctrine. Perhaps heresy.
It has to do with God’s covenant with Abraham and the work of Christ on the cross. In Genesis 15:18, God promises Abraham the land “from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” In Genesis 17:7 the Lord told Abraham, “And I will establish my covenant between thee and me and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto you and to your seed after you.” Through Abraham’s son Isaac this covenant would be kept, but not without controversy. Isaac’s wife Rebecca gave birth to twins, Esau and Jacob, brothers of far different character. Esau, the firstborn, cared so little for his birthright that he sold it to Jacob for a bowl of stew. Jacob so cherished his birthright, that he deceived his father Isaac into giving him the blessing of the first born, the heir of the covenant.
Jacob became Israel; God’s chosen line of the covenant. Esau then hated Jacob and threatened to kill him after his father dies. Then Esau married two Hittite women and, later, a daughter of Ishmael. The covenant land was given to the descendants of Jacob. The descendants of Ishmael and Esau claim the land is rightfully theirs. This is the crux of today’s bloodshed and the slogan “from the river to the sea.” Complicating matters even more is the misguided and possible heretical belief that the “Palestinians” are justified because Christianity replaced Israel as God’s Covenant nation, the Christian church has thus become Israel, and Christians replaced Jews as God’s chosen people because Christ established a new covenant by his work on the cross.
Let us remember that Jesus was a rabi and he and his disciples were practicing Jews. Romans 11 uses an olive tree to explain that Christ-followers were grafted into the covenant, not as a replacement, but as partakers. Paul explains further in Galatians 3:6-7, “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know you therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Verse 14, “That the blessing of Abraham (covenant) might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Therefore, we keep the covenant by faith as Christians, grafted into the root of God Almighty, as partakers with, not replacing, Israel
