 So, as we're making this episode, the Middle East is continuing to experience significant conflict, particularly around the Gaza Strip and with the nation of Israel. So, in this episode, we discuss how should Christians be viewing the current nation state of Israel? How does that relate to the church? And how should we be thinking about this in proper terms, theologically, versus the current political entities? Well, Paul Lomicella, welcome back to the Anabaptist Perspectives Podcast. So, current events is once again centered around the nation of Israel. And we're going to take a bit of a dive into that topic today. Yeah, we're recording this early 2024, so I'm not sure when it'll be released, but right in the middle of yet another war, particularly in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip with Israel versus Hamas. And of course, that's bringing up a lot of, well, obviously, a lot of feelings around the world on who's right, who's wrong, all this stuff, for sure, whatever. But this podcast, I think we should contextualize and say we're talking about specifically the nation state of Israel and the church. Do you want to give a little more context of your approach so that people don't misunderstand what we're trying to do here? Yeah, so that's important. So, what we're not talking about is really politically the conflict. That's kind of not really our. And I think both of us, all of us have very strong, you know, concerns, sympathies for what's going on in that part of the world and specifically things that the Jewish people have endured in the last hundred years and beyond with anti-Semitism and with neighbors wanting them eradicated and stuff like that. But what we're talking about today isn't so much that as it is the question that sometimes comes up along with that. Though it is technically a distinct question. We're dealing with a distinct question of when we see stuff like this happen or when we think about the modern nation state of Israel, what connection does this have to biblical prophecy and what does connection, what relationship does the modern nation state of Israel have to the church? So, it's that prophecy and theological question that we're, I think, wanting to talk about simply because it's on more people's minds due to the current events. So, the whole like Israel and the church and all of this is so part of the American, particularly American evangelical scene, but also our Anabaptist people as well. It seems to me as I go around and interact with our people that there is this basically underlying assumption that, well, of course, like Israel, the present day, I should say, nation state that exists now is blessed by God is favorite of God is whatever, whatever. It's not often very articulated that I've experienced, but just kind of this natural bias towards, well, of course, that this is God's people. And I would like to hear you explain, OK, so like, where does that idea come from? And well, yeah, let's start with that. Like, let's define that a bit. And where did that come from, honestly? Largely, it's a product of dispensationalism. So this is a kind of theological movement or set of beliefs that arose really about a little over a hundred years ago, sort of the tail end or so, the 1800s. And then it was pretty popular in 1900s, kind of arose kind of it was started by this British Plymouth Brethren guy named John Nelson Darby and then kind of exported to the United States and became really popular among conservative evangelicals for a long time in the in the 1900s and has largely died, mostly died out in sort of academic circles or been modified so much that a lot of the key distinctives are mostly gone. So modern forms of it are are pretty, pretty tame compared to what used to be. But it's still it's still part hasn't died out in popular popular thought, I guess. And one of the for our purposes, one of the big the key distinctives of this way of thinking was initially this sharp distinction between Israel and the church. So in original dispensationalism, there were two peoples of God and Israel and the church. And there were promises made in the Old Testament to Israel that would have to be fulfilled in like ethnic, national Israel. And then other promises that would be fulfilled by the church in sort of heaven or something in a heavenly setting. And they had sort of two trajectory, they were like two trajectories. And in some cases, even two different ways of salvation and stuff like that. Yeah, OK, OK, that's really helpful context because I've heard people say things like that. And I'm just I'm kind of confused. I'm like, OK, I don't quite understand your framework. So that's the framework. That's early 1900s, late 1800s are saying, right. And then that like, again, that morphed a lot. So the the two peoples of God idea got ditched, you know, because it was so really so counter to everything the New Testament believes. And yet what remained, one of the things that remained was the idea that that there was still or still some promises or some yes, some promises that were meant to be fulfilled by national ethnic Israel. Now, those are words are important because what we're we have to distinguish between talking about is there some significant future significance for ethnic Jews? That's a separate question from is there significance for ethnic national Israel? So a nation state, a political entity called Israel. So we're not this is where we're separating from maybe, you know, the Jewish people, yeah, wherever that that may be versus a specific piece of land geography, like a political entity, a political entity on a specific piece of geography with ethnic Israel, so ethnic national Israel. Gotcha. So that makes good sense. So that's kind of remained in the in the evangelical consciousness among some. I mean, you know, it's yeah, among the heirs of dispensationalism, I suppose. So, yeah, that's that's a bit of the background. So again, Paul, like we I think that Paul in Romans 9 to 11 sees there being some future. I think he envisions that his fellow, his cousins, if you will, ethnic Jews someday will come to Jesus in greater numbers than they are now. I think that's there's debate over what Paul thinks there. But I think that's a very, very likely. But that's a separate question to that's that's not the same thing as saying is there theological and prophetic significance to a certain that has to be fulfilled in Israel as a nation state, a political as well as ethnic entity and not by sort of the church or whatever. So so this is fascinating because we just did and I'm assuming we'll release this one immediately before the one we're recording right now. But this how to read the book of Revelation, great episode that we did. So if you haven't seen that, you all listening, go check that out because I think that will be some helpful context. For this conversation, because in that episode, we just waited straight into a lot of the what I call like pop culture, Christian fiction, you know, left behind. And some of these guys are writing, I mean, currently all these extremely popular novels around future prophecies being fulfilled, you know, and today and it's all around like the current nation state of Israel and Iran and Russia and all this stuff. Right. So it's very political, but it's also that they're taking current political entities and bundling them in with what we see in Ezekiel and Revelation and you know, and all this stuff. Yeah. So what would you say to someone who is doing that? Essentially, I mean, you know what I mean, that's kind of a broad question. And we hit it from maybe a different angle in that previous episode. But specifically when we think of Israel, the country today, how would you respond to someone like that? So I have there's one main question that I that I want to ask. And then I think that that question needs to be answered by what the prophets and what the New Testament authors think. But before we get there, there's three quick things that I think we have to say first, one, I think it is important to say as we go through this, that that anti-Semitism has been a huge problem in the history of the church. And I think is a particularly heinous, heinous sin. And we what we're what we're saying here today may may be uncomfortable for some people. Right. With with the way that that they're used to thinking. But we want to affirm so much that any form of anti-Semitism is absolutely outside of the purview of the Bible. And no Christian should be should be guilty of of going that direction. So people may hear us and say, oh, my goodness, are you not supporting Israel? No, no, that's not that's really not what we're saying. And we, you know, that that needs to be understood as we kind of as we kind of maybe change the way some some people think about the nation state of Israel. OK, so that's just I just want to be reiterating that. Yeah. But then also, I think one of the along with that, what I think the New Testament teaches is is not what we what some people call replacement theology. So you heard this this term. Yeah, I have, but I don't fully understand it. So I think what what replacement theology refers to is is basically that you know, that the church in the New Testament replaces Israel in the old or something like that. Oh, OK. And so you can kind of, you know, read the Old Testament, cross out Israel and plop in the church or something like that, as though there were two distinct entities and and the one sort of lost its way and and is extinct now. And the church kind of replaces that role and in God's so I don't think the New Testament teaches that. I think it teaches something a lot more organic than that. So we'll get to that. But but I just want to say, I don't think replacement theology is the right is the right way of thinking about how the church and Israel relate to each other in the Bible. OK. And then the last thing I'll say is that when we're used to talking about and this is really relevant to where we're going next, but we people tend to be used to talking about when they think of eschatology, they're thinking of like the last few years before Jesus comes back. That's kind of popular usage of the term. But what but actually for the Bible, Christianity is as all of Christianity is eschatology by definition because what Christianity is is simply the the understanding that the vision of the prophets is being fulfilled. Well, OK, that is a whole new thought for me because it's so common in again, popular Christianity, whatever, here in America to kind of squish all of that into the last seven years before whatever in the Antichrist, this and that. And it's I've I've never heard it framed like that. But that that seems to make sense to me. So don't think about that. The prophets have one big vision. They're not they're not giving little. It's not like a bullet point list of various random prophecies that you can check off when you see individual ones being fulfilled. It's one grand vision of days are coming when I will inaugurate a new covenant. You know, days are coming when I will send a new David. Days are coming when Yahweh will return to his people and restore Jerusalem. And the days are coming when there will be a new heavens and new earth. It's this whole grand vision of the days of restoration, what I call the days of fulfillment. And when Jesus shows up on the scene and announces the kingdom of heaven is at hand or when he stands up in the synagogue and reads Luke, the spirit of Yahweh is upon me. Or when Peter stands up at Pentecost and says, hey, this the speaking in tongues, this is this is evidence that the vision of the prophets has come true. Their belief is that that vision, the days of restoration, God returning to his people and blessing them, forgiving their sins, restoring them so that they obey him with with from the heart. Ultimately resurrection, new creation and all that and the incoming of the Gentiles. That's another part of the vision of the prophets, that all of that vision is coming true. And that's what that's what the latter days or the last days refers to is that whole era. So this is important because it keeps us from being able to just squeeze some of that stuff into the last, kind of think of the last few years before Jesus returns as this distinct moment in redumped of history. It's not. It's the culmination of the days that Jesus inaugurated. Okay, interesting because yeah, and I can kind of anticipate the comments that will come from people reading that. I mean, like, wait, I don't read it that way. I think it's this. So like Paul is in, well, I mean, you know, when Paul is, it goes, stands in front of a grippa and a grippa is like, what have you been doing? He says, well, actually all I've been doing is what the prophets and Moses said would happen, that the Messiah would suffer and that rising that he would be the first to rise from the dead. The first to rise from the, in other words, the first of the general resurrection, the beginning of the resurrection, and that he would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles. He's like, I'm just doing what, what the prophet said was, I recognize that those days have dawned. The outpouring of the spirit and I'm just doing what, you know, what the prophet said. He thinks that that's his, his message, his vision, his role is to, is to spread what Jesus has started to, what has launched, i.e. the fulfillment of the prophets. It's all over the place and you can't understand the New Testament without recognizing that what it is, is the fulfillment of all of God's promises from the prophets. It's one vision being fulfilled. So that being the case then, where, where do, does the, what is the relationship now between the nation state of Israel? Like now we've got some good context. Yeah. Now we, Okay. So now, here we are, oh, no, no, that's, that's, that's so important. Because it's, it's explained the framework of where you're, you're coming from, because that is a pretty different, like, again, I've heard the whole well that the end days are coming, like, like that's a thing that's going to happen. It's going to be a short period of time, you know, this, they'll go through Daniel and it's like seven years this or that or tribulation here, there, whatever, lots of different theories. It does seem to, to push a lot of these prophecies into some undetermined period in the future. That's somehow distinct from now. Yeah. We're even, even some of these things in the New Testament that they're talking about the end of time and whatever as that's out there somewhere, which always struck me as like, okay, does that mean they're not relevant for us right now? Then like, I would always kind of have questions and you're saying, no, that's not really the case. There are some things that obviously still remain in the future, like we're still waiting for the final resurrection and the new creation, like, yeah, the creation, but those things are of a piece. They're part of the same vision of the prophets. It's one grand vision that it's already not yet part. We've, we've, we've been swept into it, but we're still waiting for the rest of it. So there is, we're still waiting for stuff, but it's one, one kind of big vision and not sort of a bunch of random things that we can check off one by one and are not part of a bigger, a bigger vision. Okay. So that's helpful. So the question then, the big question, I think, to ask in, in thinking of the, of the nation state of Israel and the church is just one question, honestly. And that question is, who do the prophets and the New Testament think that the true king of Israel is? That's the only question I think you have to answer. So who do the prophets and the New Testament authors, the disciples, Jesus himself, who do they think the true king of Israel is? Would that not be Jesus himself? Well, one would expect. Or the Messiah? Yeah, the one would think so. But if that's the case, that has massive implications with what, with who, what the Bible thinks, what the prophets and what the New Testament are thinking of when they speak of political Israel. Oh, okay. I got you. So, because we're used to saying, of course, Jesus is the king, but we actually tend to think of that only in some sort of theological and spiritual sense. So, okay. Okay. Let me make sure I'm wrapping my head around this. So if that were the case, if the current nation state of Israel were a fulfillment of these things, Jesus would have to be the king, essentially. By definition. By definition of the nation. Yes. For like, from the Bible's perspective. Yeah. That's what Israel is. Okay. That's a, that's a new thought. So let's, so if we think about the prophets, right? The prophets speak about, so, you know, Isaiah speaks about how God will raise up a stump, a root, a branch from the stump of Jesse, a descendant of David, to rule over his people forever and, and bring about blessing and judgment on the, on the nations and all this sort of thing. The spirit of the Lord will rest on him and whatever. Ezekiel 34 and other places speak of, of Yahweh coming back to shepherd, his people, because all the shepherds were bad. The leaders of Israel at the time were terrible. It's, it's funny. I mean, it's, it talks about how they're, instead of taking care of the sheep, they eat them. Which I get it. I mean, a lamb chop, like admittedly good. But, but that's, so, so Yahweh says, I'm gonna, I will come back to seek the lost, to bind up the stray and whatever. I will be their king, their shepherd. And then he says, I will send my servant David to be their shepherd and their king. So, and then, or in Jeremiah, it speaks of the people, they, they will, in the days to come, serve Yahweh and David their king. Like the whole hope of the prophets is that God will send this new David figure, the Messiah. And, and that, that would be, that would mean the restoration of Israel. That's what, that's what the prophets were looking for. And that's what the people in exile were looking for. God to restore his people by sending David the king. Right. And, and for the, from the prophets perspective, if you, if you would reject, if you would refuse to submit to that, the true king of Israel. And again, they're not talking king in some sort of Christian spiritual sense. Right. But the actual, like legit king, who had massive spiritual significance, but was legitimately like actually the king. And if one were to rebel, not submit, not be loyal to that king, one would be cut off from the people. You can't be part of it. You couldn't be part of Israel from the prophets perspective. There's really no category for being part of Israel. And yet refusing to submit to the new David. Okay. Right. I mean, you're out, that's treason. And that's, and you're failing to go along with, you can't just, you know, be in a kingdom, especially God's kingdom, and be like, yeah, but I'm just rejecting. I'm not going to, I'm so not going to submit to the king of Israel. Okay. Yes. But I'm anticipating the comments to say, well, yeah, but that's going to happen at some point. But until then, this is like what we currently have. The current nation state of Israel is just a part of the, I don't know, I'm making this up as I go. I'm not fully familiar with all this stuff, but they would say, well, yeah, but it still applies to all these prophecies about the end of time. But remember, from the prophet's perspective, when they speak of Israel in the future, they're speaking of the people who are ruled by that king. That's what they're thinking. They're not thinking some other strange thing down the future that has nothing to do with the kingdom, with the Davidic Messiah. They have no category for that. So when, again, because it's such an easy trope to use, but when Tim LaHaye is writing about all these wild prophecies that get fulfilled, you know, and it's surrounding the nation state of Israel, and so he's writing mostly in the 90s, early 2000s, left behind series. What you're saying is that could never be a legitimate fulfillment of those prophecies because that's talking about a completely different entity than what the prophets in the Bible are actually referring to. If you would give that to the prophets and say, look at this, this is amazing, they would say, oh, wow, that's great. The Messiah is doing all sorts of stuff. And you'd be like, oh, no, no, no, no. This has nothing to do with the Messiah. And they'd be like, oh, well, then I guess it doesn't really have anything to do with what we were talking about because, again, it's one big vision about God restoring his people in and through the Messiah. And for them, that's what Israel can only mean the kingdom that God rules through David, through his servant David. That's what they mean. And so you're doing something, you're doing violence to what they mean. If you try to pull what they think would be fulfilled in the age of the Messiah and by him and sort of pull it in other directions, I think. Now, wouldn't some of these models split it up to be like, well, that age of the Messiah is coming, but it's not here yet. And in the meantime, it's this and like what we are currently seeing. And therefore it still works. Like they kind of split it into, I think I'm following. So that takes us, I suppose, to a couple of passages in the New Testament because I think that interpretation works if you don't believe the Messiah has come yet. So if you're a non-Christian Jewish person, then maybe, right? Maybe so. Whoa, okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying. But if you're a Christian, I think that's you can't go there because you'd have to basically say that Jesus maybe someday will be the Messiah, but isn't yet, right? And what's fascinating is how both... Hold on, let me just pause it right there. You're saying if Jesus would one day be the Messiah, but is not yet, would there not be theories out there to say, well, yeah, because he's coming like diversions and all that stuff, but he hasn't come back as like the reigning king yet. That's like still to come. So it's like, it's still like going to happen at some point. So it's true that he has not yet put all his enemies under his feet, right? And yet the New Testament speaks of him as being exalted at the right hand of the Father. Jesus himself says, all authority after the resurrection has now been given to me in heaven and on earth. Like the disciples and acts speak of use the Psalms, Psalm 2, and other places to speak of him as the reigning rightful Messiah, that the nations rage against him, against Yahweh and his anointed Messiah. But he's God's enthroned, he is the God's enthroned king. So it's true that he hasn't yet exercised his judgment and stuff, but that hasn't happened yet. He hasn't fully established his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And yet it takes us, it's actually an analogous situation to David, I think, David's life where David is anointed king, he's the rightful king, but he wanders around for a while before sort of God gives him control over his enemies, right? Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, and again, all of the disciples would never allow to say, well, we'll give allegiance to some other king of Israel. Because, and wait, you know, no, they're like, no, Jesus, the whole idea is Jesus is the Messiah. And once the Messiah has come, he's the king. And if he has a weird twist and turns for how he runs his kingship, that's kind of his prerogative, not ours, right? Okay, yeah. So, and this is, I mean, this is how the Gospels open up. So Matthew opens up with like really highlighting the Davidic identity of Jesus, the book of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David. And then there's his genealogies that are structured around, so it goes from Abraham to David, from David to the exile, which is the loss of the Davidic kingship. And then the exile, the loss of the Davidic kingship to Jesus being born, i.e., the return of the Davidic kingship. Okay, yeah. And then it's, I mean, the wise men, right, sorry, the people that sort of the scribes and the priests recognize, they tell Herod and the wise men, oh, you, Bethlehem and the land of Judah are by no means among, at least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel, right? There's this understanding right away that this is the true rightful king of Israel. And, or in Luke's Gospel, we read that the angel, right, the angel Gabriel speaks to Mary when she announces, when he announces the birth, the conception and says, don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God, you will conceive in your room and bear a son, you shall call his name Jesus, he will be great and will be called the son of the Most High and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there will be no end. And, I mean, that's how Luke chooses to, you know, kick off his Gospel. And then Zechariah says the same thing in his, in the Benedictus, blessed be Yahweh, God of Israel, before he has visited and redeemed his people, he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show us the steadfast love promised to our fathers, etc. So, like that front loads, the whole expectation is the king has the Davidic Messiah, the true king of Israel has arrived. And from then on, what it means to be part of Israel has to politically, I mean, like the nation of Israel in a sense, means, understands that these aren't metaphors, that it's not like the New Testament authors are saying nice cute, you know, theological things about Jesus, but that they genuinely believe that this is the rightful descendant of David, who is the rightful heir to the throne of Israel. So, would people that have this other interpretation that we've been talking about, would they look at that and just say, well, that's just figurative, or that's going to be fulfilled at some point in the future, but it hasn't happened yet? Like, what's the response there to this passage? It's possible that there would be this, I mean, all Christians recognize that this is true, by definition. I do think there has been a tendency to spiritualize it a bit though. And then also maybe to say, well, like you said, maybe when Jesus actually returns or something like that. I think I've heard that one for sure, where it's like, well, yes, that will happen, it just hasn't happened yet. Right. But again, you have Matthew 28, Jesus after his resurrection says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, or what Peter says in the beginning of Acts, where he says, you guys rejected him, that wasn't good. So then he says, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified. He believes that Jesus is, oh, and he says that he ascended to heaven and having received the promise of the Spirit from the Father, he has poured this out. So this is one of, on his followers, right? This is one of his Jesus, kingly acts, right? As the exalted Messiah, he pours out the gift of the Spirit, which is what the prophets basically said would happen, right? Paul speaks of God having highly exalted him after his humiliation and given him a name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, the bowling maybe hasn't happened yet, but the exaltation for Paul has, right? God has exalted, he is the exalted Messiah. Whoa. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So for us today, how does this affect our lives and how we look at these things? And again, we're saying this in the context of the nation state of Israel currently, right now. But also for us as Christians as, here we are, it's 2024. Okay. So what do we have to do this? That was a long time ago. Like what does that mean if Jesus is king? Now what? Yeah. So there's one interesting, there's multiple places like this, but before I talked just about a couple of passages in the New Testament in the epistles, there's this one fascinating passage, just one of my favorite passages in the, in Isaiah. And my students are, I think, tired of hearing me say, this is one of my favorite passages because I just keep filling them up. And you're like, man. But Isaiah chapter 19, because one of the, one of the expectations of the age to come, the kingdom of God, God, what Israel will mean as God restores his people in the age of fulfillment is this understanding that this is going to mean some changes to, of course, what it means to be part of Israel, right? It's going to be built around more allegiance to, to the true king. And also it's going to, it's going to mean more Gentiles are coming in. And it's not immediate. It's not always super clear in the prophets exactly how that's going to work out. But that is definitely part of the expectation that Gentiles will be, you know, streaming in and worshiping Israel's God and submitting to the true king. And there's this one passage though, that's sort of a mindblower, because it pictures, it pictures Israel and Israel's worst enemies as together, altogether becoming the one people of God. So just really briefly, because this is important for setting up the New Testament, I think, chapter 19, verse 19, in that day, again, in that day, right? It's like this great, the prophets love this, this language of the future of the, what we could call the last days. There will be an altar to Yahweh in the midst of the land of Egypt and a pillar to Yahweh at its border. Like, okay, it will be a sign and a witness to Yahweh in the land of Egypt. And then it says, when they cry to Yahweh because of oppressors, they being Egypt. When Egypt cries to Yahweh because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender and deliver them. You're like, wait, that sounds like the exit story. Yeah. But it's the plot twist because this time it's an Exodus story where instead of Egyptians being the oppressors, it's God doing an Exodus for Egypt, right? Okay. Yeah, I've not noticed that before. It's taking the Exodus story and saying, and inverting it, right? It's saying the people who were the worst enemies of Israel, the people that God exodused Israel from, God could give them their own exodus, right? God could give them the same story he gave to, God could give the oppressors of his people, the same story he gave to his people, right? And then he goes down, there's more to this, but then he talks about this highway from Egypt to Assyria and Assyria will come into Egypt. And if you're a Jewish person, this is not the highway you want to go on, right? Because Assyria is the, if Egypt is the nation that God redeemed his people from, the exodus, Assyria is the nation that carted off the northern tribes into exile, right? Right, right, a very, very horrible place. So I like to say to people, you know, if you have a choice between getting captured by Assyria or ISIS, you choose ISIS every day of the week. Because ISIS is, you know, ISIS sounds terrible, but Assyria is, you know, unspeakably terrible. So there's this highway and it says the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians and you're like, whoa. And then this mind blowing passage, if you're reading this for the first time or hearing this as someone, the first hearers of Isaiah, in that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth. This is the Abrahamic promise whom Yahweh of hosts has blessed saying, blessed be Egypt, my people. And the phrase, my people is Israel language only. Blessed be Egypt, my people and Assyria, the work of my hands and Israel, my inheritance. That's amazing. It's crazy. Whoa. And what you're not supposed to do is be looking and say, oh, you know, ones are going to be a super highway going from like, you know, Iran or something to Egypt in the modern day. No, what Isaiah is saying is that in the days to come, when, you know, God comes to restore his people, this will also include taking what were the worst of the worst, the worst enemies of God's people and making them part of the one people of God. So that has to factor into what we. Wow. What we see in the New Testament, where the New Testament authors start saying, God's bringing the Gentiles in and he's not bringing them in a second class citizens or as sort of their own thing that's, but bringing them into what it means to be Israel. Yeah. So I think that takes us to the most important passage in the New Testament for thinking about the relationship between ethnic Israel and the, and I won't say the church, but I'll say ethnic Israel and Gentiles. Yeah. Again, because I don't believe in replacement theology. I don't think that it's not that Israel's gone, Israel's out and that now we have this new entity called the church. And again, this all, this all centers around, who do we think the true king of Israel is? Because if Jesus genuinely is the true king of Israel, then what it means to be Israel is from Paul's perspective, going to mean, so he sees, he talks about this olive tree. He uses his olive tree metaphor, right? And the olive tree is Israel. That's the base of the tree, right? It is Israel. So what it means to be God's people is to be Israel, to be part of Israel. It's not to be part of the church as some separate entity. It means to be part of Israel with Jesus as the king. Now, which passage is that? So this is Romans 11. Okay. So Paul says, and in this passage, he's talking about what do we, how do we think about the fact that so many Jewish people aren't believing and other stuff. So he says, he talks about this, this olive tree. He says, if some of the branches were broken off, so what does it mean to be broken off? Well, here what he means is, look, there are Jewish people who have not, believed and have not submitted to Jesus. And therefore they're broken off of the olive tree, which is the true Israel. What it means to be true theological Israel. And then, so some of them are broken off and you guys, you Gentiles, some wild olive shoots, so basically weeds, just some lame weeds that are useless, are grafted in. So Gentiles have no stake in God's promises by ourselves. Paul will say that in Ephesians, you guys used to be strangers to the covenants of promise, far away from God's mercy, having no hope without God because you weren't part of Israel. The promises were given to Israel. But through Jesus, you can be grafted in to the one tree, which is the Israel tree. The base is Israel. What does it mean to be Israel? Well, ultimately it means Israel is the people that the son of David rules. And that consists for Paul of ethnic Jews who submit to Jesus as the king. And not ethnic Jews who don't, they're broken off the tree. But also Gentiles who somehow, they shouldn't be part of the tree, right? But they submit to the true king of Israel and so they get sort of grafted in to the one tree. And so they can rightly be called part of the one tree, the Israel tree. So it's not replacement. It's a grafting in of people who shouldn't be in, right? To the one Israel tree. And it's a cutting off of those who are rebelling against the true king. That makes so much sense. Like that seems to tie so clearly with what you were saying in Isaiah, right? That was 19, you know, talking about Egypt and Syria, both the enemies of God's people. But one day actually being able to be a part of this, which, oh my, that is kind of mind-blowing. Right. Actually, like, yeah, I've not actually, I don't remember that passage from Isaiah. Superbowl passage. Like, I think we kind of read that in our modern years and just kind of, right, just buzz right over that. And but when you start realizing like Egypt, Assyria, like those are the archenemies of the archetypal baddest. They are, yeah, exactly. Really quote unquote bad for, yeah, bad if we're in Israel. I mean, they were just, I mean, they were bad news. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So this is this, Paul says this in a different way when he speaks of ineffusions. You guys at one time were called, you were Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision. So ethnic Jews considered you outsiders. And you guys were, at that time, separated from the Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. You weren't part of the kingdom of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world. So you weren't part of Israel. And that means you had no hope of salvation because salvation, Jesus, salvation is of the Jews, right? It comes through, it comes through what God is doing with Israel, i.e. the Messiah. Yeah, and this is Ephesians. Where's Ephesians two? Ephesians two. But now in Messiah Jesus, you guys who used to be far off, in other words, Gentiles. He's not talking about, oh, you had a sinful life. No, he's saying you Gentiles who had nothing to do with the promises that God's people have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah, because he is our peace who has made us both Jews and Gentiles into one and broken down the dividing wall of hostility, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two. And he came and proclaimed peace to you guys who were far off, you Gentiles, and peace to those of us who were near us, ethnic Jews. For through him, we both Jews and Gentiles have access in one spirit, because the spirit is the one of the promises of the prophets, the eschatological age, into the Father. And so he says, you are no longer strangers and aliens. You're no longer sort of migrants and, you know, and stuff, but you are fellow citizens with God's holy people. That's Exodus language, right? You belong to the kingdom of priests. You're part of Israel and members of the household of God. And built together into this holy temple. So again, Paul is thinking of what it means to be part of true Israel as being part of the people where God is at work in Jesus. But again, it's not metaphor. It's not replacement theology. It's because he firmly believes that the promises come to Israel through the true king of Israel. And many have chosen not to follow Jesus, ethnic Jews, and they're cut off from that the true Israel trajectory or tree. And Gentiles have been brought in, right? But then Paul says, but remember, you Gentiles don't get high and mighty because you guys kind of are in the tree, but you probably naturally shouldn't be. And that means you could get locked off if you, again, if you yourselves reject Jesus. But also he says, doesn't that mean that God would be more than happy to regraft in those branches that he's locked off? In other words, those ethnic Jews that have rejected Jesus. And that's Paul's big hope is that that would happen. But again, what they're getting grafted into is back into true Israel, which is the Jesus ruled Israel. For Paul, that's the only Israel that is really the political sort of Israel. If you want to say it that way, that's theologically and prophetically significant. That is what the prophets are talking about for him. Okay. So we're taking kind of this whirlwind look through scripture. And I'm sure there's a lot more here. But that kind of covers a lot of the basics, I think, of the, I think, in Testament sense. So I'm just thinking, like, if people want to be studying this on their own afterwards, I would assume you'd say, well, reading the major prophets, first starters, we'll read the prophets. But you were also reading specifically from Isaiah 19. Then you were reading Romans 11. And Ephesians 2 was what you were just looking at. Like, are there certain things? I think it's honestly the New Testament. Okay. Really, I would almost start there because they are taking all of this and processing it in real time. And so you get things like Ephesians, where Paul is working this out with Gentiles and saying, no, no, you're part of the one people of God, which for him is Israel. The true is true Israel, right? i.e. Israel ruled by the Messiah or acts or Peter, first Peter, right? First Peter speaks to Gentiles and calls them the kingdom of priests, the holy nation, the fellow citizens or whatever. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think at the end of the day, some people are going to still be tripped up and say, well, what about the specific prophecies to Israel in the Old Testament? Exactly. But again, what Paul, Jesus, Peter, and I think Isaiah himself, and then would have said is, what do you mean? Like, don't you believe that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel? Like, when we speak of prophecies to Israel, we're speaking of prophecies to Israel as, you know, whether maybe there's, you know, before Jesus, there's some this time return from exile and stuff that speaks of Israel, why Israel before Jesus showed up on the scene at the beginning. But then they would be like, prophecies to Israel are fulfilled in Israel with its Davidic King, right? Yeah. And so we're not, again, we're not spiritualizing it. We're not pulling it out and saying they don't apply to Israel. We're saying what the prophets mean and what the New Testament means by, theologically, by Israel as a nation is the nation that is not a democracy, but a kingdom ruled by Jesus, the Messiah. And so, I mean, if we want to speak of what does this have to do with the current war, right? Like, what can we say about the current situation? I was going to say, like, I'm sure people are watching it or listening and saying, okay, well, what does that mean for the current, you know, situation or the current nation that is called Israel now? Yeah. So I think one of the things we can say is that I do not think it will ever be possible for Hamas or anyone else to ever fully eradicate the Jewish people. I think that God's, I think that God's providence over them will not, I'm not speaking of the nation state. I'm speaking of ethnic Jews. I think that will remain because, again, I think Paul and others are longing for, waiting for a day when far more of them turn, return to their rightful Messiah and find salvation. And so I think when Jesus returns, there will still be plenty of ethnic Jews that won't have gone extinct as a people. So I think we can say that. I don't think Hamas or the surrounding neighbors will ever be able to completely white obliterate ethnic Jews from the earth, right? But if we're saying, well, is this war or any of these other wars or any kind of things related to this political, modern nation state of Israel, like the fulfillment of a point on a prophecy chart, beyond the providence question, right? I think the answer has to be no. And the reason, again, is simply that what the prophets mean by Israel is the people who are under the rule, who are submitted to Israel's true King, not the people who are under the rule of Bibi Netanyahu, right? Bibi Netanyahu is not the prime minister of Jesus, right? And he would actually be really offended if I were to suggest that, because he doesn't, he rejects Jesus as the rightful King of Israel. He's the prime minister of the current nation state. Right. But it's not like that nation state is acknowledging Jesus as King. No. And therefore, in the biblical sense, that is not, that's not what the prophets and that's not what the New Testament means by the nation of Israel. Okay. There's only one nation of Israel that theologically, and that is the nation of the people that are under the rule of Israel's true Messiah. So would you say then the current country on the map that is Israel now, which has many ethnic Jews living within it, is just another political entity? Or yeah, how do you think about it? And I think it has a right to exist. I think I'm really glad it's there. And I think there's many good things about it. And we can be favorable toward it for a variety of reasons. The only thing we're not saying is that that modern nation state of Israel is what any of the prophets or the New Testament authors are speaking of when they speak of Israel. Because when they speak of Israel, they're speaking again of the nation that is ruled by the Davidic Messiah. Yeah. I think that those are important distinctions to make throughout this. I think that was when I was there. I was kind of surprised. It is this very secular. It's a secular country. Just like many other places I visit, whatever. And there are some other things about it that are very special, very unique. Of course, absolutely. And I love my time there to be very clear. Food is fantastic. Yes, exactly. I absolutely loved it. It's a great place. But it did seem a little hard for me when I was coming out of that. I mean, like, wow, is this it? Like, I don't know. It just felt kind of like, really? Like, it felt like there should be more here, right? I mean, what am I missing? And I didn't really know what to do with that. It's not something that I get into that much. But then when we're both here at Faith Builders and we're having some discussions about it and just hearing some of this research and stuff that you've compiled on it. It's like, oh, OK, that does help me put some pieces together here. Because it did feel a little, I don't know, lackluster. Not really. But it was like, I'm not seeing what I'm reading in the prophets. No, right. It's like, is this really it? Right. You know. Because what you're reading in the prophets and the New Testament is, again, all surrounded, all wrapped up in what God is doing through the Messiah. Jesus. So I guess I'm just still kind of confused then as to how dispensationalism, the whole Tim Lehey interpretation of these things, has gained so much popularity. It feels like that's more of an American phenomenon. It is an American recent phenomenon, yes. And some of it has to do with, and we talked about some of this when we talked about revelation, is a very inappropriate reading, hermeneutic, for reading the prophets. And this like imposing what I, the way I think the prophets should be read, this like expectation that everything needs, things need to be literal the way I think literal, what I think literal means, and a failure to say, what was Isaiah thinking? What did he think he meant? And then what do, how did the New Testament authors pick up these prophecies? Right, and as a Christian, as someone who submits to scripture, I can't impose, say, like my top priority is make things as literal as possible. And so I'm going to impose that onto the text. And you end up, you can't do it because you end up figured making so many things figurative anyway, symbolic, right? So you talk about Egypt and Assyria and those end up being, you know, Iran and some other countries that aren't Assyria, right? Oh, Assyria's just saying, so no matter how you slice it, everybody is still having to put symbolism. Right, of course, because like the Timlahays of the world, maybe they think they're reading literally. But again, they're imposing modern, the tanks and trucks and Russia and all these modern technology and events that are just not in the text. Like they have to treat things as symbolic anyway. That's a really good point. But that's where I think a lot of people think, oh, I'm reading this literally. When I see Israel, I'm not meaning some figurative entity called the church. I mean Israel, the one in the Middle East. But I say that's not what Isaiah meant when he was looking forward. He wasn't thinking of that. He was thinking of what God was doing to restore his people through the Messiah. And when the New Testament authors looked back at the prophets and then looked forward, looked right around them at what God was doing in the world then through Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit, they said, oh, this is that, right? What's happening now is what the prophets said would happen. And so as a Christian, I want to see how did they read the prophets? And I'm going to try to try to follow their footsteps. And I think, yeah, but I think the dispensational approach had originated or gained popularity because it fed people what seemed like, kind of falsely, but seemed like a literal way of reading the Bible, but it's not. And it's not certainly what the New Testament authors thought was going on. And it was probably getting a lot of popularity right when Israel was becoming a nation, and people were like, oh, it's starting to happen. And now that we're 80 years removed from that, a little less than 80 years, since the nation of Israel started, perhaps we're starting to see, okay, start to rethink this. I don't know, I just sense there's a lot of question going on out there of like, wait, how do we read this? Right. And again, the modern nation state of Israel is under God's providence. And that's not the question. We can say, I think it's providential that it exists, but that's a separate question from saying that is the theological recipient of specific promises in the Bible, right? As Paul says, all of God's promises, by which he means these great promises in the prophets, find their yes, their fulfillment in Jesus. So as we have dove into some waters that are controversial and may have, yeah, again, the comments should be quite interesting on this video, because people have lots of opinions about these things. What is the takeaway people can have as they come away from this, whether they agree, disagree, or like, I don't know, it doesn't really matter, all of that, what is a piece that anybody watching this or listening can take away from this for their own lives? I think for one thing, as Gentile believers ourselves, I think it's so, we've grown up in the church, and so we think of ourselves as, of course, for Christians. But I think we need to regain a fresh sense of wonder or like, strangeness that God has, like, we don't have any rightful claim on being part of God's people. And so a sense of wonder and humility that God's brought us into the true people of God, and that there is, we are actually part of, we've been grafted into the story of Israel. And I think another takeaway could be sharing with Paul the hope that Jesus' cousins, his ethnic cousins, would increasingly return to their rightful king, that whatever happens in the Middle East and the political side, the modern political side of things, that Jews all over the world would find their true king. That's powerful. Yeah, I just thank you for coming on and sharing this, and another piece too is hopefully this is inspiring people to, like you were saying, just start reading the New Testament again, you know, and really studying this and go back to scripture because that's what it's about, you know, and Jesus as king. So yeah, thanks for taking the time. Thanks for sharing today. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode with Paul Lomicella. If you found this interesting, you should see the other one that we made about how to read the book of Revelation. Of course, you can find all our content on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org. We also have a monthly email newsletter that you can sign up on our website and an exclusive partners podcast that's only available to those that support us monthly. All of that you can find on our website. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you in the next episode.