This Is Not That: Israel

The Gospel That Outgrew Borders

If you’ve been around what has been labeled “church” long enough, you’ve heard this a few times:

“We have to stand with Israel, or God won’t stand with us.”

Cue the fear. Cue the politics. Cue the confusion.

It sounds noble—faithful even—but what if that fear is built on a misunderstanding of a promise that Jesus already fulfilled?

We inherited a version of faith that confuses loyalty with trust, as if God’s blessing hangs on which side we stand on instead of who we stand in. Somewhere along the way, the focus shifted from Jesus to geography, and fear rushed in to fill the gap.

This is the trouble with religion: it never met a fence it didn’t want to mend.

But the gospel, in all its scandalous grace, is in the business of tearing those fences down.

So let’s tear one down together.

The Verse That Started the Fear

It all traces back to one ancient promise:

“I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:3).

For generations, that verse has been used to make Christians afraid not to support modern Israel in every way—as if “blessing Abraham” meant endorsing a political state or defending every military decision.

But look again. God isn’t talking to a government, a flag, or a future army. He’s talking to Abram—a person through whom all nations would be blessed.

That’s not foreign policy. That’s prophecy.

What the Promise Was Really About

Fast forward to Galatians 3:8, where Paul spells it out:

“Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’”

Paul calls this promise the gospel ahead of time—the good news that through one descendant, Jesus, the world would find its blessing.

“The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many people, but ‘and to your seed,’ meaning one person, who is Christ” (Gal 3:16).

So “blessing Israel” doesn’t mean endorsing a nation-state. It means trusting the Seed (singular—not plural) who fulfilled what Israel foreshadowed.

God didn’t subcontract grace to a government. The blessing He promised Abraham showed up wearing sandals and drinking wine with sinners.

Jesus Fulfilled What Israel Foreshadowed

The story of Israel is the story of a God who chose a small, unlikely people to reveal His heart to the world.

The land, the law, the temple, the sacrifices—all of it was grace in breadcrumbs, leading humanity toward a feast. They were never the destination; they were the setup for the One who would fulfill it all.

In the words of the Apostle Paul, the Law was like a “guardian”—something meant to guide us for a season. But once Jesus arrived, “we are no longer under a guardian” (Gal 3:24–25).

For this reason, Jesus doesn’t continue Israel’s project; He completes it.

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17).

To fulfill means to bring something to its intended end. Every shadow—Passover, priesthood, promise—finds its substance in Him (Col 2:17).

So when people still treat modern Israel as the center of God’s redemptive plan, they’re basically clinging to the shadow when the sun has already risen.

In short: once the show’s over, you don’t stay in the theater waiting for the trailers to come back on.

The True Israel Is a Person — and Everyone in Him

Jesus isn’t for Israel; He is Israel. He’s the faithful One who lived the covenant perfectly, bore the curse, and brought the nations home in Himself.

“Out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1).
Matthew applies that not to the nation but to Jesus (Matthew 2:15).

And this isn’t new. It’s what God had been hinting at all along:

Genesis 17:7–8:
“I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant…”

Again, the Hebrew word zeraʿ—“seed”—can sound collective, but it’s singular. Then comes the reveal:

Genesis 22:18:
“And through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Paul ties it all together:

“If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:29).

No national boundary. No ethnic hierarchy. The covenant family has been blown wide open.

In other words, the family photo got retouched, and guess what? Everybody’s in it. Even the weird uncle.

The Kingdom Isn’t Geographic

Jesus told a Samaritan woman—someone Israel’s purists despised—that the place of worship no longer matters.

“A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:21–24).

What does that mean? It means God moved out of the zip code business. The holy land became the whole land.

Every bit of dirt is sacred now because Christ fills all things (Eph 1:23).

Through Jesus, God stopped renting temples and bought the whole block.

There Is No Jew or Greek — Only Oneness in Christ

Paul saw what so many still miss: God’s grand mystery wasn’t about preserving a nation; it was about unveiling the reality of our union.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

To say otherwise isn’t just delusional—it’s destructive. Every time we rebuild the wall Jesus tore down, we start seeing ourselves and others through the old tribal lens of nationality, ethnicity, and religion—as if belonging still depends on the boundaries we draw.

It’s the delusion of control dressed up as faith—the lie that we can secure our place by separating ourselves from someone else.

But in doing so, we undo the very purpose of His life, death, and resurrection. Jesus didn’t come to start a better tribe; He came to end the illusion that we were ever separate to begin with.

“He has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14).

Religion keeps trying to glue the curtain back together, but the veil’s been ripped from top to bottom—and God’s out mingling.

The Old Covenant Has Died — Let It Be

Hebrews lays it flat:

“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear” (Heb 8:13).

The old stage is gone. The curtain’s down. The play’s been fulfilled.

And what does that mean for us?

It means the United States is right to see Israel as a valued ally in the Middle East. That partnership has strategic importance, and people are free to embrace it for what it is—but also free to see when it’s not.

Let’s just stop baptizing that alliance in divine language, as if God somehow needs a nation—or any nation—to carry out His will. The kingdom of God is not a political project; it’s a Person who already made His home in us.

And sure, that’s not easy to see with so many Christian leaders saying the opposite. But most of them are also preaching a Greek mythology in the name of the “gospel” and running a Roman institution masquerading as the “Church.” So you’re free to ignore them on this topic—and probably a few others too.

Because here’s the thing: the scandal of grace is that God didn’t pick sides—He picked everyone. Hence, the only promised land left is the one called Christ.

So maybe it’s time to stop fighting over the map, and start enjoying the meal.