Dispensationalism Theology, Israel and You

 And you will say, ‘I will go up against a land of open country; I will come to the people being at rest in safety, all of them dwelling without a wall and crossbars and without doors,

Ezekiel 38:11 (LEB)

How is the theology of Dispensationalism related to the country of Israel? Dispensational theology teaches that God has a separate path for an ethnic or national group of people, and they will have a different path or purpose than regular believers in the Messiah. This belief system takes on many forms, but it is where many people derive the idea that no one should ever question the 2025 country called Israel in Western Asia, and this country, Israel, should be supported one hundred percent of the time in order “not to be cursed” and to be “blessed.”

From the gospelcoalition.org:

Dispensationalism asserts that ethnic/national Israel remains significant in God’s purposes and will be so in the future. In addition to saving a remnant of believing Israel in this age, God will save and restore ethnic/national Israel as a whole in the future. 

The ideas of dispensationalism are similar to the first-century teachings of Marcion. He believed there were two gods, one for the “Jews” and a new one for “Christians.” The idea that the “Jews” are going to take a different path than the followers of the Messiah gives us two paths of salvation and two gods. Thinking that God would handcuff followers of the Messiah and actually curse them for pointing out atrocities that any country commits, because God supposedly has a different plan for them, is ludicrous.

Anyone that follows this blog knows that I think dispensationalism theology is a great deception. There are other systems of theology, such as replacement theology, covenant theology, and commonwealth of Israel theology. Replacement theology teaches that the “Church” replaced ethnic Israel and takes on the things promised to them. They believe the “Church” became a “spiritual Israel.” Covenant theology teaches that there are different covenants that apply to people and is part of Reformed theology and Calvinism. Commonwealth theology (COI) teaches that the wall of hostility has been broken down between those of the nations and the commonwealth of Israel. This concept is named from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In this translation, “citizen of Israel” is used instead of “commonwealth of Israel.” Paul was not talking about citizenship of the 2025 country of Israel. He would not be allowed to be a modern Israeli citizen based on the laws of return.

Ephesians 2:11–16 (LEB): ¹¹ Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, the so-called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, ¹² that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you, the ones who once were far away, have become near by the blood of Christ.¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who made both one and broke down the dividing wall of the partition, the enmity, in his flesh, ¹⁵ invalidating the law of commandments in ordinances, in order that he might create the two in himself into one new man, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, killing the enmity in himself.

Paul puts forth the message that there is “one new man” in the Messiah. People from the nations are able to be brought back to the family of God. Branches of the family that were broken off are able to be grafted back into the cultivated olive tree of Israel. However, to understand what we are talking about when we say “family of God” or “Israel,” we will have to look at the whole story of Israel (not the country in 2025), Abraham’s calling, their meeting God at Mount Horeb, the dividing of the kingdom, the ten tribes being dispersed for unbelief and divorced from God, etc. This is too much to go through here, but the following is a link to one of my earlier posts that tries to explain our place in the new covenant and our identity: Lost Identity and the New Covenant.

As far as the 2025 country of Israel is concerned, it looks to me like that nation is comprised of those identifying as Jews who have moved to the historical holy land of the Bible. In order to return and become a citizen there, it is interesting to note that it is not open to Jews who have converted to a religion other than Judaism. Yet they will grant citizenship to secular Jews and atheist Jews. I must conclude that these are not followers of Yeshua the Messiah and could be what Paul calls “natural branches that have been broken off.”

Romans 11:17–23 (LEB): ¹⁷ Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although you were a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a sharer of the root of the olive tree’s richness, ¹⁸ do not boast against the branches. But if you boast against them, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. ¹⁹ Then you will say, “Branches were broken off in order that I could be grafted in.” ²⁰ Well said! They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand firm because of faith. Do not think arrogant thoughts, but be afraid. ²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. ²² See, then, the kindness and severity of God: severity upon those who have fallen, but upon you the kindness of God—if you continue in his kindness, for otherwise you also will be cut off. ²³ And those also, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, because God is able to graft them in again.

If we go with the dispensational theology view that we have to bless the 2025 country of Israel in order that we are not cursed, then that means the people who are Israeli citizens are a more special type of “Jew” than Jews living anywhere else. The government of Israel claims to be the country for all the Jews in the world (except Jews who have converted to Christianity). This means that the country of Israel claims to represent the views of a Jew who is an American citizen and has no intentions of ever living in the country of Israel. Does that mean Jews that were born and raised as citizens of other countries believe that Israel represents their beliefs? Absolutely not, and some directly oppose Israel’s actions and resent the fact that Israel is projecting these actions on Jews that have nothing to do with the actions of Israel. Are Israeli citizens following the Messiah and grafted back into the cultivated olive tree? Of course not! The thought of this does not enter their minds. This is why the country of Israel has no bearing on Christianity, other than it being that region of the world that contains the holy land of the Bible.

Galatians 3:26–29 (LEB): ²⁶ For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.

The importance of the Jewish people is still immense. They preserved the Torah and kept the “oracles of God” as Paul stated. They did this for 3300 years- some years with a kingdom, some years under captivity-all before there was a country called Israel.

The country of Israel being created in 1948 is important to dispensational theology’s eschatology. The politicians in the British parliament who pushed the notion of creating Israel thought the idea was beneficial to their belief system and that they were fulfilling prophecy. Their wishes did not prevail at first. A brief history from The Office of the Historian.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Britain and the United States have been shaping policy in the holy land since World War I, and it is purely political. This is why there has been nothing but bloodshed, turmoil and debauchery since 1948. It has nothing to do with the God of Abraham or Messiah Yeshua. There are many resources to research that explain how we have arrived at the geopolitical state we find ourselves in Western Asia today, This has nothing to do with the faith.

More importantly, Yeshua is going to return, and it looks like he will return to the holy land according to scripture. What will we find there at that time? Will the wars, oppression and lawlessness persist?

Matthew 24:4–14 (LEB) ⁴ And Jesus answered and said to them, “Watch out that no one deceives you! ⁵ For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will deceive many. ⁶ And you are going to hear about wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you are not alarmed, for this must happen, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise up against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.

⁹ “Then they will hand you over to persecution and will kill you, and you will be hated by all the nations because of my name. ¹⁰ And then many will be led into sin and will betray one another and will hate one another, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and will deceive many, ¹² and because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold. ¹³ But the one who endures to the end—this person will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in the whole inhabited earth for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

The prime minister of Israel believes that he is fulfilling prophecy and fighting the Gog and Magog war according to quotes in Israeli newspapers. My opinion is that Ezekiel 38 is talking about the Millennial Kingdom, and it is the same war we find in Revelation when the adversary is released after the thousand-year reign of the Messiah.

Revelation 20:7–9 (LEB): ⁷ And when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison ⁸ and he will go out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to assemble them for battle, whose number is like the sand of the sea. ⁹ And they went up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the fortified camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

Compare this to Ezekiel 38 where Gog and Magog attack a peaceful people living on a land that was formerly uninhabitable, or ruined.

Ezekiel 38:10–12 (LEB): ¹⁰ “ ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “And then on that day, things will come up on your mind, and you will devise evil plans. ¹¹ And you will say, ‘I will go up against a land of open country; I will come to the people being at rest in safety, all of them dwelling without a wall and crossbars and without doors, ¹² to loot loot, and to plunder plunder, to assail inhabited ruins and a people gathered together from various peoples and who are acquiring livestock and goods and dwelling at the center of the world.

In the modern country of Israel, the building code requires safe rooms (mamad) in residences to protect against direct hits from missiles, shrapnel, and airborne threats. This sounds like “walls, crossbars and doors” to me. The current country of Israel cannot be part of the Gog and Magog prophecy. If this is the same landmass spoken about in Ezekiel, then it will unfortunately become “ruined” before the peaceful people in Ezekiel 38 will be living there; ” “to assail inhabited ruins and a people gathered together“.

In conclusion, do not be distracted by politics and the different narratives used to manipulate the masses. Keep God’s commandment’s, love God, love your neighbor, test the prophets and spirits, and keep the faith of Yeshua!