Should Christians Bless Israel To Receive God's Blessing?
Is Ted Cruz right about blessing Israel? Or is Israel “just another nation”?
The modern state of Israel is a nexus of global conflict.
The war in Gaza is approaching its second year. The twelve-days war against Iran has just concluded. Here in the States, antisemitism has reached levels I’ve only read about, both on the political left and right. While racial prejudice is as old as the tower of Babel, there is a uniquely powerful hatred against the Jewish people and the modern nation of Israel.
Why is this small people group (about 14 million Jews world-wide) and tiny nation (10 million Jews and Arabs) at the center of so much conflict?
Should Christians “Bless Israel”?
Recently, an exchange between Senator Ted Cruz and the journalist Tucker Carlson about Israel made the rounds. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here.
Senator Cruz makes the case, referencing the Abrahamic Covenant of Genesis 12, that those who “bless Israel will be blessed”. He used this scripture as justification for America’s strong alliance with Israel and even participation in the war with Iran.
Tucker Carlson, who is also a Christian, raked Senator Cruz over the coals, mocking him for believing Genesis 12:1-3 had any bearing on our relationship to the modern state of Israel.
He highlighted important differences between the Jewish people, the modern state of Israel, and Christians who are descendants of Abraham “by promise.” Carlson implied that Cruz is basing America’s foreign policy off bad biblical theology. For Tucker, Israel is “just another nation” that does not deserve special treatment. For Cruz, Israel is uniquely favored, and America’s blessing depends on supporting her.
The debate made it clear that biblical theology around Israel is impacting U.S. foreign policy, even impacting decisions to go to war.
Seeing how Biblical interpretation is impacting government policy, and the growing controversy around Israel, I’ve spent the past several weeks taking a deep dive into what the Bible teaches about Israel and the Jewish people. Some of what I learned has changed how I think and speak about the issue.
I hope this will help all of us, those in power and those on their knees in prayer, to think and pray biblically about Israel.
Israel in The Book of Romans
Paul wrote the book of Romans primarily to address “the mystery” that most Jews had rejected the Messiah, leading to the salvation of many from the Gentile nations.
He sounds the main theme of the book in Romans 1:16-17
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, ‘the righteous shall live by faith.’”
The core of his argument is that both Jews and Gentiles (Gentile is a Jewish way of saying “people from other nations”) are now both saved in the same way, by the grace of God, through faith in the resurrected Messiah, Jesus Christ.
The advent of the new covenant has revealed a mystery: natural Jews who were part of the Old Covenant through birth, circumcision, and devotion to the law and were prepared to receive the Messiah for 2,000 years, are now excluded from the New Covenant because of unbelief.
The Mystery is two-fold: How can the Gentile nations be included in the promises of Abraham by faith? And how is it that much of Israel is excluded because of unbelief?
Will the Real Israel Please Stand Up?
Often, when talking about “Israel”, we get tripped up by words.
For instance, Paul says things like, “not all Israel is Israel.” That’s not confusing, right?
As the apostle Peter said of Paul, “there are some things [in his letters] that are hard to understand.”
However, I think his thought is remarkably coherent; we just need to clarify which group is being referenced in each context.
Paul talks about three different groups regularly:
Believing Jews
Believing Gentiles
Unbelieving Jews
Paul uses “Israel” as a synonym for “Jew” and switches back and forth between both terms. So, “believing Israel” and “unbelieving Israel” are synonymous with “believing and unbelieving Jews” respectively. By Jews and Israel, he is referring to an ethno-religious nation that was geographically centered in the Roman region of Judea at that time.
In addition to this, in our modern discourse, we have a new category: the modern nation-state of Israel.
So, we have:
The modern nation of Israel
Ethnic, Cultural, and Religious Jews who do not believe in Jesus (unbelieving Jews)
Jewish Believers
Gentile Believers
According to Paul, which of these groups has inherited Abraham’s Blessing?
Issue 1: Do unbelieving Jews and/or the modern state of Israel possess the blessing of Abraham?
In speaking about the importance of “blessing Israel”, Senator Cruz was, of course, referring to Genesis 12:1-3, the promise to Abraham to “bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”
“The LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’” Genesis 12:1-3
Before diving into the controversy, it bears mentioning that this passage, all on its own, is a powerful apologetic for the truth of God’s word. Consider the predictions:
Abram will become a great nation
Abram will become famous (he will have a “great name”)
Abram and his descendants will be a blessing
Every nation on earth will be blessed through Abram
4,000 years later, Abraham is famous, with billions of people tracing their spiritual ancestry to him. Do you need evidence that the Bible is God’s word? The promise of Genesis 12:1-3 has been visibly fulfilled. Every nation on earth has been blessed through him!
Correcting Cruz
As we see, the promise was not to those who “bless Israel” but to those who “bless Abraham.”
The blessing of Abraham passed down to Isaac and Jacob, then to the nation of Israel, and then to both Israel and Judah in the divided kingdom of the Old Testament.
Does the blessing of Abraham now belong to the modern state of Israel or Abraham’s natural descendants, unbelieving Jews?
The Apostle Paul is incredibly clear that the answer to this question is “no.”
This may be surprising and even upsetting to many believers who feel a deep love and affection for unbelieving Jews and the modern state of Israel. Paul himself was deeply affectionate and passionate about his unbelieving countrymen. However, he viewed them as being excluded from Abraham’s promise because of unbelief.
In Romans 4, Paul says,
“[Abraham is] the father of all who believe without being circumcised [Gentiles]…and the father of the circumcised [Jews] who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had…for if it is the adherents of the law [unbelieving Jews] who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.” Romans 4:11-14
Paul’s point is clear: the promises to Abraham, including the blessing of Genesis 12:1-3, are now available to Jews and Gentiles alike, but only by faith in Jesus Christ. Unbelieving Jews, those who follow the law of Moses but do not have faith in Jesus Christ, are no longer heirs of this promise. They are welcome to come into the Father’s house and become heirs at any point, but only by faith in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Ishmael and Esau
Paul makes his point even clearer in Romans 9. Speaking of unbelieving Israel, those Jews who do not believe in Jesus, he says:
“not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but ‘through Isaac [not Ishmael] shall your offspring be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh [unbelieving Israel] who are the children of God, but the children of the promise [believing Jews and Gentiles] are counted as offspring…” Romans 9:7-8
Paul compares unbelieving Jews to Ishmael, the son of Abraham, who did not carry on the promised line, and to Esau, the son of Isaac, who did not receive the blessing.
Ishmael and Esau each received lesser blessings because of Abraham, but they did not receive the promise of Abraham. Unbelieving Jews are children of Abraham “according to the flesh” but not “according to the promise.” They are Abraham’s natural children, but apart from faith in the Messiah, they cannot receive the promise given to Abraham.
Meanwhile, people of every nation, through faith in Jesus Christ, are grafted into the promises given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and fully incorporated into the entire history of Israel.
In other words, if you want to “cash in” the promise of Genesis 12:1-3, go and bless other believers in Jesus, either Jew or Gentile. In fact, the Lord himself gave us a commandment on how to do this: “Love one another just as I have loved you,” telling us, “If you understand these things, you’ll be blessed when you do them.”
I think we must conclude that Senator Cruz is incorrect.
Romans 4 and 9 are quite clear that these Abrahamic blessings are now flowing to Jewish and Gentile believers by faith in the Messiah, Jesus. If we want to “be blessed” in this sense, we need to bless the church of Jesus Christ, both Jew and Gentile.
Issue 2: Are the Jews just like any other people? And is modern Israel just like any other nation?
So, if Ted Cruz is wrong in applying Genesis 12:1-3, Tucker Carlson must be right that there is no continuing divine purpose for unbelieving Jews or the modern state of Israel. The Jews are just another people, and Israel is just another nation.
Sometimes in Scripture, we can get the “right answer” from the wrong passage. That has clearly happened in the case of Ted Cruz’s theology of blessing Israel.
Paul is very clear that the full blessings of Genesis 12:1-3 are now only available by faith. However, he is equally clear that there is a strong continuing purpose for natural Israel (unbelieving Jews).
In addition, the re-emergence of a Jewish nation in Israel is predicted by Jesus himself, along with many of the prophets. Because of this, Cruz’s overall favorable sense towards unbelieving Jews is decidedly Christian, even if his reasons for it are directly at odds with Paul’s reasoning in Romans.
What’s still special about unbelieving Jews? And how should Christians view the modern state of Israel?
Here’s some of what Paul and Jesus have to say about this mystery:
There is an ongoing Missionary Priority to reach the Jewish People
Paul declares that the gospel is “first for the Jew, then for the Greek.” In his own ministry, he always modeled this by first preaching in synagogues, then going to the Gentiles afterwards. Paul most often received his greatest and most violent opposition from unbelieving Jews. In spite of this violent opposition, he continued this practice throughout the entire book of Acts.
There is no sign that this order was ever reversed or removed by God. That means Gentile believers today have a clear missionary priority to unbelieving Jews, including and especially those in the nation of Israel.
One of the simplest ways for us to live this out is to support Christian or Messianic Jewish groups in Israel. I particularly respect and admire groups like Tikkun, Succat Hallel, and Jerusalem House of Prayer for All Nations, although there are many, many incredible ministries reaching unbelieving Jews with the gospel.
I believe that by honoring this missionary priority of the gospel “first to the Jew”, both in prayer and proclamation as Paul did, we will not only see Jews come to faith, we will also see an acceleration of the gospel going to the nations.
Unbelieving Israel is beloved because of their forefathers
In Romans 11:28, Paul says:
“As regards the gospel, they [unbelieving Israel] are enemies for your sake. But, as regards election they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.”
In Romans 9:3-5 he says:
“I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.
As believers, we are to regard unbelieving Jews similarly to how we regard unbelieving family members. They are enemies of the gospel, but beloved because of our family history and connection.
Just as there is a special intensity of love that drives our prayers for unbelieving family members, we are to experience that same grief-mixed love and longing for the Jewish people.
God is using Gentile Believers to make unbelieving Jews jealous
A key to understanding the mystery of what has been happening for the last 2,000 years with natural Israel is Deuteronomy 32. Throughout Romans 9-11, Paul has this Scripture ringing in his ears. If you want to understand God’s continuing plan for unbelieving Israel, I’d encourage you to read it and meditate on it.
Deuteronomy 32 is the song of Moses, his final warning to the children of Israel, where he predicts their future unfaithfulness and the judgments that will come upon them. Paul sees the Jews who rejected their Messiah as living under the judgment Moses prophesied in Deuteronomy 32.
“So, I will make them [natural Israel] jealous with those who are no people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.” Deut 32:21
Paul quotes this passage in Romans 10:19. Then, in Romans11:11, he says,
“through their trespass [unbelief in the Messiah] salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make [natural] Israel jealous.”
Deuteronomy 32 predicts all kinds of conflict, controversy, and judgment for natural Israel because of their unfaithfulness, before God ultimately saves them at the very end.
Revelation 15:3 picks up this theme, where those who come out of the great tribulation “sing the song of Moses, the servant of God (that’s Deuteronomy 32) and the song of the Lamb.”
If Paul is right in seeing Deuteronomy 32 as describing natural Israel after the rejection of their Messiah, we should not be surprised by the controversy and conflict that Jews and the modern state of Israel are experiencing. This is part of their controversy with God, and will not go away until they repent and say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”
While we should not be surprised by this conflict, that does not mean we should somehow join in it and persecute unbelieving Jews—far from it! We are called to make them jealous not by hatred and animosity, but by walking by in the promises of Abraham.
Here is why it is important to understand why Jewish and Gentile believers, and not Jewish unbelievers, possess the promises of Genesis 12:1-3. It is because our possession of these promises, the worship of the Jewish Messiah by 2.3 billion Gentiles, and the promised gift of the Holy Spirit are intended to stir up jealousy in natural Israel. When they look at us, they must see that we Gentiles have received Abraham’s blessings, growing jealous because of the intimacy and love we experience with the God of Abraham through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Gentile believers are not to be arrogant toward Jewish unbelievers
In light of the reversal of fortunes, natural Israel being cut off from Abraham’s promises, and Gentile believers being grafted in, Paul knew there would be a natural tendency for Gentile believers to be arrogant towards Jewish unbelievers. Unfortunately, there are many examples of this, past and present.
However, this is contrary to our assignment to stir natural Israel to jealousy. We are to do so by manifesting the promises of God in our lives, not by gloating over unbelieving Israel because of our position as children of God. Paul warns that this mindset will lead to Gentile believers experiencing a falling away from the faith.
Natural Israel has experienced a hardening that will not be removed until the Great Commission is fulfilled
In Romans 11:25, Paul says,
“Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in…”
Paul sees that a remnant of Jews, including himself, have believed in their Messiah. He sees a biblical parallel from Israel’s history during the reign of Ahab. Elijah thought he was the only one faithful to Yahweh, but God told him that there was a remnant of 7,000 who were still faithful.
Paul and Jesus both reference the curse of Isaiah 6:9-13 about unbelieving Israel:
“Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy and blind their eyes lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and be healed…”
Unbelieving Israel is under this hardening until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. This refers to the completion of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20. While the Jewish people as a whole have been hardened, this is only a ‘partial hardening’. Any Jews who wish can be saved by faith, and indeed, a remnant have received salvation by faith in every generation.
Jesus predicted Jerusalem would again be controlled by natural Israel
It should be clear that Paul sees a strong, continuing covenant purpose for unbelieving Israel. However, he says nothing about the modern state of Israel. Is Tucker right that the modern state of Israel is “just another state?”
While Jesus says nothing specific about the “state of Israel”, he says quite a lot of things about Jerusalem, the capital of Israel. Often, when we want to talk about the whole nation, we only speak of the capital city, and it was the same in Jesus’ day.
In the week before he was crucified, Jesus prophesied multiple times that Jerusalem would be destroyed in judgment for their rejection of the Messiah.
Predicting the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus says:
“[The Jews] will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all [Gentile] nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the [Gentile] nations until the times of the [Gentile] nations are fulfilled…” Luke 21:24
Jesus clearly foretells that ethnic Jews will be removed from the governance of Jerusalem for an undisclosed time and wander among other nations, and that other nations will rule over Jerusalem until “the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” In other words, Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled by the modern state of Israel after 1,900 years.
To me, that clearly makes Israel a state with prophetic significance.
It should be noted that many other Old Testament Scriptures also predict the return of ethnic Jews to their historic home in Israel. Some may say that those Scriptures were fulfilled in the Old Testament period; however, Paul keeps referencing those same Scriptures to explain what will happen to unbelieving Israel in relation to the gospel.
So, the re-emergence of a Jewish state in the Holy Land is very significant prophetically.
This does not tell us how we as believers should engage with Israel. As Romans 9-11 and Deuteronomy 32 make clear, God himself has a “lovers’ quarrel” with unbelieving Israel until they repent and believe the gospel. So, we should not expect all the actions and decisions of that state to be right.
As we said earlier, in terms of unbelieving Jews, the right analogy for our heart posture toward the state of Israel is an unbelieving family member.
Unbelieving Israel has a prophetic purpose: They will be saved close to the time of the Lord’s Return
Paul makes it clear that the “partial hardening” that has come upon Israel, the veil that is over their eyes, preventing them from trusting in their own national Messiah, will be removed once the “fullness of the Gentiles” has come in. Then “all Israel will be saved.”
This can be nothing other than the fulfillment of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20:
“Go into all the world and make disciples of all [Gentile] nations…”
Jesus says it this way in Matt 24:14:
“The Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
While there is a missionary priority to the Jewish People, “first to the Jew…”, there is also another dynamic at work, where “the first will be last”. Paul sees prophetically that the first nation to receive the good news, Israel, will be the last nation to welcome it. Earlier in Romans 11, He links the salvation of Israel to the resurrection of the dead:
“If their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?”
Clearly, the mass turning of unbelieving Israel to Jesus, their Messiah and our Messiah, has massive end-time implications. It will be closely associated with the Lord’s return and the resurrection of the dead!
Here, the words of Paul agree with the words of Jesus. Both wept over their unbelieving countrymen:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets…I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood…but you were not willing. See, your house [the temple] is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say [at my second coming] ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Conclusions: How Should We Treat the State of Israel and the Jewish People?
Speaking for believers from all nations (not just as an American), we must view the Jewish People and the state of Israel just as Paul tells us—"they are enemies of the gospel (not of us) for our sake, but beloved for the sake of the forefathers.”
If you have ever had a father or mother, a son or daughter, a brother or sister who fell away from the Lord, you know how to feel about unbelieving Israel. They are beloved because they are family. They are enemies of Christ, and yet, we were all once enemies of Christ. He died for us all while we were His enemies.
While we must view them with love, we must not view them with sentimentality. As a nation, they are running from God in unbelief, and this is both very serious and very dangerous. Their experience as a nation has been and will be similar to what individuals who run from God experience—moments of significant pain and hardship, interspersed with moments where God extends mercy, often from His people. Our role as believers in this is to pray for them to “come home”, show them kindness and love, demonstrate righteousness and unity, and share the good news about Jesus with them in a way they can understand.
So, the appropriate posture towards unbelieving Jews is certainly one of blessing, not so that we can receive the promises of Abraham as Senator Cruz claimed—we have already received them in Christ—but so that they can fully receive them by the Spirit, through faith in the Son of David.
We have a missionary priority to “first to the Jew, then to the Gentiles”. Part of our missionary call is not only to reach all nations with the gospel, but also “to make [unbelieving] Israel jealous.” And indeed, it is stunning to think that Jesus, the world’s most famous Jew, is better beloved in Uganda, Taiwan, and Brazil than in Israel.
Paul charges us not to be arrogant towards unbelieving Jews, recognizing that what happened to them can happen to us—All of us, Jew and Gentile, are only included in Christ by grace through faith.
While Senator Cruz was theologically wrong about blessing natural Israel to receive the promises of Abraham, he was directionally correct. Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, was technically right about Genesis 12:1-3, but misses God’s ongoing purpose both for the Jewish People and the modern state of Israel—Jewish control of Jerusalem and the return of Jews to the promised land is certainly a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the words of Jesus.
However, this does not tell us how nations should treat the modern nation of Israel.
Certainly, we would expect that since the nation as a whole continues to reject their Messiah, that all their decisions will not all be right and righteous. Personally, I am very proud of my nation for standing with Israel, but we must not have a sentimental view of unbelieving Israel. Running from God is not a good long-term strategy for individuals or nations, and this quarrel between God and unbelieving Israel goes back generations.
We can expect that trouble and turmoil will continue to swirl around that nation, in fulfillment of passages like Deuteronomy 32, Daniel 12, and Isaiah 6, until the veil is finally removed and they cry out, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Until then, let’s love them, mourn over them, pray for them, and share the gospel with them. The family of God won’t be complete until “all Israel is saved.”