According to the Bible, Is There a Difference between Israel and the Church?

One of the great things about growing in the grace of the Gospel is learning that the Gospel is the central connecting point and really the only thing that should divide believers. There are very mature believers in the history of the Church who have differing views of Israel as a people and the Church as a people and how a physical and a spiritual people do, and don't, meet together, how they mesh. One of the important pieces of the Book of Deuteronomy is: you see a People saved by grace. You see a People that haven't earned salvation. And we know very clearly from the New Testament that God's people are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ alone, there's nothing that we can do to merit God's favor. If righteousness could be obtained by the Law - Galatians 2 - then Christ died for nothing. So we know that from beginning to end, God's people have been a people saved by grace. And this side of the cross, every tribe, tongue and nation will be saved by the grace of the Gospel, and those are The People of God. So in that sense, yes, the true people of God (Galatians 6) - the New Israel - is the Church, it is the collection of those people saved by grace through Jesus Christ who are the people of God. Some people would call that "the New Israel," would call the Church "the New Israel." Some people would say there's a special place for a physical people - Israel - in the saving work of God somewhere in the future in God's plan.

Again, there are many believers that have divided, and thought differently about that, you look at places in Romans where you have very godly commentators differing on Paul's words concerning Israel. I think Paul makes an assumption, though, that "True Israel" is not merely physical Israel, when you get to some of those controversial passages, that True Israel is not circumcised in the flesh, but circumcised in the heart. And that comes only by the saving work of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God through Jesus Christ, and faith in the Gospel.

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