Israel or the Church?

God promised Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse,” and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). The same line is repeated over Jacob, “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you” (Genesis 27:29), and over Israel, “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you” (Numbers 24:9). Paul says that promise was made to Abraham and to his seed, “who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). So it does not land on everyone born an Israelite. “It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham,” and “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:7, 29). “No one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly… a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart” (Romans 2:28–29). “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel… it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise” (Romans 9:6–8).

Paul compares God’s people to one olive tree. The root is the promise to the fathers. Some natural branches, Israelites who did not believe, “were broken off because of their unbelief,” and Gentiles, “a wild olive shoot,” were “grafted in” to share the root (Romans 11:17–20). God has not rejected Israel: “at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). Cut-off branches can be put back “if they do not continue in their unbelief” (Romans 11:23). Jesus said the same kind of thing. The tax collectors and prostitutes “go into the kingdom of God before you,” because the leaders did not believe (Matthew 21:31–32). “Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness” (Matthew 8:11–12).

So the people who receive the blessing are the true seed of Abraham: Jewish believers, the remnant, plus Gentile believers grafted into the same tree. That is the church. Ethnic Israel is still the people the Messiah came from, and Paul still loves them and hopes they will be grafted back in (Romans 11:23–28). But being born Jewish does not by itself keep a person in the tree. Faith in Christ does. Unbelief cuts a branch off.

Jesus says the claim can be false. To Jews who said “Abraham is our father” and were seeking to kill him, he answered, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did… You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:39–44). He was not speaking of every Jew. He was speaking to those particular opponents. The risen Christ says the same of people in Smyrna and Philadelphia: “I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9; 3:9). They claimed the covenant name while opposing him and his church. The name did not make the claim true.

That is also how the blessing works toward other people. Jesus tells his disciples, “Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me” (Matthew 10:40). And, “whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42). Receiving them is receiving him. The old promise now runs through Christ to his people. How someone treats the church for his name’s sake is how they treat him. Those who only say they are Jews, and are not, stand under the warning, not under the blessing.