Significance of Israel

The significance of Israel is progressively realized as scripture unfolds the first telling of the land, people, and promise takes about 25 years of Abraham’s life.

Telling

In Genesis 12 when Abram was 75 and childless, the Lord said, “Go to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you … and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

The promise of special linage was reiterated clearly and at least three more times by the Lord over the next decade before Abram opted to abandon the plan. Impatient, he tried for a son through his wife’s maid Hagar. Fear informed Abram’s choice. But the Lord stood by his word and made Abram and Hagar’s son Ishmael into a great nation.

Was Abram worthy? No. Nonetheless the Lord proceeded to make a special everlasting covenant with Abram naming him Abraham, and Sarai naming her Sarah through which their son Isaac would come. It is through this lineage that God extended his promise for the inheritance of the land and ultimately the parentage of Israel’s royal line.

Telling again

Fast-forward a generation, and Isaac’s son Jacob had secured his father’s blessing. Twenty years passed and in Genesis 32 we find Jacob a mess. He was paralyzed in fear and desperately reminding God of His covenant – as if God had forgotten.

It is here that Jacob physically wrestled, was broken, and blessed by God. It is here that God said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.” A broken, blessed, changed man, and promise reaffirmed.

Telling again and again

This cycle of struggle and affirmation of promise replays through the stories of the children of Israel in the Pentateuch, the historical books, books of wisdom, poetry, and the prophets. Here the revelation of God’s character and the plan for his people are both progressively revealed. The stories layer like in a painting. It is the land. It is the people. But the significance of Israel is all about the revelation of God to his people.

For thousands of years the Jewish people have been waiting for the Messiah. The book of Exodus speaks to the Passover Lamb, Leviticus points to the High Priest, Ruth to a Heavenly Kinsman, Samuel an Anointed One, Zechariah a pierced son. These and more are the strokes that paint the Messiah Israel awaits. It is through Israel that the Messiah is promised.

Fulfilled

This all culminates in the person of Jesus the Messiah. Israel’s savior is realized and validated through his birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection. It is through Israel that the Messiah is found and through Israel that God redeems his creation. Israel is the avenue God chose to show the world he keeps his promises. From there his chosen people may find hope.

Fulfilled and added

It is only after the coming of Israel’s Messiah that the extent of God’s redemption is made known.

The composition of God’s chosen people would forever change. Ephesians 2, and other passages, elucidate that through the Messiah gentile believers may join the Jewish believers into one body. This is the significance of Israel to all of humanity, that gentiles might partake in God’s covenant along with God’s special people by way of Jesus’ redemptive work. Romans 11:18 speaks the nature of how gentile believers are grafted into and sustained by the root of biblical Judaism.

Joined together this is the great promise given to Abram, “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” Only through Jesus could the two become one. In Acts 15:9 when speaking of both Jewish and Gentile believers Peter said, “… He [God] made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.” Jesus is how familial peace is finally made possible for the descendants of Abraham.

Fulfilled with more to come

Israel entered in to yet another diaspora in the days of the early Church. This lasted nearly two thousand years until the call for the establishment of the Jewish Homeland was a serious possibility. Famously the Israeli Declaration of Independence took place on May 14th 1948 when the Jewish state became known as it is today, the State of Israel.

Ezekiel 37:14 is visible today at Jerusalem’s Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem. “… I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’”

This is part of the final prophecies regarding Israel. These will remain incomplete until the return of the Messiah. Until that time, God gives us through Israel a sustaining hope, and hope in the promise of His return.

Thank you for partnering with Israel Today Ministries as together we bless children, Holocaust survivors, and families in Israel (Gen. 12:1-3; Matt. 25:40).

In Him,

Scott Johnson, MA