I was reading through Hebrews 6-8 the other night and a memory of a 'fight" jumped in as I read the writer of Hebrews absolutely declaring an absolute end to the old administration of the Covenant of Grace.
Every now and then, when I write or teach- I get people pretty rankled at me.
For example, whenever I teach through the Book of Revelation, the pushback usually comes right around chapter 7. People want to pin me down on Israel, the Church, the 144,000, and whether I believe in
“replacement theology.” I don’t.
One sweet lady charged me after Sunday School back in 2004. She had her giant Bible, a red face, and I had only a small podium to guard me!
"I can't believe the presbytery or elders of this church would be very happy if they knew you were teaching replacement theology!"
My reply? "No ma'am, I'm so sorry I didn't make that clear enough for you, I do not believe in replacement theology, I like to call it "expansion theology."
I don’t believe God discarded His promises to Israel, and I certainly don’t think He runs two separate plans of salvation—one for Jews and one for Gentiles.
God’s promises to Abraham were never meant to end with national Israel. They were always designed to flow through Israel to the nations, so that His mercy would cover the whole earth."
She softened a little, and my best guess is she never turned me in to the elders, but I bet it was a topic at tea.
For a long time I leaned toward the idea that the 144,000 and the great multitude in Revelation 7 were simply two ways of describing the same people, similar to the way Revelation 5 uses the pattern of “I heard” and “I saw” to describe the Lion and the Lamb.
But the more I’ve read and wrestled with it, the more I’ve come to believe that the text is actually presenting two distinct but united groups: the 144,000 representing the Jewish believers and the great multitude representing the Gentile believers. Even so, it would be hard to argue that 144,000 is a literal number—it’s a cubed multiple of twelve, a number of symbolic fullness and completion, not a census.
To press the math would miss the poetry. The real beauty of the number is that it testifies to God’s faithfulness to Israel. At the same time, the vision of the innumerable multitude fulfills His promise to Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.
Revelation 7 remains mysterious to me, especially with the elder’s strange question to John: “Who are these?” and John’s almost sheepish response, “Sir, you know.” It is a reminder that these apocalyptic visions often baffle the very ones who receive them. That in itself makes me hesitant to claim certainty. The more I teach it, the more I find myself marveling rather than mapping out charts.
When I step back from Revelation and listen to the rest of the New Testament, I find a helpful balance between Hebrews and Romans.
Hebrews is relentless in declaring the end of the old covenant system. “When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law.” “By calling this covenant new, he has made the first one obsolete.” The priests, the sacrifices, the temple rituals—these were shadows pointing to the substance that is Christ. Hebrews leaves no room for reviving the system. It is finished because He has come.
But Romans reminds me that while the system is gone, the people of Israel are not cast away.
Paul grieves over his countrymen, laments their unbelief, and yet insists that their hardening is partial and temporary. “Has God rejected his people? By no means!” He envisions a day when “all Israel will be saved,” not through a return to temple sacrifices, but through a turning to the Messiah Himself.
He pictures the Gentiles grafted into Israel’s olive tree, sharing in the root of the promise, not planted in some separate field of their own. And he insists that one day God’s mercy will rebound back toward Israel after it has swept across the Gentile world.
This vision keeps me out of the two ditches where people often land.
On one side is replacement theology, which says Israel is discarded and the Church alone carries on.
On the other side is restorationism, which imagines a revived temple system running alongside the work of Christ.
Both miss what I believe the New Testament actually teaches. The continuity lies with the people, not the system. The discontinuity lies with the old administration of the covenant, not with God’s faithfulness.
Paul ties it all together with that sweeping statement in Romans 11: “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all.” Salvation went to the Gentiles because of Israel’s unbelief, but God promises that mercy will circle back again.
None of us has any room to boast, because every single one of us—Jew or Gentile—stands in need of mercy. And Paul cannot end the discussion without erupting into doxology: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!”
That’s where I want to end too.
Humanity missed the first coming of Christ—who really “got it right”? I don’t have much confidence we’ll nail the second coming with all our charts and timelines either.
But I am confident of this: God’s mercy has swept me up in it. It will sweep up His people Israel as well. And in the end, the system is finished, the people remain in play, and the story belongs to one Savior who is gathering His multitude, from 144,000 to countless stars, all washed in the blood of the Lamb.
So where does all of this leave us today?
If Hebrews tells us the old system is finished and Romans reminds us the people are still in play, how should Christians think about Israel and the Jewish people in our own time?
First, we should approach with humility. Paul’s warning in Romans 11 is sharp: do not become arrogant toward the natural branches. Gentile believers are only grafted in by grace, and we owe our very life in Christ to promises first given to Abraham’s family. The right posture toward the Jewish people is gratitude, not pride.
Second, we should approach with hope. Paul saw a future day when Jewish hearts would turn in large numbers to Christ. That should fuel our prayers, not arguments. We pray for God’s mercy to sweep through Jewish communities, just as we pray for our neighbors and the nations.
Third, we should approach with love. If God has shown mercy to sinners like us, then our posture toward the Jewish people—indeed toward all people—ought to be one of kindness, compassion, and genuine desire for their good. Anti-Semitism in any form is utterly foreign to the gospel. The God who grafts in wild branches also promises to restore natural ones.
So while modern questions about the State of Israel are tangled in politics and history, the biblical posture for Christians remains clear: we honor God’s faithfulness to His promises, we pray with longing for Jewish people to know their Messiah, and we remember that mercy is the great equalizer. Jew or Gentile, priest or rebel, ancient branch or new shoot—the same Savior gathers us all.
Postscript:
Some readers may wonder, “If this is how we think about God’s covenant people, does it give us any insight into how we should approach Muslims?” While the situations are different, there are echoes worth noting. As with the Jewish people, humility must guard us against arrogance. Hope should fuel our prayers, since God’s mercy is wide enough for every tribe and tongue. And love must mark our witness—real, compassionate, patient love. Just as Paul longed for Israel to see their Messiah, so too we long for all people, including Muslims, to see the beauty of Christ. Our approach must be shaped by the same mercy that saved us.
What helps me is that I don't feel pressure to convert a heart, I feel a great privilege to share a gift and let God do the miraculous work in others... just as He did in me.
