---
title: "Israel and the Church"
category: "theology"
description: "Paul spends three chapters of Romans on whether God is finished with Israel, and answers no. What the Church is, what Israel still is, and how the two stand together in God's plan today."
tags: ["dispensationalism", "one-new-man", "mystery", "romans", "ephesians", "revelation", "method/word-study", "lang/greek"]
questions: ["Has the church replaced Israel?", "Does God still have a plan for Israel?"]
draft: false
primary_passage: "Romans 11:1-29; Ephesians 2:11-22"
bible_references: ["Romans 9:1-6", "Romans 11:1-5", "Romans 11:17-24", "Romans 10:1", "Isaiah 59:20", "Hebrews 8:8-10", "Jeremiah 9:25-26", "Genesis 17:5", "Acts 18:2", "1 Corinthians 10:18", "1 Corinthians 10:32", "Ephesians 3:1-9", "Colossians 1:25-27", "Daniel 2:27-30", "Revelation 7:1-9", "Zechariah 12:10", "Galatians 6:16", "Galatians 3:29", "Romans 2:28-29", "1 Peter 2:9", "Amos 9:11-15", "Romans 15:8-12", "Isaiah 49:6", "Genesis 12:3"]
date_created: 2026-07-24
date_modified: 2026-10-21
ai_provider_models:
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5
  - anthropic/claude-opus-5.5
  - anthropic/claude-sonnet-5
---

# Israel and the Church

Paul gives three chapters of his longest letter to one question: now that Gentiles are streaming
into the people of God, is God finished with the Jews? He asks it in as many words: "has God
rejected his people?" (Romans 11:1). His answer is μὴ γένοιτο, by no means.

**God keeps Israel and the Church as two peoples, and He keeps His promises to both.** The Church is
something God created at the cross out of believing Jews and Gentiles, on terms no prophet had been
told about. Israel is the nation God chose, still under His irrevocable calling, currently hardened
in part, and destined to meet her Messiah at the end of the age. Neither has taken the other's
place, and a Christian today stands inside the first while praying for the second.

## Key Takeaways

*(This section follows the [Key Takeaways](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/key-takeaways/) format — see that page for what each part is for.)*

### Types & Prophecy

**Prophecy.** Paul calls two things a **mystery**, his word for something God kept undisclosed
until He disclosed it. One is already in force: Gentiles as "fellow heirs, members of the same body,
and partakers of the promise" (Ephesians 3:6). The other is still ahead: "a partial hardening has
come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be
saved" (Romans 11:25-26). Zechariah gives that second day from Israel's side: a spirit of grace
poured out, and "when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him"
(Zechariah 12:10). These are stated predictions.

**Type.** The olive tree of Romans 11:17-24 is an illustration rather than a type in the strict
sense. Paul builds it himself to make one point about arrogance, and he keeps the branches
distinguishable throughout: natural branches broken off, a wild shoot grafted in, and natural
branches grafted back "into their own olive tree" (11:24).

### Lessons about Jesus

- He is the peace between the two, and the maker of something that did not exist before: "that he
  might create in himself one new man in place of the two" (Ephesians 2:15).
- He is Israel's own, by descent and by right: "from their race, according to the flesh, is the
  Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever" (Romans 9:5).
- He is the Deliverer Israel is still waiting to recognise: "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he
  will banish ungodliness from Jacob" (Romans 11:26, drawing on Isaiah 59:20).

### Memory verses

> ✝️ Romans 11:29 (ESV)
>
> 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

> ✝️ 1 Corinthians 10:32 (ESV)
>
> 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,

> ✝️ Ephesians 2:19 (ESV)
>
> 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and
> members of the household of God,

### Be Transformed

- **Think.** Paul aims this doctrine at Gentile self-congratulation: "do not be
  arrogant toward the branches… it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you"
  (Romans 11:18). A Christian who reads the Church's inclusion as the Jews' demotion has drawn the
  conclusion Romans 11 was written to forbid.
- **Attitude.** Hold both halves without flinching. Israel is, right now, "enemies for your sake"
  as regards the gospel and "beloved for the sake of their forefathers" as regards election
  (Romans 11:28). Dropping either half is easier than carrying both, and Paul carries both in one
  sentence.
- **Do.** Pray for Jewish people by name and by nation, and expect an answer. Paul did: "my heart's
  desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved" (Romans 10:1), written by a man who
  had every human reason to give up on them.

### Prayer

Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you do not take back what you give. You called a people and kept
calling them through every unfaithfulness, including mine. Thank you that the same promise that
holds them holds me: that I was far off and have been brought near by the blood of Christ, and that
you made us one without making us the same. Keep me from the arrogance Paul warned the Gentiles
about. Hasten the day Jerusalem looks on the one they pierced and knows Him. In Jesus' name. Amen.

## Study outline

- **Romans 9-11, in four sections** — [Why Romans has three chapters on this](#why-romans-has-three-chapters-on-this) · [Paul's question, and his answer](#pauls-question-and-his-answer) · [The olive tree of Romans 11](#the-olive-tree-of-romans-11) · [What Romans 11 says is still ahead for Israel](#what-romans-11-says-is-still-ahead-for-israel). The occasion in Rome, the believing remnant, the grafted branches, and the hardening that has an end.
- [Jews, Greeks, and the church of God](#jews-greeks-and-the-church-of-god). Three groups in 1 Corinthians 10:32, and the one new man Ephesians 2-3 says was created at the cross.
- [What Scripture means by a mystery](#what-scripture-means-by-a-mystery). Daniel's *raz*, what the prophets already said about the Gentiles, and the [two mysteries](#two-mysteries-and-neither-cancels-the-other) of Ephesians 3 and Romans 11 side by side.
- [What Paul declines to say](#what-paul-declines-to-say) and [what most English translations drop](#what-most-english-translations-drop). All 68 New Testament uses of "Israel", and "Israel according to the flesh" at 1 Corinthians 10:18.
- [The case for reading the Church as Israel](#the-case-for-reading-the-church-as-israel). Galatians 6:16, three further texts, and the Old Testament use of *ekklēsia*.
- [Two companies in Revelation 7](#two-companies-in-revelation-7). The 144,000 and the great multitude, and the argument for reading the list symbolically.
- [What the commentaries say](#what-the-commentaries-say). Four study Bibles, passage by passage, including where they disagree with this study.
- [How Israel and the Church relate today](#how-israel-and-the-church-relate-today). What belonged to Rome in the 50s, what transfers, and five conclusions.
- [Discussion questions](#discussion-questions). Six, for a group or on your own.

## Why Romans has three chapters on this

The question has a date and an address. Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome around AD 49. Suetonius
records riots over "Chrestus," almost certainly a garbled *Christus*, and Acts 18:2 confirms the
expulsion from the other side, in the persons of Aquila and Priscilla. For several years the Roman
congregations therefore met as Gentile bodies with their Jewish founders gone. Then Claudius died,
the edict lapsed, and Jewish believers began filtering back into churches that had grown up without
them.

The *ESV Study Bible* lists among the five questions Romans exists to settle: "What does the
salvation of Gentiles indicate about the future of Israel as God's people?" It assigns that question to
9:1-11:36. Romans 9-11 is one of the things the letter is
for, written to a mainly Gentile readership (1:5-6, 13; 11:13) at risk of concluding that they had
replaced the people whose seats they were sitting in.

## Paul's question, and his answer

> ✝️ Romans 9:3-5 (ESV)
>
> 3 For 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. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the
> adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To
> them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God
> over all, blessed forever. Amen.

The tense carries the argument. Paul writes **οἵτινές εἰσιν Ἰσραηλῖται** (*hoitines eisin
Israēlitai*), "who **are** Israelites," present indicative. He follows it with a string of things
that **belong** to them, present tense: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the worship,
the promises, the patriarchs. He is writing around AD 57, a quarter century after the resurrection,
about kinsmen he has just said are cut off from Christ. Unbelief has not moved the list.

Two chapters later he puts the question directly.

> ✝️ Romans 11:1-5 (ESV)
>
> 1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant
> of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
> Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? 3 "Lord,
> they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they
> seek my life." 4 But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who
> have not bowed the knee to Baal." 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

His first evidence is himself, a Jew who believes. His second is Elijah, who also thought the
nation was finished and was also wrong. The shape of the answer is a remnant: "so too at the present
time there is a remnant, chosen by grace" (11:5). Israel has not been swapped for the Church; a
believing remnant inside Israel proves the root is alive, and Paul is exhibit one.

This is election by grace. God keeps a people for Himself in every generation, and He is keeping
one in Israel now.

## The olive tree of Romans 11

> ✝️ Romans 11:17-21 (ESV)
>
> 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted
> in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant
> toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that
> supports you. 19 Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in."
> 20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith.
> So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will
> he spare you.

Paul never lets the two kinds of branch merge. Natural branches are broken off; a wild shoot is
grafted in "among the others"; and at 11:24 the natural branches are grafted back "into **their own**
olive tree." A graft joins two living things without dissolving either into the other, and Paul
tracks which is which for eight verses.

Paul states the point of the image outright. Verse 18 is a command: μὴ κατακαυχῶ, a present
imperative with a negative, **stop boasting over the branches**. The olive tree is in Romans to stop
Gentile believers drawing the conclusion that the tree is now theirs.

## What Romans 11 says is still ahead for Israel

> ✝️ Romans 11:25-29 (ESV)
>
> 25 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. 26 And in
> this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will
> banish ungodliness from Jacob"; 27 "and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their
> sins." 28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are
> beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.



**The hardening is partial and temporary.** ἀπὸ μέρους, "in part," and ἄχρι οὗ, "until": a terminus
is built into the sentence.

**"In this way" names a manner.** Verse 26 opens καὶ **οὕτως** (*houtōs*, G3779), the adverb
of manner. Paul is saying *this is how* all Israel will be saved, not merely *and then*.

**Verse 28 keeps two things true at once** of the same people, in one sentence: enemies as regards the
gospel, beloved as regards election.

**Irrevocable** translates **ἀμεταμέλητα** (*ametamelēta*, G278), literally not-to-be-repented-of.
The gifts and the calling are not withdrawn, because God does not change His mind about them. So you
can rest on the same character: the God who will not revoke Israel's calling will not revoke yours.

What the prophets say of Israel's regathering, the time of distress for Jacob, and 1948 is worked
through in [Israel's Regathering and Refining](https://the-way.lewy.au/israel-and-church/israels-regathering-and-refining/).

## Jews, Greeks, and the church of God

Once, in passing and without arguing for it, Paul names three groups where two would have done.

> ✝️ 1 Corinthians 10:32 (ESV)
>
> 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,

Jews, Greeks, and the church of God, written to a congregation containing both Jews and Greeks. If
the Church simply *were* Israel, the first and third terms would collapse into each other and the
sentence would not work. One verse cannot carry a doctrine on its own; what it can do is show what
Paul assumed while thinking about something else, which is Corinthian table manners.

Ephesians says where the third category came from.

> ✝️ Ephesians 2:14-16 (ESV)
>
> 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the
> dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that
> he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile
> us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

The verb is **κτίσῃ** (*ktisē*, from κτίζω, G2936), *create*. The adjective is **καινόν** (*kainon*,
G2537), often glossed new in kind, with νέος (*neos*, G3501) for new in time, though the two
overlap: Paul's "new man" is καινός at Ephesians 4:24 and νέος at Colossians 3:10.
Something is brought into being at the cross that was not there before. Israel continuing under a
new name would require no creating.

Jesus Himself is that peace (2:14). In His body on the cross He reconciled Jew and Gentile to God
together, and if you believe, you belong to the new people He made there.

Paul then says what the new thing consists of, and has to stretch the language to do it:

> ✝️ Ephesians 3:4-6 (ESV)
>
> 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made
> known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and
> prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same
> body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Three compounds in one clause, all prefixed **σύν-**, "joint": **συγκληρονόμα** (*synklēronoma*,
G4789, joint-heirs), **σύσσωμα** (*syssōma*, G4954, joint-body), **συμμέτοχα** (*symmetocha*, G4830,
joint-partakers). The middle one occurs nowhere else in the New Testament and looks like Paul's own
coinage; the third appears only here and at Ephesians 5:7. Joint-anything presupposes two parties who
remain two.

## What Scripture means by a mystery

Paul uses that word of both halves of this subject (of the Church at Ephesians 3, and of Israel's
future at Romans 11), and it carries a specific sense. **μυστήριον** (*mystērion*, G3466) occurs
twenty-six times in the Greek New Testament,
nineteen of them in Paul. It is not a puzzle. The sense Scripture gives it comes from Daniel.

Daniel 2 turns on the Aramaic <span dir="rtl">רָז</span> (*raz*, H7328), a secret held in heaven: there,
the image of four kingdoms and the stone that ends them, which [The Image and the
Kingdoms](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/the-image-and-the-kingdoms/) works through. The
word occurs nine times in that book and nowhere else in the Old Testament, and every place the ESV
prints "mystery" in Daniel it is translating this word. Nebuchadnezzar's wise men cannot produce the
king's dream, because the thing is not the sort of thing men find out:

> ✝️ Daniel 2:27-28 (ESV)
>
> 27 Daniel answered the king and said, "No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show
> to the king the mystery that the king has asked, 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals
> mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream
> and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:

A mystery is therefore something God alone knows, which stays unknown until He says it, and which is
then plain. That is how Paul uses it, and he says so twice in the same breath as the word:

- **Colossians 1:26** — τὸ μυστήριον τὸ **ἀποκεκρυμμένον** ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων … **νῦν δὲ ἐφανερώθη**,
  "the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints."
- **Ephesians 3:5** — "which was **not made known** to the sons of men in other generations as it has
  **now been revealed** to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit."



### The Gentiles were prophesied; this was not

**That Gentiles would be blessed was never a secret.** It is in the promise to Abraham, "in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3), and in the Servant who is given "as a light
for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth" (Isaiah 49:6), and in the
fallen tent of David rebuilt so that "all the nations who are called by my name" may be possessed
(Amos 9:11-12). Paul knows this and proves it from the Old Testament at length, stacking four texts
in four verses at Romans 15:9-12. He introduces them with this sentence:

> ✝️ Romans 15:8-9 (ESV)
>
> 8 For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in
> order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, 9 and in order that the Gentiles might
> glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, "Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and
> sing to your name."

Promises to the patriarchs *confirmed*, and Gentiles brought in: one sentence, two purposes of
one ministry, neither cancelling the other.

So the mystery is not that Gentiles get in. Ephesians 3:6 states what it is, and the content is the
three σύν- words: Gentiles as **joint-heirs, joint-body, joint-partakers**. The prophets had said Gentiles would be blessed *through*
Israel, at Israel's table, on Israel's terms. The mystery makes them one body with
believing Jews, immediately, on equal footing, in an age the prophets did not see coming. A Gentile
proselyte in Isaiah's day could be blessed. They could not be σύσσωμος.

Paul has a word for the arrangement under which this now runs. Ephesians 3:9 calls it **ἡ οἰκονομία
τοῦ μυστηρίου** (*oikonomia*, G3622): "the plan of the mystery," the household-management of it,
the administration. The word appears nine times in the New Testament; three are in Ephesians and all
three belong to this argument (1:10; 3:2, 9), with a fourth at Colossians 1:25. It is the word from
which *dispensation* comes, and it gives the framework this site works within its name: an age with
its own terms, opened at the cross and disclosed to the apostles.

### Two mysteries, and neither cancels the other

Set the two side by side:

| | Ephesians 3:3-9 | Romans 11:25-27 |
|---|---|---|
| **The mystery** | Gentiles made one body with believing Jews | Israel's partial hardening, then her salvation |
| **Status** | disclosed, and in force now | disclosed, not yet carried out |
| **Runs until** | "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in" | "and in this way all Israel will be saved" |

Both are μυστήριον. Both were undisclosed and are now announced. One describes what God is doing in
this age, and the other describes what He will do at the end of it. So holding to the
Church as a new thing does not require saying Israel is finished. Paul held both, and gave
them the same name.

## What Paul declines to say

Return to Ephesians 2, which has been building toward a name for what Gentiles have
become. Paul had already used "Israel" seven verses earlier, of what they were excluded from:
"alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise" (2:12). Here
is where he lands:

> ✝️ Ephesians 2:19 (ESV)
>
> 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and
> members of the household of God,

Fellow citizens with the saints. Members of the household of God. The word he had in hand and had
just used, he does not use.

That turns out to hold across the New Testament. **Ἰσραήλ** (G2474) occurs **68 times** in the Greek
New Testament: Acts (15), Matthew (12), Luke (12), Romans (11), John (4), Revelation (3), Hebrews
(3), Mark (2), 2 Corinthians (2), and once each in 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and
Philippians. Not one of them unambiguously names a body of Jews and Gentiles together. Three need
more than a bare count:

- **Romans 9:6** uses the word twice: "not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." The
  first is ethnic; the second is a subset *of* that same ethnic group, since the argument runs
  straight on to Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, all inside Abraham's physical line. It is the
  believing remnant.
- **Hebrews 8:8 and 8:10** quote Jeremiah's new-covenant promise inside an argument the letter
  presses on Christian readers. Hebrews 8:8 names "the house of Israel and… the house of Judah," 8:10 "the
  house of Israel" alone. The referent *in the quotation* is Jeremiah's; how far Hebrews transfers it
  is a separate and contested question.
- **Galatians 6:16** is the one occurrence seriously argued as meaning the Church, and it is
  discussed below.



## What most English translations drop

Paul once qualifies the word, at 1 Corinthians 10:18, where he writes **τὸν Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ σάρκα**,
Israel *according to the flesh*.

| Version | 1 Corinthians 10:18 |
|---|---|
| Greek (SBLGNT) | τὸν Ἰσραὴλ **κατὰ σάρκα** |
| ESV | "Consider **the people of Israel**" |
| CSB | "Consider **the people of Israel**" |
| NIV | "Consider **the people of Israel**" |
| BSB | "Consider **the people of Israel**" |
| WEB | "Consider Israel **according to the flesh**" |
| ASV | "Behold Israel **after the flesh**" |

Four widely-used English versions drop the qualifier entirely. It is load-bearing for both sides of
this argument. Read one way it implies a spiritual Israel standing behind the fleshly one, read the
other it is Paul marking off ethnic Israel precisely as ethnic. A reader of the ESV cannot see the
phrase the debate turns on, so keep a more literal version open at this verse.

Paul never supplies the counterpart. "Israel according to the Spirit" appears nowhere in the New
Testament (verified by querying every verse containing both Ἰσραήλ and πνεῦμα).

## The case for reading the Church as Israel

Four texts carry the weight on the other side.

### Galatians 6:16 and the Israel of God

**Galatians 6:16** — "peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God." The crux is the
**καί** before "the Israel of God," which can be conjunctive ("and") or ascensive ("even"). Read
ascensively, Paul equates the two. The *ESV Study Bible* sets out both senses and then declines to
choose between them: "which sense is best here must be decided with reference to the larger context
of Paul's thought." Its own gloss on the phrase leans the other way from this study, taking
"the true people of God" to be "the believing children of Abraham," and its note on the closing
section says those who belong to the new creation "comprise the true Israel." That reading is
available on the Greek, but a single ambiguous conjunction is thin ground for overturning every
other occurrence around it.

The *NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* adds a piece of evidence that cuts the other way: Jewish
benedictions regularly prayed "Peace … to Israel." That is a reason to hear the phrase as naming a
distinct group blessed alongside.

### Romans 2:28-29, Galatians 3:29 and 1 Peter 2:9

**Romans 2:28-29** — "no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly… a Jew is one inwardly." Paul is
distinguishing real from nominal covenant membership *within* Israel, which is the same move the
prophets made (Jeremiah 9:25-26). It denies that descent alone saves. It does not make Gentiles into
Jews.

**Galatians 3:29** — "if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to
promise." Abraham is deliberately wider than Israel; he is "the father of a multitude of nations"
before he is father of Jacob (Genesis 17:5). Being Abraham's offspring by promise is what Ephesians
3:6 called being fellow heirs, and Paul says it without saying "Israel."

**1 Peter 2:9** — "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own
possession." Peter applies Exodus 19:5-6 to the church. Israel's vocation language is extended to
Gentile believers. Sharing a calling is not the same as being the same body, and Peter never says
the nation has forfeited its own.

### The assembly: ἐκκλησία and qahal

The vocabulary does overlap, and on one point it favours the other side. The Greek **ἐκκλησία**
renders the Hebrew <span dir="rtl">קָהָל</span> (*qahal*, H6951) in the Septuagint (Deuteronomy
9:10 and 18:16 both do it, of "the day of the assembly" at Horeb), and Acts 7:38 places Moses **ἐν
τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ**, in the assembly in the wilderness, which is Israel at Sinai. The weight
falls instead on what Paul says was *created* at the cross, and on what he calls a mystery "not made
known to the sons of men in other generations."

## Two companies in Revelation 7

Revelation is apocalyptic, and its images are meant to be read as images. That makes this the
weakest section of the case argued here.

Chapter 7 is an interlude. The sixth seal has been opened, the earth has asked "who can stand?"
(6:17), and before the seventh seal is broken the narrative stops to show who belongs to God. Both
the *ESV Study Bible* and the *NLT Life Application Study Bible* label the section that way.

> ✝️ Revelation 7:4 (ESV)
>
> 4 And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

Twelve tribes follow, named one by one, twelve thousand each. Then:

> ✝️ Revelation 7:9 (ESV)
>
> 9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation,
> from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed
> in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

**Μετὰ ταῦτα**, "after this," introduces a second and different group: numbered against uncountable,
from the tribes of Israel against from every nation. Two companies, both redeemed, both in the same
chapter, distinguished by John himself.

The symbolic reading has a real argument here. As the *ESV Study Bible* points out, the tribe list
is irregular at four points: Dan is missing, Manasseh is included alongside Joseph rather than
Ephraim, Levi the priestly tribe is counted, and Judah leads instead of Reuben the firstborn. And
144,000 is 12 × 12 × 1,000, which looks designed rather than counted. The *NIV Cultural Backgrounds
Study Bible* adds that the form of the list resembles a military census (Numbers 1). Granted: the
number is symbolic.

It is a weaker case for reading "from every tribe of the sons of Israel" as meaning "from every
nation," when John writes both phrases five verses apart and separates them with "after this." A
symbolic number of Israelites is still a number of Israelites.

## What the commentaries say

They divide by passage.

- **Romans 11:26** — the *ESV Study Bible* rules out the reading that "Israel" here means the church,
  on the ground that "throughout chs. 9-11 Israel and Gentiles are distinct ethnic entities," and
  concludes that the future salvation of ethnic Israel at the end of history is the likeliest reading.
  That is this study's position, from a source with no dispensational commitment to defend.
- **Ephesians 2:15** — the *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* states that the new humanity created in
  Christ "is distinct from Jews and Gentiles," citing 1 Corinthians 10:32 for it. That is the
  three-group reading of 1 Corinthians 10:32 above.
- **Romans 11:11-36** — the *NLT Life Application Study Bible* goes squarely the other way, saying
  God "is still working to unite all believers so they become a new Israel, a new Jerusalem," and
  citing Ephesians 2:11-22 for it. That is the supersessionist reading of both primary passages,
  stated plainly by a widely-used commentary. Its note two verses later, though, says "God chose the
  nation of Israel, and he has never rejected it." So even the commentary most opposed to the
  distinction will not say the nation is finished.
- **Revelation 7:4-8** — the *ESV Study Bible*, the *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* and the *NIV
  Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* all lean symbolic. Three of three, against the reading taken here.

The support is strongest where the argument is heaviest (Romans 9-11 and Ephesians 2) and
weakest in Revelation and Galatians, which lean on literary structure and a contested conjunction
respectively. The distinction does not need Revelation 7.

## How Israel and the Church relate today

Some of what Romans 9-11 addresses belongs to Rome in the 50s: Jewish believers returning to
congregations that had spent five years without them, and the friction that caused over food, days
and seating.

What transfers is the ground of Paul's warning, which cannot
date: God does not take back what He gives. "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" is a
statement about God's character, and it is the reason the warning against arrogance still lands.

Five conclusions:

- **Israel and the Church are two peoples.** One is a nation God chose and still
  owns; the other is a body God created at the cross out of believing Jews and Gentiles, on terms no
  prophet was told.
- **Israel today is hardened in part, not rejected.** There has always been a believing Jewish
  remnant, there is one now, and Paul was in it. Jewish people who trust Christ are not leaving their
  people; they are the proof God has not left them.
- **The Church's era runs until "the fullness of the Gentiles has come in."** That is our work and
  our window, and it has a stated end.
- **Israel's national turning is still ahead.**
- **The right response to all of this is humility and prayer**, because Paul says so in as many
  words: do not be arrogant toward the branches, and pray that they may be saved.

Hold this rightly and you end up grateful: the same faithfulness that will not let go of a nation
that has spent centuries saying no is holding on to you.

## Discussion questions

1. **The language.** Paul writes that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans
   11:29), and his word is ἀμεταμέλητα, literally not-to-be-repented-of. What does it tell you about
   God that Paul describes His calling by a change of mind He will never have?
2. **The text in its context.** Paul wrote of his unbelieving kinsmen, "They are Israelites, and to
   them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants" (Romans 9:4), to Roman congregations that had
   met for years without their Jewish founders after Claudius expelled them (Acts 18:2). What would
   a Gentile believer in Rome have heard in that present tense?
3. **Christ.** Paul says Christ died "that he might create in himself one new man in place of the
   two" (Ephesians 2:15), and he quotes Isaiah of a Deliverer who "will come from Zion" (Romans
   11:26). What does it say about Jesus that the Church's beginning and Israel's future both run
   through Him?
4. **The hard part.** Peter calls the church "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation"
   (1 Peter 2:9), Israel's own vocation from Exodus 19:6, while Paul says the natural branches will
   be grafted back "into their own olive tree" (Romans 11:24). What is the difference between
   sharing a calling and taking someone's place?
5. **Both at once.** Romans 11:28 calls the same people "enemies for your sake" and "beloved for the
   sake of their forefathers" in one sentence. What goes wrong in practice when a Christian holds
   only one of those?
6. **Be transformed.** Paul's stated reason for teaching this doctrine is to stop Gentile arrogance:
   "do not be arrogant toward the branches" (Romans 11:18). What would change in how you speak about
   Jewish people if you heard that command addressed to you?

## References & Recommended Reading

**Scripture and original-language data**

- ESV Bible (Crossway) — primary translation quoted throughout.
- World English Bible, American Standard Version, Berean Standard Bible and Young's Literal
  Translation — compared at 1 Corinthians 10:18. YLT is used as a wooden-literal cross-check only,
  never as a source of meaning.
- MACULA Greek (SBLGNT) and MACULA Hebrew (WLC) Linguistic Datasets, and Brenton's Septuagint, via
  this repo's `references/build/bible-text.db` — every Strong's number, occurrence count and Greek
  form above. The occurrence counts for Ἰσραήλ (68), μυστήριον (26) and οἰκονομία (9) are counts in
  the SBLGNT text as that dataset carries it, which ends Romans at 16:24; editions printing the
  doxology at 16:25 add one more μυστήριον.

**Commentaries consulted**

- *ESV Study Bible* (Crossway, 2016) — the Romans introduction for the Claudius expulsion and the
  letter's occasion; notes on Romans 11:26, Ephesians 2:11-22, Galatians 6:16 and Revelation 7:1-17.
  It supports this study's reading of Romans 11 and leans against it on Galatians 6:16 and
  Revelation 7; all are reported above.
- *NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible* (Zondervan, 2018) — notes on Ephesians 2:15, Romans 11:26 and
  Revelation 7:4.
- *NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible* (Zondervan, 2016) — notes on Galatians 6:16 (the Jewish
  benediction formula) and Revelation 7:4-8.
- *NLT Life Application Study Bible*, third edition (Tyndale, 2019) — notes on Romans 11, cited above
  as the clearest published statement against this study's conclusion.

**Historical background**

- Suetonius, *Divus Claudius* 25.4, on the expulsion of AD 49. The *ESV Study Bible*'s Romans
  introduction is the source used here for the episode and its date; the chapter-and-section number
  is the standard reference for the passage and is supplied for a reader who wants to look it up.
  Suetonius was not consulted directly. Scripture corroborates the expulsion at Acts 18:2.

**Related studies on this site**

- [Bible Prophecy Essentials](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/prophecy-essentials/) — where the tribulation and the
  millennium sit in the wider order of events.
- [The Rapture of the Church](https://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/rapture/) — the removal of the church, and what
  follows for Israel.
- [Statement of Faith](https://the-way.lewy.au/about/statement-of-faith/#end-times) — this site's dispensational,
  pretribulational framework.