I now want to spend the next five chapters telling you what I believe the Scriptures say regarding the true place of the Church and Israel in the last days.

Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well,

(John 4:22 KJV) Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

God called Abraham to bring forth a nation that would be peculiarly His, and Paul's letter to the Romans describes what Jesus meant in John 4:22:

(Rom 9:3-5 KJV) For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: {4} Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; {5} Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Everything God wanted to tell the world concerning His salvation He told through the Jews, first in shadow and then in reality by sending His Son in the flesh. But when God called Paul, He told him something that He had kept hidden throughout the millennia. Paul told the Church that God had revealed to him a mystery that he would now explain to them so they would understand why he was calling the Gentiles to be reconciled to God. Paul called natural Israel his brothers "according to the flesh." He speaks of himself as a Jew, yet as somehow different in position from his former relation to his fellow Jews. What had changed was that he was no longer a minister under the Old Covenant, but under the new one. To the Corinthians, Paul said :

(2 Cor 3:5-8 KJV) Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; {6} Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

What Paul was speaking of here was the New Covenant that was promised to Israel to supersede the Old Covenant, the comfort of which he now rejoiced in:

(Jer 31:31-34 KJV) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: {32} Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: {33} But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. {34} And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

On Calvary, the Lord Jesus shed his blood and died for the sin of all in Israel, putting into effect the New Covenant God had spoken to Jeremiah and forgiving the nation its sin. Christ's death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification culminated in the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost when He indwelt the Jews who believed in Jesus. Pentecost was God putting His "law in their inward parts," and writing "it in their hearts," saying "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." All who believed in Jesus were given the promised Holy Spirit.

What of the Old Covenant? The writer of Hebrews states that it was passing away, that it was made old by the new:

(Heb 8:6-13 KJV) But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. {7} For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. . . . [the writer then states Jer 31:31-34] {13} In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

That doesn't mean we should get rid of the Old Testament, for by its prophecies and types we know that Jesus was the one who was to come to Israel. It also relates many facts about what must take place before He returns. The Old Testament also tells what has passed away so we know to look for the blessings described in the New Testament. As one example, no longer would the sacrifices of the Old Testament be necessary, as Christ would serve as the sacrifice for all by His finished work:

(Heb 10:9-17 KJV) Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. {10} By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. {11} And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: {12} But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; {13} From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. {14} For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. {15} Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, {16} This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; {17} And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

(Heb 9:14-15 KJV) How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? {15} And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

Paul, a Jew and son of Abraham after the flesh, was redeemed from "under the law" to become an adopted son of God after the Spirit through faith in Christ. He was proved to be a spiritual son of Abraham, gaining entrance to God's household, while those in Israel who rejected Christ remained only in Israel after the flesh:

(Gal 4:5-7 KJV) To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. {6} And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. {7} Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Why was it now the time for those under the law to be adopted as the sons of God? Paul tells us that it was because the law was given only until the Seed of Abraham came:

(Gal 3:17-19 KJV) And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. {18} For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise. {19} Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

Paul had received the Holy Spirit and entered into the guarantee of an eternal inheritance in Christ by the grace of God.