Differences Between the Church and Israel

It Comes Down To Eschatology

This incredible and simple explanation comes partly from Olivier Melnick, a Messianic Jew who is an author and founder of “I Found Shalom Ministries”. The rest I pieced together and I’m sure there are many more differences than what I have mentioned here.

It matters how you view the Church and Israel, especially in regard to end-time prophecy. Let’s first look at the definitions of a few words that we need to know before we make this distinction.

Glossary

Exegesis - Explanation and examination of Scripture to properly interpret that portion of Scripture.
Hermeneutics - The study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible.
The Church - An entity made up of many nations that began in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost. (It can be both Jew and Gentile.)
Israel - Physical descendants of Abraham.

When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic (evident) and fundamental truths, indicate clearly otherwise.

David L. Cooper (1886-1965) came up with what is called today, “The Golden Rule of Interpretation”

Blessings and Curses

In other words, a text without a context is a pretext (a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason.) In Replacement Theology, they transfer the curses to Israel and the blessings to the Church. This makes no sense and it cannot be backed up biblically. The Church and Israel are 2 different entities and they have 2 different purposes. This topic is one of the most hotly contested topics in modern evangelicalism today. How you decide to look at Israel and the Church will have a great bearing on how you look at eschatology. Let’s look at those differences:

Biblical Distinctions Chart

As you can see from the diagram below, the Church can be made up of both Jew and Gentile. There are ethnic Jews who believe and there are ethnic Gentiles (Greeks) who believe and both of these will be part of the Church.

There are ethnic Jews who don’t believe and there are ethnic Gentiles (Greeks) who don’t believe and they will not be part of the Church. That does not mean that they can’t be saved during the tribulation if they are still alive when they enter it.

The Body

Keeping the Church and Israel separate has major prophetic implications!