The word
"Israel" has several meanings:
1) One of the names God gave his son in the OT.
2) Israel was always to be God's people - not a territory on earth.
3) The title the Jews took in 1948 when they were given the opportunity to return to the land by England.
Exodus 4:22-23- "And you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the LORD,
Israel is my first-born son, and I say to you, "Let my
son go that he may serve me"; if you refuse to let
him go, behold, I will slay your first-born son.'"
Hosea 11:1 - “Whe
n Israel was a child, I loved
him, and called
my son out of Egypt.”
Matthew 2:14-15 - “When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.” "And he rose and took
the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "
Out of Egypt have I called my son."
Isaiah 49:1-6 - "Listen to me, O coastlands, and hearken, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me,
"You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified." But I said, "I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God." And now the LORD says,
who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength--he says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."
The false doctrine of dispensationalism, whose main promoter was a Scotsman by the name of Charles Nelson Darby in the early 1800's, is based on the death, burial and resurrection of land of Israel and not on Jesus Christ, making Israel the center of all things and not Christ Jesus our Lord. For many, dispensationalism became "fact" after 1948 when the Jews returned to the Holy Land. No amount of solid Scriptural evidence to the contrary can seem to sway these misguided people.
Dividing the word of truth does not mean literally dividing the church into 2 different belief systems about the second coming of Christ and separating the Church from Jewish believers in Christ. We are ONE BODY in Christ - not two as in Ephesians 2...
Eph 2:14-16..."
For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end."
Eph 4:4 -
"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call,"