If you came to the faith through a dispensational church that drew a sharp line between Israel and the Church, you were likely told that belief was a non-negotiable. I understand. Many of us sat under gifted preachers, men like John MacArthur, who taught us to love the Bible and take it seriously. My debt to him is real, and nothing in this article is written to dishonor him.
In my earlier post, Reformed and Amillennial: Five Reasons to Embrace Amillennialism, I laid out the biblical and confessional case for amillennialism. That piece generated questions, good ones, especially around the charge of “replacement theology” and what Reformed theology actually says about Israel. This post is the sequel.
What if the Bible itself refuses to draw the line where we were taught to draw it? Paul identifies those who belong to Christ as Abraham’s heirs (Gal. 3:29). The saving inheritance of God’s people comes through union with Christ; ethnic descent alone does not guarantee it (Rom. 9:6-8).
That’s the covenant unity confessed by the Reformed church. The case rests on how the apostles explain God’s promises and their fulfillment in Christ.
Christ as the True Israel
The New Testament brings Israel’s calling into focus: Jesus doesn’t merely fulfill Israel’s role; He is the true Israel. He’s the faithful Son where the nation of Israel was faithless, the obedient Servant where the people rebelled (Heb. 3:1-6).
When Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” he applies a text about the nation of Israel directly to Jesus (Matt. 2:15).
This isn’t allegory. It’s typological fulfillment: Jesus retraces Israel’s history in His own person. He passes through the waters (Matt. 3:13-17), endures the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11), and keeps every commandment the nation broke (Matt. 5:17).
Paul drives the point home: Abraham’s “offspring” (singular) is Christ (Gal. 3:16). The promises made to Abraham find their “Yes” not in a nation but in a Person (2 Cor. 1:20).
Every covenant blessing (land, seed, blessing to the nations) finds its fulfillment in Christ. We should therefore begin with Christ when we ask how God keeps these promises.
The Church as Abraham’s True Offspring
If Christ is the true Israel, then all who are united to Him by faith share in that identity. This is exactly what the apostles taught (Eph. 2:11-22), not as a plan B, but as the fulfillment of what God always intended.
Paul writes: “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29).
Israel’s national life included a real bond of ancestry, but ancestry never guaranteed salvation. “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Rom. 9:6). True circumcision is “a matter of the heart, by the Spirit” (Rom. 2:29), and Paul tells the Philippian believers (many of them Gentiles), “we are the circumcision” (Phil. 3:3). Calvin saw this unity stretching across the entire canon:
The covenant made with all the fathers is so far from differing from ours in reality and substance, that it is altogether one and the same: still the administration differs.1
John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.10.2 (Beveridge)
One covenant of grace, one covenant people, administered differently across the two testaments. That’s the heartbeat of covenant theology, and this truth changed how I read the entire Bible. Suddenly the whole canon read as one continuous story. The Westminster Confession states this unity plainly:
There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.
And Berkhof drew the line as plainly as anyone:
In essence Israel constituted the Church of God in the Old Testament, though its external institution differed vastly from that of the Church in the New Testament.2
Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology
This isn’t a case of Gentiles taking away promises that Jewish believers can no longer receive. Everyone who belongs to Christ is an heir of Abraham. We should distinguish saving union with Christ from outward covenant membership, which has always included people who did not share Abraham’s faith (Rom. 9:6-8). The New Testament gathers the nations into the same covenant family.
The law given through Moses did not cancel the earlier promise. Paul says:
“This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.” (Gal. 3:17)
God’s promise carries us from Abraham through Moses to Christ. The administration changes, but the promised Savior remains the same.
Answering the Supersessionism Charge
At this point, someone will object: “Isn’t this replacement theology?” The label is emotionally and politically charged, and it deserves a careful answer. It’s one of the questions I heard the most after my amillennialism article, and I want to address it head-on.
Reformed theology does not teach that the Church ethnically replaces Israel. It teaches that Christ fulfills Israel’s covenant purpose, and that all who are in Him, Jew and Gentile alike, inherit every promise.
Reformed writers have sometimes used replacement language for the passing of Israel’s national and ceremonial order. That is different from claiming that God has rejected Jewish believers or given their inheritance to Gentiles. The Westminster Confession describes the visible church under the gospel as “not confined to one nation, as before under the law” (Westminster Confession of Faith 25.2). Its members now come from every nation.
Peter calls the church “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Pet. 2:9); language drawn straight from Exodus 19:5-6. That’s not identity theft, it’s fulfillment. Bavinck drives it further:
Whatever the political future of Israel as a nation, the real ekklēsia, the people of God, transcends ethnic boundaries. The kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus is not a political reality but a religious-ethical dominion born of water and the Spirit.3
Herman Bavinck Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation
Paul’s olive tree metaphor in Romans 11 sealed the argument for me. There’s one tree, one root, one people. Gentile believers are grafted in to an already-existing tree; unbelieving branches are broken off. The tree itself, the covenant community stretching back to Abraham, is not uprooted, replaced, or restarted.
God saves Jews and Gentiles through the same Christ. MacArthur agrees with that, so our disagreement should not suggest that he teaches two ways of salvation. The question is whether Scripture gives Israel and the church separate covenant destinies. Paul’s olive tree and his description of Christ’s one body lead us to a common inheritance (Rom. 11:17-24; Eph. 2:14-16).
The distinction that matters is between belief and unbelief. Jewish believers remain in their own olive tree, and Gentile believers are grafted in among them.
The question has never been whether God keeps His promises to Israel. The question is how, and Scripture’s answer is: in Christ.
Five Questions About Israel’s Promises
A Christian who worries that this reading leaves Israel behind has good reason to ask about the promises themselves. God’s faithfulness is at stake. These passages deserve an answer that takes their assurances seriously.
Has God rejected His people? Paul answers that question directly in Romans 11:1-5. He points to himself, an Israelite who believes in Christ, and to the remnant God has preserved by grace. Israel’s widespread unbelief hasn’t defeated God’s saving purpose. Even those opposed to the gospel remain beloved for the sake of the patriarchs, because God’s gifts and calling are irrevocable (Rom. 11:28-29). Paul goes on to warn Gentile Christians against pride and holds out the prospect of unbelieving Jewish branches being grafted in again (Rom. 11:17-24).
Amillennialists differ over the scope of “all Israel” in Romans 11:26. The principal readings include the whole people of God, the full number of Jewish believers gathered throughout history, and a future widespread conversion of Jewish people. That last reading fits within amillennialism. None of these readings requires a separate way of salvation for Israel or a future earthly millennium.4
What about the everlasting covenant with Abraham? Genesis 17:7-8 includes both Abraham’s offspring and the land of Canaan. We should take both seriously. Paul identifies Christ as the promised offspring and includes everyone who belongs to Christ among Abraham’s heirs (Gal. 3:16, 29). He also describes Abraham’s inheritance as the world (Rom. 4:13).
Canaan was a real gift, and it pointed ahead to the lasting inheritance God would give His people. Abraham himself looked for a better country and the city God prepared (Heb. 11:10, 16). The promise reaches its fullness in the renewed creation, where Jewish and Gentile believers will dwell with God. Its everlasting character gives us reason to expect that fulfillment.
Doesn’t Jeremiah guarantee Israel’s permanence? Yes. Jeremiah 31:35-37 appeals to the order of creation to assure Israel that God will not cast off all her offspring. We should feel the force of that assurance. It accompanies the promise of a new covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah, in which God forgives sin and writes His law on the heart (Jer. 31:31-34).
Hebrews 8:6-13 quotes that promise to explain the covenant Christ now mediates. Jewish believers receive its blessings, and Gentile believers share in them through the same Savior (Eph. 2:11-22). Jeremiah’s assurance gives no timetable for a millennium or guarantee that the Mosaic institutions will continue forever. Hebrews expressly calls the old covenant obsolete. God keeps His people through the new covenant His Son has established.
Did Jesus promise a future national restoration? Luke 21:24 says Jerusalem will be trampled until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The word “until” marks a limit; the verse does not describe a subsequent millennial kingdom. Acts 1:6-7 also deserves careful reading. Jesus does not explicitly rebuke the disciples’ question, but neither does He spell out or endorse the political restoration they may have expected. He directs them toward the Spirit’s coming and their witness to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).
The next chapters help us understand that answer. Peter connects God’s oath concerning David’s throne with Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation (Acts 2:29-36). James then connects the restoration of David’s fallen tent with the gathering of Gentiles into God’s people (Acts 15:13-18). We should read the disciples’ question alongside these apostolic explanations of what God is already doing through the risen Christ.
Are Gentiles grafted in rather than replacing Israel? They are, and Paul’s language should govern ours. Believing Gentiles share the nourishment of an existing olive tree. They have no grounds to boast over its natural branches, and God is able to graft unbelieving Jews back into their own tree when they come to faith (Rom. 11:17-24).
Calling the church God’s covenant people does not mean that Gentiles have taken possession of something Jews can no longer receive. The church includes Jewish believers from its beginning. Paul describes Gentile believers joining them, with both dependent on God’s mercy. That leaves us with reason to pray for the salvation of Jewish people and every reason to refuse contempt toward them.
Answering MacArthur Directly
The late John MacArthur stated his position with admirable clarity:
The whole of my dispensationalism can be stated in one sentence: it is a distinction between the Church and Israel period.5
John MacArthur “Bible Questions and Answers, Part 41,” Grace to You
We should take Israel’s identity seriously. We also need to ask how Paul distinguishes descent from Israel and participation in the promise (Rom. 9:6-8), and how he includes Gentile believers in Abraham’s family (Gal. 3:29).
MacArthur characterized the Reformed position this way: “Israel forfeited its kingdom in the execution of the Messiah. The Church is the new Israel…everything is spiritual.” And that we “go back into the Old Testament…and reinterpret all of the Old Testament promises as spiritual promises to the Church and eliminate Israel.”6
With respect, that’s not what Reformed theology or the Bible teaches. We’re insisting that Christ is the fulfillment of Israel’s covenant purpose and that all who are in Him are heirs of every promise (Gal. 3:29; Rom. 8:17).
MacArthur also recognized a substantial change in covenant administration. He acknowledged that the old covenant’s “temporal, external things…were set aside when Israel failed and the new covenant came in,” and that “now there’s a new people of God” no longer “marked out by social identity…[or] occupying the same land.”7
If that’s true, if there’s a new people of God no longer defined by land, ethnicity, or social identity, then what defines them? The answer is union with Christ. Paul said it himself: “There is neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The dividing wall between Jew and Gentile has been torn down (Eph. 2:14).
The Antisemitism Charge
MacArthur also suggested that amillennialism has roots in antisemitism, tracing it to “that kind of antisemitism that was around, even in Luther’s day.”8 This is a serious charge and it deserves a serious response.
First, Luther’s later writings against the Jews deserve condemnation. His hostility gives Christians reason for shame and repentance, never an example to follow.
Calvin’s approach was markedly different; scholars have argued that his theology was the least anti-Semitic “of the major classical theological systems,” and that he “exhibits a real break with a long-standing tradition of Christian anti-Jewish exegesis of the Old Testament.”9
The chronology matters too. Augustine treated Revelation 20 as describing Christ’s present reign with His saints in The City of God, Book 20, chapters 7-9, in the early fifth century. That reading predates Luther’s later writings by more than a thousand years. This does not settle every question about anti-Judaism in Christian history, but it rules out an origin in Luther’s day.
Our doctrine must also be judged by what Scripture teaches. Paul forbids Gentile Christians to boast over Jewish branches and reminds us that we stand by faith (Rom. 11:18-20). A covenantal reading of Israel’s promises should produce humility and prayer for Jewish people.
MacArthur himself affirmed that he was “unwaveringly committed to the sovereign election of a future generation of Jews to salvation, and the full inheritance of all the promises and covenants of God.”10
Amillennialists can share that hope for a future widespread conversion of Jewish people while disagreeing with MacArthur about the millennium. Other amillennialists understand “all Israel” differently, as explained above. We should acknowledge that disagreement without suggesting that an ethnic reading requires the salvation of every Jew who ever lived. The future conversion view concerns a large ingathering through faith in Christ, not salvation by ancestry.
Amillennialism gives no warrant for contempt toward Jewish people. Jews and Gentiles receive salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Christians who disagree about the millennium should share the desire to see their Jewish neighbors and family members receive eternal life.
One People, One Savior
This comes down to a question about the gospel: Who belongs to God, and on what basis? Scripture’s answer has never changed. All who are in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, are the true Israel of God, heirs of Abraham, partakers of every covenant promise.
The Westminster Confession includes all the elect, past, present, and future, in Christ’s universal church (Westminster Confession of Faith 25.1). The saints who trusted the promised Messiah and those who know Him as the risen Savior belong to the same redeemed people.
Summarizing the early church’s understanding of its identity, Bavinck writes:
Christians are the soul of the world, the true Israel, the blessed people of God.11
Herman Bavinck Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4, 281
If you’re wrestling with this, if you came from a dispensational background that taught otherwise and the cost of rethinking feels steep, know that you’re not alone. I’ve walked this same road.
The destination isn’t a diminished Israel but a magnified Christ, in whom every promise finds its Yes and Amen (2 Cor. 1:20). To see Christ as the true Israel is not to lose anything but to gain everything.
Footnotes
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.10.2 (Beveridge). ↩︎
- Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, “Nature of the Church,” section E.3, “In the New Testament”. ↩︎
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Baker Academic, 2008), 664. ↩︎
- Cornelis P. Venema, “In This Way All Israel Will Be Saved”: A Study of Romans 11:26, Mid-America Journal of Theology 22 (2011), 19-40. ↩︎
- John MacArthur, “Bible Questions and Answers, Part 41”, Grace to You. ↩︎
- John MacArthur, “Bible Questions and Answers, Part 16”, Grace to You. ↩︎
- John MacArthur, “Answering Contemporary Challenges to Scripture”, Grace to You. ↩︎
- John MacArthur, “The Protest That Changed the World: An Interview with John MacArthur”, Grace to You. ↩︎
- G. Sujin Pak, “John Calvin and the Jews: His Exegetical Legacy,” Reformed Institute; see also The Judaizing Calvin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 133-39. ↩︎
- John MacArthur, “Why Every Calvinist Should Be a Premillennialist, Part 1”, Grace to You. ↩︎
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:281 (excerpt). ↩︎
