Should Christians Support Israel? What the Bible Actually Says

By Pastor James Drake · 16-minute read · A Field Devotion

Should Christians support Israel? Few questions stir up more heat - and less light - among believers today. Ask it in a room of sincere Christians and you'll get everything from "Of course, God promised to bless those who bless Israel," to an uncomfortable silence, to opinions that owe more to a news channel than to a Bible.

I understand why. Israel stands at the crossroads of biblical history, redemptive theology, and present-day world events. And from where I sit right now, half a world from home, the stakes feel anything but abstract. But precisely because this topic is so emotionally and politically charged, Christians have to take special care to think biblically - to let Scripture shape our view more than ethnic suspicion, political ideology, or the loudest voice online.

So let me say plainly what this is and what it isn't. This is not a political endorsement, and it is not an attack. The goal is to think carefully and biblically about Israel, the Jewish people, the Church, and the Christian response - and to avoid two opposite errors. On one side, we must not collapse biblical Israel into the modern political state of Israel as though everything that nation does is automatically righteous. On the other, we must never drift into contempt, scapegoating, or ethnic hostility toward the Jewish people. Scripture gives us a better way. Here's the heart of it, and then we'll build the case: God has always had one people by faith, fulfilled in Christ, expanded through the Church, and still at work among ethnic Israel - so Christians should respond with humility, clarity, and gospel-centered wisdom.

What "Israel" actually means in the Bible

Before we can answer the question everyone's asking, we have to define the word everyone's arguing about. What does "Israel" even mean in Scripture?

A name born in a wrestling match

The name first appears in Genesis 32:28, when Jacob is renamed Israel - a name often understood to mean "one who wrestles with God," or "God strives." From the very beginning, then, "Israel" was never merely a biological label. It was covenantal, relational, theological. It described a people defined by their dealings with God, not just their bloodline.

Chosen to be a blessing - not an end in itself

That theological weight goes back further still, to the call of Abraham:

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

- Genesis 12:1-3

Notice that God calls Abraham by grace - not because Abraham was more righteous or more deserving than anyone else. And notice the purpose of the calling: "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Israel's election was never narrow tribal favoritism. It was missional. God set apart Abraham and his offspring so that through them the knowledge of the true God, the covenants, the Scriptures, and ultimately the Messiah would come into the world. As Paul reminds us in Romans 9, to Israel belonged the covenants, the law, the worship, and the promises - and from that people, in the flesh, came the Christ. In exactly that sense, Israel truly did bless the world.

Hold onto that, because it's the key that unlocks everything else: Israel was chosen to be a blessing, not an end in itself.

Who is the "true Israel"?

Here's one of the most important - and most misunderstood - questions in this whole conversation. When the Bible talks about "Israel," is it always talking about everyone descended from Abraham? Paul's answer is striking: no.

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

- Romans 9:6-8

Read that again slowly: "not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." Paul is teaching that there has always been a distinction between ethnic Israel and true Israel. Mere physical descent from Abraham never guaranteed covenant faithfulness or saving faith. The Old Testament shows this on every page - generation after generation that was circumcised outwardly but not inwardly, part of the covenant community in name but far from God in heart.

True Israel has always been by faith

If that's true, then what really makes someone part of God's people? Paul answers in Galatians:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

- Galatians 3:28-29

The deepest fulfillment of Abraham's family is not found in ethnicity alone, but in union with Christ. "If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring." That's a stunning claim - and it leads directly to the question that divides a lot of well-meaning Christians.

Does the Church "replace" Israel?

No - and this is where careful wording matters enormously. The idea that God simply discarded Israel and swapped in a brand-new people (often called "replacement theology") is too blunt to fit what Scripture actually says. Paul reaches for a different picture entirely: an olive tree. Gentile believers are not a different tree. They are wild branches grafted into the same ancient, cultivated tree of God's covenant people. There is continuity, not replacement. The Church doesn't cancel Israel; in Christ, the people of God are expanded - fulfilled and gathered into one body made up of Jew and Gentile alike. (We'll come back to that olive tree, because Paul attaches a sharp warning to it.)

Jesus, the true and better Israel

Here's the thread that ties the whole Bible together: everything Israel was meant to be, Jesus actually is.

Watch the pattern. Jesus goes down into the waters of baptism, echoing Israel's passage through the Red Sea. He is driven into the wilderness for forty days, echoing Israel's forty years of wandering. But where Israel grumbled, He trusted. Where Israel broke covenant, He kept it. Where Israel failed as God's servant, Jesus succeeded as the true Servant of the Lord. He is the faithful Son, the obedient servant, the true seed of Abraham - the One in whom Jew and Gentile alike must be found if they are to belong to the people of God.

This is why faithful teachers across the centuries have spoken of Jesus as the true and better Israel. The point is not that ethnic Israel evaporates. The point is that all of God's promises find their "yes" and "amen" in Christ. One way I've found helpful to put it: from a Christian standpoint, Judaism is not so much a false religion as a fulfilled one - its story was always reaching forward to a Messiah who has now come.

One people, one way to be saved

If Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel, then there's only one door into the people of God - and it's the same door for everyone:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

- Romans 10:12-13

No distinction. That cuts in both directions. No Jewish person is saved by ethnicity, covenant heritage, or connection to the land apart from Christ - and no Gentile is excluded because of ethnicity or distance from the promises. All are saved the same way: by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

That single truth dismantles two opposite errors at once. The Church can never boast over the Jewish people, because we were grafted in by sheer mercy. And no one can lean on ancestry instead of the Messiah. The dividing wall has been torn down in Jesus; in Him there is one new humanity, one people of God. When we say salvation makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile, we're not erasing history - we're exalting Christ.

Is God finished with the Jewish people?

Here's a question I get asked a lot, and it's a fair one. If the people of God now includes believing Gentiles, has God simply moved on from the Jewish people? Paul's answer is an emphatic no - and he stakes real hope on it:

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. 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"; "and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins." As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

- Romans 11:25-29

Christians read the details of this passage differently, and I'll hold my own conclusions with some humility. But at minimum, Paul gives us real hope: God's work among ethnic Israel is not over. There is a remnant chosen by grace even now, and Paul looks forward to a future, large-scale turning of Jewish people to their Messiah. "The gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable."

Grief, not contempt

And watch Paul's posture toward Jewish people who don't yet believe. It isn't smugness. It's anguish. In Romans 9:1-3 he says he carries "great sorrow and unceasing anguish" in his heart - and even, in shocking terms, that he could wish himself cut off if it would mean their salvation. Jesus felt the same, weeping over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41.

That should reshape us. Whatever conclusions we reach about Israel, we are already wrong if our hearts are full of suspicion or ethnic contempt. The biblical posture is sorrow over unbelief, hope for salvation, and humility before God's mysterious purposes.

The land, the covenant, and modern Israel

"But what about the land?" That's where the conversation usually turns political - so let's handle it carefully.

Yes, the Old Testament includes real land promises to Abraham's descendants (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 15:18). But Scripture also ties the enjoyment of the land to covenant faithfulness. Deuteronomy 28 lays out blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience - and among those curses is being scattered among the nations. The prophets return to this theme again and again; Ezekiel 36, for instance, speaks of Israel scattered because of covenant unfaithfulness and then regathered for the sake of God's own name. So the biblical story is never simply, "Land promise equals unconditional approval, no matter what." The relationship between land, covenant, blessing, and judgment is far more morally serious than that.

What about 1948?

Some Christians look at the reestablishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 and connect it to texts like Isaiah 66:8 - "Shall a nation be brought forth in one day?" That may be a fulfillment, or a partial fulfillment, or a providential echo. But here we should tread gently. Paul reminds us that God's wisdom and prophetic purposes are often far clearer after fulfillment than before (1 Corinthians 2:7-8). Prophecy was never given so that every generation could master the future with certainty. There is genuine mystery in God's unfolding plan. So while Christians may rightly see 1948 as significant, we should hold such judgments with open hands rather than clenched fists.

Biblical Israel is not the modern state of Israel

This distinction is so important that it deserves its own heading - because almost every argument that goes off the rails skips it.

The modern state of Israel is a political nation, not automatically a covenant-faith nation. It includes believers and unbelievers, secular Jews and religious Jews, and citizens of many different political and moral commitments. Like America, Britain, or any other nation, it is not beyond moral evaluation.

And yet the modern state is not unrelated to biblical Israel either. There is real historical, ethnic, and covenantal continuity - a large share of the world's Jewish people live there, and the Jewish people remain bound up in God's redemptive story in a unique way. So we mustn't flatten the categories in either direction. Modern Israel is neither the kingdom of God nor a meaningless accident. Keep those two truths in tension and most of the confusion clears up.

The guardrail that matters most: sin, not bloodline

If you remember one section of this article, make it this one - because it's the place where Christians, even sincere ones, can do real damage. Paul saw the danger coming, and he built a guardrail right into the olive-tree image:

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, 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. Then you will say, "Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in." That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

- Romans 11:17-21

"Do not be arrogant toward the branches." That is the apostle's direct command to Gentile Christians. We stand by grace, not superiority. Which means any Christian posture of ethnic contempt, civilizational scapegoating, or racial suspicion toward the Jewish people is already out of step with Paul himself.

And the deeper biblical principle underneath it is this: Scripture explains evil by sin, not by bloodline. The Bible accounts for evil with words like idolatry, pride, rebellion, unbelief, and false worship - never DNA or ethnicity. "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood," Paul writes in Ephesians 6:12 - and that "flesh and blood" includes Jews, Gentiles, Arabs, Europeans, Americans, and every other people group on earth. The moment we start assigning moral corruption to ancestry rather than to sin, we have stepped clean out of biblical categories.

Yes, culture matters - societies can become corrupt, communities can normalize evil, religious traditions can harden against the truth, and all of that can and should be evaluated by God's Word. But culture is not the same thing as ethnicity. Scripture holds together both corporate patterns and individual accountability: Ezekiel 18 insists that God judges justly, and the son is not condemned for the father's sins. Out here, where I've watched what happens when whole peoples get reduced to a label, I can tell you this guardrail is not academic. It's the difference between the gospel and a grievance.

Honest objections, answered

"Didn't Jesus condemn the Jews?"

Jesus did rebuke groups - sharply. In Matthew 23 He calls the religious leaders hypocrites, blind guides, whitewashed tombs, a brood of vipers. But notice what He was judging: hypocrisy, greed, legalism, unbelief, oppression, false teaching, and the murderous rejection of God's messengers. He was not condemning Jewish blood or ethnicity. He couldn't have been - His mother was Jewish, His apostles were Jewish, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea were Jewish, and thousands of Jews came to faith in the book of Acts. Jesus judged corrupt leadership and a corrupt religious culture on the basis of sin, not race.

"Isn't Jewish rejection of Christ serious?"

Absolutely - and I won't soften it. The New Testament is clear that rejecting Christ is spiritually tragic; to deny the Son is to deny the Father, and Judaism apart from Christ cannot save. Paul is utterly plain on that point. But notice what the New Testament never does: it never moves from "many Jewish people reject Christ" to "therefore Jewish people are uniquely evil by bloodline." Romans 9-11 blocks that move at every turn - not all Israel belongs to Israel; there is a remnant chosen by grace; Gentiles must not become arrogant; broken branches may yet be grafted back in; and in the end many Jewish people will come to faith. Jewish unbelief is real, serious, and tragic - but it is not racial, and it is not final.

"What about Genesis 12 - doesn't God bless those who bless Israel?"

This promise is often pressed into service as a blank check for the modern state. But read it carefully. The promise that those who bless Abraham will be blessed does not require Christians to endorse every action of a modern government - and Galatians 3 reminds us that the ultimate "offspring" of Abraham is Christ. So the call to "bless" is not a call to uncritical political endorsement. It's a call to align with God's redemptive purpose in Christ and to seek the true good of people. Think of how Scripture talks about caring for the poor: real love is wise, and helping someone never means enabling what destroys them. In the same way, to truly bless is to seek righteousness, peace, and truth - not to applaud whatever is unjust.

"Can you criticize Israel and still be a faithful Christian?"

Yes. The same Bible that affirms Israel's place in redemptive history also insists that God shows no partiality (Romans 2:11), and the Old Testament prophets rebuked Israel more sharply than they rebuked the surrounding nations. Being connected to God's covenant people never meant moral immunity. So evaluating any nation's actions - including Israel's - by the consistent standards of justice and righteousness isn't anti-Israel. It's simply biblical.

So should Christians support Israel?

Now we can finally answer the question we started with - and you can see why it took us this long to get here. A one-word answer would have been a trap. Here's the balanced biblical position, held together:

Affirm Israel's right to exist. Nations are not accidents; God "determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place" (Acts 17:26), and Israel has a unique historical and biblical rootedness in that land.

Affirm Israel's right to defend its people. Government "does not bear the sword in vain" (Romans 13:4); protecting innocent life from violence is a genuine moral responsibility.

Recognize that not all of Israel's actions are righteous. The prophets rebuked Israel, and God judges every nation impartially. Connection to the covenant has never meant a pass on justice.

Evaluate Israel by the same standard as every nation. Not a harsher standard born of suspicion. Not a softer standard born of sentimentality. The same standard of justice and righteousness that applies to America and to all.

So: support, yes - but with discernment, not blind loyalty. And underneath all of it, the thing that should burn hottest in a Christian's heart isn't a foreign policy position. It's the longing Paul names in Romans 10:1: "my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." Whatever you conclude politically, never let it crowd out gospel love for the Jewish people.

A word on U.S. policy: prudence, not prophecy

Christians can think about public policy without confusing the kingdom of God with the politics of men - and out here, where policy and prophecy get tangled together constantly, that distinction keeps me sane.

From a strictly geopolitical standpoint, many Christians would argue that Israel functions as a strategic ally - one that advances regional stability, democratic interests, intelligence cooperation, and resistance to more radical and violent ideologies in the Middle East. That doesn't make any nation morally pure, and it isn't a theological claim. It's a prudential one. A Christian framework on policy might therefore hold several things at once: support for Israel's right to exist and to defend itself; genuine concern for justice and proportionality; rejection of blind nationalism; a recognition that peace is often tied to restraining greater evils; and a desire that order and stability create more room for human flourishing and gospel witness.

In other words, a believer might support the U.S.-Israel relationship not because the modern state is identical to biblical Israel, but because it can serve justice, restrain greater evil, and contribute to relative stability in a volatile region. Reasonable Christians will weigh these prudential judgments differently - and that's allowed. What's not allowed is dressing up our political preferences as settled prophecy.

Where this leaves us

Pull it all together and a clear, humble posture emerges. God chose Israel by grace to bless the nations. He fulfilled that purpose in Christ. He expanded His people through the Church so that all who trust in Jesus - Jew and Gentile alike - are one in Him. And He is not finished with ethnic Israel; Romans 11 gives us real hope that many Jewish people will one day come to faith in their Messiah.

So we reject both errors at once: replacement theology in its harshest, dismissive form, and ethnic hostility in every form. We refuse to confuse the modern political state with the totality of biblical Israel. We affirm Israel's right to exist and to defend itself, while evaluating its actions morally like any other nation. And above all - above every headline, every alliance, every argument - we long for the salvation of the Jewish people and the advance of the gospel among all nations.

Because here is the bigger story that holds the smaller ones: God is working out a plan larger than any election cycle, military conflict, or political alliance. "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise... but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). He is gathering a people for Himself from every tribe, tongue, and nation. He is not finished with the Jewish people. He is not absent from history. He is not confused by the nations raging. From a base far from home, that is the truth I keep coming back to - and it lets me stay humble on prophetic timelines, clear on the gospel, compassionate toward all peoples, and hopeful in the sovereignty of God.

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