Why Would Anyone Call God a Liar?

God Has Not Forsaken His People: The Faithfulness of God to National Israel and the Literal Earthly Kingdom Promised in Luke 1:30-33

The claim that God has permanently forsaken the Jewish people and transferred or spiritualized away the kingdom promised in Luke 1:30-33 is a serious charge against the character of God. It asserts that the Lord who swore by Himself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David has broken His word. Scripture, rightly divided, refutes that claim at every point. The angel Gabriel announced God’s promise of this eternal kingdom to Mary in Luke 1:30-33:

These words are not poetry to be dissolved into the present Church. They are the language of the Davidic covenant. They concern a throne, a house (the nation descended from Jacob), and a kingdom that has no end. God will keep this promise because He is faithful.

The visible professing church’s Covenant Theology and Replacement Theology (supersessionism) that treat Israel as discarded and the Church as the new Israel are false doctrines that undermine the veracity of God—they call God a liar.

Gabriel’s announcement rests on earlier, equally literal covenants. God promised Abraham a seed, a land, and blessing to the nations through that seed (Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-17; 15:18-21; 17:7-8). He confirmed the land as an everlasting possession. He later swore to David:

“And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.” (II Samuel 7:16)

The prophets never spiritualized this into a heavenly abstraction. Isaiah declared a Child would sit “upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever” (Isaiah 9:7). Jeremiah promised a righteous Branch who would “reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth” (Jeremiah 23:5). Ezekiel, Zechariah, and others describe a restored Israel in her land, a purified government, peace among nations, and the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth. These are earthly, national, and political realities under Christ’s future reign as King of Israel.

To turn “the house of Jacob” into the Church and “the throne of David” into Christ’s present heavenly session is to abandon the grammatical-historical sense of the text. The same Christ who was raised to sit on David’s throne in the future (Acts 2:30) was also raised as Head of the Body of Christ for a distinct purpose in the present age. Confusing the two programs requires altering prophecy rather than believing it.

Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, connected the same hope to deliverance from enemies so that Israel might serve God “without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74-75). Simeon waited for “the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). After the resurrection the apostles asked, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

Jesus did not correct their expectation of a restored national kingdom; He only reserved the times and seasons to the Father (Acts 1:7). Peter later preached the “times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21). The consolation of Israel—the earthly reign of the Son of David over the house of Jacob—has been postponed, not cancelled.

The apostle Paul, himself an Israelite of the tribe of Benjamin, faces the question directly:

“I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.” (Romans 11:1)

“God forbid” is the strongest possible denial. Paul is living proof that God has not abandoned every individual of Israel. More than that, he explains the present situation as temporary and purposeful. Israel has stumbled, but not so as to fall beyond recovery (Romans 11:11). Through their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke Israel to jealousy. The casting away of them has meant the reconciling of the world; their future receiving will be “life from the dead” (Romans 11:15). Blindness in part has happened to Israel “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Romans 11:25-26).

This is not a promise that every Jew who has ever lived will be saved, nor that the Church is now “all Israel.” It is the promise that the nation, as the elect remnant according to God’s covenant purpose, will be delivered when the Deliverer comes out of Zion. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Romans 11:29). Israel remains “beloved for the fathers’ sakes.” God will do this for His own holy name’s sake, not because Israel has earned it (Ezekiel 36:22-32).

In Jeremiah 31:35-37 God makes the permanence of Israel’s national identity as certain as the fixed ordinances of the sun, moon, and stars. If those ordinances can be measured and searched out, then God will cast off the seed of Israel. They cannot. Therefore, He will not.

The olive-tree analogy in Romans chapter 11 does not teach that Gentiles have become Israel or that the Church has replaced the natural branches. The tree represents the place of privilege and nearness to God that once belonged nationally to Israel. Unbelieving branches were broken off; wild olive branches (Gentiles) were grafted in to partake of the root and fatness. The natural branches can be grafted in again.

Replacement theology misreads the passage when it claims the Church is now the olive tree itself or “spiritual Israel.” The analogy actually warns Gentiles against arrogance and affirms that God is able to graft Israel in again.

God is now administering a previously unrevealed mystery: the formation of the Church which is the Body of Christ, in which Jew and Gentile are fellow-heirs, of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel (Ephesians 3:1-9; Colossians 1:24-27). This program was hid in God from ages and generations (Ephesians 3:9; Romans 16:25; I Corinthians 2:7; Colossians 1:26), it is not the fulfillment of the prophetic program given to Israel.

Jesus Christ was “a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers” (Romans 15:8). His earthly ministry, the gospel of the kingdom, and the early chapters of Acts concern that confirmation. When the nation persisted in unbelief, God set Israel aside nationally (not individually) and raised up Paul as the apostle of the Gentiles with the gospel of the grace of God.

The present dispensation is an interruption in the prophetic clock—during which “blindness in part is happened to Israel.” When the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, God will resume His dealings with the nation. The kingdom will not be brought in by the preaching of the gospel of grace; it will be brought in by the personal return of Christ.

Therefore, the Church does not inherit Israel’s land, throne, or national covenants. Believers today are translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13) and have their citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20). Their hope is the blessed hope of being caught up to meet the Lord in the air (I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Titus 2:13). Israel’s hope remains the earthly kingdom under David’s greater Son.

Confusing these two callings produces the very errors of Covenant Theology: one people of God throughout history, the Church as the “new Israel,” and the spiritualizing of land, throne, and national promises so that they are fulfilled in the present age or in heaven. That method of teaching leaves believers at the mercy of the theologian rather than the plain words of Scripture and calls into question God’s veracity.

Covenant Theology organizes Scripture around a supposed covenant of works and covenant of grace, often treating the Church as the continuation or fulfillment of Israel. In practice this frequently results in Replacement Theology: the Church has superseded national Israel as the people of God, the promises are now spiritual, and there is no distinct future for ethnic Israel as a nation in her land under Christ’s earthly reign. Some versions allow a future conversion of Jews into the Church, but they still deny the restoration of the Davidic kingdom on earth as promised.

This system cannot be reconciled with:

If God can transfer Israel’s national promises to another people and change their character from earthly to heavenly, then no promise is safe. The same method that spiritualizes Luke 1:32-33 can spiritualize the believer’s security, the resurrection, or the return of Christ.

God is not a man that He should lie (Numbers 23:19). He will give the Son the throne of His father David, and the Son will reign over the house of Jacob forever.

After the present age closes, the Deliverer will come out of Zion. All Israel shall be saved. The nation will look upon Him whom they pierced (Zechariah 12:10). The Lord will make a new covenant with them, put His law in their hearts, and they shall be His people. He will gather them from the nations, plant them in their land, and they shall no more be pulled up (Amos 9:14-15; Ezekiel 37; Hebrews 8).

Christ as King will sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem and execute judgment and justice in the earth. Peter and the Eleven will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes (Matthew 19:28). The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. War will cease. Israel will be a blessing to the nations rather than a byword.

This is not “carnal” hope. It is the hope God Himself announced by an angel, confirmed by Spirit-filled prophets, and guaranteed by His own oath. The Church of this age has a heavenly calling and a distinct hope. That fact does not cancel Israel’s earthly calling. God is faithful to both.

The visible professing church that teaches otherwise has adopted a system that cannot take Gabriel’s words at face value. Scripture can. Scripture tells us that God magnifies His word above His name (Psalm 138:2). God has not forsaken His people. He will keep the promise of Luke 1:30-33 exactly as it was given.