Hey Doubting Thomas
Again you present a half truth. Yes - you are right that their remains no ethnic differences for those in the Christ's Church. Here you must see your very own statement as pertaining to individuals.
What you miss is that God has a master plan for national Israel. The major issues relate to the Abrahamic Covenant.
God made three major kinds of promises.
First, personal promises to Abraham. God would make Abraham a blessing to others.
Second, national promises concerning Israel. God promised to make Abraham’s physical descendants a great nation. Their land would go from the Nile to the Euphrates (Gen 12:7, 13:14-15; 15:18-21; 17:8) as an everlasting covenant (Gen 17:7, 19).
Third, God made universal promises which would affect all peoples of the world. God vowed that all peoples would be blessed through Abraham’s physical line of descendants (Gen 12:3; 22:18; 28:14).
The most crucial of the three major issues is whether or not the covenant is conditional or unconditional. If the covenant was unconditional, then every promise must be somehow fulfilled by national Israel. If the covenant was conditional, then not every promise has to be fulfilled.
Covenant theologians typically hold that the national promises are unconditional but must be interpreted allegorically. Dispensational theologians hold that all promises are unconditional and to be fulfilled literally.
I have three questions but will only deal with one here. Does God promise Israel permanent existence as a nation?
In light of the unconditional nature, the Abrahamic Covenant has at least a twofold effect upon Israel.
First, it guarantees Israel permanent existence as a nation. A covenant cannot be everlasting if one party of the covenant ceases to exist. Several passages promise that it spite of Israel’s terrible sins, it never will be totally destroyed as a nation.
Deut 4:25-31. Here, the two occurrences of the English word destroy comes from two different Hebrew words. In verse 26, the word destroy (‘abad) is understood in context to mean overthrow or remove from the land. In verse 26, the word destroy (shachath) is understood in context to mean not destroy as in not putting it out of existence.
Jer 30:11: “yet will I [God] not make a full end of thee.”
Jer 46:28: “but I [God] will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure.”
Amos 9:8: “I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.”
In Rom 11, Paul taught that even in his day the people of Israel were still beloved of God in accordance with His sovereign choice of them to be His people.
The Guarantee of Israel’s Permanent Ownership of the Land
The second aspect of the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant is that it guarantees Israel permanent ownership of the Promised Land. God promised Canaan to Abraham and the people of Israel forever (Gen 12:7; 13:14-15; 15:18-21; 17:8; I Chr 16:15-18; Psa 105:8-11). This does not mean that Israel had to live in the land in order to maintain ownership.
The prophets foretold of a total, permanent restoration of Israel.
Isa. 60:21: “Thy people also [shall be] all righteous: they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I [GOD] may be glorified.”
Jer. 3:18: “In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.”
Ezekiel had many such prophesies.
20:42, 44: “And ye shall know that I [am] the LORD, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country [for] the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers.”
28:25-26: “And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I [am] the LORD their God.”
34:13: “And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.”
39:25-29 (esp 28): “they know that I [am] the LORD their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there.”
Others are 34:27-29; 36:22-32; 37:11-26.
When this restoration takes place, all of the Jews will be righteous (Deut 30:6-8). God regards Israel as the continuous owner is spite of its various dispersions from the land.
Lloyd
