Israel Only Refuted

by Charles S. Meek

Israel Only (IO) is the view that only physical Jews/Israelites were saved in AD 30-70. And
today, it’s a functional atheist universe where God has gone inactive, and no one is saved or
damned. We all live meaningless lives and die meaningless deaths. This idea is so inane that I
have not engaged this much previously, but I have a few minutes this morning, so I’ll offer a
rebuttal.

1. IO says that God gave Israel the Law and no one else (Psalm 147:19). Therefore, they
claim, there could be no sin outside of Torah. However, there was sin before Moses was given
the Law (note Adam, Cain, Noah’s neighbors, and Sodom and Gomorrah). Sin is written on the
hearts of men (Romans 2:15). And it continues even into the New Heaven and Earth per
Revelation 22:15. (See the article Sin, Law, and Judgment in the New Covenant—#C9 at the
link at the bottom.)

2. Thus, IO myopically fails to see that the Mosaic covenant is just a theme within a theme. The
overarching theme of the Bible is the sinfulness of man originating with Adam’s Fall. Jesus was
the Second Adam, not the Second Moses (1 Corinthians 15:45-49). The Bible is about sin,
repentance, faith, and salvation for mankind, not physical Israel.

3. IO misappropriates texts such as Amos 3:2 (“Only you [Israel] have I known.”) Thus, they
dwell on a passage while ignoring the greater context, extrapolating such verses into an
eternal, unchangeable principle and fact.

4. IO limits “Israel” to Old Covenant Israel (Matthew 15:24, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of
Israel.”) They conveniently ignore that according to the New Covenant all believers are grafted
in as the Israel of God, which is open to “whosever believes” (John 3:16). Who is the Israel of
God? See Deuteronomy 30:6; Matthew 21:33-46; John 1:11-13; Romans 2:11-22; 28-29; 9:6-
8; 11:13-26; Galatians 3:26-29; 4:22-31; 6:14-16; Philippians 3:3; Colossians 2:11; 1 Pet 2:9-
10 (ref. Ex 19:5-6). The Israel of God is spiritual, not physical or genetic.

5. The union of Jew and Gentile into one body was "the mystery" that was "kept secret" until
the days of the apostles (Romans 16:25; Ephesians 1:9; 3:3-6,9; Colossians 1:26-27;
Revelation 10:7). But, as put by David Greene, “Israel Only crackpots see the Jew-Gentile
union in one body as being about Jews being united with ‘scattered Israelites’ and it was
explicitly promised and explicitly revealed in the Old Testament. LOL. As usual and as always,
it takes but one Bible verse to demolish the so-called ‘Israel Only’ house of used toilet paper. It
truly is hard to imagine a doctrine that is more theologically and exegetically retarded, or more
intellectually embarrassing, than the ‘Israel Only’ quackery.”

6. IO refuses to see that Christ’s reign has no end per 2 Samuel 7:13; Isaiah 9:7; Dan 2:44;
4:3, 34; 7:14, 18, 27; Lk 1:31-33; 1 Timothy 6:16; Hebrews 1:8-12; 5:6; 6:20; 7:16-28;
Revelation 11:15.
7. IO fails to see that the New Covenant World has no limitation as to people group per
Genesis 12:3; 1 Kings 8:41-43; Isaiah 2:2; 25:6; 42:6; Matthew 28:19; Acts 3:25-26; Romans
1:16; Galatians 3:28; Revelation 5:9; 7:9; 13:7. Thus, it is not limited to Old Covenant Israel.
Acts 3:26 shows Israel First, not Israel Only.

8. IO fails to see that the firstfruits are exactly that—the FIRST not the LAST (Romans 8:22-23;
11:13-16; 16:5; 1 Corinthians 15:20-23; 16:5; James 1:18; Revelation 14:1-4).

9. IO’s amateurish interpretation distorts the meaning of other passages such as Matthew
24:14 (“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all
nations, and then shall the END come.”) Clearly, the END in view by Jesus is the end of the
Old Covenant (Matthew 24:1-3), not the end of the New Covenant. Indeed, the New Covenant
has no end (Ephesians 1:21; 2:7; 3:21; Hebrews 13:20) and the gospel is eternal (Revelation
14:6).

10. The leaders of IO have discredited themselves by flitting like flies from one doctrinal cow
turd to another. For example, Bradley used to preach perfectionism all over Facebook.
Obviously, perfectionism is out the window with his new-found IO nonsense. DeCosta proudly
related his visible encounter with Jesus in his book. If IO is true, his encounter meant zero. But
worse, his IO means zero.

(Credits: David Green, Adam Maarschalk, Don Preston)

https://prophecyquestions.com/2016/02/01/articles-by-charles-meek