It is important to remember that the Early Church was primarily Jewish; the remnant of those who followed Jesus were Jews who evangelized Gentiles! Thankfully, they carried God’s light to the nations, just as Isaiah said,

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings the Gospel of peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation…”  Isa 52:7

As Gentiles, we first had to learn what a Messiah was, why we needed a Messiah, who the Messiah was, and how to respond to Messiah.  We learned this through Jews teaching us God’s Word.  The Early Church was two constituents of God’s Elect -- Jewish and Gentile Christians -- as ONE Body of Believers.  

In the first two centuries, by and large, the body of believers in Jesus were persecuted for their faith. Yet remarkably, it is known as the largest growth of “Judaism” in history – howbeit, from the Nazarene sect (those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah).

In the beginning of the third century, there was a shift when Constantine made a strategic political and military power move.  After Caesar died, Maxentius and Constantine were competing for Caesar’s position. Constantine did not have enough military might to make the power grab, so he enlisted the persecuted Christians into his army by claiming a vision from God of a cross in the sky.  With these added numbers, Constantine became Caesar, legalized Christianity, and made many changes that were not for the better. In a nutshell, he merged the newly legalized Christian faith with paganism and we devolved into a Gentile-centric worldview.

Persecution shifted towards the Jews and, in short, the Roman Catholic Church was formed as the ruling state power over the Roman Empire. It is at this time that the Church made gross departures from the the Bible's Hebraic roots.

By the fifth century there was an amazing collection of over 500 translations of the Bible – enlightening the Gentile nations. However, the Roman Catholic Church, being the world’s ruling empire at the time, outlawed any translation other than the Vulgate Latin.

By the sixth century, there was only ONE translation – the Vulgate Latin, a language that few could read, sending the masses of the next millennium into the darkness. This is called the Dark Ages, as well as the beginning of the Great Apostacy (which concludes at the very end of the end times), and would last for the next 1200 years. It was at this time that the exploitation of ignorance prevailed in Church history. The persecution and discrimination of Jews was in epic proportions – calling Jews Christ-killers, saying that God had forsaken Israel and replaced her with the Roman Catholic Church.

Unprecedented monstrosities were rallied and encouraged against the Jews, rewarding hatred and violence towards them and, regretfully, all done under the symbol of the Cross. We deeply regret these evil and criminal actions towards the Jews – an era that was so rightfully defined as the Dark Ages! 

However, light dawned in the darkness when men began to translate the Scriptures back into the common languages of the people and made it available through the power of the printed page. 

It was not until 1380 AD, when a Catholic card-holding soul by the name of John Wycliffe, was impassioned to translate the Bible for the common man, seeing the error and inordinate political and religious control exercised over the people. Though his translation did not reach the common man at that time, it did reveal the departure that the Roman Catholic Church had taken in both teaching and practicing away from the Scriptures.

It would be another hundred years before Martin Luther would nail his 95 Theses to the door of his local church proclaiming indulgences and the like were absolute foolishness and that salvation was by faith alone!

A reversal of the curse had begun! A movement began to emerge in history called the Reformation, led by the Reforming Protestants – those who protested the heresies against the written Word of God. Scripture was enthroned once again as the ruling authority! 

The 1500s proved to be a rocky time for the Catholic Church. People began to leave the Catholic faith in droves for two reasons, (1) the Bible was translated, printed and circulated to the commoner and (2) the published teachings of the likes of John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, William Tyndale, John Haas, John Knox, and John Calvin, just to name a few. The power of the printed page and men of faith became a significant threat to the organized Catholic Church for the first time since Constantine.

These Protestants protested the apostasy, taught many reforming truths to the public at large, such as: free will, salvation by grace alone and not by works, and particularly that Christians could read from the pages of Scripture. This was not hearsay or someone’s opinion, it was the direct translation of Scripture itself, the marvelous direct and clear truth - unpolluted! By the way, when populations understood that salvation was not purchased through indulgences, people began to adhere to the call for purity and holiness for themselves!

Folk were getting the revelation (pun intended) to seek truth and lead faithful lives. The fallout from this was extraordinary blessing that rests on the believer’s faith in the truth – was extraordinary! People began to prosper spiritually, mentally, physically and even monetarily. In fact, so much so, capitalism is the fruit of the Reformation! 

The early Protestant Reformers had a motto, sola scriptura, meaning only Scripture, because they were coming out of a millennial coma of religious deceit and corruption. The Reformation has continued to liberate nations in our world.

This movement continues categorically today with Evangelicals, who believe that God’s liberating truths, coupled with personal and community responsibility, promise liberty and justice for all men – it once was the very ethos of the birth of America!

It was the Reforming Protestants who corrected the error that a Gentile-centric Church had replaced Israel, why?  Because the Scriptures clearly taught that AFTER the Age of the Gentiles, God would fulfill His covenant promises to the Jewish people and that Jews and Christians would meet the coming of the Lord together! 

And why did they teach this? Simply because that is what the Bible says. Once the Scriptures were made available to the common man and we were proxy to truth once again, their teaching was simply to correct the unbiblical mumbo-jumbo of the Roman Catholic Church's informational control tactics to keep people dependent on a hierarchical system and in the dark, to present the truth of what the Scripture plainly says. In fact, an entire theological perspective was penned as Dispensationalism to organize information and realignment to the Scriptures. In short, it was the understanding that the Bible is telling God’s progressive revelation to mankind throughout the different dispensations of time to illustrate His grace in each dispensation – which climaxes in God restoring Israel back into the land and His covenant relationship to them during the end times. 

One should remember that they taught this before modern-day Israel had become a nation, but heralded what the Scriptures said about Israel’s definitive future, such as,

“Hear the word of the Lord, O nations (God is speaking to Gentiles), and declare it (God is giving a directive to Gentiles) in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’ For the Lord has redeemed Jacob…Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  Jer 31:10-33

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. THEN I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  Ezek 36:24-26

The New Covenant,  prophesied by Jeremiah, was promised to Israel and, subsequently, the Gentile nations would be grafted into the Body of Messiah. The Blood of Jesus is the redemptive atonement for the remission of sins. 

For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.  Matt 26:28

Quick question: Are we as the nations declaring “He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock?”

God will fulfill His promise to the Israel and give them a new heart and a new spirit – when? The Bible calls this era of time the “Consummation of the Ages,” which is described when Israel returns from their second exile and the Age of the Gentiles has come to the close of its allotted, predetermined time period, as a converging climax of ages! 

We are beginning to experience the confluence of THIS AGE!  Just as the Early Church was Jew and Gentile, so will be the ONE Body of believers before Jesus’ return.

Did you know that the New Testament makes a BOLD and DIRECT proclamation to Gentile believers NOT to think that the Gentile Church has replaced Israel? For example, let’s follow the Apostle Paul’s thought in Romans 11,

…has God cast away His people? Certainly not! God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew.

Paul went on to say that if through the Jew’s exile God had mercy on the Gentiles – again repeating himself stating, that

if their exile meant blessing for the world, HOW MUCH MORE Israel’s fulness? 

The writer goes on to admonish Gentile believers not to boast or behave arrogantly against the Jews!

It clearly states, that when the full number of Gentiles has come in (Age of the Gentiles), so all Israel will be saved. 

As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with THEM (the Jews) when I take away their sins.”

That seems clear enough – but just in case we needed further clarity, Paul pushes his point to an absolute by saying,

…but as far as election is concerned, they (the Jews) are loved because of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.  And the fundamental essence of our faith is that God can NOT lie!

Paul clearly taught that God divinely imposed limited revelation upon the Jewish people -- SO THAT the Lord could have mercy on the Gentile nations by grafting us INTO Israel – we are not a separate entity, but part of the one Body of Believers! This is Paul’s whole point in the first three chapters of Ephesians – we are ONE body, Jew and Gentile, in God’s sovereign election of grace! 

Israel’s final redemption is not IF, but WHEN.  At the close of the Age of the Gentiles, Jesus will return, BUT He is not returning until Israel says, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!” 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…you shall see Me no more until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!’” Matt 23:37-39

God willing, we will witness this epic, awesome, reunion – the Consummation of the Ages!  And we have a role to play in this climax of time!

As you can see, supporting Israel is a Biblical conviction for Evangelical Christians, an an invitation for all who read the Bible as their compass.  It is not a marginal Israel club with blue and white pom-poms, but an absolute that God will fulfill His covenant promises to Israel and the Jewish people! This, in short, is the evolution of why Christians support Israel - because God Himself personally does and the Scripture directly teaches us to do so also.

Really, how can we not support Israel?