Israel. What comes to your mind when you hear that word? The subject of Israel has come up lately in our culture with the release of the Kennedy files. Israel has been connected to the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Christians are questioning how this can be.
Churchianity is greatly divided on the subject of Israel. On one side we have the Christian Zionist. Zionism is a political movement built on the belief that the Jewish people have the right to possess the land of Palestine as their own. Christian Zionism, as a modern theological and political movement, embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism. Its proponents believe that God will restore Israel's ancient fortunes as a nation in the Promised Land. Accompanying this claim is the conviction that Yeshua the Messiah will rule from Jerusalem and that the Jewish people will believe on Him. They see the modern state of Israel as the equivalent of the biblical Israel and the forerunner of the return of Yeshua. Christian Zionism has become deeply detrimental to a just peace between Palestine and Israel.
Some Christians on the other end of the spectrum believe that the Church is now Israel. So, who is right? This is a very important matter.
The spiritual root of Christian Zionism is dispensationalism whose themes have sadly fully permeated many American churches. The fundamental teaching of dispensationalism is that there is a distinction between Israel and the Church. According to dispensationalism, God has two differing peoples who respectively have differing covenant promises, different destinies, and different purposes. Membership in Israel is by natural birth. One enters the church by supernatural birth. Dispensationalists view Israel and the Church as having distinct eternal destinies. Israel will receive an eternal earthly Kingdom while the church will receive an eternal heavenly Kingdom. Irrespective of anything else that may be found in the system, it teaches that no one who rejects the Israel/Church distinction can legitimately be considered a dispensationalist.
Lewis Sperry Chafer, who is probably the most famous exponent of dispensationalism, defined it this way:
The dispensationalist believes that throughout the ages God is pursuing two distinct purposes; one is related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved, which is Judaism (the people of Israel). While the other purpose is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity (the church). Hence the distinction between Israel and the church and God's purposes and promises for each.
Charles Ryrie wrote that "This distinction is probably the most basic theological test of whether or not a man is a dispensationalist and it is undoubtedly the most practical and conclusive test." He then concluded that "The essence of dispensationalism is the distinction between Israel and the Church."
Dispensationalism teaches that the Church is a parenthesis in God's dealing with Israel. When, in fact I believe that Israel was the parenthesis. It asserts that because Israel rejected Christ, God stopped His clock, so to speak, and is presently dealing with the Church. But He will in the future return to His dealings with Israel. This is how dispensationalists deal with all the time passages of his "soon" coming. God has stopped His time clock and will not start it again until He goes back to dealing with Israel.
It is clear from the Tanakh that Israel was Yahweh's chosen people. The nation was uniquely chosen by God to be blessed and to be a source of blessing to the whole world:
"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 ESV
It was to Israel that Yahweh revealed Himself, it was Israel that received the Messianic promises. They were God's chosen people:
Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Amos 3:1-2 ESV
The NASB translates the Hebrew: "yada," as "chosen" but it is better translated: "known" as it is here. It indicates an intimate love relationship. God knows every single individual, but He knew Israel in a special way. They had a very privileged position:
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. Romans 9:4-5 ESV
Now, with privilege comes responsibility. Look at the last part of the verse in Amos 3:2, "Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." With great privilege comes great responsibility. Israel became proud and missed the true end of all they had; the coming of the Lord Yeshua the Christ to atone for their sins. Because of their sins God judged them and destroyed them as a nation. Most Christians think that national Israel is still God's people, contrary to what the Scriptures say. Look at what Yeshua says to the chief priests and elders of Israel.
Yeshua said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: "'The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. Matthew 21:42-43 ESV
The "you" here is Israel. The chosen people Israel lost their status and came under judgment. Yeshua had clearly prophesied that the Kingdom of God would be taken from the Jews and given to another nation who would bring forth fruit.
So, when did national Israel stop being God's people? And what is the Churches relationship to national Israel? There is much confusion about this in churchianity. And people like John Hagee don't help. In case you don't know who he is, John Hagee is the founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas—a non-denominational mega-church with more than 20,000 active members. It is said that Hagee speaks worldwide into 99 million homes.
He forged an unprecedented alliance between Israel-loving Christians and Zionist Jews. His organization, "Christians United for Israel," lobbies for the Jewish state and opposes any land concessions for peace. Hagee has boasted that his powerful organization has more influence than the famous Jewish lobbying group AIPAC.
In John Hagee's 2007 book, In Defense of Israel, He recounts facing down opposition from both Jews and evangelicals to found "Christians United for Israel" and their "Night to Honor Israel." From the beginning, Hagee said, "I set forth an unbendable ground rule: members had to agree to set aside both theological and political agendas and focus on a single issue-support for Israel. We agreed that all 'Night to Honor Israel events would be nonconversionary." (p46)
So set aside theological agendas except one mandating Christians to silence. This should cause alarm among Christians. Silencing the Gospel is the act of persecutors, not Christians.
Because of the power and effects of Christian Zionism, Hagee's teachings should matter to everyone. But they should especially matter to Christians.
Hagee writes, "There are right now Jewish people on this earth who have a powerful and special relationship with God… They have been chosen by the 'election of grace' in which God does what he does without asking man to approve or understand it. Let us put an end to the Christian chatter that 'all the Jews are lost' and can't be in the will of God until they convert to Christianity… There are a certain number of Jews in relationship with God right now through divine election." (Source: Hagee, Should Christians Support Israel?, Pages 124-25, 127).
Hagee says, "Let us put an end to the Christian chatter that 'all the Jews are lost' and can't be in the will of God until they convert to Christianity."
Yeshua while teaching in the Temple to a bunch of Jews says,
I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." John 8:24 ESV
Who are we going to believe, Hagee or Yeshua?
John Hagee teaches a separate covenant for Israel and Christians and teaches that Jews don't need the Gospel. The Houston Chronicle (4/30/88, sec. 6, p. 1) quoted Hagee, "I'm not trying to convert the Jewish people to the Christian faith…trying to convert Jews is a waste of time." This false teaching is sometimes called a "Dual Covenant Theology." It is totally unbiblical.
No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:23 ESV
This teaching is so foolish that anyone who is at all familiar with their Bible can spot it as error. But because so many don't and because of the confusion in the church over Israel let's talk about an area of theology that destroys Hagee's teaching.
An understanding of typology will help us see just how wrong Hagee is. Typology is the study of "types." What exactly do we mean by a type? Theologically speaking, a type may be defined as "a figure or ensample of something future and more or less prophetic, called the 'Antitype'" (E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, p. 768).
Wick Broomall has a concise statement that is helpful:
"A type is a shadow cast on the pages of Old Testament history by a truth whose full embodiment or antitype is found in the New Testament revelation" (Baker's Dictionary of Theology, p. 533).
There are several words used in the Greek New Testament to denote what we have just defined as a type. There is the term tupos (the basis of our English word "type"). Paul uses this in Romans 5:
Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. Romans 5:14 ESV
Here he tells us that Adam "is a type [tupos] of the one who was to come," referring to Christ.
Another Greek word is skia, rendered "shadow."
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. Colossians 2:16 ESV
What is Paul referring to here? The words that Paul uses rendered: "a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath" represent annual, monthly, and weekly celebrations that were tied in with the Mosaic Law. This phrase is indicative of all the appointed festivals of Israel (see Leviticus 23) and is used as such in at least three different places in the Tanakh. So, he's talking about the Mosaic Covenant. Now watch the next verse:
These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Colossians 2:17 ESV
"To come" is from the Greek word mello, which means: "to be about to." So, at the time of Paul's writing of Colossians, the Mosaic system was about to become a shadow. The realities were "about to" come (cf. Heb. 8:5; 10:1).
Other Greek words used for types are the term hupodeigma, translated "copy," and used in conjunction with "shadow" in Hebrews 8. The word parabole (compare our English "parable") is found in Hebrews 9. Finally, there is the use of antitupon, rendered "copies" in 1 Peter 3:21 and in Hebrews 9.
So, we have a type and an anti-type. The type is the picture, the anti-type is the reality. A type is a real, exalted happening in history, which was divinely ordained by the omniscient God to be a prophetic picture of the good things which He purposed to bring to fruition in Christ Yeshua. Let me give you a few examples that I'm sure you are familiar with:
And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." Numbers 21:5 ESV
What happens next?
Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. Numbers 21:6-7 ESV
Why was God killing the Israelites? Complaining! We really are Israel aren't we?
And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. Numbers 21:8-9 ESV
The brazen serpent as a means of salvation for the Israelites was a remarkable type of Christ as a means of our salvation through Him:
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, John 3:14 ESV
Yeshua did not here merely find an apt illustration of His means of saving men by dying on the cross; it was a remarkable divinely ordained type of salvation from death and the punishment for sin by a God-appointed means. What did the Israelites have to do to be saved? Join the church, pray a prayer, get baptized, repent of all wrong doing or live a holy life? No! All they had to do was to look to that serpent and they lived. So also, we look to the Lord Yeshua the Christ in faith, and we live. This type very beautifully set forth salvation through Christ by faith alone.
So, the serpent is the "type" and Christ is the "anti-type." Let me ask you this, "Is the Church saved by Christ?" Of course! But the type was given to Israel. Yet we see its fulfillment in the Church. So, in Typology we see the unity of the Scriptures.
William G. Moorehead writes this concerning types:
A type is a draft or sketch of some well-defined feature of redemption, and therefore it must in some distinct way resemble its antitype, e.i. Aaron as high priest is a rough figure of Christ the Great High Priest, and the Day of Atonement in Israel (Leviticus 16) must be a true picture of the atoning work of Christ… A type always prefigures something future. A Scriptural type and predictive prophecy are in substance the same, differing only in form… A type always looks to the future; an element of prediction must necessarily be in it (The Typology of Scripture by William G. Moorehead is reproduced from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. James Orr [Chicago: Howard-Severance Co., 1930], vol. 5, pp. 3029-3030).
A type is an acted out prophecy. It is as truly prophetic as is a spoken prophecy, and had equal value with spoken prophecy in directing the faith of the Israelites to the coming salvation.
For example, in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is given a spoken prophecy vividly portraying the vicarious suffering of Christ. At the altar in the tabernacle the same great truths were daily predicted both morning and evening in the harmless, innocent lamb, its substitutionary death for another, and the sprinkling of its blood before God.
The sacrificial system of Israel was considered by New Testament writers to be typical of the perfect and final sacrifice of Christ. When John the Baptist saw Yeshua coming toward him he said:
The next day he saw Yeshua coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29 ESV
The blood of every innocent victim, and the faith of every Old Covenant offerer were now made efficacious through the offering up of the perfect Lamb of God for the sin of the world. Without His coming, the Old Covenant sacrifices would have been meaningless and worthless.
Let me give you a couple interpretative principles that we need to keep in mind as we study types:
1. It must be recognized that types are grounded in real history; the people, places, events, etc. were deliberately chosen by God to prepare for the coming of the Christian system.
2. There is a graduation from type to antitype; of the lesser to the greater; from the material to the spiritual; the earthly to the heavenly.
Thus it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 1 Corinthians 15:45 ESV
Here Paul is talking about Adam, who he calls a type:
Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. Romans 5:14 ESV
Then speaking of Adam and Christ Paul says:
But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 1 Corinthians 15:46 ESV
So, the type is natural, earthly, material, and the anti-type is spiritual, heavenly and the fulfillment or reality.
Now with that being said, what I want you to understand, and what is critical that we understand, is that: National, ethnic Israel was a type. Hagee doesn't get this and understanding this is crucial to understanding Scripture.
Dispensationalism misses this very important point and thus tries to keep separate the type and anti-type. The people of Israel themselves were a type. The nation itself, as God's special people, was typical of the true people of God. It was "physical Israel," but Paul describes Christian believers as "Spiritual Israel." National Israel was divinely ordained to resemble Spiritual Israel. The physical seed of Abraham typified the spiritual seed of Abraham, and some of the promises made to his seed were not fulfilled at all to his physical seed, but, as Paul teaches in Romans 4, only to his spiritual children. Physical Israel as a type of spiritual Israel is constantly set forth by Paul in the Roman and Galatian letters.
In theological typology, when the "antitype" arrives, the "type" is seen as fulfilled or superseded. The antitype is a fulfillment or completion of an earlier truth revealed in the Bible.
And understanding that the nation of Israel was a type, we won't be surprised to find that Israel's sacrifices, priesthood, Temple, and land also had typical significance.
Dispensationalism puts great emphasis on a rebuilt Temple and priesthood because they fail to see these as types. Physical Israel was a type and so was the tabernacle:
They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain." Hebrews 8:5 ESV
The tabernacle was a type. What is the anti-type? Yeshua is the anti-type:
Yeshua answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." John 2:19 ESV
Yeshua replaces the Temple itself. Yeshua is the anti-type of the Temple. The Temple represented the presence of God among His children in the early days, so Christ is described in:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 ESV
The word "dwelt" here is skenoo, which means: "a tent." Yeshua came and pitched His tent or tabernacled among us. Notice what Peter says to the Jewish leaders:
let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Yeshua the Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well. Acts 4:10 ESV
Now notice what Peter says of Christ:
This Yeshua is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. Acts 4:11 ESV
Yeshua is the cornerstone upon which the spiritual house of God was built.
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12 ESV
If you don't build on the cornerstone, Yeshua, you don't have salvation. Whose Savior was Yeshua?
Of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Yeshua, as he promised. Acts 13:23 ESV
Yeshua is Israel's Savior! So, if the Church and Israel are different, who is the Churches Savior? Israel's Savior is our Savior, because we are Israel.
How did Israel move from a type to an anti-type? Good question. Israel went from type to anti-type by means of a second exodus. At the transfiguration Luke wrote:
who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Luke 9:31 ESV
The word for "departure" is the Greek word exodos. There was another exodus that Yeshua was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. This was another forty year journey, not a physical one, but a spiritual one. When did this second exodus begin? To answer that we need to know when did the first exodus begin? Passover! You'll remember that the first Passover was observed when Israel was about to be delivered from slavery in Egypt.
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. Exodus 12:3 ESV
Who is the anti-type of the lamb? It is the Lord Yeshua the Christ. Passover was a type, or picture of something much greater—it pictured the redemption of God's elect through the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God, the Lord Yeshua, who was the Christ.
The typical significance of the Passover is very clear in the New Testament writings. Probably no Mosaic institution is a more perfect type than this.
and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. Exodus 12:6 ESV
The first Passover was celebrated on the 14th of Nisan, beginning Israel's exodus out of Egypt. Then almost two thousand years later, Yeshua was crucified on the 14th of Nisan, beginning the second exodus.
So, the first and second exodus, the type and the anti-type, both began on Passover. Israel's journey from Egypt to Canaan, the exodus, was a type.
Who led the exodus of Israel out of Egypt? Moses! Moses is a type and Yeshua is the anti-type. Moses was the first savior of Israel, whom God had empowered to redeem Israel, this was a prefiguring of the true Redeemer who by His perfect sacrifice redeemed Israel from sin's death.
In 2 Corinthians 3, Moses stands in relation to the Old Covenant as Christ does to the New Covenant. One is inferior and preparatory, the other is spiritual and final. In these ways, then, the life of Moses points beyond itself to the life and work of Christ.
Like Moses, Yeshua will grow up in Egypt:
And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt Matthew 2:14 ESV
Like the story of Moses, Herod slaughters the male children (2:16-18). Like Moses' exile to Midian, Yeshua's exile to Egypt will end with the death of Herod/Pharaoh. And then we have a New Exodus foretold:
and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Matthew 2:14-15 ESV
Matthew is quoting here from Hosea:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. Hosea 11:1 ESV
When we study this text in the context of the entire book, we find that Hosea is referring to the Exodus described in the book of Exodus. But as we have just seen in Matthew 2:15, the writer applies Hosea 11:1 to Yeshua as a youth returning to Judea from Egypt. This reference does not seem in keeping with the intention of Hosea. It is here we must remember where the meaning of a text ultimately resides—in the intention of its author, God Himself. And as we read the Scripture in the context of the Bible as a whole, we see that He has made an analogy between Israel, God's son, being freed from Egypt, and Yeshua, God's Son, coming up from Egypt; a pattern that runs throughout Matthew's Gospel. "Out of Egypt I have called my son" is Exodus typology, where Yeshua is the New True Israel.
Yeshua is baptized (Matthew 3:12-17). As Yeshua emerges from the water, we hear, "This is My beloved Son," which evokes a related image: Israel was adopted and became God's son at the Exodus from Egypt at the crossing of the Red Sea, and so this is New Exodus Typology in which New Israel is born.
When we come to Matthew 4:1:11, which describes Yeshua's temptation in the wilderness; if we are familiar with the Tanakh, we will see this pattern again. When we read that Yeshua, the Son of God, spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, this reference may remind us of the Israelites' 40-year trek in the wilderness. But the comparison goes beyond the number 40. The Israelites also were tempted in the wilderness in the same three areas in which Yeshua was tempted: (1) hunger and thirst, (2) testing God, and (3) worshiping false gods. Yeshua, however, shows Himself to be the obedient Son of God, where the Israelites were disobedient. Indeed, Yeshua responded to the temptations by quoting Deuteronomy, the sermon that Moses gave the Israelites at the end of their 40-year sojourn.
What does Yeshua do next in Matthew?
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: Matthew 5:1-2 ESV
Yeshua goes up on a mountain, like Moses, and gives New Torah; the "Sermon on the Mount." Yeshua is the New Israel, and this typology can only be seen if we are familiar with the Tanakh.
The transfiguration experience is pregnant with exodus symbolism. Just as Moses went up into the mountain with three companions, so does Yeshua. Moses' face shone with the glory of God; the face of Yeshua "Shone like the sun," Matthew tells us. Moses and Elijah appear, and the voice from the cloud says, "This is my beloved Son; listen to Him" is most likely echoing the words of:
"The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— Deuteronomy 18:15 ESV
From the mount our Lord descends, as did Moses, to find confusion on the plain.
What event ended the first exodus period? The destruction of Jericho. Jericho stood at the entrance to the promised land. It was a fortified city that represented a serious challenge to Israel's claim to the land. Its fall telegraphed a message to all the world that God was the Lord of this people.
What event marked the end of the second exodus? The destruction of Jerusalem. Old Covenant Judaism was a major problem for those early believers. Nothing represented the old system better than the Temple. Here was where the presence of God dwelt. His presence assured them they were His people. But forty years after the cross, in A.D. 70, believers fled the city of Jerusalem as the walls fell and the city was destroyed and burned.
Similar to the collapse of the walls in Jericho, the fall of Jerusalem's walls symbolized the entrance of the redeemed remnant into Christ's everlasting Kingdom. The believers were vindicated and revealed as "the sons of God" while judgment fell on the Jewish system which had rejected God as King.
Look with me at Acts 3 and Peters second sermon to the Church. What happened in Acts 2? Pentecost was the fulfillment, the anti-type, of the type given to Israel. It was the birthday of the Church of Yeshua the Christ. God was now to dwell, not in a tent, but with His people. We, the Church, are the New Israel of God, and in us all the promises made to the Fathers are fulfilled.
Nobody knows for sure how much time passed between the events of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3. It was probably a relatively short period of time. In the beginning of chapter 3 Peter and John heal a man at the Temple who was crippled from birth. The man leaps up and began to walk and leap and praise God. Luke is telling us prophecy was being fulfilled. The kingdom had arrived!
As you can imagine, this healing miracle drew a crowd in the temple and so Peter preaches his second sermon.
And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: "Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? Acts 3:12 ESV
"Men of Israel"—who is Peter speaking to? Peter is in the Jewish Temple and he is speaking to Jews. The very people that Hagee says don't need the Gospel.
But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, Acts 3:18-19 ESV
The Hebrew prophets had foretold the suffering of Christ. Peter call on the Jews to repent. Drop down to verse 22.
Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. Acts 3:22 ESV
This quote is taken from Deuteronomy 18:15. Let's look at the text in Deuteronomy.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. Deuteronomy 18:18-19 ESV
Who is this prophet? It is Yeshua. No one was held in greater esteem in first century Judaism than Moses. He was exalted above all men.
Luke is giving us here "exodus topology." He is making a comparison between Moses and Christ. The exodus out of Egypt and into the promised land by the children of Israel under Moses is a direct shadow of the exodus of the New Testament generation from the cross to the entrance into the eternal land of rest-the Kingdom of God.
Now the next verse is critical,
And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' Acts 3:23 ESV
Peter identifies the true Israel. It is those who follow Messiah. Here Peter says that those within national Israel who don't listen to Moses and believe in Yeshua shall be cut off from "the people". If you reject the Messiah, you will no longer be "the people." Peter is saying that from here on, and he is saying this right after Pentecost, so from here on ONLY those who follow Yeshua are "the people." All those who reject Him are the enemies of God and will be judged. Here is a clear indication that the coming of Yeshua will result in a new Israel arising out of the old, from which all who reject Him will be cut off. This new Israel will be the nation to whom God will give what the old nation has forfeited (Matthew 21:43). A new nation will be formed with the Christ rejecters cast off.
From here on ONLY those who believe in Yeshua are "the people." "The people" is a technical designation of Israel. All those who reject Yeshua are the enemies of God and will be judged. This was also Paul's message. Hagee is wrong the Jews needed Yeshua, without him they are not God's people and are dead in their sins.
So Dispensationalism is wrong, Israel and the Church are not separate peoples. National Israel was a type and the Church, the true Israel is the anti-type. All the promises that God made to His covenant people are fulfilled in the Church, the true Israel. The "true Israel" is the Israel of faith, not birth; Israel is spiritual, not natural. This view has been called "replacement theology"; it is said that the Church replaced Israel. But a much better term would be "fulfillment theology"; the promises of God made to Old Covenant Israel are "fulfilled" in the Church of Yeshua, which is true Israel. Covenant, not race, has always been the defining mark of the true Israel.
I believe that the Bible teaches the essential continuity of Israel and the church. The elect of all the ages is seen as one people with one Savior and one destiny. All Believers have been grafted into God's olive tree. God did not get upset with Israel and go out and plant a new tree as Dispensationalism teaches. He grafted us into Israel through Yeshua who is True Israel. The Church is the anti-type of national Israel.