Leaving the Illusion of Earthly Israel for the Reality of Christ
If we have shattered your “candy-land” vision of the so-called Holy Land, we make no apology. Delusion must be broken before truth can be established. The modern state of Israel is not the Kingdom of God. The dream of a literal Promised Land as the heart of God’s plan has collapsed—and in its place stands the eternal reality of the Kingdom of Christ, written not on maps but in the hearts of His people.
Today, many Christians are told that to be faithful to God is to wave the flag of Israel, to defend its armies, to sanctify its wars. But Hebrews 11 shows us a higher reality. Abraham himself sojourned in the land of promise as a stranger (v.9). He lived in it, yes—but he knew it was not the fulfillment. Why? Because he was looking “for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (v.10).
So why do Christians now cling to what Abraham himself let go of? Why do we glorify an earthly nation when the saints of old confessed that they were “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (v.13), desiring “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (v.16)? To set our hope in the dust of Canaan is to miss the eternal Zion above.
We have been liberated from the narrow confines of nationalism and carnal thinking into the vast freedom of His Spirit. The Kingdom of God knows no borders. It stretches beyond political alliances, beyond wars, beyond the bloodshed of earthly conflicts. Our citizenship is not in Jerusalem that now is, but in the Jerusalem above, the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26).
This truth is almost too vast for human minds to grasp! Why settle for fighting over deserts and walls, when Christ has opened the heavens to us? Why chase shadows when the substance is here? To trade the heavenly inheritance for earthly politics is to play in puddles while the oceans of God’s glory lie before us.
The world screams for Christians to take sides in war, to defend soil with swords, to confuse the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men. But Jesus said plainly: “If My Kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight. But My Kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The Cross, not the sword, is our banner. The Spirit, not nationalism, is our weapon.
Like Abraham, we reject the illusion that Israel after the flesh could ever contain the promise. The real inheritance lies in Christ. The true Jerusalem is not a city under siege but the Bride adorned for her Husband (Rev. 21–22), radiant with eternal glory. That is our destiny.
So let us set our affection on things above, not on things of the earth (Col. 3:2). Earthly Israel may disappoint us, as it did Abraham, but our hope will never be ashamed, for it is anchored in the eternal Kingdom. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
We are free—free from bondage to nationalism, free from the traditions of men, free from the shadows of an earthly land. Our inheritance is eternal, our Kingdom unshakable, our Jerusalem heavenly. Let the nations rage and the wars continue—but we, the children of promise, know our true calling.
Israel after the flesh is not our hope. Christ is. The Church—His Bride—is the true Israel of God. And our Promised Land is not in the Middle East but in the presence of the Lamb forever.