Last month I ran a three-part series as an overview of dispensationalism and covenantalism. Part 1 was (I hope) a charitable summary of covenantalism, while Part 2 was a birds-eye view of dispensationalism. Meanwhile, Part 3 was a look at six practical differences between the two views. Not surprisingly, I received several suggestions on posts to add to the series, and while it is not my intent to keep this series going forever, I did want to do a final post to address what is arguably the most contentious single verse between covenantalists and dispensationalists: Galatians 6:16 and the “Israel of God.”
So much of the dispensational understanding of redemptive history hinges on the church beginning on Pentecost. Dispensationalists see a distinction between the church and Israel, and that distinction drives our approach to understanding the Scripture’s narrative arc. Dispensationalists understand the term “Israel” in two senses: first, as the ethnic and national people whom God formed from Abraham, whom he led to the Promised Land, who experienced the exile and the return, and from whom came Jesus (according to the flesh). And second, dispensationalists understand that not every Israelite was a “true” Israelite in the fullest sense, as the vast majority of those under the Old Covenant were not regenerate and did not fear Yahweh. Thus the term “Israel” in its broad sense refers to the nation Israel and her people, and in the more narrow sense it refers to those Israelites who were truly regenerate (Romans 9:6). Israel was a literal nation in the Old Testament, and God will fulfill the promises to Israel in the millennial kingdom by returning an ethnically Jewish nation to the promised land, where they will look upon whom they pierced and be saved (Zechariah 12:10).
On the other hand, for the dispensationalist the term “church” refers to a new entity that began at Pentecost, transcends national boundaries and ethnic identities, and is new in the New Testament. While Israel was (by design) made up of believers and non-believers alike, for the dispensationalist, the church is (by design) made up of only regenerate believers. This is perhaps the key distinction between covenantalism and dispensationalism—whether or not the new covenant intentionally includes the unregenerate (such as infants). It is agreed that they were included in Israel; in fact, the chief means of guarding the scriptures and the promises of the savior was through the covenant family relationship–this is the point of circumcision as the covenant sign. But the church is different at precisely this point—at least according to the dispensationalist.
By way of contrast, in covenantalism, there is a continuity between the church and Israel. Promises given to Israel in the past become the church’s now—and for the covenantalist, this is not an illegitimate transfer. In their understanding, the church was present in the old covenant; the church began in the garden with Adam, and has always been passed down through the covenant family relationship. So in covenantalism, it is not so much that church “replaces” Israel, as it is that true Israel has always been the church. Thus, in this school of thought, believing Israel and the church are the same redemptive body. By the way, this is why dispensationalists are baptistic, and why (most) covenantalists are not. For the covenantalist, it makes sense to carry on the covenant ceremony on infants (circumcision/baptism) because what has changed is intensity of the promise, not the nature of the recipients of the promise.
Or, to put it even more simply, in dispensationalism the church and Israel are two different groups of people, whereas in covenantalism they often refer to the same group.
So, this should be easy enough to test. Does the New Testament speak of the church and Israel in inter-changeable terms, or at the very least in a way that implies that the Israel has blossomed into the church? Or does the New Testament use the terms Israel and church differently, and in reference to two different groups of people?
To me, the answer is straightforward. The NT uses Israel some 70 times, and it consistently refers to the same group of people called Israel in the OT, namely ethnic Israel. While we don’t need to list all 70 uses of Israel here, you can go through them on your own at this link. The summary: they refer to the land of Israel, or the 12 tribes of Israel, or to Jewish people. The only exceptions to this are Romans 9:6-7 (which both dispensationalists and covenantalists agree refers to regenerate OT Israelite saints), and Galatians 6:16. So, for the dispensationalist, Galatians 6:16 is a “problem verse,” in that it appears to be using the term “Israel” to refer to the church (although, in fairness, if the covenantal understanding of this dynamic were correct, one would expect to find more biblical evidence than one passage; nevertheless, I concede the argument that only one passage is needed to prove a point).
Here is the whole verse, so you can see it for yourself:
“And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.”
Galatians 6:16
Again, if that passage calls the church “the Israel of God,” that is a strong argument in favor of covenantalism. So, how does the dispensationalist interpret Galatians 6:16? Is it referring to the church as “Israel”?
First, Galatians is a book that requires a strong understanding of how the gospel differed from Judaism of Paul’s time (Galatians 1:14). The book begins with Paul’s conversion (1:23), and then moves to the show down between Paul and Peter, where Peter was siding with the Judiazers over and against those who thought Jews and Gentiles were on equal footing in the body of Christ (2:11-13). In other words, there was a division in the church precisely between Israel and the church. It was such that Paul said “the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically” (2:13).
This sets the tone for the book. There is a contrast between the Judaism that Paul and Peter were saved out of, and the church that they were saved into. This contrast his highlighted throughout the book in numerous ways, but one of which is by chasing down the concept of circumcision in Galatians. Titus, as a member of the church, was not forced to be circumcised because he was Greek (2:3). Paul had been sent to preach the gospel to the uncircumcised while Peter was sent to the circumcised (2:7-9). Meanwhile, the party of the circumcision was vexing the church (2:12).
Then, later in the book, Paul returns to the theme, and warns the church that if they accept circumcision, they lose the advantage of having Jesus (5:2-3). The bottom line is that in Christ, the sign of the Israelite covenant in the OT has lost its significance (5:6—“it counts for nothing”). Paul even asks rhetorically, if he was merely preaching circumcision, then why was he being persecuted? (5:11). In other words, for those that argue the church is simply the continuation of Israel, Paul has a few beatings at the hands of Jewish leaders he’d like to submit as evidence to the contrary. In fact, he says that the reason some want to make circumcision a symbol in the church is so that they might avoid “being persecuted for the cross of Christ” (6:12-13).
So Paul has created a divide: on the one side is Israel, pushing circumcision, boasting in the flesh, and undoing the gospel. On the other side is the church, the body of believers, both Jew and Gentile (2:9). So the bottom line in the church is that no religious ritual of any kind, even something as elementary and historic as circumcision, has any spiritual value whatsoever (Galatians 6:15).
If you follow this argument, it is very difficult to understand how baptism can be seen as the continuation of circumcision. I mean, if that is in the least bit true, it seems like Paul went waaaay too far in saying that it has no value whatsoever. In fact, in 6:17 he appears to be making a pun about circumcision—“I bear in my body the marks of Jesus.” He is not referring to his baptism, but to persecution at the hands of those who promote circumcision. At the very least, Paul’s declaration that circumcision “counts for nothing” sets up the closing line of the book: “Peace be upon the Israel of God.” Far from calling the church “Israel,” Paul is celebrating the fact that some, like himself and Peter (to name two examples from Galatians) did get saved out of the Judaism of the day.
With this understanding, “the Israel of God” does not refer to the whole church (as that wouldn’t make any sense in the context of Galatians), but rather refers to Jewish believers, who are part of the church. In that way, Paul’s use here is similar to his use of the term in Romans 9:6. Not all Israel is Israel, but for those who are true Israel, they should boast in the marks of Christ, not in the marks of circumcision.