The New Covenant: Why Christians Owe No Allegiance to the State of Israel by Jeff Callaway

The New Covenant: Why Christians Owe No Allegiance to the State of Israel

by Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

For too long, American Christians have been told that supporting the modern state of Israel is a theological necessity, that our faith somehow obligates us to write blank checks—both spiritual and financial—to a political entity established in 1948. This is not merely bad theology; it is a dangerous distortion that has enabled grave injustices and entangled the Church in the violence of nationalism. It is time to recover what Scripture and the constant teaching of the Church have always proclaimed: that in Christ, the promises made to Israel have found their fulfillment, and that the People of God are no longer defined by ethnicity or geography, but by baptism into the Body of Christ.

Israel's Story: From Abraham to the Messiah

To understand what has been fulfilled in Christ, we must first understand what came before. The story of Israel begins not with a nation-state, but with a promise. God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans and made a covenant with him: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves" (Genesis 12:2-3). This covenant was not ultimately about land or political power—it was about blessing for all nations.

The promise was renewed with Isaac and Jacob, and Jacob's twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel. These people were enslaved in Egypt, delivered through the Exodus, and brought to Mount Sinai where God established the Mosaic Covenant. Through Moses, God gave the Law, the sacrificial system, and the promise that Israel would be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6). The entire structure of Old Testament Israel—its priesthood, its temple, its sacrifices—pointed forward to something greater.

Under Joshua, Israel entered the Promised Land. Under David, the kingdom reached its zenith, and God promised David that his throne would be established forever: "Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever" (2 Samuel 7:16). Yet even at its height, the Davidic kingdom was marked by human failure and sin. Solomon's temple, magnificent as it was, could not contain God's presence: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!" (1 Kings 8:27).

The kingdom split. The northern kingdom fell to Assyria in 722 BC. The southern kingdom fell to Babylon in 586 BC, and the temple was destroyed. Even after the return from exile and the rebuilding of the temple, Israel remained under foreign domination—Persian, Greek, and finally Roman. The prophets spoke of a coming restoration, but they also spoke of something far greater than the mere restoration of political sovereignty. Isaiah foresaw a Suffering Servant who would bear the sins of many (Isaiah 53). Jeremiah prophesied a New Covenant written on hearts rather than stone tablets (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Ezekiel envisioned a new temple from which living waters would flow (Ezekiel 47). Daniel spoke of a Son of Man who would receive an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:13-14).

All of this—the promises, the covenants, the law, the priesthood, the sacrifices, the temple, the kingdom—was preparatory. It was the pedagogue leading to Christ. As the Letter to the Hebrews makes absolutely clear, the Old Covenant was a shadow of the good things to come, not the reality itself (Hebrews 10:1).

The Fulfillment: Christ as the True Israel

When Jesus Christ entered human history, He came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). And fulfill them He did—completely, perfectly, definitively. Christ is the true Israel, the faithful Son where Israel was unfaithful. Matthew's Gospel deliberately recapitulates Israel's story in Christ's life: just as Israel went down to Egypt and came out, so Jesus was taken to Egypt as a child and returned (Matthew 2:15, citing Hosea 11:1: "Out of Egypt I have called my son"). Just as Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness, Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness—but where Israel failed the test, Jesus succeeded (Matthew 4:1-11).

Christ is the fulfillment of every promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Paul writes in Galatians that "the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, 'And to offsprings,' referring to many; but, referring to one, 'And to your offspring,' who is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). The singular offspring of Abraham, in whom all nations would be blessed, is Jesus Christ. Those who belong to Christ are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:29). This is not replacement theology—it is fulfillment theology. The promises are kept precisely by being transformed and elevated in Christ.

Christ is the true Temple. When the Jewish authorities demanded a sign, Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." John explains: "But he spoke of the temple of his body" (John 2:19-21). The dwelling place of God is no longer a building in Jerusalem but the body of Christ—first His physical body, then His mystical Body, the Church. As Paul writes to the Corinthians: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Christ is the true Sacrifice. The entire Levitical system of bulls and goats could never take away sins (Hebrews 10:4). But Christ, "when he had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:12). The Letter to the Hebrews makes this point with exhaustive thoroughness: Christ is both the High Priest and the spotless Victim, and His sacrifice is once-for-all, unrepeatable, and eternally efficacious.

Christ is the Davidic King. When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear a son, he declared: "The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:32-33). This is the fulfillment of God's promise to David—not a restored earthly kingdom in Palestine, but the eternal Kingdom of God inaugurated in Christ's Incarnation, secured through His Death and Resurrection, and manifest in His Church.

The New Covenant and the Mystical Body

The night before He died, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and declared: "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20). This is the New Covenant promised by Jeremiah, written not on tablets of stone but on human hearts by the Holy Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: "The New Covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus... replaced the old Covenant with Moses" (CCC 1846). The Old Covenant served its purpose as a preparation for Christ, but it has been superseded by something infinitely greater.

Through Baptism, believers are incorporated into Christ's Body. Paul's language is not metaphorical; it is mystical and real. "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:13). The Church is not merely an organization that follows Christ's teachings; it is His Body, animated by His Spirit, sharing in His life. As the Catechism states: "The comparison of the Church with the body casts light on the intimate bond between Christ and his Church. Not only is she gathered around him; she is united in him, in his body" (CCC 789).

This means that the People of God are now defined not by ethnic descent from Abraham, but by faith in Christ and incorporation into His Body through Baptism. "For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26-28). The dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been broken down (Ephesians 2:14). There is now one People of God, one olive tree into which Gentiles have been grafted (Romans 11:17-24).

What, then, of the Jewish people who do not accept Christ? Paul addresses this question at length in Romans 9-11, and his teaching is full of both grief and hope. He grieves that his kinsmen according to the flesh have stumbled over the stumbling stone of Christ (Romans 9:32-33). Yet he insists that God has not rejected His people, and he looks forward to a future in which "all Israel will be saved" (Romans 11:26). The Church has understood this to mean that at the end of history, there will be a great conversion of the Jewish people to faith in Christ.

But—and this is crucial—Paul does not teach that Jews are saved apart from Christ, or that the Old Covenant remains salvific for those who reject Christ. The Catechism is clear: "Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church" (CCC 846). The Jewish people, like all people, are called to enter the fullness of truth which is found in Christ and His Church.

This is not anti-Semitism; it is the Gospel. To say that Jews do not need Christ is to imply that Christ's sacrifice was unnecessary for them, that His blood was not shed for them, that they are somehow self-sufficient in their relationship with God. This is not respect; it is condescension. True love for the Jewish people means proclaiming to them what the Apostles—all of them Jews—proclaimed: that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and that there is salvation in no one else (Acts 4:12).

The State of Israel: A Modern Political Entity

Now we must address the question that has confused so many Christians: What is the relationship between the biblical Israel and the modern state of Israel established in 1948?

The answer is simple and stark: There is no theological connection whatsoever.

The modern state of Israel is a secular political entity created by human decision and international diplomacy. It was founded largely by secular Zionists, many of whom were explicitly atheistic or religiously non-observant. Its government operates on democratic, not theocratic, principles. Its legitimacy rests on the same foundations as any other modern nation-state: international recognition, military power, and the consent of the governed.

More importantly, the promises made to biblical Israel have been fulfilled in Christ and are now possessed by the Church, the New Israel. When Jesus said to the chief priests and Pharisees, "The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it" (Matthew 21:43), He was prophesying precisely this transfer. The chosen people are now those who believe in Christ, regardless of ethnicity.

Some Christians point to God's promise to Abraham regarding the land of Canaan and argue that this promise is eternal and unconditional, requiring Christian support for Israeli territorial claims. This interpretation fails on multiple levels.

First, the promise of land was explicitly conditional in the Torah itself. Deuteronomy makes clear that Israel's possession of the land depended on obedience to the covenant: "But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God... the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other" (Deuteronomy 28:15, 64). The Babylonian exile demonstrated that this was no idle threat.

Second, even if we take the land promises as unconditional, they were fulfilled in the Old Testament itself. Joshua 21:43-45 states: "Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and having taken possession of it, they settled there... Not one of all the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass." The promise was kept.

Third, and most importantly, the New Testament consistently spiritualizes the Old Testament's earthly promises. The land of promise becomes the entire earth, which Christ the Meek shall inherit (Matthew 5:5). The Jerusalem above, not the earthly Jerusalem, is the mother of believers (Galatians 4:26). Christians look forward not to a restored earthly kingdom but to "a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Hebrews 11:16). The Catechism teaches that the Church "will receive its perfection only in the glory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things" (CCC 769), not through the restoration of an earthly Jewish state.

The implications are unavoidable: Christians have absolutely no theological obligation to support the modern state of Israel. It has no special status in salvation history. It is not the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Supporting or opposing it should be based on the same moral and political criteria we would apply to any nation-state.

The Heresy of Christian Zionism

Yet millions of American Christians have been taught precisely the opposite. Through the influence of dispensationalist theology—popularized by figures like John Nelson Darby, Cyrus Scofield, and more recently Hal Lindsey and John Hagee—vast numbers of evangelical Protestants (and now even some poorly catechized Catholics) believe that the establishment of the state of Israel is a prophetic necessity and that Christians must support Israel uncritically.

This teaching is a theological novelty with no basis in historic Christian orthodoxy. For the first 1,800 years of Church history, no Christian theologian taught that the Jewish people would return to Palestine and establish a political state as a fulfillment of prophecy. The Church Fathers—Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome—all taught that the promises to Israel were fulfilled in Christ and the Church.

Christian Zionism inverts the Gospel. It places ethnic Israel back at the center of God's plan, effectively un-fulfilling what Christ accomplished. It divides the People of God into two parallel tracks—the Church and Israel—with separate covenants and separate destinies. This contradicts Paul's clear teaching that in Christ there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:5).

Furthermore, Christian Zionism has become deeply entangled with American empire and military power. The United States provides Israel with approximately four billion dollars in military aid annually, funding an occupation that has lasted over five decades and military operations that have killed tens of thousands of civilians. When Christians wave Israeli flags in their churches and declare that "God blesses those who bless Israel," referring to a modern nation-state rather than the Church, they become complicit in policies that directly contradict the Gospel's call to peacemaking and justice.

The Humanitarian Catastrophe and Christian Complicity

We cannot discuss this topic without addressing the concrete human suffering that has resulted from unconditional American support for Israeli policy. The situation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank is a humanitarian catastrophe, and American Christians bear a share of the moral responsibility.

Since 1967, Israel has maintained a military occupation of Palestinian territories. In Gaza, more than two million people—half of them children—live in what has been described by human rights organizations as an open-air prison, subject to blockades that restrict movement, access to clean water, medical supplies, and economic opportunity. Repeated military operations have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. Infrastructure has been systematically destroyed and rebuilt only partially, if at all. Families live amid the rubble of destroyed homes, while children grow up knowing nothing but conflict and deprivation.

In the West Bank, Palestinian communities face home demolitions, settlement expansion, restrictions on movement through military checkpoints, and a separate legal system that grants different rights to Israelis and Palestinians living in the same territory. This is not a caricature; it is the documented reality reported by Israeli and international human rights organizations alike.

Whatever one's views on the complex historical and political dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, certain moral facts are unavoidable: Innocent people are suffering. Children are dying. Families are being torn apart. Basic human dignity is being violated.

And American tax dollars—extracted from Christian citizens—are funding the military operations that cause this suffering. When a bomb destroys a home in Gaza, it is quite likely an American-made bomb, sold to Israel with American financial assistance, dropped by an American-made aircraft. Christians who wave Israeli flags and repeat slogans about "God's chosen people" rarely reckon with this blood on their hands.

The Gospel does not permit us this moral evasion. Christ commands us to love our enemies, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be peacemakers. He identifies Himself with the suffering: "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). When we see a Palestinian child killed in an airstrike, we must see Christ crucified anew. When we see a mother mourning her children, we must see Our Lady beneath the cross.

To subordinate this moral clarity to a theological ideology that demands unconditional support for a political state is to betray the Gospel itself. It is to worship the idol of nationalism while invoking the name of God.

Our True Allegiance

So where does this leave faithful Christians? How are we to think about Israel—both the biblical concept and the modern state? And what does it mean to live out our faith authentically in a world where these questions have been deliberately confused?

First, we must recover the Church's consistent teaching that we, the Church, are the Israel of God. We are the inheritors of the promises. We are the chosen people, the royal priesthood, the holy nation (1 Peter 2:9). Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), not in any earthly nation. We owe ultimate allegiance to Christ the King, not to the United States, not to Israel, not to any political entity.

Second, we must recognize that building a relationship with God has nothing to do with supporting the modern state of Israel. The notion that one's spiritual standing before God is somehow enhanced by political support for a Middle Eastern nation-state is absurd on its face. We grow in relationship with God through prayer, sacraments, Scripture, acts of charity, and the pursuit of holiness—not through geopolitical advocacy.

Third, we must approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the way we approach any political conflict: by seeking justice, peace, and the protection of human dignity for all involved. This means supporting policies that protect innocent life, whether Israeli or Palestinian. It means opposing collective punishment, home demolitions, and the targeting of civilians. It means advocating for a political solution that respects the legitimate rights and security concerns of both peoples. It does not mean uncritical support for any government's actions simply because of a mistaken theological framework.

Fourth, we must continue to evangelize all people—including Jewish people—with the truth of Jesus Christ. The Catechism teaches that "the Church is the sacrament of salvation for all mankind" (CCC 776). To exempt Jewish people from evangelization is to imply they don't need Christ, which is both theologically false and profoundly uncharitable. True ecumenical dialogue does not mean abandoning the truth; it means presenting it with love and respect.

Fifth, we must resist the weaponization of Scripture to justify violence and injustice. When Bible verses are twisted to support military aid to a nation engaged in practices that violate international humanitarian law, we are witnessing not faithful exegesis but political manipulation. When ministers use their pulpits to defend policies that result in the deaths of children, they are false prophets leading people astray.

The true people of Israel—the Church—are called to be peacemakers, to feed the hungry, to welcome the stranger, to defend the widow and orphan. We are called to bear witness to the Prince of Peace, whose kingdom is not of this world, who conquered not through the sword but through the cross.

Conclusion: Free from False Obligations

It is time for Christians to throw off the ideological chains that have bound us to political agendas masquerading as theology. We do not owe allegiance to the state of Israel. We do not serve God by supporting governments that commit injustices. We do not fulfill our calling as Christians by sending our tax dollars to fund military operations that kill innocent people.

We are free—free in Christ, who has liberated us from the law of sin and death, who has broken down every dividing wall, who has made Jew and Gentile one in His Body. We are free to seek justice without ideological blinders. We are free to love all people—Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Muslim—as Christ loves them. We are free to build our relationship with God on the solid rock of Christ, not on the shifting sands of political allegiance.

The story of Israel reaches its culmination not in a modern nation-state but in a Person: Jesus Christ, the faithful Israelite, the true Temple, the perfect Sacrifice, the eternal King. In Him, every promise finds its Yes (2 Corinthians 1:20). In Him, we find our identity as the People of God. In Him, we discover a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10).

This is our faith. This is our hope. This is the truth that sets us free—free to love, free to seek justice, free to worship God in spirit and in truth, without the false obligation to support any earthly power. May we have the courage to embrace this freedom, even when it costs us the approval of those who have confused nationalism with faithfulness, political power with divine favor, and earthly kingdoms with the Kingdom of God.

Christ is our King. The Church is our nation. Heaven is our homeland. And no earthly power—no matter how much it wraps itself in religious language—can claim our ultimate allegiance. That belongs to God alone.

~Jeff Callaway

Texas Outlaw Poet

© 2025 Texas Outlaw Press

https://texasoutlawpress.org/