Andy Woods

June 18 2006

Bayside Community Church

Is The Church Israel? (Gal 6:16)



  1. Introduction

    1. Covenant theology vs. Dispensational theology

    2. NIV: “Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.”

NASB: “And to those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon

them, and upon the Israel of God.”


  1. Ten facts favoring the dispensational interpretation of Galatians 6:161

    1. Continuative kai is the most common New Testament form

    2. Appositional kai is the rarest New Testament form

    3. Point easier made by eliminating kai

    4. “Israel” always means national, ethnic Israel elsewhere in the New Testament (Fruchtenbaum, Israelogy, pg. 684-90)


    1. Israel not equated with church by the fathers until A.D. 160

    2. Why introduce sweeping point in conclusion rather than doctrinal section?

    3. Twofold repetition of “upon” (epi)

    4. Paul elsewhere designates two groups (Gal 6:15; 2:7-8)

    5. Paul elsewhere singles out ethnic, believing Jews (Rom 2:28-29; 4:11-12; 9:6; 11:1, 5; 1 Cor 10:18)


    1. Paul not anti-Semitic-Burton pg. 358

  1. Conclusion

    1. Who’s who?

    2. Amillennial exegetical bias

    3. Cranfield pg. 448


1 S. Lewis Johnson, “Paul and the 'Israel of God': An Exegetical and Eschatological Case-Study,” in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, ed. Stanley D. Toussaint and Charles H. Dyer (Chicago: Moody, 1986), 181-96.