If the Church replaces Israel and becomes the Kingdom of God on earth, why did the disciples ask Jesus at the ascension: "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). That was the perfect opportunity for Jesus to tell the disciples that He was finished with Israel and that they were the new "Israel." But He did not! He simply told them it was not for them to know that time which the Father has predetermined for Israel to have the kingdom (Acts 1:7).

The disciples, in common with the Jews, expected the Messiah's kingdom to be at least in part "secular," I have taught through the years that they had this thinking until the day of Pentecost. It was at Pentecost that they learned that the Kingdom was to be spiritual. The secular kingdom had been taken away from Israel. The Romans, not the Israelites had the government. The object of the disciples' question seems to have been this: to gain information from their all-knowing Master, whether the time was now fully come, in which the Romans should be thrust out and Israel made as formerly, an independent secular kingdom. The Greek word for "restore" is not easy to translate. The Greek word was used many times for "finishing" or "making an end of something," a "blotting out" or "abolishing." I think the translation could also be, "Lord, wilt thou at this time destroy the Jewish commonwealth, which opposes thy truth, that thy kingdom may be set up over all the land?" The Lord answers His disciples with the truth that every action or thing is put into God's own power, control and authority. The infinite liberty of acting or not acting, as wisdom, justice, and goodness shall see things turn for the best and is essential to God's Will. There can be, at no point in the whole of His eternity, in which He must be the necessary agent or victim of a fixed and unalterable fate. Infinite, eternal liberty to act or not to act, to create or not create, to destroy or not destroy, belongs to God alone. The Church did not replace anything that had gone bad or fell apart in the hands of Almighty God. The Church was planned and fixed in the mind of God before the foundation of the world was laid (Eph. 1:4). It was a new creation that had never been mentioned in the OT or by any other person other than the Apostle Paul (Eph. 1:9,10; 3:7-10). It began and was completed by creation (Eph. 2:15) alone and was not a replacement for an outdated Judaism. Old Testament Judaism was coming to a close during the writing of the New Testament. It came to an end in AD 70. The offer of the Kingdom to Israel and Jews began with John the Baptist, Jesus and His disciples and the message was carried on from Pentecost until AD 70. Peter preached to the Jews and Israel with the "keys to the Kingdom." 3,000 took the message and the rest of the nation rejected it. The book of Acts is the history of Israel's rejection of the spiritual Kingdom message. Why? It was a spiritual kingdom, not a secular kingdom that they had formulated in their minds. At the end, the messengers of the spiritual kingdom message were all killed. Paul turned his back on the Jews, who hated the message and went to the Gentiles to share the good news (Please read Acts 28:28).