Moses plainly told the Israelites that if they forgot God and turned from his commandments, they would as surely perish as that the nations whom they drove out of Palestine perished. (Deut. 8:19, 20.) These nations perished utterly as nations, and Moses said the nation of Israel would perish as they did. Because of their sins they were carried into captivity. Later, all who desired to return to Palestine were permitted to do so. They again fell into sin; and in John’s day they had again grown so corrupt that he told them the ax then lay at the root of the tree. (Matt. 3:10.) Then the Jewish nation murdered the Son of God—that is, the high court of the nation procured his murder. Under God’s law the penalty for murder was death. As this was murder by the nation, nothing but national death would satisfy divine justice. The tree had become wholly bad, and God used the Roman armies as the ax with which to cut down that tree. According to these future-kingdom advocates, the most glorious period of Jewish history is yet to be; but Jesus tells us that the last state of that race will be worse than the first. (See Matt. 12:43-45.) The Jews were broken off from God’s favor because of sin—unbelief. Now both Jew and Gentile stand on an equal footing before God. God is not a respecter of persons. Religiously, we know no man after the flesh. These future-kingdom folks seek to keep up this racial distinction which Christianity was meant to destroy. In Paul’s allegory (Gal. 4:21-31) the handmaid and her son represented Jerusalem and the Jewish nation, and Paul uses that allegory to show that the handmaid and her son were cast out. Christians are children of the free woman. Paul then affirms: “The son of the handmaid (Jewish nation) shall not inherit with the son of the freewoman.” Hence, the Jewish nation, as such, is left out of any further inheritance. Jesus plainly told the Jews: “Therefore say I unto you, The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” (Matt. 21:43.) Believers in Christ are now “sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7) “and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). The Jewish nation, as such, is not now an heir of anything. By unbelief the Jews were broken off from God’s favor. (Rom. 11:20.) Gentiles were grafted in by faith. “And so”—in the same manner—“all Israel shall be saved.”