Natural Israel Not My Glory (5 of 5)

.

Part Five: What God’s Word Concludes

In this last part of Showers’ series on The Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology, he first of all states: “If the New Testament teaches ethnic Israel has a future, then Replacement Theology is not true”;[1] whereas, this should really be stated to read: “If the New Testament doesn’t teach a future for ethnic Israel, then Replacement Theology is true.” The reason being, that the New Testament does not teach ethnic Israel, or any natural race or ethnicity for that matter, has a future in Christ’s and God’s kingdom and purpose outside of those whom God has chosen to be His spiritual seed of promise along with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, et al. As said before, it is Showers, and all such men like him, who have “replaced” the true biblical theology that is taught in the Bible about all of this, for a wholesale fabrication and lie. All Israel according to the flesh is not the Israel according to the Spirit or of God. If they were, God would save them all and set them all apart like He did with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all of His elect children promise such as us who believe. God is not going to have a natural people here on earth based solely upon a natural genealogy, and a spiritual people in heaven made up of both Jews and Gentiles that is not based upon any natural genealogy. Are you beginning to see the futility of the reasoning and thinking of these men? It is absolutely “Jewish,” “carnal” and “devilish” in nature. Again, it is not from above! As David Brown noted earlier at the beginning, in a sense Christianity has definitely allowed itself to become “Judaized” to the point of believing that those who adhere strictly to Judaism and the Mosaic law have a rightful place in God’s kingdom here on earth. And if you think that is a far-fetched statement, just listen to what dispensationalist, Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, has stated:

God is pursuing two distinct purposes: one related to the earth with earthly people and earthly objectives involved which is Judaism; while the other is related to heaven with heavenly people and heavenly objectives involved, which is Christianity.[2]

In agreement with Chafer above, Showers goes on to say,

While on Earth Jesus established that He was premillennial—meaning He believed in a literal, future, restored Kingdom of God.[3]

Oh, really? First of all, there goes Showers again capitalizing things that apply only to natural Jews here on “Earth.” But, again, the short answer to Showers’ statement is: No, Christ didn’t establish that He was "premillenial" and that His rule and reign was to be on the earth! Can these guys really be serious? Like the natural Jews whom they rub shoulders with and befriend as God’s “Chosen People,” you can bet with your very last dollar that they are dead serious! But as for saying that Jesus asserted in His teachings that He was premillennial, He taught just the opposite; even refusing to have the people make him a king like all of the other kings with kingdoms that are of this world (cf. Jhn. 6:15; 18:36). Christ wasn’t just rejected by those Jews who had Him murdered and who didn’t want Him to be their King (by the way, they claimed Caesar to be their king in Jhn. 19:15), but Christ in a wholesale manner rejected them—and even those of His true followers who would make Him their King on earth—affording them no opportunity whatsoever to make Him a King like all the other kings of this world with their worldly, carnal kingdoms. And He even told Pilate that He was indeed a King, but a King with a kingdom that was “not of this world” (Jhn. 18:36–37). From the very beginning, Christ had no intention of being made an earthly king over an earthly kingdom. And since Pilate did not see this as a threat to Caesar’s earthly kingdom he could find no fault in Christ. If Christ would have said His kingdom was of this world (or premillennial), Pilate would have had ample reason to accuse him as an insurrectionist and as a threat to Caesar and his kingdom. Nevertheless, as was stated before according to the parable of The Ten Minas given by Christ, regardless of the disbelieving Jews not wanting to make Him their King, He has in fact been made a King with a kingdom anyway when He returned to God upon His resurrection and ascension to be seated upon His throne at the right hand of the Father (Lke. 19:11–27). Have no doubt about it, Christ is a King with kingdom ruling and reigning from a throne in heaven over all the earth and over all the heavens as well, as even the Psalmists again proclaim:

How awesome is the Lord Most High, the great King over all the earth…For God is the King of all the earth…God reigns over the nations; God is seated on His holy throne…the kings of the earth belong to God; He is greatly exalted….The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all (Psm. 47:2, 8–9; 103:19).

Showers continues (as if you haven't heard enough of him already),

In Matthew 6:9–10, He [Christ] taught His followers to pray, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus instructed His followers to pray that God will bring or restore His Kingdom on Earth, and He described what Earth will be like when that occurs.[4]

Again, Showers wants to emphasize that God’s kingdom will be a kingdom on earth for all natural Jews by capitalizing the words, “Kingdom on Earth,” and that Jesus was describing what the planet “Earth” will be like when that occurs. This is simply remarkable to me! There is just no end to this man’s vain imaginations. These literalists are no different than the Jews in Christ’s day, and even of today. And to take these words of Christ and turn them all around to mean that we should pray that God would establish a literal "Kingdom on Earth" with the natural Jews is just simply out of character with Christ and His teachings. How many times must Jesus tell us that His kingdom is “not of this world” before we begin to believe Him, let alone to be with natural unbelieving Jews who are not His children of promise? It should take only this one time! This phrase of Christ’s alone (“not of this world”) should establish a paradigm shift in our minds in order to begin to start thinking and believing otherwise. The kingdom that Christ was asking us to pray for to be established on the earth is the kingdom that is being realized right now in all of His disciples throughout all “the earth.” As I stated earlier in chapter three, it is a kingdom “on earth” that He said in Daniel would become as a huge mountain that fills the whole earth (Dan. 2:35); with this “mountain of the Lord’s temple being established as chief among the mountains; raised up above the hills,” in order that, “all nations will stream into it,” and say, “Come and let us go unto the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths. The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks”[5] in order to harvest the Lord’s fields. All of this is being realized right now before our eyes even as we speak. Are you “seeing” it? Look all around you. The “fields” on the earth are now ripe for harvest and for His kingdom on earth to spread like a wild fire. Pray to the Lord that He would send harvesters to harvest His field.

Christ said the kingdom of heaven (or of God, it makes no difference, for they are both one and the same)[5a] is like a mustard seed that is planted in the earth. Yet when it is planted it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants with branches so big that the birds of the air can perch in its shade. Such is Christ’s kingdom now “on earth” through His Church, wherein all kinds of people throughout the earth can come and find refuge in its branches. This is the kingdom that Christ said does not come with physical observation as the other kingdoms of this world come. It is one that can only be observed through the eyes of those who have been born-again (Jhn. 3:3).

In the beginning, Christ’s Jewish disciples were slow to hear and slow of learning, but by the time they had begun to write their epistles this paradigm shift was completely embraced and understood by them. And instead of helping the Jews to rebuild literal temples and reinstate animal sacrifices, they were waiting for Christ to actually destroy it all, with it only to be superseded with a temple made without men’s hands. Christ put an end to those sacrifices at the cross, and it was to be literally evidenced in the destruction of the temple and the city in 70 AD though His Roman armies that He would use to route the unbelieving Jews (see Mat. 22:7 along with Dan. 9:26b; Hab. 1:6; Isa. 10:5-6, et al). In Christ’s kingdom, literal mountains, temples and cities would no longer be the place of worship, but nevertheless the mountain of the Lord’s house would be built up and fill the whole earth wherein anyone in the world could go up and gather with the Lord’s people to worship the Lord therein. It is the day wherein Zechariah said “living water will flow out from [spiritual] Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and winter,” and where “the Lord will be King over the whole earth” (14:8, 9). And “the survivors [or remnant] from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem [or the Church] will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles [spiritually speaking, or course]” (v. 16). But “if any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain [or the Spirit from above]... The Lord will bring on them the plague [or death, as outlined in v. 12] He inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles” (vv. 17-18).

To understand all of this above literally, in the words of Matthew Henry, “it is impossible for all nations literally to come to Jerusalem, once a year, to keep a feast,” so, “it is evident that a figurative meaning must here be applied” (Matthew Henry Comm.). I wholeheartedly agree. Like I said before, what is the children's bread who are born from above, has been cast to the dogs of all unbelieving ethnic Jews. What should now be understood spiritually, is understood naturally with eyes that don't see, and with ears that can't hear. Anything said of the prophets that has not yet seen a “literal” fulfillment, must by the very nature of the case, be understood spiritually. Any “feast,” “sacrifice” or “Sabbath,” etc., that seemingly can only be literally fulfilled in our day, can only be understood as now being fulfilled in a spiritual sense just as Paul said, “Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed...let us keep the FESTIVAL, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth” (1Cor. 5:7-8). Indeed, in such a manner as this, let us NOW keep ALL THE FESTIVALS! “Blessed are the people who know the FESTAL shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face” (Psm. 89:15, ESV).

Now Paul had said that if he rebuilt what he was destroying, then he would make himself out to be a transgressor, and would make Christ even a minister of sin for His non-compliance (Gal. 2:18). And this was in the context of not just on justification by faith alone, but with Peter siding with the Jews and erecting a dividing wall again between them and the Gentiles and, in essence, creating two distinctive groups of people. As Albert Barnes notes here on Galatians:

The particular application here, as it seems to me, is to the subject of circumcision and the other rites of the Mosaic law. They had been virtually abolished by the coming of the Redeemer, and by the doctrine of justification by faith. It had been seen that there was no necessity [whatsoever] for their observance and, of that, Peter and the others had been fully aware. Yet they were lending their influence again to establish them or to build them up again [sound familiar?]. They complied with them, and they insisted on the necessity of their observance. Their conduct, therefore, was that of building up again that which had once been destroyed, destroyed by the ministry, and toils, and death of the Lord Jesus, and by the fair influence of his gospel. To rebuild that again—to re-establish those customs [and to even encourage others to do so as well]—was wrong; and now involved the guilt of a transgression of the Law of God.[6]

It is blasphemous (and even sinful) to teach that Christ will reinstate, as mandatory law once again, what was typical of Him and no longer to be observed; only for Him to come back and rebuild in the future even a more glorious literal temple than before, with literal atoning animal sacrifices, the literal observance of some of the festivals, the reinstating of literal circumcision and so on and so forth according to Ezekiel's last eight chapters. And for some misguided so-called Christians to tell Jews that God’s plan for them here on earth is to do such things again, while we do not have to, is to make Christ a minister of sin and us transgressors and hypocrites. By encouraging the Jews to believe in and to mandatorily succumb again to the yoke and bondage of slavery in doing such things, we are counting the blood of Christ’s new covenant as an unholy thing; substituting the ordinances of the Law of Moses for the Spirit of grace and the new covenant of promise; and that by doing so we are also inadvertently acknowledging that Hagar with her son Ishmael that was “cast out” to actually be the true heir, and thus making the covenant of promise to all children of promise such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as inconsequential, irrelevant and of no importance whatsoever. If it was a “sin” to reinstate and encourage the continued use of those ordinances back then in the apostles' days, is it no less a “sin” also for Christians to hold out to the Jews a continued use of those things in the future? If it was to count the blood of the new covenant as an “unholy” thing back then, are we not considering it “unholy” and inconsequential by telling Jews that they will have to do all these things in the future? Think about it: We are holding out a rebuilding program and a system for the Jews for which we ourselves are not obligated to be enjoined thereby, and for which Christ has completely abolished and destroyed in His once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice of Himself upon the cross. Christian…open your eyes! Someone has placed scales over your eyes, and you are not even aware of it! It is a smoke-screen that, when it disappears, will reveal it to be nothing more than Jewish myths and fables, and for whom Christ will say, “I never knew you.” The New Covenant in Christ is the epitome of all of those former covenants made with Abraham, Moses and David. There are no more “covenants” to be realized after this. They all pointed to Christ who has fulfilled all those covenants with not only the Jews, but with Gentiles as well. Literal thrones, kingdoms, sacrifices and the like are a thing of the past. And they all pointed to that which was spiritually to come; to heavenly things, not earthly things.

Again, Christ told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews” (Jhn. 18:36). And notice that Christ said if His kingdom was of this world His servants would not be fighting for the natural Jews, but against them to prevent His arrest. Christ would not be fighting for or with them, but against them! Read it for yourself! Christ wasn’t any threat to Caesar and his Roman armies, but to the Jews! So much for the idea of a kingdom for them here on earth. You won’t find it here! At the most, this text says that if there ever was to be such a kingdom on earth, it would be with Christ and His servants against these so-called Jewish brethren who were His persecutors; not to become buddy-buddies with them and establish a good repertoire with them as those who would be the greatest in His kingdom. Christ is against all such Judaizers and Zionists now, just as He was back then when it came to all those who were not His true spiritual “children of promise.” His “brethren” or “sheep” were not any of these unbelieving Jews who persecuted Him (whether then or in the future), but were His twelve Jewish disciples and all who follow Him in Spirit and in Truth. All the rest are tares, goats and birds of a different feather altogether that just do not flock together with us. For all their religious talk and garb the Lord does not know them. What comes out of their mouths and from their hearts exposes them for who they really are. They don’t bleat like sheep, they growl and howl like wolves, gnashing upon the true sheep of Christ with their teeth in an attempt to silence them for all their crying and to cast upon them the epithet of those who are teaching a “replacement theology.” Whose theology has replaced whose here?

In Luke 17:20, 21, Christ says of this Kingdom of God’s that we are now in, that it, “does not come with careful observation…because the Kingdom of God is within you.”[6a]  And it is a Kingdom of God that He said in John 3:3 one cannot even “see” unless they are born-again. It is not a physical kingdom of this world, does not come with a literal observation as other kingdoms do, is within you, and can’t be seen unless one is born-again. His kingdom was internal, not territorial; invisible, not tribal; from above and not from below. Once again, need Christ say anymore? God in Christ was not offering two different kingdoms for two different groups of people. There is only one Lord, one faith, one body, and one baptism. Christ came to break down any walls or barriers between both Jews and Gentiles, not create more of them! At least not in the creation of two groups of people for Himself, one with regards to no ethnicity and one that is. Such an ideology as coming from Christ is absurd. From the Jewish and Gentile believers Christ came to create of the twain, one new man―not two! For though natural Israel be like the sand of the sea, only “a remnant” is to be saved; the “remnant” that God in Christ before the foundation of the world chose to save and set apart for Himself—not only from the Jews but from the Gentiles as well—to be His holy tithe, firstfruits and firstborn from all the peoples or harvest throughout all the earth. Like leaven, the kingdom of God and of heaven is working its way throughout all “the earth” until the Lord has leavened the entire lump that belongs to Him. For if the first part of the dough (Christ) be offered as firstfruits is holy, so then will the whole batch be holy. But everyone in his order: Christ the firstfruits, and then they afterward at His coming.

Showers again adds with regards to the Lord’s prayer:

If the church is the Kingdom of God, as Replacement theologians claim—or the Kingdom of God is here now—then what is done on Earth must mirror God’s will in heaven. That is an impossible stretch even for the most generous mind.[7]

It’s not if one doesn’t understand all of this physically or in the abstract! Christ said to Nicodemus, “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (Jhn. 3:12). This is the problem with Showers and all individuals like him: “heavenly things” go right over their heads. Like Thomas, they just won’t believe it unless they can see it with their own natural eyes. And they just refuse to believe what has been laid out in this article concerning Christ, His kingdom and His true sheep. And I wouldn’t even be surprised if Showers said the “other sheep” that Christ said He must gather later in John 10:16 are also the natural Jews in Palestine some time later in our day, since he believes the “sheep” in Matthew 25 are only all natural Jews in the future and also the “brethren” that Christ was referring to.

All people like Showers are looking for a Kingdom of God to come that they can see with their natural eyes. They are waiting for someone to say, “Look, here it is!” or “Look, it’s over there!” But they are to be gravely disappointed. Such a kingdom will never appear for the natural eyes to see upon the horizon, or for the physical ears to hear of such a report. Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Not to those with only natural eyes to see. “May their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever” (Rom. 11:9, 10). And yet for all that, the Lord says, “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me” (Rom. 10:29). Like Isaac and Jacob and Paul, these are God’s "children of promise" in which He has sovereignly ordained and called and set apart for Himself. For “the Potter has the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for ignoble purposes.” For so it has seemed right in His sight.

What has, and is, being done in heaven is being “mirrored” or reflected here on earth in the hearts and lives of all of God’s true people of faith both morally and spiritually. Not with outward observation, but as expressed through “the hidden man” of the heart. It is like treasure hidden in a field that a man goes and sells all that he has in order to purchase the field and claim the hidden treasure for himself. And we have this “treasure” (this "kingdom") hidden in these earthen vessels of ours—our bodies.

When we pray for God's kingdom to be on earth as it is in heaven, we are not wrestling with flesh and blood but with spiritual wickedness in heavenly places and all around us. God's “will” being done on earth is God's will in opposition to all of those dark spiritual forces. Our battle is not with the physical weapons of this world but with weaponry that is of an ethereal nature. Christ's petition, “thy kingdom come,” is clearly a reference to the doctrine which He preached at that time, which John Baptist had preached before, and which Christ afterwards sent His apostles out to preach—the kingdom of heaven is at hand! “The kingdom of God is that moral and spiritual kingdom which the God of grace is setting up in this fallen world, whose subjects consist of as many as have been brought into hearty subjection to His gracious scepter, and of which His Son Jesus is the glorious Head.” (J.F.B. Comm.) In no way, shape, manner or form did Christ teach or envision a physical rule and reign here upon earth. You just can't find it in His vocabulary. Any thoughts to the contrary are just not according to Truth. They are a twisting of the Truth to conform with man's ideologies, not Christ's.

Once again, Showers states:

Paul also taught this truth: “Has God cast away His people? Certainly not!” (Rom. 11:1). It is obvious from the context of Romans 11:1–2 that Paul was asked if God had cast Israel away. His response was clear: Certainly not! In fact, he declared, “And all Israel shall be saved” (v. 26). Then he quoted from Psalm 14 and Isaiah 59 that God will honor His covenant and remove the Jewish people’s sins.[8]

Again, Showers and all those like him has entirely missed Paul’s point. First of all, Paul was not saying that every single Jew off into the future (and even less in his day) would be saved, but only that “a remnant” out of them would indeed be saved right up until the day that the last of the full number of the Gentiles comes in. And his proof for this was God’s choice of Isaac, Jacob, the seven thousand in Elijah’s day and even Paul himself. In fact, every Jew that believed in Christ, instead of trying to disassociate themselves from Him and have Him killed, was a part of this chosen seed and remnant that Paul is talking about. And Christ said the very same thing concerning Abraham as opposed to these Christ-rejecters in John 8:39–41. God was actually honoring His everlasting covenants with the spiritual Israel who are His “children of promise,” removing thousands upon thousands of their sins. All this was proof, according to Paul, that God was not casting away His people. And even all of those thousands of Jews saved at Pentecost were just another glaring testament to all of this.

And get this! It was the people whom Paul says God “foreknew.” It is these people alone who are God’s people, not the rest. A part continues to remain hardened, while a part, also once hardened, are shown mercy. And in the greater context of Romans 8–11, Paul says that such individuals as these whom “God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son….And those He predestined, He called”; and “those whom He called, He justified”; and “those whom He justified, He also glorified” (8:29, 30). All of these verbs in the Greek are in the aorist passive indicative form, meaning, He determined by His grace and mercy in the past to do these things for all of His “children of promise,” regardless of their own initiative, which is what this “passive” voice denotes. God takes the initiative to actually save all of us, and we actively respond in faith to Him which has also been given to us by Him in order to do so (see earlier notes on this). This predetermination and foreknowledge of God isn’t after the fact that we are saved in response to Him foreseeing our response to Him, and then having predetermined to do something based upon our response (as some have erroneously stated), but it was before any of us were ever chosen to be saved in time and set apart for God, just like Isaac and Jacob. Again, God didn’t predetermine to conform us to Christ’s image based upon what He foresaw us doing in the future and then respond accordingly to conform us to that image. No, these verses say He predetermined us to be effectually called, justified, and glorified. He forethought to save us and predetermined to do it in time, even as He has said through Isaiah the prophet with regards to all of His predetermined plans:

Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do. Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, you who are far from righteousness. I am bringing my righteousness near, it is not far away; and my salvation will not be delayed. I will grant salvation to Zion, my splendor to Israel (46:8–13).

And again, the Lord through His prophet Isaiah declares:

I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass (48:3).

Again, Paul has illustrated all of this for us in God predetermining to choose Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau long before either of the them were ever born “in order that God’s purpose [not ours] in election might stand: not by works but of Him who calls” (Rom. 9:11–12). This is not the general call that goes out unto all in a given local who are in earshot of our voices, but is an effectual call that is responded to by God enabling us to do so, and in which one has been predetermined to be justified and glorified. Even as in the words of Christ: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me….No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him….There are some of you who do not believe…This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him” (Jhn. 6:37, 44, 64, 65). Until one begins to believe in the doctrine of God’s sovereign election and choice of those who will be His children, not according to the flesh but according to promise, they will always believe that there can be a people of God apart from this truth; one of the flesh and one of the Spirit. Have no doubt about it, there are indeed two groups of people, one born of the flesh and one born of the Spirit, but they are not both God’s children as Showers and all dispensationalists have erroneously maintained. As said before, one is the seed of the Serpent, the other the seed of Christ; one is the child of the bond woman, the other the child of the free woman.

Showers further goes on to remark here, “…nowhere does the Bible teach God has rejected Israel or replaced it with the church.”[9] Those who believe in Covenant Theology do not say God has rejected Israel for the Church. The Church, made up of both Jews and Gentiles, is the Israel of God that are God’s chosen people according to faith and by the Spirit of promise that was first realized in a remnant of the Jews, and which is now inclusive of a remnant out of the Gentiles as well; Gentiles whom Paul said were once excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise, but have now been brought near to them and to God in order to be fellow citizens with God’s people and members together of God’s household (Eph. 2:12, 13, 19). Again, the term “church” isn’t some foreign word newly imagined and contrived by God and Christ just in the New Testament times. The word is simply a Greek word that denotes all whom God has “called-out” since the time of Adam and Eve. In all honesty, Showers’ statement above should really read: “God has not rejected the Church or replaced it with natural Israel.” The bondwoman with her son (Israel according to the flesh) has no part or lot with the free woman and her son (Israel according to the Spirit). The bondwoman will always be the bondwoman, forever cast out and away from ever receiving the inheritance with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all such children who are of the free woman. Apart from some Jews being God's “children of promise,” there is no future whatsoever for natural Israel according to the flesh. Today is the day of salvation, not later. And Christ isn’t going to physically come down some day in the future in the land of Palestine and literally split the Mount of Olives in order to abruptly frighten all of the Jews into believing Him and have them crown Him the King of kings over a literal earthly kingdom in Palestine. Such a notion is absolutely absurd and couldn’t be further from the truth. Jesus could have done that the first time, but that is not how He works, and that is not how His kingdom is manifest. It was not “of this world” then, and it is not “of this world” now, and it is “not of this world” in the future. And what Christ was actually portraying in His feet cleaving the Mount of Olives in Zechariah 14 was the rending of the nation of Israel as depicted by this “mountain,” and wherein He would create a lowly “valley” for all of His true people to flee through. The exalted would be abased and the abased exalted (see my book, Zechariah 14, for more on all of this). John the Baptist spoke of this same idea when he cried, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth” (Lke. 3:5). Mountains and valleys in the Old Testament prophets are often used to metaphorically portray the proud verses the humble; the exalted in the land as opposed to those who are meek and lowly. Like John’s words, Zechariah’s words have nothing to do with natural Israel being exalted, or with Christ cleaving literal mountains, but with the Jews being abased. And it would be all those believing Jews, as represented by a lowly valley, that would be given a place of refuge (in Christ) to flee to from their persecutors in that day. It is what Joel referred to as “the valley of acacias,” with the “acacias” being a type of God's people who are of a humble and lowly character.

What Zechariah spoke of is also symbolically portrayed again for us in Rev. 12:6, 14–17. And again, St. John in Revelation is speaking about the "children of promise" (the children of the free woman) having a way prepared for them in order to escape all of the persecution from both the Jews and the Romans in his day. Thus, John has in mind the Church (or spiritual Israel from both the old and new testaments); and, more particularly, John has in mind Christ’s first Jewish disciples (and not future natural Jews at all) who all helped to give birth to the Messiah, such as initially through Mary, and then eventually through all those first disciples who were in association with her. Satan, through the persecution of the unbelieving Jews and the unsaved Romans, tried to stamp out the woman and her children. But there were those in the earth who in many ways, and unbeknownst to them, were being used via God’s intervention to help the woman by overthrowing the persecution from the Jews, and eventually even from the Romans, in swallowing up this overflowing flood of persecution as depicted in this figure of a “river” being swallowed up by the "earth." Such an idea of nations of other peoples rising up and overtaking other peoples or nations like a river of floodwaters is also used repeatedly in the writings of the Old Testament prophets; and a word study in a Strong’s Concordance will bear this out. Even the Nile river and the great river Euphrates are symbolically portrayed in the Prophets for the peoples of Egypt and of the Assyrians whom God either, spiritually speaking, parts or dries up to free His people from their clutches, or to rise like an overwhelming flood to sweep over the land and destroy everything in its path (see for example Isa. 8:7–8; 11:15–16; 28:18–19; Jer. 46:7–8; 47:2; and Nah. 1:7–8).

Showers concludes this section of part five, by saying:

What the New Testament does teach is that Israel has a grand future in God’s plan, although Israel’s role is distinct and different from God’s plan for the church. And without a future for Israel, there will be no glorious future Kingdom of God on Earth.[10]

Again, there is no “grand future” for natural Israel outside of God’s plan of what He is doing in and through His assembly of called-out ones in Christ from out of both Jews and Gentiles, called the Church. It is ludicrous to think, or even to assert, that God has a plan for natural Israel “distinct and different from God’s plan for the church.” As said before, this is erecting the dividing wall all over again that Christ came to do away with. Paul said there is now “no difference” whatsoever between Gentiles and Jews, male or female, or bond and free! But these false teachers such as Showers want to keep maintaining that there is, and that there will always continue to be so! Remarkable, don’t you think! Could these be the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Paul was addressing in Acts 20? You would almost think we were listening to unbelieving Jews rather than to Christians! These so-called Friends Of Israel are more friendly with all natural Jews than they are with God’s true spiritual Jews who are the Church. And, like Judas, they would rather rub shoulders more with them than with us. It has always been the ploy of Satan to mix truth with error; false brethren among true brethren. So much so that the undiscerning cannot even tell the difference. Again, just think of Judas among the Apostles!

This distinction between natural Jews and the Church is just one of the many Jewish philosophical ideas that Paul had in mind in denouncing, and for which he told Timothy to avoid like the plague. In the beginning Peter was still caught up in this “distinction” when he wouldn’t be caught dead being seen eating with the Gentiles, and had decided to move over and sit with the Jews. Paul had to rebuke him sharply for his hypocrisy. And men like Showers must also be rebuked sharply for their hypocritical position and stance that is starkly in opposition to Christ and all of His True Chosen People called The Church and The Israel of God (and I didn’t capitalize any of these words by mistake either). For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything (and never really did), for even Abraham received what was promised before circumcision, not afterwards. What matters with God is a new creation in Christ. And may God’s peace and mercy fall upon all those who follow after this rule who are the true and spiritual Israel of God. Understand here that Paul does not promise or prophesy here peace and mercy to natural Israelites, but only to the true and spiritual Israel of God—i.e., to believers!

In these closing statements above to the Galatians, Paul is reiterating the words from an ancient Hebrew prayer that he had prayed all of his life morning, afternoon, evening, on the Sabbath and on the New Moons and Festivals called the Sim Shalom (“Grant Peace”), also known as the nineteenth benediction of The Eighteen Benedictions (or Shemoneh Ezrei, also referred to as The Amidah).[11] Yahweh is asked of the Jews in this final prayer: “Grant peace, goodness, blessing, grace, lovingkindness and mercy unto us and unto all Israel, Your  people.” Now, may I ask, are the Jews distinguishing between “us” and “and unto all Israel, Your people” in this prayer as referring to two different groups of people as the dispensationalists would have us believe of Gal. 6:16? Not at all! Then why should it be reasoned as such by these non-enlightened Christian Zionists and Dispensationalists with regards to this prayer that Paul is reciting here to the Galatians? Paul, who was well acquainted with this prayer, knew exactly what he was saying when repeating this blessing from God over His true people now made up of both Jews and Gentiles. It was to “them” (or “us,” in natural Israel's case) and “and upon the Israel of God,” who are all of God’s people in Christ. The reason why Paul used the personal pronoun “them” instead of “us” was, I believe, to differentiate between one who is just a natural born Jew as opposed to “them” who in context are a new creation, whether they be circumcised or uncircumcised. Paul says, peace be upon all of “them,” and “them” alone. To all unbelieving Jews (and even Gentiles) only the wrath of God (and not peace) abides.

One writer noted online mistakenly objects:

Finally, if it were Paul’s intention to identify the “them” of the text as “the Israel of God,” then why not simply eliminate the kai after “mercy?” The result would be far more to the point, if Paul were identifying the “them,” that is, the church, with the term “Israel.” The verse would be rendered then, “And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them and mercy, upon the Israel of God.” A case could be solidly made for the apposition of “the Israel of God” with “them,” and the rendering of the NIV could stand. Paul, however, did not eliminate the kai.[12]

As one can very well see, this person overlooked the fact that the Jews who also used the conjunction “and,” had no problem in identifying the “us” in their benediction as also “all Israel, Your people.” Why didn’t they “simply eliminate” the “and” after “us”? Wouldn’t the result have also been “far more to the point” that “us” and “all Israel” are one and the same people by having done so? As with this Jewish benediction, Paul too didn’t need to eliminate the “kai” as possibly meaning “and” in his statement, for it perfectly agreed with how he and the Jews fully understood it in their benediction. Clearly, kai, translated as “and,” could have very well have been used by Paul after “them” to join and continue the idea that “the Israel of God” and “them” are both one and the same; just as “and” is used after “us” by the Jews to also continue the idea that “us” are those who are designated as “all Israel, Your people.” Clearly, with both, there is no discontinuity of thought but continuity of thought throughout. In either of these cases, it would be a forced eisegesis to read into these statements anything other than what is simply and plainly being articulated to us in both of these instances.

So, with that said, any translation of the Greek kai as “and,” “even,” “also,” and even “namely” could very well fit the bill here. So to mince over words and say that “and” distinguishes between two different groups or classes of people is clearly a case for mistaken identity. Such arguing over “words” is of no value to the hearers, but only ruins those who listen (cf. 1Tim. 6:4; 2Tim. 2:14); even overthrowing the faith of some.

Charles Ryrie, in his book Dispensationalism Today, explained that the “basic premise of Dispensationalism is two purposes of God expressed in the formation of two peoples who maintain their distinction throughout eternity.”[13] Not only is there to be a “distinction throughout eternity” between a natural people belonging to God and the Church belonging to God, but there is also in the words of these men even a “distinction” in the Church with Gentiles as still Gentiles, and Jews who can only be called spiritual Israel.

Now aside from grammatical, typological, and allegorical considerations in Galatians, the dispensationalist’s explanation of the meaning of “The Israel of God” in Galatians 6:16 seems contrary to the entire tenor and internal evidence of this epistle in which it unequivocally states that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (3:28). That this is the central idea and main focus of this epistle, is expressed even further: “you are all sons [or children] through faith in Christ Jesus...if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed” (3:29). Even Scofield himself acknowledged this when he wrote: “In the Church the distinction of Jew and Gentile disappears."[14]  This raises an important question for us to consider here: If, “in the Church the distinction of Jew and Gentile disappears,” as Scofield correctly maintains, then why would Paul now make such a distinction between them at the end of his epistle to the Galatians in chapter 6, verse 16? Doesn’t he in fact do just the opposite in verse 15 in saying that circumcision nor uncircumcision matters, but what matters is a new creation? If it is true that the Church is never called “Israel” in Scripture, and that all is to be contrasted between both Jews and Gentiles, then in what sense can believers of Jewish ethnicity be called “Israel” any longer if they are now in the Church...in the one body of Christ? Haven’t they distanced themselves from being called any longer “Israel” along with natural Israel according to the flesh? In fact, this is exactly what the natural Jews did in Christ’s day when their Jewish brethren turned to Christ...they disowned them. They were disavowed in fulfillment of Christ’s words that He came to put a difference or variance between mothers and sons and sisters and brothers; between a natural seed only according to the flesh and a spiritual seed who worships God in Spirit and in Truth.

So, are Jewish believers in Christ called both “the Church” and “Israel,” while Gentiles are called only the Church? Surely, in Christ, Gentiles are no longer “Gentiles” and Jews no longer natural Jews. Both are one new man, or the spiritual Israel of God, in Christ, to the "praise" (the meaning of "Jew") of the glory of God (see Rom. 2:29). And this is why Paul could say he knew no man in Christ “after the flesh.” The fleshly distinctions have been removed altogether in order to create in Christ a new creation—a new spiritual Israel! We are a “new” Israel in a “new” Jerusalem in a “new” temple who worship God on a “new” mountain that fills the whole earth in “a new and living way.” It is even as God says, “Behold, I make all things new!” This is the spiritual fulfillment of that promise.

If someone such as a saved Jew in the Church is being called “Israel” by Paul here in Galatians, then the all-important indistinction between an Israelite and a Gentile is being seriously compromised here. Again, if it can be said that people of only a Jewish background may still be called “Israel” after they become believers in Christ, then it must be acknowledged that the strict distinction that both Christ and His apostles have placed between natural “Israel” after the flesh and “the Church” (made up of both Jews and Gentiles) has been replaced after all with a continued distinction that is still to be maintained and to remain in place.

And still further, if it is said that only persons of Jewish background can be rightly called “Israel” in Gal. 6:16, then we might rightfully ask what has become of the teaching of C. I. Scofield’s, that, “in the Church the distinction of Jew and Gentile disappears”? Do we have a separate class of “Jewish believers in Christ” who alone are entitled to the name: “the Israel of God”? And, if this is so, what is the importance of that any longer? According to dispensationalists, they won’t get to dwell with natural Jews here on earth in the millennium (they’ll be in heaven with us Gentiles), so there is no reason whatsoever for such a distinction between us and them any longer!

Again, are there two distinct types of Christians or believers that are to be differentiated by their ethnicity? God forbid! Are there two distinct assemblies or classes of people within one body? Is Christ divided? Wouldn’t this in fact create two bodies that are notably different from each other? This is also exactly what we are saying when we claim natural Jews outside of the Church who will be living on the earth will be separate and distinct from those Jews and Gentiles in Christ who will be living in heaven, and that there will be “two purposes of God expressed in the formation of two peoples who maintain their distinction throughout eternity” (ibid). As you can very well see, this is indeed the view that is being propagated by many dispensationalists and messianic Jews that are in the Church today; with even messianic Jews claiming that there is a “Jewish non-Christian believer,” and a “Gentile Christian believer,” who along with all dispensationalists believe that in some sense the “Jewish” believers are thought to be more privileged and especially favored by God over the Gentile believers. And as I noted, this is carried over even further with there being a distinction between all spiritual Jews and saved Gentiles apart from natural Israel who alone will dwell on the earth in the future, with David (or some say Christ) coming back to rule and reign as their king.

No matter how you slice it here, to say that the Israel of God in Gal. 6:16 is distinctively Jewish believers as opposed to believing Gentiles is to clearly put again a distinction and dividing line between the two of them. And not only that, but to say that they are Jewish “believers” puts even a further distinction and division between natural Israel according to the flesh and all those Jews who are now believers in Christ, and where, in the words of Lewis Sperry Chafer again, “never the twain shall meet.” For even dispensationalists, such as Showers for example, will readily admit that there is a spiritual Israel within natural Israel that is to be separate and distinct from the natural, carnal and worldly Israel of this earth. This is why some dispensationalist’s (but not all) have gone so far as to go on record and say that Paul in Gal. 6:16 is addressing all future natural born Jews who all get saved just prior to Christ’s Second Coming at the end of a seven-year tribulation, and who will all go on to live in the millennium; while the “spiritual Israel of God” and saved Gentiles before the seven-year tribulation will all live in heaven. This sounds pretty similar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ doctrine of witnesses who live here on earth as opposed to a select group of 144,000 witnesses who live in heaven. It is the same heresy, but with a different twist and under a different guise.

In previously discussing the peace and mercy that is to rest upon both Jews and Gentiles in Christ, even the misnomer that those who bless natural unbelieving Israel will be blessed is a fallacious argument and not worthy of any consideration or recognition whatsoever; for Christ said, “whatever you do for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me,” and again, “Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is My disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward” (Mat. 25:40; 10:41-42). Again, Christ is noted as saying to His disciples, “As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you.If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town” (Mat. 10:13-15). Truly all those who bless the Israel of God not according to the flesh will be blessed along with their father Abraham; whereas all others will be “cursed,” cast into “the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” (Mat. 25:41).

When the psalmist David mentioned praying for the “peace” of Jerusalem, it was in consideration of all those inside the walls who “loved” the Lord and who were indeed David’s “brothers and friends.” (cf. Psm. 122:6-8). All the rest were to be judged. For them it is to be as God told Jeremiah, “Do not pray for the well-being of this people” (14:11). And furthermore, Jerusalem is now the heavenly and spiritual city of God’s people for which the natural city was but a type. And like the literal city of the past which had both the faithful and unfaithful in its midst, so too does the Church now today have those who are faithful and unfaithful in its midst.

Now, another contributing writer to this magazine, Israel My Glory, Charles E. McCracken, says that the sheep and goats that Christ is referring to above in Matthew 25, are the righteous Gentiles as represented by the sheep and that the goats are the unrighteous Gentiles; while the “brothers” (or “brethren”) that Christ refers to are all natural Jews. And as remarkable as all this may sound, just read him for yourself:

When Messiah returns, He will judge the Gentiles to determine who among them will enter the Messianic Kingdom [on earth].
The prophet Joel identified those being judged using the Hebrew word goyim (“nations”), a word still used of Gentiles today (Joel 3:12). Jesus said all nations will be gathered before Him (Mat. 25:32), establishing the connection to Joel’s prophecy. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Greek word for “nations” [ethnos] refers to Gentiles who survive the Tribulation’s cataclysmic events.

As a Shepherd divides sheep from goats, the Messiah will divide these non-Jews: The righteous [Gentiles among them] will inherit the kingdom…, while the unrighteous [Gentiles] will be condemned…

Jesus spelled out the criterion He will use to distinguish the righteous [Gentiles] from the unrighteous [Gentiles]:…inasmuch as you [provided food and water for Me, took Me in as a stranger, clothed Me, and visited Me while being sick and in prison, when you] did it unto one of the least of these My [Jewish] brethren, you did it to Me (vv. 35–36, 40).

Thus He will identify Gentiles survivors of the Tribulation as righteous by their attitude toward His [Jewish] “brethren.” These brethren belong to neither the sheep or goats. Furthermore, they are distinct from the nations, or goyim. So the word brethren can only refer to one other group of people: the Jewish people—Jesus’ Jewish kinsmen.[15]

As I said just before this statement of McCracken’s, these “brethren” are not Jews of natural descent at all, but are all those who believe in Christ, along with all others who are in league with Him by the fact that they treat His disciples with the same treatment that should have been afforded to Him. And in Mat. 12:48–50, Christ further qualifies for us who His “brethren” are. After someone telling Him that his natural Jewish mother and brothers were standing outside of a home wanting to speak with Him, He cries: “‘Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?’ Pointing to His disciples, He said, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.’” And what is the will of the Father in heaven? That Christ should lose none of those given to Him by the Father and who look to the Son and believe on Him (cf. Jhn. 6:39–40).

In these verses above in Matthew 12, Jesus clearly makes a distinction between those who were His natural “brethren” as opposed to those of us (like His believing disciples) who are His spiritual “brethren.” And it is all such “brethren” as those of us who are being treated by others as if what is being done to us is done unto Christ, and who in turn are to be richly “rewarded.” These are all of Christ’s “sheep,” as opposed to all others which are denoted as “goats.” And “goyim” in the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures does not just necessarily point to Gentiles as opposed to Jews but just simply means, as in many other places in which this word occurs throughout the OT, as just “peoples.” The Greek here uses the word “ethnos” as a synonym for the Hebrew goyim and, again, it is also used often in its more generic sense of “peoples” throughout the New Testament rather than in its more common translation of "Gentiles." And a “Gentile” is from the Latin, gentilis, meaning “one belonging to a same tribe or family”; often denoting one who is pagan or heathen; or even as just a race of people. And though modern dictionaries and Greek lexicons might define this term as sometimes distinguishing Jews from Gentiles; Mormons from Gentiles; or even Christians from both Jews and Gentiles, its more common usage is simply just a people or a nation(s); or even a race of people without any preference whatsoever to ethnicity at all. Outside of Christ, the Jews are just as much pagans and heathens as those whom they claim to have no affiliations with. Christ said all those who are outside of His holy City, New Jerusalem, are “dogs” (Rev. 22:15), a term that God also uses in the Old Testament of all Jews who were not His people and who were even false shepherds of His people (cf. Isa. 56:10–11). And not only are they called “dogs,” but they are also referred to as, “the sexually immoral…murderers…idolaters and everyone who practices falsehood” (ibid). And this would include all of those Jews who were “murderers” of Christ. In Rev. 21:27, they are again referred to as the “impure” and “anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful.” In Joel, they are likened unto “foreigners” (3:17); and in Zechariah to “a Canaanite” and an “Egyptian” (14:18–19, 21).[16] In Rev. 11:8, earthly Jerusalem, where our Lord is said to have been crucified, is figuratively now called: “Sodom and Egypt.” And “Sodom” is also an expression used of faithless natural Jews in the OT (Isa. 1:10; Jer. 23:14). In contradistinction to all of God’s true people of faith, all Israelites according to the flesh are considered as Gentiles; as Ishmael rather than Isaac who is only to be "cast out" (cf. Gal. 4:24–31).

McCracken is right about one thing, and one thing alone, what Joel is saying in chapter 3 is indeed what Christ is speaking about in Matthew 25, but what both Christ and Joel (and even Zechariah) have in mind is not a future kingdom here on earth, but Christ’s present rule and reign now in heaven seated at the right hand of power, separating and distinguishing in this present dispensation and age between all of His sheep and all unbelieving goats—and this last group includes any unbelieving Jews as well.

Instead of any of these non-believing Jews fellowshipping with believers as if with Christ, they disassociate themselves from both them and Him; instead of giving them (as unto Him) water, like the Roman soldiers they prefer more so to give Him (or us) vinegar mixed with gall; instead of visiting Him (or us) in prison, they prefer to have Him (or us) imprisoned; instead of caring for Him (or us), they prefer to have Him (or us) mistreated, despised and rejected. All these individuals that mistreat us are the ones Christ had in mind when He said they would be “cast out” and “cursed” into everlasting fire and darkness where there is only to be weeping and gnashing of teeth for them.

McCracken again, like the unrelenting JW’s, is arguing and splitting hairs over words, such as with goyim and ethnos to no avail here, in order to lead us down a rabbit trail that is of no value to the listeners. Such would come under the category of any and all insignificant “words” that Paul told Timothy to avoid at all costs, knowing that they only create unhealthy controversies and quarrels and ruining the unwary and untrained of those who would listen to them (1Tim. 6:4; 2Tim. 2:14).

And while we are on the subject of the Hebrew “goyim” and the Greek “ethnos,” since McCracken brought it up, I will give him a run for his own money.

The Greek word “ethnos” for “nations” does not necessarily denote just “foreign” nations, as Strong’s Concordance and many lexicons would seem to imply and have us to believe. For a careful cross-referencing of the Greek “ethnos” and its usage in the Old Testament Greek Septuagint with its translation of the Old Testament Hebrew “go-ee” and “goyim” used for “nations,” clearly shows that the Jewish nation or the “peoples” of that nation was occasionally to be understood with these words.

These Hebrew and Greek words for “nations” have been a stumbling-block for some. But when we read the prophets, it wasn’t unusual for them to use this word with regards to the people of Israel as a whole as well. For instance, Jeremiah writes: “This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (25:11). Now we know that it was Israel that was specifically to go into captivity for “seventy years” and not all the other nations of the world. This prophecy was for no other nation(s), but for Israel alone. Keil and Del. take note of this by saying on this verse: “‘This land’ is not, with [the Hebrew word] Näg., to be referred to the countries inhabited by all the peoples mentioned in ver. 9, but, as in ver. 9, to be understood of the land of Judah; and ‘all these peoples’ are those who dwelt around Judah. The meaning is unquestionably, that Judah and the countries [or areas] of the adjoining peoples shall lie waste, and that Judah and these peoples shall serve the king of Babylon.” [17]

Now we know for a fact that more than one tribe other than Judah went into captivity, that being “Benjamin,” and also some from of the tribe of Levi (Ezra 1:5). And the two occurrences of the word “nations” in Jer. 25:9, 11, is the Hebrew word “haggoyim” [Strong’s, #1471], and denotes just a plurality of people. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says on the root “goy” for this word, pronounced, “go-ee,” that “the basic idea is that of a defined body or group of people…it may refer to a nation, whether a foreign nation or Israel. Goyim on the other hand more usually refers to nations…”[18] Notice here that the TWOT says, “more usually,” but not always! In Ezk. 2:4, God tells Ezekiel that he is sending him to the Jews who were in the Babylonian captivity with him (Judah, Benjamin, and some Levites), and refers to them as “the people…obstinate and stubborn” (Heb., “goyim”; Strong’s: #1471; translated “nation” in v. 3 of the KJV). In Judges 2:20, it is again denoted with regards to the Israelites: “And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel; and he said, because that this people [Heb., “haggoee”; Strong’s: #1471] hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice” (KJV). In Ezk. 35, Edom is said to come against Israel spoken of as “two nations [Heb., “haggoyim”; Strong’s: #1471] and countries” (v. 10; cf. vv. 5, 11-12, 15); with this either referring to both the northern and southern tribes of Israel and Judah, or possibly just Judah and those round about Jerusalem, such as Benjamin. And Israel is described again later in Ezk. 37:22 as, “two nations” or “goyim” (lit. Hebrew, Strong’s: #1471). Again, the Lord in Zeph. 2:7 says: “…the residue of My people [Heb., ammi] shall spoil them, and the remnant of My people [Heb., “goyi”; Strong’s: #1471] shall possess them” (KJV). And finally, it is also translated in Josh. 3:17 “children”; 4:1 “people”; and 5:6, 8 “children”—all using the Hebrew plural, “haggoee” (Strong’s: #1471) for goyim.

In the KJV, this Hebrew word is translated four times as “the people” (plural), “nations” (plural) 425 times, “nation” (singular) 120 times, and even occasionally with the word, “Gentiles”; and the New Testament is no different with the Greek “ethnos.”

Now in Jer. 25:9, 11; Judges 2:20; Ezk. 35:10; 37:22 and Zeph. 2:7 (all mentioned earlier), the Septuagint Greek translation (LXX) of the Hebrew Old Testament translates these occurrences of this Hebrew word used with regards to the Israelites, with the Greek word “ethnos” as found also in our text in question by McCracken in Mat. 25:32. In Jeremiah, it translates verse 9 with the Greek word “ethneh,” and in verse 11 with “ethnesin” (v. 10 in LXX). In Ezk. 35:10, it translates the Hebrew plural haggoyim with the Greek “ethneh,” and in 37:22 “goyim” is also translated, “ethneh.” In Judges and Zephaniah, the LXX translates both of these words with the Greek word “ethnos.” And last, but not least, some further occurrences are found in Gen. 12:2; 17:20; 18:18; 35:11; 46:3 and Exodus 19:6 where the Hebrew word “goyim” (Stong’s #1471) is substituted for the Greek “ethnos” in the LXX when describing the “nation” or “nations” (or the tribes) of Israel. Can anyone doubt that these promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of them becoming a great “nation” or “nations” are with a reference to the twelve tribes of Israel?

I’m sure there are more instances of this to be found with some further cross-referencing between the LXX and the Hebrew Old Testament. But I think enough verses have been shown to prove beyond all doubt that the word “nation(s)” can be linked with the idea that the “people(s)” of Israel were also in the mind of Christ when He used this generic word in Mat. 25, and not just with those who were from Gentile nations. God had used these words before concerning both the Israelites and the Gentiles, and so there is no reason to doubt that Christ (who is no less God) was also using it here in Matthew 25 with regards to these murderous Jews and Gentiles who were the enemies of Christ and His disciples (or His “brethren”). And, “for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee….Behold I and the children whom God has given Me” (Heb. 2:11–13, KJV).


Concluding Remarks

Well, I’ll tell you, after listening to these guys you would of thought you were listening to unregenerate Jews speaking and not to some supposed believers in Christ. These so-called “Friends Of Israel,” are in all actuality, the very enemies of the Church! They warm up to the Jews as being God’s supposed “chosen people” more than they warm up to the Church who are the True Chosen People and the Israel of God. And it is easy to understand how one can maybe wonder if such men as Showers are not really brethren at all! Maybe they’re not! Like I have said all along, maybe they are just wolves in sheep’s clothing. They have a form of godliness, but their words and their lives give evidence to denying the power thereof! Their teaching, like the JW’s, and as with all such aberrant groups as these, exposes them for who they really are. They claim to be ducks, but they sure don’t walk and talk like ducks. They walk, talk and act like natural reasoning and thinking Jews according to the flesh who have not the Spirit of Christ in them at all. Like Judas, they hang around us and befriend us, but, also like Judas, they are more the “friends” of natural unbelieving Jews than they are the friends of Christ and His Church. And as I have also said before, Christ and His apostles didn't treat or talk to the Jews in this manner. They witnessed to them, but they did not befriend them as Showers and all Christian Zionists and dispensationalists are doing today, claiming that God has a separate plan for them apart from the Church. It is no wonder that they are not being persecuted by the Jews for being Christians, because they are defending their cause rather than rebuking it. They are telling them everything is going to be okay with them, when it is not. They are false prophets and false teachers who are pronouncing “peace, peace” unto them, when it is not going to happen, just like those who said the same thing in Jeremiah's day (cp. Jer. 6:13-14; 8:10-11).

To befriend those who would rather murder Christ, and then to financially support them as well in order to help them migrate to Palestine, even encouraging them to rebuild temples and reinstate circumcised Levitical priests to offer again literal animal sacrifices, etc., in the future, is a mockery to the Church of Christ and blasphemes the name and work of Christ. It is bringing reproach and dishonor to His mission and to His name. And instead of the Jews paying them (like they paid Judas) to support them and be behind their efforts and their cause, they are the one’s who are actually paying the Jews in support of them and their cause, being absolutely and unreservedly behind them 100% in giving them all of the moral and financial support that they need to establish them in the Land.

It has been estimated “that at least $100 million dollars a year is being raised by some rather well-known televangelists and church leaders to rebuild the temple,”[19]  making the price paid to Judas Iscariot of thirty pieces of silver, in order to be in league with them, a small pittance in comparison. The Jews of today just might as well be paying these so-called “friends” to help them rebuild their temple in order to assist them in their efforts, but these so-called “Friends Of Israel” are actually paying them to do what Christ and His apostles said that we who are His Church are no longer to do! So, don’t you now feel a little betrayed by those who would rather take sides with those who would rather murder Christ than actually befriend Him? To convert Jews to Christ and His gospel (and not to their false gospel) is one thing, but for one to be behind all of these carnal efforts of theirs, and then claim that all of these Jews according to the flesh are God’s “Chosen people,” smacks right in the face of Christ and His Church which is the true city, the true temple, and the true people and dwelling place of God from which Christ now rules and reigns; no longer in literal temples made of stone, but in the true and spiritual temple built by God without the assistance of men’s hands.

In the end, when the men of natural Israel according to the flesh could no longer tolerate Christ’s refusal to submit to their eschatological worldview and carnal expectations for history, they crucified him. He wasn’t for them, but against them! And it is also a sad fact in history that many Christians have actually agreed with these chief priests and unenlightened “teachers of the law.” For classic dispensationalism has all along held that the Pharisees in Christ’s day, and even the Jews of today, have had the right literal hermeneutical methodologies in interpreting the Bible all along when it comes to eschatology. And many Christians have played right into their hands, swallowing everything that they have thrown out at them hook, line and sinker; even falling head-long after their same dissipation of worldly expectations and false notions about what God’s kingdom in Christ is truly all about. Neither of them has a clue! The Jews are just as much of a “blind guide” today as they were back then in Christ’s day; and yet even for all that, we still have Christians among us today who are following their same “blind” lead. Go figure! Could it be that in the end they will all be those who fall head-long into the ditch, as Christ has said? The Mormon’s and JW’s all have similar notions with a peculiar twist, so where do you think they will all end up at?

All natural, pure-blood (if there are any at all) 100% Jews according only to the flesh, are not God’s (or Christ’s) sheep or children, so why treat them as such? They weren’t in the Old Testament times, or in Christ’s day, so why are we treating every single one of them as such today? By the very nature of the beast, “not all Israel…are Israel”! And could it be that these “Friends Of Israel” could be financing an effort with those who are not even really pure-blooded Jews at all? And even if they were pure-blooded Jews, even from among them not all Israel are Israel. Are you beginning now to see this? Even in Christ’s day, not all pure-blooded Jews who could claim to be the true physical descendants of Abraham, could claim to be a part of Christ’s fold that He said were all given to Him by the Father. Again, He told them exactly that; and it was for this reason, among many other reasons, that they became angry and wanted to kill Him (cf. Jhn. 6:37–39, 44–45, 64-65; 8:39–47). God’s people are Christ’s people, and Christ’s people are God’s people. They are both one and the same. All others are “cast out” as not the friends of Abraham or of Christ; nor of the spiritual Israel of God who, like Isaac (and even Jacob) are all born according to the Spirit of promise (cf. Gal. 4:28). End of story.

As I said before, all natural reasoning Jews along with dispensationalists such as Showers just don’t get it! God’s plans and purposes for Israel have always been for His elect remnant of “children of promise” and of grace that are born not of the flesh, but of His Spirit. “Return, faithless people,” declares the LORD, “for I am your husband. I will choose you―one from a town and two from a clan―and bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding….Men will no longer say, ‘the ark of the covenant of the Lord,’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made. At that time they will call Jerusalem [the one from above] the Throne of the Lord, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord.” (Jer. 3:14–17). And though natural Israel be like the sand of the sea, only the remnant of God and of Christ are to be saved. And this naturally presupposes that at some point and time they had to be “faithless” first before they could be sovereignly chosen and saved “one from a town and two from a clan.” Though the call goes out to all, only the remnant who are effectually called and predetermined to be the “children of promise” shall be saved. To everyone it has not been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but only to those whom God has chosen to reveal Himself.

This entire movement of God going forward since the time of Adam and Eve (and even before the foundation of the world) has always been centered around a people born not strictly according to the flesh or according to a specific racial ethnicity. All of these “children of promise” in the past were hand-picked by God, including some even within the natural nation of Israel itself. And except for sporadic incidences with some Gentiles, no other nation of peoples were afforded such an opportunity as God had given specifically to the nation of Israel. No atonement was offered by God or, by the Jews, to any other nation in the world other than to them and to them alone. And this alone should overwhelmingly speak volumes to us, graphically portraying to us that God’s love doesn’t extend to every single individual in the world, but only to those whom He effectually calls as His “children of promise” such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and of whom natural Israel was but only a type. This is not only true concerning the rest of the world, but even within the natural nation of Israel itself. Not all of Israel according to the flesh was Israel according to the Spirit. “In other words,” Paul says, “it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring [or seed]” (Rom. 9:8). Not natural Israel, per se, as opposed to those who were not of any pure-blood origins from Abraham, but any natural born person whomsoever. This is what Showers, and all those of his same persuasion, just simply do not comprehend. To argue that Abraham (or even God) has a strictly natural genealogical progeny of Jews that is to be distinct and separate from a spiritual progeny irrespective of any natural genealogy, is just not a truth that is inspired and born from above.

Natural Israel was a graphic example in type that God loves not all the world but only those whom He had specifically set aside for Himself in order to atone only for their sins, and their sins alone. In light of this, we can now see why the Reformers could come to their conclusions and understand how it makes more sense why Christ said He came to die only for His sheep (Jhn. 10:11) whom the Father had given unto Him (Jhn. 6:38–39), and why Paul could say that Christ gave Himself up for His Church (Eph. 5:25). God was portraying this all along in the Old Testament types, figures and literal allegorical examples and real-life illustrations. We all may be like sheep who have gone astray, but Christ specifically died and atoned for His sheep that the Father had specifically and purposefully set aside for Him as they passed under His shepherd’s staff, “one from a town and two of a clan,” to be Christ's holy tithe, firstfruits and firstborn-ones. And it also begins to make more sense how God could tell Paul, “I have many people in this city” (Acts 18:10). Or again, how that “all who were appointed to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48).

As I said before, all of this described above speaks volumes of the doctrine of election for none other than those whom God had decided to set apart for Himself and to be in a covenantal relationship with Him—just like with Abraham! And “the world” that God so loves is the extension of this electing love of His to some out of the Gentiles as well, even as St. John affirms of not only out of the nation of Israel, but “to the children of God scattered abroad” (Jhn. 11:52); children who are called God’s “children” before any of them are even called, justified, or glorified. It is “the world” promised to Abraham that “in him all the families [not just out of natural Israel] would be blessed,” just as St. John understood it above. God had said this to Abraham because He alone was going to do it, calling those things that are not as though they were, just like He did with the examples of Isaac and Jacob.

When one truly and fully understands the biblical (and not man’s) doctrine of election and that it is all about God’s "children of promise" such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then one can only truly begin to understand that it has never been about God wanting to save the entire world (let alone all the Jews), but only about setting aside those whom He wanted to set His love upon and set apart for Himself out of His sheer mercy and grace. Paul’s own calling is just another prime example of this. Paul didn’t choose Christ. Christ chose him; and thus the Scripture is fulfilled: “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I revealed Myself to those who did not ask for Me” (Isa. 65:1 as cited in Rom. 10:20). The same was said of Christ’s disciples: “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you…” (Jhn. 15:16). And the same is also to be understood of those in Acts 13:48 who are said to have been “ordained” to eternal life and believed (Acts 13:48).

And so just as “all Israel shall be saved,” doesn’t mean all natural Jews will be saved, so God so loving “the world” doesn’t mean that all the world is afforded an opportunity to be saved; nor is it desirous of God to save every single individual in the world, whether before the cross or afterward. Clearly, this was never true in the past before the cross of Christ, and it hasn’t been afforded to all after the cross either. And it is a fact that many have died in remote regions having never even heard of Christ (please read footnote for more on all of this).[21] Only God’s elect children of promise from the Gentiles throughout all the world are saved out of His sheer mercy and grace; while the rest are left to become hardened all the more, such as with Pharaoh (Rom. 9:17ff); and only to be left to themselves to fill up the measure of their sins and be justly rewarded accordingly for that which they themselves are entirely responsible for (see Paul's remarks with regards to all of this in Rom. 3:5–8).

This particular and individualistic love of God was shown primarily to the “children of promise” within natural Israel in the past, and is now shown on a more grander scale to all “children of promise” from out of the Gentiles as well. Again, this love isn’t extended to all, but to only those whom God effectually and savingly calls, like Abraham, out of the thousands upon thousands of people living. And God can make children to Abraham out of stones if He so pleases; He doesn’t need anyone born according to the flesh. And this is the point that is to be understood in all of this! The children of Abraham and of God are not chosen because they are of an “ethnicity,” they are chosen based strictly upon God’s electing love to create for Himself a people based solely upon a promise to do so. Again, this is what all natural thinking and reasoning Jews (as well as all dispensationalists) just cannot wrap their carnal thinking minds around! They all think being physical descendants of Abraham who are called “Jews” guarantees them something, when it guarantees them nothing! “Do not think to say to yourselves,” cried John, “that we have Abraham as our father; for God is able to make of these stones children for Abraham.” This is the crux of the whole matter—bar none! There are no “exceptions” to this rule. And the birth of Christ is a glaring example that the procreation of a man and a woman are not even necessary if God should so choose to create children for Himself. Even Abraham and Sarah could not have had Isaac unless God had intervened. This is why such men as Isaac, Jacob and all of us are called “children of promise.” It is not based upon what God in the future foresees us doing in our own physical strength or natural abilities, but upon Him who has predestined to call, justify and glorify. All others are passed by.

God choosing Jacob over Esau before either of them were ever born is another glaring example of all this. God could have chosen Esau over Jacob, if He had so pleased, and He would have been just as just in doing so as choosing Jacob over Esau. God's choice had nothing whatsoever to do in foreseeing what either one of them would do in the future. The choice was entirely God's, not theirs. And it was based solely upon God’s own sovereign grace and mercy!

“It is not as though God’s word has failed,” as dispensationalists have asserted of us as saying with regards to all natural Jews; for as Paul says, “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (Rom. 9:6). Clearly, Paul affirms that God’s word is not failing with regards to the Jews, nor with us. God has then, as now, always had a remnant according to the election of grace. Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Caleb, Rahab, Gideon, Samuel, David, Ruth, Jehoshaphat, Josiah, the Prophets, John the Baptist, Mary, Christ’s disciples, Paul, the Roman jailer, Lydia, Timothy, Cornelius and some of those even of the household of Caesar are all glaring examples of all such “children of promise.” God has not rejected His people whom He fore-loved and foreknew before the foundation of the world. And until one realizes this, they realize nothing at all. Like natural brute beasts, they reason like all such natural reasoning animals who have not the Spirit of Christ in them. As such, they are also like natural men who have not the Spirit of Christ; therefore, the things of Christ and of God are foolishness unto them until they truly turn to the Lord. As Christ has said, “As you enter a home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you.” And “as many as walk by this rule,” may God’s “peace and mercy be on them, and on God's Israel” (Gal. 6:16, GWT). Amen and amen!



Footnotes:

[1] Israel My Glory. The Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology, Part 5. May/June issue 2012, vol. 70, #3. p. 34.

[2] Lewis Sperry Chafer. Dispensationalism (Dallas Seminary Press, 1936), p. 107.

[3] Israel My Glory. The Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology, Part 5. May/June issue 2012, vol. 70, #3. p. 34. Words in brackets mine.

[4] Ibid. Words in brackets mine.

[5] Isaiah 2:2–4.

[5a] It is no secret that Matthew, Mark and Luke are what is known as the “Synoptic Gospels,” taking a common view and approach to the teachings of Christ. They are in agreement with one another, not in disagreement; they are parallel in thought to one another, not disjointed. And we can see this parallelism of “the kingdom of heaven” being synonymous to “the kingdom of God” in Mat. 4:17 w/ Mk. 1:5; Mat. 5:3, 10 w/ Lke. 6:20, 22; Mat. 8:11 w/ Lke. 13:28; Mat. 10:7 w/ Lke. 9:60; Mat. 11:11 w/ Lke. 7:28; Mat. 11:12 w/ Lke. 16:16; Mat. 13:11 w/ Mk. 4:11 and Lke. 8:10; Mat. 13:31 w/ Mk. 4:30-31 and Lke. 13:18, 19; Mat. 13:33 w/ Lke. 13:20-21; Mat. 18:3 w/ Mk. 10:15 and Lke. 18:17; Mat. 19:14 w/ Mk. 10:14; Mat. 19:23 w/ Mk. 10:23; Mat. 25:14 w/ Lke. 19:11-13. And Matthew on one occasion even uses the terms interchangeably in Mat. 19:23-24: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you the truth, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven! Again I say, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God.’” Many of the stories that Matthew records for us in his gospel using the phrase “the kingdom of heaven,” are recorded for us in Luke’s and Mark’s gospels as “the kingdom of God.” One just denotes it as “God’s” kingdom, the other that is “of heaven” where God is located and which also indicates its origin. It’s not a man-made kingdom, but of God; not of earth (or earthly), but of heaven (or heavenly).

[6] Barnes’ Notes on Galatians. Public domain online. Italics and bold embellishments mine; words in brackets mine.

[6a] If by “within” you, Jesus was referring to Himself within their midst in Lke. 17:21, then it would have gone against what He had just said previously in verse 20 about the kingdom of God not coming “with observation”; for then it would have been in the realization of them physically observing Him within their midst.

[7] Israel My Glory. The Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology, Part 5. May/June issue 2012, vol. 70, #3. p. 34.

[8] Ibid., pp. 34–35.

[9] Ibid., p. 35.

[10] Ibid.

[11] “The typical weekday Amidah actually consists of nineteen blessings, though it originally had eighteen; when the Amidah is modified for specific prayers or occasions, the first three blessings and the last three remain constant, framing the Amidah used in each service, while the middle thirteen blessings are replaced by blessings specific to the occasion” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amidah).

[12] S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., Paul and “The Israel of God”: An Exegetical and Eschatological Case-Study (Spring 2009), p. 49. Accessed online 9/27/12 at: http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj 20c.pdf. This essay also appeared in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, eds. Stanley D. Toussaint and Charles H. Dyer, which was published by Moody Press in 1986. For counter arguments against Johnson’s thesis, please see Christopher W. Cowan’s, Context Is Everything: The Israel of God in Gal. 6:16, accessed on 9/27/12 at: http://www.sbts.edu/resources/files/2010/ 10/sbjt-v14-n3_cowan.pdf.

[13] Chicago: Moody Press, 1965; pp. 44-45.

[14] Rightly Dividing The Word Of Truth (1896), chapter one, par. 21. Accessed online at: http://www.biblebelievers.com/scofield/scofield_rightly 01.html

[15] Israel My Glory. The Facts and Flaws of Covenant Theology, Part 1. Sept./Oct. issue 2011, vol. 69, #5. p. 25. Italics his; words in brackets mine to shorten his lengthy quote, yet retaining what it is that he is referring to of Christ’s future Kingdom on Earth, with His “brethren” being all natural Jewish brethren in the future and the “sheep” and “goats” being righteous and unrighteous Gentiles who receive these Jews as Christ’s brethren as if they were receiving Christ himself.

[16] Reading some of the older commentators, such as Matthew Poole, Albert Barnes, John Gill, Matthew Henry, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown will help one to begin to grasp what both Joel and Zechariah had in mind concerning the days of Christ and His Church that we are now living in, and not about Israel according to the flesh off into our future during either a seven-year tribulation or earthly millennial reign. And although these men above weren’t always quite clear in their exposition on all of this, at least they were on the right track in seeing all of these things as pointing to Christ’s present rule and reign through His Church and not in the future on earth with natural Israel. Such things as “a fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias” in Joel, and “living water will flow out from Jerusalem” in Zechariah—and even “water coming out from under the threshold of the temple” in Ezekiel—are all significant pointers and sign posts of what God is describing with literal words and ideas in order to convey ethereal and heavenly spiritual realities as found in Christ and His People. Even as our Lord has said through our beloved St. John: “Then the angel showed me [John] the river of the Water of Life as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the City [New Jerusalem, the Church]”; and, “the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the Water of Life” (Rev. 22:1–2, 17; see also Rev. 21:2 and verse 9 for this concept of the City being a descriptive picture of the Bride). And finally: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast [of Tabernacles], Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him’” (Jhn. 7:37–38). What “Scripture,” might I ask? The ones just mentioned through His prophets Joel, Zechariah and Ezekiel! How anyone within the Church can believe anything other than what is being described here in all of this overwhelmingly amount of testimony, is just beyond me, other than to likewise say: “Let him who hears say, ‘Come!’” For some it has been given unto them to “hear,” while others will just never hear even though it be shouted from the mountaintops. What was foretold by Christ's prophets, and for which many can only see as physically happening some day in the future, Christ has interpreted for us to be understood spiritually within us who are God's “temple,” “city” and lowly “valley of the acacias” (and of which "acacias" in the OT are used as a symbol for God's people).

[17] Jeremiah. vol. 8, p. 374. Public domain. Italics and words in brackets mine.

[18] R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer, Jr., Bruce K. Waltke (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), vol. 1, p. 153.

[19] Stephen Sizer. Zion’s Christian Soldiers? (Downers Grove: IVP Press, 2007), pp. 122–123.

[20] The same is to be understood of the “Jerusalem” that Zechariah talks about in chapter fourteen of the nations who keep the Feast of Tabernacles being allowed to enter this city in which Christ’s “living waters” flow out of. All others are likened unto “Egyptians” or the “dogs” that Christ later refers to in Rev. 22:15 that are to remain outside of this spiritual City. The Jerusalem of the earth, according to Rev. 11:8, is now also spiritually referred to as “Sodom and Egypt.” Like “Ishmael,” they are “cast out” (Gal. 4:30) with no access to this heavenly Jerusalem from above.

[21] For other examples where “world” doesn’t mean all in the world, see Lke. 2:1; Jhn. 12:19; Acts 17:6; 24:5. In Jhn. 12:19 the Jews said “the whole world has gone after Him.” But not all Jews had gone after Christ; and neither had the Gentiles as of yet; for Christ’s mission wasn’t even to them, but only later through His apostles. In Acts 17:6 the Jews said of Paul and Silas that “these men have caused trouble all over the world.” But surely there were areas in which they hadn’t caused trouble and even where they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to even go to a region. In Acts 24:5, the Jews again claimed of Paul to Felix that he had stirred up riots among the Jews “all over the world.” But surely this doesn’t mean with every Jew in every part of the world, much less in every single region of the world in which he was ministering. In Lke. 2:1, a census by the Romans is said to be taken of all the world, but all the world had not been conquered by Rome. History attests that there were regions in which they had not conquered and wherein people did not have to be counted for this census. Even in Acts 2:17 where Peter quotes Joel of God saying, “I will pour out My Spirit on all people [or flesh],” doesn’t mean upon every single individual in all the world, but upon all those whom God calls to be His sons and daughters as His ekklesia and elect children of promise.

In Rom. 4:13, Abraham is promised to become the “heir of the world,” and in the context nothing is said about him inheriting real-estate, but only about him being “the father of many nations.” This “promise” of being given many, many "children of promise" is also again reiterated for us in Heb. 6:13–17. Again, “world” here in Romans 4 does not mean every person in the world but only those promised to him and to Christ by the Father (see also Jhn. 11:52).

In the context of election and a remnant out of both Jews and Gentiles belonging to God, Paul, in Rom. 11:12, likewise says of this “world” whom God saves: “But if their [Israel’s] transgression means riches for the world…how much greater riches will their [or Israel’s] fullness bring!” And then again in verse 15 Paul reaffirms how Israel’s rejection “is the reconciliation of the world,” with “world” here again clearly referring to people, not land. The “world” in these contexts is clearly not everyone in the world, but the elect Gentiles throughout all the world chosen by God.

In John 3:16 “world” cannot mean everyone in the world, for many in the world prior to the cross had never heard of such a love. Did Christ die for them also who had never heard about Him and who had gone to hell? Where was this love of God for all those of the world back then? Except for some isolated incidents in the OT, there was none to speak of! The “world” in John 3:16 can only be understood of God loving elect “Gentiles,” in addition to loving elect Jews. And we can see this distinction clearly laid out for us by John in his gospel in the eleventh chapter, verses 51-52, as well as in 1Jhn. 2:2.

Christ said He came to die for His sheep (Jhn. 10:11, 15-16; Eph. 5:25). God loved Jacob and hated Esau; Abraham He loved and called out of the Ur of the Chaldeas, while the rest of the world He pretty much ignored and didn’t show such a special love for them at all. When Israel entered the promised land they weren’t told to preach the love of God to all of those ungodly nations and give them a chance to repent before killing them off. God just said go in and slaughter them all: men, women, children and animals. In fact, God even directed Paul at times to not even go into certain regions to proclaim such a love to people (Acts 16:6–7), while in other regions it is said God had “much people there” (Acts 18:10). In Acts 13:48, all who were ordained to eternal life, believed. Like Isaac and Jacob, God was choosing to set His love upon some people in some of these regions, while in other regions He chose not to do so. This is election, beloved.

So, to speak otherwise with regards to all of this is to contradict and disregard the biblical doctrine of election, and say that it is God’s will or desire to effectually call and elect every single individual in the world. But His particular choice of individuals in the Bible since the time of Adam and Eve disproves such a notion. Therefore, any verses that would seem to contradict or disprove all of this must be re-evaluated and re-interpreted through the grid of this understanding.

Furthermore, it is not natural to suppose that we should all be required to love everyone in the world equally, so why should we expect it or mandate it of God to do so? We don’t, and neither has He!

People do not need to be told by some law of Moses, or some word of Christ, that they are all sinners and responsible for their own sin and in need of repentance for God to justly condemn them to hell. This was Charles Finney’s mistake in concluding that in order for all men to be justly condemned and held accountable and responsible for their own sin by God, that they would all have to be told that there is a love of God for them and a Savior for them just as much as there is in God’s love in choosing Isaac and Jacob over Ishmael and Esau. But these choices by God prove just the opposite. Ishmael and Esau were afforded no choice or opportunity in the matter at all. The choice was strictly God’s in His electing love and mercy of choosing one individual over the other. And in contradistinction to Finney and all Arminian’s who think and reason like him, Paul makes it very clear in Romans that everyone is without excuse for their sin with even their very own consciences condemning them; and that God has also made it very plain to them through the things He has created so that they are without excuse (Rom. 1:18–20; 2:14–16). Before the Law of Moses entered the world, people were judged as sinners regardless of whether or not there was a written law; or whether or not someone had preached to them. They “are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts” (Rom. 2:14–15). No one is going to die by the fact that they refused an opportunity to be saved, but by the fact that they are just sinners, period.

Jesus And His People Are Israel

For a more elaborate treatise on Jesus Concerning Israel, the Land, the Temple, and the City, please click here to purchase a copy of my book.

Concerning Christ the Messiah, the Spirit of God proclaims through Isaiah the prophet (and even afterward through Paul):

“You are My Servant, Israel, 

in Whom I will display My splendor….

to be His Servant to bring back Jacob to Him

and gather Israel unto Himself….

to restore the tribes of Jacob 

and bring back those of Israel 

I have kept [reserved for Myself]. 

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, 

that You may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth…

I will keep You and make You to be a covenant for the people...

Neither circumcision or uncircumcision means anything; 

what counts is a new creation. 

Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, 

even to the Israel of God” 

(Isaiah 49:3, 5, 6, 8; Gal. 6:15-16). 

Selah!

The million dollar question is: Who, truly, is Israel? Should it even be a question at all? For many, it isn’t; and the issue is settled once-and-for-all for them that naturally born Jews are the only ones that are to be called by the name “Israel.” 

With regards to this idea of who is Israel, the answer for them is quite naturally clear and plain; almost self-evident to the natural thinking and reasoning mind. And so anybody with such natural reasoning can figure this out, right? But is it all really just as simple as that? Even those who are naturally born into so-called “Jewish” families aren’t even really full-blooded Jews themselves. No one is absolutely sure with regards to any of this anymore, yet nevertheless everyone looks upon them as “Israel.” We will discuss this explosive subject in a little more detail later.

Israel in history has always been like a big question waiting for a proper answer. Whenever those who claimed to be Israel assumed that Israel was a fixed, ethnic group—a people naturally self-evident to all—the prophets issued strong warnings often to the contrary. They pointed to a time when a remnant of Gentiles, who were once foreigners and strangers to the covenants of promise, would one day become even as natural-born Jewish citizens to be joined with a remnant chosen by God within Israel and partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree, as Paul elaborates for us in Romans 11, and for whom he also says are called Abraham’s children of promise, or seed (cp. Isa 24:14-16; 43:3-9; 49:11-12 with Mat. 8:11; Lke. 13:29 and Gal. 3:29). Indeed, Gentiles have been grafted into this olive tree, where, on the surface, like those who can claim to be naturally-born Jews, no one can really tell the difference between who it is that is really a natural born Jew as opposed to one who isn’t, being adopted as sons through the work of Christ on the cross. For in God’s sight it never was about natural descent. He is not a respecter of persons.

Isaiah also speaks of such a time as this that we are now living in when God would, “pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants. They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams. One will say, ‘I belong to the Lord;’ another will call himself by the name of Jacob; still another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and will take on the name of Israel” (44:3-5).

Notice how the phrase, “will take on the name of Israel” is commonly understood in the Hebrew to be translated as: “will surname himself by the name of Israel” (see KJV, NKJV, ASV, DRB, DBT, ERV, WBT, and YLT translations). This Hebrew word for “surname” is found only one more time in the OT, in the very next chapter in Isaiah 45:4, where God names (or “surnames”) a future Persian king that was to arrive on the scene much later in Israel’s history and be called Cyrus: “For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me” (KJV; see also AKJV, ASV, DBT, ERV, WBT, WEB, YLT). This idea of “surnaming” someone with a name is also discovered in the Greek NT, in Acts 15:37, where it talks about Barnabas wanting to take John, who is also called, or, literally “surnamed” Mark (see also Vine’s Expos. Dict. with regards to this keen insight).i

To surname someone, by definition means, “a name that a person has in common with others, as distinguished from a Christian (or christened) name or a given family name.”ii In other words, it is a name that is added to a person’s name, “indicating a circumstance of birth or some characteristic or achievement; an epithet” (Ibid). For example, Richard the Lion-hearted is an epithet or surname for Richard I. Similarly, when a person follows Christ he assumes the name or epithet of, “Christian.”

With regards to Cyrus, his name means, “the sun,” like the sun that rules over the day; while the moon in the Scriptures is said to rule over the night. Often the sun (and the moon) is an epithet in the Scriptures for one who rules over others, and of which the Bible often says many times over would also be darkened,iii meaning that the glory, splendor, and power of these natural worldly leaders (or luminaries) would be abated. Some even say that the name Cyrus means, “throne.” So, of course, we can very well see why Cyrus was given this name by God. His very name, whether meaning “throne” or “sun,” denoted one who would rule. God often did this with people before they were born, and even sometimes renamed them years later after they were born.

Now unlike Cyrus who was surnamed by God prior to even being born, in our case the name Israel is a name that we ascribe to ourselves after the fact that we have spiritually become Abraham’s children; kind of like Abram being surnamed Abraham, Sarai becoming Sarah, Jacob becoming Israel, Simon becoming Peter, Saul becoming Paul, and a British person being called an American once becoming a citizen of the United States.

All of this is to only show us that someone takes on a name given to them by someone other than themselves, and that is different from what they would naturally receive when being born, such as the natural descendents of Israel who are automatically recognized as “Israel” at birth. Natural born Israelites are not “surnamed” with this name later in life; it is theirs by birthright; and neither is God talking about Gentile proselytes converting to Judaism. That is the furthest thing from His mind here in these passages in Isaiah 44:1-5.

It is pretty much the common consensus, among all of the older commentators, that these verses in Isaiah 44:3–5 predict the future outpouring of God’s Spirit presently now upon a remnant out of natural Israel, along with an ingathering of a remnant out of the Gentiles as well, who publicly profess their allegiance to God and to His true people, Israel not according to the flesh. As Keil and Delitzsch in their commentary on Isaiah note here: “the heathen…will count it the greatest honor to belong to Jehovah and His people….The threefold zeh [of one saying he will belong to Jehovah, of a second one who takes on the name of Jacob, and of a third one who inscribes himself with Jehovah’s name and even taking upon himself the name of Israel] refers to the heathen, as in Psm. 87:4–5.”iv And as Albert Barnes remarks here with regards to these verses: “to call one’s self by the same name as another, is indicative of friendship and affection; and is expressive of a purpose to be united with him, and to identify our interests with his. The idea is that which one would express by saying, that he cast in his interest with the people of God, or he became identified with them; as we now say, a man calls himself by the name of Christ, i.e., a Christian.”v

What is the most obvious thing that happens when a woman marries a man? For one, she changes her name! She no longer bears her old name, but that of her husband’s; and she not only shares in his name, but also in his possessions. Everything that belonged to him, belongs to her. When we married Christ and were joined to Him in holy matrimony, all that was His became ours—including His name! Surely if natural men and women can outwardly become Jewish proselytes and be identified as "Israel" and as "Jews," how much more so those who are joined to Christ and become actually one in Him inwardly? Isn’t this what Paul meant when he said that one isn’t a Jew who is one outwardly, but who is one inwardly? And that they are not all Israel who are of Israel? We have two different types of Jews and two different types of Israelites here: one that is a Jew and an Israelite outwardly, and one who is Jew and an Israelite indeed inwardly. We have a type and an antitype. And all made up of both natural Jews and Gentiles, which is not so dissimilar to those who become proselytes with natural Israel and who take on their name for themselves as well.

Now as I was saying, no natural born Jew would have to “surname” themselves with the name of Israel, since they are already born with that name. This was nothing unusual or out of the ordinary for them to call themselves. It just came naturally by birth. It was not a “surname,” by this definition of the term, that came after they were initially christened with that name. If I am christened with the name Stephen at birth, that is one thing. But for me to later call myself “Israel,” then this is indeed a surname that goes well beyond something that I was just christened with or received when naturally born. So, what God can only be referring to here in Isaiah is to a people who would one day become citizens of spiritual Israel, and who would thereby take on a new epithet (or name) given to them by God through Christ; even as Paul writes concerning Gentile believers in Christ: “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility….Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:12-14, 19). Can Paul’s words be any more clearer to us here than this? Christ has “made the two, ONE.” They are no longer two ethnic groups, but ONE! They are one olive tree (cf. Rom. 11:13ff). As such, they are combined as one to make up the one, true, spiritual, Israel of God with no difference whatsoever between them! Israelites don’t become Gentiles, but Gentiles now become true Israelites indeed, as do Israelis who convert to Christ! This holy and blessed “citizenship,” of both Jews and Gentiles, has been born or created by God from above...even “in heaven” as Paul declares for us in Philippians (Php. 3:20). These heavenly citizens, as also noted in Gal. 4:21-31, belong not to the earthly Jerusalem and Israel born only of natural descent, and who are in slavery with her children (and notice how Paul says they are not “our” children), but we belong to the heavenly city, or the New Jerusalem from above. It is the “new thing” that Isaiah the prophet had prophesied about in chapter 43:19-21. It is the new creation created in Christ Jesus that is born not of natural descent, nor by the will of man, but of God, like Isaac and Jacob and all such children of promise.

Indeed, in Psalm 87, the sons of Korah speak of a time when, “this one and that one are born in her” (v. 5, i.e., in Zion or Israel), with “this one and that one” referring to Gentiles such as: Rahab, Babylon, and those of Philistia, Tyre, and Cush. Thus, this city being referred to can only be the heavenly city made up of all kinds of people and even called “the mother of us all,” the “bride of Christ,” and the “assembly of the firstborn-ones” that Paul (Gal. 4), John (Rev. 21:1-2, 9-10), and even the author of Hebrews (Heb. 12:22) speaks about, and of whom these sons of Korah proclaim, “the Lord will write in the register of the peoples” (Psm. 87:6; i.e., in God’s book of life).

How could such a thing be, wherein Gentiles are “born in her” (or in Israel) and included in the citizenry or “the register of the peoples”? Such a thing can only be realized and accomplished by the person and work of Jesus Christ and all those who are born as "the children of promise" like Isaac, in and through the creative act of God. And since Christ is called “Israel,” as denoted above in Isaiah 49 (and even in Hosea 11:1), everyone born in and through Him “surnames” themselves with His name: “Israel”; thus becoming His true children and the true children of Abraham. This is what Paul tells us in Galatians when he talks about all of this, and then sandwiches the words of Isaiah the prophet in the middle of his comments to buttress these ideas,

But the Jerusalem that is above is free, 

and she is our mother. For it is written:

“Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children;

break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains;

because more are the children of the desolate woman

than of her who has a husband.”

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 

At that time the son born in the ordinary way 

persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. 

It is the same now (Gal. 4:26-29).

Contrary to the popular opinions and notions in Christ’s day, and even today, natural born Jews are in no way, shape, manner, or form, “the children of promise” that are given to Abraham by God. For even John the Baptist said to them, “Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for God is able to make of these stones children of Abraham” (Mat. 3:9). And again Christ says, “If you were Abraham’s children, then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me…Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does….You belong to your father the devil” (Jhn. 8:39-41, 44). Christ says they are not the true sons of Abraham! And if that were not enough, Christ once more says, “I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your [our] feet and acknowledge that I have loved you [us]” (Rev. 3:9). That He has loved who? That He has loved us, not them! Again, who? All who are the children of promise who are “born by the power of the Spirit”—like Isaac.

Ezekiel, likewise, spoke of this time when Gentiles would become as if they were naturally-born Israelites and citizens, and even be allotted portions in the land, something that was just unheard of before this time:

You are to distribute this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You are to allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the aliens who have settled among you and who have children. You are to consider them as native-born Israelites; along with you they are to be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the alien settles, there you are to give him his inheritance,” declares the Sovereign Lord (Ezk. 47:21-23).

Ezekiel was prophesying about the time that we are living in right now. None of this is to be taken literally! Oh, it is really and literally happening alright, but not in the way that most people are expecting it all to be played out. This was a vision portraying what was going to happen in and through Christ when the Gentiles who were once not the people of God, would become the people of God with full citizenship rights, including taking on the name of “Israel.” This is not in a future age with literal rebuilt temples and animal sacrifices being offered once again, along with the reinstatement of the Levitical priesthood, literal circumcision, the festivals, the new moons, and Sabbath days. If one believes that then they don’t believe in, or accept, the finished work of Christ on the cross in which all of these copies, types, and shadowy figures portrayed. They are preaching and teaching another gospel and are erecting the dividing-wall all over again between both Jews and Gentiles. If anything could be coined as “anti-Semitic,” this is it brethren! It is pitting the Jews against the Gentiles as the true people of God, when they are not, and depicts any Gentile who is in Christ as a second-class citizen and inferior to any naturally born Jew. But nothing could be further from the truth. As Paul declared, they are not all “Israel,” which are descendants of Israel, but only "the children of promise" born by the power of the Spirit are counted for the seed. In all honesty, naturally born Jews are not in any sense of the words, “the children of God,” but are in fact of their father the Devil, as I recall Christ saying!

As Paul (and I might add God) clearly elaborates for us, the prophets announced that though natural Israel would be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant chosen by grace as “the children of promise” would be saved (Isaiah 10:20-23; Amos 9; Micah 7:18: Rom. 9:27, 29). Therefore, in light of all this, Paul could confidently say, “they are not all Israel who are descendants of Israel”vi (Rom. 9:6, Webster’s Trans.). In the context of Romans chapter 9, Paul is not referring to people such as Ishmael and Esau, who are not called Israel like the natural descendants of Israel; and neither is he referring to those who are strictly just natural descendants of Isaac, as some have also erroneously supposed, but Paul is referring to everyone who is personally hand-picked by God, like Isaac and Jacob, and who are called the children of promise “born by the power of the Spirit,” according to Galatians 4:29. And Paul immediately after Romans 9:6 qualifies all this by saying in verse 8: “In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children.” Did you just get that? Did you just hear what Paul has said to us? No “naturally” born child is God’s child—NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM! And this is also why Paul could say to the believing Gentiles of Galatia: “And you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise” (Gal. 4:28). Natural descent has nothing to do with being a "child of promise" (see also Rom. 9:16 and Jhn. 1:13). Preserving natural genealogies is pointless and futile, as Paul further elaborates for us in 1Timothy 1:4, Titus 1:14 and Titus 3:9. They use to be of some benefit under the Old Covenant, particularly as it related to the coming of Christ. But today genealogies no longer preserve, let alone guarantee, anything whatsoever! And they surely never preserved whether or not one was a child of God. Paul says they only “promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith” (1Tim. 1:4b). And so anyone today in Palestine, in the Church, or wherever, who would make this a physical requirement for one being a future Levitical priest in future rebuilt temples, or for any Jew for that matter, is not basing his teachings upon the doctrines of Christ and His Apostles, but upon that of another spirit that is not from above.

It is also important for us to notice that when Paul is trying to differentiate between who is truly “Israel” in Romans 9:6—and by using Isaac and Jacob as illustrations of all such Israelites indeed who are hand-picked by God and born by the power of the Spirit—that he says of all such people similarly hand-picked by God as Isaac that they shall be called (or named) the seed of Israel (v. 7), a point that is overlooked by many. This is extremely vital and important for us to take note of in understanding who it is that Paul is determining is to be called “Israel” amongst naturally born Israelites. And as was said earlier, Paul qualifies this idea in the very next verse: “…it is not the natural children who are God’s children” (in other words, who are to be called spiritual Israel), but “it is the children of promise who are regarded as Abraham’s seed” (v. 8), or, “Israel.” Isn’t this in a round-about-way saying the same thing that was noted of Christ as saying earlier? That any child who is not a child of promise born from above by God is of their father the Devil?

Interestingly, this word “called” in Rom. 9:7 does not mean to call out to someone in order for them to come to us, but means as the context clearly implies, to be called or named “the seed” or, “Israel.” The concern of Paul in establishing who it is that is really to be called the “Israel” of God in verse 6 is established in everyone who is determined by God to be “the children of promise” born not of men, but born of God, just like Isaac and Jacob. They are all those chosen specifically by God who are born by the power of the Spirit and not by natural descent or of the flesh. Paul couldn’t be anymore clearer here. There is no ambiguity or margin for error in understanding what it is that Paul is really trying to tell us here. The true seed or the “children of God” (v. 8), also referred to here as “the children of promise,” are “Israel”―bar none! They are all of God’s (and I might add, Abraham’s) elect sons and daughters in the world, whoever they may be! And note also how that in verses 24–26, Paul includes the Gentiles in this nation and citizenry who are likewise “called” (or named) by God, “My people,” “My loved one” (think also of Jacob earlier in verse 13), and the “sons of the living God.” Again, this word “called” here in this context does not refer to the idea of someone calling out to another to come unto them, but refers to calling them by a certain name.vii All who are in Christ are called "Israel."

From birth I was called or named, Stephen. This was the name given to me whereby I could be identified to myself and to others more specifically as to who I am. Similarly, all children of promise are called by God “Israel,” “My people,” “My loved one,” and “sons” so that we too can know who we are and who we belong to; we are sons and children who are born not of natural descent, but by the power of the Spirit through Christ. Again, all such descendants of Abraham are called “Israel.” And recall that it is also Paul who said, “If you [all of us] belong to Christ, then you [again, all of us] are Abraham’s seed [his children called Israel], and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). Are you getting a hold of this? If you are, then blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear, “ye chosen seed of Israel’s race, ye ransomed from the fall. Hail Him who saved you by His grace, and crown Him Lord of all!”viii

Once again, this is exactly what Jesus was saying to the Jews who were attempting to kill him as described earlier above: “Do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” Even Jesus acknowledged that they were not all the true children of promise who are the only ones that are the “true” children of Abraham. Only all those, similar to Nathaniel, are a true “Israelite indeed.”

Additionally, according to Paul in Galatians chapter four, all such “natural” Jews were more akin to Hagar and Ishmael, rather than to Sarah and Isaac; and even to Esau rather than to Jacob. And it was Christ who also affirmed: “I say to you [naturally born Jews] that many [Gentiles] will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom [you naturally born Jews] will be thrown outside, into the darkness…” (Mat. 8:11).ix  Luke adds to Matthew’s words here that they will also come from the north and south, and additionally refers to this kingdom of Christ’s as “the kingdom of God” (Lke. 13:29). And so contrary to dispensational teaching, the “kingdom of God” and the “kingdom of heaven” are one and the same kingdom that we are now ruling and reigning in. The dispensationalists, who beg to differ, say that the kingdom “of heaven” was a natural earthly kingdom promised to the Jews, whereas the kingdom “of God” is a place in heaven reserved for the Church. But this is a false notion based entirely upon their own human logic and reasoning. Matthew and Luke are describing the selfsame kingdom in which God would bring in the Gentiles to be heirs and joint-heirs and fellow-citizens in God’s kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all who are God's "children of promise."

According to Paul in Galatians 4, natural Israel, which corresponds to the earthly Jerusalem, is a bond-woman that is to be cast out with her children away from the free-woman and her children of promise, just as Christ was denoted as saying above. She is not to inherit the promises that are restricted only for all those who are the children of promise like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Claiming Abraham as one’s natural father was never to be the basis for claiming the covenantal promises. Faith in God and in Christ was the key to such blessings that were to ever last “forever.” Natural lineage had nothing to with this in the past, and will have nothing to do with this in the future. And anyone who would think otherwise is in for a rude awakening, just like the Jews in Christ’s day, who thought they could claim natural ancestry to being a child of Abraham and who were only in the end judged by Christ in 70 AD, and not saved at all. The same is no less true for all Jews today who do not receive Christ now. There is no future for them outside of Today. “Today, if you will hear His voice harden not your hearts....Today is the day of salvation,” not later! Christ’s kingdom will never come by observation. The only thing that anyone will ever “observe” again will be when He comes a second time to bring salvation to His true people, and wrath to the uttermost upon them who do not know Christ.

The historical Israel is a question waiting for an answer that corresponds to Israel’s calling through Abraham and Sarah as that which was promised to all who are “the children of promise”—nothing more and nothing less! But this answer has been the subject of much debate in contemporary Judaism and even with certain brethren in the Church, even as it also was in the days of the Apostles. And even the answers today in contemporary Judaism of, “Who is a Jew?” vary greatly to the point of contradicting one another. Some claim that a Jew is one who is born a Jew, while others assert today that no one can be born a Jew because being a Jew is a matter of decision, of religion, or of fulfilling a messianic purpose as the messianic Jews contend. Therefore, for many, defining who is “Israel” or who is a “Jew” has become an extremely difficult and ardent task. And because the modern secular state of Israel as a democracy (not as a theocracy) embraces religious and non-religious Jews, Israel has thus found it difficult to say with any certainty who it is that is definitely a Jew.

In fact, the 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica states with regards to the Jews as being a pure race any longer: “The findings of physical anthropology show that, contrary to popular view, there is no Jewish race” (vol. 12, p. 1,054). Over 90% of them are said to be either Ashkenazim or Sephardim Jews. The former being from the bloodline of the Khazars in the southwest regions of the Soviet Union next to the Caspian Sea, and that converted to the Jewish religion around the 10th century and formed the beginnings of the Zionist movement that began to reoccupy Palestine; with the latter Sephardim Jews being a mixture from the regions of Spain.

The common consensus amongst natural Jews today of who is a Jew has its roots in the traditional Jewish answer which has always emphasized an allegiance to the Torah, devotion to studying the Law, and observing all 613 legal precepts. That this is the norm is seen in what Judaism requires of all of its proselytes. The converts are required to accept the Torah, including the Oral Law (which is the rabbinic interpretation of the Law), to be circumcised if a male, and to be immersed in water. Thus, one who becomes a Jew is expected to live according to the Jewish legal system and way of life. And yet such a Jewishness about one’s self that is closely related to the beliefs and practices of Judaism must be distinguished actually from Judaism itself. And since the homogeneity of modern Judaism has been divided, due to it being a democracy, this distinction becomes even more difficult as religious and even non-religious atheistic Jews (yes, “atheistic” Jews) argue for a definition broad enough to include all of them as essentially one and the same―and this includes even homosexual Jews.

Even first-century Judaism contained within its ranks many different understandings of what it meant to be a Jew, as was evidenced in the differing sects of the Essenes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. In fact, some would argue that even Christianity is in some form or way thought to be an extension of Judaism—not in the traditional orthodox rabbinic form—but as a continuation of the messianic or prophetic form of Judaism, such as in the claim of today’s Messianic Jews or Jewish Christians who have not assimilated to Gentile forms of Christianity, and yet refer to themselves nonetheless as “completed Jews” who reject rabbinic Judaism.

So, then, again, “Who is a Jew?” Since there really is no unanimous answer, even from amongst so-called “natural” Jews and from those converted to Judaism, messianic Jews actually say that in asking, “Who is Jesus?” then one is truly asking, “Who is a Jew?” But I would like to take it even a step further that when we are asking, “Who is Jesus?” that we are really asking, “Who is Israel,” aren’t we? According to Isaiah chapter forty-nine, “the Servant,” who is Jesus himself, is also referred to as “Israel,” for Isaiah writes: “He said to me, ‘You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will display My splendor” (v. 3). That we know that Isaiah is not speaking about himself, we have only to read a little further on in verses 6 and 8 to see that this prophecy is talking about the Messiah who was to be “a light to the Gentiles” and “a covenant for the people” (cp. 42:6f), and something that is said of Jesus later in Luke 2:32 and Mat. 26:28 in fulfillment of this promise. Isaiah was never a light to the Gentiles. This passage from Isaiah is also referred to later by Paul of all those who would eventually be Christ’s light-bearers (Acts 13:47), but never are we said to be “a covenant to the people.” Most theologians, by the way, believe that Isaiah 49 is talking about Christ. And Isaiah 42:6 again repeats these very same words concerning this Servant of the Lord: “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness; I will take Your hand. I will keep You and will make You to be a covenant of the people and a light of the Gentiles.” And notice also how in verses 2-3 of Isaiah here, the Father of all lights says, “He will not shout or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out.” These words, Matthew tells us, were once again fulfilled in the person and work of Christ (cf. Mat. 12:19-20). And finally, Isaiah cries out of Christ, “In His law the islands will put their hope” (v. 4)

So this altered form of “who is Israel,” of the original question above posed by the Messianic Jews of “who is a Jew,” does not deny the legitimacy of the Messianic Jew’s claims who assert that the true definition of what it means to be a Jew can only be found in Jesus, because from a Christian’s perspective it is also easy for us to agree with such a notion. But there are other reasons for us asking the question of “who is Israel” other than in the one reason of just laying claim to being a natural Jew who has converted to Christianity.

For as has been noted above, the term even amongst natural Jews (though I do not necessarily mean all those who are naturally born Jews, whatever that means) is very ambiguous. How can a Messianic Jew, who believes in Jesus and becomes a completed Jew, be thus a true Israelite indeed as they claim, if they don’t even know that they are of 100% Jewish blood? Can this truly be what Paul had in mind when he said they are not all Israel which are of Israel, as being those who are of 100% Jewish blood and who have converted to Christianity? Though being an Israelite is often described as being synonymous with the biblical concept of being a naturally born Jew, being a “Jew” or “Jewish” in the land of Palestine today embraces half-breeds, proselytes, both religious and non-religious Jews, atheistic Jews, and is also used in Judaism as a religious, social, and political-economical status of the state itself. So, can this really be who Paul had in mind as those who are “Israel”? Is it just any of these who convert to Christ, just so long as they are not pagan Gentiles? Not at all! Jews who are Messianic Jews, and who claim to be the “Israel” that Paul was talking about, is an absolute fallacy and misnomer. They may be entitled inclusion into this Israel of God, but they do not solely lay claim to this title to the exclusion of non-Jewish converts to Christ such as Gentiles. As Paul has stated, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, what counts is a new creation in Christ” (Gal. 6:15).

So, if God has made covenants with natural Israel and has promised that people all of the covenantal blessings, how then must “Israel” truly be defined? Jesus, the Apostles, and the entire Old and New Testaments are a record of God’s activity in actually defining for us who it is that “Israel” really is, and thereby answering for us all of the above questions. And the correct biblical answer to these questions is basic to interpreting Abraham, Moses, and all of the prophets. Clearly, the people to whom God initially makes all of the promises to (such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all such children of promise) must also be the same people who receive the fulfillment of all of these promises, and none other, wouldn’t you think? Need I repeat it? The “Israel” of promise (remember again “the children of promise”) must, by all sound biblical reasoning and exegesis, be the true “Israel” of fulfillment. It is just that plain and simple! Therefore it should come as no surprise that all of the New Testament, beginning with the gospel of John the Baptist, Christ, and then also with the apostles, is the unfolding of this mystery kept hidden for the most part since the foundation of the world, even as John’s gospel starts out by saying:

He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him [given to Him by the father no less in Jhn. 6:37, 44], to those [and those alone] who believed in His name [even allotted the faith to believe in 2Pet. 1:1, Wey. trans.], He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (Jhn. 1:11-13).

Now, since Jesus is called “Israel,” then it stands to reason that all those who are born in and through Him are also called “Israel,” right? For all practical intents and purposes, there is markedly on the outside no difference between any of them, wouldn’t you agree? And so it is exactly for this reason that Isaiah could speak about a people one day who would “surname” and call themselves “Israel.” And this is also why Paul could say that not all natural descendants of Israel are Israel. Because it is only those from out of both Jews and Gentiles that are circumcised in the heart that are to be understood as a true Jew indeed (Rom. 2:29), and even as the true “Israel of God” (Gal. 6:15-16). They are anyone who is born “not of natural descent,” but only by the will and power of God, just as in the examples expressed earlier of Isaac and Jacob that were given by Paul in Romans 9.

And while we are on this subject of Gal. 6:15-16, by now it should  have become fully apparent to all who have been reading this chapter that there has always been a spiritual seed (or an Israel amongst Israel) who are to be regarded as the children of promise, just like Isaac. With regards to the Galatians, Paul had just got through talking about how those of the circumcision, the Judaizers, were not the true people of God (Gal. 4:21-21). Circumcision (Jews) or uncircumcision (Gentiles) doesn’t matter one way of the other. What matters is that of the two ethnic groups there is made one new man or “new creation” in Christ, and thereby, one people or nation (cf. 1Pet. 2:9). Paul then qualifies what he means by this, by saying in verse 17, “All who follow this rule (as just laid out in verse 15 of being one new creation), peace and mercy be upon them”—the true spiritual seed, children, and people of God—and not just upon those who are naturally born Jews. In Galatians, Paul is not concerned about who a true natural born-again Jew is. He is concerned about who is the “new creation” or “the Israel of God” as laid out for us also in Romans 9:6, regardless of our ethnicity of whether we are circumcised or uncircumcised; and regardless of natural descent. As the earlier context has revealed to us in Galatians chapter four, he is concerned about who is born of the new and spiritual City called Jerusalem from above, as opposed to those who are born of the natural and earthly city Jerusalem from below. As said earlier, the Bible is a tale of two cites called Jerusalem, two Israel’s, two temples, two lands, two mountains, two priesthoods, and so on and so forth. Natural Israel (apart from Christ) and all those in league with her are now considered as foreigners and as Gentile dogs who are all “cast out” from God’s holy and spiritual temple and city (Mat. 8:12; Gal. 4:30; Rev. 21:27; 22:14-15).

When God told Abraham that He would bless those who blessed him, little did He mean this to be understood that those who bless natural Israel will be blessed also themselves. Abraham was the friend of God, as well as all of those who have the same faith as him. Natural born Jews without such faith are not God’s friends! As Jesus so poignantly stated on this note, “If you were Abraham’s children then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does” (Jhn. 8:39-41). I too am a man who, in all honesty, is telling you the truth. May peace and mercy be upon all of us (and not upon them), who are the true Israel of God!

Again, in Galatians Paul is concerned about the true, chosen, people of God born of the freewoman, as opposed to those who are not and who are still in bondage and slavery to their sins. The “Israel of God” that Paul is talking about is not just about natural Jews becoming spiritual Jews, but about anyone who becomes this new creation, similar to all those who are now said to belong to the "New Jerusalem" from above in this same chapter. Whether the Greek word kai in Gal. 6:16 means “and” or “even” is really a moot point, and just an argument and mincing over words that is of no profit to the hearers. “All” who follow Paul’s rule or standard, that he just got through laying out for us of what constitutes the true people and Israel of God—are Abraham’s children of promise! And being a child of Abraham equals being called Israel! Surely if a natural born Jew can lay claim to being called Israel, how much more so those who are truly Abraham’s spiritual children according to the same faith as his? We the more so! They, on the other hand, will never again see God nor Abraham that they so often say is their father, but we sure will! So who’s their daddy now?

It is we who are now the true circumcision (Php. 3:3) and the true Jews as opposed to those, “who say they are Jews and are not” (Rev. 2:9; 3:9), and who are really of the synagogue (or assembly) of Satan and of their father the Devil. If this is being anti–Semitic, then you have a bone to pick with Christ, not with me. If I would have been the only one who had laid claim to saying such things, surely I would have been labeled as such. But what I’m saying here and throughout this article is what Christ has already been saying all along. Paul even went so far as to say of the Judaizers, that he wished they would all mutilate themselves beyond even circumcision (Gal. 5:12). He didn’t cuddle and coddle them and tell them that it was okay to continue as if business was as usual and as if nothing whatsoever had changed for them, contrary to what many Messianic Jews and Christians are promoting and encouraging for them to acknowledge today. “Change” is what Christ and His apostles were all about. And it was a progression from being natural to being spiritual; from being a soulish man to being a spiritual man; to being a part of the household of faith that is from above, as opposed to still being part of a natural house made of stone and of the earth and earthly in nature.

For Paul to be putting a difference here in Gal. 6:16 between who is a true natural Israelite born of God, as opposed to all other non-Jews who are saved and made new creatures in Christ, just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Paul is not speaking out of one side of his mouth saying, “Peace and mercy be upon all new creatures in Christ who are made up of the circumcised and uncircumcised,” and then out of the other side saying, “and upon every born-again Jew who is now considered as the true Israel of God." The “true Jew” and “Israel,” who is not according the flesh, is made up of both Jews and Gentiles who are united as one new man in Christ; and, as such, are a “new creation” in Christ who are both circumcised inwardly, regardless of any outward circumcision. A spiritual Jew or Israel in NT terms is not one who is one outwardly, but only one who is one inwardly—bar none! As you recall earlier, even Jesus in Revelation has said of those who were natural Jews, and called themselves as such, that they “ARE NOT”! They are not Jews! He called those supposed natural Jews who claimed such a title for themselves—LIARS! Wow! Even as “naturally born” Jews, Christ said they are not Jews, but liars. Imagine that! As such, their father is not Abraham or God; and as such they are not the people or children of God (Jhn. 8:39-47). In an entirely natural and covenantal way, they were God’s peculiar people apart from the world as a sign and type of God’s true and spiritual children of promise that He sets apart for Himself, but apart from that they were not God’s spiritually elect sons born by the power of the Spirit as Isaac, Jacob, and as all of God’s true "children of promise" are. Again, don’t get mad at me! Get mad at Christ and at Paul! And that is exactly what the natural thinking and reasoning Jew just did―even to the point of having Christ crucified and Paul persecuted wherever he went. And, sadly, many so-called “brethren” in the Church today are reasoning in the same way as those Judaizers were in the Apostles’ days, siding with with all natural born Jews rather than with the true people of faith and children of God.

If Jesus is the one through whom the promise is being fulfilled of there being a seed and a posterity to be given to Abraham according to the Spirit of promise, then Christ (and all those in Him) can lay claim to being a true child or son of Abraham, and even of David that Matthew tells us in his genealogy in chapter one, verse one, with Jesus being just one of the true children of promise in the long line and list of those mentioned there; and as one who is what a true descendant of Abraham is suppose to be and act like. Like Abraham, and the long list of those mentioned in Matthew chapter one, Jesus is the true “Israel of God,” similar to Nathaniel whom Christ also said was, “an Israelite indeed!”

Historical, natural, Israel had failed time and time again to live up to God’s standards, but God had always preserved for Himself a remnant chosen by grace—an Israel of promise (like Isaac, Jacob, and even all of us for that matter) among a so-called "Israel" of natural descent. Sometimes in the Old Testament this even included Gentiles along the way, such as with Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba that are also listed in Luke’s genealogy. God’s covenant with Abraham lays the foundation for the entire ensuing history of the redemptive line, and all such children of promise that were to follow. And so it should come as no surprise to us that Matthew begins his short geneological list with this one particular idea in mind as his focal point as a reference to build upon of the “record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The holy seed of the woman is clearly being differentiated here from the ungodly seed of the Serpent.

God had covenanted with Abraham a promise saying that, “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3b). And later God renewed this promise and explicitly included some of Abraham’s immediate physical descendants (17:7) with God even declaring again that through his “offspring [or seed] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (22:18). By Matthew linking Jesus all the way back to Abraham as one of God’s “sons of promise” in the long line and list of all such similar sons (or daughters) of promise, he is declaring to us that God’s promise through Abraham of there being a blessing for all the nations in bringing many, many, more “sons of promise” into glory and into citizenry with this Israel of promise is actually being fulfilled in Christ in all those who have faith in Him.  The promised “seed” that was to be as countless as the stars of heaven isn’t a natural progeny born strictly through the flesh, but is Christ and all those who were promised to be given to Him by the Father (cf. Jhn. 6:37-39, 46, 65) even before the creation of the world (cf. Eph. 1:4, 11; Rev. 17:8). These are “the children of God―children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or of a husband’s will, but born of God” (Jhn. 1:12-13). And it is even of these that the author of Hebrews says belong to Christ: “Here am I, and the children God has given Me” (Heb. 2:13).

Also in consideration of Matthew’s genealogy in verse one, which also specifically mentions David along with Abraham, it is important to note that God also made a covenantal promise to David that his house and his kingdom would last “forever” and that the throne of his seed would also be established “forever” (2Sam. 7:8-16). Although this covenant with David is subordinate to, and to work in tangent with, God’s covenant with Abraham, the fulfillment of this promise to David becomes the means by which the promise to Abraham is ultimately fulfilled with Christ becoming the King of all kings over all the nations of the world from the kingly throne of David that is established not only over the earth, but over the heavens and earth, with the earth actually being Christ's footstool and heaven the place of His throne (Isa. 66: 1; Mat. 5:34-35). This promised kingly Son of David has become the representative embodiment of the true Israel of God that is to include men, women, and children from every kindred, nation, tribe and tongue.

The prophet Isaiah alluded to these small beginnings and formulations of this idea when he described this restoration of this true spiritual offspring of David’s house as occurring through, “a shoot…from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1) and how that, “in that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations [or Gentiles] will rally to Him, and His place of rest will be glorious” (v. 10).

This place of Christ’s glorious “rest” is now in heaven, and these nations that rally to Him in verse 10, Paul says, was beginning to occur even in his day through the conversion of the Gentiles when he quoted this verse from Isaiah in his epistle to the Romans, in chapter fifteen, verse twelve. This isn’t a future millennial occurrence, as some have erroneously supposed, but this is happening right now even as we speak. At His cross and coronation (and even during his earthly ministry), Christ was binding the strong man, Satan (Lke. 10:17-20; 11:21-22; Jhn. 12:31); and Christ has been plundering all of his possessions (the people all over the world that have been taken captive by him) ever since. Before the cross, the nations were left in their ignorance. But God now commands men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). As promised in the prophets, “The Lord will lay bare His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God” (Isa. 2:10). Christ is indeed now plundering the nations and taking captives captive and giving gifts unto men everywhere, after having first spoiled the principalities, powers, mights and dominions and making a public show of them openly after having triumphed over them in the cross. In return for Christ’s suffering, the Father has given unto Him “a portion [or plunder] among the great,” even dividing “the spoils with the strong” (cf. Isa. 53:12).

God also speaks of this plundering of the nations now, and not later, when He again says through Isaiah,

For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, “Give them up!” and to the south, “Do not hold them back.” Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth—everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, who have ears but are deaf. All the nations gather together and the peoples assemble…. 

Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you. As surely as I live, declares the Lord, you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride. Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away. The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, “This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.” Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these—where have they come from?’ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders”….Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives rescued from the fierce? But this is what the Lord says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.” (43:3-9; 49:18-22, 24-25)

In Isaiah 42:7, Christ is also said, “to open the eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.” And, again, in Isaiah 49:9, this Servant of the Lord would “say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’” And once again, “He [the Father] has sent me [Christ] to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (61:1). 

With regards to Matthew’s genealogy, the focus of Christ’s lineage could not be more poignant and to the point as the Davidic King who would plunder the nations and set captives free in order to return all the progeny that belonged unto Abraham, and in the end present them all unto God as an offering unto Him. And the very significance of Jesus as the main focal point in all of this is rooted so deeply in the history of Old Testament Israel, that the blessings promised to them only find their actual fulfillment through faith in Christ, and as those who are chosen by Him to ultimately be His children of promise. In the volume of the book it is written concerning Christ of what He came to do in and through all such children of promise; and only for them, and them alone! Even Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day, and he saw it, unlike the scribes and Pharisees who only sought to kill Christ—something that Christ said Abraham and all the true children of God would never do! There is to be no doubt about it whatsoever that Jesus is truly “Israel.” And it stands to reason that all those who are born in Him as His offspring or children are also to be surnamed with His name “Israel.” They are the promised seed of Israel’s race, the ransomed from the fall. They are the true descendants, children and heirs of Abraham as Paul so poignantly states in Galatians 3:29.

Not so dissimilar to Abraham and all those who were naturally born his children and called “Israel,” it also under-girds the idea of Jesus and His children of promise as a corporate body of people who can also be tied to only One person, and who can actually represent this group as a whole and likewise be called “Israel.” And even not so dissimilar to the sin of the one man (Adam) which became the sin of all who are born in him, so too now the righteousness of the one man (Christ) becomes the righteousness of all those who are born in Him (Rom. 5). And it is from this understanding and perception of corporate identity and unity that the true Israel of God as a people of God in search of its identity and destiny only finds its answer in the One (Jesus) who is both the true Israel of God born by the power of the Spirit; and in the One true King who reigns over this corporate kingdom and community of believers made up of both Jews and Gentiles.

We must remember this, and remember it well: they are not all Israel which are of Israel, but only those who are all born of God by the power of the Spirit are the true children of promise! It is only these, and to these alone, who are counted for the true seed and children of Abraham. God’s promises are for Israel alright, but the true “Israel of God” is not an “Israelite” that is established simply by natural birth, as the examples that Paul gave us of Isaac and Jacob have clearly illustrated for us. In other words, the blessings are not automatically guaranteed  by preserving the purity of a natural Israelite of a Jewish gene pool or of an impeccable family tree. Much more is at stake and involved here. We are talking about God’s choice of a people for Himself, regardless of whether one is born physically of Abraham or not.

And since Jesus is the corporate representative and federal head of the true Israel of God according to the power of the Spirit, God now recognizes as “Israel” (or as His people, children and seed) all who respond in faith and obedience to Christ, as even our father Abraham did who was originally a Gentile and a child of wrath.

Of course, for the most part, the first to respond are indeed naturally raised and born Jews, but it must always be born in mind that it was not just being born into this natural ancestry that established who was to be a child of promise. It was always through faith in God and in Christ, that was given to those who were sovereignly chosen and called by God to be the recipients of such grace. A gift and a calling of God that is truly without repentance. And if Gentiles are included in such a citizenship with this Israel that makes up this assembly of believers of called-out ones, called the Church, then the Church is not just an interim in God’s plan, but all of the people of God who have been called of God and who stand together in continuity with the true OT Israel “of promise,” and who carry out Israel’s mission into the world as an extension of them with their very same name inscribed upon their hands and foreheads.

God’s election alone of certain individuals (again, as with Isaac and Jacob) shapes the formation of all those who make up the true Israel of God. All along, the “Israel” according to promise came into being through the mysterious and providential electing hand of God, and this entire Ecclesia (or Church) depends on that election for their continual existence in both the Old and New Testaments. Therefore, the definition of who “Israel” really is never has, and never can be, a matter of simple genealogy, even when God has in the past chosen to work through such genealogies. In His person and work, Jesus is all that the Israel according to promise was ever truly meant to be―as all sons of God begotten by God (1Jhn. 5:18, NAS). The true biblical Israel and children of God can never be defined apart from the faith of our father Abraham which is in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God’s centuries-old promises to Abraham, and even to David, have entered upon their historical, literal and eternal fulfillment in the earth today under the present rule and reign of Christ on David’s throne from heaven, and thus his (David’s) tabernacle (or house) is being restored and rebuilt today as foretold by Amos and as interpreted for us by the Apostolic authority of James (Acts 15:16-18).

Through God’s providential guidance and grace, and for those who have the eyes and ears to see and hear it, God in Christ has truly answered for us the age-old question of, “Who is Israel?” This name is personified in His Son as “the promised” holy Child begotten by God from above, and in all those who are born in Him—thus becoming the true epitome of who “all Israel” really is. All who are born by God from above “in Christ” are adopted as His sons and daughters and surnamed with that wonderful name—Israel! Only all such children are the true Israel of God who are born according to the power of the Spirit; for, again, as Paul said, “you brethren, like Isaac, are all children of promise (Gal. 4:28). As such, we are all heirs and joint-heirs together of the covenants of promise: “For remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:12-13). Hallelujah! Praise be to God! More are the children of the desolate and barren woman than of her that can physically have children. Selah.

But you, O Israel, My servant, 

Jacob, whom I have chosen,

you descendants of Abraham My friend [or, lit., My lover], 

I took you from the ends of the earth,

from its farthest corners I called you.

I said, “You are My servant;”

I have chosen you and have not rejected you. 

So do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;

I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

(Isaiah 41:8-10)

As the old bible expositor John Gill notes on these words above from God through Isaiah the prophet, “the Lord speaks these and the following comfortable words unto them; for not [to] carnal, but [to] spiritual Israel are here meant the spiritual seed of Abraham, being believers in Christ, and friends of his, as Abraham was; and whom He uses and shows to be such, by disclosing His secrets to them, John 15:15.”x

And though not apparent on the surface to most, Jehoshaphat likewise speaks of these descendants of Abraham who was the friend of God and that would dwell in the land forever: “O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? (2Chr. 20:7). Since only the elect remnant out of both Jewish and Gentile nations chosen to be in Christ as the children of promise would be able to dwell with God’s friend Abraham “forever” in the land, most of the natural Jews of a natural lineage can be ruled out entirely here once and for all. And, indeed, recall it was Christ who had said, “I say to you [natural born Jews] that many [Gentiles] will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom [natural unbelieving Israel] will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mat. 8:11-12; cf. Lke. 13:29). Truly, they are not all “Israel” which are the natural descendants of “Israel” (Rom. 9:6), but “it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring” (Rom. 9:8). And it is only to these, and to these alone “who shall inherit the land” (or earth) in any way, shape, manner or form “forever!” (Mat. 5:5; cp. Psm. 37:11). On the other hand, the bondwoman (or the natural Jew) with her children are “cast out” forever, where there shall only be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“My servants [all of us, His chosen ones] will eat,

but you [Israel according the flesh] will be hungry;

My servants will drink,

but you will be thirsty;

My servants will rejoice,

but you will be put to shame.

My servants will shout for joy from a glad heart,

but you will cry out from an anguished heart,

and you will lament out of a broken spirit.

You will leave your name behind

as a curse for My chosen ones,

and the Lord will kill you;

but He will give His servants another name”

(Isaiah 65:13-16, HCSB)

footnotes:

i  I would like to also note here that in Cyrus' and John Mark’s case, surnaming someone does not necessarily denote one who is elect, but just one who is honored to be given a name other than what might be normally ascribed to them.

ii Online: Dictionary.com.

iii In Isa. 13:10-11, such language was used to depict the judgment on Babylon in 539 B.C.; in Isa. 34:4, the judgment on Edom in 703 B.C.; in Ezk. 32:7, the judgment of Judah in 586 B.C.; in Amos 8:9, the judgment upon the northern kingdom in 722 B.C. None of these things being described here “literally” occurred, as history has attested to us. This is all very highly figurative, symbolic, and poetic language that God used to describe the abasement of these nations.

iv Commentary on the Old Testament, Isaiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), vol. 7, p. 204. Words in brackets mine and as also noted in his commentary.

v Barnes’ Notes, Isaiah (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), p. 130.

vi Although the term “all Israel” here in Rom. 9:6 is all-inclusive of any child of God who is a “child of promise” as verse 8 and also Galatians 4:28 signifies, in Rom. 11:26, “all Israel,” though still denoting those of this same group, speaks more specifically of those who were naturally born Israelites and who have only received a hardening “in part” of them, and who therefore as God’s chosen “remnant” out of the Jews become recipients of God‘s mercy and grace, similar to Paul. In other words, in Rom. 11:26 Paul is referring to all Jews who are elected by God and chosen like Isaac as children of promise, regardless of their natural progeny, and that will be saved. What Paul is definitely not saying, as some have erroneously supposed, is that every single Jew some day in our future will en-mass be saved. The entire context of Paul’s thesis in chapters 9-11 is referring to an elect portion or “remnant” out of both Jews and Gentiles who are all “children of promise” like Isaac, and thus called spiritually, “Israel.”

vii There are numerous translations that have picked up on the true meaning and nuance of this idea. For instance, God’s Word translation reads: “Through Isaac your descendants will carry on your name.” The ESV and the NAS similarly read: “Through Isaac shall your offspring [or ‘descendants,’ NAS] be named.” And Vincent’s Word Studies says for the wording “shall be called,” that it should be understood as shall be “named.”

viii “All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" is a popular hymn sung by many Christian denominations. The hymn is often called the “National Anthem of Christendom.” The lyrics, written by Edward Perronet while he served as a missionary in India, first appeared in the November, 1779 issue of the Gospel Magazine, which was edited by the author of “Rock of Ages,” Augustus Toplady.

ix In addition to Jesus understanding that Abraham would be the father of many nations, He also has the words of Isaiah in mind in 24:14-16; 43:5-6 and 49:11-12.

x John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible. Public domain online.