The fleshly nation of Israel would be chosen to be God's people because of a covenant (Abrahamic covenant) that God made with Abraham in 1943 B.C.E. when Abraham was 75 years old.(Gen 12:4) God told Abraham: "Go your way out of your country and from your relatives and from the house of your father to the country that I shall show you; and I shall make a great nation out of you and I shall bless you and I will make your name great; and prove yourself a blessing."(Gen 12:1, 2)
Four hundred and thirty years later in 1513 B.C.E., God made Abraham's seed into " a great nation", giving them a set of over 600 laws that formed the national constitution called the Mosaic Law covenant.(Gal 3:17)
He told them (through Moses) that "if you will strictly obey my voice and will indeed keep my covenant, then you will certainly become my special property out of all [other] peoples, because the whole earth belongs to me. And you yourselves will become to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ "(Ex 19:5, 6)
Upon the arrival of the Messiah or Christ over 1500 years later in 29 C.E., what was the moral condition of the nation of fleshly Israel ? Instead of pure worship being the focus, the nation had divided itself into several religious groups, such as the Pharisees and Sadducees that did not accept the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ. Over the course of 3 years, Jesus, like a farmer cultivating his soil, tried to develop the nation into one that honored Jehovah God.
In the fall of 32 C.E., he gave an illustration of the moral condition of the nation, saying: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it, but found none. Then he said to the vinedresser, ‘Here it is three years that I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, but have found none. Cut it down! Why really should it keep the ground useless?’ In reply he said to him, ‘Master, let it alone also this year, until I dig around it and put on manure; and if then it produces fruit in the future, [well and good]; but if not, you shall cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9)
In the illustration, the man that planted the symbolic "fig tree" is Jehovah God and the "vinedresser" is Jesus Christ. When Jesus arrived in 29 C.E. as the "Christ of God" (Luke 9:20), he found no "fruit" that he could take back to his heavenly Father. He had endeavored for 3 years to cultivate faith among the Jewish nation. Jesus now intensified his efforts by "fertilizing" the symbolic fig tree - the Jewish nation - giving it an opportunity to produce fruit. However, the week before Jesus death, it was now apparent that the nation of fleshly Israel was almost devoid of godly "fruit", for they had rejected the Messiah.
Jesus used the fig tree to illustrate the bad spiritual state of the nation. While traveling from Bethany to Jerusalem four days before his death, he saw a fig tree that had abundant leaves but no fruit whatsoever. Since the early figs appear along with the leaves—and sometimes even before the leaves develop—the tree’s lack of fruit showed that it was worthless.(Mark 11:13, 14)
Like the unproductive fig tree that looked healthy, the Jewish nation had a deceptive outward appearance. But it had not produced godly fruitage, and it finally rejected Jehovah’s own Son. Jesus cursed the sterile fig tree, and on the following day, the disciples noticed that it had already withered. That dried-up tree aptly signified God’s forthcoming rejection of the fleshly Jews as his chosen people.(Mark 11:20, 21)
Jesus, looking at the city of Jerusalem, now said: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the killer of the prophets and stoner of those sent forth to her,—how often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks together under her wings ! But you people did not want it. Look ! Your house is abandoned to you. For I say to you, you will by no means see me from henceforth until you say, ‘Blessed is he that comes in Jehovah’s name !’”(Matt 23:37-39)
Jesus had also said to the Jewish religious leaders: "Did you never read in the Scriptures (at Psalms 118:22 and Isaiah 28:16), ‘The stone that the builders rejected is the one that has become the chief cornerstone. From Jehovah this has come to be, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? This is why I say to you, The kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits. Also, the person falling upon this stone will be shattered. As for anyone upon whom it falls, it will pulverize him.”(Matt 21:42-44)
Thus, the nation of fleshly Israel lost the right to become "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation", being replaced by another "nation" that would produce the "fruits" of the "kingdom" and that was later identified as the "Israel of God", individuals made up of both Jews and Gentiles.(Gal 6:16) These became a spiritual "nation" that are the "seed of Abraham"(Rom 9:6-8) and form God's kingdom.(Rev 5:9, 10)
