The following is based on an article entitled "Who is Real Israel" presented by two Jewish converts to the Christian faith, both pastors.
Who is true Israel? Is it the physical nation fighting for its existence in the Middle East, or is it the spiritual entity we know as the church. And if its the church, which one?
The name “Israel” first appears in the Bible in
Genesis 32:28 After a night of wrestling with the heavenly visitor (who I personally believe to be Christ Himself) Jacob prevails in his efforts and his name is changed from Jacob, the deceiver or supplanter, to Israel, meaning he will rule. Jacob has prevailed with God and overcome.
At the time of this event, Jacob was reluctant to face Esau after 20 years of exile and was quite simply terrified of him. His former deception of his father and claim to be Esau was now playing on his conscience and he desired God’s blessing and forgiveness before proceeding. So the ‘Angel’ asks Jacob his name, to which he truthfully replies ‘my name is Jacob’. In this he was confessing his guilt, and God then knew he was a changed man, so gave him a new name that celebrated so to speak his victory over sin, self and his night of wrestling in prayer, the ‘Angel’ saying “for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”
Israel, as a name therefore represents spiritual victory over sin.
This is significant as it tells us God’s purpose for His people. That is, to live in victory over sin, to show forth God’s true character to the world.
In
Exod 4:22,
23 Moses is instructed on how he is to speak to Pharaoh in order that Israel’s descendants may be freed from slavery. God says to Moses “and thou shalt say unto Pharaoh ‘Thus saith the Lord,Israel is My son, my firstborn and I say unto thee let My son go to serve me…”
This is the first time Israel is used in a corporate sense for the entire nation. Before it applied only to an individual, but here we see it being applied to his descendants. First to a victorious man, then to his people.
Did Israel live up to that name? What was God trying to accomplish in establishing Israel in the first place? Was it not that He would have a people to represent Him on the earth? Before God had His champions, but all failed. Sin interposed and no longer was any of God’s chosen able to fulfill the true destiny that God intended for them. Adam failed over appetite. So did Noah. Abraham also, but God was determined to establish a people after His own heart and show the gentiles His law, His mercy and grace and power. Interesting that Adam, Noah, and Israel all failed on points of appetite. (
Gen 9:20,
21;
Exodus 16:27-29.)
It wasn’t until Jesus came on the scene in person that the title “Israel” in it’s truest spiritual sense and power could be rightly bestowed. And Mathew in particular showed this time and time again how Jesus was the fulfillment of the OT prophecies which may have originally applied to the nation, but now, according to Mathew’s inspired writings, applied in fact to Jesus. Examples are
Hosea 11:1 ;
Isaiah 41:8,
42:1-3
Paul followed the same idea and reasoning by paralleling
Col 1:15 with
Ex 4:22,
Gal 3:16 with
Isaiah 41:8 and elsewhere.
Jesus Himself proclaimed Himself as the true vine, in fulfilment of
Ps 80:8 which applied to the nation.
So now the mantle and authority once bestowed upon the nation has been given to Jesus. Jesus is the essence of true Israel. He only has the right to bear the name for He only has prevailed with sin and overcome. Jesus walked over the same ground that Israel walked, but came through victorious. In His temptations in the wilderness, it was appetite that came under particular scrutiny.
What Paul does in Romans and other writers in the NT however is extend that idea and show how the name Israel also now applies to Jesus’ descendants, just as it did to Jacob’s descendants. Peter also showed this when he compared the church to
Exodus 19:6.(
1 Peter 2:9).
So as Paul says, immediately after saying that Jesus is the ‘seed’ of Abraham, Gentile converts in Galatia were now also Abraham’s seed because they are Christ’s. They are also heirs according to the promise.
This is not ‘replacement ‘ theology. It is merely a revelation of who true Israel always was and who Israel is now. It is those people, of whatever nation kindred tongue and people, who by faith in the mercy grace and power of God overcome sin and receive Christ’s righteousness and forgiveness as a gift and are willing to share that gift with the lost. True Israel was always exclusively those who “as princes had power with God and men and prevailed”.
Thus the unfulfilled covenant that Jeremiah speaks of and repeated in hebrews, “I will place My laws in their hearts and in their minds I will write them” applies to the church, not a resurgent nation. All Israel will be saved, but the descendants of Jesus, not flesh and blood descendants of Jacob.
And the prophecies that most believe apply to the nation, apply to the church. For example, Armageddon is not the world arrayed against the nation of Israel, but the unsaved world (those who have accepted the mark) arrayed against the remnant who have refused the mark, and are under the sentence of death. Those who keep the commandments of God, (and thus have gained that victory over sin) and have the faith of Jesus.
Rev.12:17;
14:12.
For what purpose was Israel chosen in the first place? Was it not to reveal the character and love of God to as world lost in idolatry and pagan perversions?
Not only so, but also for the fact that God loved man so much that He simply wanted to have someone to fellowship with. So He chose Abraham, and accepted His descendants as His special people because of Abraham's obedience. God's continuing favour was conditional however on Israel's continuing obedience and faithfulnass. God certainly promised that He would never reject them, but He gave many warnings of what would result of their rejecting Him.
By the time of Jesus, the national religion was so corrupted that they were suffering relentlessly under the harsh rule of an occupying power. A fulfilment of one of the warnings. That Jesus came though confirms God's faithfulness. He had not yet rejected them. He was giving them every opportunity to repent, and reestablish truth to their now formalised and meaningless ceremonies. Jesus came to set them straight. He was the last in a long line of prophets who were sent by the owner of the vineyard, all of whom they killed. Would they kill the Son also?
When Jesus entered the temple for the first time He found it a mess.
So Jesus went about to clean up His Father's house.
John 2:13 And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem,
14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;
16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.
17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
Then, later on in His ministry, again He visited the temple, only to find it had reverted to what it had been before, So, again Jesus cleansed it.
Mathew 21:12 ¶ And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
When the Jews questioned Jesus authority, He told them the following parable.
Mathew 21:33 ¶ Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:
34 And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it.
35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.
37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.
42 Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.
45 And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.
46 But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude, because they took him for a prophet.
Notice this very important thing. When cleansing the temple the first time, Jesus called it
My Father's house.
At the second cleansing, Jesus quoted the OT and referred to it again as being
My house.
Continuing to reject Jesus authority and teaching however, brought upon the religious rulers the woes of Mathew 23. Denunciations of no mean character and judgment.
Jesus laments their obstinacy and rebellion with His heart rendering cry of "O Jerusalem,Jerusalem. thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not!
Then take careful note. He finishes His address with the following words.
38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
Whose house is it now? Is it God's house? No.His Father's house? No. My house? No. He says Your house!!! They rejected the Son, therefore the kingdom was given to a nation that would bear the fruit and fulfill the purposes that God originally intended. The church. A holy nation, a royal priesthood.
Has God rejected His people though? No. They can still be grafted back into the vine, but they must first renounce and repent of their rejection of their Messiah and accept Him. Then, and only then, can any Jew enter the kingdom of God. Same condition as set out for anyone else. "No man cometh unto the Father except by Me."
