ISRAEL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT – (I)

By Glyn Jones

NORTHERN IRELAND

”For I am the Lord. I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” – Malachi 3:6

 There is a pernicious teaching abroad today which holds the view that the Lord has cast off His Israel People (whom most Christians today equate – quite erroneously – with the Jews in any case!) because of their continual sin and backsliding and in their place has substituted a “Gentile Church” – as a type of “Spiritual Israel” – or, at least, so the proponents of this theory claim. This teaching is serious doctrinal error for a number of reasons.

1. It undermines the faithfulness of the Lord to His word.
2. It denies His ability to bring His Will and Purpose to pass.
3. It also casts doubt on the Lord’s integrity and trustworthiness.

     Let us look at a few scriptures which point out Israel’s place of special significance in God ‘s plans and purposes:

1. “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen…” (Isaiah 43:10-12)
2. “Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel whom I have chosen…” (Isaiah 44:1 & 21)
3. “And said unto me, Thou art my servant , O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” (Isaiah 49:3)
4. “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondsmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 7: 6-8)
5. “For thy people Israel didst thou make thine own people for ever; and thou, Lord, becamest their God.” (1 Chronicles 17: 22)
6. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth…” (Amos 3:2)

Now if the statements contained in the above scriptures are not true – or are no longer true – then, inevitably, we are forced to one of the following conclusions:-

1. The Lord never really meant them in the first place.
2. The Lord had originally planned to effect His Purposes through Israel, but this turned out to be too difficult in practice.
3. The Lord could have effected His Purposes through Israel, but changed His Mind.

Now, any of the above conclusions would cast a tremendous slur on the Lord’s character and integrity, but what most Christians fail to realise is the inescapable consequence of any of these views –

NO FIRM BASIS FOR OUR SALVATION!!

If the Lord, for whatever reasons, did not keep His word with regard to Israel, how can we be sure, as Christians, that He will keep His word with regard to our salvation? The underlying reasons for the ignorance and confusion in the minds of Christians concerning the Lord’s Plans and Purposes – especially with regard to His Chosen People, Israel, – are not too difficult to find:-

1. Israel, the Chosen People, feature predominantly in the Old Testament scriptures – prophetically and historically – with the bulk of the narrative devoted to their national circumstances, their progress and their prophesied future. However, in the New Testament, there is no real mention of Israel as such (at least, not as far as the greater number of Christians are concerned) and this, in turn, leads many to assume that somehow, with the ministry of Jesus, things changed.
2. Evangelism today lays emphasis on the “personal” and “individual applications of our Lord’s work and ministry, concentrating on the task of getting people to “heaven” and generally ignoring the national aspect of his ministry with its ultimate goal of establishing the “Kingdom of God” upon earth.

Most people, believing the Jews to be Israel and conscious of their rejection of Messiah, assume that the Lord has either actually shelved or temporarily suspended His National Purposes with Israel for the time being, substituting a Church comprising Christians drawn from many different races and nations.

Most fail to see that this Church Age is not a change of plan but merely the Next Phase in the Lord’s dealings with His Chosen People Israel as part of His ongoing Purposes in the earth. And the Scriptures make this abundantly clear when properly understood.

However, let us assume for a moment that our opponents’ viewpoint is correct in that the Lord had, for whatever reasons, cast His Chosen People Israel aside and that with the First Advent of Jesus, His teachings and subsequent Death, Burial and Resurrection, either a new or an alternative plan has been implemented. One would think that such a major change to His Plan, as originally conceived, would merit some mention in the Scriptures:-

“Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7)

The Prophets know nothing of such a departure from the Lord’s original Plans and Purposes as vested in His Chosen People, Israel – the Old Covenant or Testament was made between the Lord and Israel, and  the New Covenant or Testament is made between exactly the same two parties, the Lord and Israel – all that has changed is the Covenant itself. The prophet Jeremiah makes this clear in his writings:

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto  the greatest  of  them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and  I will  remember  their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun  for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when  the waves  thereof  roar; The Lord of hosts is his name: if those ordinances depart  from before me, saith  the Lord , then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,  I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord .” (Jeremiah 31:31-37)

In several passages in the Book of Hebrews – Hebrews 8:1-13; Hebrews 10:10-17; Hebrews 12:24 – the Scriptures equate The Death and Resurrection of Jesus with the fulfilment of this prophecy of Jeremiah which is quoted in Hebrews 10:16-17:-

“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”

“And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:24)

CONCLUSIONS FROM THE ABOVE

1. The Lord intended to make a new covenant with the house of Israel at some future time.
2. Various conditions are also listed – conditions which must exist before the Lord would cast off Israel for their sins.
3. Since none of these conditions are yet in force – and –
4. If, as is claimed in Hebrews 12:24, Jesus was ”Mediator of the New Covenant”,
5. It follows then, that if the Lord has kept His word, Israel have not been cast off but must be in the New Covenant relationship with the Lord and still very much part of His Plan and Purposes.
6. Therefore, Israel must also be found among the peoples which have nationally accepted “Christianity”.

An overwhelming amount of evidence points to the fact that Israel is to be found today in the Celto-Anglo-Saxon and Related Peoples – many proofs exist to support this claim:-

• The history of these nations, the pattern of their national development and expansion and their national acceptance of “Christianity” – these are also the peoples where the Reformation took root and bore fruit as prophesied in the Scriptures.
• Their performance of the national tasks which the Lord had allocated specifically to Israel and the fulfilment of the  prophecies  relating  to Israel by these same peoples.

However, our primary aim here is not so much to prove the identification of the Celto-Anglo-Saxon and related peoples with the Israel of the Old Testament, but rather to refute the view point of those who insist that the Lord has cast aside this Israel people and, with the ministry of Jesus and the New Testament era, has substituted a “Gentile Church”. Those who hold this view claim to base their argument on the Scriptures and consequently any reply should also be based on the Scriptures. The Scriptures interpret themselves – careful study and rightly dividing the word of God will establish what is the truth of the matter.

JESUS

In this context it is obviously most important to find out what Jesus, the “Mediator” has to say Himself and also what the Scriptures say about Him.

“And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save His People from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)

The point to note here is that it is His People whom the Scriptures say Jesus will save from their sins. The genealogy of Jesus recorded in Matthew 1 traces his ancestry back through King David to Abraham and demonstrates clearly that the expression “His People” has reference only to those of Israel Descent. The concept of “Sin” strengthens this argument as Israel alone had been given the Law of God and  consequently,  in  a sense, only Israel could commit “Sin” which 1 John 3:4 defines as “The Transgression of the Law.”

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto their fathers.” (Romans 15:8)

This, again, emphasis the Israel context as the “fathers” referred to in the above verse – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob etc – were the ancestors and founder of the Israel nation.

“These twelve Jesus sent forth and commanded them saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5-6)

“But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” – (Matthew 15:24)

N.B. The Greek word translated as “lost” can also mean “put away in punishment”.

“Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”  (John 20:21)

The above Scriptures prove conclusively that far from bypassing his Chosen People and abandoning His original plan of performing His will and Purpose through Israel, the Lord came specifically to redeem Israel and to confirm all the promises previously made to the patriarchs of this people. He also limited both His own ministry and that of His Disciples to this same Chosen People.

THE CALLING AND MINISTRY OF PETER

The calling of Peter by Jesus and the Apostle’s subsequent ministry confirm this point again, giving further scriptural evidence of the Lord’s continuing dealings with Israel. In Jeremiah 16:16 the Lord makes the following statement:-

“Behold I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them (Israel); and after will I send for many hunters and they shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and out of the holes of the rocks’.

In Matthew 4:19 the Lord Jesus uses these words when He calls Peter and Andrew to follow Him:-

“And he saith unto them, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men”.

Surely the Scriptures above demonstrate without a shadow of a doubt, especially when taken in conjunction with the Lord Jesus’ own personal statement regarding the extent and purpose of His mission, that it was Israel that He intended Peter and the other Apostles to fish.

The Apostle Peter’s ministry also bears this out. The Lord refers to Israel as “sheep” – a designation which the Scriptures apply to no other nation. There are many examples of this throughout the Bible :-

Psalm 23; Psalm 100:3; Isaiah 53:6; Matthew 10:6; Matthew 15:24 to cite just a few of them.

So when, as is recorded in John 21:15-17, the Risen Lord tells Peter – “Feed my sheep” – it is obviously Israel to whom He is referring and this is in complete harmony with His statements elsewhere as to the identity of those to whom He was sent. It is also important to note that this statement by the Lord was made after His Resurrection – in other words the Lord’s mighty work accomplished at Golgotha in no way changed or altered His original goal or purposes.

Peter, in carrying out his commission from the Lord, writes to certain people, to whom he refers in 1 Peter 1:1 as:-

“strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,  Asia and Bithynia”.

In the second chapter of his First Epistle, he gives a further clue to the identity of these “strangers’:-

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should shew forth the praises of him, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God : which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”  (1 Peter 2:9-10)

Compare this with the Lord’ s statement in Exodus 19:4-6:-

“Ye have seen what did unto the Egyptians and how I bare you on eagle’s wings and brought you unto myself.  Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the Children of Israel.”

‘The table above demonstrates clearly that Peter, in writing his Epistle to these “strangers” scattered throughout various countries, was in fact quoting from Old Testament Scriptures with which he expected them to be familiar and which would only have had meaning for Israelites.

 It also supports the contention that, unless Peter was being deliberately disobedient, the sheep which the Lord had instructed him to feed were indeed Israel in dispersion.

 And this furnishes further proof that Israel were the target of the Lord’s mission.

Peter, too, would have been in no doubt concerning the Lord’s Purpose and what He wanted him to do. Luke 24:45 records:

     “Then opened he (The Risen Lord) their understanding that they (Disciples) might understand the scriptures.”

     Peter obeyed the Lord’s instructions, wrote to the Israelites in Dispersion and told them they had been Redeemed.

THE DAY OF PENTECOST

It is also illuminating to consider the theme and content of Peter’s address on the Day of Pentecost and to note what he told his audience to do.

“Therefore let all the House of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36)

There are two points to note here:-

1. Although Pentecost was a peculiarly Israelitish Feast, there is no denying that there may have been many of other races in Jerusalem at that time. However, the celebrations would have had real meaning and a special significance only to those of Israel descent and many such would have journeyed from far and near to be present at this festival as it was one of the three which the Lord had specifically commanded should be celebrated at the place He should appoint rather than at home.
2. Peter tells his audience to let all the House of Israel know – not to tell the whole world – for Peter and the other Apostles were, in effect, proclaiming the establishment of the New Covenant to be made with Israel as was promised and prophesied through Jeremiah centuries before. (This is not to imply, of course, that people of other races will not bene­ fit from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ_ merely that the Lord is working to a plan in which He will use Israel – His Bride People and National Instrument on the earth – as the means of drawing all nations to Him.)

To be continued