CHRISTIANITY AND ISRAEL
UK
The varying religions and beliefs of the peoples of the world have been classified by historians both racially and geographically. It is, in general, understood that the peoples of China, Japan, Siam, Burma, etc., are Buddhists; that Brahminism and Hinduism are found among the peoples of India; that Mohammedanism has its world centre in Arabia, and that Judaism is the faith of dispersed world Jewry. If one asks where Christianity is centred the answer is, obviously, in Britain and America, that is, among the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It is from Anglo-Saxondom that Christianity has been propagated and the Bible given to all nations in their respective languages and dialects. The preaching of the Christian Gospel has been the task of the English-speaking peoples.
The Word of God-The Bible
 The Bible has been the basis of world evangelism, and ever since its translation into modern speech Britain has, for the main part, been its custodian. The first people in the world nationally to become Christian were the British. Yet Christianity did not originate in the British Isles but in Asia Minor, as recorded in the New Testament.
Following Pentecost, there came the missionary journeys of the Apostles, resulting in the springing into being of small Christian communities in Asia Minor, to which in due course the Epistles, which form the greater part of our New Testament, were addressed, the Book of Revelation names seven. When, however, the Good News spread beyond the borders of Asia Minor and reached Britain the British were the first to accept it as their national belief, becoming the focal centre and exponents of world Christianity.
But one has to look further back for the earliest roots of Christianity. These are found in the Old Testament. The House of Jacob, better known, perhaps, as the children of Israel, after their emancipation from the land of Egypt, became the recipients of a Divine revelation in which was embodied all those types and pre-figuring emblems which foreshadowed the basic structure of the coming Christian faith. This fact is commonly accepted by all theologians.
One may say that Israel, as regards its worship, was pre-Christian. Their whole ordinances and religious ritual pointed to the advent of a Messiah Whom history has subsequently acclaimed as the Founder of Christianity. The worship of Israel embodied the fundamentals of all subsequent Christian belief. For example, the priesthood was anti-typical of Christ’s High Priesthood; the atonement and sin-offerings pointed to His sacrificial death as ‘the Lamb of God bearing away the sin of the world’; the shewbread and the candelabrum of the sanctuary typified His being, respectively, ‘the Bread of Life’ and ‘the Light of the World’. Even the minutest details and colour scheme, all ‘according to the pattern shown in the Mount ‘, pointed to some aspect or another of Christ’s person or work. Thus Christianity was conceived in the womb of Israel. Although this great fact cannot be disputed, it is one of the inexplicable anomalies of religious history that, as promulgated by the theologians, theology has systematically by-passed Israel.
The first tells of a covenant made by God with the children ‘of Israel (House of Jacob) three months after the Exodus from Egypt. It is known as the Mosaic covenant, because Moses was its mediator. Jewry was not in existence when it was made. It was subsequently broken by the House of Jacob. One of the consequences of its violation was the punitive captivities which befell the two respective sections of the people after its division, then known as the House of Judah and the House of Israel, the southern and the northern kingdoms. Jewry was not in existence when the division took place .
Some centuries later God announced His intention of making a New Covenant with both sections and thus renewing the broken relationship. This announcement is to be found in Jeremiah 31:27-37. We note that it is a communication to both houses, that is, it is ultimately to include the whole House of Jacob in its scope.. But in the detailed description of what was to be embodied in the New Covenant there is a significant omission.
It is not stated what is to be the nature of the covenant to be made with the House of Judah: only that to be made with the House of Israel, the major portion of the House of Jacob, is outlined. The subsequent rejection of the Messiah by the Jewish section of the House of Judah gives the reason for the omission.
History now bridges an intervening period of some 700 to 800 years, and resumes the story thread after the advent of Jesus the Christ. A New Testament writer picks up the thread and quotes verbatim the statement made through the prophet Jeremiah. This is recorded in the Epistle to the Hebrews 8:1-13.
The vital implication of this has for some inexplicable reason been overlooked by the majority of Bible expositors, and as a consequence the salient point has been entirely neglected. If any statement in the Bible is unequivocally explicit and clear it is that the New Covenant is made with the same people as the Old, namely, with the House of Israel. The vital omission is again included in the citation.
There can be no mistake as to what is implied and included in this New Covenant with the House of Israel. Here we see emerging the early beginnings of world Christianity vested in Israel. Hebrews 9 and other chapters leave no doubt about this. Here is the New Covenant of which Christ is the Mediator and which therefore bears His Name, henceforth to be known as the Christian or Christ Covenant, as the former bore the name of Moses, its mediator. We are faced with the accomplished fact of the mediation of the Christian Covenant, under which those with whom it is made become the Christian people of the latter days.
The Link Between
 During the ensuing centuries we are directed to the reappearance of the House of Israel as the custodian of Christianity and its propagator to the nations of the world. Here, then, is the link between Israel and Christianity to the self-exclusion of the Jew, who by his rejection of the Founder of Christianity placed himself outside its orbit and still remains one of those peoples to whom his brethren are carrying God’s message of reconciliation. Christian Israel-not spiritual Israel; the term is not employed in the Bible, because Israel exists literally and nationally-has the corroboration of history during this so-called Christian era. Paul summarizes it in Romans 9:4-9. When was this Christian Covenant inaugurated?
The Synoptic Gospels record the inauguration of the New Covenant by our Lord Himself. It was the final climax of the last Passover when, after the feast was concluded, Jesus took the cup and, bidding all His disciples drink of it, passed it to them with the memorable words: ‘This is the new testament in my blood’ (see Luke 22: 20, with the other Gospels; also Paul’s elucidation in 1 Corinthans 11: 23-29, and many other references in the New Testament). Truly ‘Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us’, and in commemoration of that sacrifice the Lord’s people observe their Christian Communion service. Yet how few realize when they remember His death in this appointed way that they are commemorating the New Covenant made with the House of Israel whereby Israel became Christian. Yes, national Christian Israel, if words have any meaning at all, and God always says exactly what He means and means exactly what He says.
The Christian Nation
 There are those who object to the term ‘Christian nation’, failing to understand that a Christian nation does not imply or necessarily mean that every individual of whom it is comprised is enjoying the Christian experience of forgiveness and peace. The nation of Israel in the Old Testament was no more ‘religious’ as regards every individual in it than is nominally Christian Britain of today. That did not make them any the less ‘God’s people‘ then, neither does it make Israel-Britain under the New Christian Covenant any less ‘God’s people’ now. As a matter of fact, God says that under this New Covenant they are ‘My people’. As in the old as well as in the new, it is the individual who comes first to the experience of God’s love before that experience becomes national. That it is to become so is explicitly stated. Read it again carefully.
Surely the Book of Common Prayer as used in the National Church of England is meaningless unless those who use its liturgy are Israel? Its constant reference to Israel and its whole assumption of the nation’s past connection with God’s people of the Old Testament is evidence enough that its authors knew their origin. If this is not so, and if those who use its language and attend its memorial Communion Service are not Israel, then one may well ask what right they have to either that form of worship or to commemorate a covenant which was made with a people of whom they are not a part? This applies equally to every form of Christian public worship and to every Communion Service held in any or every Christian community. Taken in its correct setting, there is no clash at all.
Here is a Christian nation (Israel) worshipping in the belief and recognition that they are under the New Covenant. The only really serious question that arises concerns those who are not of Israel, but who worship with Israel. Have these, who have no racial or national link with Israel, but who have received the Christian proclamation and been led to Christ, the same right to worship and commemorate as has Israel? The answer is, unhesitatingly, a perfect right, because in the terms of Galatians 3:26-29, being ‘Christ’s‘, they have become ‘Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise’. By adoption they are within the New Covenant, an adoption based on their having become ‘Christ’s‘, Who is the Mediator of the New Covenant with the House of Israel. To be ‘Christ’s’ is to have entered the orbit of ‘the Israel of God’.
Is this New Covenant now in Force?
 Hebrews 9 answers this question. A covenant or testament requires the ‘death of the testator’ to ratify it and make it valid. Even the Old Covenant had to be ratified by the death of a substitute before it became alive. This is explained in both Leviticus and Hebrews. Christ’s death ratified the New Covenant. For over 1900 years it has been in force, and is the reason and explanation of Israel-Britain’s present position in the world and her many and wonderful deliverances from attempts to destroy her. The days have yet to come when in all its fullness it will be experienced nationally, and ‘all, from the least to the greatest, know him’ and realize that He has forgiven their iniquities and will remember their sins no more. That day will surely dawn.
Christ and Israel are Inseparable
The failure to recognize this Divine partnership and the confusing of Israel with Jewry have led to the general acceptance of the fallacy that Christianity was brought to us from Rome. Why is the Church so reluctant to admit that in these isles there existed a strong British Christian Church six hundred years before Augustine was sent by Rome? During all the early centuries that Rome was pagan the British people were Christian. Study the story of Glastonbury. ‘Israel in the isles, the people from afar’, had welcomed the Christian proclamation centuries before Rome had heard it. It was from Britain that Christianity went to Rome. The people with whom the New Covenant was to be made had been gathered into the ‘appointed place’ in readiness for its coming. Does one ask why Christianity and Israel are not associated in name? The answer is that Israel today functions under a Divinely sanctioned alias.
Under the New Covenant there was to be a new name until the time should come when Israel would honour the name she had dishonoured among the nations under the old. The theological assumption that God wound up the affairs of national Israel and substituted the ‘Church’ in its place has no Biblical sanction or authority whatever. What actually happened was that God recovenanted Israel, whereby she became the Christian ‘People of God ‘. In due time the alias under which she is known will be removed and her true identity disclosed. Today the identity of Israel embodied in Anglo-Saxondom offers a key to Holy Scripture, in particular to the interpretation of its prophetical statements, and is the explanation of how and why world evangelization, the preaching of the good news of the Kingdom of God to every nation on earth, has fallen to the lot of the English-speaking race.
The People of the Book have fulfilled the programme of the Book as God’s servant nation. That they have done and are still doing so, in ignorance of their true identity and in spite of their imperfections, only serves to demonstrate the power of God and magnifies His love and grace. Truly ‘this is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes’.
