The New Testament View of Israel and the Jews

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For New Testament Believing Christians

**God’s Chosen

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. Gen 15:18

I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. Gen 17:7-8

And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you … and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. Gen 17:12-13

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. Deut 7:6

**The Land Was Given – With Warning

And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. Josh 21:43

Thou art the LORD the God, who didst choose Abram, …and gavest him the name of Abraham; …and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, … to give it, I say, to his seed. Neh 9:7-8

But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them: Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: 1Kings 9:6,7

But if ye will not hear these words, I swear by myself, saith the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation. …yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited. …And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this great city? Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them. Jer 22:5-8

**Then Something Happened

Throughout the history of Israel, covenant breaking and disobedience and idolatry disqualified Israel from the present divine right to the Land. This too is why they have continued to have enemies throughout every generation.

And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; …And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, Deut 28:63-65

The sword shall never depart from thine house … 2Sam 12:10

Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies. But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. …When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel. So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men. And delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy's hand. Ps 78:56-61

And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments. Dan 9:4

**The Jewish Advantage

What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God; Rm 3:1-2

None of the pagan religions were given the oracles of God. That is why the Jews had the advantage. But this advantage was to their demise. Jesus said; “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48). The Jews had the very oracles of God which testified of the coming messiah, yet they crucified the prophesied Son of God.

We have no king but Ceasar. Jn 19:15

His blood be on us, and on our children. Mt 27:25

**The Old Covenant Was Done Away With.

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. Jer 31:31-32

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. Heb 8:13.

But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 2Cor 3:14

Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.

Mt 27:51

Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Heb 10:9-10

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. Heb 8:7

The Jews are no longer in a saving covenant with God unless they accept the New Covenant that God has established through Jesus, their messiah. But their eyes were blinded because of the hardness of their hearts. Since that time the Jews who reject God’s New Covenant are lost with the rest of the unbelieving world.

**The New Covenant – Jesus

Israel has broken covenant with her God and is living today in disobedience and unbelief in his Son and her (Israel’s) Messiah. Jesus made it crystal clear about how he viewed the path the Jews had chosen by rejecting him.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. Jn 1:11

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. Mt 21:43

Many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Mt 8:11-12

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Mt 23:38

They know not him that sent me. Jn 15:21

He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. Jn 8:47

If God were your father you would love me. Jn 8:42

YE ARE OF YOUR FATHER THE DEVIL. Jn 8:44

He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father. Jn 5:23

No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. Jn 14:6

I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN. Rev 2:9

Behold, I will make them of the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; I will make them to come and worship before thy feet. Rev 3:9

He that is not with me is against me. Lk 11:23

Jesus is the litmus test whether anybody's religion is worship of the true God. But Israel does not love Jesus as God's son and her Messiah. So they are, for now, “enemies of God.”

**Paul’s Teachings on the Jews and Israel

As regards the gospel, they are enemies of God… Rm 11:28

It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. Acts 13:46

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness. Rm 11:22

Because of unbelief they were broken off… God spared not the natural branches… Rm 11:20-21

Still, most Jews today – in Israel and around the world – are in Unbelief, they are “broken off”..

For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. Rm 9:6-8

If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. Gal 3:29

Abraham is “the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.

Rm 4:11

For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh; But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit...

Rm 2:28-29

The Jews…Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men; Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

1Thes 2:14-16

**Conclusion

The Jews living in unbelief do not get a free pass to salvation anymore than anyone else does. That is precisely why they have been cast away and are considered dead (Rm 11:15). So how will God’s original people of Israel be saved? How will the promise to Abraham be fulfilled?

The 10 lost tribes of Israel had been dispersed throughout the world (known as the Diaspora) and lost among the gentiles. (Deut 28:63-65) Only the 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who later became known as the Jews, survived. These are the Jews that we know of today. The only way to gather the other 10 lost tribes and thus unite all God’s people back again was to send Paul out among the gentiles and convert the whole world to God’s messiah, Jesus Christ the Lord (Rm 11:13, 2Ti 1:11). Christianity is the instrument God is using to unite all Israel and the world together and usher in His eternal Kingdom.

Paul, speaking to the church in Galatia, calls the church “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). And Peter says of the church “ye are...a holy nation” (1Pe 2:9). So you see it is the Christian church worldwide that is the Holy Nation of Israel. All believers in God’s Son Jesus Christ, whether they are Jew or gentile, are Abraham’s seed – heirs of the promise – the Israel of God.

Yes, “all Israel will be saved”. The Israel of God who believes in Christ Jesus, his son. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16: 30-31).“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rm 10:9). When a Jew accepts God’s prophesied plan of salvation, and believes in the messiah, Jesus the Lord, he will be saved. He becomes a Christian in God’s plan. Until that time – he is outside the plan, enemies of God and unworthy of everlasting life. Christians have an obligation to witness to the Jews – our older brothers.

Amen