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WHO
ARE GOD’S CHOSEN
PEOPLE?
By Kenneth
J. Davies  
oes God have a “chosen people”
today? If so, who are
they? What makes them
“chosen”? What were
they chosen to do?
The answers to these questions can
only be found in the Bible.
As you study this subject in light of this essay, you may
find that it contradicts what you have been taught. If this is so, it is because
you have been taught a “system,” not the Bible. What does the term “chosen
people” mean? What does
the Bible say:
“For you are a holy people to the
Lord your God: the Lord you God has chosen you to be a special
people to Himself, above all people that are on the face of the
earth.” – Deut. 7:6
To whom was this spoken? A look at Deut. 6: 3-4
reveals it was spoken to Israel.
At that time, Israel consisted of all those that came out of
Egypt with Moses (see Deut. 7:8). Avery similar verse is Deut.
14:2: “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God,
and the Lord has chosen you to be a peculiar people to Himself,
above all the nations of the earth.”
In 1 Chron. 16:13,
Israel is called “His chosen ones”: “O you seed of
Israel His servant, you children of Jacob, His chosen
ones.” David wrote: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
and the people whom He has chosen…” (Psa. 33:12). And: “O you seed of Abraham His servant, you children
of Jacob His chosen… He brought forth His people with joy, and His
chosen with gladness.” (Psa.
105:6, 43).
Isaiah records these words from the Lord: “But you,
Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the
seed of Abraham, My friend…You are My servant; I have chosen you,
and not cast you away.” (Isa.
41:8-9) “You ae My witnesses,’ says the Lord, ‘and My
servant whom I have chosen….’ ‘’(Isa. 43:10). “…I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in
the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen.” (Isa. 43:20).
“Yet Hear now, O Jacob My servant; and
Israel, whom I have chosen:” (Isa. 44:1). In Isa. 48:12, the Lord
refers to them as “My
called,” and Daniel calls them
“His chosen people” (11:15).
From the above, it can be seen that the phrase,
“chosen people” definitely applied to
Israel?
But, what was the composition of OT
Israel? According to
the Bible, Israel was made up of:
1.
the descendants of Jacob (Ex. 1:1;
Josh. 13:6, etc.), and,
2.
those who joined
Israel through circumcision and keeping the law (Ex.
12:48f).
Keeping the covenant was requirement for all
those who wished to remain a part of
Israel:
“And the uncircumcised
male…shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My
covenant.” (Gen. 17:14). “…whoever eats leavened bread from the first day
until the seventh day [of the Feast of Unleavened Bread]. That soul
shall be cut off from Israel…for whoever eats anything leavened, that soul
shall be cut off from the congregation of
Israel, whether he is a stranger, or born in the
land.” (Ex. 12:15,19). For other examples, see Ex.
30:32,38; 31:14; Lev. 7:20-21, 25,27; 17:4, 9-10, 14; 18:29; 19:8;
and Num. 15:30-31.
These Scriptures, and many other, show that
membership in the nation of
Israel was dependent on obedience to God’s
commandments. To
disobey God was to lose one’s
citizenship.
When most people think of O.T. Israel, they
think exclusively in terms of
Israel as a nation. Yet, this is not the true
Biblical meaning of “Israel.”
The Old Testament scholar A. R. Hulst has shown that the name
“Israel has always had a twofold significance: one
national, and the other religious.1 For example:
“…you
[Israel] will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy
nation.” Ex. 19:6. The prophecy of Amos
(9:11-12) proclaims that the remnant of
Israel would be “largely an entity of religious
instead of national destination.”
2
Isaiah says much the same thing: “[God’s] house shall be called a house of
prayer for all nations.
The sovereign Lord declares – He who gathers the exiles of
Israel: I
will gather still others to them besides those already
gathered.” (Isa.
56:7-8).
The noted scholar Hans K. LaRondelle has
demonstrated conclusively that the primary meaning of
“Israel” in the O.T. “stands for the religious
covenant community, the people who worship Yahweh in truth and
Spirit. Secondarily, it
denotes a distinct ethnic group or nation which is called to become
spiritual Israel.
Decisive for the Old Testament prophets and their prophecies
is the theological quality of the ‘people of God,’ not their ethnic
and political
characteristics.”3.
Contrary to the claims of Hal Lindsey, and
other dispensational authors (Charles Ryrie, etc.4), the
blessing of Israel’s election was not unconditional. “The purpose of the election
is service, and when the service is withheld the election loses its
meaning, and therefore fails….If she [Israel] ceased to acknowledge
Yahweh to be her God, then she declared that she no longer wished to
be His people. ….Her
high calling to be the Chosen People was not the mark of Divine
indulgence or favoritism, but a summons to a task exacting and
unceasing, and election and task were so closely bound together that
she could not have one without the
other.”5
Did O.T. Israel lose her election? As Paul would say,
“God forbid!”
The Old Testament prophesied in many places that a “remnant”
would be saved. The
question is: Of whom was this remnant to consist? According to Jer. 31:31-34,
the remnant would be made up of those who “know the Lord,” and whose
sins would be forgiven completely (unlike under the Old Covenant –
Heb. 10:1-4). This was
to be made possible through the initiation of a “new covenant.” This New Covenant (or
“Testament” –KJV) was ratified by Jesus at His crucifixion, shown to
His disciples in symbolic form in the Last Supper (Mt. 26:28 and
parallels; 1 Cor. 11:25).
Is New Testament
Israel any different from Old Testament
Israel?
If so, how?
The Israel of the New Covenant is made up
of:
1.
those descendants of Jacob who
believed in the Messiah (Mt. 10:6; 15:24; Acts 2:36-41; 21:20, etc.), and,
2.
those who joined
Israel through spiritual circumcision and the keeping
of the new “law” (Rom. 2:28-29; 13:10; 1 Tim. 1:5).
With the establishment of the New Covenant,
physical descent was no longer a determining factor for entrance
into Israel.
Only those who believed in the Messiah could enter or remain
a part of Israel.
Let us examine what the Bible has to say on the subject: “The Lord called you
[Israel] a thriving olive tree with fruit beautiful in
form. But with the roar
of a might storm He will set it on fire, and its branches will be
broken.” (Jer. 11:16). Verse 17 says this was
directed to “the house of
Israel, and the house of
Judah.”
Hosea says of Israel:
“His branches shall spread,
and his beauty shall be as the olive tree….” (Hos. 14:6).
Paul picks up the olive tree motif in Rom.
11:17-24. He says those
Jews who rejected the Messiah were themselves rejected and “broken
off” (or cut off, to use the O.T. term) from the “olive tree” of
Israel (v.20).
The apostle showed that the only possible way to remain a
citizen of Israel was to believe in Jesus as Messiah. This citizenship was
also offered to the Gentiles on the same condition. If they would put their
faith in the Messiah of Israel, they would be made fellow citizens
of Israel (cf. Eph. 2:19).
“Christ created His Church, not beside
Israel, but as the faithful remnant of
Israel that inherits the covenant promises and
responsibilities.
Christ’s Church is not separated from the Israel of God, only
from the Christ-rejecting Jewish nation.”
6
The identification of the Church with
Israel is explicit in Peter’s first epistle:
“But you are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to
God….” (1 Pet. 2:9). Here, Peter definitively
states that those who “believe” in Christ Jesus (1 Pet. 2:7) were
the “chosen race” and the “holy nation’ (1 Pet. 2:9; compare Ex.
19:6; Deut. 7:6; and 14:2).
“Only in Christ could
Israel as a nation have remained the true covenant
people of God.’7 God’s covenant people are no longer distinguished
by racial or territorial characteristics, but exclusively by their
faith in Christ.8
And the land we have inherited is a spiritual one. The spiritual blessings of
citizenship in the Israel of God are ours as Christians, but what of
the “unconditional” land promises of the so-called “Palestinian
Covenant”?
One of the most common assertions of the
premillennial dispensationalist today is that the formation of the
State of Israel in 1948 is proof that the Jews are still “God’s
Chosen People,” and that He still has prophetic plans for them. (This has been asserted more
vigorously than ever due to the recent hostilities in the
Middle
East). It is claimed that God was
at work bringing the Jews back to their “ancient homeland,” and that
they have a Biblical right to claim
Palestine as their own.9 Are these claims
correct? Was the
formation of the State of Israel evidence of God’s blessing? Of God’s
election?
Just what Scriptures do
dispensationalists us to support these claims? How do they come to their
conclusions? As you may
know already, the dispensationalist uses what he calls a “literal
hermeneutic.” That is,
he claims to interpret the words of the Bible at face value,
understanding them in their “normal,” everyday usage and
meaning.10
This extremely literally hermeneutic is then used to
“interpret” the prophecies of the Old Testament that speak of the
return of God’s people to the Holy Land. However, this literalism is
also used as an excuse to ignore the plain reinterpretation by the
New Testament writers of these very same prophecies. Even when the inspired
writer of the N.T. give a meaning to the O.T. prophecies other than
a “literal” one, the dispensationalist will say that this is not the
complete meaning, and that these prophecies “remain to be realized
for Israel.”11
One of the Scriptures the dispensationalist
claims was fulfilled by the 1948 formation of the State of Israel is
found in Ezek. 36-37.
This prophecy was given to Ezekiel during the Babylonian
captivity (Ezek. 1:1-2), and foretold the eventual return of
Israel to their land. Tied in with this prophecy
was the prediction of the coming Messiah (Ezek. 38:24), and the
inauguration of the New Covenant (Ezek. 38:26-28). As we know from both secular
history and the New Testament, the people did return to the land and
the Messiah did come and establish the New Covenant (Mt.
26:28). Despite this,
dispensationalists deny fulfillment of either of these prophecies,
saying they found only a “partial fulfillment” in Israel’s return
and Christ’s first advent.12 They further allege that the
regathering of Jews to form the current State of Israel is part of
he final fulfillment.
They say the blessings of the “Palestinian Covenant” are only
now coming into existence.
The promises of such passages as Deut. 30 are touted as
“Scriptural basis” for Israel’s regathering.13 How should we answer such
claims?
According to Deut. 30:1-8, a necessary
condition for the regathering of Israel to Palestine was returning
to the Lord:
“And [when you] shall return
to the Lord you God, and shall obey His voice…with all your heart,
and all your soul, then the Lord your God will bring you back from
captivity….”
(vs.2-3).
Based on this clear passage of
Scripture, it can be definitely concluded that the State of Israel
which now exists was not formed as a result of the blessings of this
covenant (the “Palestinian Covenant” of the Scofield Bible).
The Jews of 1948 (except for maybe a few
isolated individuals) did not turn to the Lord, And, to base the
formation of Israel upon their alleged “faithfulness” to Judaism
is to betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what Judaism is. Some think the Jew of today
has a special advantage, perhaps even salvation without Christ,
because they believe in the God of the Old Testament, and follow the
Old Testament religion.
This overlooks the fact that the religion of the Old
Testament was based on making sacrifices for sins (Lev.
17:11).
It also ignores the statements of the New Testament that
there is absolutely NO salvation outside Christ (John 14:6; Acts
4:10-12), and that the Old Testament religion was
no longer efficacious (Heb. 7-10). The Lord of the New
Testament is Jesus.
This revelation casts light on who the Lord of the Old
Testament is. For
example, Peter quotes Joel 2:32 as being fulfilled in Jesus: “Whosoever shall call on the
name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21).
What shall we answer when the dispensationalist
claims the existence of the State of Israel today is “proof” of
God’s covenant blessing upon them? With the clear backing of
Scripture, we can say, “NO!”
We can then point to Deut. 30:1-8 as proof that the
Israel of today is definitely not the
Israel of the Bible! But, what about the land
promised to Abraham?
Paul, in citing the promise of Abraham, does
not limit the territory to Palestine:
“It was not through the law
that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be
heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by
faith.” (Rom. 4:13).
This is an extension of the statement of Jesus in Mt. 5:5, in
which the meek shall inherit not merely
Palestine, but “the earth.” As you can see, the
inheritance is for “Abraham and his offspring.” The dispensationalist
believes Jewish people are entitled to the inheritance based on
their racial extraction or ethnic heritage. But, Paul counters this idea
in Gal. 3:7,29:
“Know for sure that only
those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham. If you are Christ’s, then
you are Abraham’s see, and heirs according to the promise.”
In case he hasn’t made it
clear enough, Paul reiterates for those who expect some special
privilege for physical descendants of Abraham: “Now to Abraham’s and his seed the promises were
made. He does not say,
‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your seed,’ who
is Christ” (Gal. 3:16).
The only way to inherit anything is in Christ! The Jewish leaders who came
to John the Baptist thought the Kingdom was theirs automatically by
virtue of their heritage: “Do not
think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ For I say to
you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these
stones!” (Mt.
3:9).
Apostle Paul states the nature of
true Jewishness: “For
he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is circumcision that
which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly;
and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not
by the letter…”(Rom. 2:28,29 cf. Rom. 9:6-8;
11:5-7).
“The full scope of
Israel’s prophets was not nationalistic, but
universal, with an increasing cosmic dimension which took in heaven
and earth (Isa. 65:17; 24:21-23).”14 The writer of
Hebrews assures them Abraham was not looking merely to
Palestine for fulfillment of the promises. He looked for a “a better
country,” and a city “whose builder and maker is God” (Heb.
11:10,16).
“The continuity of the O.T. terms and Middle East images in
Hebrews assures the Church that God’s promise has neither failed nor
been postponed, but is experienced now in Christ (Heb.
6:5)….”15 And, the land promises made to Abraham are
fulfilled in the universal Kingdom of
God.
In
conclusion, we have studied the subject of who God’s Chosen People
are, and have found that, according to the Bible, Israel is now
composed of all those who believe in Jesus as Messiah. It is not correct,
therefore, to state that the Church has replaced
Israel.
Rather, the church is the continuity of the Old Testament
Israel of God; it has only replaced the Jewish nation “16 There is no more “Jew and “Gentile” racial
distinctions. All
nations are now a part of Spiritual Israel in Christ. Christ’s kingdom is here now
in fullness. All (who
were a part of the true spiritual)
Israel were saved and given the inheritance (Rom.
11:26).
With the advent of the war in the
Middle East, many people are wondering what is taking place in a
prophetic sense, As
preterist, we can say with assurance that the events now taking
place are NOT a fulfillment of prophecy. We know that all prophecy
was fulfilled in A.D. 70, at which time the New Covenant was fully
established, making the Kingdom available to all who would believe
in Jesus as Savior (Messiah).
Some emotionalism is understandable in time of war. However, we need not fear
the Great Tribulation or being “left behind” in the Rapture. We know by the time
limitations recorded in the New Testament that these things have
already occurred, and we are living in the new spiritual promised
land.
Footnotes:
1.
As quoted in The Israel of God in
Prophecy: Principles of Prophetic Interpretation, by Hans K.
LaRondelle (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press,
1983), p.81.
2.
Ibid., p.86.
3.
Ibid., p.90.
4.
The Road to Holocaust (New York:
Bantam Books, 1989), p.141. Incredibly, on p.184, he says “the
Israelites, even though in apostasy at present, are still considered
holy because of both their physical and covenantal relationship to
the Patriarchs”!
5.
La Rondelle,
pp.92-93.
6.
Ibid.,
p.102.
7.
Ibid.,
p.103.
8.
Ibid.,
p.106.
9.
E.g. The Late Great Planet Earth
by Hal Lindsye (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970,
pp.40-41.
10. Cf. Dispensationalsim Today by Charles Caldwell
Ryrie (Chicage: Moody Press, 1965), p.86.
11. See: The New Scofield Reference Bible, (1967,
note to Jer. 31:31, p.804.
12. Cf. The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Charles F.
Pfeiffer and Everett F. Harrison, eds.
(Chicago” Moody Press, 1962),
p.755.
13. E.g. The Road to Holocaust by Hal Lindsey (New
York: Bantam Books, 1989), p.92. See also: Richard’s Complete Bible
Handbook by Lawrence O. Richards (Waco, TX: Word, 1987),
p.355.
14. Ibid., p.141.
15. Ibid., p143.
16. Ibid., p210
Ken
Davies
www.BeyondTheEndTimes.com
According to Webster's
Unabridged Dictionary, a Preterist is
"a theologian who believes
that the prophecies of the
Apocalypse have already
been fulfilled."
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