New Testament
Israel
by Walter F. Specht
The New Testament writings express the conviction of the followers of
Jesus that the Christian community supplanted the Jews as the special people of
God. The apostle Paul speaks of Christians as "the Israel of God"
(Gal 6:15), "Abraham's offspring" (Gal 3:29), and "the true circumcision"
(Phil 3:3). James, the brother of our Lord, designates them as "the twelve
tribes in the Dispersion" (James 1:1). Peter's first letter is addressed
"to the exiles of the Dispersion" in Asia Minor, "chosen and
destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus
Christ and for sprinkling with his blood" (1 Pet 1:1, 2).
"Dispersion" is a term usually applied to Jews scattered throughout
the Mediterranean world. James and Peter, however, are obviously using it for
Christians disbursed in various lands. In response to Peter's question regarding
the reward the disciples who had left all to follow Jesus were to receive, our
Lord promised, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man
shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt 19:28). It is
evident that the apostles are not destined to rule over literal Israel since our
Lord plainly told the Jews, "the kingdom of God will be taken away from
you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it" (Matt 21:43).
As a strong evidence of their
claim to be the special people of God, Christians appropriated the designation,
the ekklesia (assembly or church) of God. In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint)
ekklesia was one of the two words used to denote the people of Israel in their religious
character as the "congregation of the Lord." The other Greek word was
sunagoge, "synagogue," which became the designation for the Jewish
community. It was not long before there developed a keen rivalry between the
church and the synagogue. As a name for the Christian community ekklesia is
first found in Acts 5:11. However, according to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus
expressed his determination to build his ekklesia, people of God (Matt 16:18).
How did Jesus go about building this new Israel, this new people of God?
And how was the new community related to the old? To begin with, Jesus regarded his mission of
teaching and healing as being primarily for the Jews. He told the
Syro-Phoenician woman, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
(Matt 15:24). Most likely this is to be interpreted as meaning "the lost
sheep, namely (or, that is to say) Israel." There seems to be here an
allusion to the words of Jeremiah 50:6, "My people have been lost sheep;
their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains"
(cf. Ezek 34:6; Isa 53:6). Jesus put forth every effort in bringing back these
"lost sheep." He also directed his disciples on their first
missionary tour alone, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town
of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"
(Matt 10:6). But our Lord's messianic mission of salvation was rejected by the
Jewish people as a whole. "He came to his own home, and his own people
received him not" (John 1:11). There was, however, a substantial number of
them who responded in faith to Jesus' message and work. This faithful remnant
constituted the nucleus of a new Israel, a new people of God. They were our Lord's
"little flock" (Luke 12:32; Matt 26:31). At the center of these
faithful ones were the twelve apostles. The fact that Jesus chose twelve such
men is significant. It suggests that just as the twelve patriarchs were the
founders of ancient Israel so these twelve men are the founders of a new Israel
to which our Lord promised a kingdom (Matt 19:28; Luke 22:30). The later choice
of seventy others (Luke 10:1) is apparently modeled after the seventy elders of
Israel appointed by Moses (Num 11:6).
It is important to recognize the
unity and continuity of the New Testament people of God, with Israel in Old
Testament times. Mere descent from Abraham was never an iron-clay guarantee of
membership in God's people. The apostle Paul was able to show from Old Testament
history that "not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel"
(Rom 9:6). Rather, the true Israel is "a remnant, chosen by grace"
(Rom 11:5). The concept of a faithful remnant within Israel is prominent in the
Old Testament (e.g., Isa 4:2ff.; 10:20-22). They constituted the real Israel
within Israel. There thus developed the view even back there, of a spiritual
Israel, the real people of God. The early Christian church was made up of
faithful Jews in the first century who responded to the Christian message. The fact of the continuity between the church
and the faithful of Israel is illustrated in Paul's metaphor of the olive tree
(Rom 11:17-24). In this metaphor the olive tree, according to Ellen G. White,
represents "the true stock of Israel-the remnant who had remained true to
the God of their fathers" (The Acts of the Apostles, 377-78). Branches,
representing Jews, were broken off from it "because of their
unbelief" (Rom 11:20). Wild olive shoots, representing the Gentiles, were,
contrary to nature, "grafted in their place to share the richness of the
olive tree" (vs. 17). Natural branches who turned in faith could also be
grafted in the tree, "for God has the power to graft them in again"
(vs. 23).
Although there was a continuity
between the new Israel and the faithful remnant of ancient Israel, there was
also a new element, the inclusion of Gentiles as an integral part of the new.
The acceptance of Gentiles as part of the people of God was not due to human
planning, but to the divine leadership of God's Spirit. That Spirit instructed
Peter to disregard his Jewish scruples against visiting Gentiles, to go to
Caesarea to instruct Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and finally to baptize him
and his household as Christians (Acts 10, 11). "Who was I," Peter
explained, "that I could withstand God?" (Acts 11:17). The
persecution of Christians that arose in Jerusalem after the stoning of Stephen,
served to scatter them. Wherever they went they spread the Christian faith. At
Antioch on the Orontes River in Syria, the first Gentile church was raised up
(Acts 11:19-26). The apostle Paul was divinely called as a special apostle to
the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; 22:21; 26:16-18, 23). Not only were Gentiles accepted
as members of the Christian community, but the Jerusalem Conference decided
that it was not necessary for them to be circumcised and accept the Jewish laws
in order to be Christians. Nevertheless they were regarded as on an equality
with the Jews. They were "fellow heirs" and "members of the same
body" with Jews (Eph 3:6). Though once "alienated from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise" they have
been brought near by the blood of Christ. They were therefore "no longer
strangers and sojourners" but "fellow citizens with saints and
members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:12, 19).
The gospel of Jesus Christ
recognizes no nationality or race. Peter with difficulty learned that "God
shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is
right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34, 35). In Christ "there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his
riches upon all who call upon him" (Rom 10:12). In Christ Jesus all men
become sons of God through faith (Gal 3:26). "And if you are Christ's,
then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal 3:29).
The basis of salvation is not natural descent, but faith in Jesus Christ.
Salvation is not national, but personal. Anyone of any nation or race who
accepts Christ in faith will be saved (Rom 10:16). That faith makes him also a
child of Abraham who through faith became righteous. "The purpose
was," Paul says, "to make him the father of all who believe without
being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, and
likewise the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but also
follow the example of faith which our father Abraham had before he was circumcised"
(Rom 4:11, 12).
Thus the true Israelite is not
necessarily a physical descendant of Abraham. "For he is not a real Jew
who is one outwardly. . . . He is a Jew who is one inwardly" (Rom 2:28,
29). John the Baptist declared that God was capable of raising up children to
Abraham from stones (Matt 3:9). The true descendants of Abraham are those who
have the faith of Abraham. The new
Israel thus constituted appropriated the promises and titles anciently given to
the Hebrews. This is most clearly shown in 1 Peter 2:9, 10 in which
designations drawn from Exodus 19:5, 6 are applied to Christians. They are
"a chosen race," an elect people, chosen by God just as truly as was
ancient Israel. They are also a "royal priesthood," a designation corresponding
to "kingdom of priests" in Exodus 19:6. The Hebrews were to comprise
a kingdom consisting of priests, so the church constitutes a body priests, each
one of which has a direct access to God. Like Israel of old (Deut 7:6; 14:1), Christians
comprise a "holy nation."
They are a holy people because God has separated them from all other
people to be dedicated to him. They are therefore "God's own people,"
or in the words of the KJV, "a peculiar people," "peculiar"
in the sense of belonging exclusively to God as his special treasure. Recalling
the message in the names of Hosea's children (Hos 1:6-11), Peter adds,
"Once you were no people, but now you are God's people; once you had not
received mercy but now you have received mercy."
Why has God called a new Israel as his special people? Peter answers,
"that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:11). It is the function of
the church to witness to the excellencies of God. God has not called the church
to privilege only, but to a weighty responsibility. Every Christian is to
testify to God's grace and love in leading him out of darkness into the light
of truth. Jesus Christ, as Paul put it "gave himself for us to redeem us
from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous
for good deeds" (Titus 2:14). The risen Christ gave his church the task of
making disciples of all nations, and of teaching them to obey our Lord's
commands (Matt 28:19, 20). The church is to display the manifold wisdom, and
power, and love of God to the world (Eph 3:10).
Derechos
reservados: Instituto de Investigación Bíblica, Asociación General
Fuente: https://adventistbiblicalresearch.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Role%20of%20Israel_0.pdf
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