Imperishable Inheritance

Who then is Israel? The answer is never simply a matter of ancestry. Consequently, the central issue is the New Testament is not really Jew versus Gentile. Instead, Israel is the people chosen by God and called to respond in faith and obedience. Israel is the People on whom the Lord sets his love (Deuteronomy 7:7).

Such also is Matthew's teaching. Jesus, a literal descendant of Abraham, himself a Jew, is the Israel who is the object of God's love. He is chosen by God and responds in perfect obedience, fulfilling the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17) and all righteousness (3:15). Since Jesus is the corporate representative of Israel, God now recognizes as Israel all who respond in faith and obedience to the presence and will of God revealed in Jesus. Of course, the first to so respond are in fact Jews. Jesus' condemnation of Israel is not a blanket condemnation of all Jews but only of those who do not believe. The crowds that follow him do not receive from him the same radical judgement as is pronounced on the leaders of the nation. Instead, Jesus has compassion on the crowds as "sheep without a shepherd" and declares his disciples that "the harvest is plentiful" (Matthew 9:36-38). So long as they do not reject Jesus, the possibility of becoming Jesus' disciples remains open to the people. Will they accept the definition of Israel and the fulfillment of the promises revealed in Jesus? Will they comprehend the mystery of the kingdom? That was and continues to be the only question that decides the identity of Israel: Not ancestry but faith, not human achievement but God's gift, calling, and election, acknowledged in Jesus, son of Abraham, son of David, Son of God.
David Holwerda, Jesus & Israel: One Covenant or Two? (pgs. 56-57)