Imperishable Inheritance

In my recent arti­cle con­trast­ing Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism (DP) and Covenant The­ol­ogy (CT), I attempted to pro­vide a look at both sys­tems from an unbi­ased per­spec­tive. Obvi­ously, it’s dif­fi­cult when you feel strongly towards either side. There was a point that I didn’t hit that I should have (Amanda reminded me). It has to with how CT views the rela­tion of Israel and the church.

Many DP like to build an argu­ment against CT by stat­ing that CT states across the board that the Church has replaced Israel, and thereby Israel (eth­nic that is) no longer has any mark upon them as dif­fer­ent than gen­tiles. While it is true in one sense, it’s not the full pic­ture on how CT views this rela­tion. David Hol­w­erda, in his fan­tas­tic work Jesus & Israel: One Covenant or Two? cor­rectly artic­u­lates the CT per­spec­tive on “Israel” (pgs. 56–7).

“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. Jesusa 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 judg­ment 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.”

Israel Ful­filled By Jesus

I think the NT clearly teaches that where Adam and Israel failed–Jesus suc­ceeded. The first five chap­ters of Matthew (writ­ten to a Jew­ish audi­ence) strive to teach that Jesus is in fact “Israel” which is “one who has striven with God and pre­vailed” (Gen 32:38). Chap­ter one teaches that Jesus is the true seed of Abra­ham (cf. Gal 3:16), chap­ter two teaches that Jesus will accom­plish the greater exo­dus which is deliv­er­ance from sin for his peo­ple (2:15), chap­ter three teaches that John the Bap­tist was the “her­ald” that came to make way for the King (3:1–2), chap­ter four is Jesus “wan­der­ing in the wilder­ness” and defeat­ing Satan unlike Israel’s wan­der­ings (and he uses pas­sages to rebut­tal Satan only from the time of Israel’s wan­der­ing in the OT), and finally chap­ter teaches that the Mosaic Law pointed for­ward to Jesus and he has per­fectly ful­filled that antic­i­pa­tory role (5:17–20).

So, it would tech­ni­cally be more cor­rect that Jesus has replaced eth­nic Israel in God’s redemp­tive plan, but even this isn’t com­pletely cor­rect. Even though the lat­ter is true, Romans 11 does teach that God is indeed to remain faith­ful to eth­nic Israel in some sense; but it’s impor­tant to note that the covenant faith­ful­ness God dis­plays revolves around sote­ri­o­log­i­cal promises cen­tered in his son and not real estate.

The “Spir­i­tual Israel” Concept

CT also teach that the New Covenant, as the final rev­e­la­tion of God in his­tory, allows for a “spir­i­tual Israel.” By this it means that if Jesus is the True Israel than all those who are “in him” will receive his inher­i­tance. Paul tells the Romans: “The Spirit Him­self tes­ti­fies with our spirit that we are chil­dren of God, and if chil­dren, heirs also, heirs of God and fel­low heirs with Christ, if indeed we suf­fer with Him so that we may also be glo­ri­fied with Him” (Rom 8:16–17). Paul also taught the Gala­t­ian Chris­tians that: “There is nei­ther Jew nor Greek, there is nei­ther slave nor free man, there is nei­ther male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descen­dants, heirs accord­ing to promise” (Gal 3:28–29).

Prob­a­bly the verses that speak most overtly to this issue are in Gala­tians 6 and Romans 9. Paul teaches the Gala­tians that those who are a “new cre­ation” by the work of Christ com­prise the “Israel of God” (6:16), and in Romans 9 after wrestling with God’s appar­ent covenant unfaith­ful­ness Paul can say con­fi­den­tally: “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all chil­dren because they are Abraham’s descen­dants, but: ‘THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.’ That is, it is not the chil­dren of the flesh who are chil­dren of God, but the chil­dren of the promise are regarded as descen­dants” (Rom 9:6–8).

What Does This Mean For Me?

It’s hard for us to imag­ine how con­tro­ver­sial and paradigm-breaking these state­ments were in the first cen­tury. We take for granted that there no longer is a Jew/Gentile con­tro­versy, debates over whether one should be cir­cum­cised, or expe­ri­enc­ing per­se­cu­tion for believ­ing that Jesus Christ is suf­fi­cient for our sal­va­tion. But we must remem­ber that it is a big deal, and it is a great truth that is to be trea­sured for all eter­nity. It is God and God alone who jus­ti­fies, and we must praise for his grace. It should drive us to take seri­ously our com­mis­sion to make dis­ci­ples of all the nations.

“What if God, although will­ing to demon­strate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience ves­sels of wrath pre­pared for destruc­tion? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon ves­sels of mercy, which He pre­pared before­hand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gen­tiles.” (Rom 9:22–24)