Truth or Tradition?
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God (Gal. 6:15-16 NIV).
Definitions
Definitions are important. If through prayer, study, and fellowship we can learn precise meanings of important scriptural terms, we do well. Ultimately, words mean what the Holy Spirit says they mean. His meaning will be precise, perfect, and often full of surprise as light penetrates our heart. We may have a struggle ascertaining the full depth of meaning of a term or concept, but we can enjoy the search for the mind of God, knowing we are in the hands of a loving Father who is pleased with our quest. In fact, as believers, we are given the mind of Christ who freely shares his knowledge with us.
In considering scriptural terms, it is important that we lay aside preconceived notions. We have all been swindled a bit by our traditions. An honest, inquisitive heart need not fear that God will take offense at our quest for knowledge. We do not offend when we question tradition. Far from it! Our Master urges us to search for truth and promises that those who seek will find. Blindly accepting tradition is not seeking. Mental assent to the ideas of others is not to be confused with active faith.
One term of critical importance to us is the word Israel. There is much reward if we will spend time prayerfully considering this important key to understanding scripture. Much meaning is hidden in understanding this precious word. Is the Israel of God today, in scriptural context, a nation in the Middle East? Or is Israel a specific relationship with God? Let us examine this important matter in some detail.
Israel: One Who Walks With God
Jacob is a name that means deceiver. One night the biblical patriarch, Jacob, had a wrestling match with the angel of the Lord and, amazingly, won. This episode changed his life. Have we ever wrestled with our consciences in the middle of the night? Do we not win when we decide for righteousness?
In winning his wrestling match, the very character of Jacob was transformed. He was changed so greatly that the name deceiver no longer fit; he had become Israel, one who walks with God. From this alone, we might expect the House of Israel to be those who walk with God. With this in mind, let us more closely examine this critical term, Israel.
The Tribes of Israel
The twelve tribes of Israel are reckoned through this patriarch, Israel. These tribes grew into a large populace in Egypt and then, after escaping the bondage of Egypt, conquered the land of Canaan, the land of promise. The conquered land was divided into estates for each tribe, a confederation that regarded itself as one united people. This nation of the sons of Israel was called to be a people who honored the one true God and walked with him in loving relationship.
After several centuries of trial and tribulation, the Kingdom split into two parts, Northern and Southern, following the reign of King Solomon. The Southern Kingdom, known as Judah after the principal southern tribe, also incorporated the tribe of Benjamin. The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom retained the name Israel and became deeply involved in the apostasy of Baal worship from which they never recovered. Many who had been called to walk with God had not lived up to the meaning of the name of Israel. Being called Israel did not make the heart regenerate any more than being called Christian places one in right relationship with our Heavenly Father. Sitting in a hen house does not make one a chicken.
Even more fascinating ancient history helps us to better understand the term Israel. Judah eventually came to be called Judea and its people referred to as Jews. Jew was not a term equivalent to Israelite. A Jew was an Israelite, but an Israelite was not necessarily a Jew. In fact, the term Jew was not found in Old Testament literature until most of the books had been written.
About 722 B.C., the Assyrians swept down and carried the Northern Kingdom, called Israel, captive. Already in apostasy, the identity of the Northern tribes faded from historical view and, yet today, these tribes are frequently referred to as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Not much is known about them or their whereabouts. It is not illogical to think that any semblance of national identity dissolved in the mists of time. Some would argue this point, but the genealogical record is not critical to this discussion.
Fulfillment of Prophecy
Herein is a problem for some students of Bible prophecy. There are several scriptural prophecies about these tribes found in Genesis and many other scriptures that were not fulfilled at the time of their captivity and dispersion at the hands of the Assyrians. Surely these prophecies must be fulfilled, will be fulfilled and, in fact, are being fulfilled. Such fulfillment, however, is in the sense intended by God and will never match the theological schemes devised by those having no revelation. The identity of the ten tribes has been lost and there should be no expectation that these prophecies will be fulfilled in a people having some genetic entitlement to the term Israelite. Those involved in the apostasy of Baal worship were not those who walked with God and, though called Israel, were among those who had cast aside the Covenant they had with God. The prophets told Israel that they had broken His Covenant and, yet, our loving God promised a New Covenant that would be made with the House of Israel.
It is also noted that the ancient tribes of Israel, as a sign of their covenant with God, practiced circumcision. It is a vital point of Old Testament law that if a male of Israel was not circumcised, he was regarded as cut off from his people. It is possible, and perhaps quite probable, that most members of the ten tribes, who were in apostasy before their forced exile at the hands of the Assyrians, would have in time abandoned the practice of circumcision. Even if one was circumcised in such a condition of apostasy, it would seem to be no more than an empty tradition as Baal worship precludes an active faith in God. Certainly there is no record of these people having continued in Covenant relationship with God. A people who were cut off from their source by application of divine law were, quite simply, no longer Israelites.
It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the many remaining prophecies concerning the Ten Tribes, sometimes collectively called Ephraim after the dominant tribe of the Northern Kingdom, require fulfillment in a manner that involves a spiritual House of Israel, and not a physical one. As we shall see, this is exactly what has happened. We should not be surprised that the fulfillment is spiritual since the Kingdom of God is a spiritual Kingdom. The Church of the Lord Jesus is such a spiritual House. It is the Israel of God, sprouting from the roots of that ancient tree. And true Israelites are still those who walk with the one true God, our Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of their ethnicity. Let us look into this further.
A Most Relevant Prophecy
About 123 years after the Northern Kingdom was carried captive, the Southern Kingdom was defeated in a war with the Babylonians. Solomon’s temple and the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed. The people were taken into Babylonian exile for a period of seventy years. A remnant of these Israelites, now called Jews, returned to Judea after their captivity. After a few more centuries, the Messiah, Jesus, came out of Judah as prophesied.
When the long-awaited Messiah appeared, He proclaimed that he came only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He also let it be known that His sheep would hear His voice. He ministered to a Greek from Syrophoenecia, defined the term neighbor by telling a story about a good Samaritan, reminded us of Namaan the Syrian general who was healed of leprosy when no one in the land of Israel was cured of the dread disease, ministered to a Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob (note the symbolism), and commended the faith of a Roman Centurion.
Jesus had no problem in extending his great mercies to those of other nations who had faith, even though the Judeans would not have regarded these particular sheep as Israelites. He even told a group of skeptical unbelieving Jews that they were of their father, the devil, and that if they had Abraham as a father, they would have the faith of Abraham. Jesus was, and is, continually showing us that it is faith, not flesh, that defines His flock named Israel. Indeed, He still comes only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Certainly Syrophoenecians, Syrians, Samaritans, Romans, and you and I can all be of the House of Israel if we but follow Jesus.
So who are the sheep of the House of Israel? The sheep of Jesus are those who hear His voice. If you have heard His voice, accepted His free gift of Eternal Life and chosen to walk with the Master, then you are one of His sheep. You are part of Israel.
The Kingdom of God
The land of ancient Israel was the Kingdom of God’s people for the era of the Mosaic Covenant. But when Christ came to us in the flesh and dwelt among us, he let us know that he was bringing in a Kingdom for God’s people that would be within the hearts of believers. He told us this Kingdom would come without observation and is not of this world. He told us plainly that the Kingdom of God is within.
We profit spiritually when we see that the ancient Kingdom of Israel was typological of the Kingdom of God that Jesus manifested through the power of his ministry and revealed through his teachings. The faithful are resident in this Israel of God. This should not surprise us. The author of Hebrews wrote plainly (Heb 10:1) that the law has a shadow of good things to come. In such context, the sojourn of the children of God in the physical land of Israel foreshadowed that which was to come through Christ for the Israel of God, the household of faith. Through the rich symbolism involved, the ancient Kingdom of the tribes of Israel speaks to us today of the Kingdom of God within the hearts of believers where Jesus rules supreme.
Jesus’ Announcement
We read our Lord’s announcement of this change from the Old to the New, given in the presence of the chief priests and Pharisees, in the gospel of Matthew (21:42-45) as follows:
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”
Let us accept Jesus’ prophecy that the Kingdom of God was to be taken from those who thought they were children of Abraham and given to those who would behave as children of Abraham, the children of faith. Nominal belief in God has never met our Creator’s standards. Claiming the name of Israel does not make one an Israelite. Citizenship in an earthly Kingdom does not make one a citizen in the Israel of God. Jesus was ushering in a new nation, a nation of those who would have faith purchased with His precious blood. He was bringing in a Nation of Righteousness that would never be seen on a map for it is a Kingdom that remains undetected by the external eye. The Kingdom of God is within. It is the new nation, the Kingdom of Jesus, which comes without observation. It comes in the hearts of men.
Jeremiah’s Prophecy
In Matthew’s gospel, cited previously, we see Jesus’ clear declaration that the citizenry of his Kingdom would be those of faith. No one else would have a claim. Further, the Mosaic Covenant that had been made with Israel had been broken by the people so many times in their apostasy that it was finally laid aside by God and a New Covenant given, the covenant prophesied by Jeremiah and given on the Day of Pentecost (Jer. 31:31-34):
“The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the LORD.“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
When Jesus said He was going to take the Kingdom away from those in Judea and give it to a people who would bring forth fruit, what people did He have in mind? To what did Jeremiah refer when he prophesied of a Covenant in which God would forgive iniquity and remember sin no more?
Continue reading The Israel of God