In the New Testament, the ceremonial law is sometimes included in the first or old covenant (compare Heb. 7:15-28; 8:1-7; 9:1, 11-15), not because it was to be the means by which Israelites earned salvation, but because it was necessary in view of the people’s dismal failure to maintain faith in God. The people’s old covenant failure necessitated a simple visual aid to faith, the ceremonial law. It provided an imperfect analogy of the future ministry of Jesus Christ. The sanctuary/temple ceremonies were to be performed by faith. But since these ceremonies were necessitated by the people’s spiritual failure, and since they were an imperfect foreshadowing of the Messiah’s work, they were regarded as part of the first or old covenant. As such, they were done away at the Cross.
The Lord told the Israelites who inherited the Abrahamic covenant promises (1 Chron. 16:14-18) that if they did not continue to maintain their covenant relationship with Him, they would be cursed physically and materially and expelled from the promised land. The message of Deuteronomy 29:9-13 is that “this covenant” (verse 9) given to Israel was the same one that “he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (verse 13). Faithfulness to it would result in great blessings (Deut. 28:1-14), but unfaithfulness would bring terrible curses (verses 15-68). The Lord could not have been more explicit; rejection of His presence in the heart and of obedience to His commands would result in expulsion from the land of promise: “Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods — gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known” (Deut. 28:63, 64).
The promises of the Abrahamic covenant could have been fulfilled to Israel, and she could have become the predominant nation on earth, used of God to preserve His truth and to disseminate His love. But the original promises to Abraham, repeated through Moses, were conditional upon the continuing faithfulness of the people. Restoration after national calamity and captivity by other nations was dependent on repentance and submission to God’s loving will. Bible history and prophetic forecasts underline that Israel as a nation has not and will not fulfill God’s conditions. This is why there remains no divine purpose to fulfill the promises to Abraham regarding Israel’s national superiority.
GOD’S PROMISES TO RESTORE THE LAND TO ISRAEL AFTER THE CAPTIVITY WERE CONDITIONAL
Dispensationalists treat as unconditional the prophets’ predictions regarding Israel’s restoration after the Babylonian captivity. But the condition under which the Lord would return His people from the land of their captivity is stated quite simply: “When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the Lord your God has scattered you” (Deut. 30:1-3).
Having been restored to the promised land, Israel would be prospered if they would obey the commandments of the Lord (verse 9, 10). God visualized a faithful, obedient people who had learned the lessons of history so thoroughly that they would not wish to depart from His service again. They were to be cleansed from sin, filled with His Spirit, and were to live in conformity with the requirements of His law (Ezek. 36:24-33). “They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Deut. 37:23). The Lord would make an “everlasting covenant” with them, dwelling perpetually among them and blessing them with spiritual and national superiority (verses 26-28).
Shortly after their restoration to Palestine, the Jews began breaking their covenant with God, failing to observe His Sabbath day, and living contrary to His will. Nehemiah expressed his concern that God’s wrath would once again be brought upon Israel (Neh. 13:18), and he took very decided steps to insure that the people would reform their ways (verses 19-31).
The covenant that Jeremiah declared God would make with Israel after the captivity was a repetition of the everlasting covenant given to Abraham (Jer. 31:31-36). It contained both conditions and promises. God’s law was to be written on the people’s hearts; they were to know Him and to serve Him (verses 33, 34). This was the condition that would result in Israel never being rejected as the Lord’s faithful people (verses 36, 37). But what if the people refused to allow the Lord to come into their hearts by His Spirit? What if they refused to obey His law and walk only in His ways? His promises could not then be fulfilled. Just as the curses of Deuteronomy 28 were fulfilled when Israel and Judah were taken captive by the Assyrians and Babylonians, so once again His unfaithful people would be rejected and scattered.
During the Babylonian captivity, Daniel actually predicted that, because of their rejection of the Messiah, probation would close for Israel as a nation, and it would be dismembered by its enemies (Daniel 9:24-27). There was no promise of restoration after Daniel’s 490-year prophecy came to an end in A.D. 34.
The same conditions and promises are for us today as for ancient Israel. Even though in this life we may have suffering, sickness, and calamity, if we are willing to live for God, allowing His Spirit to abide in our hearts, He will preserve us for eternity. But if we reject Christ and live according to worldly ways and standards, we can only expect ultimate eternal loss.
ISRAEL FAILED TO FULFILL THE CONDITIONS
The centuries after Israel’s return from Babylonian captivity were notable for increased apostasy, deepening moral and spiritual decline, along with growing national pride and political corruption.
Malachi forcefully denounced the moral and spiritual corruption of restored Israel (Mal. 1:6; 2:1-17). In the centuries before the time of Jesus the nation descended to such depths of spiritual perversion that the Lord could not bless His chosen people. Jesus spoke of the arrogance, legalism, and hypocrisy of the Jewish religious leaders (Mark 7:6-9; Matt. 23). Man’s laws had taken the place of God’s laws, and religion had degenerated into a means of self-aggrandizement and money making.
Finally the nation rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah, claiming, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15, KJV). Little did the Jewish people realize that when they asserted, “His blood be on us and on our children” (Matt. 27:25), they were inviting heaven’s final rejection of their nation as the chosen people and a repeated outpouring of the divine curses stipulated by Moses (Deut. 28). Jesus’ predictions came true: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” (Matt. 21:43). “See, your house is left to you, desolate” (Matt. 23:38).
No assurance of reinstatement as God’s chosen people was given to Israel after they had rejected Christ. Daniel’s predicted period of probation finally came to an end with the stoning of Stephen (A.D. 34), and the Christian Church assumed its role as the international custodian of the oracles of the faith.
Jesus never offered Israel of His day an earthly kingdom, as the dispensationalists teach. Always He emphasized the spiritual nature of the kingdom. “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21, KJV). “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight” (John 18:36). The kingdom of grace in human hearts will merge at the end of history into the kingdom of glory (Luke 17:24; Matt. 25:34). When the people tried to take Jesus by force and make Him a king, He determinedly refused (John 6:15). Had the Jews accepted Him, undoubtedly they would have been retained as the chosen people to make known His salvation in the earth and to prepare the world for the eternal kingdom. But Jesus’ purpose was not to establish an earthly kingdom at that time.
The dispensationalists’ distinction between the “kingdom of heaven” as the earthly Israelite kingdom planned by God and the “kingdom of God” as the heavenly kingdom for all who believe is not supported by the biblical evidence. George E. Ladd comments: “It is to be noted at the outset that the two expressions seem to be quite interchangeable in the Gospels. . . . A few illustrations must suffice. In Matthew, Jesus begins his ministry with the announcement that the kingdom of heaven is near (Matt. 4:17), but in Mark he announces that the kingdom of God has come near and men are to repent and believe in the Gospel (Mark 1:15). In Matthew, the twelve offer the kingdom of heaven to Israel (Matt. 10:6-7), but in Luke they offer the kingdom of God (Luke 9:2). If in Matthew the Sermon on the Mount announced as the law of the kingdom of heaven is the law of the future earthly kingdom (Matt. 5:3), in Luke it is announced as something else, the law of the kingdom of God (Luke 6:20). According to Matthew the parables portray the mystery of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13:11), but in Mark (4:11) and in Luke (8:10) it is the kingdom of God. If in Matthew a Jewish remnant is to announce at the end of the age the good news that the earthly kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is about to be set up (Matt. 24:14), then Mark says something quite different — that the gospel must be preached first to all the nations (Mark 13:10).
“Furthermore, if such a distinction is to be made, no adequate explanation has been suggested for the four times the expression ‘kingdom of God’ occurs in Matthew. One illustration will suffice. After the conversation with the rich young ruler, Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Verily, I say unto you, it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God’ (Matt. 19:23-24). Here the two terms are clearly synonymous, and both are equivalent to salvation, eternal life. . . .”(19)
THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IS SPIRITUAL ISRAEL WHICH HAS REPLACED LITERAL ISRAEL AS GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE
Consider the teaching of the following Bible passages:
Galatians 3:9, 27-29: “For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.” “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
Those who have Abraham’s faith receive the blessings promised to him. Jews and non-Jews who have received Christ as Savior and Lord are counted as “Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
Romans 9:6-8, 23-26: “It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants: but ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.” “And what if he [God] has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory — including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, ‘Those who were not my people I will call “my people,” and her who was not beloved I will call “beloved,”‘ ‘And in the very place where it was said to them “You are not my people,” there they shall be called children of the living God.'”
The birth of Isaac was a miracle of God. This represented the fact that salvation is by faith, not by human effort. The true Israel of God are those who have faith in Christ, not those who are the natural children of Abraham. God has called all believers; “not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles” (Rom. 9:24). Now Hosea 2:23 is fulfilled; Christian believers of all nations have now replaced literal Israel as God’s chosen people.
Romans 2:27-29: “Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you that have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart — it is spiritual and not literal. Such a person receives praise not from others but from God.”
The “physically uncircumcised” are the Gentiles. If they obey God’s law by faith in Christ, having His Spirit living in their hearts, they are counted as Jews and numbered among God’s faithful ones. Only Jews who have the same spiritual experience are acceptable to God.
1 Corinthians 1:23, 24: “But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
The message of “Christ crucified” is power and wisdom to both Jews and non-Jews who believe. The method of salvation is identical for both classes.
1 Peter 2:9, 10: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Peter was writing to faithful Christian believers in Gentile countries (1 Peter 1:1, 2). Christian believers of all nationalities are now God’s chosen people, even though formerly this was not the case. Peter could not have been more specific in his terminology: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”
Acts 10:34, 35: “Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.'”
Because of the vision he had received from God (Acts 10:9-16), dramatizing that the Lord receives believers of any nationality, and the manner in which the Lord led him to the household of Cornelius, Peter was convinced that God’s chosen people are those from every nation who have submitted to the lordship of Christ.
The New Testament is thoroughly clear that the Christian Church, comprising all genuine believers in Jesus Christ, has replaced Israel as the chosen nation. Spiritual “Jews” are believers in Christ irrespective of their national heritage.
God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3), has been remarkably fulfilled. Paul underlines the point. “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, ‘All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.’ For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed” (Gal. 3:8, 9).
Jesus was a Jew. “Salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). Jesus’ apostles who made enormous sacrifices to bring the Christian Gospel to the world were Jews. Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, was a Jew. Gentile Christians are deeply indebted to Jews for their cooperation with Jesus in launching and fostering the Christian Church and in disseminating the Judaeo-Christian tradition.