Saying to Zion, "Thou art my people."
Back to The Work of Christ
Only Christ is able to bring God’s people into union with God. By the Lord’s people we mean the elect Jews and the elect Gentiles.
The elect Gentiles consist of those individuals whom God has called out from the nations of the earth so that during the Kingdom Age they may serve along with the elect Jews as a ruling priesthood over the saved nations.
The elect Jews are composed of those Jews with whom God has dealt according to predestination and foreknowledge. During the Church Age the elect Jews have been but a remnant of the nation of Israel.
What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (Romans 11:7)
At the end of the Church Age and the beginning of the thousand-year Kingdom Age, God will bring back the Jews to the land of Israel. God then will send anointed deliverers to the nation of Israel and pour His Spirit on the Jews. The entire nation will then be saved. This has been foretold by the Prophets. There is no authority or power in the heavens, on the earth, or in the realms under the earth’s surface that in any manner can prevent the return of the Jews to their land and their physical and spiritual deliverance. God never shall break His covenant with the nation of Israel.
And I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be My people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:23-28)
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: (Romans 11:26)
The third part of the work of Christ is to reconcile to God all of God’s elect, God’s Israel. God’s Israel includes the elect Gentiles, the elect remnant of Jews, and finally the whole nation of Israel.
Let us speak first of the reconciliation of the nation of Israel, and then of the deeper work of reconciliation to be accomplished in the firstfruits of the elect.
The first members of the Body of Christ, the first Christians, were Jews of the city of Jerusalem. Have we Gentiles forgotten that?
But these Christian Jews were only a remnant. The bulk of the nation remained in spiritual blindness, according to the election of God.
Then God turned to the Gentile nations. He began to add Gentiles to Christ. He grafted Gentiles on the good olive tree. But God’s chosen people, the Israelites, were dispersed among the nations of the earth.
For nearly two thousand years the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom announced by the Hebrew Prophets, a kingdom that is of the nation of Israel as to its political role on the earth, has been preached among the Gentile nations. One of God’s purposes in doing this is to provoke His own chosen race to jealousy.
God never has cast off from Himself His original chosen nation. God fully intends to establish the nation of Israel as the ruling nation on the earth, as the Prophets teach clearly.
However, such a long period of time has elapsed without the words of the Prophets being fulfilled that Christianity now is viewed as a Gentile religion. It is understandable this should happen. Nevertheless, the concept of Christianity as a Gentile religion is completely false. There is not one passage of the Scriptures in support of such a notion.