Israel in The New Testament: It is impossible to truly understand the Bible; or any part of it, without understanding that the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Scandinavian and kindred peoples of the world today are the Israel of the Bible. The Bible speaks always and only to Israel; and to claim its benefits for yourself, you must start by putting yourself in the ranks of Israel. Even the major Judeo-Christian churches show some dim awareness of this fact, although they will not admit it. For example, the Episcopal Church won't admit that we are Israel; but read their Book of Common Prayer: throughout, it speaks always from the standpoint of Israel. To get out of the embarrassment of this inconsistency, most Judeo-Christian churches teach substantially this: "Although God's promises to Israel were absolute and unconditional, God welshed on those promises, and has given them to the church, instead" although they don't express this quite so frankly. If their doctrine were true, they wouldn't have much of a religion; if Israel couldn't trust God's Word, who else could? But it is Not true; God never welshed on a promise; every promise He ever made to Israel, He has fulfilled and is today fulfilling, to Israel and to no-one else.
Then the Judeo-Christian churches say, "Well, we are only Gentiles; but we have become spiritual Israel." Now that is a most remarkable statement. The people of Israel were never, at any time, a group of people who all held the same religious belief: at best, there were always many apostates and idolaters among them; and during much of their history, nearly the entire nation became apostates. The great prophet Elijah found that in the whole nation of Israel there remained only 7,000 men still loyal to God. But the Bible never says that they ceased to be Israel, when it is denouncing them for their apostasy. Israel always was purely a racial group, all of the same race, despite the apostasy of some of them from the true religion. Therefore, the only way anyone could become a "spiritual Israelite" would have to be the same process by which he could become a "spiritual negro" or a "spiritual mongolian" something no-one could ever do. You can be an Israelite only by birth, by inheritance.
Many Judeo-Christian churches teach that the New Testament has done away with all of this, that it threw all of God's promises and prophecies about Israel into the trash can, even to the point of saying that all prophecy has come to an end, and started a new religion with Israel left out of it, their claims to the contrary notwithstanding. This is positively not true; the entire Bible is consistent from beginning to end. There is as much Christianity in the Old Testament as in the New; though it is harder to understand, because it is presented in the forms of prophecy, ritual and symbols. We will now proceed to show you that the New Testament, like the Old, is an Israel book.
The four Gospels, of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, deal with the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus taught always the truths pertaining to Israel. In Mark 12:28-29, a scribe asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment of all; and we read, "Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Jesus regarded His whole ministry as being primarily to Israel; for in Matthew 15:24, Jesus said "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." Again, when Jesus sent out His 12 disciples to teach the people, we read in Matthew 10:5-6, "These 12 Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." Then again in Matthew 19:27-28, Peter asked Jesus what reward would be given to those who had given up all to follow Him; and Jesus replied to Peter, "Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 Tribes of Israel." Christ does not say they will judge any other people or nation. Note also that He didn't say that they would become heads of the Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, Church of Christ, etc., churches, but that they would become rulers and judges over the 12 Tribes of Israel. This is not something of the past, which God had to discard as a failure; this is Jesus Christ's prophecy of what was so eternally true that it would still be in effect in the day He comes back to rule the earth in person. Also, many of the parables used by Christ concerned Israel. So Christ testified, in the Gospels, that God had not changed His mind concerning His people, Israel.
Surely, no other authority as great as that of Jesus Christ can be found, to testify what is truly Christian. Yet there are many Judeo-Christian Clergymen who teach falsely that the Apostle Paul changed all this, threw out not only all of the Old Testament but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, and set up a new religion. Paul would be the last person in all the world to try such a thing! Paul makes it very clear, in nearly every Epistle he wrote, that he is writing TO and writing ABOUT Israel; although some of this has been hidden by mis-translation. Let's review some of them.
First, let's take the Epistle to the Romans; so-called. To whom does Paul address it? Chapter 1:7 shows that it is addressed To those persons in Rome who are "called saints." Yes, we know that the King James Version says, "called TO BE saints" but you will notice that the words "to be" are in italic type, which shows that these two words were not in the original writing, but that the translators added them, in order to make it correspond with what the translators thought Paul should have said. But let's take Paul at his own word, what he actually did write, instead of what somebody else substituted for it. Remember that Paul was a very well educated man, who knew the Scriptures well. Paul knew that a "saint" was not somebody who would be named as such by the church in the dark ages, several centuries after Paul wrote, because the so-called "saint" had done some deed of piety. Do you know who ALL of the saints are? Paul knew; for he knew the Psalms. In the first place, what does "saint" mean? It means "set apart or consecrated to the service of God." It is used in the Bible almost exclusively of people as members of a class, rather than as of individuals. It is used to describe the status of God's people Israel. Therefore, Psalm 148:14 tells us who ALL of God's saints are: not just some of them, but ALL of them. It says, "He also exalteth the horn of His people, the praise of ALL HIS SAINTS, even of the Children of Israel, a people near unto Him." Paul knew this, so when he addressed any of his epistle to "saints," you know that Paul was writing to Israelites. Thus we know that some, if not all, of the Romans were Israelites also.
So in the Epistle to the Romans, as it is wrongly named in your Bible (for Paul didn't call it that, but the translators did), in this book Paul says he is writing "To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called saints." Since ALL of the saints are Israelites according to the Bible, which Paul knew very well, and we know that he was not writing to just Romans in general. Nero, for example, was a Roman and a Jew; in fact, Nero was emperor at the time Paul wrote this epistle; and we may be sure that Paul never considered Nero a saint. And these saints are also identified as "called." Paul knew whom God had called, Isaiah 41:8-9 told it: "But thou, Israel, art my servant; Jacob whom I have Chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and CALLED THEE from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I HAVE CHOSEN THEE, and not cast thee away." And Isaiah 51:2, "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for I CALLED HIM ALONE, and blessed him, and increased him." Paul well knew that God had called and predestined His people Israel to be the people who are consecrated to His service; which is just what the word "saint" means. Therefore, in Romans 8:30, Paul says, "Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also CALLED: and whom he called, he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
Similarly, Paul writes to the saints in various other cities. 1 Corinthians 1:2, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Ephesians 1:1, Philippians 1:1, Colossians 1:2, and 24-26 and Philemon verse 5, all these clearly state that Paul was writing to those who are "the saints" in those various cities. Paul knew that the saints, the Israelites, were the people to whom God's message was addressed, the people in whom it must take root, that they should be called to His service as God had declared form the beginning. Therefore, it was to them that Paul wrote, and not to the "Gentiles" in general.
We have seen that Jesus Christ strongly emphasized that He had come only to His own people, Israel, and sent out His disciples with the direct command, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." Also, He promised His disciples that they would sit upon 12 thrones, judging the 12 Tribes of Israel; not various religious denominations. Then we started to study what Paul wrote on this subject, for most people have been taught by their Judeo-Christian churches that Paul started a new religion with Israel left out of it. On the contrary, as we shall see, Paul still taught good Israel doctrine. We saw that in his Epistle to the Romans; which most people think was a message to Gentiles, Paul was writing only to those particular people in Rome who were "saints," and that, as Paul knew very well, the 148th Psalm, verse 14, tells us that ALL of the saints are the children of Israel. Therefore Paul understood, what most Judeo-Christian Christians don't know, that he was writing to the Israelite colony in Rome. And we saw that the same thing was true of Paul's Epistles to various other cities.
Now let's examine the Epistle to the Romans still more closely; for Romans is generally regarded as supremely the book written to the Gentiles. It might surprise you to know that here is no such word as "Gentiles" in the bible, in its original languages. Oh yes, you can find it in your King James Version of the Bible, also in the less accurate of the modern English translations. But it was never in the original languages and has been put in by the translators; just as the word Jew has been substituted for Judean. Neither Hebrew or Greek has such a word as "Gentile," nor any word which is equivalent to it. The word "Gentile" comes from the Latin word "gentiles," which means "one who is not a Roman citizen." If you were to use the word accurately, you would have to say that Jesus Christ and all of His Disciples were Gentiles; for none of them were Roman citizens; Paul was the only one of the Apostles who was not a Gentile, for Paul was a Roman citizen. But what does the Bible say in the original languages in which it was written?
In the Old Testament, which was written in Hebrew, wherever you see the word "Gentile" in your English Bible, the Hebrew used the word "goy" if it was in the singular, or the plural form of it, "goyim." This word means precisely "Nation," and nothing else. You remember that God told Abraham "I will make nations of thee" (Genesis 17:6); in the Hebrew, God said "I will make goyim of thee." It would have been too utterly silly to translate this "I will make gentiles of your descendants," so the translators here translated it correctly as "nations." Again, you remember that when the twins, Jacob and Esau were still in the womb of Rebekah, their mother, they struggled together; and she prayed to God to tell her why this was so, and God answered her, "Two nations are in thy womb." In the Hebrew original, this says, "Two goyim are in thy womb." Certainly God never told her that "two gentiles are in thy womb;" so the translators here had to translate it correctly, "nations." But this is exactly the same word which they translate "gentiles" in many other places.
The New Testament which most of you have was translated from manuscripts written in the Greek language. Whenever in your New Testament you see the word "gentile," the word in the Greek was "ethnos." "Ethnos" means "nation," just as the Hebrew word "goy" does. In many places, it would have been silly to translate it "gentile," so the translators had to use the correct word, "nation." For example, in the 7th chapter of Luke, we read that a certain Roman officer, a centurion, had a servant who was dying; and the centurion asked some elders of the Jews to intercede for him with Jesus, and ask Jesus to heal his servant; and the Jews did urge Jesus to do this for the centurion, saying "that he was worthy for whom He should do this; for he loveth our ethnos, and he hath built us a synagogue." Surely no Jew would have praised the centurion for loving the gentiles; nor would he have built a synagogue for gentiles; so they had to translate this one correctly as "nation," not "gentile." But everywhere you see the word "gentile" in the New Testament, it is the same word "ethnos" in the Greek. This word "ethnos" has no pagan, or non-Israel, nor even non-Greek. This word "ethnos" has no pagan, or non-Israel, nor even non-Greek connotation. The Greeks distinguished between Greeks and Barbarians, which all educated men like Paul knew; so he said in Romans 1:14 "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians." Just remember that Paul never once wrote "gentile" in all his writings; he only wrote "ethnos," which means "Nation." Therefore, do not be misled by bad translation where you read in Romans 1:13, "that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other gentiles," for Paul actually wrote "even as among other nations." Paul had made converts who lived among other nations, both in Greece and in Syria and in Asia Minor. You must carefully judge from the general context in which the term occurs, whether the particular nation of which he speaks is an Israel nation or a non-Israel nation. If it is a non-Israel nation, then the common term "gentile" may as well be used; even though inaccurately, because we are accustomed to it.
For further proof that Paul was not writing to gentiles in the Epistle to the so-called Romans, note how Paul tells these "saints" in Rome to whom he writes, in the 4th chapter of Romans, that "Abraham is our father, as pertaining to the flesh," and "Abraham, who is the father of us all." Certainly he could not have told any "gentile" that Abraham was his father, as pertaining to the flesh.
Again, this is consistent with what Paul wrote to the "Saints" in the city of Corinth: for in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, he writes, "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, now that ALL OUR FATHERS were under the cloud, and ALL passed through the sea; and were ALL baptized unto Moses in the cloud and the sea; and did ALL eat the same spiritual meat; and did ALL drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed them: and that Rock was Christ." Paul could not have truthfully told "gentiles" that their fathers, like his, had all passed through the Red Sea with Moses, and had all been protected by the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and had all eaten the manna and had all drunk of the water which poured out of the rock in answer to Moses' prayer. Only to ISRAELITES could he have said this with the slightest spark of truth.
Not even the prophets of the Old Testament were more firmly convinced of the great and continuing destiny of Israel than was Paul. You have been taught in your Judeo-Christian churches that Paul threw all this into the trash can and started a new religion without Israel in it. Were they get that idea is beyond imagination. Listen to Paul from the Epistle to the Romans, and see if you can find anything here to show that Paul thought that Israel was all through: In Romans 9:4-5 Paul speaks of the "Israelites: to whom pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers; and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came."
You have been taught that gentiles are "adopted" as the children of God; but did you notice that Paul says that it is the "Israelites to whom pertain the adoption?" How could Paul make it any more clear than this, which is in Romans 11;1-2, "I say then, hath God cast away His people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the Tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew." Remember what he says about those whom God foreknew? "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son...Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Since God's People Israel are those whom He foreknew, then this is written about them.
So we can see clearly that in the New Testament, the writings of Paul very clearly constitute Israel books, just as much so as the Old Testament. But what of the other books in the New Testament, which were not written by Paul? Are they also Israel books?
As we have said before, there is as much Christianity in the Old Testament as in the New; although it is harder to understand, because in the Old Testament it is presented mostly in symbolic form, largely in the rituals. But God is always consistent with His own truth; so it is also true that the New Testament proclaims God's eternal unchanging love for His own people Israel. We have shown that Christ strongly emphasized that He was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel; and that in His parables, He taught the truth of Israel's continued place in God's plan. Then we examined the various Epistles of Paul; and we saw that he wrote to "the saints," and we know from Psalm 148:14 that ALL of God's saints are His people Israel. And we saw that in the Epistle to the Romans, Paul reminded these "saints" to whom he wrote that Abraham was their father, as pertaining to the flesh; no changing of gentiles into "spiritual Israel" here, for Paul said Abraham was their father "as pertaining to the flesh." Similarly, Paul reminded "the saints" at Corinth that their fathers, like his, passed through the Red Sea with Moses and ate the manna and drank of the water which poured out of the rock in answer to Moses' prayer; something that couldn't be said of "gentiles."
Now let's look at the writings of other Apostles in the New Testament. What about James? James addresses his Epistle "to the twelve Tribes scattered abroad." THIS COULD NOT BE TO THE JEWS, for they were not of any of the Tribes of Israel, and also they were not "scattered abroad" when James wrote, nor for ten years thereafter; they were still collected together in Palestine. It could not even be the people of the Kingdom of Judah, for they were never more than the 3 Tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, and James is speaking to "the TWELVE Tribes scattered abroad." But we know that the Assyrians took into captivity first all the people of the ten northern tribes who made up the Kingdom of Israel; then the Assyrians under King Sennacherib invaded the Southern Kingdom of Judah and deported 200,150 of its people in the same captivity with the ten tribes; and finally, we know from historical sources that, upon the fall of Babylon, the Tribes of Israel, by that time known as "Scythians," swooped down on Babylon and carried off most of the people of Judah, Benjamin and Levi who were captives at Babylon, leaving behind just the relatively few who returned in 60 A.D. , the Twelve Tribes were scattered abroad, by that time known as the Angli, the Saxones, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, and the Royal Scyths, already moving on their long march into their predestined homes in Europe and later in America. It was to them that James was writing.
And what about Peter? The First Epistle of Peter leaves no doubt that he was writing to Israelites. The first verse is badly mistranslated. Instead of "the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia," as your King James Version reads, the actual working in the Greek is "to THE EXILES OF THE DISPERSION in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia." Pontus, Galatia and Cappadocia are the eastern part of modern Turkey, and we know that the Scythian tribes of Israel did occupy this region before they moved out on their long journey into Europe. They were exiles from their original homeland in Palestine; they were dispersed over a wide region. Finally, to clinch the matter, Peter identified them in the second verse as "Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father." But who were "God's elect?" In Isaiah 45:4, God speaks of "Israel mine elect." And as to the foreknowledge of God, remember that in Romans 11:2 Paul confirms that "God hath not cast away his people which he FOREKNEW." "Elect" is but another word for "Chosen;" and in Deuteronomy 7:6 the people of Israel are told that "The Lord thy God HATH CHOSEN THEE to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of the earth."
Now, let's look a little further into what Peter has to say. In 1 Peter 2:9 he says to these "exiles" of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatis, Cappadocia," etc., "But ye are a CHOSEN RACE, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, AN HOLY NATION, A PECULIAR PEOPLE: THAT YE SHOULD SHOW FORTH THE PRAISE OF HIM who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Oh, yes, we know that the King James Version of the Bible says "a chosen generation;" but that is a mistranslation, for the word in the Greek is "genos" meaning a race, not a generation. This couldn't describe anyone but Israel. The CHOSEN RACE is Israel; among many other places, we find it in Isaiah 44:1, "Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel WHOM I HAVE CHOSEN;" and Deuteronomy 7:6 "The Lord thy God hath CHOSEN thee to be a special people unto himself above all the people that are upon the face of the earth." Next, "a royal priesthood, an holy nation;" this also can only be Israel, for Exodus 19:6 tells the people of Israel that "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priest and an holy nation." "A peculiar people" is another identifying mark of Israel, for Deuteronomy 14:2 says, "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath CHOSEN thee to be A PECULIAR PEOPLE unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." And finally, "that ye should show forth the praise of him WHO CALLED YOU OUT OF DARKNESS into his marvelous light" is another identifying mark of Israel; for in Isaiah 43:21, God says, "This people have I formed for myself; THEY SHALL SHOW FORTH MY PRAISE."
We skipped over the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is not signed, but is usually credited to Paul. We can't imagine anyone disputing that this book, as indicated in its title, is written TO, as well as written about, the Hebrews, the Israelites. Probably we need not say more abut it here; and we were to start in on that book, it alone would take several pages to cover.
What of the little-understood Book of Revelation? It is too clear for any possible doubt that this book is written in symbols, and is not to be taken literally, but you must understand the symbols used in order to know the great realities for which they stand. These symbols are, in general, Israel symbols: Hence, it can be understood only by those who can recognize the Israel basis of the symbols. God's Righteous Remnant. This, also, is a book about which whole volumes have been written; and it is too long for us to take up as jut a subdivision of our present theme of Israel in the New Testament.
But we have covered enough to show that the New Testament and the Old Testament are just the two sides of the same coin; which has the same value, whichever side you look at. If this were not so, we could not have confidence in either one of them; for truth must always be consistent with itself. Jesus Christ came not to take back God's promises and nullify the prophecies, but rather, as Paul said in Romans 15:8, "Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision, for the truth of God, to CONFIRM the promises made unto the falters." All that had been promised to Abraham and Moses was to be made good. And likewise, these promises to Abraham and Moses included the basis for Christianity. In fact, Moses was a Christian! Does that startle you, when you remember that Moses died more than 1400 years before Christ was born? Yet the New Testament tells us that Moses was a Christian. In Hebrews 11:24-26, it says, "By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season: ESTEEMING THE REPROACH OF CHRIST greater riches than the treasure of Egypt; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward." Now it is certain that he could not have "esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt" unless he truly understood what all the rituals he taught the people really meant; that they spoke of the coming Redeemer. So it is that Hebrews 10:1 speaks of "the law having a shadow of the good things to come," and the Book of Hebrews explains how the rituals were only symbols of the coming of Christ and His sacrifice for us.
Therefore, never let anyone tell you that the two halves of the Bible are inconsistent, and that to accept one you must reject the other. No the Bible is all one book; it tells of God's putting His sons and daughters on earth as His Chosen People, Israel, and the great destiny He set for them; it tells of His foreknowledge of their imperfections and sins, and His provision from before the foundation of the world of the redeemer who would save His people. Both Old and New Testaments are Christian books, and both of them are Israel books.