The True Man is a Jew

Below are some highlights from a very helpful (and short) article sketching an answer to these important questions: 

• Why do some churches teach that the Jews permanently lost their right to the land? 
• What about all these Old Testament “forever” promises and prophesies made to the Jews?
• How should we understand the passages that seem to imply that the Israelites have a secure place in God’s plan forever?

 I have chosen a few quotes as representative of the main thrust of the article, but it really is worth a look at as a whole here. At its heart lies the contention that the incarnation is central to biblical theology.

Every promise and prophecy given to Israel has a very literal, material fulfillment.

I mean that if one is worried about the recipients of these promises really being Jews, genealogical sons of Abraham, then Jesus himself literally fits the bill. Jesus is literally and physically a bloodline son of Abraham and David (Matt. 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). All the promises made to physical Israel are for him. He is the recipient of all of these promises. He lives today. He now literally owns the land of Palestine. Since Jesus rules the world, the land of Palestine is included in his kingdom. It is all his. 

That’s why there’s no need to “spiritualize” the Old Testament promises and prophecies originally made to Abraham or Israel. That’s also why the presence or absence of genealogical Jewry has no religious significance after A.D. 70.

In electing the Jews God had one purpose in mind–namely, the coming of the Messiah. Once the Messiah comes, descended from Abraham and David (Matt. 1 and Luke 3), then genealogical Israel’s purpose ends. Jesus is the final Israelite. He is Israel reduced to one. .... When he hangs on the cross, everyone else has apostatized. He is the last and only faithfully Jew. And in him, then, the whole world is renewed. As Paul says over and over again in his letters, the only election that matters now is that which takes place “in Christ.” God’s election of Israel was indeed vindicated in the life, death, and resurrection of Joshua Messiah.

If we take this seriously, then we must conclude that nothing else need happen concerning the modern-day Jews. Once Jesus died and rose again, the last generation of Jews that were in covenant with God by means of the old system were given an opportunity to repent and be incorporated into the Messiah’s body. This is what the ministry of Peter and Paul “to the Jew first” is all about. After that first-century offer, physical, cultural, and religious Judaism had no claim on or special place in God’s purposes for the world. The resurrected, ascended Lord Jesus, the ever-living Jew is the only Israelite that now matters.

Forever Means Forever: God’s Promises to the Jews by Jeffrey Meyers