People of God: Church and Israel

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Addressing church saints, the apostle Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you may proclaim the virtues of the one who called you out of darkness into His remarkable light; who once were not a people, but now are a people of God, the ones who had not been shown mercy, but now have been shown mercy” (1 Pet. 2:9-10). Peter is here paraphrasing multiple Old Testament passages, two of which are especially significant. The first is Exodus 19:5-6, where God is speaking to Israel at Sinai. This passage records the very episode in which Israel became a people of God. The second is Hosea 2:23, in which God is promising the restoration of His blessing to Israel after the nation has been judged.

In both of these instances, Peter is clearly citing passages that were directly addressed to national Israel. Rather than applying them to Israel, however, he applies them to the church. Furthermore, he makes this application in a pretty straightforward way, not inserting any explanations or qualifications. We can only conclude that what God said to Israel in the passages from Exodus and Hosea, He now says to the church through Peter.

This phenomenon appears to contradict certain conclusions that we have drawn in our discussion of the peoples of God. One of these conclusions is that Israel and the church are not only different peoples, but even different kinds of peoples. Israel is constituted as a people or nation by its solidarity with the patriarchs. Israelites are those who descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their identity as a people is ethnic, and as an ethnic unit Israel is called to be a people of God.

The church, however, has its identity in its unique solidarity with Christ. Only church saints enjoy the status of being “in Christ” in the sense that they are baptized into His body in or by the Spirit. He is their head and they are His members. The church’s solidarity as a people is not ancestral, but spiritual. Rather than being genealogically connected with an ancestor, the church is spiritually united to Christ. This relationship to Christ means that the church is not only distinct from all other peoples, it is actually a people of a different kind.

Furthermore, both Jews and Gentiles who are “in Christ” (in the sense of being baptized into His body) lose their former identities. Within the church, a Jew is no longer reckoned as a Jew and a Gentile is no longer reckoned as a Gentile. Both are given a new status in Christ that supersedes their old ethnic identities. For this reason, Old Testament promises and commands to Israel cannot be applied directly to Jews within the church, for these ethnic Jews are no longer reckoned as Israel. To put it bluntly, there is no such thing today as Messianic Judaism. There is only Christianity.

Nevertheless, Peter appears to be making exactly this kind of application. What is more, he makes it not only to Jews within the church, but evidently to the church as a whole. Christians today almost universally understand Peter’s words to apply to the entire church, comprising both former Jews and former Gentiles. How could Peter make this application, when theological reasoning might lead us to believe that it is inappropriate?

The answer to this question is highly instructive, and it is absolutely necessary in order to prevent us from going to extremes in our theology. Since Israel and the church are distinct peoples, and since they are even different kinds of peoples, some might be tempted to overplay the discontinuity between them. For example, Lewis Sperry Chafer saw virtually no connection or continuity between Israel and the church, assigning Israel to a permanent station as God’s earthly people and the church to a permanent station as God’s heavenly people—not merely in terms of their nature as peoples, but in terms of their actual eternal destiny.¹

This perspective overlooks important elements of continuity between Israel and the church. Without continuity, the book of Hebrews would be impossible, for the writer to the Hebrews argues from an analogy between the life of faith in the Old Testament and the life of faith under Christ. A full exploration of these continuities between Israel and the church is too extensive to be undertaken here, but one obvious point of contact can be pointed out: both Israel and the church are peoples of God.

Since Israel is a people of God and the church is a people of God, they stand in some analogous relationship. Of course, the same will be true of other, future peoples of God. Israel and the church, however, share something in common that no other people of God will share. Neither Israel nor the church was ever a people before becoming a people of God. The existence of both is tied not only to ethnic identity (for Israel) or spiritual identity (for the church), but to divine calling. God called both into existence explicitly in order to be His peoples.

No other people of God will be able to make that claim. Egypt will someday become a people of God (Isa. 19:24-25). Assyria will also become God’s people. When that happens, however, both will already have a long history as peoples not of God, or even as peoples opposed to God. Only Israel and the church will never have existed as peoples without being called as peoples of God.

In a certain sense, Israel was not only constituted as a people of God, but also later reconstituted. After centuries of rebellion, God scattered Israel among the nations, essentially (though temporarily) rejecting the nation and dissolving its status as a people. That is the issue that Hosea addresses: the rejected people, the people-no-longer-a-people, will again be restored to its status both as a people and as a people of God.

These factors account for Peter’s application of Exodus 19 and Hosea 2 to the church. The church is not Israel. The church is not even part of Israel, nor is Israel any part of the church. Instead, the church and Israel stand in analogous positions. Consequently, some of the things that God said about Israel in Exodus 19, He could also say about the church in 1 Peter 2. Some of the things that He said about Judah through Hosea were also true of the church when it began in the first century.

Once, Israel was not a people. When God created Israel to be a people, He created the nation to be a possession of His own, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. After Israel was “unpeopled” by the captivity, God reconstituted the nation, declaring to those who were not His people, “You are my people.” In an analogous manner, God created the church on the day of Pentecost, calling it into being through the baptizing work of the Holy Spirit. Prior to that day, the church had never been a people, but now God was calling it to be His people. He was saying to those who had never been a people, “You are my people.” Like Israel, the church was to be God’s own possession, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.

Peter’s use of Exodus and Hosea is entirely appropriate, not because the church is Israel, but because the church and Israel are both peoples of God. Not only are they both peoples of God, they are the only two peoples that had no existence prior to God’s calling. Among all the nations, only they were created explicitly to be peoples of God. Their analogous positions introduce a significant element of continuity that must not be ignored.

God has dealings with Israel that are distinct from His dealings with the church. God also has dealings with the church that are distinct from His dealings with Israel. In terms of their standing as peoples, however, Israel and the church exhibit remarkable similarity. Because of this similarity, some things that can be predicated of Israel as a people of God can also be predicated of the church as a people of God. The analogy between them is the key.

I Saw One Hanging on a Tree
John Newton (1725–1807)

I saw One hanging on a tree,
In agony and blood,
Who fixed His languid eyes on me,
As near His cross I stood.

Sure, never to my latest breath,
Can I forget that look;
It seemed to charge me with His death,
Though not a word He spoke.

My conscience felt and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in despair,
I saw my sins His blood had spilt,
And helped to nail Him there.

A second look He gave, which said,
“I freely all forgive;
This blood is for thy ransom paid;
I die that thou mayst live.”

O, can it be, upon a tree,
The Savior died for me?
My soul is thrilled, my heart is filled,
To think He died for me!