I wrote and posted this article in March of 2012 as the first of a series. It revealed the New Testament definition of “The Chosen People.” What follows is an updated version.

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THE REAL CHOSEN PEOPLE (PART 1)

Many Christians have been conditioned to believe that “The Chosen People” are the Jews regardless of whether they honor the Lord Jesus as Messiah or not. Many Christians have been taught that Jews are the only people on Earth who belong to God and will forever belong to God even if they deny that Jesus is their Messiah, if they deny He died to save them from their sins, if they disparage His Name and character, if they actively fight against and oppose real Christianity, especially in Israel, and if they as individuals refuse to repent of their sins and submit to His Lordship.

For some odd reason, many Christians have been taught that the New Testament teachings do not apply to the Jewish people. Why? Simply because they are Jews? News flash: The Lord Jesus loves Jews the same as He loves Gentiles. He died for both. Since this is obviously true, why do so many Christian churches and ministries, especially Christian Zionists, shun or downplay reaching out to Jews for their salvation? Though there certainly are Christian ministries which specialize in reaching out to the Jewish people there is still a strange disconnect in this area that clouds otherwise clear New Testament truth.

As a clear example of what is possible, we are living in a day when Messianic Judaism is very popular and growing. The followers of Messianic Judaism honor Jesus as Messiah. They are still Jews, of course, but believe in and follow the Lord Jesus as did the Ἰουδαῖος of the first century.

Speaking of which, what was the greater fallout of the tumultuous changes of the early-to-mid first century AD? Historically, after the complete destruction of what was left of the Hebrew/Israelite homeland in 70AD when Jerusalem was invaded and destroyed by the Romans and the Temple was completely razed to the ground and burned, there was only one segment of the traditional overall “Judaism” of that time that remained.

The Sadducees ceased to exist since there was no longer any Hebrew/Israelite nation. The Essenes, those likely responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, also faded away. Some Hebrew/Israelite nationals held out after Jerusalem was destroyed, comprising segments of the Zealot Party, but committed mass murder against one another and suicide on the heights of Masada in 73/74AD. There were two other large uprisings against the Romans, the largest and last of which was the Bar Kochba Revolt from 132-135AD. After their defeat there was no longer any effective and organized Hebrew/Israelite resistance against the Romans. It was the end of the Zealots.

The Pharisees, however, were the one party that lived on. They did not die out as the other Hebrew/Israelite major religious and political parties had. The same party that gave the Lord Jesus so much trouble during His ministry and fought the apostles at every turn, especially the apostle Paul, never actually ceased to exist. The Pharisees continued as the sole religious representatives of the Hebrew/Israelite people who had rejected the Lord Jesus as Messiah and Savior. They then morphed into what was later known as Talmudic or Rabbinic Judaism.

Again, the Lord Jesus was 100% a Ἰουδαῖος from the Tribe of Judah and a direct descendant within the kingly line of David. The genealogies in the gospels of Matthew and Luke prove this. Also, every original apostle had Hebrew/Israelite ancestral roots and so had every single member of the Community of the Lord we read about in the earliest history of His Movement as recorded in the Book of Acts including the 120 at Pentecost. For seven to ten years after the Resurrection of the Lord, the entire Qahal of the Lord Jesus was composed entirely of Hebrew/Israelite descendants, members of the nation of Israel, and of the twelve tribes. It was not until the salvation of the Gentile Cornelius and his group, as recorded in Acts 10, that the apostles understood that the Lord Jesus wanted non-Hebrew/Israelite Gentiles also to be included among His people and become members of His spiritual Community. Prior to that time, the Hebrew/Israelite followers of Jesus had somehow assumed that only Hebrews/Israelites and full proselytes to the Judaism of that time would qualify for membership in the Lord’s Community.

So here we see the first great division created by the Lord’s ministry, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, of the Hebrew/Israelite people. One camp saw that Jesus was indeed their long-awaited and hoped-for Messiah and accepted Him fully. The other camp rejected Jesus as Messiah. The camp of rejecters coalesced around the Party of the Pharisees, the lone remaining representatives of overall first-century Judaism. This party has essentially existed throughout history ever since and continued in part as the sole Hebrew organized religious force against Jesus the Messiah.

What happened to the first-century Hebrew/Israelite believers in Jesus? After Cornelius, more and more Gentiles entered the fold of real Christianity. Indeed, the apostle Paul was called by God to be the first and foremost apostle to the non-Hebrew/Israelite Gentiles. Later, at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), it was decided by the Jerusalem Hebrew/Israelite believers that Gentiles did not have to undergo all things Torah in order to attain official membership in the Body of Christ. As more Gentiles flooded in, ethnic differences between Hebrew/Israelite and non-Hebrew/Israelite believers were downplayed over time. This did not mean that Hebrew/Israelite followers of Jesus did not retain their unique identity. Such would have been tragic. These first-century Hebrew/Israelite believers in Jesus were descended from the great Patriarchs of the distant past and represented the then-current true Remnant of the nation. 

Paul, a Hebrew/Israelite in very high standing, both ethnically (of the Tribe of Benjamin) and religiously (a Pharisee), as well as a solid Roman citizen, wrote this:

“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew (Ἰουδαῖος) nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” [Galatians 3:26-29]

This is a very powerful statement.

From this we know that strict Hebrew/Israelite distinctiveness no longer mattered with respect to membership in the kingdom of God. According to the New Testament, it was no longer an issue to trace one’s physical lineage to Abraham. One can be a descendant of Abraham whether he or she is connected by direct genealogy or not.

Therefore, according to the New Testament and the teachings of the Lord Jesus, which the apostle Paul relayed in the Galatians passage, it is not an ancestral link that makes one a seed of Abraham but a spiritual link by faith according to promise.

However, Hebrew/Israelite non-believers in the Lord Jesus, of course, discounted and rejected this entire notion. They believed it destroys their unique identity. As a result, they hated Paul with the same passion with which they hated the Lord Jesus (How dare these Christian heretics dispose of our status as God’s chosen people!).

Which brings us back to the original point: God’s chosen people, according to the New Testament, are only those who honor the Lord Jesus as Messiah. Yet, even as you read this you probably cringe and think such cannot possibly be true. But it’s right there in your Bible. As is this:

“For he is not a Jew (Ἰουδαῖος) who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew (Ἰουδαῖος) who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” [Romans 2:28-29] 

Throughout the Gospels and New Testament writings we see, then, that the “Chosen People” are those who are in Christ, who embrace the Lord Jesus as the only Messiah and Savior, whose hearts have been circumcised, who are in spiritual relationship with Him, and who submit to His full Lordship.

Though the Hebrew/Israelite people were originally chosen by God as descendants of Abraham in ancient times, the majority of them later rejected God. All one must do is pick up the Old Testament and read a few pages to find that this is true.

However, there has always been a believing Hebrew/Israelite remnant and there were always enough who honored God to keep the ancient nation of Israel intact though diminishing. Israel split in two after Solomon’s death in circa 930BC, the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom went into captivity (circa 722BC) and never returned, effectively ceasing to exist, and only the Southern Kingdom of Judah remained until the first destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586BC. The land of Judah, which was originally also comprised of the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, was later reconstituted and existed until the time of our Lord as a national entity. After its destruction by the Romans in 70AD it was the end of the Hebrew/Israelite nation. The unbelieving and disobedient had so outnumbered the believing remnant who dutifully followed YHWH prior to the Incarnation and the Lord Jesus afterward that the geographic and religio-political nation ceased to exist.

The Community of the Lord, however, began at the same time once the Messiah was revealed. Therefore, there is no hope for those who reject the Lord Jesus and look for another. There is no other Messiah and never will be. And without Messiah Jesus there is no salvation because He is salvation—it is the very meaning of His Name (YHWH-Salvation):

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health.

He is the STONE WHICH WAS REJECTED by you, THE BUILDERS, but WHICH BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone. And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:8-12][1]

© 2012, 2023 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [Part 1]  

[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.