Jews and Gentiles: One In Christ

January 23rd, 2025
by Dr. D. Lance Waldie

Romans 9:25-26 As He says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’ ” 26 “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

From Jacob’s day circa 1850 BC to 586 BC, God chose the nation of Israel, rejected them for rebellion, then scattered them to the four winds. Bringing them back to the land of Palestine in 538 BC, God secured them there until He brought forth their Messiah. But when Israel rejected her Messiah, God once again expunged them from their land. For in rejecting Jesus as Messiah, Israel showed her ultimate act of unfaithfulness and spiritual adultery towards God.

Paul’s point in Romans 9 is that Israel’s unbelief did not catch God by surprise. Nothing can. For as in Hosea’s day when Israel rejected God, her rejection of Jesus in the first century was perfectly consistent with her character. Israel actually responded to Jesus as the Messiah precisely as the prophets had predicted centuries prior. After all, “It is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (9:6).

Hosea had foretold exactly what the people of Israel would be like and how God would treat them as a result of their rebellion. The prophet understood how God would scatter Israel, and the Apostle Paul would put it all together, applying to his day what Hosea both foresaw and beheld in the people of Israel circa 740 BC. Later, in AD 70, some 13 years after Paul wrote Romans, the city of Jerusalem, along with its glorious temple, was utterly destroyed by the Romans. The majority of the surviving Jews fled the land of Israel at that time, and in AD 135 after another Jewish uprising against Rome, the remainder of them were expelled by force. From that day until the year 1948 Israel as a people remained scattered in accordance with Hosea’s prophecies. But in 1948 the modern state of Israel was reborn in her land, though still unredeemed.

The fact is, the large majority of Jews still reject Jesus as the Messiah. Since they prove themselves to be in rebellion towards God, they cannot be God’s people. Yet God has not permanently rejected them. Having promised that after the “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in… all Israel will be saved” (11:25-26), God’s ultimate fulfillment of Hosea’s prophecy will come to pass. God’s promise through Hosea and through Paul was that those who had become for a time, “not My people” would, by God’s mercy, one day again become “My people.” The Apostle Peter confirms Paul’s words by encouraging Jewish and Gentile Christians: “For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). Peter and Paul’s words refer to the Church comprised of both Jews and Gentiles, but the final fulfillment awaits Israel, for Paul’s main focus in Romans 9-11 is Israel. Though they are still called “not My people” by God on account of their rejection of Christ, one day “they shall be called sons of the living God” (v. 26).

God’s new covenant for Israel will come to pass when He turns Israel to Jesus Christ and brings them into their land forever in keeping with His promise to Abraham, fulfilled in the new covenant (Ezek. 36:26-28; cf. Jer. 31:31-34). Though Paul is not actually emphasizing Israel’s final restoration in Romans 9, he is explaining her present hostility towards God and how God will keep His promises to her in spite of Israel being alienated from Him through disobedience and rejection of Jesus Christ.

Food for Thought

Some believe that God’s promises to Israel have been abrogated and are now being fulfilled in the Church. But that’s only half right! Certainly God hasn’t abrogated anything; rather, He has brought the Church into the covenant He will fulfill with Israel. In Christ, we are one.