Are The Jews Still The Chosen People? …. Are the Jews Today Really Jews?

You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

Acts 7:51

Read in the context of the unfolding of Redemptive history these passages should be coupled together. In Matthew Jesus communicates that Blasphemy against the Son will be forgiven but blasphemy against the Spirit would not be forgiven. That Israel blasphemed the Son is clearly seen in their crucifying Jesus and by screaming…. “His blood be upon us and our seed.”

When we get to acts we see Stephen saying that Israel is now blaspheming the Holy Spirit as seen in always resisting the Holy Spirit. Throughout the book of Acts we see Israel blaspheming the Holy Spirit by rejecting the messengers of Christ. At this point there are multiple witnesses to this blaspheming of the Spirit.

In light of this Blasphemy of the Spirit, in AD 70 Christ serves divorce papers on Israel and cuts them out of the Olive Tree (Romans 11). Before that time the Israel of God among the Hebrews are gathered into Christ and so when the divorce papers are served in AD 70 it is true what was predictive in Romans 11 that “all Israel was saved.”

This reading fits with the multitudinous passages in the New Testament that communicate that God was done with (divorced) Israel. First we have the parable of the non-productive fig tree (Luke 13:6-9) which finds the servant conceding to cut down the barren fig tree (Israel) if it does not produce fruit after a year (it didn’t). Then there is Jesus cursing the fig tree, saying; “May you never produce fruit again (Matthew 21:18ff) .”

The most clear indication that God was done with the Jews is seen in Matthew 21:33-46. Here it is clearly and unmistakably taught that the Jews are divorced and cast out.  In the story a landowner plants a vineyard, lets it out to farmers, and moves far away (33). The landowner represents God and the farmers represent the Jews (45). When harvest time comes, the owner of the vineyard sends servants to collect his share of the fruit, but the farmers beat, kill, and stone these servants (35). These servants represent the prophets (Luke 11:47) God sent to the Jews through the centuries, and how the Jews mistreated such prophets (Luke 13:34). Lastly the landowner sends his son to collect, but the farmers kill him also. This son represents God’s son Jesus Christ of course.

Jesus asks his audience in verse 40 “When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?” His audience correctly answers “He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen ….” Jesus reaffirms this conclusion by saying in verse 43 “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Precipitated by their longtime disobedience, with the final straw being the killing of the son of God (Matt 23:37-38), the kingdom of God would be taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles. In AD 70 the Lord of the vineyard came in His judgment coming and He miserably destroyed Israel, scattering them to the wind in the destruction of the Temple and of Jerusalem. In this judgment coming of the Lord Christ the Jews as a people were eternally divorced by God never to be grafted in again to the Olive Tree as a nation. Certainly, individual Jews can be, and praise God are saved but as a people God is done with the Jews.

So read Redemptive Historically, the blaspheming of the Holy Spirt was committed by Israel and they were cut off for that blasphemy (much as the faithless generation in Canaan was cut off from the promised land), just as Jesus had prophetically spoken as recorded in the NT.

As such we know that to interpret Romans 11 as still being future to us about a great ingathering of the Jews is a misinterpretation of the passage.  The ingathering of Jews spoken of there in Romans 11 was future to Paul but past to us and indeed throughout the book of Acts, starting with Pentecost, we do see many Jews grafted back into the olive tree of Romans 11, and in the end all of Israel who was the Israel of God was saved before that AD 70 return.

Also, one has to consider the mistake it is to read Romans 11 as if it referred to physical Israel because in Romans 9 God had clearly stated that “not all of Israel is of Israel.” So, this idea that God still has work to do with the Jewish nation that is tied to His eschatological clock is just bollix. National Israel is in no way tied to God’s eschatological clock, though as postmillennialists we believe that what Jews remain upon the coming of Christ many will be saved as being part of other nations.

We note this final thought above due to the fact that it is an open question as to how many genetic Jews exist yet today. The book, “The Thirteenth Tribe” by Arthur Koestler, as one example, questions whether those whom we call “Jews” today are really, in fact, genetically Jews. Most of them seem to be from Khazaria or are Edomites. The ironic thing is that lately there are reports that the Palestinians in Israel who are being slaughtered by “the Jews” are indeed more Semitic than the Israelis killing them. Of course if it is true that those called “the Jews” today are Khazaria then the whole infrastructure of much of Evangelical and evene Reformed theology has the ground cut out from underneath of it. For the Reformed, if this is true, they will definitely need to re-adjust their interpretation of Romans 11.