by Rev. William M. Brennan, TH.D.
Abstract
This essay argues that the New Testament consistently redefines “Israel” not as an ethnic entity grounded in physical descent from Abraham, but as a spiritual people constituted by union with Christ. Drawing upon the preaching of John the Baptist, the teachings of Jesus, and the apostolic witness—especially in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Hebrews, and Revelation—this study demonstrates that covenant identity is relocated from the physical and national to the spiritual and eschatological. The essay further critiques dispensational and Christian Zionist readings that subordinate the New Testament to the Old, thereby obscuring the once-hidden mystery now revealed in Christ and reintroducing ethnic distinctions the gospel has decisively overcome.
1. Introduction
The New Testament’s understanding of Israel represents not a marginal doctrinal adjustment but a fundamental reconstitution of the people of God. While Second Temple Judaism largely defined covenant membership in terms of Abrahamic descent and Torah observance, the New Testament consistently challenges such definitions. From the preaching of John the Baptist through the ministry of Jesus and the theology of the apostles, ethnic privilege is dismantled and replaced by a Christ-centered, Spirit-created people.
This essay contends that the New Testament presents a unified theological vision: true Israel consists of those who belong to Christ by faith, irrespective of ethnicity, and that this vision must govern the interpretation of earlier Scripture.
2. John the Baptist and the Collapse of Ethnic Presumption
The New Testament’s redefinition of Israel begins not with Paul, but with John the Baptist.
In the Gospel of Matthew 3:7–9, John confronts the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism:
“Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”
Several crucial theological claims emerge:
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Physical descent from Abraham does not guarantee covenant standing
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God’s power to create children renders ethnic lineage irrelevant
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Repentance, not ancestry, marks true heirs of the kingdom
John explicitly denies that the religious elite are true children of Abraham by virtue of descent alone. This anticipates the New Testament’s broader insistence that God’s people are defined by divine action and repentance, not genealogy.
3. Jesus and the Rejection of Abrahamic Claims
Jesus intensifies John’s critique by directly denying Abrahamic sonship to unbelieving Jews.
In the Gospel of John 8:39–44, Jesus declares:
“If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did… You are of your father the devil.”
Here, Jesus redefines descent ethically and spiritually rather than biologically. True sonship is demonstrated by resemblance in character and obedience, not bloodline. By calling his opponents “sons of the devil,” Jesus explicitly rejects ethnic determinism in favor of moral and spiritual affiliation.
This teaching is inseparable from the earlier declarations that:
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God could raise children for Abraham from stones (Matt 3:9)
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Many from east and west would sit with the patriarchs, while “sons of the kingdom” would be cast out (Matt 8:11–12)
Together, these sayings establish that membership in Israel is contingent upon response to God’s revelation in Christ.
4. Typology: From Earthly Shadows to Heavenly Realities
A central hermeneutical principle of the New Testament is that physical realities in the Old Covenant pointed forward to greater spiritual realities fulfilled in Christ.
4.1 Temple → Christ and the Church
Jesus identifies himself as the true temple (John 2:19–21), a claim later extended to the church as his body (1 Cor 3:16; Eph 2:21). The locus of God’s presence is no longer geographical but Christological and ecclesial.
4.2 Land → Heavenly Inheritance
The promised land, long regarded as the heart of Israel’s identity, is reinterpreted eschatologically. Hebrews insists that the patriarchs themselves sought a better, heavenly country (Heb 11:13–16). Paul likewise speaks of believers as citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20).
In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the earthly is repeatedly contrasted with the heavenly:
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Earthly priesthood → eternal priesthood of Christ
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Earthly sanctuary → heavenly reality
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Old covenant → new and superior covenant
The physical promise land thus functions typologically, pointing beyond itself to the heavenly Jerusalem.
5. The Heavenly Jerusalem and the True People of God
The New Testament explicitly locates the fulfillment of Israel’s hope in a heavenly city, not an earthly nation-state.
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Hebrews 12:22: “You have come to Mount Zion… the heavenly Jerusalem”
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Galatians 4:26: “The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother”
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Revelation 21: The New Jerusalem descends from heaven as the dwelling of God with his people
These texts leave little room for a return to an ethnic or territorial definition of Israel. The inheritance is eschatological, universal, and Christ-centered.
6. Apostolic Theology: One People, One Identity
Paul’s declarations bring the argument to its theological climax.
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Romans 2: True Jews are inward, by the Spirit
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Romans 9: Not all Israel is Israel
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Galatians 3: Those of faith are Abraham’s children
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Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek”
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Ephesians 2: One new humanity in Christ
The church is not a secondary people alongside Israel but the continuation and fulfillment of God’s covenant purpose.
7. A Critique of Dispensationalism and Evangelical Zionism
Dispensationalism and many forms of evangelical Zionism invert the New Testament’s hermeneutical priority by interpreting the New Testament through the Old rather than the Old through the New.
This approach results in several theological problems:
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Ethnic distinctions are reintroduced after Christ has abolished them
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The once-revealed mystery of Jew–Gentile unity (Eph 3:4–6) is effectively re-concealed
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Earthly shadows are re-elevated over heavenly realities
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The church is marginalized as a “parenthesis” rather than affirmed as the people of God
Such readings stand in tension with the apostolic insistence that the gospel represents the full and final revelation of God’s redemptive plan.
8. Conclusion
From John the Baptist to Jesus, from Paul to Hebrews and Revelation, the New Testament speaks with remarkable unity: true Israel is not defined by blood, land, or ethnicity, but by faith in Christ and participation in the Spirit. Physical realities—temple, land, nation—served as shadows pointing toward a greater spiritual fulfillment now realized in Christ and his people.
To return to ethnic or territorial definitions of Israel after the revelation of Christ is not to honor the Old Testament, but to misunderstand it. The mystery once hidden has now been revealed: God has created one people, one inheritance, one race in Christ—and all who belong to him are the true children of Abraham.
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