Tracing the meaning of the word Jew or Israel....
The following discussion will examine the of the history and meaning of the word Jew--Israel. Since the word Jews is used synonymously with the word Israel, I will use them interchangeably.
The word Israel originated when God changed Jacob's name to Israel. In the Hebrew, Israel means to rule with God or to rule in the place of God. The importance of the term Israel is locked into the covenant that God had originally made with Abraham. God chose Abraham out of Ur of Chaldees and made a covenant with Abraham because of Abraham's faith. Everything God promised in that contract, Abraham believed. Because of Abraham's faith, God counted him a righteous man.
Abraham took his wife and moved to the "land" that god had promised in his covenant. God had promised Abraham that through his seed he would become a father of many nations and inherit the promised land. God had also promised Abraham that through his seed he would bless all the nations of the world.
Abraham and Sarah did not fully understand how all God's promises would be achieved but he believed God anyway. This almost "blind" belief in God's promises without the physical evidence of the promises became known as The faith of Abraham.
When Abraham reached old age and Sarah was no longer able to bear children, Sarah decided that it was up to their human effort to bring forth the natural seed of Abraham who would fulfill the promises.
So Abraham had a child named Ishmael with his servant named Hagar.
Abraham and Sarah had plotted to bring forth the seed of Abraham but God was not satisfied with that seed so some years later he miraculously opened the womb of Sarah when she was 90 years old and made her conceive Isaac. This was the son that would bear the promised SEED. After Sarah died, Abraham married Keturah and bore many sons. Ishmael and all the sons of Keturah were the physical seed of Abraham but they were not the sons of the promise.
So we see that although Isaac was indeed the seed of Abraham, he also possessed something that went beyond the physical seed---Isaac also possessed the Faith of Abraham. but Ishmael and the sons of Keturah did not.
God shows us the beginning of the principle of Faith of Abraham locked in to the SEED of Abraham. It was not the physical seed who would inherit the promises of the covenant but the SEED of faith.
God again demonstrates the same principle when Isaac marries Rebekkah and she bares him twins---Jacob and Esau. These sons are twins and both from the seed of Isaac and Abraham, but they are not both of the SEED of the faith of Abraham.
It was Jacob who had the Faith of Abraham and who would inherit the promises. Even though Esau possessed the physical seed of Abraham and even though he was the first born of the twins and heir to the birthright and promises according to the flesh, he could not inherit the promises because he lacked the Faith of Abraham.
God then changed Jacob's name to Israel and gave him twelve sons.
The sons of Israel would become the progenitors of the physical nation of Israel. For the next 400 years Israel grew from a few members in the promised land to a multitiude in Egypt and then God returned them to the promised land to establish a worldly kingdom and religion as a schoolmaster and preparation for themselves and mankind to understand and enter into God's promised land of the Kingdom of God.
Throughout the history of the kingdom of Israel there were numerous examples distinguishing those with the physical seed of Abraham from those with the Faith of Abraham SEED.
The clearest and best example given by God during Israel's kingdom to distinguish between the physical seed of Abraham and the Faith of Abraham SEED occurred during the days of Elijah. I Kings 19:10,18.
There were millions of Israelites from the physical seed of Jacob and Abraham but there were only 7000 Jews with the Faith of Abraham SEED.
After the new covenant was established, God gave St. Paul a clear revelation of this principle between the physical seed of Abraham and the spiritual seed or the Faith of Abraham SEED. In Paul's revelation, we see the full contrast between the physical seed of Abraham and the SEED of the promise through the Faith of Abraham.
Romans 11
1: I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2: God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,
3: Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
4: But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
5: Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6: And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
7: What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it,.......
Throughout the long history of Israel the true SEED of Abraham by faith had always been those who had the Faith of Abraham SEED by the election of grace.
The epistle to the Hebrews reveals clearly that God has established his new covenant with Israel as promised in Jeremiah 31. When God made that promise of a new covenant, he did not promise it to all the physical seed of Israel but to the remnant only. He promised that every single member of that remnant would be saved.
Jeremiah 31
7: For thus saith the LORD; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.
Jeremiah gives us several examples to demonstrate God's concern with the remnant of true believers or men of faith in ancient Israel.
Jer. 23
3: And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
Chapter: Jer.40
15: Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it: wherefore should he slay thee, that all the Jews which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant in Judah perish?
---------------------
Paul is overwhelmed with this revelation in the New Test. and repeats it many times in his epistles. Here are a couple of scriptures capturing that Jew of the spirit and the Faith of Abraham.
Romans 2
28: For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh.
29: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
-------------------------
Galatians 3
16: Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
--------------------------
Galatians 3
29: And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
---------------------------
Chapter: Phil.3
3: For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
May the Lord reveal his perfect will to us and correct any errors that we hold.
In the Love of Christ
Emile |
