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May 6 - July 10, 2025
Israel and the church were not separate but were unified in the person of Christ. Jesus of Nazareth is the true Israel of God, who reconstituted the people of God in himself. So, the church, composed of believing Jews and Gentiles, is the restored people of God, true Israel, because of their identification with him.
when the apostles instruct their congregations, do they plead with them to read the Old Testament as observers or as participants? I believe it’s the latter.
The apostles passionately argued that the church stands in continuity with the people of God in the Old Testament—from Adam to Israel. As such, the church is called to rule over the created order, mediate God’s glory to the nations, and embody God’s law in every aspect of life.
One cardinal aspect of covenant theology is that the one people of God spans the history of redemption. From Genesis 1–2 to Revelation 21–22, there remains one covenant community.
G. K. Beale’s book The Temple and the Church’s Mission.1
Our culture longs to be valued.
careful reading of Genesis 1–2 reveals God creating a vast cosmic temple, wherein he dwells and sovereignly rules. Parallels between the creation account in Genesis 1–2 and the construction of the tabernacle in the book of Exodus are many, and several scholars argue that God is indeed fashioning a cosmic temple in Genesis 1–2.1 Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the cosmos is compared to Israel’s temple:
Humanity was created to bring glory to God, but now humanity will attempt to bring glory to itself. This is idolatry of the highest sort—the worship and adulation of one’s self.
Understanding the already–not yet can be a bit tricky, so I’ll attempt an illustration. One benefit of having a Sam’s Club membership is their unrivaled food samples. From meat to sweet tea, Sam’s Club provides daily samples to their customers. I find myself ignoring my shopping list and heading straight to their buffet of samples. The samples are just that—samples of the actual food. They are not analogous or cheap knockoffs; they are the real thing, only on a smaller scale. Perhaps the same could be said of inaugurated eschatology. Take, for example, the already–not yet of our resurrection.
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Even before Jesus’ public ministry began, Matthew identifies him as the true, faithful Israel of God. The first Gospel readily connects Jesus’ genealogy, birth, journey to Egypt, baptism, and ministry to the nation of Israel. The Old Testament recounts the failure of Adam and Israel in fulfilling the divine requirements for imaging God on earth. God expected Adam and Israel to rule on his behalf, worship him and mediate his presence to others, and obey his law. But, as we’ve seen time and again, humanity is unable to obey perfectly.
C. H. Dodd is on the right track when he argues, “The Messiah is not only founder and leader of the Israel-to-be, the new people of God; he is its ‘inclusive representative.’ In a real sense, he is the true Israel, carrying through in his own experience the process through which it comes into being”2 (see fig. 5.3).
we learn that Jesus of Nazareth is God’s chosen one who has come to do what Adam and Israel failed to accomplish—succeed as a faithful king, priest, and prophet. Jesus inherits a mission, a mission that requires individuals to obey God perfectly, conquer the devil, and expand God’s glorious presence to the ends of the earth.
We could summarize Matthew’s Gospel in one word—fulfillment.
From beginning to end, Matthew views Jesus’ genealogy, birth, life, death, and resurrection as the fulfillment of the entire sweep of the Old Testament. For Matthew, all of the Old Testament—its institutions, significant events, and persons—anticipates Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel of Matthew places Jesus squarely at the center of God’s story of redemption.
Learning about one’s ancestry is big business these days. For a few dollars, I can go online and discover long-lost aunts and uncles and reconstruct my genealogy. While Matthew’s genealogy does provide us with some historical insight, it is far more concerned with the narrative of redemption attached to each name. Each person Matthew includes, whether it’s Asa or Shealtiel, is tied to a story, a story that may have seemed insignificant at the time but is actually part of God’s glorious plan of redemption. God has worked through every person in the Old Testament to prepare the way for the
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Peter claims that Jesus is indeed the highly anticipated Messiah who has come to liberate Israel. But Jesus’ messiahship breaks the mold, as he is a suffering Messiah who ushers in a kingdom marked by persecution and suffering (Mark 8:31–9:1).
As the perfect image of God, Jesus ironically rules over Israel’s enemies by being physically conquered. He is, as the book of Revelation states, simultaneously the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” and a “Lamb, looking as if it had been slain” (Revelation 5:5-6). While Jesus is suffering a shameful death on the cross, he is simultaneously the supreme messianic ruler.
Our right standing before God (justification) should and will propel us to rid our hearts of sin through his grace (sanctification).
The book of Acts narrates how the apostles battle the enemies of God. They will do so not with political might but with the message of the cross. As difficult as it was for the Jewish people to be under the political thumb of Rome, that paled in comparison to their true state of affairs—being enslaved to sin and the devil. The Jews longed for the coming Messiah, would who deliver them from Rome’s oppression, but what they failed to realize was the extent of sin’s oppression in their own lives.
Like playing a Jenga game, Jesus removed key foundational pieces of Israel’s theocracy, leading to its eventual collapse. The political, theocratic nation of Israel came under judgment for their continued refusal to obey God. This happened on two levels: (1) spiritually, God’s judgment was poured out on the nation throughout Jesus’ ministry, climaxing at the crucifixion (1 Thessalonians 2:16); (2) physically, the Romans conquered the nation just a few decades later in AD 70. The theocratic dimension of Israel came to an end in the first century and will never be reestablished.
But if the church is true Israel, then what of the nation of Israel? Will God restore the nation immediately preceding the second coming of Christ? These are difficult questions, and evangelicals differ on how to answer them.
Heaven has come down in Jesus of Nazareth, and God is now keeping his promise to dwell intimately with humanity and creation. But now that the glory of God has descended, the physical temple in Jerusalem is outmoded. There’s no sense putting new wine in old wineskins.
God’s intention has always been to dwell with all of humanity. Each person, regardless of race or ethnicity, is created in the image of God, so we are all fashioned to enjoy his presence.
First, we must embody robust unity in all our actions. We are compelled to live according to the new age, the age of unity in Christ. The practical implications of this truth run deep. Do we disparage people from another race? Do we do the same to the poor or those from a different social class? If we do, we are reverting to the old age, the age of division and fracture. If, though, we view everyone through the lens of the new age, the age of unity, all stand equal at the foot of the cross, and we treat one another accordingly. Do we cause division in our church? Do we gossip or sow seeds of
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consider its attention to the “anti-image” and the “anti–people of God” and how those realities are a manifestation of the anti-Trinity. We’ve seen how the Old Testament anticipates the arrival of an anti-image, who will abuse the three offices of king, priest, and prophet.
Though Revelation 21–22 does not explicitly mention animals dwelling in the new creation, I find it hard to believe that they will not be there. The animals are a constitutive part of the original creation and are mentioned repeatedly in Old Testament oracles that pertain to harmony within the new creation (e.g., Isaiah 11:6; 65:25). The Bible is filled with reminders about how God cares for the animals (Genesis 8–9), and the apostle Paul claims that “the whole creation has been groaning” for its long-awaited restoration (Romans 8:22). If animals dwell in the new earth, then we will probably
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THE CHURCH AS TRUE ISRAEL
