Application Project I
SHEPHERDS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
APPLICATION PROJECT I
SUBMITTED TO DR. MICHAEL VLACH
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
TH 601 SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY IV
BY
MICHAEL SEETHALER
MARCH 3, 2024
CONTENTS
QUESTIONS:
1. Explain the main ideas of the Spiritual Vision and New Creation Models. How have these models affected how Christians understand the Bible’s storyline? Why is understanding these models important (if they are)? What could go wrong if a person adopts the
wrong model?
2. Explain what the kingdom of God is and how God’s kingdom program unfolds from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22. How does this kingdom program involve Jesus, Israel, nations, the earth, and all creation?
3. Explain the following covenants and how they contribute to God’s plans in history: Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New. Make sure to address the material and spiritual blessings of these covenants and when these covenants have been or will be fulfilled in history. Is there such thing as partial fulfillment of these covenants? If so, explain.
4. Explain the identity and role of Israel in the Bible. What exactly is Israel? What purposes does Israel have in God’s plans. How does Israel relate to the present and the future?
Question 1
The terms “escape” and “renew” summarize the difference between the Spiritual Vision Model and the New Creation Model. Both of these models describe ways of understanding and interpreting the storyline of scripture, God’s work in the world, and the ultimate end of the people of God.
Within the Spiritual Vision Model lies an implicit assumption that the material world is lesser, evil, and to be escaped; mankind’s highest end and ultimate existence lies in a disembodied heavenly state. The New Creation Model understands that God's redemptive plan involves the take-back of the physical world from the powers of darkness; man’s physical existence of walking with God in the Garden of Eden was good: God will restore that creation with His redeemed people in a physical new heavens and new earth. Mankind is created to live in a physical reality. The current post-death disembodied heavenly life is an intermediate state, and the final end of man will be in the renovated and renewed and regenerated heavens and earth.
The Spiritual Vision Model sees little in the work of God beyond the individual salvation of a remnant of believers throughout the world. The reign of the Christ is a spiritual reign only, in the lives of the believers, teaching them inward virtues and leading them to escape earthly life. The New Creation model sees the reign of the Christ as touching every inch of the world, every sector of human existence, and bringing it in alignment with the will of God.
The Spiritual Vision Model fails to sufficiently account for the physical language of the prophecies in the Old and New Testament, especially concerning the reign of Christ and the effect of God’s redemption throughout the world. God predicts that He will change the physical landscape of the world (Isa 41:17-20), that the peace of the reign of Christ will extend even to the animal kingdom (Isa 11:6-9, Rom 8:19-22), God’s people will be physically blessed from obedience (Jer 31:31-34 c.f. Deut 28: 1-14), God’s people will dwell safely with full provision (Mic 4:4), God will increase the grain of His people (Amos 9:13). More examples can be provided. The redemptive work of God restores the physical world. The New Creation model sees God's work culminating in the removal of the curse from the world, and the complete filling of the earth with the kingdom of God, bringing the accompanying righteousness and material and socio-economic blessings and worldwide peace.
The Spiritual Vision Model interprets the aforementioned verses generally as the spread of the Gospel through the church, bringing individual salvation throughout all the nations. The New Creation Model also accounts and includes this expectation, but with the added expectation that as the kingdom of God progressively comes and expands the world will brought into conformity with Christ. The results of this is not a spiritual escape of the earth, but a renovation of the earth.
The Spiritual Vision Model views that the final destination of man is to be in a disembodied state in the heavenlies for all eternity. It sees physical reality as something to escape. The New Creation Model sees the final end of man to be living in a physical reality, of the New Heavens and the New Earth of Rev 21-22.
The Spiritual vision model sees physical life as something inherently flawed, and to be escaped. This thinking lends itself to asceticism, or the unnecessary deprivation of the body for the sake of "extra spiritual blessing". This thinking goes along the following lines: the average Christian may feast, dance, get married and have sex, and work an economically productive job, but the truly spiritual Christian will take the high road of greater blessings in continual fasting, depravation of sleep, vows of chastity, and a life of poverty. The Spiritual Vision Model rejects as less-spiritual things like human desires, existence in time, human work, and human relationships.
1 Timothy 4:1-5 teaches that the unnecessary depravation from creation is a doctrine of demons. Those who forbid marriage and foods which God created to be enjoyed are teaching a doctrine of demons; thus Paul says that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” When God created the world, He called it “very good.” The physical world is good, yet fallen. The New Creation model understands that God’s plans for mankind include removing the curse from the good world. God's redemptive actions took place in the physical world, Christ came in the flesh, and God loves the world enough to send His Son to save the world.
The New Creation Model recognizes that the prophesies about Christ's kingdom (Isa 11, Psa 2,11, 2, 110, 72, 22) explicitly speak of socio-political, agricultural, and other types of physical blessings for the world. Thus, the kingdom of God, while not having source and origin in this world, and also being significantly characteristically different in many ways from carnal human kingdoms, nevertheless has the effect on the world of total renewal and renovation and regeneration. As the kingdom of God expands, physical blessings will continue to increase in the earth.
The issue which is seriously at stake in the discussion between the Spiritual Vision Model and the new creation model is firstly misunderstanding the mind of God, which should be concern for any Spirit-filled child of God. Secondly, one who holds the Spiritual Vision Model will likely pursue a ministry which neglects the physical world. Instead of seeking to bring God’s Law upon every aspect of normal human life, the Spiritual Vision Modeled individual will practice retreat in monasteries and ivory towers, needlessly afflict their physical bodies, and will fail to understand the will of God in the great commission.
The Spiritual Vision Model leads to impotence. It denies that the Christ’s rule changes the world here and today: it encourages believers to sit back and abandon the world, until God comes and destroys it, as we are said to be polishing brass on a sinking ship. It is an equivalent to burying that talents which God has given one in the dirt (Matt 25:14 ff.).
Question 2
The Kingdom of God is the expression of the will of God in creation (Matt 6:9-10). The kingdom of God is the stone cut without human hands which grows to fill the earth (Dan 2:44). The kingdom of God is a worldwide reign over all the nations and families of the earth, bringing righteousness, blessing, and relief for the godly afflicted (Psa 72). The Kingdom of God is ruled by the Christ, the Son of God who is installed on Mt. Zion, which is above. (1 Peter 2:9, Psa 2:7-12, Acts 13:33, Heb 12:22, Psa 68:15-18, 3:4, 15:1, 11:4, 48:1, Gal 4:25-27, Rev 20:2). and rules in the midst of His enemies (Psa 110:1-2; Isa 9:7). The Kingdom of God is God’s means of restoring the world unto Himself through the Gospel of the reconciliation of mankind through the cross (Col 3:1, Rom 3:21-31).
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, it was good; God made man upright, but man rebelled (Ecc 7:28). God expelled man from the garden and from His presence and cursed the creation. God promised a serpent-crusher seed of the woman (Gen 3:15). From then onward man inherited a sin nature from Adam, and the corruption of sin has encompassed the whole man (Gen 6:5).
God destroyed the earth in a flood, yet cut a covenant with Noah and the creation afterwards that the creation would continue in stability for God’s purposes.
God chose a man, Abram, and promised him that he would be the father of many nations, that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and the sands of the sea. God promised that He would give the land of Cannan and the whole earth to Abram’s descendants (Rom 4:13).
Through the promise of God, Abram (renamed Abraham) begot Isaac and then Jacob. Jacob is renamed Israel, who is also promised that “a nation and a multitude of nations” would come from him (Gen 35:10). When Israel dies, he prophesies that the messiah will come from Judah, and in Him tha nations will hope and be blessed. The descendants of Israel go into captivity in Egypt, and God brings them out with a mighty hand, and cuts a covenant with the family at Mt Sinai with them. This covenant contains the Law of God, which is the revelation of the righteousness of God, as well as imposing restrictions upon the nation with the “elementary principles of the world” until God brought about the promised Messiah (Gal 3-4).
Israel the nation later chooses a king named Saul who fails and God rejects; God then choses a man named David to be king in Israel. David desires to build God a house; God promises to David that his Seed would be the one to build God a house, would be the Son of God, would deliver Israel from his enemies, and would reign on the throne of David over the people Israel forever.
Israel rebels against the covenant of Law made at Sinai and God sends them into captivity to Babylon. During their stay in Babylon, God reveals to Daniel that there is a Kingdom coming which is divine in origin, which will fill the earth, will arise in at the time of the fourth empire, and will never be taken away. God gives Daniel a count-down until this would occur.
At the end of those years, Jesus of Nazareth is miraculously born. Jesus announces during His lifetime that the kingdom of God has drawn near (Matt 4:17), that the Kingdom has arrived (Matt 4:28), and predicts that within His concurrent generation that the Son of Man will come on the clouds in fulfillment of the Kingdom prophesied to Daniel (Dan 7:13-14, Matt 10:23, 26:64, see Matt 26:29 c.f. Acts 10:41). When Christ died and rose again from the dead, He received all power and authority in heaven and on earth, ascended to the right of the Father beginning the official reign of the Christ (Psa 110) and brought judgment on the Jerusalem in fulfillment of Daniel 9.
The Christ is now reigning in heaven and on earth from Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem (Psa 2:6-12, c.f. Acts 13:33, Gal 4:26, Heb 12:22-24); He has all authority, and is extending His kingdom throughout all the earth through the great commission, just as predicted in Daniel 2. The kingdom however does not come all at once, but gradually over time (Matt 13:31-33, Luke 19:12). Christ will continue reigning until His enemies are brought under His feet (1 Cor 15:25-26); after He has put His enemies under His feet, then He will return, which will trigger the resurrection of the just and the unjust (John 5:29, Matt 25:31-46, 2 Thes 1:5-9, Dan 12:1-2 c.f. Matt 13:43), at which point, when Christ returns and the righteous and unrighteous resurrection takes place death will be swallowed up and defeated fully (1 Cor 15:54-55).
When Jesus began reigning, His enemies were not yet under His feet (Heb 2:8-9), but He will not leave His throne in heaven until they are (Heb 10:13). This work will be accomplished through the militant church through the preaching of the Gosepl —which is the sword of the Spirit—and discipling of the nations (Matt 28:18, Acts 15:15-18 c.f. Amos 9:11, Oba 20-21, Mic 2:13, 5:7-15, Rev 19:11-19), against whom the gates of hades will not prevail. Those who reject the Gospel will be destroyed in God’s judgment, both in history and as well as being send to Hades immediately following their death, until they are resurrected with bodies prepared for the lake of fire (Isa 25:21-23, Luke 16:19-31, Rev 21:11-15). Christ will remain in heaven until the times of the fullness of the Gentiles have come in (Rom 11:25) and the elect Jews of the flesh repent, triggering greater times of refreshing, after which the Christ will return (Acts 3:19).
In the reign of the Christ, Jesus is fulfilling His promises to Abraham and Israel, through the gathering of the elect, Abraham’s seed, the children of promise (Gal 3:29), into the church. The seed of Abraham is promised to inherit the whole earth (Rom 4:13), and that inheritance comes from the expansion of the sons and daughters of Zion filling the earth, possessing the nations and resettling the desolate cities (Isa 54 c.f. Gal 4:27, Zech 9:1-8, Amo 9:11, Mic 5:6-8, 7:11). Christ is said explicitly to reign on the throne of David from the first advent (Isa 9:7, Acts 2:30-31, Act 13:23) and His reign over Israel is fulfilled in His reign from heaven over the elect, who as the children of promise are the Israel of God (Gal 6:15, Rom 9:6-26) the true seed of Abraham, and the direct continuation and expansion of the elect Israelites of the OT (Isa 66:18-22, 63:16-17); these have always been the true Israel. Gentiles saved through the church are grafted into the citizenship of Israel Eph 2:11-22, which is also described as the household of God (Eph 2:20 c.f. Heb 3:5-6, Rev 21:12, 14). Zion is comforted and grown not by natural born seed, Hagar (Gal 4), or the children of the flesh, but through the children of promise, which God has born unto her (Isa 49:20-21, 54:1).
Those who are Jews of the flesh and reject the kingdom of God are not Jews at all, though they are Jews of the flesh in the circumcision. (Jer 9:25, Rev 2:8-11, John 8:42-44). The nation of Israel is unlike other nations, as its ecclesiastical function is primary in her constitution (Ex 19:5-6). In the judgment of that state, the wicked within Zion were judged and removed in the destruction of the temple (Isa 10:20-22, 66:19, 65:1-16, Matt 24:34), and new children were grafted into the remnant by the enactment of the New Covenant the faithful remnant continued in the Church (1 Pet 2:9-10, Matt 21:43, Isa 49:22-23 c.f. Rev 3:9). Because of God’s mercy on the physical fathers of the nation of Israel, there will be a future regrafting of the Israel of the flesh in to the Israel of God, which will result great blessing for the world, occurring prior to the second advent of Christ. (Rom 11)
At the end of the age, the Christ will return and sit on the His glorious great white throne of judgment, and separate the sheep from the goats, and bring His sheep into the consummated kingdom seen in Rev 21-22 and cast the wicked into the lake of fire. Thus, the kingdom then will be fully consummated.
In that day, He will hand over the kingdom to the Father, and we will have the full consummation and expression of the kingdom, where every enemy is defeated, including death, and thus we will be with Him forever, in the new heavens and the new earth, and God will be all-in-all.
Question 3
God is a covenant keeping God (Neh 1:5, 9:32). He has enacted His plans for the world through covenants and their fulfillments. After the fall, evil filled the earth, as death passed to all men because all sinned. Thus God flooded the earth.
After God flooded the earth, He cut a covenant with Noah, and all the creation, that as long as the creation remains, God would not destroy the earth with a flood. God promised stability for the creation; in this stability, God brings about His plan of redemption. Thus, the world will remain until the final day of the Lord, when it will be purged with fire and renewed (2 Peter 3).
God chose a man, Abram, and called him out of his father’s house, and promised to make him the father of many nations, renaming him Abraham. God made a covenant with Abraham and promised that his seed would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sands of the sea. God promised Abram great blessing, and that those who bless Abraham would be blessed, and that those who curse Abraham would be cursed. God also promised to give to Abraham all the land of Canaan, and the entire world (Rom 4:13).
The Abrahamic promises are fulfilled in the church, the children of promise, the elect from before and after Christ, and in God’s plan for the church in the world (2 Cor 1:20). The Apostle Paul explicitly states that it is those who are in Christ who are the seed of Abraham and are heirs according to promise. These heirs will be as numerous as God has promised (Rev 7:9).
Concerning the blessing, this is also found in the church, the body of Christ to whom is said to be every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3), and is said to be the apple of God's eye (presupposing Zion to be the same seed of Abraham, c.f. Isa 66:22, 54:1, 49-20-23, Heb 12:22, Isa 41:8) and that as many as are the promises of God, in Christ they are yes and Amen (2 Cor 1:19-20).
Concerning the land, the church, as Zion, as the heavenly Jerusalem, is said to spread out to the right and to left, and that her seed will possess the desolate cities and inherit nations. So the land promise is to be understood in this way: the land of Cannan was a downpayment to the seed of Abraham, and that this seed is further promised the entire world. As the great commission unfolds, and the rule of the Christ increases, this inheritance will gradually be acquired as the kingdom of God fills the earth (Isa 54, Rom 4:13, Amos 9:11, Mic 5:6-8, 7:11, Zech 9:1-8). The ultimate fulfillment of this promise is in the inheritance of the new heavens and the new earth, to which Abraham is said to have been looking for from the beginning (Heb 11:13-15). In the current age, the citizens of the new creation are being gathered, and thus there is a present reality to the new heavens and the new earth (2 Cor 5:17, literally reading “if anyone is in Christ, a new creation!”). The citizens of the new creation are being gathered, yet the consummation and full realization of the promise has not yet come. When it does, it will entail the full redemption of the physical world and release from the curse of sin (Rom 8:21-23).
The Mosaic covenant is a conditional covenant of works: it is a covenant of obedience, and it works in this way, if Israel as a nation obeys, then God blesses, if Israel disobeys, then God curses. The functions of this covenant are manifold. Firstly, the righteousness of the law. "do this and you shall live" at any time in any age leads a godly person to despair, and to seek mercy at the hand of God. That is to say, that the first use of the law is to bring a sinner to Christ, by revealing that they cannot live up to God's standards (Gal 2:20, Rom 10:4). In the old dispensation the saint was driven to the temple system, and had faith in the promises of God to Abraham; in the new dispensation, the saint is driven to faith in the death burial and resurrection of the Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice (Rom 3:21-31)
Secondly, the Law is a restatement of the covenant of works, or covenant of obedience, which in essence Adam broke. Whether or not one wants to call it a covenant, the deal which God made with Adam was simply that if Adam obeyed, he would live. Adam disobeyed, died, and the world fell into sin. In order for the Christ to fulfill the Law to gain the righteousness necessary for the redemption of the elect, there had to be a restatement of this Law. Once Adam broke the Law, or violated God’s righteousness, there was no way for a righteous successor to succeed in keeping that Law, unless the covenant was given again with a renewed promise of blessing. Thus, God stated the Law again so that the promise seed, Christ (Gal 3:15-29) could attain the blessing through obedience. Christ by fulfilling this Law obtained righteousness for all the elect, which is imputed by faith.
The next use of the law was to keep the nation of Israel under a tutelage and guardianship until the promised seed of Abraham came, in which all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gal 4). The Law did several things in this period, it restrained civic evil, it taught the people justification by faith by the gracious act of God in the sacrificial system (Heb 10:1), and it kept Israel as a distinct people through the law contained in ordinances (Eph 2:15). When the Messiah came, He made a full import of the Law into the New Covenant in its minutest detail. (Matt 5:17-20, Jer 31:33, Matt 15:2), yet obedience to the shadows looks different after their fulfillment. Thus, Law of God serves now as the rule of life for the faithful (Psa 119:160, 46, 1 Tim 1:8-9, Rom 8:4, Luk 1:6, Rom 2:26, Rom 7:12, Prov 14:34, Deut 4:6).
In the New Covenant, which is made with Israel (the Israel of God), the Law is written on the heart of the believer effectively through regeneration, thereby enabling obedience to God’s commands (Phil 2:13), that the righteousness of God is lived out and walked in (Rom 8:4) by those who have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them; they walk in accordance with the Law as a rule for their sanctification. Thus, as the world is brought into conformity to the Law (the revealed righteousness of God in both Testaments based on His character [Mal 3:6]) through Gospel-regeneration, God will bring about Deuteronomic blessings in the earth (Isa 1:18-20). To the degree that the church and the world reject and resist this obedience, there will be curses. Yet God has guaranteed its success in the New Covenant, of which more and more individuals are being grafted into the body of Christ. Thus the church is expanding, leading to the obedience of faith among the nations (Rom 1:5, Rom 16:26), the kingdom of God filling the earth, and the knowledge of God filling the earth as the waters cover the seas (Isa 11).
The New Covenant also fulfills the promise of the Abrahamic covenant that God will be God to his children, and they will be His people (Jer 31:33, c.f. Gen 17:2, Rev 21:7). The New Covenant also promises to be overwhelmingly successful in enabling intimate knowledge between God and His people. (Jer 31:32, c.f. Ex 33:12-14) and in the day of its complete fulfillment, evangelism will no longer be necessary as all people under the covenant will know God (Jer 31:34, c.f. Hab 2:14).
Concerning the Davidic Covenant: when God chose David as a king, David wanted to build God a house, God instead blessed David with a covenant, promising that David's decendent would sit on His throne over Israel forever for and would have a worldwide rule, defeating the enemies of Israel and providing lasting people for the people (Psa 89). This rule is fulfilled in Christ, who is the seed of David (Rev 22:16) and began ruling at His first advent (Isa 9:7, Matt 16:28 c.f. Dan 7:13-14, Mat 26:64, Matt 24:30, 1 Tim 6:15, Rev 1:6, Matt 26:29 c.f. Acts 10:41). He will rule until He subjects His enemies, the last which is destroyed is death (1 Cor 15:25-26 c.f. Psa 110) at the time of His second advent to earth which initiates the general resurrection (1 Cor 16:54-56). The Christ will reign forever (Rev 11:15) and will hand the kingdom over the Father after His return, and God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:24). Concerning building God’s house, this is fulfilled in Christ building the church, which is the temple of God, the new meeting place with Him (Matt 16:18 c.f. 2 Cor 6:16-18, Rev 1:20 c.f. Zech 4).
This reign is one of physical and spiritual blessing; as the reign of the Christ increases in the earth, so will the accompanying physical blessings which come from obedience to the Law. (Dan 2:44, Rom 1:5, Isa 2:1-4, 42:1-4, 51:4-8, Psa 119, Prov 14:34). The New Covenant is unlike the covenant at Sinai, in that it is a unilateral covenant from God's perspective, guaranteed by His gracious promise; it effectively accomplishes what it aims to do. The Law given at Sinai only brings condemnation, as no man can keep it, or obey God without the supernatural regeneration of the Holy Spirit, which has been poured out on the church (John 7:39). Thus, the Spiritual blessings of the New Covenant include forgiveness of sins, regeneration, and reconciliation and union with God, and all the benefits of the atonement of Christ applied to each believer. The New Covenant existed in the Old Testament as a revealed promise (Rom 3:21 Gal 3, Gen 3:15-19, Gen 49:3), and is enacted in time at the time of the cross (Heb 9). This Covenant includes the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit in putting the Law of God on the heart of the believer and bringing all members of it into an intimate knowledge of the Lord.
Question 4
Israel is the nation of the children of promise: they are the children of God (Rom 9:6, Isa 43), the seed of Abraham (Isa 41:8), those who are circumcised inwardly (Rom 2:29) and they are the body of Christ/the Servant of Yahweh (Isa 49:3-7, Matt 2:15 c.f. HOs 11:1, 6:1-2).
This, however, is not the only sense of the word: the term “Israel” also has the sense of one who is identified with the house of the physical lineage of Abraham through circumcision. Hence there is one seed of the flesh, and a different seed which is of the promise. This contrast is seen in Gal 4:23. Understanding these two senses is necessary for correctly understanding the identity of the people of God.
God made a series of promises to Abraham and to his seed (Gal 3:16). God promised that Abraham would be the father of many nations, and that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed. On the basis of this promise, God brought forth Issac (hence Isaac is called a child of promise in Gal 4:28, as his coming forth is the fulfillment of the promise of God to Abraham). Issac begot Jacob.
God says the same thing to Jacob in Gen 35:11, that a nation and a multitude of nations would come from Jacob, and the land which was promised to Abraham’s seed was also promised to Jacob's seed. Thus, Jacob became Israel, and the promise continued through his lineage. Israel had twelve sons, which became the twelve tribes. Some Egyptians joined themselves in the Exodus with the decendents of the twelve tribes, and then God cut a covenant with that body of people at Siani, that they would be a kingdom of priests, that God would give them His Law, and they would diffuse the knowledge of God and His righteousness to the nations.
The seed of Abraham and Israel is seen firstly singularly as Christ as the federal head, to whom the promises were made. He gains and bestows the blessings of the promises upon the corporate body, those who are of faith (Gal 3:16, Gal 3:29). These are children of promise, as they are the result of God’s calling (Gal 4:28) and are said to be the true Israel (Rom 9:6-26).
In Romans 9, in defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the exclusive means of salvation and that which is prophesied of in the Old Testament, Paul teaches that not all who are out of Israel, this is Israel. Nor are they all children (the term children of God is used interchangeably with Israel), they are not all children because they are Abraham' seed (physical lineage of the circumcision), but through Isaac you seed will be named. Through God’s promise, God would name and identify the Israel of God. Paul explains this statement by giving an explicit principle, which defines the identity of this Israel within Israel: it is the children of promise. He defines the meaning of the term by explain that Isaac is a child of promise, as the exists as a result of God's calling. The principle that it is those who are called who are the children of promise, who are the children of God, who are the Israel of God.
Paul reveals that those who are called are not from Jews (of the flesh) only, but also of the gentiles, and quotes Hosea, that those who were not God's people have become the children of the living God. This consequently is the same passage which Peter quotes in 1 Pet 2 to describe that the mediatorial function of the nation of Israel has been fulfilled and continued in the church.
This is the consistent understanding of the nation of Israel throughout Scripture; for example, God calls to Israel, to Jacob, to the Seed of Abraham (all used interchangeably in parallel) in Isa 41, as His “chosen”, those whom He has “strongly taken hold of from the ends of the earth” and “called from its remotest parts.” The Israel of is identified as those whom God calls and chooses and gathers; this despite the fact that there is a physical nation of the flesh through circumcision which is also called “Israel”.
This corporate chosen body is also identified as Zion, representing the city of God, the city of Jerusalem, and the bride of Yahweh (Isa 54:5, c.f. Eph 5:22-33), the children of Zion are said to be the children of God, to be the exclusive object of affection of God over all other nations, and again be identified as the ones who are called by name by God, called by God’s name, gathered from the ends of the earth, and created from God’s glory (Isa 43:1-7).
In other passages, such as Isa 19:25, God's exclusive affection and election of Israel is expanded and granted to other nations; this is foreshadowing the change in dispensation, which is spoken of In Eph 2 and 3, which is (among other things) granting of the citizenship of Israel to other nations, without the other nations needing to become circumcised in the flesh. The Israel of the flesh is no longer the exclusive container of the Israel of God; hence the Israel of God, or the children of promise, are taken in the NT dispensation to include both Jews and Gentiles of the flesh (Rom 9:24). This is the truth communicated in Isa 19:25.
Zion as a corporate body throughout the prophesy of Isaiah reveals much about the identity and nature of Israel. In Isaiah 49:21-23 Zion is shown being comforted by the children which she has not born, those which came from far off nations. Jesus also applies this passage to the church in Rev 3:9, simultaneously stating that the Jews of the flesh which persecute the church to be no Jews at all. Again, in Isaiah 54, you see that it is the children of the barren woman are more in number than the children of the one who bears. This is simply a further illustration and proof of what was said in Rom 9, and in Gal 4. Paul quotes the Zion of Isa 54:1 as the identification of the heavenly Jerusalem, the children of promise, to be the Gentile church of Galatia.
During the Old Dispensation, the children of promise were kept under the Law, existing exclusively within the corporate body of the Israel of the flesh, but in the fullness of time, the children of promise were liberated from the elementary principles of the world and granted freedom through the Holy Spirit of God (Gal 4). Hence those who are of faith, in the body of Christ, are called the seed of Abraham, heirs and children of promise, and the Israel of God, as those who walk in step with the new creation.
Abraham had multiple children, but they were not all children of promise (Israel of God, or the elect, or the children of God.) Isaac was the child of promise, but Ishmael was not. Therefore, it is not physical lineage which makes someone a citizen of Israel, and a partaker of the promises of God, but it is faith in Jesus Christ.
The Zion of Isaiah is again further demonstrated to be children of faith, children of the promise, and not in physical lineage (which held a uniquely important significance for the Messiah, Matt 1) This is further enforced that eschatological Israel is not the children of the flesh by the fact that the foreigner joined to Israel is taken to be an Israelite in Isaiah 56:8 (the text literally translates, “still (more) I will gather upon him in addition to his gathered”).
The citizens of Zion say in Isa 63:16 to Yahweh, “You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not recognize us.” The citizens of Zion, God’s bride, and the elect people are children of God, are yet unknown or unrecognized by Abraham and Israel. This verse is accounted for by the double sense of Israel as elect and Israel of the flesh. Those who are speaking in the above verse are then described as the “tribes of Your inheritance”, a reference to the tribes of Israel; they are also described as God’s holy people, they are described in Isa 64:8-12 to be Zion, Jerusalem, and those whom God forgives their iniquity. God then states in 65:1 that He revealed Himself to an unknown nation, which Paul quotes in Rom 10:23 to be a reference to the calling of the Gentiles into the Israel within Israel of the flesh, or the children of promise. This context further demonstrates that Zion is to be understood as children of promise.
Again, it’s seen in Isa 66:18-21 that those who escape the coming judgment on Jerusalem will run to the gentile nations and bring the brothers and sisters of Jerusalem (or Zion) back like an offering to Yahweh; Yahweh will then take those Gentiles as Levites (a covenant which again is established with a specific tribe in Israel). All this proves further that it is the children of promise which are the Israel of God, consisting of both Jews and Gentiles, and not the physical seed (Hagar) of Abraham.
Hence it is said to the Jews by John the Baptist that God is able to raise of children for Abraham from the stones (Matt 3:9): God is able to fulfill His promise to Abraham through the rocks in the ground, how much more Gentile dogs? The sign of an Israelite was in the days of types and shadows circumcision of the flesh, but now it is revealed that a true Jew is one who is circumcised inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the Spirit (Rom 2:29). Paul teaches that the Church is the true circumcision (Phil 3:2, Eph 2:11, Col 2:13). The Scripture repeatedly claims that those who are Jews of the flesh and yet reject Christ are not really Jews. They are said to be the children of the devil (John 8:44), the uncircumcised of heart (Eph 2:11, Jer 9:25), and the synagogue of Satan (Rev 3:9). The crucial issue is whether one let’s God decide and declare who is an Israelite, elect, a child of God, and who is not. God has set the standard that it is those whom He names who are the true Israel, the children of God. Circumcision means nothing in this dispensation (Gal 6:16)
Those who are Jews of the flesh are not without hope; once the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, they will be regrafted corporately into the olive tree of God’s salvation. That is, the Israel of the flesh will be regrafted into the Israel of God, the children of promise (Jer 11:15, Hos 14:5, John 10:16). They will be provoked to jealousy by the Deuteronomic blessings being poured out among the Christian Gentiles (Deut 32:21, Rom 11:26-27); they will return to God, and it will result in “life from the dead.” The Israel of God is currently spreading out and filling the earth, inheriting the desolate cities, as more and more people are grafted into the flock of God; the olive tree, the seed of Abraham and Zion (Isa 66:22). This will continue until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled (Luke 21:24). Once God is finished gathering His elect from among the Gentiles corporately, then there will be a full-scale conversion of the natural born Israelites of the flesh, they will be regrafted into the true Israel, and that will bring life from the dead for the world.
From the physical lineage of Israel, the man came Jesus Christ; He was raised up to gather back to Himself the natural born children of the circumcision, as well as the brothers and sisters from the far-off nations (Isa 49). All of these are gathered are taken alike to be the eschatological Israel of God, as brothers and sisters.