I recently preached on one of the most unpopular verses in our day, Matthew 27:25. You can watch that message on YouTube or listen to it as a podcast. I wanted to follow another related biblical thread that I didn't have time to explore in that message, but which gives us another angle on the nature of God's covenantal people and how Christians ought to think about the Jews today.

The Jews prided themselves on being “God’s chosen people,” the children of Abraham, inheritors of the covenant God made with him in Genesis. What was one of the key promises of that covenant?

“And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” (Genesis 17:7)

By Jesus’ day, the Jews assumed that because they were physically descended from Abraham, that meant that they were irrevocably “God’s chosen people.” Idiomatically, for the Hebrews, to be a true son of your father meant that you said and did the same things as your father. But the Jews of Jesus’ day were largely opposed to him, to the point of having him killed. Jesus exposes their hearts, and demonstrates how they are, in fact, acting as true sons of their true father, who is neither Abraham nor God.

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me . . . . This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. . . . You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. . . . But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.” (John 8:39-47)

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that Abraham’s true children are not necessarily those who are descended from him physically, but rather those who say and do the things that Abraham said and did. What did Abraham do? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3).

But how could Abraham be counted as a Christian when he lived around 2,000 years before Christ?

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:8-10)

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” (Hebrews 11:17-18)

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 11:39-12:2)

Abraham had true faith in God, faith that God would raise up his descendants not through merely physical means, as with Hagar and Ishmael, but through his promise, as with Sarah and Isaac. In other words, even though he didn’t fully understand it, the object of Abraham’s faith was Christ!

Who then are the true children of Abraham? Who are the recipients of God’s covenantal blessings promised to Abraham?

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. (Romans 9:6-8)

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. (Galatians 3:7-9)

Now, some respond to this with the claim that Christ is the fulfillment of God’s covenant only for the church age, the age of the new covenant, the age of the Gentiles being grafted into the vine of God’s people. The covenant to the Jews stands on its own, separate from that of the Gentiles, and is irrevocable, regardless of their faith in Christ, some claim. How do we understand this? God’s covenant is certainly irrevocable, because God swore his oath to Abraham by himself, and he does not and cannot change (Gen 15:17; Heb 6:13; Mal 3:6; Rom 11:29). But the covenant with Abraham is not merely to the Jews; it is also to all Abraham's descendants, which, as we've just seen, is not those who are descended from him physically, but rather spiritually.

Because the fulfillment of God’s covenant was always in Christ alone! The old covenants were pointing forward to Christ, and now that he has come and completed his ministry, the former things, the types and shadows that pointed forward to their fulfillment, have passed away (Gal 3:16; Heb 8:13). Christ was always intended to be the fulfillment of the covenantal terms and conditions for receiving God’s blessing. And on this side of the cross and the empty tomb, on this side of his ascension and his destruction of the temple, in the full light of the completed canon of Scripture, we can clearly see God’s hand in breaking off the unrepentant natural branches of his people, the Jews, and graciously grafting in the foreign branches, the Gentiles, thereby comprising his people, the true Israel of God, of both Jew and Gentile together, one new man in place of two, saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Eph 2:14-18; 4:4-6; Gal 3:27-29; Acts 4:11-12; Rom 1:16-17; 10:12-13; 11:17-24; et al.).

In other words, faith in Christ alone is the only way to be counted among the true spiritual Israel, the true Israel of God, God’s chosen people.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him [Christ]. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. (2 Corinthians 1:20-22)

 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:29)

So then, what about the Jews? Let’s revisit God’s original covenantal promise to Abraham:

“I will . . . be God to you and your offspring.” (Genesis 17:7)

The Jews largely rejected Jesus. Their hatred of him revealed their lack of faith in God and their lack of belief in the Scriptures (John 5:46-47). Their hatred of him even led them to infamously declare, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25)

Did you catch that? The Jews had already rejected Jesus Christ, the one who came to fulfill God’s covenantal conditions and deliver God’s covenantal blessings to God’s chosen people. By imprecating themselves and their children with the blood of Christ, they declare the exact inverse of God’s promise to Abraham. They cut themselves and their children off from the covenant.

Just as Abraham’s true children are those who do what he did and believe God, so too the true children of the Jews who declared “his blood be on us and on our children” are those who continue in the works of their spiritual fathers. As the Jews continue in the sins of their fathers, killing the prophets, rejecting and hating Christ, reviling and subverting his Word and his people, then they too will be under the covenantal curse of God (John 8:42-47; Matt 27:25; Matt 23:29-36).

What does that mean for the Jews today? Is there any hope? Absolutely there is! The good news of the gospel is that they can once again be grafted back into the vine of God’s chosen people. What do they have to do? The same thing as everybody else: hear the conviction of the gospel, repent, and believe in Christ alone! Then, and only then, will they be once more grafted back into God’s covenantal chosen people.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. (Joel 2:12-13)

And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree. (Romans 11:23-24)

And finally, what is the promise to them, when they do repent of their sins and come to faith in Christ alone?

“Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:36-39)

The Jews removed themselves and their descendants from God's covenant with Abraham. They cut themselves off from God's covenantal blessings by rejecting and crucifying Christ, and so their spiritual descendants do so today, by continuing in the sins of their fathers. But the good news of the gospel is that because Christ fulfilled God's covenantal conditions, both the Jews and the Gentiles can be grafted into the vine of God's chosen people, through repentance and faith in Christ alone. By faith in Christ, the true Son of the Father, both Jew and Gentile are made true sons of Abraham, true sons of God, true brothers of Jesus Christ, true inheritors of all God's promised covenantal blessings, and God promises that he will be God to them and to their offspring.

In other words, God’s chosen people are all who have faith in Jesus Christ, Jew and Gentile alike!

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:33, 36)