Introduction
Local churches, some with televised worship services, have become enclaves of ethnicity. In the multiculturalism of the United States, there are individual congregations whose makeup is predominately Norwegian, or German, or Anglo, or Hispanic, or African, or Jewish, or Chinese, or Korean—hyphenated Americans all.. One wonders if such will be the case when the body of Christ, the universal Church, is completed and in heaven. This essay will explore some biblical indicators suggesting that ethnicity will be absent when the Church is completed.
The Biblical Origin of Ethnicity
The scriptural record pinpoints the beginning of the nations and ethnicity. In Gen. 11:6-7, God took ingenious steps to separate the one people that inhabited the earth after the flood. The method God used was to confuse the people’s one language so that they would not understand one another. God then scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. In turn, this gave rise to ethnicity.
Reversal of Ethnicity
On the day of Pentecost following Jesus’ ascension, the gift of the Spirit was poured out upon Jesus’ disciples. One of the bewildering phenomenon that accompanied the Spirit was people from various nations heard each of the disciple’s words in his own language (Acts 2:6).
Since many believers hold that this particular Pentecost in Jerusalem was the beginning of the Church, the language miracle may have signaled for the Church the reversal of what God did as reported in the Genesis account of the city of Babel. If so, God might intend that, in the Church, the former separation into ethnic groups is being reversed. Could that Pentecost have been a harbinger of God’s ethnic cleansing?
Spiritual Gifts and the Demise of Ethnicity
Another phenomenon following on the heels of Pentecost was that the Spirit distributed spiritual gifts to each one in the body of the infant Church (1 Cor. 12:1-10). One of the reasons for the gifts could have been the great disparity resident among members from different nations joined in a single body. The gifts were intended to draw peoples with formerly pronounced ethnic or even jingoistic distinctions into a cohesive, interdependent body. For example, through the gift of teaching, members of the body from one nation (e.g., Ephesians from Asia) would become quite dependent upon members from other nations (e.g., Apollos from Egypt, Priscilla and Aquila from Pontus, and Paul from Tarsus). Note: identification of “nations” during the early church was reported in Acts 2:5-11.
Paul had argued such interdependency among members of the Church body was analogous to the interdependency among members of the human body (1 Cor. 12:14-21). However, once the Church matured and recognized that interdependence between members from different nations was God’s plan for the Church, the gifts were no longer necessary (1 Cor. 13:8; Eph. 4:12-13). Thus continued the demise of ethnicity.
The Church: a New Creation Without Ethnicity
The apostle Paul taught that each member of the Church is a new creature (2 Cor. 5:17). He went on to describe that the new creature is not, among other things, a Greek, or a Jew, or a Scythian (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). In other words, ethnic distinctions disappeared in the new creature. How is this so?
The Body of a New Creature is Made Without Human Hands
In discussing some features of the new creature’s new body, Paul described metaphorically that the new body is, “. . . a building from God, a house not made with hands . . .” (2 Cor. 5:1). Stated in another way, the new body does not derive its origin from human parents—the new body has no ethnic origins.
Prior to an unbeliever being born-again, God provides a new heart and a new spirit (Ezek. 36:26). The Spirit installs, temporarily, that new heart and new spirit in the unbeliever’s flesh—meaning his old body. That body most definitely has ethnic origins as derived from his parents. At physical death, or translation—that is, receiving a new body without undergoing physical death—the newly literate heart, and spirit, are transferred into a body without ethnic origins because it was fashioned by God, not a Jewish husband and Jewish wife by procreation, for example. Ethnic cleansing has occurred in mind and body.
The Transfiguration
Remember Jesus’ transfiguration? Matthew described the event in his gospel (Matt. 17:1-4). Along with Jesus, Moses and Elijah also appeared—in immortal bodies—to Peter, James, and John atop that high mountain located, perhaps, in the Galilee. Moses and Elijah certainly had immortal bodies most certainly with national identity. They were definitely Israelites! Doesn’t this contradict loss of ethnicity among members of Jesus’ Church?
The Nation Israel and the Church
The nation Israel is not the Church; the Church is not the nation Israel.
Israel and the Church do share a number of similarities. For example, both have the same God and His anointed One. Both are a congregation of people, whose members have the same human problem of indwelling sin. Members of both need forgiveness of sins to enjoy an eternal relationship with God. And each is referred to by the same Greek name, ecclesia—the nation Israel in the Greek Septuagint, and the Church in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.
But similarities do not make these two entities identical—like the elephant and the lion. Both have four legs, eyes, and a tail. However, one has a trunk, tusks, and a skin without fur. The other has fur, claws, and stalks to kill prey for food. Everyone would agree that, despite their similarities, the elephant is not a lion and the lion is not an elephant.
Likewise, the nation Israel is not the Church; the Church is not the nation Israel. For example, to combine these two separate and distinct entities is to assert that God breaks His promise and His oath. To wit: God promised unilaterally, sovereignly, and without conditions, the land of Israel (a specific chunk of real estate partially bordered by the Mediterranean Sea) to the embryonic Israelites: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Heb. 11:8-9). Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died without receiving God’s promise, guaranteed by His oath, of a land inheritance (Heb. 6:13-18; 11:8, 13).
Not to worry! God’s promise and oath will be fulfilled in the resurrection. According to Jesus, the proof of resurrection was provided by God Himself in asserting to Moses that, “‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead but the living” (Matt. 22:32). God’s land promise and oath to Israel will be fully fulfilled, not altered or broken.
God made no such land promise or oath to the Church—to the non-Israelite nations that comprise an integral part of Christ’s body. Instead, this new body, the Church—unannounced in the Old Testament, and unprecedented in the annals of human history (Eph. 2:11-16; 3:4-6)—will be an heir, not of land, but of God (Rom. 8:17). So to claim that the Church has permanently replaced the nation Israel effectively negates God’s unconditional land promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
A note of clarification: for a season, God has made the Church manager or administrator of the kingdom on earth instead of the nation Israel (Matt. 21:41). This temporary responsibility of the Church ends at the Church’s removal to heaven (rapture) with the concomitant spiritual renewal of Israeli citizens (1 Cor. 15:50-57 and Ezek. 39:7).
Those of the Church who have suffered with Christ, Peter the Jewish fisherman for example, will be fellow heirs with Christ, the First-born heir of the world (Rom. 4:13 combined with 8:17). Note: first-born heirs were entitled to a double portion of an inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17). All Church members likely share in the first half of the double portion, since Jesus is not the First-born among all the brethren—just many who will also share from the second half of His double portion (Rom. 8:29). Inheriting the world with Christ likely precludes Peter a plot of land in Israel inherited by resurrected (and living) descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the outset of the God-promised Davidic kingdom. Abraham was never promised the world; his Seed—Jesus—was (Gal. 3:16).
At least thirty critical characteristics of the Church distinguish it dramatically from the nation Israel. To name ten of those characteristics in no particular order:
- For individual Church members, Jesus may abide in them and they in Jesus; no record of this relationship exists for Israel as a nation.
- Jesus is the true vine for the Church; Judah was the vine for the nation Israel.
- A Sabbath rest exists for the Church; no such rest exists for nation Israel.
- Church members can live free from enslavement to indwelling sin; all under the Law in the nation Israel are enslaved to indwelling sin.
- Church members can live under grace. Israel as a nation lives exclusively under the Law.
- Church members enjoy forgiveness of sins via Christ’s blood, and have cleansed consciences, while the nation Israel only enjoyed a covering for sins via blood from the animal sacrifices of the tabernacle and temple. Guilty consciences plague the observant citizens of nation Israel because of defilement from their dead works done under sin’s slavery in obedience to the Law.
- The Church is baptized by God’s Spirit into Christ’s body; the nation Israel was baptized into Moses.
- The Church is the bride of Christ. The nation Israel is the wife of God.
- The high priest of the Church is Jesus after the Melchizedekian order. The high priest of the nation Israel can only be a descendant of Levi. Jesus is a descendant of Judah. And finally,
- Like an angelic seraph, the Church’s citizenship is in heaven. The nation Israel’s citizenship is on earth, although some of nation Israel occupies heaven temporarily.
Again, the nation Israel is not the Church; the Church is not the nation Israel. A final example confirming this separate identity is that the apostle Paul, part of the Church’s very foundation, considered himself no longer a Jew. He changed his Jewish name, Saul, to Paul.
In a letter Paul sent to the saints at Corinth, he said that he became as a Jew for Jewish believers who had developed a conscience about eating certain things (1 Cor. 9:20 following 8:9-13; cf. Rom. 15:20 for Paul’s intent). Why would Paul have to act like a Jew if he considered himself still a Jew?
The answer lies in an issue that erupted in the local church at Antioch. Unlike Jerusalem, the Antiochian body was comprised of an ethnically-diverse population. To establish an ethnically-neutral witness, disciples became known as Christians. Even the apostle Simon Barjona, whom Jesus renamed Peter based on his confession of Christ in the foundational credo for Church members, wrote to Jewish believers in the Diaspora, referring to those ethnic Jews as suffering like Christians (1 Pet. 4:16). Peter had been to the Antiochian church (Gal. 2:11).
Therefore, Moses and Elijah, in immortal bodies, maintain their ethnic identity as members of national Israel.
Jesus, the Son of David
Abraham’s Seed is the “Head” of the body, the Church (Col. 1:18). When this Seed, the Son of David, sits on His throne in Jerusalem, He will most assuredly bear the ethnic identity of a Jew. How can Jesus be, simultaneously, an integral part of an ethnically purged body, and the reigning Jewish monarch of a Jewish nation?
Part of the answer lies in the fact that the Bible maintains a distinction between the head and the body. The head is the control center that directs and operates the body. The body, in turn, comprises the members that execute orders from the command center. The head is not the body, only part of it; the body is not the head, but doesn’t function independently of the head.
Another part of the answer is that Old Testament prophets prophesied about a then unnamed Jesus, and His role as Israel’s King, whereas no specific mention whatsoever of His body, the Church, was ever made. Thus, while Jesus can have ethnic identity, His body need not have. Thus, to fulfill prophecy, Jesus will also be known as the Son of David. And while the Head is attached to the body, the Head may wear many hats (or, should we say “crowns”) to fulfill other prophecies featuring God’s Prophet, God’s Anointed, God’s Suffering Servant, and Savior.
Remember, Jesus’ biological father had no ethnicity. The Spirit provided the necessary genetic material to impregnate Jesus’ mother, Mary, making Jesus a truly unique human—unlike each member of His Church. Therefore, it is quite possible for Jesus to be the Son of David (see Matt 1:6 that includes king David in Mary’s genealogy) while His body, the Church, remains ethnically cleansed.
The Believing Remnant of Rom. 11:1-27
Saved Jews are indeed testimony that God has not rejected His people, Israel. But this is not the same as saying the Church is comprised of a distinct and separate remnant–identified as the nation Israel–among all the nations benefiting from God’s promise of blessing to Abraham (cf. Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:8).
The examples Paul gave of believing remnants in Israel’s history were for comparative illustrations only with the Church in its infant history that had likewise developed a believing remnant within its own ranks.
Israel’s history included a remnant in the northern kingdom (Rom. 11:3-4; cf. Rom. 9:25-26 and 9:27-28–a future prophecy yet to be fulfilled) and a remnant in the southern kingdom (Rom. 9:29).
Remember, a remnant is a small part of a larger piece of identical ‘material.’ In the believing remnants of the northern and southern kingdoms, the larger piece of ‘material’–that is, the nation Israel, existed at the time the remnant existed.
Yes, saved Jews in the Church–the larger piece of ‘material’ in Paul’s day–enjoyed the marked distinction of being descendants of Abraham, regarded as Hebrews, and even having a tribal identity—all acknowledging them as being saved out of the nation Israel.
God had not rejected His people. But in the Church, saved Jews did not enjoy the distinction of being part of the nation Israel from 70 A.D. until 1948 because the nation Israel did not then exist during those years. Paul perhaps anticipated this (from Dan. 9:26) because he qualified his argument about a believing remnant in his generation by saying one has come to be “at the present time” (Rom. 11:5) when the nation Israel was under Roman rule.
A believing remnant of Jews could conceivably exist after 1948 when the nation again existed.
In Elijah’s time, as well as in Isaiah’s (cf. Rom. 11: 1-26), the remnant of believing Jews did have the unquestioned distinction of being part of the nation Israel. And in the future, when all Israel will be saved at the outset of the Messianic kingdom, a national distinction will certainly be recognized.
This last part of Paul’s statement in Rom. 11:25-27, however, does not refer to the Church, but rather to believing Jews that become citizens of the Messianic kingdom. Ethnic distinctions will certainly exist in the kingdom, but do not in the Church.
So what was the “remnant” of Rom. 11:5? This remnant existed within the Church among born-again Jews. The remnant consisted of Jews who ‘boasted in God’ (Rom. 2:17) as distinct from the Jews who ’boasted in the Law’ (of Moses, Rom. 2:23). The Jews who boasted in God were also known as ”the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16) and copmprised the “remnant .” Thus, the Church had developed within itself a believing remnant much the same as had the nation Israel in the days of its prophets.
The Jews who boasted in the Law were also known as “the circumcision” (Gal. 2:12) and aggressively promoted putting believing gentiles under the Law of Moses (Acts 15:5). However, the Law of Moses was not the governing ethic for the Church (Rom. 6:14-15).
And at the outset of the Messianic kingdom, all Jews of the nation Israel will boast in God (Jer. 31:34).
Conclusion
One cannot assert dogmatically from the evidence that, in the Church, ethnic cleansing has occurred. However, enough biblical evidence does exist that defies explanation in any other way. What is the value of this study?
Simply this. In the services of local churches, the worship of God ought to be ethnically neutral. Some churches celebrate man’s importance, and responsibilities. Others enthusiastically celebrate their ethnicity with much zeal. However, the clear and consistent testimony of the scriptures suggests that God, alone, should be the object of a believer’s corporate worship.