What is New Israel?

Shall a nation be born at once? is the question asked in surprise. And the answer quite clearly is — Yes, it will. Of the old Israel, that the world has known, Moses had to complain at the start of their sad history, "They are a perverse and crooked generation. …a very forward generation, children in whom is no faith" (Deut. 32:5, 20). The Israel that will enter into millennial blessedness will be a new Israel, born again and therefore cleansed from their old life and ways. The Apostle Peter, writing to the scattered Jewish Christians of the early days, could say to them, "But ye are a chosen generation" (1 Peter 2:9), and he had previously spoken of their having been born again. As regards the new birth, converted Jews of today are advance samples of what will be wrought in the children of Israel, who finally enter the kingdom.

As the result of all this there will be found a new born nation, that will simply loathe the things they formerly loved, and loathe themselves for having indulged in them. They will also love the things they formerly had no desire for. It will be a completely new Israel that will enter into the blessings of the kingdom.

Readers who are even slightly familiar with prophecy cannot fail to see in this scene a picture of Israel's past history and of the Lord's ways toward them in the future. Although they have been driven among the heathen on account of their unfaithfulness, certain bonds still subsist between the people and God. Has not the Lord said through one of their prophets: “Although I have removed them far off among the nations, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries whither they are come” (Ezek. 11:16). But their Elimelech is dead; the only head of the family of Israel, Christ the Messiah, has been cut off; and so the nation has become like a widow deprived of children and barren in the midst of the Gentiles. But when she acknowledges and accepts God's judgment upon her and drinks this cup of bitterness in humiliation, then the dawn of a new day will arise for this poor people. God's ancient Israel, in their ripe old age the object of God's ways in foreign lands, in its bitterness of soul sets out once again to find the blessings of grace. With ancient Israel a new Israel rises up, a Lo-ammi who was “not His people,” but who, springing as it were from Ruth, return as a poor remnant from the fields of Moab in order to become “the people of God.” They are presented to us under the figure of a foreigner because on the basis of the law they have no right to the promises, and because new principles, principles of grace and faith, bring them into relationship with the Lord. On this basis God will recognize them as His people and give them a place of high honor, associating them with the glory of David and of the Messiah. A refreshing fountain has sprung up out of fruitless ground: a fountain which, however, sprang up only at that moment when all human hope was lost. This fountain becomes a stream, a deep, wide river, the river of divine grace carrying Israel to the ocean of messianic and millennial blessings!

Spite of all this, there is a point which is surely significant: that the Priest who puts the incense to the prayer of the saints is not the human priest whom we should expect. His form is angelic; and yet it is most certain that no angel besides is ever seen in such priestly attitude, and that Christ, in order "that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God," had to be in all things made like unto His brethren (Heb. 2:17). It is Christ, surely, who is before us as offering the prayers of the saints to God, and thus we can understand the incense which He can add to them, which is but indeed the fragrance of what He was Himself, and is, for God. But in this case it seems strange that He should be in angel-garb, not human: and this would speak naturally of a certain distance on His part, who is yet interceding. To interpret this, we have to realize the condition of those for whom He intercedes. They are, according to the uniform tenor of what is here, characteristically a Jewish remnant, a remnant chosen by grace out of an otherwise apostate people, and who themselves have to be passed through the refiner's fire in order that they may at last come out the vessel that they are designed to be, for His use. Thus we can understand that they are not as yet in the full apprehension and enjoyment of what Christ is to them, as in after days they will be. Christ Himself is, in a certain sense, standing aloof. His manner, though not His heart, is strange. They cannot fail of ultimate blessing; but it is the time of Jacob's trial, out of which indeed he is to be delivered. To use the figure with which the prophet connects this, it is their finding the bitter pangs of travail which are upon the nation, but out of which a new Israel shall be born, when Jacob shall become Israel, answering now fully to his God-given name.

Hence we see what brotherhood in Israel is, from henceforth. It is in the new life to which men must be born again; that they may enter the kingdom. Israel has become a nation such as never was before, — a people all holy (Isa. 4:3). The new covenant is now their abiding security.

Truly, a strikingly "new thing" on the earth will be seen in the millennial day when the people of Israel who during so many, many centuries had disobeyed Jehovah both under law and under grace, and who had rejected their Messiah both in His humiliation and in His exaltation, turn at long last to the Lord, owning their presumptuous sins and proving His abundant mercy. The whole world's wonder in that day will be that the unclean nation has then become holy to the Lord, that the little has become great, and the weak strong.

The “new thing” is the real, Spirit-wrought, penitence of both Judah and Ephraim, and their joint establishment in their own land in the days of the new covenant. This repentance of both the houses of Israel will be an unprecedented event in the long history of the stiff-necked and obdurate generation. Then the people shall confess their guilt (Isa. 53), and lament for their sins; and there shall be the “great mourning in Jerusalem" (Zech. 12:10-14).

A new generation, under the New Covenant, will share the glory of the kingdom. The fathers, under the old covenant, forfeited all that God gave them, and brought upon themselves the judgment of God; but the children will be princes in all the earth, possessing for the King His wide dominions, for the whole earth will have been brought under His sway. Israel will no longer be "scattered and peeled," but gathered around their Messiah, the Great King; they no longer will be "the tail" among the nations, but will be "the head." They will owe it all to Him whom they once rejected, but whom they will gladly accept in the day of His glory.

Then a time of immense blessing will dawn for Israel. In Jeremiah 31 we read: ‘At that time, saith Jehovah, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. Thus saith Jehovah, The people that were left of the sword have found grace in the wilderness, even Israel, when I go to give him rest. Jehovah hath appeared from afar unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee. I will build thee again, and thou shalt be built, o virgin of Israel! Thou shalt again be adorned with thy tambours, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. Thou shalt again plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall eat the fruit. For there shall be a day when the watchmen upon mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Zion, unto Jehovah our God. For thus saith Jehovah, Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout at the head of the nations, publish ye, praise ye, and say, Jehovah, save thy people, the remnant of Israel’ (Jer. 31:1–7).

It is because of Him, their blessing and that of Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, will be like a new creation. “Rejoice,” therefore we read, “rejoice ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her!” Peace is extended to her like a full-flowing river, and the glory of the nations is like an overflowing stream. Her children are comforted and abundantly blessed (vv. 8-18). This explains that verse, “all Israel shall be saved.” Remembering that “not all are Israel which are of Israel” (Rom. 9:6), we see here the unreal cut off, but not one of the true seed, the true children, are allowed to perish; they are all saved; and this is the time when it takes place. They are truly Israelites; the national adoption-sonship, the glory, the covenants, the law-giving, the service, and the promises, are all theirs. What an honoured nation, lifted up above all nations; no other nation is so near to God; no other nation is so great and so glorious; but it is in Christ they are exalted; and of them, of Israel, “as according to flesh, is the Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”