The Church And Israel Share a Destiny

The Identity of the Church

A contingency of Messianic Jews presented their position to a group of highly regarded Roman Catholic theologians, in some cases connected to the highest levels of leadership in that church body. We were responding to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the church. After our presentation, there was stunned silence. Revelation had broken through. Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna spoke up and embraced the Messianic Jewish position. He later opened the door for the presentation to be presented in article form in the prestigious journal First Things! (See Mark Kinser, Messianic Jews and Gentiles, Jan. 1, 2009).

What was so amazing to the gathered thinkers? In our presentation, we noted with gratitude that the Catholic Church had officially repudiated replacement theology or supersessionism, the view that the church had replaced ethnic Israel as God’s elect people and the instrument of the salvation of the nations. The church, not ethnic Israel, in this view was the recipient of God’s promises, and Israel was now to be considered merely as other nations. We are indeed thankful that this view has been rejected.

However, the description of the church was deficient. The Catholic statements acknowledged that the church was born out of Israel, but subsequent to its birth, it is described as a reality of its own, disconnected from corporate ethnic Israel. However, a fair reading of the New Covenant Scriptures shows that the identity of the church is not just a corporate Body birthed from Israel, but a corporate Body in inseparable union with corporate ethnic Israel.

This becomes quite clear from reading Romans 11 when read with the idea of the identity of the church in mind. The church is that body of people composed of people from all nations that are made one with the saved remnant of Israel (Paul’s designation of Jewish disciples of Yeshua in Romans 11:5). The Jewish Yeshua/believers are the first fruits (Romans 11:16) that show that the whole lump of dough (ethnic Israel) is still holy. The biblical analogy for the people of God is the Olive Tree. The Yeshua/believers from the nations are grafted into this Olive Tree. But what is the Olive Tree? It is called the cultivated Olive Tree and represents the people of God that existed before the coming of Yeshua.

That Olive Tree, before the day of Pentecost, was the people of God from Abraham, and was primarily ethnic Israel. Even the branches that are described as broken, are still the branches of that tree and are preserved to be grafted back, and thus all ethnic Israel will be saved (Romans 11:23-26). Yeshua is the King of Israel. The Messianic Jews are the saved remnant of Israel, the first fruits, that sanctifies the whole (11:16).

So when Yeshua/believers from the nations, from wild olive trees, are grafted into the cultivated Olive Tree, they are corporately connected to Israel.These branches remain in their ethnic identity when they are called (I Cor. 7:17) which fits agricultural grafting, but they are part with ethnic Israel through their union with Yeshua and the Messianic Jews, now known as the church. Hence Ephesians 2:19 can call the church the commonwealth (of Israel) in the RSV translation. The church is as to its identity, the commonwealth of Israel without replacing Israel analogously to the commonwealth of the United Kingdom, all under the King of England without replacing England, but tied to England through their King. In other words, the meaning of the commonwealth is an expansion of the People of God beyond ethnic Israel.

The identity of the church is in its essence a Jewish connected reality and a tied to Jewish destiny reality. This was the understanding that brought stunned amazement. The Messianic Jews are the Jewish component of the church and the saved remnant of Israel. They are part of both and the bridge between or over lap between Israel and the church. They with the Gentile Yeshua/believers constitute the “One New Man” without dissolving the Jewish identity of Jewish members or the ethnic identities of the Gentiles. I should note that the church, as the child of the Jewish people, is also part of the future identity of Israel (as a parent finds their identity in their children)!