Metaphors of the Church: The People of God

When Yahweh called Abraham and gave him a promise, there were already identifiable peoples, masses of humans who belonged together, nations we would say, and ethnic groups, and cultural groups. So God said,

^12:1 Yahweh had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. ² “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

Abraham was going to become a people, united in terms of being from Abraham’s seed and in terms of having God’s promise.

Then, after they had become a massive group enslaved in Egypt, God told them,

⁷ Yahweh said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:7,8)

And,

⁶ “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. (Exodus 6:6,7)

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. (Deuteronomy 7:6)

Eight hundred years later, when Israel had broken covenant with Yahweh and was living in open rebellion, Yahweh announced to Israel through Hosea at the birth of his child,

⁹ Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God… ¹⁰ “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’  (Hosea 1:9,10)

Israel becomes Gentiles to God, other nations, not His nation, His people until she comes back into covenant with God, worshiping Him alone and obeying His law. By that same token, Gentiles and Jews who put their faith in Jesus, God’s Messiah, become God’s people (Romans 9:26). They are not ethnically or even culturally related but are related by faith in Christ.

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household (Ephesians 2:19)

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9,10)

Is Israel still God’s people? Paul says yes,

^11:1 I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. ² God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. (Romans 11:1,2)

Israel is the people (ha ‘am in Hebrew, ho laos in Greek) among all the peoples (Ex 3:11) and is designated ‘My people’ by God (ammi in Hebrew, ho laos mou in Greek) making Him their God, a mutual ownership that constitutes a kind of humbling on God’s part.  Israel is a holy (set apart) nation, chosen (selected out of all other nations) to serve and bear witness to Yahweh’s greatness before all peoples, God’s special treasure (Deuteronomy 7:6). Israel becomes God’s people by entering into covenant with Him (Deuteronomy 27:9; Jeremiah 31:33) and can lose status as God’s people by violating covenant (Hosea 1:10), and non-Jews can become part of God’s people by entering into covenant with Him (Ruth 1:16; see Romans 9:26; Ephesians 2:19; John 10:14-16)

The church has become God’s people by virtue of our relationship to Jesus and have joined Jewish believers as God’s people (Ephesians 2:19). Israel the nation is still God’s people, though enemies for the gospel’s sake, awaiting their conversion as a nation and reconstitution as a covenanted people (Romans 11:28).

We bear the responsibility as God’s people of covenant obedience and loving witness to His greatness and salvation, demonstrating all this by our holy lives and recognizing our continuity with Israel, His people.