[I wrote this for a friend of mine, but the topic of God’s chosen people has come up so often, that I thought I would share it with a larger audience.  I hope this is helpful.]

History of Names

“Semite” or “Semitic” is the name of an ethnic, racial, or linguistic group of people originating in the ancient Middle East.  The name originates from the son of Noah named Shem whom all Semite people are descended from.

“Hebrew” is the name of a Semitic group of people who are the descendants of Abraham.  The descendants of Abraham’s first son Ishmael became known as “Arabs,” which means “nomad.”  Other people groups are also included in what we call Arabs today.

Abraham’s second son – and only son through his wife Sarah- was named Isaac.  Isaac was the father of Esau and Jacob. Jacob was later renamed “Israel” by God, which means “struggles with God.”  Esau’s descendents were called the Edomites and Israel’s descendants were called Israelites.  Both were Hebrews.

“Israelite” is the name of the descendants of Abraham’s grandson Jacob.  Before modern times, a land was also called according to the people group who controlled it.  The land that the Israelite people controlled and occupied was always fluctuating, just like it did for everyone else, but whatever land they controlled and occupied was called “the land of Israel” or “Israel.” Their idolatry aside, the Israelites were adherents of a religion that scholars call “Yahwism” or worshipers of Yahweh as taught to them by Moses and written about in the “Torah.”

Around 930 BC the northern ten (or nine) tribes rejected the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem.  The new northern kingdom continued to be called “Israel” and the southern kingdom was called “Judah” or Judea based on the largest and most powerful of the remaining two (or three) southern tribes.  The people of the northern kingdom were called Israelites and the people of the southern kingdom were called “Jews” or Judeans – again, after the largest and most powerful tribe in the southern kingdom.

This is the beginning of the meaning of names getting murky.  After the split in 930 BC, the name Israel or Israelite now had two meanings.  The people of the northern kingdom were both Israelites in the sense that they are descendants of Jacob, but also in the sense that they are of the kingdom of Israel.  The people of the southern kingdom continue to be Israelites in the sense that they also are descendants of Jacob, but as far as the kingdom they are part of, they are not Israelites, but Judeans or Jews.

In 722 BC the Assyrians conquered the kingdom of Israel, scattering its people, and removing any country called “Israel” from the map until the twentieth century AD.

In 586 BC the Babylonians conquered the kingdom of Judah.  Many of the people of the southern kingdom were scattered, but most of them were forcibly relocated to Babylon.  Later, in 539, king Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jews to go back and resettle Jerusalem and the surrounding area.  Most of the Jews did not return, but for the ones who did, the area that they once again occupied and controlled was again called Judea.

Several other military forces conquered the area in the proceeding centuries and continued to scatter its people.  By the first century AD, “Judea” referred to the entire region or the greater Roman administrative province located in the eastern Mediterranean. In the second century AD, Rome renamed this region Syria Palestine.

By the first century, the name “Jew” was already a confusing term.  Anyone – of any race, ethnicity, or religion – from the region or province of Judea could be called a Jew.  Someone who was religiously pagan living in Greece, a Zoroastrian living in Babylon, or a functionally secularist living in Alexandria who was a descendants of Jacob from one of the southern tribes could also be called a Jew.  Or, someone who was neither ethnically nor racially Jewish, but had religiously converted to the religion of Judaism could also be called a Jew.

If the meaning of the word “Jew” or “Jewish” seems murky at this point, you are getting it.  By the first century, it was murky, and still is today.  So what was it that gave these people a common identity if it was not race, religion, or geography?

They were united by a profound sense of in-group loyalty and a belief that to be a Jew meant that you were superior to or more special than other people. This was often, but not always, expressed through the theological lens of being “God’s chosen people.”  Importantly, it is not being an adherent of what Christians call the Old Testament or the teachings of Moses that define the boundaries of what is a Jew.  Many Jews know little to nothing of the Old Testament or give any weight to its guidance in their lives and yet are considered perfectly Jewish.  Again, what unites and defines someone as a Jew is a profound sense of in-group loyalty and a belief in their group’s superiority.

Both of these factors along with their geographic dispersion contributed to their notable financial success and thereby their ability to leverage control over politics.  These factors have also contributed to their friction with other people groups.

As the Roman senator and historian Tacitus wrote (around 105 AD):

They took to collecting dues and contributions in order to swell the Jewish treasury; and other reasons for their increasing wealth may be found in their unrelenting loyalty and eager nepotism towards fellow Jews. But all the rest of the world they hold in contempt with the hatred reserved for enemies.

 

Who & Why God Chooses People

When God chooses someone in the Old Testament or the New Testament, it is always an act of mercy and grace and is for a purpose.  Also, God’s calling does not preclude anyone from the judgment and justice of God.

In other words, when God chooses someone it is not because of how impressive they are or because they have earned it in anyway, they are chosen in spite of how unimpressive, unqualified, and undeserving they are.  God consistently chooses flawed, unimpressive, and unqualified people who are willing to trust and obey Him.

Secondly, God never chooses people for their own benefit, but to serve His purposes for the benefit of others.  God may bless someone that he chooses with material wealth, political influence, martial prowess, a large family, or special abilities, but those blessings are always for the sake of others and for the sake of God’s rescuing purposes in the world.

It is important to note that in many instances we may look at the lives of the people God calls and determine that they do not seem very blessed at all.  For them, being chosen by God doesn’t mean a long, fulfilling, prosperous life, but a life of suffering, a life that does not allow for family, or possibly an early death.  For these people, the only blessing of being chosen may be faithfulness itself.

Third, when God chooses a person or a people for a special purpose, God may revoke that calling if the person or people become unfaithful to God and the mission God has given them.

In summary, if God chooses someone, it does not mean that person or people are special or amazing, it means that God is special and amazing.  If God chooses a person or a people, whether being chosen works out to their benefit or not is irrelevant, they were not chosen for their own benefit, but for the sake of others.  And being chosen does not mean that anyone is free of being held accountable by God or free from the judgment and justice of God.  God’s chosen people are often held to a higher standard.

 

God’s Chosen People in the Old Testament

God had a number of chosen people in what Christians call the Old Testament, but for our purposes we will stick with a brief overview of what is most commonly discussed as God’s chosen people – the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In the beginning pages of Genesis we are introduced to a God who created all things and made all things in beauty, order, and goodness.  This God also specially made people to reflect His image or presence in the world in a unique and significant way.  God gave people special influence in creation and a special purpose in cultivating it. God also gave them free will.  They had the capacity to choose God and his leadership in their lives, or reject it.  One day, the people rejected it, rejected God, his leadership and authority in their lives.  As soon as they did, things started breaking – breaking between them and God, between each other, and between them and creation, and even creation itself.  It released a poison that would eventually works its way through all that God had made.

But God did not give up on them.  God loved them, showed kindness to them, and promised that one day a son of Eve would come who would fight against evil itself, and he would win – he would break the curse – but would die in the process.

Fast forward in the Biblical story past Abel, Seth, Enoch, and Noah – all people whom God chose – to a man named Abram, who God later renames Abraham. When God chose and called Abram, he was a wealthy, childless, pagan idol worshiper (Joshua 24:2-3) with flawed character living in what today is southern Turkey.  God chose Abram for a purpose and promised to bless him for the sake of others.  God would make a great people group out of him and make him famous, “so that you will be a blessing” . . . and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12).

We see in the story of Abraham the pattern of God’s chosen people.  God almost always chooses to use people who are meaningfully flawed in order to make it clear that it is God who is special and amazing.  And God chooses people, including Abraham, to serve God’s purposes in blessing, healing, and rescuing the world.

For all his flaws, Abraham had the qualities that God looks for in a person – a willingness to trust and obey God.

God chose Abraham to be the father of a missionary people or family; a people or family who would be a light and witness to the sovereignty and goodness of God to all the people groups of the world and to be the family through which the rescuer would come into the world.

Later, in numerous places God reasserts these concepts to the people of Israel over and over again of what it means to be God’s chosen people.

In Exodus 19:5-6, God says to the people of Israel, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, ⁶ you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”    Notice the big and important “if” here.  But also notice the purpose of their calling or chosen-ness – to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”  Priests are people who teach people about God, the ways of God, and represent God to others.  And the word holy, simply means “set apart” or “set apart for a specific purpose.”  In other words, God is saying, if you obey me, if you follow me, I will make you a nation of missionaries to the other people groups of the world. I will bless you to be a blessing.  I am choosing you for the sake of others.

In Deuteronomy 7:6-9 and chapter 9, God makes clear to the Israelites that they were not chosen because they were impressive in any way or even particularly obedient or easy to deal with, but God chose them despite themselves, for God’s purposes.

Leviticus 26:14- 39, Deuteronomy 8:19-20, God reiterates to the Israelites that if they become disobedient and immoral, that God will bring judgment on them just as he is using them to bring justice on other people groups for their evil ways.

It is interesting to note that in Exodus 32 and Numbers 14, because of the Israelite’s rebellion, God almost destroys the entire Israelite people group and starts the whole project over with Moses.

The rest of the Old Testament is largely a story of God’s faithfulness and the Israelite people’s unfaithfulness.  Throughout Israel’s history God sends prophet after prophet calling the people back to God and to moral living. Eventually these prophets begin warning and foretelling of God’s coming judgment on the people of Israel.  “God’s chosen people” became worse than the people they were called to be a witness to.  One day, God’s final judgment on the people of Israel would come.  Just like God drew his people out of Egypt long ago, with a new Moses, God would draw a remnant out of Israel; God’s kingdom people led by God’s Messiah into a new covenantal community that would finally be a light to all nations.

 

Additional References In the Old Testament Regarding God’s Justice, Mission, and His Chosen People

 

• Leviticus 26 – God promises that if Israel is disobedient and immoral, they will be destroyed just like the other nations, but if they repent, God will forgive them and rescue them.
• Deuteronomy 4:5-8 – God commands the Israelites to carefully follow God’s teachings so that they can be a good witness to other people groups.
• Isaiah 42:1-9 – Isaiah foretells the coming of Jesus the Messiah who will make a new covenant people who will fulfill God’s mission to the nations.
• Isaiah 49:1-7 – Isaiah foretells the coming of the Messiah who will gather up the remnant and lead them in being a light to the nations and become the king of kings.
• Isaiah 53 – Prophecy about the sacrifice of the coming Messiah
• Jeremiah 5:15-19 – God’s judgment is coming on the people of Israel, but God will save a remnant.
• Jeremiah 31:31-34 – Jeremiah prophesies a new covenant to replace the old covenant and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
• Ezekiel 5-7 – God declares his coming judgment on Israel and Jerusalem for their evil ways.
• Hosea – A prophetic book about God’s coming judgment on Israel and Judah and a call to repentance.
• Joel – A prophetic book about God’s coming judgment on the Kingdom of Judah and a call to repentance.
• Amos – A prophetic book about God’s coming judgment on Israel and that a remnant will be saved.
• Jonah – A prophetic book about God’s grace and rescuing love for all people and the missionary role God wants his people to play in the world.
• Micah – A prophetic book declaring God’s coming judgment on Israel and Judah
• Habakkuk – A prophetic book of prayer seeking God’s justice in the face of all the evil ad corruption Habakkuk sees around him among the people of Judah.
• Zephaniah – A prophetic book declaring the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem that ends with a promise to save a remnant of faithful people.
• Zechariah – A prophetic pointing to God’s restoration of a holy people through the coming Messiah.

 

God’s Chosen People in the New Testament

The New Testament is a compilation of writings about God’s prophecy-fulfilling Messiah, Jesus, and His newly-constituted missional people, his new covenant people, the called-out remnant, God’s chosen people, the “Israel of God,” the Church.

Jesus fulfills hundreds of Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah and God’s rescue of the world.  This is a degree of foreshadowing and fulfillment far beyond the wildest ambitions of the most talented authors.

In keeping with God’s promises, Jesus leads a faithful remnant into covenant faithfulness to God and the mission of God.  God’s chosen people recognize God’s Messiah when he comes, say “yes” to his grace, mercy, forgiveness, and lordship, and carry his message of rescue and belonging to the other people groups of the world.  Jesus and his people are the living fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, that “all peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.”  Through the work of Jesus and his Church, God is making a holy, missional family of all people who say “yes” to Him.

Jesus and the New Testament reassert the Old Testament claim that what it means to be a child of Abraham and God’s chosen people has never been about genetics or ritualistic observance, but about faithful, trusting, obedience to God.

The coming of the Messiah was a divisive event in Jewish life.  Christianity was originally a sect of Judaism.  None of Jesus followers would have seen themselves as following Jesus into a different faith, but following Jesus as the fulfillment of their faith.  Jesus and his followers continued to go to the synagogue, worship in the temple, and study Torah.  As their missionary efforts spread, they focused first on sharing their message with other Jewish people and regularly shared the Good News in synagogues around the Mediterranean world.  Unique among Jewish sects, Christianity was expressly open and inclusive to gentiles, but Jewish people who had been gathering in their synagogues week after week, generation after generation studying the teachings and promises of God, were the intuitive place to start spreading the Good News of Jesus the Messiah.

Eventually though, the divide over the Messiahship of Jesus came to a breaking point among the Jewish people.   It was never an easy relationship.  One group thought – and still thinks – Jesus was the lying, blaspheming, heretical son of a promiscuous woman who deserved to be tortured and killed . . . and the other group believed Jesus was the long awaited savior, Son of God, and author of life itself.  Add to that the influx of gentiles into the Christian sect and the divisive event of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the union was just not sustainable.

Many Jewish people saw Jesus for who he was and became his followers, but many did not.

Numerous times in the Old Testament, large portions of God’s chosen people rejected God, His teachings, His lordship in their lives, and the mission He had for them.  Over and over again, the result was just as God had promised; those people were cut off and – in one way or another – destroyed.  God always saved a remnant for himself to carry on his project of rescuing the world through fallen humanity and maintaining his promise to Abraham.  The same thing happened in Jesus’ day.  When the long-awaited Messiah came, Jews who followed Jesus where the rightful heirs of God’s promise to Abraham, and those who rejected him were cut off.

Christians (both Jewish and Gentile Christians) are God’s chosen people, heirs of the promise, and the true children of Abraham.  Everyone else is the mission field, the lost sheep that the Good Shepherd longs to bring into His fold.

 

Additional References In the Old Testament Regarding God’s Chosen People

• Matthew 23:1-39 – Jesus teaches that the Pharisees lead people away from God instead of towards God.
• 28:18-20 – Jesus commissions his followers to take up the charge of being God’s missionary people to the nations.
• Luke 3:7-9 – John the Baptist teaches that being a child of Abraham is not about genetics but about repentance and obedience to God.
• Luke 13:22-30 – Jesus teaches that people from all over the world will enter the Kingdom of God with “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets”, but many prominent Jewish people will not.
• Luke 13:34 – Jesus expresses God’s love for the people of Jerusalem and grieves their continual rejection of God and his messengers.
• Luke 24:44 – “He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
• John 8:31-47 – Jesus tells the Jewish leaders that oppose him that they are not legitimate children of Abraham and suggest that Satan is their father.
• Acts 3:11-16 – Peter testifies to crowds outside of the Jerusalem temple that Jesus was both Messiah and God and the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.
• Acts 13:13-52 – Paul addresses a Jewish crowd regarding the promises of God being fulfilled in Jesus.
• Acts 13:46-47 – ⁴⁶ Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. ⁴⁷ For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6).’”
• Romans 2:28-29 – “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.”
• Romans 4 – Paul writes about being a child of Abraham is a matter of having the faith OF
• Romans 9:1-5 – Paul writes about his anguish for his fellow Jews who have yet to recognize Jesus as the Messiah; even wishing that he were “cursed and cut off” instead of them.
• Romans 9:6-7 – “For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they Abraham’s children.”
• Romans 9-11 – Paul writes about unbelieving Jews and his heart for them.
• Galatians 3:7 – “Those who have faith are children of Abraham.”
• Galatians 3:29 – “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
• Galatians 6:15-16 – “¹⁵ Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation. ¹⁶ Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.”
• I Peter 2:9-10 – “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. 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.”

 

Common Questions & Misconceptions

Modern Judaism & Old Testament Faith

Many Christians today wrongly assume that the religion of Judaism today is the equivalent of an Old Testament faith or reflective of the same religion and religious landscape of the Jewish people found in the New Testament.  Another way to say this is that many Christians think that Jewish people today are people who have an Old Testament faith.

There are a number of reasons why this is not accurate.

The religion of Judaism has changed significantly over the past two thousand years.  One of the most significant changes was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70AD.  That event ended what we call Second Temple Judaism.  What came afterwards was what we call Rabbinical or Talmudic Judaism.

Much of Rabbinical Judaism is based on a different set of writings from the Old Testament called the Talmud which contains commentaries (Mishnah) and commentaries on commentaries (Gemara) on what Christians call the Old Testament and Jews call the Tanak.

Modern Judaism is not monolithic.  There are also a number of different religious sects in modern Judaism – Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionism, Renewal, and a few others.

Like the first century, someone does not have to be religiously Jewish to be considered Jewish.  While it would be contradictory for someone to claim to be a Christian and an atheist at the same time or a “Christian atheist,” it is not contradictory for a Jew to claim that they are a Jewish Atheist.  It’s the intra-group identity and loyalty that counts. They often refer to themselves as “The Tribe” or “The People.”

In an article in the Times of Israel, New York University Professor Lawrence Schiffman addresses the question, “What is Judaism?” in an article entitled, “Judaism Today is Not Biblical Judaism.”  In it Schiffman, “stresses that Judaism is not a single view of God, the world, and human duties. It is a collection of divergent religious, cultural, and legal traditions and civilization of the Jewish people as developed, changed and passed down from biblical time until today.”

Importantly for Christians, modern Judaism is not the root of Christianity or Christianity’s “older brother.”  It is the religion that rejected God’s messiah and developed a religion shaped by that decision.  From the Christian perspective, they are no more or less special than any other group of people who do not acknowledge the authority and rescue of Jesus.

Semite and Anti-Semite

As mentioned above, “Semite” or “Semitic” is the name of an ethnic, racial, or linguistic group of people originating in the ancient Middle East.  Today there are many distinct groups that are Semitic including Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians.

The term “Anti-Semite” was coined in the 19^th century by a German named Wilhelm Marr.  Marr wrote a short book called The Victory of Judaism Over Germanism and founded the “League of Anti-Semites.”  He was concerned that Jewish dominance and control over German finance and industry would lead to the destruction of the German culture and people and advocated for their forced removal from Germany.

While the word Semite still accurately refers to the larger Semitic people group, since Marr’s time, the term “Anti-Semite” has referred specifically to the Jewish people.

 

Are Modern Jews Genetic Descendants of Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob?

In their own words, no.

“People who identify as Jewish include individuals of enormously diverse geographic origins and physical appearances, making the idea that Jews could easily be designated a race in the sense of shared physical or biological characteristics implausible. . . Centuries of dispersion among other racial and ethic groups have broadened the Jewish gene pool to an extent that it’s impossible to identify a common set of genetic markers that biologically distinguish Jews from others. Even as far back as biblical times, Jews have possessed, and passed on, genetic markers that came from outside the community.“ (MyJewishLearning.com)

But, according to ReformedJudiasm.org, even if someone does have “Jewish genetic ancestry, that’s not the same as being a Jew.  Our religious and cultural identity is determined not only by our DNA or our genetic lineage. Being Jewish means that one is a member of the Jewish people . . . [Additionally] Someone who becomes Jewish by conversion is Jewish regardless of their DNA or genetic heritage.”

 

What Are Christians’ Responsibility To The Modern State of Israel

No more than any other country in the world.

The reason some Christians believe otherwise is due to an unbiblical theology developed and propagated in the 19^th century by John Darby and Cyrus Scofield called Dispensationalist Theology.

Contrary to reality, they believed that there was a group of people on the planet today who were the intact direct descendants of the ancient Israelites called Jews.  Contrary to the Bible they taught that this group of people are God’s chosen people and would be “re-grafted” into God’s plan of salvation and that a country called Israel would be, or need to be, re-established before the end of times.  In 1948, that happened.

This isn’t a paper on Dispensationalist Theology and its departures from Biblical and historic Christianity regarding salvation, the role of the sacrificial system, grace, the Kingdom of God, the role and purpose of the church, God’s activity and purposes in the world, and several other issues.

Unfortunately it was as popular as it was wrong – and its influence on American foreign policy is unfortunate, costly, and deadly.

As followers of Jesus we should hope and pray for the wellbeing of all people and that all people would come to know the love, forgiveness, and rescue of Jesus.  No one gets special status in this regard.