Today there are two Israels: (1) “Israel after the flesh” (1 Corinthians 10:18) and (2) Israel after “the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:6). This is true because “not all of those of Israel are Israel” (Romans 9:6). Those who reject Christ are the “Israel after the flesh,” and those who accept Christ are Israel after “the Spirit.” The “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16) is the church which Jesus built (Matthew 16:18), including “the congregations of Galatia” (Galatians 1:2).
In “the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16) is “neither Jew nor Greek,” for both are “united in Christ Jesus; and if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:28-29). There “is no distinction between the Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is over all, and is generous to all who call upon him” (Romans 10:12).
However, someone asks, “Will not ‘all Israel,’ including ‘Israel after the flesh,’ be saved?” They will “if they do not continue in unbelief” (Romans 11:23, 26).
Jesus came as a Jew (John 4:9), and tasted “death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9), but “his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11). Instead, in unbelief, him they “crucified” (Acts 4:10). It is painful that even today most of “Israel after the flesh” still rejects one of their own. In “the Israel of God,” however, there is “one new man of the two,” Jew and Gentile, with both being reconciled “to God in one body through the cross” (Ephesians 2:15-16).
Does God have a chosen people? Indeed so. All Christians, fleshly Jews and Gentiles, “are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9).
