Who Are the Real Jews?

Who are the real Jews?

This is a really long explanation of the question above, but I think it’s important that we are able to answer it, especially with all the antisemitism and replacement theology floating around. I pieced together this article from a few different teachers and professors. Hope it helps.

About 3 weeks ago, Todd and I watched an online debate between an evangelical pastor who had a dispensational view of eschatology, an evangelical teacher who didn’t have a dispensational view of eschatology, a Catholic theologian, and an Eastern Orthodox pastor regarding “Who are the real Jews?”. All 4 of them had different answers. They can’t all be true.

As I listened to this debate, I wondered why some of these guys didn’t refer much to Scripture and why some of them only took a passage or 2 out of the Bible to prove their point and relied much more heavily on recorded historic stories. One thing is for sure, they can’t all be right.

There is only 1 truth because truth is an exclusive term. Can you take a genealogy test to see if you have any Jewish blood in you? Yes you can, but I’m not sure why you’d want to prove that. Recently, when Tucker Carlson interviewed Mike Huckabee, he posed the question, “Well then, why can’t we just have all the people who live in Israel and who call themselves Jews take a genetic test? We have the capability to do that.

Why don’t we just do it?”. So Tucker, you want to force 7 1⁄2 million people to take a genetics test? I think they have a few more important things going on right now than investing in 7 1⁄2 million genetics tests for their citizens. And what would they do after those tests? This is one of the most asinine things I’ve ever heard Tucker say, and believe me, he’s said some pretty asinine things!

In Scripture being a Jew included 3 things:

1. Ethnicity - Being Jewish is a nationality. You cannot convert to an ethnicity. A Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Bible.

2. Religion - Being Jewish meant following the God of the Jews. If you were a Gentile, you could follow the God of the Jews and be part of their religious faith.

This happened repeatedly throughout Scripture. Some of the foreigners around the land of Egypt left Egypt with Moses because they believed in the God of the Jews. Rahab the harlot was not an ethnic Jew, but she believed in the God of the Jews. Ruth was a Moabite who believed in the God of the Jews. Both Rahab and Ruth ended up being in the lineage of Jesus.

3. Land - Nationality. You can join a nation if you become a citizen of that nation and agree to follow the rules of their land. In the ancient world, nations had gods. If you moved to certain areas, you would be expected to worship the gods attached to that nation. Rahab and Ruth became part of the nation of Israel because they accepted the God of Israel. But today, you can be part of a nation without worshiping the god/s of that nation.

This entire ancient construct is difficult to explain to today’s modern mind because we don’t always think about national identities in the way that the ancients did. There is an unbroken chain of Jewish tradition with communities from Moses all the way to today. This is very well-documented.

If the Jews of today are not the Jews of the Bible, then when did they stop being the Jews of the Bible? Did they stop being Jews in the 2nd century or the 16th century or the 20th century? The claim that modern Jews are not the real Jews is a fairly recent claim (last 50 or so years). If you were a replacement theologist like Martin Luther (15th century) or St. Augustine (5th century) or any number of Catholic popes, and you made claims that the Jewish people of the Bible lost their covenant with God and thus they lost their land, then how would you explain that they are back in the land?This presents a major problem.

How do you get around the problem that the covenant God made with the Jewish people is real since they are back in the land? There’s only one way to get around this problem. You have to deny that the Jewish people are back in their land and the only way to do this is to say that the Jews of today aren’t actual Jews. That’s it and that is unfortunately exactly what is going on across the world.

When the people of Israel were in exile for nearly 2000 years, they were still considered a distinct people group. I do not deny that this can be very confusing. Because of this, the Jews were frequently thought of only in terms of religion. And because they were scattered across the world and intermarried, now you have the issue of ethnicity. I heard an excellent example of how to look at this issue.

Let’s say you work for a company and then you decide to quit and go work for another company. Does the 1st company cease to exist since you decided that you weren’t going to work for them anymore? Of course not! It has a life of its own. Like the company, the Jewish people continued to be a national entity even though they were out of the land and in exile to other countries. They never gave up on their claim to the land of Israel because it was gifted to them by God. Israel throughout history was never occupied by another local sovereign entity.

If the Jews were not governing, some external invading, foreign power was. Since Joshua crossed the Jordan River and conquered the land, there have always been some Jewish people who lived there. There have been times that the number of ethnic Jews in the area has been extremely small, but still, there have been Jews living in the land of Israel since Joshua’s day. There were ethnic Jews who were not taken into Babylonian captivity. There were ethnic Jews who remained in Israel after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

Tucker Carlson’s repeated hammering at Ambassador Huckabee regarding the parameters of the land of Israel was not answered adequately (in my opinion). God laid out the parameters for Abraham in Gen. 13:14-17 when He told Abraham to look in all 4 directions (north, south, east, and west) and walk through the length and breadth of the land and He promised to give him and his descendants the land forever.

Again in Gen. 15:18-21, He explained the boundaries of the land as being from the Euphrates River to all the places where the “ites” lived. Never ever has Israel occupied all of the land that God gave to them. That will not happen until the millennial reign of Christ. The nation of Israel today is not trying to occupy all of that land mass as it was laid out in Scripture. Does it belong to them?

Yes it does because God said it does, but it will be a while before that happens. Tucker kept saying, “Are you saying that Israel has a right to own that entire land mass?”. I wish Huckabee had answered with some of what I just laid out. Tucker asked questions with an embedded answer. This is not a way to get to the truth. It would be like asking someone, “When did you stop going out on your husband?”. There’s a lot of assumptions hidden within questions that are posed in this manner.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have maintained incredible records of their people. Some of that changed with the holocaust. Many children who were placed secretly in the homes of European people were never discovered after the war and their genealogy was likely either secretive or forgotten as time went on. That said, there are plenty of Jews in the world to establish them as a distinct ethnic category.

Let me ask you a few very basic questions. If the Jews are not the Jews, then why is there rampant antisemitism and hatred? If there’s no such thing as a true Jew, then why is there unrest in the Middle East? If Israel has been replaced and the Jews of today are not the ancestors of the biblical Jews, then why are all of these “so-called” Christians screaming about this?

Whenever you want to see what Scripture has to say on any topic, you must look at the entire Bible, not just a verse here or there taken out of context. Nothing except the full counsel of God is sufficient to answer this question.

The word Israel appears in the New Testament about 80 times. And it is never used to describe someone who is not ethnically Jewish. When the Church was started on Pentecost, it was composed of both Jewish and Gentile believers. “To the Jew first and also to the Greek...” (Rom. 1:16) This tells us that the Gospel was prioritized first to the Jew and then to everyone else. This acknowledges that salvation is a universal concept, but its beginnings are with the Jew. It doesn’t mean that Jews are better than anyone else. This has to do with the sequencing of the spread of the Gospel. This also acknowledges God’s eternal covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

Abraham was a Jew.

Isaac was a Jew.

Jacob was a Jew.

The 12 tribes of Israel were Jews.

The 12 disciples were Jews.

Paul was a Jew.

Jesus was a Jew.

Rom. 2:28-29 is probably the first set of verses that are used by those who adhere to replacement theology (the belief that the Church has replaced Israel). The Apostle Paul had a lot to say about where the Jewish people fit into God’s overall picture. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

Rom. 9:6 But it is not as though the Word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. Gal. 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Is Paul saying here that the Jews are not really the Jews or that the ethnic Jews are not really the ethnic Jews? There are some who would say that is exactly what he is saying. However, I vehemently disagree with this! Paul was a Jew writing to Jews. Wonder how they felt about all of this? No doubt the Jewish leadership was ticked off with these words.

In all of these verses, Paul was implying that although he was born an ethnic Jew, he did not connect with the Jewish Messiah until he was born again. He might have been Jewish in his ethnicity, but he was not Jewish spiritually until he accepted Yeshua. In other words, not all ethnic Jews are believers.

Is there a difference between being a Jew in the flesh and a Jew in the spirit? Whenever Paul went into a city, he went to the synagogues first because it was necessary to go to the Jews first. None of the apostles and writers of the New Testament had the New Testament. The only Scripture they had was the Old Testament. We are so fortunate that we have both and goodness, how we take this for granted!

Is. 46:3 Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been born by Me from before your birth, carried from the womb. Is. 48:1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.

What these verses indicate is that there was a remnant who still wanted to worship God in spirit. Even a remnant of believing Jews still needed to confess their sin and call out to God. At one time, Job was the most righteous and blameless man on the face of the earth. God even said so when Satan came before Him. Did that mean that Job was perfect? Absolutely not. Job realized this as well and this righteous, blameless man repented before God.

Repentance is the key to salvation. If you look back through Israel’s history, many Jews turned to idol worship and forsook God. Deuteronomy 28 outlines the blessings of God for following His commandments and the curses of God for not following His commandments.

Not one Old Testament prophet ever said or even suggested that ethnic Jews were not ethnic Jews. All of the Old Testament prophets and all of the New Testament writers called out to Israel to repent of their sins and put their faith in Yeshua. Salvation was the same for them as it is for us. There is, after all, only 1 way to get to heaven and that is by faith in Jesus Christ.

So now, we have to make a distinction between:

Ethnic Israel - descents of Abraham

Spiritual Israel - those who believe in Yeshua

Is. 49:14-15 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

I encourage you all to read the first 2 chapters of Hosea. Hosea married a whore. God told him to. And God used that analogy to tell Israel that they had gone whoring after other gods and that there would be a price to pay for that kind of disobedience. It may sound as if God has completely abandoned them in chapter 1. But then when we get over to chapter 2, after the punishment has taken place, God tells them in Hosea 2:19-20 And I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.

Being disciplined and being forsaken are 2 different things. God disciplines us because He loves us and He wants us to come back into the fold with Him. Sometimes He does leave us to our own evil devices, but even that does not mean that He has forsaken us. To forsake someone means to completely abandon that person. During my years as a counselor, I’ve had children whose parents have surrendered their parental rights because that was the only way they could get help for their child. Being in state custody means that the state has to foot the bill for the care of the child. It always makes me sad when this happens, but when it does, almost always the parent who makes this difficult decision does so in love and in much turmoil.

Then there are other kids whose parents don’t want the hassle of being parents or don’t want to pay child support. Those parents have forsaken their children and believe me, that affects that child for the rest of their lives.

If we belong to God, He will never forsake us. He may discipline us and He may do so harshly at times, but He does not ever give us away and cut ties with us. To say that God has replaced Israel with the Church is to say that God has forsaken them and it is not in His nature to forsake His own children. The Bible tells us repeatedly that He will not forsake us. (Heb. 13:5, Deut. 31:6-8, Deut. 31:23, Joshua 1:5, 1 Chron. 28:20, 1 Kings 8:57, Isaiah 41:10, Psalm 94:14, Psalm 37:28, Psalm 23:4, Isaiah 43:2, Matt. 28:20, Gen. 28:15, 1 Sam. 12:22)

In Matt. 21:43 “Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing fruits” who is Jesus speaking to? He is speaking to the corrupt leaders of that time. He is telling them that they are bad shepherds and that they are not shepherding the people the way that He wanted them to. They look like sheep with no shepherd. He was telling them that their authority was going to be taken from them and given to others.

Right after the above rebuke, comes this one: Matt. 23:39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”. It is important to note here that this is a rebuke, not a replacement. The rebuke of bad shepherds happened throughout the Bible. Even though God will replace the bad shepherds with good shepherds, Israel still remains Israel. Gal. 3:7-9 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith’. Abraham was promised a seed (Yeshua) and he was also promised the land. It was given to physical/ethnic Israel out of which Yeshua came. If you embrace Yeshua, you become part of spiritual Israel, but you don’t change the color of your skin. You don’t become ethnic Israel.

A Jew who is not believing in Yeshua does not become a non-Jew. There is the spiritual and the non-spiritual. You become a son of Abraham in the faith but you cannot be physically a son of Abraham.

Gal. 6:16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. Key word is the last “and”. Some translations say “which are’. Gentiles who embrace the faith and Jews who embrace the faith. A lot of theologians point to 2 verses that we have studied in our study of Revelation to say that the Jews of today are not the Jews of the Bible and they point out that even during John’s day, when he wrote Revelation, John believed that all Jews were not Jews.

The first is to the church at Smyrna: Rev. 2:9 I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

The second is to the church at Philadelphia; Rev. 3:9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie, behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you.

There are 3 options to explain these 2 verses according to non-Jewish theologians:

1. Yeshua is referring to Roman pagans who are impersonating Jews and coming to the synagogues and creating chaos, but they’re loyal to Caesar.

2. Believers from the Gentiles who say that the Church replaced Israel. These Gentiles are saying that they are Jews, but they are not.

3. Jews persecuting other Jews. Yeshua is rebuking Pharisees. (Acts 15:1-5) These verses refer to Judiazers who were trying to convert the Gentiles. Jesus is telling them that they can remain Gentiles and still follow Him. (Gal. 1:6-7) In these verses, the Judiazers were telling people that they must become Jews to be saved. But Paul clarifies this issue in (Gal. 3:1) when he explains that conversion is conversion of the heart, not of the flesh.

At no place in the Bible does God say that the Jews are not the Jews. It is people who claim that they are Jews but they are not. Anyone who claims to be a Jew but is not is of the synagogue of Satan.

Conclusion:

1. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that a Jew who doesn’t follow Yeshua is not a Jew in the flesh or not Jewish anymore. How can you provoke them to jealousy if they’re not Jewish anymore?

2. Nowhere in the New Testament do we read where Pharisees come into congregations and say “We are the real Jews and you are not.” Jewishness is an ethnic thing. The issue is “Are you saved?” not “Are you a Jew?”. Nowhere in the New Testament do we have Gentiles who follow Yeshua being called Jews. Faith has nothing to do with ethnic origin. These replacement theologists have mixed ethnicity and spirituality. Rabinical teachings and some traditional non-biblical teaching have mixed up religion and

ethnicity.

You cannot be born a Christian. You are a Christian if you follow Yeshua. You cannot be born a Muslim. You’re a Muslim if you follow Mohammad.

What is the plan of God for Israel in the future?

The rapture of the Church has nothing to do with whether the Jews are back in the land of Israel. But the 2nd coming of Christ clearly biblically says that the Jews must be back in the land for Christ to return.

In Joel 3:1-2 we learn about how will Yeshua separate us in the end of days, namely, by the way we treat His people, the Jews.

In Acts 1:6-8 Before His departure...Jesus says, “I’m going to restore the kingdom back to Israel, but it is not for you to know.”

In Acts 3:19-21, Peter states that Yeshua is in the bounds of heaven until Israel repents and welcomes Him back. This is to the religious Jews.

In Rom. 11:11 we learn that It was the plan of God all along that in His wisdom, He brought salvation to the Gentiles. The duty of the Gentile is to provoke the Jew to jealousy so that they will want the Yeshua we have.

In Rom. 11:25-27, if all Israel will be saved in the future, then who are we speaking of if you’re a replacement theologist?

In Zech. 12:9-14 we learn that when Yeshua returns, all Israel will be saved. If God replaced them, then why would He come back to them and offer them national repentance?

In Rev. 7:4-8, who is the 144,000 if Israel has been replaced?

If you are a true believer, then you should want for Israel to be saved. They are the brethren of Jesus. Don’t replace them, bless them. If you do not stand with Israel, you are not standing on the Word of God. The God of Israel could never give others hatred for His people. Bottom line, you cannot love God and hate His people.