Genesis’s Definition of Israel and the Presuppositional Error of Supersessionism, by John Carpenter

Genesis definition of Israel and the presuppositional error of supersessionism. Supersessionism has been the mainstream

Christian answer to the question, what happens to Israel with Christ building his church?

Supersessionism, often called with a hint of derision, replacement theology, asserts that the church has now taken the place of Israel.

Supersessionism has been the dominant Christian doctrine about Israel and the church, challenged only relatively recently within the last century by dispensationalism and other cultural trends.

Today, however, the long -held Christian belief that the church has superseded Israel has so faded that a 2018 book,

Three Views on Israel and the Church, featured four evangelical scholars who eschewed supersessionism, insisting, each in their own way, that the church has not replaced

Israel. Yet supersessionism is still the majority report among non -evangelical

Christian theologians, Catholic, Protestant, and other, throughout church history. Justin Martyr, who lived from 100

AD to 165, wrote, For the true spiritual Israel are we who have been led to God through this crucified

Christ. Augustine, who lived from 354 to 430, wrote,

For if we hold with a firm heart the grace of God which has been given to us, we are

Israel. Let therefore no Christian consider himself alien to the name of Israel.

The Christian people then is, rather, Israel. Alistair McGrath notes that this view, that the church has replaced

Israel as the people of God, had a wide consensus in the early church.

While now scorned by some as inherently anti -Semitic, supersessionism depends on the assumption that the term

Israel, in the Old Testament, referred to the ethnic group now understood as Jewish.

The debate now, to the degree that there still is one, is whether the literal Old Testament ethnicity,

Israel, is a type, or what Augustine called a figure of the church, that is replaced by the anti -type, the church, or is the literal

Israel ethnicity neither a type nor replaced. Notice that all sides of the debate accept the presupposition that Israel, in the

Old Testament, was primarily or exclusively a literal ethnicity. What's missing is a third option, one that rejects the apparent unexamined presupposition of supersessionism and recent answers to it.

That is, simply, that Israel was, from its inception, primarily envisioned to be an assembly, a church, a believers, from all kinds of ethnicities.

This view, which I name Continuumism, from Daniel Fuller's Gospel and Law, Contrast Our Continuum, asserts that the church did not replace

Israel, because Israel always was the church. To come at that definition of Israel in the confines of an article,

I will examine the theological definition of Israel in Genesis. The scope of this article, then, is confined to that definition provided by Genesis, a brief survey of the remainder of the

Old Testament to see if that definition is consistent with it, and some concluding remarks about the application of this definition to supersessionism and its theological offspring, dispensationalism.

In an article, I cannot resolve every question one might have about this definition, especially as the implications of the definition may seem radical to some.

However, I believe that these implications are less troublesome than some of the alternative implications about Israel that we have grown accustomed to.

By definition of Israel, I do not mean the etymology of the word Israel. I mean what the word represents.

What is Israel? The answer seems obvious. An ethnic group that traces its origins back to Jacob, grandson of Abraham, renamed

Israel, and a nation -state made up by his descendants. Defining Israel seems too obvious for the trouble.

We are so sure we can assume its meaning, many of our theological dictionaries do not bother to define it.

Many others define it matter -of -factly, as the literal ethnicity. Mark R.

Lindsay in the Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology's entry for Israel defines it as the entire

Old Testament community of God's people descending from the patriarch Jacob, presuming that Israel is the ethnicity.

Similarly, Donald McKim defines Israel, the nation of Israel, as descended from Jacob, in Genesis 32, verse 28, after whose twelve sons the twelve tribes of Israel were named, in Genesis 49.

Even those that define Israel theologically first note that literally or, quote, technically, it is the progeny of Jacob, unquote.

The Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible does that while eventually concluding with the supersessional definition of Israel as the ethnic nation that becomes the spiritual body of Christ.

The object of this essay is to show that the first technical definition from the Old Testament is incorrect, that Genesis, in its narrative style, defines

Israel theologically. At three pivotal points in the history of Israel in Genesis, Israel is defined.

In each of those points, at the beginning and the end of the Jacob narrative and at the conclusion of Genesis, the divine name

El Shaddai is invoked. Each time a nearly identical phrase occurs, repetition serves to emphasize the most important incidents of the narrative.

For example, Jacob is twice named Israel, in chapter 32, verse 28, and chapter 35, verse 10.

Twice we're told that Luz was renamed Bethel, chapter 28, verse 19, chapter 35, verse 15.

In this case, the importance of the promise is highlighted by three repetitions, along with its placement at critical junctures in the narrative.

Key to defining Israel is that phrase ascribed to it in Genesis, chapter 28, verse 3, chapter 35, verse 11, and chapter 48, verse 4, kahal amim, an assembly of peoples, or kahal goyim, an assembly of nations.

What is Israel? The answer is not self -evident, but it's not an unanswered mystery either.

Genesis, the book of beginnings, reveals the answer. It does so not by entries in theological dictionaries or logically systematic treatises, but in the form of narrative and the stories of Genesis.

These three pivotal passages are definitional for Israel, each hearkening back to the covenant with Abraham, each invoking the special divine name in Genesis, El Shaddai, God Almighty, and each strategically placed.

The first of which, chapter 28, verse 3, occurs as Isaac sends Jacob to return to their people and Paddan Aram to obtain a wife, the last words of Isaac in the

Bible. The second, chapter 35, verse 11, at Bethel, repeating and confirming the change of Jacob's name to Israel, ending the

Jacob narrative in Genesis, and the last of which, chapter 48, verse 4, among Jacob's last words in nearing the conclusion of the entire book of Genesis, recalling to Joseph the promise that Israel would be a community of peoples.

Repeating this promise thrice at critical points underlines its importance.

Genesis, chapter 28, verse 3, God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you that you may become a company of peoples.

Isaac blesses Jacob. Immediately before Jacob encounters God at Bethel, Isaac is sending

Jacob to Aram, where he will meet his wives and begin his large family. Genesis, chapter 28, verses 1 to 4, record

Isaac's last words in Genesis, beginning the exclusively Jacob narrative. In so doing,

Isaac offers a vision of what Jacob and the people who come from him should be. El Shaddai is invoked, who was specifically associated with the covenant with Abraham.

The blessing to be fruitful and multiply by becoming a company of peoples is more than an aspiration.

There are four verbs in this verse, bless, make fruitful, multiply, and be.

Isaac calls on El Shaddai to bless. It is essentially a prayer, make fruitful.

Para is in the hyphil, imperfect, to cause to bear fruit, and is the same word used by God about his promise to Abraham in chapter 17, verse 6,

I will make you exceedingly fruitful. Multiply, rabba, is in the same form and is used likewise in chapter 48, verse 4.

Be, or become, is from the root haya, meaning fall out, come to pass, become, be.

It's a different form than the other verbs and is a conjunctive or sequential perfect rather than the imperfects earlier.

It indicates the result or the goal of the previous verbs. Hence, it is by being blessed, made fruitful, and by being multiplied, that Israel shall become an assembly of peoples.

Isaac says that Jacob should be a company, a kahal. A kahal is a community in the

United, a congregation, an assembly. In the New King James Version of the Christian Standard Bible, a gathering, a company, and the

RSV, the New RSV, the New American Standard Bible of 1995 and 1997, and the

ESV. The King James Version of the Dewey Rames and the New American Standard Bible's translation of kahal as multitude is incorrect.

It is the Hebrew equivalent of ecclesia. In the word company, from the root to assemble, the

Old Testament term for the assembly or congregation makes its first appearance, bringing with it the idea of coherence as well as multiplicity.

The noun kahal implies a multitude being assembled. To the suggestion that it refers to the assembling of the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel, Li Chi Chu notes two nations could hardly be regarded as a multitude of nations.

The English translation of company may obscure the implication of the Hebrew of an assembly.

Assembly suggests that they are taken from various peoples, not simply descended from one man, as in the descendants of Jacob becoming numerous.

To be assembled are peoples. Yamim. Note that they are plural, not merely the gathering or regathering of a single ethnicity that has now become numerous, but implicitly the gathering of multiple different peoples.

Is this simply a blessing? Like Jacob, like Abraham before, would have a multitude of literal, physical descendants?

Or that what comes from Jacob would consist of multitudes of ethnicities assembled together?

The plural of am peoples clarifies. The word am occurs 27 times in Genesis, including in two of our passages.

Examining each of these passages reveals that the plural is always used for various Gentile peoples, once including

Israel in chapter 17 verse 16. Its use in chapter 17 verse 16 refers to the multitude of ethnicities that will derive from Sarah.

In chapter 27 verse 29, Isaac unknowingly blesses Jacob to let people serve you, coupled with nations.

In chapter 49 verse 10, the Davidic king from Judah will obtain the obedience of peoples, that is

Gentile ethnicities. In every instance of peoples, yamim, in Genesis, the reference is to multiple

Gentile ethnicities, not to the tribes of Israel. Peoples, yamim, is never used in Genesis or elsewhere that I have found to indicate a large assembly of literal ethnic

Israel. Thus the plural in chapter 28 verse 3, peoples, suggests that the peoples are different ethnicities being gathered together to make up Jacob.

Isaac's parting blessing is that Jacob be an assembly of ethnically diverse peoples.

Genesis chapter 35 verse 11, and God said to him, I am God almighty, be fruitful and multiply.

A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.

In Genesis chapter 35, Jacob is again in Bethel. The Jacob narrative is framed by theophanies in Bethel, house of God.

In Genesis chapter 35 verses 9 to 15, God appears to him, repeats the renaming of Jacob as Israel, and repeats it again for emphasis in chapter 35 verse 10 to signal its importance.

Then God declares his own name as El Shaddai, God almighty, just as Isaac called him in chapter 28 verse 3, and commands

Israel, the man, to be fruitful and increase in number, just as Isaac blessed him in chapter 28 verse 3.

The make fruitful and multiply you prayer in chapter 28 verse 3 are here imperatives, reminiscent of God's first command to humanity in Genesis chapter 1 verse 28.

Jacob, now Israel, is the father of a new humanity. Like the first, he is commissioned to multiply.

Then El Shaddai gives a similar, though not identical, promise in Isaac's final blessing.

A nation and a company of nations shall come from you. Isaac's final blessing has been that you may become a company of peoples.

The context, citing El Shaddai and similarities of content in words, except for Yamim, shows that this is the same promise.

We find the same blessing repeated at another crucial, definitive juncture in the life of Jacob at the end of the

Jacob narrative, thus bookending the story of Jacob with first a blessing and then a command and promise that defines

Israel. From beginning to end, this is what Israel is to be and will be.

In chapter 35 verses 9 to 15, Isaac's blessing has now become El Shaddai's command and promise.

The similarities are too pronounced to separate this promise from Isaac's blessing. The differences help focus the meaning of this blessing come promise.

We have already seen that the plural in Isaac's blessing, chapter 28 verse 3, hints that Jacob was meant to be more than a man with a large family tree issuing from him, but somehow a gathering of people from various ethnicities.

What is hinted at in chapter 28 verse 3 is now made more overt in chapter 35 verse 11 by changing the word

Yamim, peoples, to Goyim, nations. One striking aspect of this phrase, besides its three -fold repetition and placement at pivotal junctures of the narrative, is how little attention it has received from scholars.

Thankfully, for the purpose of this essay, one scholar has studied chapter 35 verse 11, Li Chi Chu, in a 2009 essay,

Goyim in Genesis chapter 35 verse 11 and the Abrahamic promise of blessing for the nations.

Her excellent study allows me to build on her work here. In her article, Li argues that while company of peoples,

Cahal Yamim, may have a broader semantic range, a company of nations, Cahal Goyim, has a narrower focus.

Goy, nation, is distinctly political in nature. That is, a Goy has a nuance associated with kings and kingdoms similar to the modern nation -state.

Goyim, plural, is consistently used in the Pentateuch to refer to nations of various ethnicity as political entities.

According to Li, company of nations, Cahal Goyim in 35 11, does not refer to the tribes of Israel, but to the multitude of nations that would become

Israel. In an email interview, she clarified the wording of chapter 30 verse 11 is interesting.

It specifically refers to a nation and a company of nations shall be from you. A nation from his physical descendants and a company of nations from his broader, non -physical descendants.

A word study bears Li out. Of the 16 uses of Goyim in Genesis, some include

Israel along with the Gentile nations, but only one could possibly be used exclusively of ethnic

Israelites. That one in chapter 48 verse 19 is Jacob declaring that Ephraim will become a multitude, a fullness of nations.

Interpreting it simply as a way of expressing Ephraim's eventual large population does not seem sufficient to explain why nations,

Goyim is used with his political connotations. Ephraim becoming a fullness of nations may be foreseeing not only

Ephraim's dominance of the northern kingdom, but that kingdom's eventual dispersion and merger with the

Gentile ethnicities, including the Samaritans. Victor Hamilton suggests it refers to the mixture of non -Israelites with the tribe of Ephraim, hence meaning that Ephraim will become part of and mixed with various nations, which is what eventually happened.

Lee believes that the plural of Goyim here is an intensification, meaning that Ephraim will be thoroughly characterized by the nations, citing

E .H. Spicer, quote, full of the qualities that nations would entail, unquote. For our purposes, the question is whether there is one use of Goyim exclusively for Israel, such as for its tribes.

The answer is no. Therefore, Goyim is not used in Genesis for Israel as a large, multi -tribe nation.

The changing of the people's yamim to nations, Goyim, narrows the meaning of who is to be assembled, further clarifying that these are not mere physical descendants being gathered together to make up Israel.

Further, the promise is that Israel was to be both a nation and a company of nations.

There are two distinct promises here. This does not appear to be a hymn in Deus, although it is translated that way by the

Christian Standard Bible, a nation, indeed an assembly of nations, alone among major English translations.

Rather, it appears to be two distinct, though overlapping, entities issuing from Israel, in lexical terms, a primary and a secondary definition of Israel.

First, in chapter 28, verse 3, Israel was to be a gathering of peoples. Here, a gathering of nations.

Then, here, the secondary definition of nation, Goy, is singular. Israel is promised that a nation will issue from him.

The promise to be a nation is what is new in chapter 35, verse 11. It, along with a company of nations, shall come from Israel, the man.

The verb, yiyeh, means fall out, come to pass, become, be, here meaning shall proceed.

The distinction between the two promises, the nation and the company of nations, is manifest by the likewise new promise of kings descending from Israel, the man.

The second promise specifies that Israel, the man, will have kings come from your own body, literally from your loins, emphasizing the physical descent of the kings.

The verb here, at the end of the sentence, is yesuyeh, means go or come out.

The promise of kings explicitly states that the kings will be physical descendants, hence the text can specifically state physical descent when that is the intent.

Lack of such specificity about the company of peoples, nations, then could imply that that company can be fulfilled non - physically.

The particular promise of kings, only here in chapter 35, verse 11, will indeed be fulfilled physically.

The literal ethnic nation of Israel with its monarchy is here foretold. Kidner notes that the mention of kings connects this promise to Abraham in chapter 17, verse 6, while the company of nations is a prospect held out particularly to Jacob.

Waltke adds the community of Israel will consist of many nations, not from the body of the patriarchs, but the kings over this nation will come from the patriarchs.

But that Israel, the man, is promised to have a nation physically derived from him is not under question.

No one doubts that Genesis establishes that the nation Israel comes from the man Israel. What has been overlooked is that primarily

Israel is an assembly of many nations. Lee notes that this promise in chapter 35, verse 11, is, in the overall narrative of Genesis, a step in the development of the promise to Abraham in chapter 17, verses 4 to 5.

There the Lord, Yahweh, also announces his name as El Shaddai and promises

Abraham that he will be, quote, the father of many nations, end quote. Many is

Hamo -1, not the Kahal, assembly of chapter 28, verse 3 and chapter 35, verse 11 and chapter 48, verse 4.

That promise to Abraham of a vast number of descendants could conceivably be fulfilled through physical descendants of Abraham, but here

Jacob's becoming a company of nations can only be fulfilled beyond his physical descendants.

The new promise to become a nation singular may indeed be fulfilled by the literal ethnicity of Israel, but the now focused and amplified promise to be also a company of nations is beyond mere ethnicity.

Thus, even a people, plural, by itself could refer to a populous Israel. Nations, goyim, cannot.

Genesis chapter 35, verse 11, parallel with chapter 28, verse 3 and chapter 48, verse 4, shows that the blessing is not simply to be a large group of people, but a gathering of different nations.

Israel, the people of God, will be this assembly. So Israel is, here, in Genesis chapter 35, verse 11, defined,

Lee says, as a two -fold nation and a company of nations. Genesis chapter 48, verse 4.

Behold, I will make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will make of you a company of peoples, and I will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession.

The third reiteration of the definition of Israel in Genesis appears at the outset of a series of sayings, effectively prophecies, from Israel the man, that serve as the conclusion to Genesis.

The first two definitions frame the Jacob narrative. The last appears as a reminder, before the conclusion of Genesis, of this important promise.

It is, as such, a structural marker, signaling as before, a critical juncture in the narrative, in this case, the climax.

That this particular phrase, the blessing promise to Israel, the man, is chosen as the marker, is a testament to how important this is in Genesis.

Genesis has not to be ended before we are reminded of it once more. Jacob is on his deathbed.

He has been since chapter 35, a background character, an indulgent and then pathetic and grief -stricken father to Joseph, who is now reunited with his most beloved son.

He is called Israel in chapter 48, verse 2. He summons his last ounce of strength to bless and describe his sons and grandsons.

First, he describes himself by recounting that blessing that became a promise. As before,

God is identified as El Shaddai. Then he says that this revelation occurred at Luz, what became

Bethel. Hence, he is referencing the chapter 35, verse 11 promise from God, not the chapter 28, verse 3 blessing from his father.

Nevertheless, now the command in chapter 35, verse 11 to be fruitful and multiply is turned into a divine promise with El Shaddai declaring, according to Israel, that God himself will make

Israel fruitful and multiplied. The definition of Israel has evolved from a blessing to, now, a divine promise.

As in chapter 28, verse 3, the verbs are make fruitful and multiply, echoing the

Abrahamic promise. But unlike in the previous two versions, this time God says that he will make rather than to be, hayah, of chapter 28, verse 3, or come from, yiyeh, of chapter 35, verse 11.

The root Hebrew verb is Nathan, meaning give, put, set. But with the accusative, as here, it is translated as to make you into or to make of you.

It appears twice in this sentence. The second time is I will give. As with hayah in chapter 28, verse 3, it is a conjunctive or sequential perfect, meaning that the community of peoples that he is to be made into is a result of being made fruitful and multiplied.

Then, interweaving his father's blessing of chapter 28, verse 3, with the divine promise of Genesis chapter 35, verse 11, he says the promise is that God will make him a company of peoples, kahal yamim, to show the unified identity of the chapter 28, verse 3, blessing, and the chapter 35, verse 11, promise.

Israel ascribes the wording of chapter 28, verse 3, peoples, to the promise of chapter 35, verse 11, nations.

These are a single promise. The two previous blessings, promises, chapter 28, verse 3, and chapter 35, verse 11, have been intentionally conflated.

That conflation serves the purpose of concluding Genesis with a recapitulation of that defining phrase.

Lee notes, quote, in terms of the overlap of meaning, chapter 28, verse 3, and chapter 48, verse 4, leans toward a collection of peoples of different ethnicities.

In terms of their slightly different nuance, yamim, peoples, more likely connotes people groups and goyim, nations, political entities, unquote.

By ascribing yamim, peoples, of chapter 28, verse 3, to the context of Genesis chapter 35, verse 11, the phrase in chapter 48, verse 4 shows that the exact meaning is in the overlap of the two terms.

Different ethnicities from different nation states. Hence, Israel was to be primarily an assembly of ethnicities from all kinds of other nations, not a single ethnicity.

So we end Genesis knowing that the community of peoples, or nations, that will make up Israel is not simply the progeny of Jacob.

Finally, Israel adds here, only in chapter 48, verse 4, the promise of the land.

First given to Abraham in chapter 15, verses 18 to 21, and given to Jacob at his first encounter with God at Luz in chapter 28, verse 13.

Whether this is an old man's conflating of two different incidents, both at Luz, one on his flight to Paddan Aram when he sees the famous staircase to heaven, chapter 28, verses 10 to 19, and the other, in chapter 35, is beside the point.

At the first vision, in Luz, he was promised land. In the second, in chapter 35, verse 11, he was promised kings, along with being both a nation and a gathering of nations.

Together, that means that Israel will have a king and a realm. Hence, this literal, singular nation promised in chapter 35, verse 11, will receive a literal land, a promise fulfilled in the

Old Testament. These passages state that Israel was given the land promised in Genesis.

In Joshua, chapter 21, verses 43 to 45, in chapter 23, verses 14 to 15, in 1

Kings, chapter 4, verse 21, in chapter 8, verse 56, in 2 Chronicles, chapter 9, verse 26, in Jeremiah, chapter 11, verses 4 to 5, and in Nehemiah, chapter 9, verse 8.

In each of those, it's stated that God did indeed literally keep His promise to give Israel the land.

Since the land will be an everlasting possession, those who argue that ethnic Israel will get a special divine right to the land of Israel can legitimately appeal to this promise.

The land can also be a type of the place where God dwells, as in Graham Goldsworthy's hermeneutic, the realm of God's rule, now fulfilled by the church.

Finally, these two interpretations of the land promise are not mutually exclusive. A nation can receive the land, and a community of nations can receive what the land signifies.

Israel as a community of nations played out in the Old Testament. Is this interpretation of the definition of Israel in Genesis borne out in the remainder of the

Old Testament? The other defining moment for the identity of Israel is at the

Exodus. There we find that a quote, mixed multitude also went up with Israel.

In Exodus chapter 12, verse 38. Mixed multitude refers to a great mixture of nationalities.

Shaul Barr notes that some, like Martin Noth, believe that they were other slaves in Egypt who took the opportunity to ally with Israel as they were freed.

Because the verb went up, Allah, is singular, some infer that it refers to one kind of people, like Egyptian slaves or mercenaries, who chose to throw in their lot with Israel at the

Exodus. Or, the mixed multitude may refer to mixed marriages and their offspring, such as found in Leviticus chapter 24, verse 10.

There we find an Israelite woman's son whose father was an Egyptian. Philo, who lived between 20

BC and 50 AD, claims that the mixed multitude contained, quote, those who had been born to Hebrew fathers by Egyptian women and who were enrolled as members of their father's race, unquote.

For evidence of widespread intermarriage of ethnic Israelites with others, we need look no further than Moses himself, who first married a

Midianite, bringing his Midianite father -in -law, Jephro, also known as Reuel and Hobab, to be a key advisor for the organization of Israel.

Find that in Exodus chapter 2, verse 18, and chapter 3, verse 1, chapter 18, verses 13 to 27, and in Numbers chapter 10, verse 29.

Later, he married a Cushite, an Ethiopian, in Numbers chapter 12.

Barr concludes that the mixed multitude were specifically mercenaries who had married

Israelite women. Most likely, however, the mixed multitude is, as mixed implies, all of the above.

The mixed multitude could simply be a composite of all kinds of different peoples, seen singularly as a collective noun encompassing a wide variety of people.

Philo describes them as, quote, a mixed multitude of promiscuous persons collected from all quarters.

That is, they were a mixed blend of people resident in Egypt who chose to join

Israel at the Exodus. Midrash Rabbah, commenting on Exodus chapter 18, verse 10, reports, quote,

God made a joyous occasion for Israel since he redeemed them. God said, anyone who loves my son should come and rejoice with my son.

The proper ones of Egypt came and made a Pesach sacrifice with the

Jews, a Passover sacrifice, and went out with them, as it is stated in Exodus chapter 12, verse 38.

And also a mixed multitude went out with them. The word multitude tells us that they were many, so that the group who left

Egypt were a composite of ethnic Israelites and others out of all kinds of ethnicities.

E Pluribus Unum. The ethnically heterogeneous composite group fleeing

Egypt, under the name Israel, is then the nation called, in Exodus chapter 19, verses 5 to 6, a special treasure above all peoples.

Yamim. A holy nation. Goi. Here we encounter two of our key words again, recalling the defining promises to Israel in Genesis.

At the heart of the Exodus, Israel is to be distinct among the peoples, the ethnicities of earth, and a holy nation, even though it is made up of people from all kinds of other nations.

This description of Israel is repeated in Deuteronomy chapter 7, verse 6, without the kingdom of priests, in Exodus chapter 19, verse 6, and is described in full to the church in 1

Peter chapter 2, verse 9. The supersessionists would say that the church, superseding the old ethnic people of God, took over the defining characteristics of Israel.

The continuumist says that Israel, from its inception, was the church.

When Israel passes into the promised land, the first person met is Rahab, in Joshua chapter 2, verse 1, a

Canaanite native of Jericho. Despite all the strenuous insistence on the utter extermination of all

Canaanites, and Deuteronomy's instruction for the holy war, the harem, against Canaan, Rahab is accepted with implicit divine affirmation.

She becomes an Israelite, apparently marrying Salmon, and becoming the mother, or ancestor, of Boaz, says in Matthew chapter 1, verse 5.

Boaz, of course, marries Ruth, the Moabite, who thus likewise joins Israel. Both Ruth and Rahab become

Israelites because of their faith in the Lord. Both are ancestors of David and Christ.

Meanwhile, during the conquest, this composite people, already consisting of a mixed multitude, and Rahab, are forced to accept the

Gibeonites. At first, the Gibeonites were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, in Joshua chapter 9, verse 21, but they were eventually assimilated as fully part of Israel.

One of David's elite thirty troops was Ishmael from Gibeon, in 1 Chronicles chapter 12, verse 4.

Chronicles, the last book of the Hebrew canon, is the final defining book on the identity of Israel.

Its opening nine chapters of genealogies exist to define who is in Israel. There, Gibeon is matter -of -factly listed in the census of returning exiles as a town from the tribe of Benjamin, in 1

Chronicles 6, verse 60. Further, in Chronicles, the ideal Israel is that which is headed by the

Davidic king and worships at the temple in Zion. That the northern kingdom's history is not told in Chronicles suggests that although it can be called

Israel, it lacks the defining characteristics of the Israel of God. Certainly a nation that goes by the name

Israel rebels against the house of David in 2 Chronicles chapter 10, verse 19, but even while the northern kingdom still stands,

Israel can be used of Judah. For example, after juxtaposing

King Jehoshaphat of Judah with Ahab, king of Israel, in 2 Chronicles chapter 18, 2

Chronicles chapter 21, verse 2, speaks of Jehoshaphat king of Israel. Ahab, technically a king of Judah, is also called king of Israel, even while the northern kingdom still stands, in 2

Chronicles chapter 28, verse 19. Israel, in Chronicles, has various nuances standing simultaneously for the faithful Israel headed by the

Davidic king, the rebellious one in the north, and the collection of the faithful remnant from all tribes.

H .G .M. Williamson has shown that the issue is more complex than simply that Judah is the true

Israel and the northern kingdom is the false one. He concludes that the word Israel is, quote, used in a wide variety of ways, unquote.

In Ezra and Nehemiah, quote, true Israel is made up alone by those of Judah and Benjamin who had returned from the exile in Babylon, together with everyone who had joined them and separated himself from the pollutions of the peoples of the land, unquote.

Not even in the Old Testament can we insist that Israel means Israel, that it has only one definition, contrary to the claim that, quote, there are over 2 ,000 references to Israel in Scripture.

Not one of them means anything but Israel, thus said John MacArthur. Finally, in the

Prophets comes the idea of the remnant. With it, quote, a distinction begins to be drawn between physical

Israel and the true Israel. One day there will emerge a true Israel, disciplined to obedience to God's will, fit to be the instrument of His purpose.

It is an Israel not of birth, but of individual choice for the calling of God. Over this true

Israel and over it alone will God rule, for these are the people of His kingdom, thus said

John Bright in the book The Kingdom of God. For example, in Isaiah chapter 56, verses 3 to 7, foreigners who join the

Lord are commanded not to regard themselves as separated from the Lord's people and are invited to join equally in prayer and worship at His temple.

Similarly, in Zechariah chapter 2, verse 15, it says, many nations, goyim, shall join themselves to the

Lord in that day and shall be my people. His people will be an assembly of nations.

Meanwhile, as for the literal ethnic group of Israelites who followed other gods, particularly the northern ten tribes,

Hosea chapter 1, verse 9 and following says that they are not my people, lo ami, the negation of the people promised in Genesis.

Hence, most of the northern ten tribes were taken into exile where they were eventually assimilated into Gentile nations.

Of course, in the same context, Hosea speaks of those who will be God's people on whom

God will have mercy. In Hosea chapter 1, verse 9 and following, one Israel is not

God's people and another is. Paul, in Romans chapter 9, verse 24, referring to Hosea 1, says

God has prepared those vessels of mercy who are God's people and called them not only from the

Jews, but also from the Gentiles. These composite people fulfill God's promise that, quote, those who are not my people, not the progeny of Jacob, I will call my people, according to Paul's exegesis of Hosea.

In other words, Paul is saying that Hosea shows that believing Gentiles joined to believing

Jews form God's my people. Peter, similarly, understands

Hosea 1. In 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 10, having addressed the church as the holy nation, echoing Exodus chapter 19, verses 5 to 6,

Peter takes the Hosea promise, you are not a people, but now you are

God's people, and ascribes it to the ethnically mixed church. Both Paul and Peter argue from Hosea chapter 1, verse 10, that the church is

God's my people, which has received mercy. The supersessionist way of reading

Hosea chapter 1, verse 10, is to see it as foretelling the day when the church replaces

Israel. But that assumes that the Israel called not my people was originally God's people.

That assumption is the issue. Implications for supersessionism and dispensationalism.

The thrice -repeated description of Israel as a gathering of peoples and nations has, so far, been an undervalued and rarely studied definition of Israel.

I came upon it in the course of my pastoral duties of preaching through Genesis. Anecdotally, I have no recollection of this company of nations, or peoples, definition of Israel in my research, including in my own teaching and Old Testament survey on the college level.

Lee notes seven prominent commentaries that fail to elaborate on the promise that Israel will be a company of nations.

Bruggemanns, Gunkels, Sarnas, Skinners, Spizers, von Raads, and Westermans.

The commentaries I have read have little to say on it. But it appears that the theological definition of Israel grounded in Genesis and affirmed in the remainder of the

Old Testament shows us that the fundamental assumption of supersessionism is wrong.

Israel was not primarily an ethnic people. Sure, there is an ethnic nation that goes by that name, but the

Israel that is the overwhelming concern of Scripture is the one assembled from all kinds of peoples and nations.

We see, then, that there is a continuum from the inception of Israel in Genesis to the

Church. The Church did not replace Israel, because Israel was always, already the

Church. Our language obscures this reality. If we all spoke Hebrew and attended

First Baptist or Presbyterian or Grace Community Kahal, or alternatively, if the

Old Testament was originally written in English, and three times Jacob was told that he was to be a church of ethnicities, then suddenly the debate, whether there is more contrast or more continuum between the

Kahal or Church in the Old Testament and the Kahal Church of the Lord today would be tilted toward continuum.

Supersessionism, then, might have been the contrasting position. Instead, supersessionism has been the position most emphasizing a continuum between Israel and the

Church, challenged over the last century by the stark contrast of Israel versus the Church presented by dispensationalism.

The debate is now so skewed toward this contrast that a book on views of Israel and the

Church does not offer even one consistently supersessionist approach. But the neglected definition of Israel from those three pivotal passages in Genesis balances that.

We see, then, that a case can be made for a thoroughgoing continuum between the company of peoples begun in Genesis and the one that Jesus said he is building.

Supersessionists will need to rework some of their interpretation of the Old Testament. But in truth, the impact of this on supersessionism is academic.

Convinced that the argument here is right, supersessionists will only need to admit to being wrong about the

Church replacing or fulfilling Israel and still hold that the Church now inherits the promises to Israel.

The Church continues to be the Israel of God in Galatians 6 -16 now because it always was.

It did not replace Israel. It always was Israel. This explains why supersessionists can mount relatively strong arguments for the

New Testament applying Old Testament terms for Israel, like holy nation, to the Church but can only muster relatively weak arguments showing that those terms have been transferred mainly the parable of the tenants in Matthew chapter 21 verses 33 -43.

But if Israel was always the Church, nothing needed to be transferred. Hence, the supersessionist no longer needs to read

Israel as a type of the Church in the Old Testament but simply as the Church. So what we find in the

Old Testament is a history of the Church. And like that history after Christ, it sometimes is the story of a visible

Church soiled with hypocrites, apostates, false prophets, and exiles. Since supersessionists have already been using

Old Testament Israel as a type of the Church, the practical change to their exegesis is slight.

However, the implications for dispensationalism are profound. Dispensationalism accepts the supersessionist premise that ethnic

Israel was the prima facie literal definition of Israel. From that premise, supersessionism then says the

Church supersedes Israel. Dispensationalism refuses to follow, insisting on a quote literal hermeneutic and citing a lack of clear statement in the

New Testament about the position of Israel being superseded by the Church. Dispensationalism is the logical product of supersessionism as it takes supersessionism's basic assumptions about the

Old Testament Israel and then asserts that that has never changed. It claims that there has been no replacement and at most, depending on the dispensationalist, only a co -fulfillment of some of the

Old Testament promises to Israel by the Church. Thus, in dispensationalism, the

Church is something new and distinct from ethnic Israel. This dispensational challenge puts supersessionism in the weak position of first granting an ethnic definition of Israel and then having to prove that that definition was changed and spiritualized with the

New Covenant. But if Israel was always the Church, then the dispensational charge that quote, there is a taking away or transferring of what national

Israel was promised to another group is overturned. Believers in Christ are now children of Abraham as in Galatians chapter 3 verse 7 and Israel's titles of chosen people and holy nation are ascribed to the

Church in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9. Not because it has superseded ethnic Israel who forfeited those titles, but because those were always its titles.

The one tree into which believing Gentiles are grafted in Romans chapter 11 verses 24 to 27 is the true

Israel, the assembly of peoples and to which ethnic Israel, a holy nation, may be grafted in again if they believe.

Admittedly, my proposition here has profound implications for the way many New Testament themes have been understood.

Like Jesus' promise to build my Church and his role as the cornerstone of the Church. I do not think those problems are insurmountable or even more intractable than the problems with the alternatives, especially with dispensationalism, that we have grown inured to.

It is beyond the scope of this article to explore them all. Here we have just done the exegetical work from Genesis and checked it briefly against the rest of the

Old Testament. We have seen here that beginning with the inception of Israel, supersessionism's presupposition of the ethnic identity of Israel presupposed by dispensationalism never should have passed unexamined.

That a strong case can be made exegetically for the other end of the spectrum from dispensationalism.