Israel, People of

‘Israel, the People of God’ is a title claimed by both the Jewish People and the Christian Church. It is regarded by Jews as being at the very core of their self-understanding. For nearly two millennia, the Church saw itself as the ‘True Israel’ and the heir of all the biblical promises towards Israel. This rivalry produced in the course of history a vast range of polemical and apologetic writings, by both Christians and Jews. The Christian Adversus Judaeostradition claimed that the Church as the ‘New Israel’ had replaced the ‘Israel of Old’ and was now the heir of God’s election and promises.
The phrase ‘the People of God’ is derived from the Tanakh/Old Testament. The so-called ‘covenant formula’ reads: ‘I will be your God and you will be my people’ (cf. Exodus 6.2–8; Leviticus 26.12; Jeremiah 31.33b). According to the Song of Deborah, Israel is ‘the People of JHWH’ (Judges 5.11, 13). The basis of the covenant is God’s election of Israel as his people (cf. Deuteronomy 7.6; 14.2). This choice implied that the people so elected acquired duties commensurate with that role, a responsibility to live in ways appropriate for the people of God, and is the reason the prophets criticised their people so fiercely, in passionate and moving appeals to return to the Way, the Torah. It was never meant that the covenant of God with his people could ever be irreparably broken.
According to Judaism,the election of Israel as God’s People is not a matter of an idea or an article of faith. It is a historical phenomenon that is connected to the concrete corporeal reality of the Jewish people, as the ‘Body of Faith’ (so Michael Wyschogrod. The terms ‘People of Israel’ and ‘People of God’ cannot be deduced from a general, already accepted concept ‘people’ that is then applied to the special case of Israel. The Hebrew name for ‘holy people’ (goy kadosh, Exodus 19.5) is actually untranslatable and its meaning can only be outlined and broadly explained in theological, sociological and political language. It indicates a community that is set apart by God’s special election. It is experienced in the solidarity of a group of people in a community of destiny that has been called into being by God. The origin of this community is not natural, but a matter of election and grace. The faithful goodness of God’s election is only realised in the ‘natural’ physicality and concrete history of the People Israel. The circumcision makes it clear that Israel is of the flesh as well as of the spirit. Giving up the names ‘People of Israel’ and ‘People of God’ would mean for Jews assimilation in the world of the nations and therefore the discontinuation of Jewish identity.
The use of the concept ‘God’s People’ for the Church in the New Testament and in the varied traditions of Christianity make it impossible for most Christians to drop it. But there is a growing recognition that waiving the claim to self-definition as ‘God’s People’ would not rob the Church of her identity. The use of the term ‘God’s People’ for the Church is by no means clear of all traces of anti-Judaism. In classical Christian dogmatic theology the People of Israel have merely a roleof ‘foreshadowing’, in the time of the Old Testament, the coming of the Church in the time of its fulfilment in Christ. It is noteworthy that in a totally different context, namely in the practice of many churches in the Third World, the concept ‘People of God’ is used as a liberating term for the poor and oppressed, without any anti-Judaic connotation.
The Church is not called by the name ‘Israel’ in the New Testament (see the writings of Krister Stendahl (b. 1921)), and only in a few texts is the Church called ‘People of God’. But in a centuries-long anti-Judaic and antisemitic Wirkungsgeschichte of these few textsthe use of the titles ‘Israel’ and ‘People of God’ for the Church was central in Christian replacement theology and practice. In the 20th century many Christians and churches rediscovered the Jews as ‘God’s Chosen People’. This was expounded in numerous official statements and declarations. But this recognition opened up new theological problems and challenges in the context of Jewish–Christian relations. For example, there is the danger that the new Christian outlook on Israel as ‘God’s People’ leads to unreasonably high moral and political expectations towards the present Jewish People and Jewish State. And for Christian theology there is the challenge to redefine the place of the Church as ‘people’ after the rediscovery of Israel.
In Jewish–Christian dialogue, while there will always remain an irreducible element of dispute and even rivalry between the ‘People of Israel’ and the ‘Church of God’, because of the fact that the ‘joint heirs of the promises’ interpret these promises of God differently, many Christians have learnt a new language – for example to speak of Israel as ‘the first-chosen People of God’ and of the Church as ‘the also-chosen ecumenical People of God from all the nations’. Christians learn to accept in dialogue that the Church is not the first and not the only one that is chosen to be God’s People.
     
 See also Israel, land and state of; supersessionism