Only One People of God?
“There has always been only one people of God.” A quick internet search will show how common this assertion has become in Christian commentary. Often, the idea that God has had only one identifiable people throughout history precedes a further claim that, after the arrival of Jesus, the Christian church has become the true people of God. Conversely, since most Jews do not follow Yeshua today, the original chosen nation of Israel is no longer included in the one people of God. This view is known as supersessionism—the belief that the (mostly gentile) Christian church has replaced ethnic Jews as the new Israel. Yet the notion that God can embrace only one people is inaccurate. In fact, Scripture envisions many different peoples worshiping the one true God.
The ethnic nation of Israel is God’s chosen “people” (Hebrew: עַם; am). As early as Exodus, God tells Moses, “I will send you to Pharaoh and you will bring out my people (עַמִּי; ami), the children of Israel (יִשְׂרָאֵל) from Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). Later in the same book, Moses asks God, “Is it not in your walking with us that we are set apart, I and your people (עַמְּךָ; amekha), from all the people (מִכָּל־הָעָם) on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:16). Indeed, God identifies Israel as the people who are distinguished from all others in their special relationship with the Lord.
Yet Scripture also describes gentile nations as peoples of God. Isaiah 19:24-25 declares that the Lord will bless multiple nations, saying, “Blessed be my people Egypt (עַמִּי מִצְרַיִם; ami mitsrayim), and Assyria the work of my hands, and my inheritance Israel (וְנַחֲלָתִי יִשְׂרָאֵל).” Following texts like these, Revelation envisions countless peoples worshiping God. John recounts, “I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the children of Israel (υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ, huiōn Israēl)…. After this, I looked and behold, a great crowd that no one could number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples (λαῶν, laōn) and languages, stood before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev 7:4, 9). According to this vision, the goal of God is to have many different peoples worshiping before the divine throne: the tribes of Israel are distinct from an innumerable multitude that contains tribes from all other nations. In Messiah, all of these collectives become diverse peoples of God. Thus, the claim that God has only one people—or that the gentiles of the global church make up that one people—is an unbiblical idea. Ethnic Israel remains the chosen people from the exodus to the eschaton, and other peoples are blessed to join Israel under the parentage of God.
