Not My People
The scattering of the house of Israel among the nations as "not my people" is real history, and it is also a picture of the believers God calls out of the nations.
One other cluster builds on this: Out of the Miry Clay.
Scripture shows this in eight steps:
- Genesis 41:50-52 and Genesis 48:5, 14, 16, 19-20, backed by Jeremiah 31:9 and Hebrews 11:21
- Hosea 1:4-10, backed by Hosea 7:8 and 8:8
- Jeremiah 31:31-33, backed by Hebrews 8:8-10 and 10:15-16
- Romans 9:24-27
- 1 Peter 2:10
- John 11:51-52, backed by John 1:12-13
- Isaiah 56:8, backed by Isaiah 56:3, 6
- Acts 18:9-10
It all comes together in Acts 26:7 and Romans 11:24.
Underneath it all lies Romans 15:8-9.
God often lets real history be a picture of something greater. “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:46). Adam and Eve were real people, and in them Christ and the church are pictured (Ephesians 5:31-32).
The same is true of the house of Israel, the ten northern tribes. They were really scattered among the nations. God really called them “not my people.” And the apostles take those very words and say them over people like me: Gentiles God has called.
Genesis 41:50-52 and 48:5, 14, 19-20
“And unto Joseph were born two sons before the years of famine came, which Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On bare unto him… And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
Genesis 41:50, 52
“And now thy two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, which were born unto thee in the land of Egypt before I came unto thee into Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.”
Genesis 48:5
Ephraim, whose name the northern house would carry, did not begin as Israel by birth alone. His mother was the daughter of an Egyptian priest. He was born outside the land. Jacob took him and his brother by a word, “are mine.” He crossed his hands and set the younger first (Genesis 48:14, 20). He did it “by faith” (Hebrews 11:21). Later God said, “Ephraim is my firstborn” (Jeremiah 31:9). Not the first to be born, but given the first place.
The apostles do not say this in so many words. But it is a picture of the nations being adopted as sons: “that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:5). The next links carry what the apostles do say.
Hosea 1:9-10
“Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God.”
Hosea 1:9
“Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea… and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.”
Hosea 1:10
Hosea keeps the two houses apart. Judah will be shown mercy. The house of Israel is called “not my people.” It is scattered: “now shall they be among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure” (Hosea 8:8). It mixes with the nations until no one can tell it apart. And right there, in that place, God promises: “Ye are the sons of the living God.”
Jeremiah 31:31-33
“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah… I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Jeremiah 31:31, 33
The new covenant names both houses. It writes God’s law on the heart. And it turns Hosea’s words around. “Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God” becomes “will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Hebrews quotes this covenant and says the Holy Spirit is “a witness to us” of it (Hebrews 10:15). Believers hold it.
Romans 9:24-27
“Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.”
Romans 9:24-27
This is the passage that settles it. Paul takes Hosea’s words to the house of Israel and says them about “the Gentiles.” Then he turns to another prophet “concerning Israel,” and speaks of a remnant. He does not say the Gentiles are the ten tribes. He says God calls Gentiles with the words once spoken over the ten tribes. We stood where Ephraim stood: not a people, without God, far off. And there God called us.
So I am not Ephraim by blood. Some teach that. But Paul still calls these believers “Gentiles” (Romans 11:13). I am adopted as Ephraim was, not adopted into Ephraim.
1 Peter 2:10
“Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”
1 Peter 2:10
Peter uses both of Hosea’s names, “not a people” and “not obtained mercy,” for his readers. Their past was spent doing “the will of the Gentiles” (1 Peter 4:3). That is two apostles, saying the same thing.
John 11:52
“And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.”
John 11:52
Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and “not for that nation only.” The scattered children of God are gathered from beyond it. This is not only the lost tribes by descent. John has already said what makes someone a child of God: they “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).
Isaiah 56:8
“The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.”
Isaiah 56:8
The “others” are “the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD” (Isaiah 56:6). Scattered Israel and the strangers are gathered in one act, by one God. The picture and what it pictures stand in a single verse.
Acts 18:10
“For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.”
Acts 18:10
The Lord says this to Paul in Corinth, a Gentile city, before those people have believed. They are already His, scattered among the nations, waiting to be called. This is what the scattered house was a picture of.
Romans 15:8-9
“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy.”
Romans 15:8-9
There is an order. Christ came first to Israel: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). Then the mercy reached the Gentiles. One plan, one gospel, one church, in that order. Not a separate plan for Israel.
Romans 11:24 and Acts 26:7
“For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?”
Romans 11:24
“Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.”
Acts 26:7
This does not mean every “Israel” in the Bible is just the church. The twelve tribes were real, and Paul still speaks of them. Descent is a fact. A Gentile believer is grafted in “contrary to nature.” He does not become an Israelite by blood. But descent never made anyone God’s people.
What this means
The house of Israel is history. Its scattering among the nations as “not my people” is the picture. The believers God calls out of the nations are what it pictured.
I was not a people. I had not obtained mercy. I was far off, mixed in with the world, and no one could tell me apart from it. God called me there, in that place, and said, “Ye are the sons of the living God.”
Connected chains
This cluster is built on Lost and Found: One Key for Luke 15, Sons of God Are Believers, Not Fallen Angels, The Shadow Whose Body Is Christ, The Two Gardens and The Root Is Love. It also goes hand in hand with Israel Is Spiritual.