One New Man: God's True Covenant People
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace
(Eph 2:14-15)
My Journey Through Zionism
I want to begin this study with something deeply personal, because for many years after my conversion to the Jewish Messiah, I remained fully invested in the modern Zionist understanding of Israel. I knew that Jewish blood ran through my veins, my aunt attended a Messianic Synagogue and for a long time, I held tightly to that identity.
My story begins 32 years ago after being radically saved out of a life of addiction, homelessness and pain, I was living with a Pastor named Wayne Thompson in a recovery bootcamp called Harvest Time Ministries. A few short months later, I had the most powerful realistic type of lucid dream I have ever experienced. In that dream, I saw Jesus speaking to me face to face; his eyes pierced through mine with a peace and compassion I can't put into words. Simular to how he asked Peter 3 times if He loved Him, He asked me three times, “Do you love My people Israel?” Thinking of ethnic Israel of course, I answered three times, “Yes, Lord, You know I do.” We were face to face staring into each others eyes. The dream ended when he kissed me with a Holy kiss and his face faded away. From that moment on, I became convinced that I was being called to be a witness to the people of Israel. Possibly traveling to the middle east. At the time, I had no biblical idea of the question, "who is Israel"?
Throughout the following year after that dream, while living with Wayne and working at the fruit stand he owned, I immersed myself in the Scriptures. For eight hours a day, month after month, I immersed myself in the Scriptures. For the next eight months, I lived in the Word, reading constantly and listening to the Bible on audio cassette until the words seemed to echo through every part of my life. Wayne, the Pastor who once told me you could never read God’s word enough, eventually told me I was reading it too much. Yet even after all of that, I was still taught to see Israel through someone else’s theological lens.
After I got married, my wife and I continued attending Messianic congregations wherever life took us, because we moved around quite a bit. Even then, many of the assumptions we carried about prophecy, Israel, and the covenants had never truly been questioned.
As the years passed, I continued devoting my life to attending every meeting, studying, reading, and immersing myself daily in the Scriptures. And because the Word was so alive within me, constantly turning over in my mind and heart, I began noticing that many things simply were not fitting together. It was as though pieces of a puzzle were scattered across the table, but the picture I had been handed could not make sense of them. Certain teachings seemed to collide with the plain words of Jesus and His apostles. The more I read, the more I felt an increasing tension between what I was being taught and what the Scriptures themselves appeared to be saying.
As I continued searching the words of the New Testament, I began deeply challenging beliefs I had accepted for years without question, ideas I had never truly examined for myself while attending the Messianic synagogues because I simply trusted that the rabbis understood these things better than I did. But over time, something began to change within me. This journey was becoming less about simply inheriting beliefs from other people or relying on traditions I had never personally examined for myself. So, like the Bereans, I began searching the Scriptures diligently to see whether these things were truly so.
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)
This transformation that I began going through was truly born out of a deep desire to trust God alone to teach me through His Word. I devoted myself to studying both Greek and Hebrew, and my dining room table was constantly covered with study books, concordances, lexicons, and notes spread everywhere. Some of you may remember those days before technology made everything accessible with a click.
The more I studied and carefully compared these teachings with Scripture, the clearer it became that the Gospel and the epistles were revealing something far greater than I had ever been taught. They were not declaring the abandonment of Israel in any way, but the fulfillment of the New Covenant and everything Israel was always intended to become through Christ Jesus.
Slowly, as the veil began to lift off my eyes. I continued to seek the Lord through His Word, I found my heart gradually turning away from earthly systems, genealogies, and the types and shadows that had once held so much of my attention. Instead, my eyes were being steadily fixed upon Christ and His body as the true fulfillment of all the promises of God.
As they continued unfolding before me, I could no longer ignore what the Scriptures themselves were revealing. My focus was no longer centered on natural heritage or the shadow systems of the Old Covenant, but upon Christ Himself as the fulfillment. What follows is the journey the Lord faithfully led me through and the things He patiently revealed and taught me along the way.
Abraham’s True Seed
As the veil continued to lift through the Scriptures, the truth revealed in the New Testament became impossible for me to ignore: it does not leave the identity of God’s people vague, evolving, or open to competing definitions. Instead, it brings that identity into sharp and undeniable clarity through Christ. What began as a promise to Abraham finds its fulfillment in a people no longer defined by flesh, geography, or external covenant markers, but by faith and the indwelling life of God. This argument does not dismantle Israel; rather, it reveals what Israel was always meant to become, a people born of promise, no more of blood. Paul establishes this from the very beginning, no longer allowing His identity to rest in ancestry.
“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham… so then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Galatians 3:7, 9)
Wow, Abraham himself was justified before circumcision, before Sinai, before the Law ever defined a nation!
“Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Galatians 3:6),
which means the truest line of descent was and never will be biological but believing. This is why Paul can say without hesitation,
“If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29)
But even before Paul wrote these words, John the Baptist was already confronting the false confidence many placed in physical lineage:
“And think not to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham to our father’: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” (Matthew 3:9)
The power of this statement in Matthew is enormous. John was directly confronting the idea that physical descent, genealogy, or ethnic heritage automatically made someone part of God’s covenant people. He was warning them that covenant identity was never ultimately about bloodline, but about the power and calling of God. God could raise up children to Abraham from lifeless stones if He desired. That completely destroys confidence in mere natural lineage as the basis of covenant standing.
These verses are just the beginning of how we will show that they were never according to ethnicity, but according to faith in the promised Messiah.
Through Jesus (Yeshua) and the writings of the New Testament authors, I became convinced that the promise to Abraham reached its fulfillment in a people no longer defined by flesh, geography, or external covenant markers, but by faith, union with Christ, and the indwelling life of God. This does not, in any way, dismantle Israel; rather, it reveals what Israel was always meant to become: a people born of promise, not of DNA.
Paul establishes this from the very beginning, refusing to allow identity to be grounded in ancestry alone. (Galatians 3:7, 9)
Dear Saints, do know this; that Abraham himself was justified before circumcision, before Sinai, before the Law ever defined a nation, which means the truest line of descent was never been biological but believing. This is why Paul can say without hesitation, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring.
He does not say according to ethnicity, but according to promise. This is carried even further when Paul confronts the assumption that physical Israel automatically equals covenant Israel, Listen,
“For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring (DNA)… but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Romans 9:6–8)
The distinction is not subtle, it is foundational. There is an Israel according to the flesh (Hagar), and there is an Israel according to promise (Sarah), and the latter is what God has always been after.
Not All Israel Are of Israel
Many point to Romans 9 through 11 as proof that God still has an unfulfilled covenant plan centered around national Israel according to the flesh, but Paul’s entire argument says the exact opposite. Romans 9 begins by redefining Israel itself, “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (Romans 9:6).
Paul never argues that unbelieving ethnic Israel remains God’s covenant people regardless of faith. Instead, he argues that only the remnant according to grace participates in the promise, “So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace” (Romans 11:5). The natural branches were broken off because of unbelief, while Gentiles were grafted in through faith,
“They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith” (Romans 11:20)
The entire point of Romans 11 is not that ethnicity guarantees covenant standing forever, but that faith alone determines participation in the olive tree.
Paul’s Death to Fleshly Identity
Paul himself becomes one of the greatest witnesses to this truth that lineage no longer was to define Him. If anyone could boast in fleshly identity, covenant pedigree, and earthly Israel, it was him. Yet after seeing Christ, Paul looked back on everything he once trusted in and declared it empty compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus.
For we (Church) are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:3-8)
The Greek word Paul uses for rubbish is skubalon, meaning dung, refuse, waste aka. (Poop). Everything he once gloried in according to the flesh, his tribal lineage decended from Benjamin, status, law keeping, and earthly identity, he now counted as Poop compared to the excellency of Christ. This is why he redefines even the most sacred identity marker of the old covenant,
“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” (Romans 2:28–29)
The sign that once marked the covenant people externally is now fulfilled internally by the Spirit, proving that the true people of God are identified by transformation, not by lineage.
When Paul turns to the image of the olive tree, he removes any remaining doubt about how inclusion works under the new covenant
“If some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others… they were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith” (Romans 11:17, 20)
Natural branches, those with the right ancestry and DNA, are cut off through unbelief, while wild branches, (Gentiles) those with no ancestral claim, are grafted in through faith. The determining factor is no longer heritage, it is belief. Yet this is not replacement theology or supersessionism as many claim, it is fulfillment, because the root remains the same, the promise given to Abraham, now realized in Christ. The tree has not changed, but the way one participates in it has been fully revealed. Faith is the door, and unbelief, regardless of background or earthly DNA heritage, is the only exclusion.
This is why I have come to believe that those in Israel today who claim covenant identity while rejecting Jesus Christ are not, in the New Testament sense, the covenant people of God. For many years, I believed that even after Yeshua had come, God would return to the carnal shadows rather than the divine fulfillment found in His Son. I believed He would restore the old covenant system, rebuild a physical temple, revive the types and shadows, feast days, and return to the very things Christ had already fulfilled and brought to completion through the New Covenant. I even found myself watching for a red heifer to inaugurate another earthly temple system, something God never intended to be permanent in the first place.
But the deeper I immersed myself in Scripture, the more difficult it became to reconcile these ideas with the testimony of the New Testament. I could no longer understand how a city still largely rejecting Yeshua as Messiah was wanting to restore the temple order He fulfilled forever.
My heart today is not one of condemnation, but of hope, because the only hope for any person, Jew or Gentile alike, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and become part of the faithful remnant, the new man according to grace.
One Covenant People
For this very reason, Paul could declare what would have been absolutely unthinkable under the old covenant,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28)
This is not the erasure of identity, it is the removal of identity as any basis for covenant standing. The dividing wall has been dismantled,
“For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two” (Ephesians 2:14–15)
Not two peoples coexisting, but one new humanity in Christ. This is the remnant reality, believing Israel fulfilled and expanded, with Gentiles brought near, “Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). The result is not two covenants or two identities, but one people,
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:19)
From Earthly Jerusalem to Heavenly Zion
Jesus Himself laid the groundwork for this shift, redefining belonging in terms that go beyond bloodline, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50). And even more radical, He also declared the end of location based worship,
“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father… the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:21, 23)
The center is no longer a place, but a people, a heavenly Jerusalem who is above and free. The covenant is no longer tied to land, but to life in the Spirit. This is why Stephen could proclaim, “The Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands… heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Acts 7:48–49). God is not and will never return to localized systems. He has filled heaven and earth through Christ.
The Jerusalem Above
This new reality is not partial or future, it is present and accomplished. The writer of Hebrews makes this unmistakably clear,
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem… to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven” (Hebrews 12:22–23)
Not you will come, but you have come and you are already enrolled in heaven. This is a present tense reality. Mount Zion is no longer a geographic hill in the Middle East, it is the gathered people of God in Christ, the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem now manifested in a living community. This is why Paul can say,
“The Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Galatians 4:26)
I had to ask myself honestly, which Jerusalem do I desire to be a part of, the earthly or the heavenly? To me, when the reality replaced the shadow, the choice is obvious since the substance has come, and the former forms no longer define the people of God.
God's True Covenant People
Peter confirms this by taking the very titles once reserved for ethnic Israel and applying them directly to believers in Christ,
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession… once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (1 Peter 2:9–10)
This is not symbolic talk, it is New Covenant truth. The identity of Israel has reached its fulfillment in a people drawn from every nation, tribe and tongue. Now unified not by human blood or ethnicity, but united by the blood of the son of God. This is the remnant reality, believing Israel fulfilled and expanded to include all the gentiles who share the faith of our father Abraham.
Even the words of Jesus in Revelation reinforce that ethnicity alone no longer defines covenant standing,
“I know the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9)
This is not an attack on heritage, it is a declaration that claiming identity without alignment to Christ is empty/vain. The same reality existed in the first century, and it continues wherever identity is claimed apart from faith. The true people of God are those who belong to the Lamb, not those who rely on Jewish lineage.
Shadow Fulfilled in Christ
All of this leads to one unavoidable conclusion: God has fulfilled exactly what He promised with the physical nation of Israel. The shadows have reached their fulfillment in Christ. The Law, the temple, the land, the priesthood, and the sacrifices were all pointing forward to Him. Jesus Himself declared concerning Jerusalem and the end of the old covenant age,
“For these are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written” (Luke 21:22).
Hebrews confirms this transition plainly,
“When there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Hebrews 7:12)
and again, “He abolishes the first in order to establish the second” (Hebrews 10:9). The old covenant system was never meant to remain forever. As Paul says, “the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Galatians 3:24). It was always pointing toward Christ. And now Christ, the true and complete Israelite, the substance, has come. The old was never meant to remain; it was always pointing forward. Now the substance has arrived.
God is not, and will not return to the types and shadows when the reality has come. He is not rebuilding what has already been fulfilled. He has created something entirely new, exactly as He promised, “Behold, I am doing a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19), now realized in Christ, where “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This new creation that we now are is not confined to a land, but fills the earth, because Christ now reigns, “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25), and the vision is complete,
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 11:15).
Not Two Peoples, But One
To summarize everything we have said, God has forever moved beyond the old localized covenant system centered in earthly Jerusalem. In Christ, the dwelling place of God is no longer confined to a city, temple, or religious headquarters, but now dwells in any who call upon him, Jew or Gentile, in faith. A people with the true circumcison of the heart who's praise is not of man, but God by the Spirit. Jesus declared that the hour had come when worship would be neither “in this mountain” nor “in Jerusalem,” but “in spirit and truth” (John 4:21–24). Paul said the “Jerusalem above is free” (Galatians 4:26) Hebrews declares, “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22)
This is not the Church replacing Israel, it is the fulfillment of all God promised through Abraham in Christ alone.
Looking back now, I realize the dream I had years ago of seeing Jesus and believing He was calling me to minister to “His people Israel” was never about being drawn back into an earthly covenant system centered in ethnic identity. He was opening my eyes to something far greater. He was calling me to His only true covenant people, the ecclesia, the body of Christ, Jew and Gentile made one in Him. The true fulfillment of Israel is found in Yeshua Himself, the true seed, the faithful Son, and all those and only those who are united to Him by faith become partakers of that promise.
Not two peoples, but one new man in Christ.
Not shadow, but substance.
Not future, but now.
And like leaven, His kingdom will continue to spread throughout the earth, and of the increase of this government, there will be NO end! (Isaiah 9:7)
So do not fear the rise of nations, communism, or powers like North Korea, because Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). His body of saints in the earth cannot be overcome. And in time, that which is already declared will become.
“The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15)
To the Church
And to the Church, we are all one indivisible people in Jesus the Messiah. Never forget this glorious truth, that if you have believed upon Jesus Christ by faith, then you too are Abraham’s seed according to promise, the true Israel of God. (Galatians 3:29).
To those who have thought of themselves as merely the “Gentile Church” and somehow less in the Kingdom of God, cast that lie down forever. You are not second class citizens in the Kingdom. You are not outside the covenant promises. Through Christ, you have been brought near, adopted, filled with the Spirit, and made fellow heirs of the promises of God. The same faith that justified Abraham has now grafted you in and brought you into the family of God through Jesus the Messiah. So stand boldly in your identity, not as outsiders trying to come near, but as sons and daughters fully accepted into the true Israel with Christ.
To My Messianic Jewish Brothers and Sisters
And to my Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters, this is not written to condemn you, but to remind us all of something I myself once struggled with deeply. One thing I repeatedly saw throughout many Messianic synagogues, and even within my own heart at times, was the subtle pride that somehow having Jewish blood made us spiritually superior or closer to God. But the Gospel of Yeshua destroys that pride completely, totally and without question. At the foot of the cross, no man stands higher than another. Our identity, righteousness, and covenant standing are not found in Jewish lineage, Gentile background, or earthly heritage, but in Christ alone the only true Israelite. The same faith that justified Abraham is now what brings every believer, Jew and Gentile alike, into the family of God through Yeshua the Messiah. So let us stand boldly in our identity, not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, because in Christ, we are one.
Not Two Peoples, But One: The Scholars Agree
F. F. Bruce
“One new humanity has been created in Christ. The old division between Jew and Gentile has been overcome; together they constitute the one people of God, the true Israel of faith.”
“The true people of God are not marked out by racial descent but by faith in Christ.”
“The Christian church is the inheritor of the promises made to Israel because it is incorporated into Christ, the true seed of Abraham.”
N. T. Wright
“The church is not a detached entity from Israel. It is the continuation and fulfillment of the single people of God.”
Herman Ridderbos
“The church is not a second people of God beside Israel, but the eschatological continuation of the true Israel.”
John Calvin
“All the promises made to Israel belong equally to the Church, because the covenant has been fulfilled in Christ.”
“The Church today is the true Israel of God.”
G. K. Beale
“The church is the end-time temple, the end-time Israel, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophetic expectation.”
Charles Spurgeon
“We who believe in Jesus are the true seed of Abraham.”
“All believers are now the Israel of God.”
Anthony Hoekema
“The New Testament applies to the church all the titles and privileges once applied to Israel.”
Meredith G. Kline
“The church is the legitimate continuation of the Old Testament covenant community.”
John Stott
“The church is neither a parenthesis nor a replacement, but the fulfillment of God’s purpose for Israel.”
Richard B. Hays
“Paul understands the church as the redefined people of God.”
Early Church Fathers
Justin Martyr (2nd Century)
“We who have been led to God through this crucified Christ are the true spiritual Israel.”
Irenaeus
“The inheritance of the church is the inheritance promised to Abraham.”
Tertullian
“Christ has made the Gentiles into the true heirs of the promises.”
Augustine of Hippo
“The Church is the Israel of God spiritually understood.”
“What was promised to the Jews according to the flesh is fulfilled in the people of Christ.”
This newsletter is only a small snapshot of the truth's set forth and I suppose that there is so many more things that could be written that a book could easily be written in short order.
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