The apostle had concluded all under sin without difference, the Jew having only added transgressions under the law: and he had closed the account of the privileges of the saints in the eighth chapter. Not, it is true, on the ground of the elevation of Christ to be head of the body, (that is the subject of the Ephesians,) but on a principle of a headship of Christ going beyond Abraham and David, and extending to a position which answered to that of Adam, the figure of Him that was to come—the new resurrection Man. This blotted out the idea of Israel as to distinctive position before God. Lifted up from the earth, He was to draw all men in a new way. God was the God of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews. The free gift had all men for its object. The consequent blessings are then enquired into; the presence of the Holy Ghost,—they were called, justified, and glorified, and never to be separated from God’s love in Christ Jesus. This closes the eighth chapter.
But then naturally arises the question: If Jews and Gentiles are indiscriminately admitted by faith, what comes of the promises made to Israel as God’s people? This question the apostle answers in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, showing that God had foretold that they would be a disobedient and gainsaying people, as they had in fact stumbled at the stumbling stone. The question then, here discussed, is not Church privileges, but how to reconcile their being indiscriminate with the distinctive promises to Israel. And, therefore, (chap. 11) the apostle asks, Has God cast away His people? And here he comes entirely on earthly ground:. for Israel never were, and never will be, and were never promised to be, a heavenly people; whereas, the Church, in its higher and distinctive and proper privileges, was a heavenly people, and had Christ’s suffering portion for them upon earth. They were sitting in heavenly places in him; but they were to have a place actually on earth; and here they replaced for a time Israel. But that did not at all set aside the promises to Israel as such—there was no blending of them. A Jew, or circumcision, was nothing now. One displaced the other on earth. In heaven the distinction was unknown. Christ was the head of the body in heaven, but he was no Messiah of the Gentiles upon earth, though the Gentiles were to trust in Him, so that the apostle could justify himself by the Old Testament.
But then, how reconcile these things? God had not cast away His people. First, He had reserved an elect remnant. Secondly. it was to provoke, as. He had declared He would, to jealousy, His ancient people; therefore, not to cast them off. Thirdly, Israel would be saved as a whole by Christ’s coming again and going forth from Zion. But this last, instead of blending, was preceded by the threat of utterly cutting off the Gentile branches. Now, it is quite clear that this cannot refer to the heavenly body of Christ, (for it cannot be so cut off,) but to God’s dealings with them on earth. And this is yet more evident, because the Israelites are said to be grafted into their own olive tree, which clearly has nothing to do with the Church as a heavenly body: because that is not their olive tree any more than a Gentile’s. All were alike here, children of wrath. There was no difference. It was one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. But there was an administration of promises, and immutable promises, which did naturally belong to them. The Gentiles came in here, inasmuch as, being united to Christ the true seed of Abraham, they come into the promises and blessing of Abraham. But on repentance, Israel down here on earth will be grafted into their own olive tree, where we are now contrary to nature. But all this “naturally,” and “contrary to nature,” has no place in our proper church position: all is beyond nature, and contrary to nature there. Yea, though we had known Christ after the flesh, (and He was seed of David according to the flesh, and Abraham was the Jew’s father after the flesh)—but, though we had known Christ after the flesh, we were now to know Hint no more, though we recognize His title. The glory of the Messiah of Israel will be established, but not on the principles, though both be received by grace, on which the Church is set in heaven; because there can be no Israel known there. They have their own olive tree down here, and the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. But in Christ, as known to the Church, there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free; but Christ is all and in all. The Church of heavenly places has put on Christ, and knows nothing else.
And it is because the Church at Jerusalem did yet, as to earth, refer to this special place of Jews, according to the mind of God Himself, (and not as if it did not itself enter into the full heavenly privileges,) according to the sermon of Acts 3., where the unbelieving Jews are still treated as the children of the covenant which God made with Abraham—that the Pentecostal Church has been spoken of as having a Jewish character. It is not that those who composed it did not form part of the heavenly Church and body of Christ; but that God, till Jerusalem had rejected the testimony of the Holy Ghost about a glorified Christ, as she had rejected a humble Christ, did not finally cast her off as having no snore hope. She had deserved it, indeed, but God answered the intercession of Christ for that nation upon the cross, by the Spirit in the mouth of Peter, in Acts 3., (as indeed as a nation He will hereafter, only in a remnant saved by grace) telling them that now, if they repented, He would send Jesus, and the times of refreshing would come. But when he called, there was still “none to answer,” and judgment, though with long patience, took its course. And Paul appears (Col. 1.) as minister of the Church, to fulfill the word of God, and of the Gospel, to every creature under heaven; and the full heavenly indiscriminate character of the one body is brought out. Nobody ever dreamt that the Jewish saints were not of it; but they justly discerned the blessed patient dealings of God with His ancient and beloved people—the nation for which Christ died, and for which He interceded—and the full bringing out of the doctrine of that heavenly body which knew no difference of Jew within itself at all, nor Christ Himself after the flesh, while it recognized the truth of all the rest.