Everyone here is hovering so closely to what is actually true, but I think may be having some trouble describing the importance of the differences between Jacob and Israel.
Nor do I think I am capable of making those differences entirely plain, for it is a matter of covenents...only one of which is completely unconditional, and it is to the one family tree from Adam through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Christians, through whatever description or background, are of the original plan of God to redeem man through Jesus, but it being a spiritual redemption, heredity has no place in it.
Semites, through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob called Israel were chosen to hold the oracles of God, and to be a sign and a warning to the remainder of the earth that there is a God who requires belief and conduct according to His desire.
And consequently, He has promised there will be a remnant of Heriditary Israel that will see Him coming in His glory, will see His wounds, realize how blind they have been, and mourn as if they had killed their own son. Indeed, the Heriditary Israelites, by not seeking God through Jesus, have condemned innumerable of their family members to a dreadful Judgement, for they will not live to see Christ return, and having walked in unbelief, scarce even keeping the Law, which with faith and formal sacrifices, was a Jew's only way to surviving the Great White Throne Judgement, will survive only at the mercy of God, and only if God so chooses.
Christians are Spiritual Israel, through Jesus. Our walk is a personal matter, between ourselves and Jesus. Heredity plays no part in it, for God has only sons, and no grand-sons. You cannot inherit salvation through Jesus.
The remainders of the physical tribes of Israel that we call Jacob, is Israel only by heredity. Most walk in relative unbelief, and have for thousands of years, walking in a Law they cannot keep, but that still sets them apart as God's own.
Hereditary Israel has yet one week of years of wrath determined on them. It is the time of Jacob's trouble...the wrath of an angry God chastising a people who have ignored and disobeyed Him for far too long.
Those who survive the Tribulation, a judgement of wrath, on the unbelieving world, including whatever gentiles that survive the Devil's presence on earth, as is written in scripture, will see Christ, acknowledge Him, and live under His direct rule, repopulating the earth.
Lucifer is pent up for a thousand years, while those who survive to enter the Milleniumal period, will have not only the benefit of no temptation from the evil one, but also living in a just and merciful society.
Christians that survive the evil and persecution of Satan during that time will not enter the Millenium, but be caught up to meet Jesus in the air, along with the Christian dead of centuries past, just prior to the wrath of God as promised by Paul. What that wrath is specifically in Revelation, or when it occurs is not entirely clear, although the [i]harpazo[/i] or [i]rapiemur[/i], the catching away that we call the Rapture, appears to be just prior to the vials are poured out on the earth.
And at the end of a thousand years, Lucifer is released again, to tempt those that have no experience with his evil, and thus, God will yet again, sort out the sheep and the goats from all those who entered the Millenium as brand new believers, brought to belief by the actual presence of the Messiah.
Then comes the final Judgement. Spiritual Israel has already gone through the Judgement of the Lamb, or will have their names in the book of life, having given their hearts, minds, souls, and service to Jesus during the millenium.
And if they survive the testing of having Lucifer around to stir up rebellion against Jesus, and are still in faith at the end of the Millenium, Hereditary Israel will become a part of Spiritual Israel.
Others, Jew and Gentile of the entire creation that were not saved by faith, will face the Great White Thone Judgement, and then Jesus will restore and change the earth and the heavens, and all that are left of faith, from any covenenant or heriditary covenenant will then also become Spiritual Israel in full, entering into Eternity for whatever plans God has for us.
I look forward to that day, as should we all, when no one that we know is not truly of Israel.
Blessings,
Forrest
