Chapter CXXXV.—Christ is king of Israel, and Christians are the Israelitic race.
“And when Scripture says, ‘I am the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, who have made
known Israel your King,’706 will you not understand that truly Christ is the everlasting King?
For you are aware that Jacob the son of Isaac was never a king. And therefore Scripture
again, explaining to us, says what king is meant by Jacob and Israel: ‘Jacob is my Servant, I
will uphold Him; and Israel is mine Elect, my soul shall receive Him. I have given Him my
Spirit; and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, and His voice
shall not be heard without. The bruised reed He shall not break, and the smoking flax He
shall not quench, until He shall bring forth judgment to victory. He shall shine, and shall
not be broken, until He set judgment on the earth. And in His name shall the Gentiles
trust.’707 Then is it Jacob the patriarch in whom the Gentiles and yourselves shall trust? or
is it not Christ? As, therefore, Christ is the Israel and the Jacob, even so we, who have been
quarried out from the bowels of Christ, are the true Israelitic race. But let us attend rather
to the very word: ‘And I will bring forth,’ He says, ‘the seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah:
and it shall inherit My holy mountain; and Mine Elect and My servants shall possess the
inheritance, and shall dwell there; and there shall be folds of flocks in the thicket, and the
valley of Achor shall be a resting-place of cattle for the people who have sought Me. But as
for you, who forsake Me, and forget My holy mountain, and prepare a table for demons,
and fill out drink for the demon, I shall give you to the sword. You shall all fall with a
slaughter; for I called you, and you hearkened not, and did evil before me, and did choose
that wherein I delighted not.’708 Such are the words of Scripture; understand, therefore,
that the seed of Jacob now referred to is something else, and not, as may be supposed, spoken
of your people. For it is not possible for the seed of Jacob to leave an entrance for the des-
cendants of Jacob, or for [God] to have accepted the very same persons whom He had re-
proached with unfitness for the inheritance, and promise it to them again; but as there the
prophet says, ‘And now, O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord; for
He has sent away His people, the house of Jacob, because their land was full, as at the first,
of soothsayers and divinations;’709 even so it is necessary for us here to observe that there
are two seeds of Judah, and two races, as there are two houses of Jacob: the one begotten by
blood and flesh, the other by faith and the Spirit.
706 Isa. xliii. 15.
707 Isa. xlii. 1–4.
708 Isa. lxv. 9–12.
709 Isa. ii. 5 f.
Chapter CXXXV.—Christ is king of Israel, and Christians are the Israelitic race.
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Chapter CXXXV.—Christ is king of Israel, and Christians are the Israelitic…