Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3091
“Are they Israelites? So am I.” 2 Corinthians 11:22.
PAUL was proud of his extraction as a Jew. Taking this expression in its literal sense, I feel that he had much to be proud of. Judah’s banner must not rank second among the nations. The nation of Israel is most ancient and most honorable. When as yet Greece and Rome were not known, God had brought forth His people out of Egypt “with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm,” and had cast out Amorite and Perizzite to make room for the vine which He had brought out of Egypt. Poets, statesmen, philosophers, divines had all come to ripeness and the fullness of strength in Judah’s land, while as yet the other nations were sunken in barbarism. When our little island of the sea was just a mass of forests, with here and there, perhaps, a naked savage wandering through it, David was praising God on a ten-stringed instrument! We talk of Norman blood, but what is it compared with Jewish blood? We speak of the dignity of peers and nobles of our infant monarchy, but this ancient nation stretches its parents of nobility far back—right up to the days of “the Friend of God,” when he stood under the oak at Mamre!
The people of Israel were famous because of God’s election. As a nation they deserve honor, but as the elect of God they must stand high in our esteem. One little stream of pure love and truth went wandering amidst the arid wastes of human depravity. The election of Grace fell mainly—I might almost say entirely—within the 12 tribes that sprang from the loins of Jacob in those early days. They were the conservators of the lamp of the Truth of God. Theirs were the oracles and grandest and best of all of them, “as concerning the flesh, Christ came.” Never despise the Jew when you remember that while our Savior was a Man, yet He was a Man of that peculiar type. Let us think of the Jew, Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Son of Mary, and feel a sympathy forever with His flesh and blood.
Besides, the Jewish race has a history yet to come, marvelous and strange history whose lines are intertwisted with all the threads of the history of other nations. I am not about to amuse you by any prophesying. This is not the place to desecrate the Sabbath with whimsical interpretations of Daniel, Ezekiel and the Revelation! But still, it is plain upon the very surface of Scripture that Israel shall yet be restored to grandeur as a nation, that the King of the Jews shall reign and that in all the splendors of the millennial age, the Jew, ingathered with the fullness of the Gentile, shall have his full share. This much we know and in this much even we, the Gentiles, do unfeignedly rejoice. For the Son of David is He who has made both one and broken down the middle wall of separation between us—and henceforth there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free—but we are all one in Christ Jesus. However, were I here tonight as a convert to the Christian faith with Jewish blood within my veins, I would speak with no bated breath concerning it, nor wish to hide my pedigree, but count it the highest of all honors which could come to me after the flesh, that I sprang from the loins of Abraham, “the Friend of God.” I do not marvel that Paul was so jealous of it, or that he says, “Are they Israelites? So am I.” He was no bigot—remember, he was the Apostle of the Gentiles—it was he who constantly disclaimed all confidence in circumcision. It was he who withstood Peter to the face because he was to be blamed in this matter. It was he who, as with a battle-axe, was continually breaking down the barriers which divided Jew and Gentile. But yet, for all that, as a man, he was not ashamed to say, “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham?
So am I.”
I propose now, however, to take the text in another light. In a spiritual sense, all the Lord’s people are Israelites. “They are not all Israel, which are of Israel” after a carnal lineage, but all God’s people are the true Israel, the spiritual seed in whom the promises made to Abraham are this day fulfilled. I hope we can say, some of us, with a loud and
emphatic utterance—and others with a humble whisper, “Are they Israelites? So am I,” thus putting in our claim to the privileges which belong to the people of God.
Let us accordingly spend a few minutes, first, in describing a peculiar people—Israelites. And then, secondly, in asserting a personal claim, s aying, “So am I.”
I. This PECULIAR PEOPLE, called Israelites, I will describe in two ways. The Israelites of God are like their father, like Israel. And they are like their ancestors, l ike Israel.
First of all, they are like their father All the Israel of God are in some respects like Jacob, who was surnamed Israel.
[Mr. Spurgeon preached many Sermons on Jacob, among them being the following—#239, Volume 5—JACOB AND ESAU; #401, Volume 7—JACOB’S WAKING EXCLAMATION; #1401, Volume 24—JACOB WORSHIPPING ON HIS STAFF; #1544, Volume 26—MAHANAIM—OR, HOSTS OF ANGELS; #2116, Volume 35—THE UNCHANGING GOD CHEERING JACOB IN HIS CHANGE OF DWELLING PLACE; #2817, Volume 49—JACOB’S FEAR AND FAITH and #3010, Volume 52—JACOB’S MODEL PRAYER]