Is the Gentile Now a Jew?
by Avram Yehoshua
The Gentile believer in Messiah Yeshua is part of the Commonwealth of Israel, but that doesn’t make him a Jew, Hebrew, Israeli (‘Israelite’),1 or even a so-called ‘spiritual Jew.’ Yes, the Gentile is part of the Seed that Father Abraham was promised, and he has also been grafted into the Olive Tree (Israel; Romans 9–11), but that doesn’t change him into a Jew or a Hebrew anymore then when a woman marries a man. The man and his wife become ‘one flesh’ (Gen. 2:24), but the woman doesn’t become a man. The Jewish and Gentile believers are ‘one in Messiah,’ but the Gentile doesn’t become a Jew.
What does it mean to be part of the Commonwealth of Israel (Eph. 2:1-12)?2 Let’s take an illustration from the natural realm to explain it—let’s take an Irishman. He’s part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain, but he’s not an Englishman or a Brit, as many Englishman now like to call themselves. In other words, the Irishman is still an Irishman. He was an Irishman before Ireland came into the Commonwealth of Great Britain and also after. Being part of the Commonwealth of Great Britain means that both the Irishman and the Brit have the same king (or queen) and their rule of life (law) is built upon the same foundation of English law (the Magna Carta, etc.), but it doesn’t mean that the Irishman is no longer an Irishman.
Now for the spiritual application of that. Let’s take a Gentile like Ruth. The Covenant was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their Seed. Those who came on board with them, like Ruth, remained a Gentile and became part of the covenant people (i.e. Commonwealth) of Israel. Ruth, after she spoke of being ‘one with Naomi, Naomi’s people and her God’ (Ruth 1:16-18) became part of Israel (without rabbinic conversion or approval), but Ruth remained a Moabitess all the days of her life (Ruth 1:22; 2:2, 6, 21; 4:5, 10) and the divine laws that applied to a Jewish woman applied to her, too.
Rabbinic conversion artificially makes a Gentile a Jew. There’s nothing in the Tanach (Old Testament), nor the New Testament to support this change of identity. Looking at Ittai, the Gentile ‘general’ who served King David, will reveal that Ittai remained a Philistine all the days of his life. In other words, Ittai didn’t become a Hebrew even though he was ‘one’ with David and Israel, and even though he lived in Israel.
When David fled from his own son Absalom, who wanted to murder him and assume the kingship over Israel, David and his entourage hurriedly left Jerusalem. In stopping to reconnoiter who was with him David saw Ittai and Ittai’s men:‘And the King went out with all the people after him and stopped at the outskirts. Then all his servants passed before him; and all the Cherethites, all the Pelethites, and all the Gittites, six hundred men who had followed him from Gath (Philistines!), passed before the King. Then the King said to Ittai the Gittite,’Ittai the Gittite’s loyalty to King David is exceptionally commendable because Ittai was a Philistine (general) from the Philistine city of Gath, as the Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament brings out.4 Ittai had come to serve the King of Israel, but he remained a Philistine all the days of his life,5 as this passage brings out when David says to him, ‘you are a foreigner,’ not, you were a foreigner. Ittai was still a Gentile.
‘Why are you also going with us? Return and remain with the King (Absalom), for you are a foreigner and also an exile from your own place. In fact, you came only yesterday.3 Should I make you wander up and down with us today, since I go I know not where? Return and take your brethren back. Mercy and truth be with you.’‘But Ittai answered the King (as Ruth did to Naomi) and said,’
‘As Yahveh lives, and as my Lord the King lives, surely in whatever place my Lord the King shall be, whether in death or life, even there also your servant will be.’“So David said to Ittai, ‘Go and cross over.’”
‘Then Ittai the Gittite and all his men and all their children who were with him crossed over.’ (2nd Samuel 15:17-22)
Even though as a Philistine Ittai should have been a mortal enemy of David, he was now part of the Commonwealth of Israel and would receive benefits, both temporal and eternal, because of his love for King David.6 Ittai is a picture of the Gentile, while King David is a picture of Messiah Yeshua.
A Gentile who comes to believe in Yeshua, the King of Israel, doesn’t become a Jew, but remains a Gentile. Nowhere in the New Testament do we see any Gentile being referred to as a Jew or a Hebrew or an Israeli. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that a Gentile believer was anything other than a Gentile believer. All believers are in Messiah’s Kingdom, but not all are Jews, yet, all are part of the Commonwealth of Israel, the Olive Tree and the Seed of Abraham.
The word Jew or Jews in the New Testament always refers to the person who was racially born from the Seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.7 God cements this concept in the New Covenant by saying that the Gentile believers weren’t to be circumcised like the Jews (Acts 15). The Pharisees who believed in Yeshua wanted the Gentiles to (artificially) become Jews via physical circumcision (Acts 15:1-6f.), but God, through Peter and James, overruled them (and rabbinic conversion), reestablishing the biblical concept that Gentiles don’t become Jews.8
The Gentile doesn’t stop being a Gentile, but some Gentile believers are offended by the term because it can mean someone who is a pagan (heathen). The term Gentile, or Goy/goy in Hebrew, can be a pejorative term among the Jewish people because all the peoples or nations other than Israel were pagan. The term can also be used in a neutral way to describe someone who isn’t Jewish. But Doesn’t Gentile Mean Pagan?
The Jews were the only people or nation that didn’t worship idols (when they were following the Lord), but originally the term goy in the Bible was used of any nation or people, even the Jews. The Hebrew and English Lexicon says that goy means a ‘nation or a people…of the Seed of Abraham…of Israel and Judah and…of non-Hebrew people.’9 In other words, the English term Gentile can be used of both Jews and people of other nations without any inference to paganism.
The Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament also speaks of goy as a people or a nation and says that the two (people and nation) are interchangeable.10 The Wordbook of the Old Testament also states that the term Gentile refers to both Israel and the other nations:“Gentile, heathen, nation, people…The term גוי” (goy/Gentile) “is used especially to refer to specifically defined political, ethnic or territorial groups of people without intending to ascribe a specific religious or moral connotation. Thus, in Gen 10:5” it “speaks of defined groups of people according to their territories. When God speaks to Abraham about Egypt as a strong nation the term גוי” (goy) “is used…In this general ethnic sense the term” is “used of Abraham’s seed…God said to Abraham, ‘I will make of you a great nation’ (goy) i.e. a political, territorial, identified people (Gen 12:2; 17:20; 21:18). In Ex 33:13 Moses, referring to Israel, a distinct body of people, says, ‘This גוי (i.e., nation) is thy people (עם,’ ahm; people). In Deut 4:6-7, Moses speaks of the Israelite nation as a political, ethnic body (גוי” goy) ‘which is a wise and understanding people’ (ahm) existing as, and recognized by other nations as, a specific national identity (Ps 83:4 [H 5]). It is necessary to stress that the Scriptures speak of Israel’s existing as a distinct nation in Moses’ time because of the widespread misapprehension that Israel became a nation only after entering Canaan. Israel was a nation in Moses’ time, just as it was in Joshua’s time (Josh 3:17; 4:1; 5:6). So also in Jeremiah’s time and thereafter, in spite of the exile (Jer 31:36).”11Although today the Hebrew term goy (Gentile) means a non-Jew, when used by a Jew, the term itself basically means someone belonging to a distinct people (e.g. Babylonians, Hebrews, Egyptians, Canadians, etc.). By New Testament times the word had come to be applied to peoples other than Jews and that’s how it’s used in the New Testament, which uses the Greek term ἔθνος ethnos, which means a ‘nation, people or a Gentile.’ The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament says that it is used for ‘non-Israelite Christians, gentiles of Christian congregations composed of more than one nationality.’12 There is no inherent evil in the term Gentile, although it can refer to a pagan.
The Gentile believer never stops being a Gentile (‘one of the nations’).13 The Israel of God is mentioned only once in the New Covenant (Gal. 6:16). Paul doesn’t teach on it as much as use it to highlight a response to the Judaizers and as a sign-off. The Judaizers wanted the Gentile to be circumcised in order to be saved and to become part of the Jewish people (the people of God) the rabbinic way, but God had another way–through the death of His Son, a sign of which is heart circumcision. The Israel of God
The New Testament never speaks of any Gentile becoming a Jew or an Israeli or a Hebrew. The Gentile believer is part of the Seed of Abraham. He is also part of, and one with, Israel, being part of the Commonwealth of Israel (Eph. 2:1-11), but he is not an Israeli, nor a Jew, nor a Hebrew. In Acts the Gentiles who came to Christ were still called Gentiles. After the decision of James in Acts 15, that the believing Gentiles weren’t to be physically circumcised, Scripture still calls them Gentiles:“They wrote this letter by them: ‘The Apostles, the Elders, and the Brethren: ‘To the Brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: Greetings!’’” (Acts 15:23)In Romans the Apostle Paul speaks about the Gentiles who had come to believe in Jesus. They were still Gentiles according to Paul:
“But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.” (Acts 21:25 NKJV)14“that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:16)The concept of the Gentile remaining a Gentile is a constant theme throughout both Covenants.15
“who risked their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the congregations of the Gentiles.” (Romans 16:4)
No other term is ever used for Gentile believers except perhaps ‘uncircumcised,’ to contrast the Gentiles with the circumcised Jews, as Paul does in Ephesians. In this passage some wrongly think that Paul is using formerly to mean that that’s what the Gentiles used to be called, but nowhere in this passage, or anywhere else, are the Gentiles given another designation—they are still Gentiles: Remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles…
11“Therefore remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called 'Uncircumcision' by the so-called ‘Circumcision,’ which is performed in the flesh by human hands—12remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:11–12 NASB)The phrase formerly you, the Gentiles doesn’t mean that the Gentiles were formerly called Gentiles, but that now in Messiah they aren’t Gentiles any longer. Formerly applies to their former position as Gentiles in the flesh—separated from Christ, excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel, and having no hope of salvation. This is brought out with the NASB using remember before formerly and also after human hands so as to reconnect Paul’s initial thought back to what he was saying: ‘remember, that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh…remember that you were…separate from Christ.’ Paul is speaking about the condition of the Gentiles before they came to Christ. He’s not saying that they’re no longer Gentiles. The Gentiles were Gentiles before and after they came to Messiah Yeshua. This is plainly evident from Paul saying that they are (still) called Uncircumcision.
The concept of the Gentile believer remaining a Gentile is also seen in what the Apostle Paul says to the Corinthians: Circumcision is Nothing
17‘Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the congregations. 18Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised.’First, in vv. 17-18 Paul speaks of the Gentile staying as God has made him—an uncircumcised Gentile. He wasn’t to be circumcised. This is reiterated in v. 20 where the Apostle commands the Gentile to remain in that condition in which he was called. Obviously, there’s no change of ethnicity here—the Gentile remains a Gentile and the Jew remains a Jew.
19‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the Commandments of God. 20Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called.’ (1st Corinthians 7:17-20)
Second, Paul says in v. 19 that circumcision is nothing, not because he doesn’t ascribe any value to circumcision, but in the light of eternity it doesn’t matter if a Gentile is circumcised. It’s the circumcision of the heart, made without human hands (Col. 2:11), that matters for both Gentile and Jew. Paul isn’t throwing circumcision away (for the Jew; Acts 21:20-24), he’s presenting God’s divine order.
Third Paul says that it is the doing of God’s Commandments that matter (v. 19) more than if one is a Jew or a Gentile (circumcised or not), but how can the Apostle say to both groups ‘to keep the Commandments (of the Law; Torah) if he’s just said that the Gentile must not be circumcised, a major commandment of the Torah? He’s able to do that because certain commandments of Torah shift or are revised in the New Testament. For instance, Torah speaks of only the Sons of Aaron, from the Tribe of Levi, were to become High Priests after their father (Ex. 6:18, 20; 28:1; Num. 20:28; 25:13), but the New Covenant declares that Yeshua, from the Tribe of Judah, not Levi, is our High Priest (Heb. 5:1–7:28). This doesn’t do away with the earthly High Priest from Levi, but it highlights the temporal and eternal Kingdoms of Israel, in Canaan and in the New Jerusalem, respectively. The shift is seen in Torah, for all who have eyes to see. The (High) Priest Melchizedek is seen in Gen. 14:18-20 (and God swears that Messiah will be a [High] Priest like Melchizedek in Psalm 110:1, 4), so this shift is there in seminal form in Torah. In another example, circumcision of the heart is also seen in Torah:“Moreover Yahveh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love Yahveh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live.” (Dt. 30:6)Circumcision, the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant gives way to the circumcision of the heart–the sign of the New Covenant. The Gentile is prohibited from physical circumcision, but the Jew, still part of the Abrahamic Covenant, continues to circumcise his sons (Gen. 17:9-10f.). The Gentile, although Seed of Abraham, was never part of the Abrahamic Covenant. The Gentile believer remains a Gentile.
There is one other Scripture that needs to be addressed and it’s in Romans. Some Gentiles take this passage, which speaks of a ‘true Jew’ being one inwardly, having the circumcision of the heart, to mean that they are now spiritual Jews: The Spiritual Jew
28‘For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, 29but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, and his praise is not from men, but from God.’ (Romans 2:28-29)It’s obvious that the term Jew in Rom. 2:28 is not a Gentile. Excluding, then, the one time that the term Jew appears in Rom. 2:29, the terms Jew or Jews occur 190 times in the New Testament,16 and in every instance they speak of literal Jews. Are we to now understand that the one time that the term Jew appears in Romans 2:29 speaks of a (spiritual) Gentile?17 Of course not.
Paul is using two male Jews as an illustration. Both of them, obviously, are circumcised in their flesh, but only the Jew who believes in Yeshua is ‘a Jew who is one inwardly,’ whose (true) circumcision is of the heart, by the Holy Spirit. In other words, the real Jew is the one who believes in Yeshua. Paul is not making all Gentile believers into spiritual Jews.
Then Paul immediately turns around to those who would put down the circumcised in the flesh only Jew, and writes in Romans 3:1-4a:‘Then what advantage has the Jew?! Or what is the benefit of circumcision?! Great in every respect! First of all, that they were entrusted with the Word of God. What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?18 May it never be!’The Gentile believer is part of the Olive Tree, the Seed that Father Abraham was promised, and the Commonwealth of Israel. He has the same King that the Jewish believer has and he should keep everything in Torah that the Jewish believer keeps, except for physical circumcision.19
Spiritually the Gentile is part of the Seed of Abraham, but just not the Jewish part. Father Abraham is just as much the Father of the believing Gentile, though, as he is the Father of the believing Jew.“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a Father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a Father of many nations.” (Genesis 17:4–5)
“After these things I looked, and behold! A great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the Throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the Throne and to the Lamb!!!’” (Revelation 7:9–10)
END NOTES:
1. The term Israelite is an archaic term from the Greek New Testament, hence, my use of Israeli. I will be using these terms (Jew, Hebrew, Israeli) interchangeably. For an article on how the term Jew constitutes ‘Israel,’ ask me for the PDF Jews Today.2. The ASV, KJV, NASB, NKJV and the NRSV have Commonwealth, while the HCSB, NET and the NIV have citizenship. Either translation is acceptable, yet, Commonwealth is preferred because it speaks of the entity rather than the individual.
3. David doesn’t literally mean that Ittai came ‘only yesterday,’ but chooses that phrase to designate that Ittai hadn’t been with David for a long time. David is trying to give him ‘a way out.’
4. “גתי,” HALOT, 1:206: ‘of ’גת (Gath) ‘הגתי’ (haGiti) ‘from Gath; Jos. 13:3 2S 6:10f; 15:19-22; 18:2; 21:19; 1C 13:13; 20:5; pl. הגתים’ (haGitim) ‘2S 15:18.’
Also, “גתי,” Hebrew to English Dictionary and Index to the NIV Old Testament: Derived from the Zondervan NIV Exhaustive Concordance, n.p. (Numbers correspond to Strong’s Concordance) ‘1785 [1663] גתי, gittiy, a.g. [1781; cf. 1780]. Gittite, of Gath.’5. 2nd Samuel 18:2, 5.
6. See also Uriah the Hittite, one of King David’s champions, as another example of a foreigner residing within Israel who was one with Israel, but wasn’t seen as a Jew (1st Sam. 26:6; 2nd Sam. 11:3, 6, 17, 21, 24; 12:9; 23:39; 1st Kgs. 15:5).
Also, read Two Different Kingdoms? The Stranger and the Native-Born, pp. 258-262 in The Lifting of the Veil: Acts 15:20-21 for the Old Testament distinction between the Gentile who became part of Israel (the ger; translated as stranger in the NKJV and NASB, etc.) and the natural Seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A schematic diagram of the five different types of Gentiles can be found online in the article Gentile Circumcision? at http://www.seedofabraham.net/Gentile_Circumcision.html/.7. Gentiles who mistakenly convert to Judaism via the Rabbis are called proselytes and even though the Rabbis say that ‘they are now Jews,’ they are not according to God’s Word.
8. See Acts 15:7-10, 14, 16-17, 19, especially v. 23 where these Gentile believers are still called Gentiles.
9. “גוי,” Dr. Francis Brown, Dr. S. R. Driver and Dr. Charles A. Briggs, based on the lexicon of Professor Wilhelm Gesenius; Edward Robinson, translator and E. Rodiger, editor, Hebrew and English Lexicon (Abridged; Accordance Bible Software; Altamonte Springs, FL: OakTree Software, 2011), n.p.
10. “גוי,” Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, authors; M. Richardson, translator, The Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Accordance Bible Software), p. 1:183. Goy used of Israel: Gen. 18:18; Is. 60:22; Ezk. 35:10; Ps. 106:5. Goy used of pagan peoples: Ex. 34:24; Lev. 18:24; Ezk. 5:6-8.
11. “גוי,” R. L. Harris, editor; Gleason Archer, Jr. and Bruce Waltke, associate editors, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Accordance Bible Software), n.p.
12. “ἔθνος,” Walter Bauer, augmented by William F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich and Frederick Danker, A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, third edition (Accordance Bible Software), p. 277.
13. See Rev. 7:9; 15:4; 21:24, 26; 22:2 where nations can equally be translated Gentiles.
14. This doesn’t mean that the Gentiles only have four rules and no others from the Law of Moses. See The Lifting of the Veil: Acts 15:20-21, the chapter titled, Acts 21:25–Observe No Such Thing! for the Hebraic interpretation of this passage or ask Avram for the PDF on Acts 21:25–Observe No Such Thing!
15. See also Acts 11:1, 18; 13:48; 15:3, 17; Rom. 1:13; 3:29; 11:12-13; 15:10-12, 18, 27; Gal. 2:12; 3:8, 14; Eph. 3:1, 6; 4:17; 1st Tim. 2:7; 2nd Tim. 1:11.
16. Accordance Bible Software (Altamonte Springs, FL: OakTree Software, 2011).
17. Some Gentile believers also say that because Jesus is a Jew, they are (spiritual) Jews, too, but this finds no scriptural support in either Covenant.
18. The faithfulness of God means that even though the majority of the Jews haven’t believed in Yeshua yet, God will still keep His promise to Abraham that his Seed would have Him for their God (Gen. 17:7-8; Ex. 6:6-8). This is powerfully brought out in Rom. 11:25-31.
19. See Gentile Circumcision? at http://seedofabraham.net/Gentile_Circumcision.html or ask me for the PDF on it for why the Gentile believer must not be physically circumcised ‘in order to keep Torah.’
Email Avram — avramyeh@netvision.net.il
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