[aruanan]

Israel is no longer just a physical place, but a spiritual one as well.

Israel was never "just" a physical place. Israel was always about a people of God and the covenant was with Abraham and his descendants, both physically, through Isaac, and spiritually, through the faith by which God accounted him justified.

That is what the new Israel is, not a replacement of the old, but a fulfillment of the old through the new and everlasting Jesus.

Any "new" Israel is exactly what the old Israel demonstrated and more. The faithful Israelite, Jesus, the Messiah, stood in for Israel so that those who place their trust in the Messiah can be justified by the same faith as Abraham as the father of faith was justified and his faith counted as righteousness.

God's promise to Abraham was that through his seed the entire world would be blessed. Through the Messiah's birth, life, death and resurrection, those of faith throughout the world from the beginning of time to the end of it become members of that family of faith and partakers of the covenant God established with Abraham.

[Jvette]

****Israel was always about a people of God and the covenant was with Abraham and his descendants, both physically, through Isaac, and spiritually, through the faith by which God accounted him justified.****

Physical as in a race of people, though there were certainly converts, but the Israelite people were a people bound by race to their religion.

Good post, thanks.