Jeremiah 31:35

"Thus saith Jehovah, who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirreth up the sea that the waves thereof roar; Jehovah of hosts is his name: If these ordinances depart from before me, saith Jehovah, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith Jehovah: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth be searched out beneath, then shall I also cut off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith Jehovah."

The perpetuity of God's Israel is assured by these verses; but it is most certainly the Spiritual Israel in Christ Jesus which dominates the passage. The racial Israel also is represented in the promise that their "seed," that is, not "all" of them shall be cut off, implying, of course, that the vast majority of racial Israel shall indeed be cut off because of rebellion against God. As Keil stated it, "That the whole of Israel cannot perish is no bolster for the sin of a single individual."[17]

In this connection, it should always be remembered that it was indeed the racial Israel that provided the nucleus of the Spiritual Israel in the person of the holy apostles and the first great ingathering of Christians. The essential truth in this is that Christ alone is the "True Vine" (John 15:1), that is, the True Israel, and that by virtue of their being "in Christ," in the "true Vine," in the "true Israel," the whole company of the redeemed throughout this dispensation are actually the Israel of God (Galatians 6:16).

Thus we see the absolute identity of the New Israel (composed of all Christians from every tribe, race and nation) with the old, in this manner achieving the perpetuity of Israel as promised in this chapter. As Paul expressed it in Galatians: "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be no male and female; for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus. And if ye are Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise" (Galatians 3:27-29).