One of the more curious Christmas carols is “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”.  In contrast with the fast meter and cheerful melodies of most Christmas carols, it is slower and exudes a sense of longing.  It never mentions Jesus by name (though it does list various Old Testament allusions to Him), or Mary, Joseph, angels, or wise men.  Instead, it speaks to Israel, both rehashing Israel’s history and promising the coming of Israel’s Messiah, with the refrain: “Rejoice, rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel”.  Rather than reflecting on the birth of Christ, it seems as if it was written during the Jewish exile to Babylon in anticipation of the birth of Christ.  It speaks of mourning, exile, tyranny, and death, asking for God to send His Son to ransom, free, save, and deliver them.  Why all this talk about Israel, and can we as non-Jewish Christians rightly claim Israel’s Messiah?   For that, we need to look at who the people of God were throughout history and see what it truly means to be of the nation of Israel.

The Hereditary People of God

Throughout the Bible, we see the theme of a conflict between two peoples: the people of God and their enemies, the children of God’s blessing vs. the children of God’s curse.  This begins with the sons of Adam.  The cursed line of Cain in Genesis 4 is contrasted with the blessed line of Seth in Genesis 5.  This is seen most vividly in contrasting Lamech with Enoch.  Lamech is the seventh from Cain, signifying the completeness of human depravity.  He was the first to practice polygamy and also killed a man in an act of revenge (Genesis 4:18-24).  Whereas Cain expressed regret and grief (albeit worldly grief) after murdering Abel (Genesis 4:13-14), Lamech was self-righteous, feeling so justified in killing a man who wronged him in a small way that he describes the incident to his wives in a poetic and even celebratory way.  Contrast that with Enoch, the seventh from Adam (Jude 14) through Seth, who represents complete faithfulness to God.  During the time of Seth’s son Enosh, “people began to call upon the name of the LORD” (Genesis 4:26).  Enoch walked with God so closely, that God took him directly to heaven so he would not have to face death (Genesis 5:22-24, Hebrews 11:5).  This theme continued after the Flood with the curse pronounced on Ham’s son Canaan and blessing on Shem (Genesis 9:25-27), with the blessing eventually passing to his descendant Abraham and by association to his nephew Lot (Genesis 11:24-27).  This ultimately resulted in the destruction of the Canaanites by Israel as recorded in Joshua. 

At that point, various different nations became perennial enemies of Israel.  The most notable and enduring of these are the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites.  In contrast with the Canaanites, these nations were actually related to Israel.  The Moabites and Ammonites came from Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughters (Genesis 19:30-38).  Since there is no mention of Lot’s wife prior to God’s rescue of Lot from the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19, it is possible that Lot’s wife was a Sodomite.  If that is the case, it means that Lot’s daughters were the only surviving Sodomites.  If we assume that Moab and Ben-ammi married Canaanites, then the Moabites and Ammonites while still related to Abraham are also the remnant of the Canaanites and maybe even the Sodomites.  The Edomites were even more closely related to Israel, being the descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau.  Like Canaan, the first mention of Esau involves a curse, as God tells Rebekah that in the perpetual conflict between Jacob and Esau, the descendants of Esau would serve the descendants of Jacob just as the descendants of Canaan were cursed to serve the descendants of Shem (Genesis 9:25-27 vs. Genesis 25:21-26).  Esau also married two Canaanites and an Ishmaelite (Genesis 36:2-5), meaning that like the Ammonites and Moabites the Edomites were remnants of the cursed Canaanites.  Esau’s first wife shares the same name as Lamech’s, signaling the link between Esau and Lamech as representing the descendants of the curse.  This is further communicated by the fact that Esau’s descendants listed in Genesis 36 constitute the only non-Israelite genealogy after Abraham listed in Genesis.  As we often see in domestic disputes, close relations make the conflict all the uglier, leading to numerous wars and other conflicts between Israel and their three closest relative nations.  Most notably, it was the Moabites who paid Balaam to curse Israel, and when Judah was destroyed by Babylon the Edomites cheered them on and took advantage of the situation to enrich themselves.  Therefore, the various Old Testament prophets pronounced judgments of God against the Moabites (Isaiah 15-16, Jeremiah 48, Ezekiel 25, Amos 2), Ammonites (Jeremiah 49, Ezekiel 25), and especially the Edomites (Isaiah 34, Jeremiah 49, Ezekiel 25, Amos 1, all of Obadiah, Malachi 1).  The most striking of these is found in the last book of the Old Testament:

“I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.’”

-Malachi 1:2-4, ESV

But the relationship between the Israelites as God’s people and the cursed nations around them was often much closer than national origin.  A perennial problem in Israel was intermarriage between Israelites and the various nations.  Intermarriage with Canaanites was forbidden by God since they would cause the Israelites to go astray from God to worship other gods (Deuteronomy 7:1-6).  Descendants of Moabites and Ammonites to the tenth generation were also prohibited from joining with Israel as having descended from a forbidden union (Deuteronomy 23:2-6).  Edomites to the third generation were likewise prohibited from joining with Israel (Deuteronomy 23:7).  And just as God had warned, intermarriage with Moab and Ammon caused Israel to commit idolatry, worshipping Chemosh the god of Moab and Molech the god of Ammon (1 Kings 11:7).  Of note, Molech was the god to which the Israelites sacrificed their children.  Intermarriage even remained a problem even after the exile to Babylon (Ezra 9-10, Nehemiah 13).  Thus it became a sign of Israel’s failure to obey God, which was echoed in the prophetic reference of Jerusalem as descended from the cursed Canaanites (Ezekiel 16) and with the portrayal of both the northern and southern kingdoms metaphorically as unfaithful women with names strikingly similar to the name of Esau’s second wife (Ezekiel 23). 

Such intermarriage was nothing new, as it was alluded to as one of the signs of wickedness prior to the Flood.  Since Genesis 6 follows the contrast between the blessed line of Seth and cursed line of Cain in Genesis 4-5, the natural interpretation of the “sons of God” marrying the “daughters of man” in Genesis 6:1-2 is intermarriage between the male descendants of Seth (the people of God in that time) and the female descendants of Cain, which likely resulted in the same idolatry seen throughout the history of Israel.[1]  Even the origin of the tribes of Israel involved intermarriage with Canaanites, as Judah’s wife was clearly a Canaanite (Genesis 38:1-2).  If we assume that his daughter-in-law Tamar was also a Canaanite, then Perez and Zerah were both half Canaanite just like the Moabites and Ammonites.  Joseph’s wife Asenath was Egyptian (related to the Canaanites).  The wives of the other sons of Jacob are not mentioned, but it is quite possible that they were Canaanites as well.  The bottom line is that throughout the Old Testament, the people of God intermarried with the nations and thus became like them, worshipping their gods and participating in their evil.  This is most vividly seen in the parallels between the Israelite town of Gibeah and Sodom before it (Judges 19 vs. Genesis 19), but Israel’s entire history bears this out.  The fact that the hereditary people of God, from the descendants of Seth to the descendants of Israel ultimately became just like the cursed people around them shows that all people are polluted by sin regardless of their ancestry.  Therefore, salvation cannot come through bodily descent just as it cannot come through good works.  This means that the people of God cannot be determined by genetics or heredity, as all of our genes are irreparably tainted by sin.

The Adopted People of God

When the New Testament authors rehash Old Testament history, they make clear that the true people of God were not identified by heredity.  Paul likens ethnic Israel to the Edomites by quoting Malachi 1 in Romans 9:10-13 before explaining that most of the ethnic Israelites were excluded from the true people of God while some foreigners were brought in in Romans 11.  Throughout the entire section of Romans 9-11, Paul describes who the true people of God are, starting by contrasting Isaac as the child of God’s promise with Ishmael as the child of human effort, meaning it is the children of God’s promise who are truly God’s people (Romans 9:6-8).  In contrasting Jacob and Esau, Paul explains how God chose Jacob and not Esau “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls” (Romans 9:11).  He further explains:

“What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works….For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”

-Romans 9:30-32,10:3, ESV

Therefore, people become God’s people by His work and His choice through the means of faith, but those who reject Him are excluded because of their lack of faith, both in following in the wicked footsteps of the cursed people of old as well as by trying to please God by legalism apart from faith. 

Just as the corrupting of the physical people of God through intermarriage was a theme throughout the Old Testament, so was the theme of foreigners joining the people of God by faith.  A mixed multitude left Egypt in the Exodus (Exodus 12:38), suggesting that Egyptians and possibly other foreigners placed their faith in the God of Israel.  Caleb was one of those foreigners, who as one of the two spies (representing Judah) whose faith in God outweighed fear of the Canaanites was able to enter the Promised Land and even receive a territorial inheritance as part of Israel (Numbers 13, Joshua 14-15).  Rahab (possibly a Canaanite) and Ruth (a Moabite) also joined Israel by faith and thus became part of God’s people, both marrying into the tribe of Judah (Joshua 6:25, Ruth 1:16-17, 4:9-14).  Since David descended from them, he inherited both the sin nature represented by the Canaanite and Moabite roots of his ancestors but also the heritage of faith displayed by some of them.  His descendants likewise varied in faithfulness, from Hezekiah and Josiah who served God to Manasseh who sacrificed his children to Molech like the Ammonites.  But even the righteous kings committed egregious sins (as if there is any such thing as a sin that is not egregious) and could not save their nation politically or spiritually. 

Instead, throughout the Old Testament there was a remnant of people within the physical “people of God” who were the true people of God by faith in the promise of God.  God had promised that a future descendant of Seth, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, and David would be the perfect King who would bring true salvation.  Even before pronouncing the curse on Adam and Eve, God promised their descendant would defeat Satan (Genesis 3:15).  This eternal ruler would come from the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10) and would be both a true man (Psalm 8) and God incarnate (Isaiah 9:6-7), David’s descendant but also David’s Lord (Psalm 110:1).  He would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), signifying that He was the true son of God’s promise as the “seed of the woman” to which Isaac pointed as well as the fact that with His birth, life, death, and resurrection He would usher in a new humanity: the true people of God. 

Jesus Came to Save Us Canaanites

Since all people were dead in sin, we were all spiritual Canaanites under the curse of God.  The only way for us to be free of that curse is for a man who was not inherently under the curse to come and take on that curse on our behalf, thereby allowing God to justly adopt us into His people and His blessings.  That person of course is Jesus Christ.  Since Joseph was his earthly (essentially adoptive) father, Jesus was the true descendent of Seth, Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, and David.  But being conceived by the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, Jesus ushered in a new humanity as the Second Adam.  Adam failed his test of temptation in the Garden, but Jesus passed His test of temptation both in the wilderness and throughout His life, culminating in another garden.  He then took on the curse and died the death we spiritual Canaanites deserved and then rose from the dead to inaugurate His new nation not based on lineage but on faith.  In the words of the Holy Spirit through Paul, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) When exhorting the Galatians to hold fast to this Gospel and not give into legalism, Paul sums it up this way:

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith…for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”

-Galatians 3:10-14,26-39, ESV

Through His birth, life, death, and resurrection, Jesus created a new nation, comprised of the people of God who why both trusted in His coming before He was born and all of us who place our faith in Him after His coming, whatever nation we hail from.  This is what we celebrate at Advent, not only the coming of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins, but also the Kingdom of the true people of God that He created.  All who by faith rely on Christ’s finished work of salvation are part of that Kingdom.

Applications

The implications of being part of the people of God by faith and not by heredity are massive.  First, it means that no family line or nation has any advantage (or disadvantage for that matter).  It is true that people born into certain nations and families are blessed by greater access to the truth of the Gospel, but it is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit that causes faith, so that temporary advantage becomes a disadvantage when they reject Christ, just as the disadvantage of those without that blessed access becomes their advantage when they hear the Gospel and by the working of the Holy Spirit believe.  Therefore, demographic distinction is irrelevant for access to God.  Those who are in Christ have access to God and will be with Him for eternity showered in His blessings.  Those who die rejecting Christ will be away from His presence enduring His wrath for eternity.  This is regardless of ethnicity, family background, social status, or gender.  This means that our identity in Christ must supersede any human allegiance.  Through Christ, I have more in common with Christians in China, India, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America than I do with the unbelieving American next door who looks just like me and shares many of the same social and political views.  This Advent season, remember that we will worship God alongside men and women from every language, tribe, tongue, nation, and era, so we might as well start now. 

This Advent season, we should also reflect on our physical and spiritual lineage.  Matthew’s Gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus to show that He was the prophesied King, which introduces his major theme of the coming of the Kingdom of God.  Instead of skipping over the list of names, cross-reference their stories in Scripture and meditate on the failure of man and the faithfulness of God.  Think of the faith and failures of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah.  Think of the faith of Rahab and Ruth as the descendants of the curse becoming part of the people of God by faith.  Think of both the sin and repentance of David regarding “the wife of Uriah” as well as both the wisdom and idolatry of Solomon.  Read the first verse on each of the successive kings of Judah in 1st and 2nd Kings, which states whether they did good or evil in God’s sight.  Think of God’s promise to Zerubbabel through Zechariah after the exile to Babylon.  Encapsulated in Matthew’s list of names is the story of the Old Testament: the failure of the people of God to remain holy, instead mixing with and becoming just like the enemies of God, but that God has always kept His remnant through faith rather than bodily descent.  The Bible is full of horrible sinners deserving nothing but hell and one gracious and merciful God who chose to save some of them.  So as we prepare to celebrate the most important birthday in the history of the world, let us rejoice in all that Christ accomplished on our behalf through the incarnation and rest in the fact that He has made us citizens of His everlasting and invincible Kingdom, the true people of God who by faith have become the true descendants of Abraham and thus the true recipients the blessings God promised to Abraham, the true Israel of God (Galatians 6:16).  This means that O Come, O Come, Emmanuel applies even more to us as to ethnic Jews.  In fact, it only applies to those who trust in Christ, both Jew and Gentile. Rejoice, rejoice!  Emmanuel, Jesus Christ, the Messiah has come to thee, having ransomed you from your Canaanite lineage of sin and adopted you to be His people, O true Israel, people of God.

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[1] Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary of the Whole Bible, the Jamieson, Fausset & Brown Commentary, and the Gospel Transformation Study Bible notes all espouse this interpretation.  The Reformation Study Bible notes do not put forth a particular interpretation.