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This same theme is followed in Romans 11 where Paul speaks of jew and gentile in terms of olive branches. Here the otherside of the coin is poined out.Besides Paul reiterating the point I just made of believing Jew and gentile been the same body,ie israel. Not of ethnic origin but of faith. He emphasises the flip side when he says unbelieving Jews are cut off or broken off from the olive tree Israel. So even ethnic Jews are not considered as Israel in the sight of God. All that counts is the reconstituted Israel made up of jews and gentiles who have faith in Jesus. The promises of God made to Israel are only realised and are yes and amen,only in the person of Jesus Christ. To interpret the promises of Israel apart from the person and king of Israel, jesus Christ is to misunderstand the promises and purposes of God. To see ethnic Israel who do not believe and who reject the person of Jesus Christ and his promises as the people of God is a gross misunderstanding of what the scripture teaches. None regardless of race is the people of God apart from faith in Jesus Christ. Yes at one time Israel as a nation were reckoned as Gods people. But if we look closer at the Old testament that even then God differentiated between a believing Israelite and an unbelieving Israelite. For example only believing Israelites obtained Gods promise of the land whereas the unbelieving Israelites were killed in the desert. Again we find once in the land the unbelieving Jews continued to provoke God to his face and they were either punished by having rulers been put over them because they would not submit to their true ruler. Again God fulfilled His promise to unbelieving Israel to spew them out of the land because of disobedience and unbelief. God exiled them on three occasions the fist being the Assyrian exile and then secondly the Babylonian exile and then lastly AD 70 forty years after Christ where they were punished and driven into the farthest places in the earth. Israel only returned to Israel in the 1940's and that even is not prophesied. They continue to live under Gods curse. Not only do they live in fear of a horrible death but they have only a small percent of the land of Israel. Jordan was once Israel but is now its own state. This has no part as to the promises of restoration. God is not among them as is evidenced by the lack of Gods temple. The fact that there is no temple is a sign to them that Gods Christ has come. For when sacrifice was offered in the temple it was to continue until Israels sins had been forgiven. So clearly since Christ has come and Israels sin has been forgiven in Christ. There is no longer any need for a temple for sacrifice is only continued to be offered as long as their sins haven't been forgiven. This is what the day of atonement in the Old testament looked forward to.
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So when Christ in extreme pain and suffering was crucified by the jews under the guise of Pontius Pilate. Israel was sealing its own fate. Wheras before when the Chief priests sent a delegation to Jesus and asked him to stop preaching they feared that the Romans would take Israel away from them. Now that they'd killed Jesus their land would be taken away from them by God. The Romans would be God's agents in executing His judgement on unbelieving Israel. So what was to be restoration turned out to be unbelieving Israels destruction and exile. But for believing Israel this turned out to be their restoration and rescue. The rejection of the unbelieving Jews turns out to be the salvation of the pagan nations,the gentiles and turns out to be the salvation of the world. So because God has rejected unbelieving Israel it can no longer be said that Israel are His people. Israel are now dealt with on an equal footing with all the other nations. There may well still be a pouring of Gods Spirit upon them once again.But they have no special standing before God since their rejection of Jesus the King of Israel.
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