‘And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and on the Israel of God.'
His letter is finished. He has made clear his Gospel. And now on those of the Galatians who walk by ‘this rule', (that the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is all and that neither circumcision matters, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation) he prays for peace and mercy. For they alone will have both.
The combination of peace and mercy in such close conjunction in a blessing occurs nowhere in Judaism, but it is partially found in Psalms 85:10 (Psalms 84:11 in the LXX) and in Isaiah 54:10. The latter is especially appropriate, ‘neither shall my covenant of peace be removed, says Yahweh Who has mercy on you.'
‘And (namely) on the Israel of God.' Throughout his letter he has demonstrated that the old unbelieving Israel is finished with. Their rites no longer apply, their submission to the Law is now futile, they are no longer the true sons of Abraham or heirs of the promise made to him (Galatians 3:18; Galatians 3:28-29). They are the sons of the slave woman who is after the flesh (Galatians 4:23), they are children of Hagar who have been brought into bondage (Galatians 4:24). They are children of the old Jerusalem which is in bondage (Galatians 4:25). They are as such to be cast out (Galatians 4:30).
But now there is a new Israel. They are, like Isaac, the children of promise (Galatians 4:28). They are the children of the free-woman (Galatians 4:31). They are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise (Galatians 3:29). They are adopted as sons and heirs of God (Galatians 4:5-7). They are reckoned as righteous by faith, just as their father Abraham was (Galatians 3:6-7). They have received the promise of the Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:14). They are children of the new Jerusalem which is in Heaven (Galatians 4:26). They are born after the Spirit (Galatians 4:29). They are the new people of God. And they consist of believing ex-Jews and believing ex-Gentiles (Galatians 3:28). They are ‘the congregation (church) of God' (Galatians 1:13), the Israel of God.
Thus Paul extends his blessing to cover not only the faithful among the Galatians ‘those (of you) as shall walk by this rule' but also the faithful worldwide, the Israel of God'. The close connection with the new creation in the previous verse confirms this interpretation. They are the new creation, the new Israel.
Some suggest ‘the Israel of God' means only believing Jews. But the whole of Galatians has rid them of the idea that Jews are different from Gentiles, and the lack of difference is what he has been at pains to point out (Galatians 3:28). Would he now so distinguish believing Jews as the Israel of God separately from the believing Gentiles, thus again splitting ‘the one new man' (Ephesians 2:15)? Especially as this last passage is summarising what has gone before. It is inconceivable. The ‘Israel of God' includes either all or none.
Indeed the sentence I so worded that if we make the Israel of God separate from what has gone before we suggest that ‘those who walk according to this rule' are different from the Israel of God. But that would be foolish. All walk according to the rule that circumcision matters no more. All who are His are a part of Israel, with or without circumcision.
It is one of the emphases of the New Testament that the church is the true Israel, the Israel of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. They are the true seed of Abraham (Galatians 3:29), they are the true sons of Abraham (Galatians 3:7), they are engrafted into the olive tree of Israel (Romans 11:17-21), and unbelieving Israel is broken off from it (Romans 11:17; Romans 11:20). They are the Jerusalem which is above which is their mother (Galatians 3:26) and are like Isaac, true sons of promise, in contrast with unbelieving Jews who have proved themselves to be like Ishmael and thus not sons of promise (Galatians 4:22-31). They are children of Abraham through Sarah (Galatians 4:31).
To be separated from Christ is to be alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and to be strangers to the covenants of promise, but now they have been brought near and have been made one by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:12-13), so that they are no longer strangers and sojourners (non-Israelites), but fellow-citizens with God's holy ones, God's separated people, and they are of the household of God. They are built on Jesus Christ, Who in Himself represents Israel, and on the Apostles, chosen by Him to judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28), that is the people of God, and on the Prophets of Israel.
It is noteworthy that Paul, in arguing against circumcision, never argues that the church is not Israel and therefore is not subject to circumcision. Rather he claims that circumcision has been superseded (Colossians 2:11-13), and that we are the true circumcision (Philippians 3:3) precisely because the church is the new Israel. Furthermore his reply to the Judaisers was not that they should not treat the church as though it were Israel. His arguments always assume that at least in that the Judaisers were right. Where they went wrong was in failing to recognise that through Christ and His death and resurrection God's requirements of the true Israel were now different.
The whole basis of Hebrews is that the church is now the true Israel, looking to Jesus as its High Priest, they are the seed of Abraham (Galatians 2:16). Indeed our hope lies in exactly that, that the church is the result of the promise to Abraham that his seed will be multiplied (Galatians 6:13-18). He sees the church as coming to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 11:22) as their home.
James of Jerusalem wrote to the churches as ‘the twelve tribes of the Dispersion')(James 1:1). That he meant the church as a whole is clear from the fact that there is no hint anywhere in his letter of a distinction from Gentile Christians in a context that would have demanded it if he had been aware of such a distinction. If he was writing only to Jewish Christians in a Gentile world how could he possibly not have mentioned their relationships with their Gentile brethren when speaking so strongly about moral behaviour, if that was how he had seen things? To have ignored Gentile Christians altogether would have been a studied insult. He writes as though such distinctions did not exist. In Christ there was neither Jew nor Greek. All were Israel.
Peter writes to ‘the elect among the sojourners of the Dispersion' (1 Peter 1:1), and the same applies as with James. In his letter ‘Gentiles' are always non-Christians, contrasted with his readers (Galatians 2:12; Galatians 4:3). He refers to God's people as ‘an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation' all signifying Israel as it should be (1 Peter 2:9 compare Exodus 19:5-6). So both James and Peter saw the church as Israel. And John does the same when he depicts the church as ‘one hundred and forty four thousand' (total completeness) out of every tribe of the house of Israel, which turn out to be ‘a great multitude which no man could number' (Revelation 7).
So the church was God's true Israel. We should recognise that this transition of the church to being Israel was not the difficulty for the ancients that it is to us. Incorporation into ‘Israel', becoming sons of Israel, was always possible for anyone of any nation who was willing to enter into the covenant (and exclusion resulted from rejecting the covenant). The ‘children of Israel' from the start included foreign servants and their children. They were joined by a mixed multitude (Exodus 12:38) officially incorporated into Israel at Sinai. Names of Israelites like Uriah the Hittite bear witness to this continual influx. Later a welcome would be offered to proselytes, Gentiles who wished to become Israelites. But all had to be circumcised (e.g. Exodus 12:48). That is why circumcision was such a big issue in the early church. And that raised the question, ‘How could the church be Israel if all its influx of members were not required to be circumcised?' Paul's answer was that they were circumcised in the death of Christ (Colossians 2:11-13).