Lohfink on Jesus and Israel

From Lohfink?s Jesus and Community:

The rule of God evidently presupposes a people, a people of God, in whom it can become established and from whom it can shine forth. The texts of the New Testament must not be read through the lens of a theological individualism able to imagine the reign of God only as a universal, interior reality in the souls of individual believers scattered over the face of the earth.

Foundational to an important strand in the tradition of Old Testament theology is the idea that God has selected a single people out of all nations of the world in order to make his people a sign of salvation. His interest in the other nations is no way impeded by this. When the people of God shines as a sign among the nation (Isa. 2:1-4), the other nations will learn from God?s people; they will come together in Israel in order to participate, in Israel and mediated through Israel, in God?s glory. But all of this can happen only when Israel really becomes recognizable as a sign of salvation, when God?s salvation transforms his people recognizably, tangilbly, even visibly.

So what is Jesus doing in the gospels? He is gathering a people to himself who will be a “city shining on a hill.” It?s no accident that he set apart twelve disciples. As the religious leaders of Israel were rejecting his message, Jesus was rooting his movement in Israel?s story with the number twelve (Twelve tribes of Israel, Twelve Disciples). It was also an incredibly bold act. Lohfink calls it a “sybmolic prophetic action,” because Jesus is actually redefining Israel?s identity around himself (N. T. Wright talks about this too). The true Israel will be those who accept his message and follow him. If his disciples will listen to him and do what he says, then the kingdom of God will become a visible reality in the world, and all the different people groups of the world will be drawn to that reality.