As a born again Jew, when I enter the Kingdom, will I be a part of the nation of Israel or part of the Gentile world? What about my Christian children and spouse who are not Jewish?
According to Paul, a believing Jew in the church is considered part of the remnant of Israel:
Rom. 11:2 God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?
Rom. 11:3 “Lord, THEY HAVE KILLED YOUR PROPHETS, THEY HAVE TORN DOWN YOUR ALTARS, AND I ALONE AM LEFT, AND THEY ARE SEEKING MY LIFE.”
Rom. 11:4 But what is the divine response to him? “I HAVE KEPT for Myself SEVEN THOUSAND MEN WHO HAVE NOT BOWED THE KNEE TO BAAL.”
Rom. 11:5 In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God’s gracious choice.
As a Jew and believer in Jesus as Messiah, you are a part of the remnant of Israel by God’s gracious choice, Paul says. Furthermore, the word says that in the Kingdom, all Jews will live in the Promised Land:
Ezek. 34:11 For thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.
Ezek. 34:12 “As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.
Ezek. 34:13 “I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land.
Ezek. 34:14 “I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.
Regarding your spouse and children, they are not considered Jewish according to scripture since their father is not Jewish. We can see an example of this in Ezra when Samaritans visited the Israelites in Jerusalem:
Ezra 4:1 Now when the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the people of the exile were building a temple to the LORD God of Israel,
Ezra 4:2 they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ households, and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here.”
Ezra 4:3 But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers’ households of Israel said to them, “You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the LORD God of Israel, as King Cyrus, the king of Persia has commanded us.”
These imposters were long-lost descendants of the Jewish people who had escaped capture when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel. Because these Jewish refugees had intermarried with the Assyrians, they were no longer considered Jewish, as Zerubbabel’s repudiation indicates.
Therefore, your family must be considered Gentiles since they do not have a Jewish father. Nevertheless, they are believers, so they will also be in the Kingdom with you though they will occupy a Gentile land while you live in Israel.
Don’t let this difference cause you concern, since it won’t matter to us where we live or where members of our earthly family reside. Jesus says we will not be married nor will earthly relationships continue in our glorified state. Instead, we will be like the angels Jesus says speaking of all saints:
Matt. 22:30 “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
Therefore, it matters not which land we occupy in the Kingdom. Our family associations are dissolved in any case after the resurrection, so that the only family association we have or desire in the Kingdom will be as a brother or sister to all believers and as a Bride to our Groom, Christ.
