The Elect
By Richard P. Joseph
3/16/2025
In my discussions with various people and my observation of current world events, the question of “who are the chosen people” keeps coming up. As always, my short articles are not comprehensive works on all of these subjects but are only ways for me to help direct people's attention to a proper interpretation of scripture. It is up to you to do a more exhaustive study to see if these things are in fact true. This is something that you should be doing in your churches also. I have spoken about this subject in various other articles but as I was going through the book of Colossians, Paul, once again locked on to this subject. The subject of the transfer of the title of the chosen people is perhaps the main topic of the entire new testament starting from John the Baptist all the way through Revelation. Colossians is just part of the flow. I encourage you to re-read Colossians after you read this article.
Colossians 1:18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
I recently wrote an article about the meaning of “dead”. In that article I defended the position that in many cases the writer is referring to actual dead people. In the verse above, however, it may mean something else. While Jesus surely rose physically from the dead, and I believe our soul will also, the verse above might mean both. In this case Jesus is the first born of the spiritually dead; (meaning those that were still caught up in Judaism and attempting to follow the law). Paul goes on to explain the “hidden mystery” of God and that is that the gentiles are now reconciled to God. The Jews, in their arrogance, thought that God was only a Jewish thing. They seemed to forget that YHVH was the creator of the heavens and the earth and all the people on the earth. God had separated the Jewish nation from all other nations on the earth in order to establish a lineage of his chosen people to receive the oracles of God and to bring forth the messiah in due time. It wasn’t a pagan religion of the Jews, it was the real God of all people. So when the messiah had finally come and reconciled the world unto himself, this made the unfaithful Jews angry. They no longer had a corner on the market.
In chapter 2, Paul told them to beware of the philosophy of men and of circumcision and of religious regulations and the vain use of religion and traditions. In other words, the days of the law are gone. In chapter 3 he explains how there is no longer Jew or Greek. Then he slams them with the idea that we, the Christians, are the “Elect” or in other words, the chosen people. While those under the law were people of judgment, those under grace are to put on love. In order to drive this point home, Paul, in chapter 4, now explains how masters and slaves are on the same spiritual level. This is his way of saying that Jew and Gentiles are now on the same level; we both need to come to Jesus by faith, not by law or by genealogy or by ethnicity. This new dynamic was difficult for most to comprehend in Paul’s day and, I hate to say it, is still difficult for most modern Christians to comprehend. They just simply will not let go of the fact that the Jews are no longer the chosen people. This philosophy plagued the early church and, unfortunately, still plagues us today.
I encourage all to read the entire New Testament over and over and keep these things in mind. From beginning to end you will find a common theme, That the Kingdom of God is at hand, that the kingdom will be taken away from those who were then occupying it and handed over to someone else, and that the law was becoming obsolete.