Were Most Israelites Saved in OT?

[Tim]

As an offshoot of Helen's "How were they saved?", here's another question:

Were the majority of the people in OT Israel saved? Certainly many were true believers, but it seems to me that most of the chosen people of old never showed any evidence that they were true believers, going by what is recorded of them in the scripture.

So when some preachers today say that we as Christians are just like the Israelites in the OT--I don't buy it. I'm a new creature in Christ, many, many of the Israelites were idolators. They didn't even worship the same God that I worship.

 

[JackRUS]

That depends on how one defines a Christian. I like you define one as born again believer. Yet the world defines one as any professing Christian in any so-called Christian religion.

And I would say that Jesus' statement in Matt. 7:13-14 included the OT Jews.

 

[Keith M]

I think that then, as now, it was a question of belief. Those who had faith that God would one day send a redeemer for mankind were "saved" because they believed and had faith in God's promise. On the other hand, there were those who were worldy and who did not have a belief in God's word. Those, I believe, were just as lost as anyone who dies today without being saved.

 

[Gold Dragon]

I don't know. That is between God and them.

 

[Helen]

Tim, we read that He came to His own but His own received Him not.

We also read, from God to Noah in Genesis 9:21, that the hearts of all men TEND toward evil always. (It doesn't say they ARE evil, but that they continually tend that way).

This would have been true of the Israelites as well. Remember, those who perished in the wilderness had SEEN the miracles of the Ten Plagues. They had SEEN the water from the rock. They had SEEN the manna and quail. They had SEEN the Shekinah Glory cloud leading them day and night. They had SEEN the waters of the Red Sea part...

and yet they rebelled continuously.

They were human like us. Most did not believe. Some did.