Many Christians misunderstand their connection with the Jewish people. They fail to grasp that the New Testament teaches that we are of ancient Israel--which is not to say that we are all British Israelites.
Alec Motyer put it this way:
. . . Old Testament thinking is precisely what Paul took seriously in his description of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ as the children of Abraham (Rom. 4:13--18) and Gal. 3:26--29). The straight line out of the Old Testament runs into the New Testament. This is tragically confused when people speak or write of the New Testament Church as the "new Israel." There is no such entity. There is only one "Israel", and from the start it was the people within the people, the line within the line, the believing community within the professing body, the Israel within Israel--the Israel of God. [Alec Motyer, Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ (London: Intervarsity Press, 1996), p.181.]
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