See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah … I will plant my law within them and inscribe it in their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people … All shall know me, from the least to the greatest, says the Lord. 

It was Christ who established this new covenant, the new testament in his blood, calling into being, from Jews and Gentiles, a people that was to form a unity, not in human fashion but in the Spirit, as the new people of God. Those who believe in Christ, reborn not of corruptible but of incorruptible seed through the word of the living God, not from the flesh but from water and the Holy Spirit, are constituted in the fullness of time as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people God has made his own …, once no people but now the people of God.