with the hope and promise of membership in God’s heavenly kingdom with Jesus Christ. For that reason the apostle Paul could write to them and say: “As for us, our citizenship exists in the heavens, from which place also we are eagerly waiting for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 3:20) This “holy nation,” therefore, is the spiritual Israel of God.

15. Why was there no need for Jehovah to give another rebirth to natural Israel after 70 C.E.?

¹⁵ By the year 70 C.E., thirty-seven years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the members of this spiritual nation of Israel had multiplied by the thousands in and outside the Roman Empire. Consequently, when the Roman legions under General Titus destroyed Jerusalem and its temple and devastated the land of Judea and thus the nation of natural, circumcised Israel was destroyed, there was no need for Jehovah God to give a rebirth to that rejected nation, either back there or today. At the destruction of the Jewish nation in the year 70 C.E. Jehovah God had already had for thirty-seven years his “holy nation” of spiritual Israel.

16. Upon whom, then, are Bible prophecies being fulfilled today, bringing what to the “nation whose God is Jehovah”?

¹⁶ It is upon this spiritual Israel and through it that the Bible prophecies continue to be fulfilled, down till today. Till this present day natural, fleshly Jews of the destroyed nation of Israel have survived, and so how much rather should not members of the true spiritual “Israel of God” have survived till today? To the praise and glory of Jehovah God and owing to his protection and preservation, a remnant of this spiritual “Israel of God” does exist today, and it is experiencing the unspeakable happiness of the “nation whose God is Jehovah.”—Ps. 33:12; Gal. 6:16.

The Rebirth of the Happy Nation

1. Who resent the fact that God has a “nation,” and what efforts have been made to destroy that nation of God?

SATAN the Devil and his worldly organization resent the fact that God should have a “nation” in the earth that is called by his name and that worships Jehovah as God. As prophetically stated in Psalm 83:4, the enemies of the nation whose God is Jehovah have said to fellow conspirators: “Come and let us efface them from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” Bible history and secular history record how the enemies, including even leading members of natural Israel, tried to wipe out spiritual Israel in the first century of its existence. In spite of the fierce persecution and efforts to exterminate them, the people of spiritual Israel survived and remained a nation supremely happy because the God whom they worshiped and served was Jehovah.

2. How does what occurred in 537 B.C.E. give us confidence in Jehovah’s power and ability to save his people at any time?

² All the enemies in heaven and on earth