The Everlasting Covenant

The Twelve Tribes

When the Apostle Paul was on trial for his life, before King Agrippa, he said, “Now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.” ¹ Here we find that the twelve tribes were in existence in the days of the Apostle Paul, and were looking forward in hope to the fulfillment of the promise which God made to the fathers. EVCO 500.1

Again, the Apostle James addressed his Epistle “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.” ² EVCO 500.2

We have here sufficient evidence that no one tribe of Israel was ever lost more than another. All tribal distinctions are now lost, and no Jew can tell to which of the twelve tribes he belongs; and so in that sense, not merely ten, but all of the tribes are now lost, although all the twelve tribes are represented in the Jewish people scattered over the earth. God, however, keeps the list, and in the world to come will put every person in his proper place, for the city for which Abraham looked, the capital of the inheritance promised to him and his seed, the New Jerusalem, has twelve gates, and on the gates are “the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.” ³ EVCO 500.3