God, in His infinite wisdom, determined to deal with His creatures through covenants. He created one man and made a covenant with him. He then used another man, Noah, and through him and his family he, in a sense, re-created the world. And then God revealed Himself to Abraham. God called Abraham to leave his homeland, Haran, and to go to a land that God would show him. This was the beginning of the story of the Jewish people – the wandering Jews as we are often called. God ntered into a covenant with Abraham, through a ceremony described in Genesis 15. God told Abraham to sacrifice a heifer, a ram and a goat and, as was the custom of those days in the ancient Near East, the sacrificed animals were cut in half. Normally in ceremonies of this type both parties would pass between the parts of the sacrifice but here God alone passed between them declaring, as it were, “May it be done to me as has been done to these animals, if I do not keep my promises to you.”
God promised to give Abraham a land but, more than that, to make him a great nation; to bless him and to make his name great. God would bless those who blessed Abraham and curse those who cursed him (Gen. 12:1-3). Though Abraham did not have the patience to wait for God to fulfill His promise to him through his wife, Sarah, nevertheless God graciously and miraculously gave them a son, Isaac, the son of promise. God went far to fulfill His covenant and the day would come when He would even send His only begotten Son to the cross. There is no price too high to prevent Him remaining faithful to His covenant .
The Supremacy of Christ
The world in which we live exists because of God and His Son, Jesus Christ. History – that is His story – is all about Him and His plan of salvation for mankind, whom He created in His image. The past, present and future are not about Israel but about Christ. In fact, before His ascension Jesus told His disciples: "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you: that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that Messiah should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:44-47).
The Scriptures of the Old Testament are about Christ. We who live after the time of Christ are privileged to see things no longer in shadow and type but in substance! We are able to understand clearly God’s plan of salvation, which was established before the foundation of the world, perfectly executed through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are blessed to see the fulfillment of God’s progressive revelation.
The message of the apostles was all about Christ. It had been a shock to them when their Lord and Savior did not establish a physical kingdom on earth to release Israel from the oppressive hand of the Roman conquerors and, worse than all, had been humiliated by the worst kind of execution: crucifixion. Yes, they had the privilege of seeing their resurrected Lord and being instructed by him, but they must have been in a state of shock for some time. Yet their message clearly was Christ-centered, as we read in Acts 5:42: “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.” The truth had set them free and there was nothing more important than to teach and preach that Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah. I wish we also had such zeal to passionately proclaim Christ.
Following his conversion experience Paul became wholly consumed with proclaiming the Master that he had encountered. His persecution of Jesus and His followers turned to preaching Christ and led to him suffering the same fate at the hands of his Jewish brethren that he had himself meted out to the Jewish believers. He experienced hardships, suffering much for the message that was inscribed on his heart, understood in his head and worked for with his hands. Paul was so consumed by the message of Christ that in Philippians 1:21 he was able to say: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
It was not only Paul’s life that was changed and transformed but also his message. Luke tells us in Acts 9:20, that immediately after Paul regained his sight following his encounter with the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."
To the Corinthians Paul declared: “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23).
In Philippians 3, after a short list of his credentials and “accomplishments” he writes (3:8): “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Compared to Christ, Paul considered all other things as “rubbish” (our translators are far too gentle; the Greek word that Paul actually uses is “dung”!).
The Old Testament, the establishment of the Church in the apostolic age and the message of Paul are all about Christ and His work. We should not allow anything to blur the message of the Gospel, not even the nation of Israel.
After discussing the supremacy of Christ, we will look at the role of the Jewish nation in our world today and in the future.
The Role of Israel
It may not be an exaggeration to say that most Christians acknowledge the importance of the role of Israel in the history of redemption. However, they differ in their understanding of the role Israel will play in the future. We have already seen the beginning of God’s call and covenant to Abraham. Years later, God reconfirmed His covenant with Isaac, Abraham’s son, and Jacob, his grandson. Jacob received the name Israel and from then on the sons of promise were called the people of Israel. In Egypt, while they were still slaves, the Lord revealed himself to Moses: “Then the LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites’” (Exodus 3:7-8).
God heard the cry of His people and came down to save them. He had entered into a covenant relationship with them; He had chosen them from among all the peoples and nations of the earth and He would not allow them to perish as slaves. We must acknowledge what the word of God tells us regarding His reason for choosing the people of Israel. It was not because of their number, wisdom or wealth, but because of His love. In Deut. 7:6-9 we read: "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations…”
Though God, the faithful God, brought Israel out of Egypt by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm (Deut. 4:34), they almost immediately rebelled against him. While Moses went up Mount Sinai to bring them the Law, they made a golden calf and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!" (Ex. 32:4).
Their rebellion continued even though the Lord guided them with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. Because of their murmering and disobedience God kept them in the wilderness for forty years before bringing them into the Promised Land. Even when Moses got tired of them, God patiently and lovingly – though at times with wrath – led them into His presence through the tabernacle, and into the Promised Land.
After Israel crossed the Jordan under Joshua’s leadership, God conquered the fortified cities and the giants of the land. The people fought for the land, but the victory and the battle was all His. The Lord God fought for them, conquered their enemies and gave the tribes their inheritance. The people settled in the same land and within the borders that God promised to their forefathers.
As we read on in the history of the people of God we see a pattern emerging, one that becomes readily apparent in the book of Judges: Israel rebels; the Lord brings upon them an enemy; the people cry to God and He delivers them through a judge. This is repeated again and again, and with time the judges become increasingly wicked. The unfaithfulness of the people and their rebellion against God is not limited to the era of the judges but is a factor that appears throughout the history of the Old Testament.
The people sin boldly against their Creator and Savior. They worship idols made by human hands. Can you imagine what an insult that is to God? Yet God remains faithful in forgiving, saving, leading and guiding His people. Again and again He sent them prophets, to show them their desperate need for repentance and to call them back to Himself. We hear the cry of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and others, pleading with God’s people to repent, to change their ways and to follow the God of their covenant. Listen to the opening words of Isaiah 1:2-5: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the LORD has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.”
Despite their heinous sins, the Lord God continues to speak through the prophets, as in Isaiah 40:1-5: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
Hear the words of Hosea coming directly from the Lord to the people of Israel: “Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed” (Hosea 4:1-2).
Despite the evil most of the kings of Israel did in the eyes of the Lord, the God of Israel was faithful to them. Hear more from Hosea the prophet: "Come, let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth" (Hosea 6:1-3).
The people of Israel continued in their sins,doing evil in the sight of the Lord, ignoring the pleading of the prophets. They continued to worship their idols , bowing to the creatures rather than the Creator. Nevertheless, God remained faithful to them. Yes, He sent them into exile; yes, He held back the rain and brought upon them troubles and wars. But these acts were because of His love for them. The people of Israel were His possession and He loved them as a father. As Proverbs 3:12 tells us: “For the Lord reproves Him whom He loves, as a father the Son in whom He delights.”
This is God’s way, and this is the true meaning of His love and His grace to the people of Israel, and to us.
The Present
When we come to the New Testament, we should not be so surprised to read of the reaction of the Jewish leaders and some of the people of Israel who rejected Jesus. They acted in conformity with their history: Just as their forefathers rejected the word of God spoken through the prophets, and killed them, so also now the people rejected the Son of God. But God is true to himself and to His covenant. Jesus reiterated that He had come to the house of Israel. Again and again in the Scriptures we see the priority of Jewish mission. Jesus used strong words when He spoke with the Canaanite woman from the region of Tyre and Sidon. When she begged Him to have mercy on her demon oppressed daughter, Jesus replied: “’I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ’Lord, help me.’ And He answered, ’It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ’Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table’” (Matt 15:24-27).
Later, after His resurrection and before His ascension, Jesus told His disciples that they would receive power after the Holy Spirit came upon them and then they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the world. There was no question about His priority or for what purpose and for whom the Father had sent him. The disciples understood this, as is evident when Peter, in his sermon in Solomon’s Porch, says: “You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' God, having raised up His servant, sent Him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness" (Acts 3:25-26).
Peter recognized that the Servant of the Lord was sent first to the house of Israel to bless them and to turn them from their wickedness. This is grace.
But now we move forward in history and come to Paul’s teachings and writings. Paul, the persecutor of the Church, was confronted by Jesus and became the apostle to the Gentiles. But He recognized the priority of the message to the Jews. If you study his missionary strategy in the book of Acts, you will see that in every city and town to which he was sent, this apostle to the Gentiles went first to the synagogue and only after the Jews categorically rejected the Gospel did he turn to the Gentiles.
Of all the writers of the New Testament, Paul states most clearly the place of Israel in His day and in the future. The epistle to the Romans, particularly chapters 9-11, tells us much about Israel today and tomorrow. After dealing so brilliantly with the issues of justification and sanctification and God’s predestination in the first eight chapters, Paul concludes by assuring us that there is nothing in heaven above or in earth beneath that can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ. He basically is arguing for the perseverance of the saints (Calvin’s fifth point). Continuing his argument in the next three chapters, Paul speaks of his anguish and sorrow for his kinsmen. He says he is willing to forego all the blessings he has received from Christ and to be accursed and separated from Him for the sake of Israel.
When he speaks about Israel in Romans 9-11, Paul is certainly talking about the Jewish people, and not the Church or the Gentile believers. In verse 4 of chapter 8 he writes: “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.”
He surveys a short history of the Israelites. In the next verse Paul moves on to defend his thesis that God has not rejected the Jewish nation even though they have rejected Him. The Word of God, he argues, has not failed but, for the time being, God is working out His plan of salvation among the Gentiles. Paul then goes on to explain why God’s purpose for Israel has not failed.
Interestingly enough for this purpose, Paul goes back to the promise of the son that God made to Abraham and Sarah. From there he argues that the election of God is independent of any human act or cultural acceptance by introducing the example of Jacob and Esau, two sons of the same father. Before their birth God declared that the older would serve the younger and that the younger would be the son of promise. Why? Because of God.
In Romans 10 Paul reconfirms that the desire of his heart is for the salvation of Israel. Again, he is referring to His kinsmen and brothers in the flesh, the Jewish people; those with whom God had made a covenant, to whom He gave the promises and through whom He sent His Messiah. In the rest of chapter ten Paul argues that salvation is for all those who hear and are called, and that faith comes through the preaching of the word of God. Referring to the rejection of Christ by the Israelites, he quotes from Moses and Isaiah: “Then Isaiah is so bold as to say, ‘I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.’ But of Israel He says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people" (Rom 10:20-21).
Paul was not surprised by his kinsmen’s rejection of the Messiah – after all, not too long ago, he himself had been a persecutor and prosecutor of those Jewish people who had come to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah of Israel.
Introducing chapter eleven, Paul asks rhetorically, “Has God rejected His people?” His emphatic reply is, “By no means!” Paul is himself a descendant of Abraham (he refers to the covenant and promises of God to Abraham) and from the tribe of Benjamin; making him a living proof that God has not rejected His people. He also gives the example of Elijah, who thought he was the only one left in Israel who had not bowed to Baal. God assured Elijah that He had kept for himself seven thousand faithful men and from this Paul concludes that the same is true for today; there is always a remnant chosen by grace within Israel. There has always been a remnant chosen by grace within the nation. In the purpose of God, the stumbling of the Israelites over Christ was not so that they might fall, as Paul confirms in verse 11, but, rather, was part of the plan of the sovereign God to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. Hypothetically speaking, it is likely that if the Israelites as a nation had accepted Jesus as their Messiah, you, my Gentile brothers, would not be sitting here today. But God’s plan of salvation was that through the temporary stumbling of the Jewish people, salvation would come to the Gentiles. Because of their rejection of Jesus, the door was opened for the Gentiles to come in. This is the significance of the’ parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22:1-14.
But this is not the final word! Salvation has come to the Gentiles in order to stir Israel to jealousy. Just as the Gospel came to the Gentiles as a result of the people of Israel rejecting it, so today God is using Gentile Christians to move Israel to jealousy so that they will “reclaim” their God and their Messiah! Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles, used his own logic to cause the Jewish people to be jealous and by that to point them to Christ (Rom. 11:13-14). Using the imagery of Jeremiah in 11:16, Paul refers to Israel as an olive tree, common in the land of Israel. He tells us that there is only one olive tree but that some of its natural branches have been broken off and wild olive shoots have been grafted in. The people of God, His Church, have always been one – under the Old Testament His Church was made up mainly of Jews (though not entirely), while under the New Testament it is now composed mainly of Gentiles, with a remnant of Jewish people. I am standing here before you as one of this remnant.
Thank God that this is not the final act in God’s plan of salvation! Beginning with verse 24 of Romans 11, Paul speaks about the day when God will bring back His people of old to Himself. Paul reasons that if God was able to graft the wild olive branches into a cultivated olive tree, how much more is He able to graft back the natural branches? In His time, when the full number of Gentiles has come in, He will do it. Paul is referring to God’s great mystery. The Israelites have temporarily rejected Christ so that the Gentiles would come into God’s New Covenant but God will yet bring the nation of Israel back to Himself. This is the amazing mystery of God’s plan of salvation! As Paul writes and the whole mystery unfolds in his mind, He concludes with this doxology of praise:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen (Rom 11:33-36).
Conclusion
God has been and will be faithful to His covenant despite Israel’s failures and rejection of him. Salvation has always been of God and is totally independent of our efforts or works. Throughout history the Jewish people have rejected their God and yet He has never rejected them; He has granted to them all the blessings He promised them. Israel at the time of Christ, in keeping with their forefathers, rejected Jesus but God, in His wonderful plan of salvation, had caused a temporary blindness to come on them so as to bring in the full number of Gentiles. The day will come when all Israel will be saved. [The word “all” in Pauline theology rarely means every single individual but, rather, most or the majority.]
Today, we live in an exciting time in the history of the Jewish people. Each day more and more people are coming to accept Jesus as their Messiah. The Church among the Jewish people is growing both in Israel and elsewhere. But at the same time the need is great and the work is immense.
*****
Prepared by David Zadok for the Elders and Deacons 2008 Conference of the Free Reformed churches of Canada
Copyright 2008
|
