[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
Bible Study Title: "Are the Jews still God’s chosen people?" Many churches and denominations in Christendom have believed that the Jews forfeited their claims to God’s covenant promises when they refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah and when their leaders demanded that He be crucified. This belief was especially prevalent during the long centuries when they were scattered among the nations of the world, cast out of Jerusalem and the land of Israel, and with no country of their own. However, with the almost miraculous re-establishment of the Jews in the land of Israel, as a nation among nations once again, many are re-thinking their conclusion that the Jews had permanently lost their position as the chosen people of God. Marvelous promises and prophecies were made concerning the land and the people of Israel in the Old Testament, but many Christians have tended to "spiritualize" these prophecies and to apply them to the Christian church instead of Israel. But now it appears that at least some of them are being fulfilled today in the literal nation of Israel. For example: "I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24). Many peoples, of course, resent the idea that God would have a "chosen people" at all, especially the Jews. "How odd of God, To choose the Jews" is the familiar couplet. The intense anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages, as well as in Nazi Germany more recently and Communist Russia today, is no doubt in large measure a reaction against such seeming divine favoritism. God’s choice, however, was not based on ordinary human criteria. As Moses told his people: "The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people" (Deuteronomy 7:7). Several factors were involved in God’s selection: 1. His instructions to mankind as a whole had been challenged by a united rebellion of the people against Him at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), and He consequently had forcibly confounded their languages and divided them thereby into distinct nations (Genesis 10:32). 2. His promise of a coming Redeemer, to reconcile a lost world to Himself, required that God Himself should become man some day, and He would thus have to born into some one particular nation and people. 3. Such a nation would have to be specially prepared, both by divine revelation and by national experience, to be the nation through which the Savior would come. The choice, furthermore, would have to be made long before this purpose was accomplished, in order to allow the necessary time for these preparations. 4. All of the nations formed as a result of the judgment at Babel were already in rebellion against God and thus unsuitable for this purpose. 5. God, therefore, in sovereign grace, chose one man, Abraham, a direct descendant of the patriarch Shem, to establish a new nation, through which "all families of the earth would be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). Abraham’s faith in God’s Word was subjected to severe testing again and again. But “he was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:20, 21). Consequently, God confirmed to him an unconditional covenant. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Furthermore, the promises to Abraham included not only the eventual coming of Christ into his family, but also the permanent possession of the Promised Land. "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18). No condition whatsoever was attached to this gift, provided by God’s grace in response to Abraham’s obedient faith. The same promise was confirmed to his son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5) and his grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15; 35:10-12), both again unconditionally. Consequently, the promise is still in effect and will be fulfilled completely in time to come. There have been many occasions when the children of Israel had to be disciplined, because of unbelief and disobedience. This discipline, more than once, has included subjugation to other nations and even forced expulsion from their own land. Their greatest sin, resulting in their most severe chastisement, was in the national rejection and crucifixion of the promised Redeemer when He finally came. Jesus said: "For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:23, 24). Nevertheless, God’s unconditional covenant with Abraham has not been forgotten. "I say then, Hath God cast away His people? God forbid . . . God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew" (Romans 11:1, 2). "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Romans 11:25). God, in His wisdom, has used Israel’s rejection of Christ as the very means by which He would suffer and die in atonement for the sins of men in all nations, and following which He would "visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15:14). Even in this age, many individual Jews—including all the original Christians—have accepted Christ, and thus have already inherited a portion of the promises. Eventually, during the period of Christ’s second coming, the Jewish nation as a whole will turn to Christ in repentance and faith. "And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins" (Romans 11:26, 27). God keeps all His promises, including those to His people Israel. "Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 31:37).
Poster Comment: Is anyone an expert on this subject?
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread |
|
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]
|