Thursday, August 03, 2017

Chosen Nation (1)

Before Jesus came, God worked through a chosen nation. God did not choose the children of Israel, because he liked them better than other people. He chose them because Abraham was faithful and he had a task for them to do in the world. God needed Israel for two key reasons.

  1. He needed a place on earth where he had permission to operate freely. That place was the promised land. He would eventually make this a safe place to send his son.

  2. God wanted Israel to demonstrate the benefits of living under his law (Deut 4:6-8). If Israel had applied God’s system of government, local judges applying his law, the nations would have seen how well it worked and copied it.

Israel failed to live up to its calling.
  1. They rebelled against God, and went into exile. The promised land was ruled by foreign empires: Babylon Persian, Rome. God’s authority to operate in the land was significantly constrained. He had to wait a long time before it was safe to send Jesus.

  2. Israel rejected God’s system of government and chose to be ruled by a king, like the other nations. The wisdom of God’s law was never demonstrated.

This difficulty did not hold God back, because it was only the first step in his big plan. He sent Jesus to get the second stage of his plan underway.

Jesus did not come to restore the chosen nation, although that was what was expected (Acts 1:6). The chosen nation was just a step on the way to God’s much greater plan for redeeming the entire world. Jesus announced the Kingdom of God, which is a much broader concept than a chosen nation, because the Kingdom of God covers the entire world.

Jesus did attempt to restore the chosen nation. He announced that it would be destroyed soon after his ministry on earth was complete and the Kingdom of God had been inaugurated (Luke 20:9-15; 21:20-24).

Jesus explained that the Kingdom of God does not need a chosen nation, because it would be within them (Luke 19:21). This does not mean that the Kingdom is invisible. Rather Jesus was saying that the Holy Spirit would be within each believer, telling them Jesus’ will and empowering them to obey it. God’s kingdom comes as Jesus will is done. Jesus’ will is done, as people obey the leading of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he poured out the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did not just come on the chosen nation. Rather, Jesus poured out the Holy spirit on people from all the nations who had gathered in Jerusalem (Acts 2:5-11). They would take the gospel of the Kingdom back to their homes and spread the Kingdom of God into all the world. They would teach the people of the nations to do Jesus’ will (Matt 28:20).

The outpouring of Pentecost and the inauguration of the Kingdom of God made the chosen nation redundant. A few years later, in AD 70, the chosen nation was destroyed by the Roman Empire and the Jewish people scattered among the nations into exile. A chosen nation was no longer needed, because the Kingdom of God had come.

God no longer needed a piece of land on earth in which to work, because the Holy Spirit could work in people all over the world. He would be a river of living water flowing out from within them into the surrounding people (John 7:38). The ministry of Jesus shifted God’s scope of activity from a small piece of land to the entire world (Matt 28:19).

God will eventually save the chosen nation, but not by restoring them as a nation with their own king. Instead, they must become part of the Kingdom of God, through trusting in Jesus, and obeying the Holy Spirit (Rom 11:26).

The chosen nation no longer responsible for bringing salvation to the world (apart from proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom). Rather it finds salvation by coming into the Kingdom of God.

God has been happy to let his Kingdom run on for 2000 years without a chosen nation. Clearly his kingdom can function without one. Not that different people have not tried to become a chosen nation for him. The kings of the Holy Roman Empire thought they were the chosen nation for a couple of hundred years. Then the people of British thought they were the chosen nation. Now many people in the United States assume that it is the chosen nation. Some believe that the United States and Israel have this role together.

The truth is that when God scattered Israel amongst the nations, he did not appoint a chosen nation to replace it (except in the sense that all citizens of the Kingdom of God are a chosen nation (Rev 1:6)).

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