There have been plenty of books written about this topic within the past 25 years and I think that as time moves forward, a lot of academia is coming around to a view that in order to make sense of the Biblical storyline as a whole (inclusive of both the Old and New Testaments) Israel and the Jewish people have to still matter to God. When I was first introduced to some of these ideas a few years ago, I would have considered myself indifferent to Israel. I did not harbor any particular animosity towards the Jews, nor did I think about them much at all...as it related to my own faith, Israel and the Jewish people didn't come to mind. Now my thinking is completely different. This post is a reflection of my own desire to be able to explain, in a simple way, to a fellow Christian why I think Israel remains important and why I think we as Gentile Christians need to be a little more careful when we read our Bibles. I also want to explain why I don't think it should be threatening to recognize that we (Gentiles) are not God's chosen people.
Where It Started
A few years ago I decided to go very deliberately through the covenants, specifically the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant and the 'New' covenant. In fact, I created a post for this blog based on that exercise. One of the things that became glaringly obvious was that ALL of those covenants were made specifically with the nation of Israel. Even with the Abrahamic covenant, which is obviously made before Israel became a nation, the very first thing God says is "I will make you into a great nation" -- it is clear that through Abraham, God has the nation of Israel ultimately in mind. Every other covenant is made explicitly and specifically to Israel, including the 'new' covenant (Jeremiah 31) which starts, "Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of mankind and the seed of animals."
With that fact alone it is curious that so little attention is given to the Jewish people in modern evangelical circles. Think about it - in order for Israel to not matter to God today, then either a) he had to transfer his promises to someone else or b) he had to break his covenant with Israel. For a Gentile believer, either one of these is a scary proposition for two reasons: a) if God could transfer his promises, what reason does any of us have to believe He wouldn't do that again? b) if He can break his covenant, what reasons do any of us have to believe he is trustworthy?
In Jeremiah 33, God says,
This is what the Lord says: "If you can break my covenant for the day and my covenant for the night, so that day and night do not occur at their proper time, then my covenant with David my servant may also be broken, so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levitical priests, my ministers." [...] "This is what the Lord says, "If my covenant for the day and night does not continue, and I have not established the fixed patterns of heaven and earth, then I would reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant, so as not to take from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes and have mercy on them." (Jeremiah 33:20-21, 25-26)
This passage speaks directly to how God feels about his covenant with Israel - it is unbreakable, irrevocable! God is basically saying - if my covenant is broken with Israel, then I am not God.
Why Does this Matter?
My heart in all of this rests with this question - why does this matter? The most significant way in which I think it matters is because I think God has a special mission for Gentile believers. The mission is all the way back in Deuteronomy 32:
"Then He said, 'I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faithfulness. They have made me jealous with what is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." (Deuteronomy 32:20-21, NASB)
The mission is provocation - provocation unto jealousy - and jealously unto a return. Paul talks about this in Romans as well, quoting verses in Hosea along the way:
"But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of his mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory - even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he also says in Hosea: "I will call those who were not my people, 'My People,' and I will call her who was unloved, 'My Beloved.' "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'" (Romans 9:22-26, NET)
What provocation looks like is a matter of discussion, but I really don't think there was ever an intended schism between Jews and Gentiles. The thing you see over and over in the New Testament letters is the Jewish believers and Gentile believers were together. The Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15) assumes this in their letter to Gentile believers saying, "For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath." They expected that Gentile believers would attend their local synagogue and hear from the holy Scriptures right alongside the Jewish believers.
When we appropriate all of Scripture to all humanity for all time, we miss vital elements of the message and, as Gentiles, we miss the particular mission that God has for us - namely that we play a part in reminding the nation of Israel of their original calling - 'to be a light to the nations, a city on a hill.' (Matthew 5:14) **Sidenote: When Jesus says these words in the sermon on the mount, he is recalling Isaiah 49 which is all about reminding Israel of their calling - to carry and proclaim God's covenant promises to the rest of the world.
The second reason I think this matters is because it matters to God - this is the way that He set things up (to the Jew first, then to the Gentile) and so rather than trying to figure out to put ourselves at the center of the story, I think its important to look at the story, as God wrote it, and let it tell us what the rightful center is.
Recommended Reading:
"When a Jew Rules the World" - Joel Richardson
"Jesus and the Forces of Death" - Matthew Thiessen
"Finding Messiah: A Journey Into the Jewishness of the Gospel" - Jen Rosner
"The God of Israel and Christian Theology" - Kendall Soulen
"Copernicus and the Jews" - Dan Gruber
"Israel Matters: Why Christians Must Think Differently about the People and the Land" - Gerald McDermott
"Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity" - McDermott, Kinzer, Rosner, Thiessen, etc.
"The Gospel of Christ Crucified" - John Harrigan
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