God's Chosen People, Christians
by Stephen Bastin
Yes,
I know that I am disagreeing with practically every religious leader and
theologian. That is the advantage of
not being a religious leader or a theologian.
I am neither a “reverend” nor the son of a “reverend.”
My training was in engineering (at Purdue University) and my knowledge of
the Bible comes from reading The Book.
If
one chooses to ignore Jesus and the New Testament then one can quite easily come
to the conclusion that the Jews are God’s chosen people.
After all, God called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and Moses was sent to bring them out
of Egypt and into the promised land.
Listen
to what Moses told them (speaking for God) just before they received the Ten
Commandments at Mt. Sinai: “Now
then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be
My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you
shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
Notice
the “if . . . then” of Moses’ remarks.
The nature of such a message is that it is conditional.
Israel’s status as “chosen people” was conditional upon their
obeying the voice of God as expressed in the covenant they were about to
receive. Disobedience would be
punished.
In
fact, Moses later said to these same people in a sermon that he preached shortly
before his death: “And it shall
come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you,
so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you
shall be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it.
Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of
the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods,
wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.
And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no
resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a
trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.”
Those
words are not written by some wild-eyed Christian, but by Moses.
They are in the Torah. If you
have difficulty locating any of these verses to which I have referred, you may
write, telephone or e-mail me and I will be glad to furnish references.
Peter
wrote a letter addressed to those who had been born again and had a “living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Of such he said, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the
excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
You might have noticed the strong similarity between
what Peter wrote to Christians and what Moses told the descendants of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. That is because
Christians had
When
Jesus showed up in the first century it was not like God said, “Surprise,
I’m about to change everything.” Everything
that God did through Jesus was carefully laid out in the Old Testament.
For example, the Lord said to Moses, “I will raise up a prophet from
among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he
shall speak to them all that I command him.”
Jeremiah
told the Jews that God would make a new covenant with them.
He said it would be different from the covenant that he had made when he
brought them out of Egypt (the Ten Commandments).
When
Jesus showed up, many of the Jews accepted him.
They became his followers. Some
became apostles (witnesses chosen by Jesus to give his testimony to the world).
Others disbelieved and set out to get rid of him.
Eventually they had him crucified by the Romans.
Paul
discusses how a person is saved in Romans, chapters one through eight.
In chapters nine through eleven he takes up the matter of the Jews and
where they now stand with God. Under
the figure of the chosen people as an olive tree he says, “They were broken
off for their unbelief.” “If God
did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you” if you become an
unbeliever. “Broken off” does
not work out to make them still the “chosen people.”
They are unchosen because of unbelief.
When
later he says, “Thus all Israel will be saved,” he is not suggesting that
they will be saved in a different way than what he has discussed through eight
chapters before, but thus according to what he had written, Israel as well as
non-Israel will be saved.
In
another letter (the one written to the Galatian Christians) Paul refers again to
the matter of God’s chosen people. After
stressing the importance of faith and baptism he says, “If you belong to
Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
It is not the physical descendants of Abraham who are God’s chosen
people, it is the spiritual descendants of Abraham whom God chooses.
Jesus
told the Jewish people, “If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in
your sins.” To Nicodemus, he said,
“You must be born again.” To the
disciples he said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all
creation (including Jews). He who
believes and is baptized shall be saved; he who disbelieves shall be condemned.
Paul
wrote to Christians at Ephesus, “He (God) chose us in Him (Christ).”
To the Christians at Colossae, he wrote, “For He delivered us from the
domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”
Unbelieving Jews as well as unbelieving Gentiles (non-Jews) are in the
power of darkness. They have no
inheritance. They have no hope.
The
writer of Hebrews states, “We have confidence to enter the holy place by the
blood of Jesus.” Without faith in
the blood of Jesus to wash away sins, one cannot come into the presence of God.
There is no hope without Jesus. Those
who reject the Son of God have no hope in this life nor any beyond the grave.
Being
chosen by God is simple. Accept
Jesus and obey Him. He is Gods’
only Son.