GOD'S CHOICE of ourselves has come to our hearts as so wonderful a thing, that we may well contemplate the character of His choice of Israel. It is a theme profoundly moving, revealing as it does, the Fatherly regard of God for a people so strangely at variance with the nations of the earth. To see how uniquely they fulfill that aspect of God's purpose which concerns the earth, is to see the ever-moving hand of God amid the tangle of human affairs. It is to note a long continued patience as part of a set purpose, a purpose which stands inviolate against all attempts at frustration. For choice was made of such a people, not because of what they were, and are, but in view of what they can and will ultimately be. "For a people holy are you to Jehovah, your God. You were chosen by your God to become for Him a special people from all the peoples which are on the face of the earth. Not because you were more than all the peoples was Jehovah attached to you, and is He choosing you, for you were the least of all the peoples. For because of the love of Jehovah for you, and because of His keeping the oath which He swore to your fathers, Jehovah brings you forth with a steadfast hand, and is ransoming you from the house of servants, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt" (Deut.7:6-8). How lovely are the salient points of this declaration! Here are a people to be holy, separate, devoted to God. Chosen by Him to become for Him a special people. A selective choice this, for it is "from all the peoples which are on the face of the earth." And not because of their importance, but rather through their insignificance. We see here how God chooses the weak, the ignoble and the scorned, so that no flesh should be boasting before Him. Israel possessed no particular worth. They were least of all the peoples. Jehovah's attachment was purely of His love for them. As we further read: "In all their afflictions He is not a foe. And the messenger of His presence saved them. In His love and in His sparing He redeemed them, and He transported and bore them all the days of the eon" (Isa.63:9). Jeremiah, too, adds his testimony, as from afar Jehovah appeared to him: "And with love eonian I love you. Therefore I draw you with kindness" (Jer.31: 3). Note the rare sequence. I love you, therefore I draw you. Intervals there were when God seemed to hide His face, appearing even to have forsaken them altogether. But see how finely it is put. "For a moment small I forsook you. Yet with compassions great will I gather you together. In an effervescence of wrath I concealed My face for a moment from you, yet with kindness eonian will I have compassion on you" (Isa.54:7,8). Only God could make such a contrast as is here set forth. "For a moment small I forsook you. With compassions great will I gather you." How long the moment appears to Israel they must painfully realize. But how great the compassions, and how wondrous the gathering they have yet to learn. It is all of God's will, the evil as well as the good. In much detail this is well brought out in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy. There we see the overwhelming character of the evil which attends this race of the wandering foot. This, however, is but one side of the picture. There is another, equally clear and convincing. For not only is there the scattering, the thrusting out, but the gathering, the bringing in. Their captivity is to be turned, and their true destiny accomplished. The following passages well set this forth.
Surely, language could not more literally define Israel's great future as being of God's set purpose. It voices in true eloquence the quality of God's choice. And it sets completely aside the mistaken theological idea that "the church has taken the place of Israel." Forsaken during God's "small moment" they may be, but thrust away, never. Indeed, Paul's great statement should be conclusive. "God does not thrust away His people whom He foreknew" (Rom.11:2). A most telling and penetrating word is the word "foreknew." It just holds the entire question of the quality of God's choice. And its interweaving character is so pronounced as Paul portrays it, that full quotation will be strengthening to the point: "For I am not willing for you to be ignorant of this secret, brethren, lest you may pass for prudent among yourselves, that Israel, in part, has become calloused until the full complement of the nations may be entering. And thus all Israel shall be saved, according as it is written,
"As to the evangel, indeed, they are enemies because of you, yet, as to choice, they are beloved because of the fathers. For God's graces and calling are unregretted. For even as you once are stubborn toward God, yet now were shown mercy by their stubbornness, thus these also are now stubborn to this mercy of yours, that now they also may be shown mercy. For God locks all up together in stubbornness, that He may be merciful to all" (Rom. 11:25-32). What a play of words in this arresting quotation! We see that Israel's past stubbornness is the medium of our present mercy. Also, that by virtue of its grandeur, they, though still stubborn, are to be shown mercy. And, further. Of such a quality is the emerging mercy of God, that it is to reach all. God's choice of Israel was made in full view of what should befall them. In cognizance, too, of their willfully repeated disobedience. The contingencies and crises of their history were, and are still, known to Him. Indeed, they are marked out and assigned by the God of Israel. Thus, again and again in Jeremiah's prophecy, we note the phrase, with variations, "I will bring evil upon this people." And that there is a depth of purpose in the periods of its occurrence, may well be inferred from their present unique position. The strange thing, however, is that religious Christendom thinks that this is just as it should be. The professing church appears to think that God has done with them. And it is with such feelings of complacency that it considers "the church has taken the place of Israel." This conclusion has permeated centuries of churchdom, and is held to still. It also explains the activities of the church along political lines. Happy are they, however, who perceive the perfection of God's choice. Who see that whosoever He takes up, He watches over, disciplines and controls until His predetermined purpose is accomplished. Israel, therefore, as the people of His choice, are still "the apple of His eye." They still stand as a people apart, and watched over, even in their blindness and ignorance. But the day will yet come when this amazing race will surprise the whole earth by its capacity of achievement for God. It was Heine who on his death bed said, "A queer people this--downtrodden for thousands of years; weeping always, suffering always, abandoned always by its God, yet clinging to Him tenaciously, loyally, as no other under the sun." An unconditional covenant is theirs, a promise of rare grace. With Abraham it is concerning the Land (Gen.15:8-21). With David, the Throne (2 Sam.7:1-17). The reply of David is so expressively beautiful it is worth quoting in full.
How these great people failed to sustain the rich promise of their early history, we well know. It is remarkable, too, that in their failure they verified their own Scripture. Of all nations, they alone have had their history written in advance. And it has been truly said that "the history of the Jew is the history of miracle, even as it is the miracle of history." Persecuted as they yet are, preferential treatment is theirs in unique degree. Despite the "melting pot" which has consumed so many nations, they are ever moving to the destiny which awaits them. And in the meanwhile, to humanity their dispersion has been a blessing far-reaching in its sweep. The law, as we of the nations see it, seems a burdensome thing. But to the Jew, especially when physically isolated under the Ghetto system, it was not burdensome but joyous. As Montefiore says, "the Law with its study has ever been the great spiritual stimulus. It has saved him from sacerdotalism and priestcraft. It supplied for him the place of every sort of intellectual or artistic or even professional activity, from which his peculiar religion on the one hand, and the intolerance of medieval society on the other kept him effectively away. It was the study as well as the fulfillment of the Law which prevented the Jews from sinking in the scale of mankind throughout the Middle Ages, intellectually and morally." The less their faith in man, the greater their faith in God, as expressed in the words of an old Hebrew bard:
As we look at this unique race in our midst we are reminded of our own choice. And the ground of our acceptance and assurance, as theirs, is the shed blood. It is that which God sees as the appointed and acknowledged token. In the homes in Egypt it was the blood upon the lintel that availed, not the feelings or experiences of those within. So with Rahab's scarlet cord. Its deep significance was for Joshua and those with him. Do we not see in all this, the impressiveness of God's side of things? Man is so apt to stress the human factor. And even believers do not see in the degree they should, the framed purpose of God as it affects the great people of His choice. Great because of what He will yet make them to be. And just because we have a destiny apart from theirs should we view with interest the wonderful future divinely assigned to them. No previous experience in the land will compare with what shall be. Tribulation will they have had until it seemed unendurable. But then, in a veritable haven of God, encompassed by a restful landscape of His bountiful ordering, they and the nations around will live in a peace earth had never before known. It will then be seen and properly acknowledged that God's choice of such a people was a wise and beneficent one. Israel-- God's Israel--has come into its own. In the words of another: "This mass of men and women overflowing all old frontier lines. Where has the curse of former times left even a line on these radiant, noble features? Where is there a trace of the old aloofness in this warm-hearted, benevolent-minded race, bearers of good tidings, ready also for gracious acts? A name and a praise indeed! Small wonder if a magnetic attraction towards a people once a byword and a proverb has made the past to seem like a bad dream!" Above all, a King now reigns Who is a King indeed. Men are blessed in Him. All nations call Him blessed, and the knowledge and recognition of His glory spreads even as His dominion extends from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth. But we have only glimpsed millennial splendors. The new heavens and earth will reveal an even greater glory as a tangible issue of the divine purpose. So, in marvelous and ever ascendant ways, the beings of a changed universe move to their appointed and exalted end. Then indeed will the full purport of His changeless choice be seen. And we shall witness in perfection that blessedness which with ourselves is so fitful and far below the ideal, as seen in Christ. God will be everything to everyone. O that now He were everything to those who have realized the marvels of His grace! |
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