CORRECT VIEWS AND WARM RIGHTEOUSNESS (3)
I have a single point I wish to make with this
piece and it’s this: God’s elect are called to live righteously in holy
generosity but they are also called to bear witness to truth about God as he
has revealed himself in human history.
Israel
experienced something with God that no other nation experienced. Amos 3:2 makes
that very clear (NRSV): “You only have I known of all the families of the
earth.” The NIV and NAS goes with “chosen,” the NJB goes with “intimately
known” and the JPS offers “have I singled out”. It hardly needs saying that a
special relationship with Israel
is implied.
That special relationship was created and publicly
signified by God’s gracious choosing of Abraham, his self-disclosure, his
redemptive acts and his covenants. God chose to exclude all other nations from
these experiences and if the nations got to know anything about them it was
from “the outside” (compare Joshua 2:9-11 and 5:1). It was to Israel alone God gave the Sinai
covenant, with its promises, feasts, laws, insights, wisdom and all that they
involved.
In Romans 3:1 Paul’s imaginary dialogue partner
says, [If all you say is true] “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?”
Paul’s response is, “Much in every way!” Jews had a multi-faceted advantage
over all the other nations and that is precisely why Amos 3:2 goes on to say,
“therefore I will punish you for all yours sins.”
Israel was
not only blessed with advantages and promises, it was entrusted with them
(Romans 3:1-2 and compare Isaiah 49:6 with Acts 13:46-47). Their chosen state
was blessing and responsibility. Their mission was to proclaim the name of God
in holy lives of warm righteousness that imaged the character of God which is
profiled in the Torah (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2: 20:7 and elsewhere). Click
here. They were to declare the truth about him as over against the gods
of the world and they were to do this by rehearsing his redemptive deeds in
teaching and in their ordinances as well as in righteous living.
Others nations did not because they could not know
what Israel knew; they did
not because they could not experience what Israel experienced. Israel
knew better than other nations because God gifted them with knowledge of himself.
Israel
knew more than other nations because God gifted them with more knowledge of
himself.
Other nations walked in sin and darkness precisely
because they were sinners and because God was prepared to leave them in
ignorance (see Acts 17:30). Israel
was just as sinful as the other nations (see Deuteronomy 9:4-27 and note Joshua
24:14, 23) but God in holy generosity revealed himself to them. [It can’t be
said too often that he chose Abraham and Israel
so that he might bless the world—Genesis 12:2-3 and elsewhere—and not to make
Abraham and Israel
his “pets”.] Israel’s grasp
of truth, Israel’s adherence
to that truth, Israel’s
proclamation of that truth was an essential part of their national identity and
their mission to the world.
God related to Abraham and Israel in covenants that were
nothing like anything he had going with the nations (see and note with care
Ephesians 2:11-12).
To hold the nations responsible for not believing
and practicing all that Israel
believed and practiced is to hold them responsible for not being Israel
and that would make no sense. It wouldn’t matter that a Parthian had no
interest in the Feast of Tabernacles or Passover because he knew nothing about
them but it would have mattered a great deal if the Jewish people had simply
dismissed them as of no consequence. If Israel put out of their minds the
events under Moses and Joshua and lived in that ignorance God construed it as
betrayal—see Judges 2:10-13 and elsewhere. The worship of many gods by the
nations was sinful ignorance but when redeemed Israel did it, it was construed as
treachery and treason.
Manifestly
God never approved of the worship of
gods which infected later generations with ignorance and an idolatrous culture
(Romans 1:19-23). The prophets denounced and mocked polytheism and idolatry, of
course, but it was always in the hearing of Israel who were prone to forsake
God and turn to idols. The prophetic condemnation of idolatry while it
certainly had a message for the nations was more for Israel who had been fully
enlightened and had committed to be witnesses for the one true God. The nations
were stupid but Israel
was treacherous. When they committed to other gods it was in the face of the
one true God who had redeemed and commissioned them so that the worship of the
gods was not the same thing for the nations and Israel! Israel’s forefathers
worshipped gods beyond the Euphrates (see Joshua 24 again) but once the one
true God had graciously made himself known to Israel in all the ways outlined
above, the worship of the gods by Israel took on a new and more sinister dimension
(note carefully John 15:22-24).
To
worship other gods meant Israel
had to deny its beginnings, its history and its place in the world. Where did
they come from, where were they going, how did it come that they were in the
wilderness, how did they get out of Egypt and how did it come that Canaan was
their home? For Israel
in particular the truthful answer to these questions had to centre in the God
who revealed himself to Abraham and Moses. For Israel
to worship Baal and offer thanks and praise to him as the Canaanites had done was
to create a different “Israel”.
Canaanites who worshiped the nature god Baal remained Canaanites but for Israel to worship Baal was to obliterate her
history and create another “Israel”.
Israel was called to
more than moral uprightness; they were called to be witnesses to the truth
about the one true God in the midst of a world steeped in darkness and
ignorance that rose out of sin. They were called to declare his praise of him
who had called them from darkness into his wonderful light (compare 1 Peter
2:9, Isaiah 43:10 and 44:8).
The
nations were responsible and God held them accountable for much (see the
sections against the nations in the prophets—Jeremiah 46—51, Amos 1 and Ezekiel
25—32 for example). But he did not hold them responsible for not being Israel.
He did not hold them responsible for knowledge he did not give them. God took a
nation of sinners from among many nations of sinners and made a special
covenant with them; a covenant he chose to exclude the nations from.
God
did not condemn the foreign nations for not keeping the Mosaic covenant with
all that it contained or for not embracing the mission to which God called Israel.
So
what did he condemn them for? He held them guilty for cherishing and practicing
wickedness apart from the Mosaic Covenant (see Romans 2:6-12). There was truth
from and about God before Moses came along and the Holy Father poured out
judgment on nations when they flagrantly and impenitently suppressed that truth
in unrighteousness (Noah’s flood and Sodom
illustrates).
But
God’s self-disclosure in word and deed to Abraham and then to Moses in the
Sinai covenant was unlike anything that had occurred before. A specific nation
was now elect and profound truths were taught them and demonstrated before
them. It was required of them that the live righteously but a sweet spirit and
an honest life were no substitute for the truths that undergirded such a life
for an Israelite. The truth of Israel’s
faith was not to be denied or corrupted or forsaken for Israel was a bearer of truth about
God before the world and that truth created a world that stood opposed to “the
world” of the nations.
An
enlightened and God-loving Israelite would never have dreamed of saying,
“Teaching doesn’t matter—the only thing that really counts is character and
virtuous living.” Others could be ignorant of the truth God invested in Israel
and still live virtuous lives (note Ruth, the Moabite in Ruth 1:16) but an
Israelite could not despise the truth he had been given.
The
elect of God has a mission that embraces more than virtuous living—it includes
the truth of God that has been committed to them and in the case of the NT
elect it is the truth of God that has come to its zenith in Jesus Christ. To
suggest that the truth about Jesus should be dismissed and that only virtuous
living should be our concern is not true to the NT nor is it true to the
mission of the NT elect.
The
elect have been blessed to have their hearts and eyes opened (compare Acts
16:14; Philippians 1:29). Vision is a gift and not a merit! Others are yet
blind and it is the responsibility of those who can see to be a gracious
blessing to those who are blind. The elect are to do more than call people to
be virtuous though that is certainly no crime; their business is to bear
witness to the truth of God in Jesus Christ.
Doctrine
is to be made attractive by lovely lives (Titus 2:10) but doctrine is not to be
dismissed.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, theabidingword.com.