LKM On God, Israel and The Jews

Reference is made to Bible scriptures I Samuel 16:7 and Romans 2:25-29.

The nation of Israel is unique in the world, in that it was given by God to a people on the basis of a conditional divine contract. When one party to a contract declines to honor their obligations to it, the other party is also free to discontinue their obligation to it as well. What does the Bible record about God and the Jewish people?

The Bible makes it clear that God is not interested in racial hubris, since a)God is not a respecter of persons(Acts 10:34-35), and b)Both Jew and Gentile are under sin, and there is none righteous(Psalm 14:1-3, Romans 3:9-20). The Old Testament records God's use of Gentile powers(i.e. Assyrians, Babylonians) as His instruments of chastisement upon His original people for their straying from His divine statutes. So, obedience to God, and not physical fleshly identity, is the basis of Israel's right to exist. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens(Hebrews 12:6-10). Finally, as the Jews of the Old Testament times intermarried with Gentile pagans and adopted the customs of their nations, God agreed with their wishes by dispersing them into Gentile-world nations. QUESTION: Is God through with His original people? Does God have future plans for the nation of Israel? The answer to this question depends upon whether or not God's prodigal sons come home--in spirit, as well as physically. The apostle Paul wrote, in Romans 11:7-27, of God's original people being given of God a spirit of slumber, while Gentiles are "grafted in" to God's tree. Thus, we know God will save a remnant of His original people, but not all of them. Gentiles will take the place of those physical Israelites who rejected God.

Today, national Israel continues to exist, but as in ancient Old Testament times, it faces constant harassment from pagan Arab nations, while most Israelites are secular "Jews" not caring less about God and His divine statutes. For the most part, modern national Israel has forgotten that being Jewish is a state of spiritual consciousness, not one of physical existence. In such instance, Israel's existence will always be precarious. Still, God is not through with His original people, and will never let the Jew completely disappear from the earth--as evidenced in the 20th century by the failure of the ferocities of even an Adolf Hitler and a Joseph Stalin to completely erase them from all human memory. Many instances in human history can be cited, where, at every major turning point in human history, a Jew was always on hand, either behind the scenes or on center-stage, to make it all happen. No one individual Jewish person could possibly pre-arrange all those major events of history, to make them happen as they did. It must be God at work.

The Jews, for their part, must understand that the title of "God's chosen people" is not a divine priviledge, but rather, a divine responsibility. This phrase refers exclusively to those who accept this divine responsibility, and always walk faithfully according to the Lord's divine statutes for man.

God's promise to Abram, recorded in the Bible, Genesis 12:1-3, was made exclusively to Abram, and not to his descendants. Any of Abram's natural descendants would be blessed by God for blessing Abram, and cursed by God for cursing Abram, with reference to the divine covenant made between God and Abram. The nation of Israel, while promised to Abram, had not yet been created by the time of Genesis chapter 12. So, contrary to popular misapplication of Genesis 12:1-3, the nation of Israel as a whole is not heir to this promise. But it is certainly heir to God's promise of II Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land."

-LKM