VI. Abraham – God’s Answer to the Nations
There is a continuum into Genesis 12 from Genesis 11. It is set up almost to say Abraham is God’s answer to the tower of Babel incident. Through this one man God gives the blessing, “in you shall all the families (nations) of the earth be blessed.” God’s answer to the nations and their rejection of Him is not to destroy nations. It is instead to bless them. Abraham was called out to become a nation unto God. Just as Satan has his nation, so too God shall have a nation with His name upon it.
God tells Abraham to leave father, kindred, and nation and go to the land that He will show him. I don’t think that we can be the Abraham people of God until we too have heard that call. We too must come out from our own nations to join God’s nation. If we desire to be God’s people, we must come out from all that is in the world, and all that the world promotes and celebrates, and go into the land that God will show us. This is the promise. We aren’t even told as to where, when, or how we are going. There are no details given. Yet the call is made to leave.
How many of us are willing to receive such a call as this? Are we willing to entertain the thought of being wanderers without a place to lay our heads? Are we willing to be nomads and pilgrims? To walk with God is to be just that. We are no longer of this world. We are now a peculiar people, somehow searching for a city that is not made by human hands. God is leading us to a place, and we’re not sure where, but we will know it when we get there.
There are few that have the stomach for this. There are even fewer who have the willingness. We enjoy security. We enjoy rationality. We enjoy planning. We enjoy knowing. Yet God calls us to forfeit all these things and trust Him. Can you fulfill that call? This requires of us an ultimate trust. To kick and squirm against this will not suffice. This is all or nothing. This is the real deal. Here is where the rubber meets the road.
Yet it is precisely here that I rejoice in what the word of God says. We find at the end of Genesis 11 that Terah (Abram’s father) goes with Abram. When the call came to leave thy father’s house, Abram took his father with him. It might be said that the word father here is not necessarily to be taken as biological father. Maybe it means ancestors. Maybe because the call is mentioned in Genesis 12, that it really isn’t disobedience. Either way, to see that Abram does not leave alone, but takes his father and Lot with him, causes me to rejoice.
What did God see in Abram? It can’t be that God saw a perfect man. God didn’t see something that is mighty. He didn’t see something magnificent. God saw something weak. He saw something foolish. But God also saw Abram was willing. Even with this first mention in Genesis 11 about leaving with his father, we see that the call of God is greater than can be answered. But God didn’t allow that to offend Him. He wasn’t crushed by it. With grace He allowed this from Abram. It is something that we can take heart in. God might require from us something extreme. If we are willing to obey, God is gracious to allow us this kind of minor set back. He continues to beckon and continues to usher us forth into greater degrees of obedience to that first word. And He doesn’t rail on us, nor does He smite us, but instead patiently waits for our full obedience.
Israel – God’s nation
We need to understand that Israel is not simply another ethnic people or nation. It is God’s nation among the nations. Just like Babylon is Satan’s nation, God too has chosen a people to put His name upon. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 say, “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind, He set up the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob His allotted inheritance.” Can you imagine the humility it would take for a nation to come under that? Can you really imagine a nation that would acknowledge their boundaries being established by the hand of God according to the sons of Israel?
In other words, Israel is central to the nations. This is why “the law must go out of Zion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem.” It is the appointed center. The law and the word don’t go out into the midst of Israel. They go out worldwide so that the nations study war no more. This verse in Deuteronomy 32 is never preached on. I’ve never heard anyone mention it, save one man. Why is that? God has chosen Israel to be the epicenter of the world, and yet we think that God has chosen the Church to be the central point.
Ezekiel 5:5 says, “ Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.” That wording “in the midst” is the Hebrew phrase for “in the center” or “in the middle.” Israel is not simply at such and such a place on the globe, and all nations around her. Even in this it implies that God has His focus upon that place on the globe. But God takes it one step further. She is the center. Scientists have found that our world might be at the center of the universe. They didn’t want to believe that (it might mean we’re special), so they said there is no center. Just imagine, though. God put this world at the center of the universe, and Israel is the center of the nations on this planet.
Would God get that specific? Would He be that explicit, so to call Israel the center of the nations? Does God really think that the land of Israel is that important? And what for? If we think that Israel is simply a location or a spiritual metaphor for something else, then we have missed it. God’s emphasis on Israel is everything. It is through them that the promise of Abraham continues. That people will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. That nation will be a blessing – even though they are currently bringing strife and chafing.
They are God’s nation in the midst of the nations. This is more than saying that they are important or blessed or authoritative. This is God’s nation. You cannot truly acknowledge that people without acknowledging the God of that people. The two are interwoven together. You cannot understand God’s prerogative for that nation before you understand the severity of God over that nation. They have been chosen to be the ones to defeat Satan’s nation. Satan has chosen his chess pieces, and God has chosen His.
Israel is the nation of God in the midst of nations, and that has a couple of implications. First, they are to be the Kingdom and Priesthood to the nations. They are to be the Kingdom in that God’s government will only issue forth from Jerusalem. There is no other designated place on the planet that God will rule. Second, they are to be the priesthood to the nations. How can God bless all nations of the earth through them without this detail? To be a priest is to offer sacrifices on behalf of.
Priesthood is more than an Old Testament word. It is rich in meaning and significance. The priests are to teach the people the difference between the sacred and the profane, the holy and the common. Because of this, it is marked through the Old Testament: like priest, like people. If the priest is wicked, the people too will be wicked. If the priest is holy, the people will be holy. It all comes down to this one thing.
And so if Israel is not holy, not teaching the difference between the sacred and profane, if they are indulgent in all the things of the world, and if they have promoted all the same mentalities and attitudes the rest of the nations promote and hold to, then all the nations will be vile. If Israel is wicked, all nations are wicked. The calling to display the Kingdom and priesthood is not something to take lightly. This is serious business. Because Israel is lax and not devout to God, we find the nations are nefarious to God.
This is not God just wanting real estate. The issue of Israel is the issue of nations. The issue of nations is the issue of God being known among those nations. The issue of God being known is the issue of His choosing. He is revealed in what He chooses. If the nations rebel against that choice, then it is only because they see entirely too well the God who made that choice. God is wrapped up in His choices.
Why did God choose Israel? What would prompt Him to choose Abraham? What would cause Him to desire a stiff-necked people? What would cause Him to choose Zion – just a foothill compared to other mountains? Why Jerusalem instead of Pompeii or New York City or Geneva or Hong Kong or some other massive internationally known city? Satan chose Babylon. Babylon is full embodiment of these cities and more. God’s choice displays His character. Satan is loud and proud; God is meek and lowly.
Jacob is called God’s inheritance. With the harvest of Jacob comes the harvest of the nations. As it says in Isaiah 14:1-2, “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.”
God chooses that which is weak to overcome the strong. He uses that which is foolish to confound the wise. His wisdom is considered foolish to those that are wise. But to the righteous, the Gospel is salvation. In this God has shown that the proverbs are true. The beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7), and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). What shall we say of atheists? Their wisdom and knowledge are not true wisdom and knowledge. Otherwise they would hear truth and know that it is truth. Instead, they believe a lie and thus are shown as fools that are unknowing and unwilling to learn.
God has placed everything in this. To know what He chooses and why He chooses it is to know God Himself. This is revelation of God as God. In the scandal of specificity, we learn the character of God. Why would God be so specific to name these locations? Why would God be so specific to give every detail in how to build the ark and the tabernacle? Why would He be so specific in telling His servant David how to build the Temple? Why would God be so specific in calling out Cyrus by name – that he is the one to let Israel back into the Land? Why is God so specific to all the prophets?
It isn’t just that God tells big sweeping statements. Sometimes He does. But sometimes He makes statements that are so specific and so terse that you wonder how the prophets even discerned that word. God told Daniel that there would be 70 sevens until the end of the world. These sevens are seven-year periods. When you do the math, you find that God gave perfect prediction on how long it would take for the Temple to be rebuilt and how long from that time until the death of Jesus. It happened exactly how God called it. He gives such details and makes such choices that you have to wonder whether there is any free will at all.
And yet God is absolutely sovereign because He is able to be that specific despite the free will of men. This is the scandal of specificity. We want God to make big statements with few details. We want to fill in the pieces. If we have possibility for our own agenda, then we have control. God doesn’t allow it. He is specific down to the last detail of history. Nothing is hidden from Him, and all time and eternity has been written as what shall come to pass and when. Make your move, Satan, for God has already determined your fate.
Are We the New Israel?
This question is dear to my heart. I could not pass it up. There are some that claim we are the new Israel. We, as the Church, have taken their place. Some don’t believe that, but desire that. They teach that God has put Israel away for a season, and so we’ve replaced them until we are raptured. This cannot be so at any level. We are not the New Israel. We were never intended (the thought never crossed the mind of God) that we would replace Israel to any degree. They are still the Kingdom and priesthood. Our lives and conduct matters very little to affect the nations.
God has chosen that people for a very specific purpose. Alongside of them is the Church with its own purpose. We are two distinct entities (the difference between the remnant and the common people), but we are both under the same Head. We are to be married together and become one People of God. We are distinguished from Israel, though we are one with Israel. Just as God has made male and female, and the two become one flesh, so God has made Israel and the Church, and the two shall be one.
We are not the primary beneficiaries of the Gospel, but the secondary. Peter even had to have a vision just to enter the house of a Gentile. How much more out of his mind must it have been to think that they might receive the same baptism of the Holy Spirit as he received! This is a proper view of the faith that keeps us from being conceited. Because I think that I am a secondary beneficiary of the Gospel instead of the primary, I will never boast against the natural branches (or root) lest I be cut off (Romans 11:18-20).
It is quite foreign to us as Gentiles, but we really do need to identify with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those are the names that He has associated Himself with. We have been grafted into that root. Romans 11:13-24 reads:
13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: 14 if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? 16 For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. 17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; 18 boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. 19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. 20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: 21 for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. 22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. 23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. 24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
How many of us have read this passage and had no idea what was being spoken of? For years I didn’t understand it. It wasn’t until the context of Israel came that I could finally see what was being spoken of. God is not identified as any abstract being. He is specifically the God of Abraham. This is the first hurdle of the scandal of specificity that we must jump. Once we have wrestled with this, then we find depth and insight.
We may often find rich sermon illustrations in Israel’s history. There are a lot of good stories for Sunday School. There are a lot of good moral teachings. Yet, that is not the primary purpose in God’s giving of those Scriptures. The Old Testament is not something to toy with theologically so that we can glorify the Church. Israel’s history is not something for us to take into account so that we don’t backslide. We rob God of His literal meaning when we say and think these things. This is what many have blindly done.
True Christianity is the continuation and completion of Israel’s faith. We are to drive them to jealousy (Deuteronomy 32:21, Romans 11:14). In light of Romans 11, Ephesians 2 makes more sense. “11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 12 that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 13 but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; 15 having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; 16 and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby: 17 and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. 18 for through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”
So are we the new Israel? Never. God has made us to be something altogether distinct, and yet at the same time grafted into Israel. Our purposes and our rewards are starkly different. We do not replace Israel; we complete Israel. Israel is not Israel without the Church, and the Church cannot be an entity apart from Israel. Old Testament prophecies – such as Isaiah 56 – tell us that there would be people outside of Israel that are accepted by the Lord as a part of Israel.
The Cosmic Purposes of God to all Nations
Israel is God’s nation. The nations recognize this well enough that they have tried to exterminate that people for as long as Israel has existed as a nation. When God is chastising Israel, He hands them over to their enemies. When Israel has been obedient (like with David), God defends them and takes down their oppressors. The reason that nations oppose Israel is because to oppose Israel is to oppose God. To annihilate Israel annihilates God’s very relatedness to those nations. These things are true, even though they are completely invisible to the thoughts and understandings of the nations and the inhabitants of those nations. The principalities and powers manipulate such motives because the restoration of Israel is their end – the coming of the Lord.
The redemption of Israel will mean the redemption of the nations. “The Lord hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the nations. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God,” Psalm 98:2-3. It is upon Israel’s salvation that the nations are thus brought into the covenant made with Abraham. When God has redeemed Israel, and they return to that Land a final time never to be uprooted again, it is the sign to the nations of God’s existence and His great love and righteousness. By this one thing God will make Israel to be a blessing to all nations.
It says in Luke 1:32-33 about Jesus, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and His kingdom will have no end.” If that God, and that King, can reign over that stiff-necked people, a people whose last national statement towards God was, "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15), then what do you think will be the disposition of other nations? If God can possess Israel, a people who, in all their unbelief and opposition to Him, have blasphemed His name in the nations, then He will have all the nations.
This is the Kingdom and the priesthood together in full embodiment. It is the Kingdom because theocracy has been made to the ends of the earth. It is the priesthood because a nation of Pauls and Peters and Johns and James are going out to the world to evangelize those nations. Satan has been defeated over those nations. He is locked up in the pit for 1000 years. Can you imagine the Islamic and Moslem extremist nations that desire the death of Israel seeing this take place? Can you imagine what will happen when those nations hear the Jewish people admitting their failure before God – and that their judgment was due to their sin – and in love embracing their enemies and blessing them that cursed them?
It is this that brings healing to the nations. It is this that brings life from the dead. As Paul says in Romans 11, “If the casting away of them has brought salvation to the Gentiles, what shall their receiving be but life from the dead?”
Come Out From Her, My People
The Church continually follows the system of the world to such a degree they seem to believe in the world more than the world believes in its own system. I have continually noticed that the people of God are concerned with physical things more than spiritual things. Finances and getting a “good job” are at the top of the list of priorities. How are we supposed to engage any principalities and be a witness to the surrounding pagan nations when we ourselves live by the same precedence?
At the end of the Bible in Revelation 17, the call is made to Israel to “come out from her.” The “her” is Babylon. Babylon is the symbol for merchandise and prosperity. Everything that is about money and purchase and selling and fame from