The Gift of God for Gentile and Jew

“For Jehovah's portion is His people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:9)

Most simply is that the Israelites belong to the Lord. He chose them. “For you are a holy people to Jehovah your God. Jehovah your God has chosen you to be a special people to Himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 7:6) God was not known to many in the ancient world except to the direct descendants of Adam and Eve and their descendants. Through Seth, Adam’s son, there was some notable ones like Enoch, Methuselah and Noah. And after Noah, from his son Shem came Terah, eight generation from Noah and Abraham from Terah. Already these descendants of Noah were straying from the knowledge of God. Terah was idolatrous in the city of Haran. Sometimes people worship idols although they have knowledge of the one true God which may have been the case of Terah because Abraham learned about God somehow and put his trust in Him.

And God led Abraham to leave his home and his family to a land for him and his descendants. And Abraham worshipped God and communed with Him. And God made promises to Abraham. “And Jehovah said to Abram, Go out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house into a land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one who curses you. And in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3) Then later, God expands His promise to Abraham when he obeyed God and was willing to sacrifice Issac, knowing God’s promise of descendants, that somehow Issac would live. All of God’s promises to Abraham are known as the Abrahamic Covenant. “And the Angel of Jehovah called to Abraham out of the heavens the second time, and said, I have sworn by Myself, says Jehovah; because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only one; that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the seashore. And your Seed shall possess the gate of His enemies. And in your Seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:15-18)

Because of Abraham’s faith, God chose him and his descendants to carry the knowledge of the One True God to the world. They were the ones who had God’s Law which revealed sin and our need for a savior. “For who is a great nation whose God is coming near to them, as Jehovah our God is, in all our calling on Him? And who is a great nation whose statutes and judgments are so righteous as all this Law which I set before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:7-8) Jesus told the Samaritan woman that salvation came from the Jews. “You worship what you do not know, we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.” (John 4:22)

Salvation is God’s gift to man through the redemptive work of Jesus. For those who have not studied the Bible, they are shocked to learn that Jesus was a Jew. When Adam and Eve fell into sin and from grace, God promised a savior, a Messiah. Speaking to the serpent, God said, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He will bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (Genesis 3:15) There’s lots of information in that verse. First God speaks of her Seed. Women do not carry a seed, indicating that this person would not have man’s seed. Jesus did not have any man’s seed. He was born by the power of the Holy Spirit. “And the angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit shall come on you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. Therefore, also that Holy One which will be born of you shall be called Son of God.” (Luke 1:35) And Moses who wrote Genesis, capitalize the word Seed meaning a divine person. That was Jesus the third person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son.

He is foretold in the books of the prophets. “So, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14) Micah tells of His birthplace. “And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, you being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you He shall come forth to Me, to become Ruler in Israel, He whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.” (Micah 5:2) Zechariah tells of the Messiah riding a donkey. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, your King comes to you. He is righteous and victorious, meek and riding on an ass, even on a colt, the son of an ass.” (Zechariah 9:9) But the Jews missed all these cues because they didn’t read the prophets. I believe the priests did know but refused to accept Him. They are doubly guilty of rejecting Him and of keeping the people from Him and from the gift of God for salvation.

You may wonder how the Jews missed their Messiah, the Savior. It’s easy to understand when we know that they only knew what the priests taught. And the priests only taught the Torah, the first five books of our Bible. They never read the prophets and neither did the people. They completely missed Him. Jesus speaks through Isaiah’s prophecy, telling how they plucked His beard. “I gave My back to the strikers, and My cheeks to pluckers; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6) Then Isaiah prophesies about Him. “He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as it were a hiding of faces from Him, He being despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely, He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was on Him; and with His stripes we ourselves are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted; yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment; and who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of My people He was stricken. And He put His grave with the wicked, and with a rich one in His death; although He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased Jehovah to crush Him; to grieve Him; that He should put forth His soul as a guilt-offering. He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the will of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand...Therefore I will divide to Him with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul to death; and He was counted among the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:3-10, 12) Isaiah describes the rejection of Jesus, His refusal to speak on His own behalf and how Jesus was the guilt offering taking on the iniquity of us all. Of course it’s easy for us to see Jesus with hindsight.

One thing we must remember is that God made promises to the Jews. And God doesn’t take back His promises. They are still the apple of His eye. “For so says Jehovah of Hosts: He has sent me after glory, to the nations who stripped you; for he who touches you touches the pupil of His eye.” (Zechariah 2:8) Those who injure or wound Israel are injuring and wounding the Lord. And when the time of the Gentiles is over all of God’s promises to Israel will be fulfilled. “For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, lest you should be wise within yourselves; that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the nations has comes in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, "There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is My covenant with them, when I have taken away their sins." (Romans 11:25-27)

In short, Israel belongs to God. He hasn’t forgotten them and a time will come when they will come to know their Messiah and be saved.

Let us pray:

Father God, I thank You that from before the creation of the earth, You planned our salvation for You know the end from the beginning. You have set a time for all things and have established the time of the Law, the time of mercy and grace, the time of judgement and the time that all the promises made to Israel will be fulfilled. I thank you that Abraham believed you. And I thank You that although I am not a Jew, their promises belong to me by faith. That same faith that Abraham had. For I believe You Lord. I believe Your Word. I believe Your promises. And I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ Who took my punishment and my death that I might live in You and You in me. I pray for the salvation of Israel, Lord. Open their eyes of understanding. Thank You Lord that You have all things in control. Be glorified in all things. Be exalted for You are great. In the Name of Jesus I pray, amen.