How Do You Know That God Has Chosen You?
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Why did God choose just Israel?
Published: 5 August 2017 (GMT+10)
Ashley R. from the United states asks about why God limited His revelation of Himself to Abraham and his descendants in Old Attestation (OT) times:
Starting time of all, I would similar to say that your articles are easy to understand and are extremely helpful. This is a question that I've e'er had on my mind but no 1 has ever answered (at least to my knowledge). Since God created all human beings, why did he choose a specific group to be their God? Why didn't he reveal himself to all of creation every bit opposed to only Abraham and his descendants? I know that through Jesus, both Jew and Gentile are allowed to walk in fellowship with God, but what about the people in the Quondam Testament times who weren't Jews? Is it because they followed other Gods and wouldn't take obeyed the one truthful God even if it was revealed to them? Or is it another reason? I know this may sound like a dumb question, but it's ever been something that's bothered me a little. Thank yous for everything you all exercise and God Bless.
CMI's Shaun Doyle responds:
Thank you for your encouraging words. Your question isn't a dumb question; it's a very thoughtful i! Indeed, I think it requires us to explore redemptive history a bit to understand why people were in that gunkhole, and why it wasn't unfair of God to place them there.
God revealed himself to everyone
Kickoff, God did reveal Himself to everyone (Romans 1:xix–twenty):
For what can be known about God is plain to them, considering God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, always since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. Then they are without alibi.
The trouble is not that God failed to reveal Himself to everyone; the trouble is that nosotros all failed to respond appropriately to what God revealed:
For although they knew God, they did non honour him as God or give thanks to him, just they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21)
Every bit such, God's revelation to Abraham and his descendants was not needed to make people accountable for rejecting God. Rather, God's revelation to Abraham and his offspring was needed to bargain with the trouble of human sin.
Why was humanity divided?
God had always planned to apply humanity to spread His celebrity (Was the Garden of Eden a 'sanctuary' from a hostile outside world?). The Fall derailed that project because information technology made us unfit for fellowship with God, and thus unfit for spreading His glory.
Moreover, God killed an beast to comprehend Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21), Cain and Abel already knew of the need for sacrifice (Genesis iv:three–iv), and sacrifice for sin was everywhere in the ancient world. All of this means the ancients had a bones understanding of their need to bargain with their sin earlier God. This cognition was provided by God himself (Is God obscure and arbitrary in what He wants from u.s.a.?).
Furthermore, Genesis 1–eleven chronicles the repeated failures of humanity equally a whole (Eve's offspring, the serpent, and his offspring—Part 1). Indeed, the last major event recorded in Genesis 1–11, the Boom-boom incident, shows that when fallen humanity works together it ends upwards insulting God rather than glorifying Him. And Noah was still alive when the Boom-boom incident happened.1 Moreover, they all spoke the same language (Genesis eleven:1). Why practise these points thing? They evidence that Noah's Alluvion and the reasons for it (God's judgment on man sin) were well inside living retentivity of the people who rebelled against God at Babel. In other words, this was humanity knowing virtually God, and yet rebelling against God, exactly as Genesis 11:3–4 portrays. The most practical mode for God in this situation to get u.s. to spread out as He intended in Genesis i:28 (cf. Genesis 9:7, 11:9), and the simplest way to end collective apostasy, was to divide us.
Of grade, dividing the states came with its own problems. The biggest problem was the breakup of communication betwixt people that would make knowledge of God harder to maintain (though general revelation was still enough to make people accountable for rejecting God). Moreover, division and misunderstanding create enmity between people. Nonetheless, Genesis 11:6 shows that God knew the collective apostasy that would result from fallen humanity remaining united was worse than splitting u.s. apart.
Abraham and Israel: God's solution to sin and division
Into this state of affairs God speaks to Abraham (Eve's offspring, the serpent, and his offspring—Part 2). He makes promises, grows a nation, redeems His people from Egyptian oppression (a clear type of sin's greater oppression over all of us), and personally becomes their king. Why? First, Genesis 12:iii: "in yous all the families of the globe shall be blessed." 2d, Exodus 19:5–vi:
Now therefore, if yous will indeed obey my voice and go on my covenant, y'all shall be my treasured possession amidst all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and yous shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
And note the missionary purpose behind this, equally in Deuteronomy four:6–8:
Go on them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your agreement in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' For what bang-up nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to the states, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
Israel was a sit-in project to the world divided by Babel of God'south faithfulness, grace, and justice, as well equally the human being response. Israel was called to exist a beacon of light to a divided world. God saved them, became their personal king, gave them a good land. God was faithful to the promises he made to Abraham. He also promised them peace and blessing … if they would obey Him. And when they did repent, God gave them rest. He even gave them peace in times when every bit a nation they sort of followed Him. God was more gracious than He even agreed to be!
Simply State of israel always ended up rejecting Him, just like everyone else. Israel was yet a successful demonstration project of God's justice, but the people themselves showed how nosotros neglect to respond appropriately. State of israel showed that, in the end, humanity at large inevitably repays God'due south skillful with evil. Thus, the Law became an indictment of all of us:
At present nosotros know that whatsoever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, then that every mouth may exist stopped, and the whole world may exist held answerable to God. For by works of the law no man volition be justified in his sight, since through the constabulary comes knowledge of sin. (Romans three:nineteen–20)
Of course, Jesus is God'due south ultimate respond to this whole mess (Eve's offspring, the ophidian, and his offspring—Part 3). Ephesians two captures this very well: verses ane–x focus on how through Jesus God graciously reconciles us to Himself, and verses 11–22 focus on how Jesus heals the alienation betwixt people. God forgives our sin and gives us His Spirit to transform us from the inside, where the problem actually lies. God'due south overtures of grace and justice in the OT could not solve the problem; simply sending the Son and the Spirit themselves could.
What about those outside of Israel?
But what does that mean for your question: 'what near those outside Israel in the Old Testament?' Well, aside from still being culpable because of general revelation, we tin meet that they were in fact heirs of a particular historical situation. They were cut off from greater access to knowledge nearly God because of repeated cycles of homo sin. Moreover, at Babel humanity equally a whole had historically proven themselves incapable of honouring God when they worked together. We had proven ourselves incapable of handling revelation as a unified race.
Moreover, the sort of revelation God was providing through Israel required time to manifest. Israel needed fourth dimension to obey or disobey. God needed time to respond (non because God needs time, only because relating to humans takes time). Putting all this together to demonstrate a articulate pattern of relationship betwixt God and Israel also takes time. To truly appreciate the solution to our sin trouble God would offer in Jesus, repeated cycles of human sin in response to God's special provision bear witness the depth of our trouble more effectively than pretty much anything else. An inevitable byproduct of this in a mail-Babel world was people with trivial or no access to special revelation in OT times.
But it'southward not like God placed people outside of Israel in the OT randomly. God providentially orders when and where people alive (Acts 17:26). No doubtfulness God has good reasons for having placed those people in those situations (even though God hasn't told the states what those reasons are). And since God orders people'due south circumstances non-randomly, we can't assume that e.g. if ten% of people in OT Israel responded positively to God's revelation, that a similar proportion of those who never heard it would've likewise responded positively. Afterward all, assuming information technology's even meaningful to talk in these sorts of ways, could non God accept ordered history such that those who didn't get access to more than revelation were among those who wouldn't have accepted information technology anyhow?
God knows how to order history
God knew what He was doing in orchestrating the specific history of redemption that we see in the Bible. He provided general revelation and so that people in every historical situation had enough admission to knowledge virtually God to make us all accountable. All the same, He fabricated us beings for whom history matters. He wants u.s. to take the habit of knowing Him and serving Him. That requires the ability to form habits, which take time to learn and acclimatize to. The ability to form habits requires a system that behaves regularly, so we can make regular choices and non exist continually surprised by their effects. And if this is so for individual humans, how much more so for human society!
But creating a 'historical' organisation has consequences. We are conditioned by our history. We each autumn into a different place in history. And that creates an unimaginably complex logistical problem: how can this all be ordered for God's good, with perfect attention to all the details, when information technology's all infected by sin almost from the kickoff? (Run into Why would a loving God allow death and suffering? on why God would bother with sin at all.) That's something only God could effigy out.
Conclusion
We need to contextualize the 'OT outsider' in the broader context of the history of redemption to accept some idea of why they were in the place they were. They were not completely cut off from God; merely their access to special noesis well-nigh God was hampered because of repeated cycles of human sin. Nonetheless, they were nevertheless sinners worthy of judgment, and their placement in that state of affairs was not random.
Source: https://creation.com/why-did-god-choose-israel
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