Your Share in God's Promises?
Bible Teaching on The 'Hope of Israel'
WE talk about hope in everyday conversation. We say "I hope
you feel better soon", or "We hope to go abroad this
year" or "I hope the strike will be over by next week".
We mean there is something in the future we should very much like to
happen, and we feel cautiously optimistic that it will. Life without
hope would be very grim. Even in the worst of circumstances, people
like to look on the bright side. A poet wrote: "Hope springs
eternal in the human breast." Hope can give men extraordinary
tenacity of spirit-miners trapped by a roof fall, or sailors drifting
on a raft, will often fight death for days, convinced that their
friends will come to the rescue before it is too late. Sadly, of
course, they are sometimes disappointed. It can happen that the rock
fall is too deep to tunnel through, or no one knows the ship has
foundered. In this case the chance to which they cling does not exist,
and their hope is an illusion.
Hope with a Foundation
Hope is a topic that crops up frequently in the Bible. Both in the
Old Testament and the New, the writers are full of optimism. They look
about them on a dreary and unjust world where so frequently suffering
comes upon the innocent and evil men triumph, yet they have tremendous
confidence that one day God the Creator is going to turn the tables
the right way up. Not only that, but they seem to be convinced that
they themselves will have a share in the improvements that will come.
Listen to the Psalmist, for example: "Thou who hast done great
things, O God, who is like thee? Thou who hast made me see many sore
troubles wilt revive me again; from the depths of the earth thou wilt
bring me up again . . . I will sing praises to thee with the lyre, 0
Holy One of Israel. My lips shall shout for joy, when I sing praises
to thee" (Psalm 71:19-23). There is no doubt about this man's
confidence in the future.
Or Paul the Apostle, in calmer mood, in this passage from his
letter to Timothy: "I am already on the point of being
sacrificed; the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good
fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." See how
assured he is, as he continues: "Henceforth there is laid up for
me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
will award to me on that Day, and not only to me, but also to all who
have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:6-8).
This last passage is particularly interesting because it was
written from a death cell. The Roman Emperor had turned against the
Christians, and the aged Apostle was on trial for his life. There had
been a first court hearing, and he was waiting for the second. He knew
the outcome already as he penned the letter to young Timothy from his
chilly prison. He was going to die. In spite of this gloomy prospect,
he is full of hope. Unlike the trapped miner or the shipwrecked
mariner, he does not grab at the slender chance that something will
turn up-some vital document, or friendly witness, perhaps, to clear
him of the charge. His hope transcends the certainty of his death. He
is absolutely positive that even after he has died, a God in heaven
will bring him back to a new and better life, at the last Day.
Absolute Conviction
The hope of the Bible writers is clearly something much stronger
than cautious optimism. They have definite ideas about what is going
to happen in the future, and they really look forward to it coming to
pass. You probably envy the Apostle Paul his conviction, especially if
you are passing through pain or sorrow in your life. You may have
doubted in the past that you could ever be sure there is something to
hope for beyond the grave. You may wonder, too, what the world is
coming to, and what your children and grandchildren are going to
inherit when you are gone. Well, take heart. The Bible has the key to
the future, both the world's and yours. It presents a plan that God
has been following consistently from the beginning, based on promises
He has made. The outline, beginning with Abraham, the patriarch of
Israel, and expanding through the Prophets into the New Testament
writings, is so clear and logical a child can understand it. It can
give you a confidence that will take you through the darkest
valley of suffering, and God has provided evidence to support your
faith so strong that only the folly of pride could blind your eyes.
Read on and see how it all hangs together.
The Promises to Abraham
The beginning of our story is in the Old Testament, the book of the
people of Israel. Do not let this put you off. The Old Testament is
neither redundant nor out of date. The territory may be unfamiliar,
but there is real treasure to be found in these early books of the
Bible. Few people have heard, for example, of the promises to Abraham,
yet they form the very foundation of God's master plan. Let us briefly
recount them.
Abraham was a remarkable character who lived around 3,000 B.C. in a
city called Ur which was in the land we now know as Iraq. He was
visited one day by a messenger from the Lord, who told him to leave
his birthplace. "Go", said the Lord, "to a land that I
will show you" (Genesis 12:1). Because he trusted in God, Abraham
sold up all his possessions and set off across the desert with his
relatives. They came to the land we know as Israel. After he had
briefly surveyed the country, the Lord appeared again, and said:
"To your descendants I will give this land" (Genesis 1 2:7).
This generous offer was particularly pleasing to Abraham and his wife
Sarah, because in spite of a long and happy marriage, they had no
children. It seemed the Lord was promising them a family, as well as
somewhere to live. Some years passed. Abraham continued to camp out in
his tent, waiting patiently for something to happen, but there was no
sign of a baby on the way, and the native inhabitants of the land
continued to go about their business.
One evening the messenger of the Lord appeared again. Abraham
seized the opportunity to ask two important questions.
"Behold", he complained gently, "thou hast given me no
offspring". For answer, he was taken outside his tent and shown
the sky, ablaze with stars. "Number the stars, if you are able to
number them", he was told. "So shall your descendants
be!" The other point troubling Abraham was the matter of the
land. "I am the Lord who brought you from Ur . . . to give you
this land to possess the angel reminded him. O Lord God'', he replied,
"how am I to know that I shall possess it?" (Genesis
15:3-8).
A Solemn Covenant
For answer, the Lord proceeded to make a very solemn agreement with
Abraham, after the custom of the time, termed a "covenant".
He was instructed to collect a number of carefully specified animals
and birds, which were sacrificed. The bodies were divided and laid on
the ground. Normally, the two parties to a covenant would pass between
the pieces, thus making it legally binding. In this case, as God was
promising something to Abraham, He passed between the pieces. What
Abraham saw, in the velvet darkness, was a smoking fire pot and a
flaming torch, the form in which, so often, God has revealed Himself
to His people. Abraham was satisfied. A covenant confirmed in this way
could not be broken.
The years flew by. In time, as Abraham grew to know God, the
promises were repeated and enlarged. Two themes ran through them
unchanged-the possession of the land, and the future of his
descendants. It is worth tracing the development, through Genesis 1 3,
1 5, 1 7 and 22. The most impressive promise of the whole series was
the last. This one began with an oath: "By myself have I
sworn", said the Lord. It continued on a familiar note: "I
will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand
which is upon the sea shore." It ended in mystery:
"Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Genesis
22:17,18, A.V.).
Notice the change in person from a plural, numerous,
"seed" or offspring, to an offspring or seed in the
singular. Note, too, his importance. To "possess the gate"
of someone is a Hebrew idiom. In ancient times, the gate was the only
entrance to a fortified city. It was also the place where the rulers
held court. To possess the gate of your enemies was to have complete
control. Abraham's descendant was to be all conquering, and bring
universal happiness. Whom did God have in mind? Abraham could only
guess, and believe.
Twenty-five years after the making of the covenants, Sarah told
Abraham with great excitement that she was going to have a baby. God
was keeping His word. Through all that time Abraham never doubted God
would give him a son. The Apostle Paul makes this comment about him in
Romans: "No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of
God, but he grew strong in his faith, fully convinced that God was
able to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:20,21). Abraham's
faith was unshakeable.
No Inheritance . . . Yet
The only disturbing note in the biography of this great pioneer is
the fact that when he died, he still did not possess the land. God had
several times promised it to him, personally, as well as to his
descendants. Yet, as the martyr Stephen recounts, God "gave him
no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length" (Acts 7:5). He
died in a tent, with not even a house to his name. Yet Abraham's
confidence in God could surmount even this final obstacle. Along with
his wife and children, says the writer to the Hebrews, he "died
in faith not having received what was promised, but having seen it and
greeted it from afar" (Hebrews 11:13).
You can see now why Abraham is called "father of the
faithful". God had brought him to the promised land. God had
given him a son. If God said he would inherit the land, he believed he
would, even though he had to die.
Four centuries after Abraham died, his family had grown into a
nation. God had repeated the promise of the and to his son Isaac, and
again to his grandson Jacob, so that it ran in the family. Jacob had a
second name, Israel. He bore twelve sons, each of whom became the head
of a tribe or clan with thousands of members. During a time of famine
the family migrated to Egypt and settled there. As they multiplied,
the Egyptians grew fearful of their power, and enslaved them. Moses,
the great lawgiver, was sent to set them free. After a series of
calamities which ruined his country, the Egyptian Pharaoh was forced
to let them go, and the Israelites set off across the wilderness to
their homeland. Remarkably, this very event had been predicted in one
of the promises to Abraham, as you can check for yourself in Genesis
15:13-16.
God's Oath to Israel
At Mount Sinai, the angel of the Lord made another covenant, this
time with the whole people of Israel. Sealed by the blood of
sacrifices, it gave them the key to the land of Israel, so long as
they kept the wise commandments of God's Law. Years later, as they
stood on the brink of the Promised Land, Moses reminded them that God,
after hundreds of years, was about to keep His word. "It is
because the Lord loves you, and is keeping the oath which he swore
to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty
hand . . . Know therefore," he went on, "that the Lord your
God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast
love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a
thousand generations" (Deuteronomy 7:8,9).
That was a staggering statement to make. A typical generation spans
something like a quarter of a century. A thousand generations would
require up to twenty-five thousand years of promise-keeping! So
utterly reliable is God's word. Certainly a number of God's promises
came unshakeably true, as the Israelites crossed the Jordan for the
hills and pastures of their Fatherland.
We pass over several hundred fairly unfruitful years to the time of
Israel's monarchy. King David, well known for his authorship of the
Psalms, was, like Abraham, a giant of faith. Something of his love for
God and his insistence on truth and right comes out in his writings.
Abraham is often referred to in Scripture as "the friend" of
God. David was called by the Lord "a man after my own
heart". Both epithets mark off these men as exceptional
characters.
During the wilderness journey and their subsequent occupation of
the land, the Israelites had worshipped God at the Tabernacle, a
tent-like portable building. Now the nation was firmly established
with a king and a capital at Jerusalem, David felt it would be a nice
idea to build for the Lord a more permanent sanctuary of stone. When
he suggested this to the prophet Nathan, he was disappointed to be
told that the project must be shelved until his son came to the
throne. However, said Nathan, the Lord was touched by David's concern
for His honour, and in return He proposed a magnificent promise for
David and his family, very like the one made with Abraham.
The Covenant with King David
In fact it was so solemn a promise, it is referred to as the
Covenant with David. And like the promises to Abraham, it combined
plain, practical ideas with cryptic statements that must have puzzled
David for years. Here is a sample, taken from 2 Samuel 7: "The
Lord declares to you", said Nathan, "that the Lord will make
you a house" (v.11). It sounded an odd statement, for it was
David who wanted to build God a house. But as the prophet continued,
it became obvious that the Lord had in mind a different kind of house:
"I will raise up your son after you, who shall come forth from
your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house
for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for
ever" (vv. 12,13).
So far, the promise could fit neatly David's son Solomon, who
succeeded him on the throne. But God continued, "I will be his
father, and he shall be my son" (v.14). Here was a poser. How
could the person referred to be David's son, and yet have God for his
father as well? It was very mysterious. The climax of the promise came
at the end: "Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure
for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever" (v.
1 6). The house of David was clearly his family or dynasty. We use the
same term in history lessons when we speak of the House of York or the
House of Plantagenet.
But what a promise -- to have your family line guaranteed a
continuous succession to the throne, not just for a hundred years, but
for ever! It was a covenant David rejoiced over for the rest of his
life: "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord", he writes in
Psalm 89. "I will not violate my covenant", God had
insisted, "Once for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not
lie to David. His line shall endure for ever, his throne as long as
the sun before me" (vv. 1,34-36).
Once more, God had made a promise which, upon His honour, He could
not break, and King David, like Abraham, died believing the eternal
God would keep His word.
We must press on quickly now through five more centuries, pursuing
the drama of what the Apostle Peter calls in the Authorised Version
"God's exceeding great and precious promises" (2 Peter 1:4).
It is a trail with a happy ending.
The Restoration Promises
David's son Solomon did build a house for God, a magnificent and
costly Temple at Jerusalem that stood for hundreds of years. When he
died, a tragic civil war divided the country, and the nation was ruled
by two rival kings. As time passed, the spiritual vigour of the people
declined and God's laws fell into disuse. There were revivals from
time to time, mainly amongst the tribes of Judah and Benjamin who
retained the Temple and the capital Jerusalem. But slowly moral
standards declined, and God's patience became exhausted. Israel's
right to the land depended on their obedience to Him, and they had
flagrantly broken the terms of their tenancy. This was the era of the
Prophets. True to His name, the Lord showed infinite compassion,
raising up special messengers, inspired by the Holy Spirit to warn the
people that the way they were following would lead to disaster.
The warnings had no effect. Eventually the ten tribes were invaded
by the Assyrians and deported bodily from the land, to be followed a
century and a half later by the two tribes, taken away to Babylon. It
really looked like the end. As the beautiful Temple was burnt and the
palace destroyed, Zedekiah, the nineteenth king to sit on David's
throne, was blinded and taken captive, never to return. What of the
promise to Abraham that his descendants would possess the land? And
how about the covenant to David that there would always be someone to
occupy his throne? Had God forgotten His promise? Or worse, was He
less powerful than the heathen gods of Babylon? The people badly
needed guidance.
In that very hour, when Israel's light seemed to be flickering out,
astonishingly, there came the most tremendous outpouring of Promises
from the lips of the Prophets. They insisted the calamities that had
come were not accidental, but were the judgement of God. There could
be no escape from punishment. But still, in the future, there was
hope. The nation would not die out. There would be a king to reign on
David's throne. And one day God would send them Messiah, a mighty
deliverer, who would bring them back to the land they had left and
rule over them in peace for ever.
Isaiah's Prophecy of Messiah
Here are just three extracts from the promises God made in this
period. They are taken from three different prophets.
Isaiah lived before the end, and could see the writing on the wall.
"Ah, sinful nation," he cries in his opening chapter,
"a people laden with iniquity . . . they have forsaken the Lord,
they have despised the Holy One of Israel. The whole head is sick and
the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head
there is no soundness in it" (1:4-6). Yet entire chapters of his
book are alive with praise and thankfulness at God's coming
deliverance. "Shake yourself from the dust, arise, O captive
Jerusalem break forth into singing you waste places of Jerusalem, for
the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem", he
exults. He sees the people trodden down by vengeful nations, when God
appears in fire and earthquake to deliver them: "For every boot
of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in
blood will be burned as fuel for the fire". For, he continues,
"to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government
shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called 'Wonderful
Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace'. Of the
increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon
the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it and to
uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and
for evermore" (9:5-7).
He pictures in the end this Davidic king presiding over a worldwide
empire where all nations live at peace, and God's laws go out from
Jerusalem: "It shall come to pass in the latter days", he
begins, " . . . out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word
of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and
shall decide for many peoples . . . nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (2:2-4).
These prophecies would have seemed impossible to a Jew living at the
time of the fall of Jerusalem. Yet the God who keeps His word for a
thousand generations was promising them.
Jeremiah and the New Covenant
Our second prophet actually lived through the siege of Jerusalem.
He saw the city ransacked and its people taken away. Yet God made
Jeremiah some of the clearest prophecies in the Old Testament about
the future of His people: "Behold, the days are coming, says the
Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the
house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers
when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
my covenant which they broke."
The old covenant was the one made with the nation at Sinai, which
gave them the Promised Land, on conditions. This New covenant replaces
the Old: "This is the covenant which I will make with the house
of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law within
them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people". Instead of His commandments
remaining on tablets of stone, they would be taken into men's hearts.
The people would all know the Lord, he continued, and God would
forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more (Jeremiah
31:31-34).
If it all sounded very unlikely to Jeremiah's readers, setting off
for captivity in Babylon, he could cheer them with these words:
"Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I
drove them in my anger . . . I will bring them back to this place, and
I will make them dwell in safety . . . I will plant them in this land
in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul" (32:37,41).
Time and again Jeremiah repeated this promise of the regathering. And
if their faith was shattered at the sight of their king being taken
from them, he even had a special reassurance about the throne: "I
will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David, and he
shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. . . For thus says
the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the
house of Israel" (33:15,17).
"Justice and righteousness"-those words echo the
statement we found in Isaiah one hundred and fifty years earlier. Both
prophets pictured the line of David as a family tree, from which an
illustrious branch would arise, a unique being who would occupy the
throne for ever. Sure and firm, too, in both prophets is the Abrahamic
promise of the Land, assured to the people in spite of their
scattering.
Ezekiel's Vision of the Kingdom
Finally, we come to Ezekiel, who lived later still. Ezekiel spent
all his life as a prisoner of war in Babylon. He, too, had the most
wonderful vision of peace and blessing for Abraham's people: "I
will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries,
and bring you into your own land", he prophesies; "I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your
uncleannesses." God was going to forgive and forget the misdeeds
of the nation (Ezekiel 36:24,25). Like the earlier prophets, Ezekiel
sings of the coming of the king and the promises to Israel's
ancestors: "They shall dwell in the land where your fathers
dwelt that I gave to my servant Jacob; they and their children and
their children's children shall dwell there for ever; and David my
servant shall be their prince forever" (37:25). There is no
mistaking the clarity and vigor of God's guarantee to His people.
However dark the present, they had something very positive to look
forward to.
The Israelites were held captive in Babylon for three quarters of a
century. A revolution followed, in which the Babylonian empire was
taken over by the Persians. In the first year of his reign the new
king declared an amnesty, permitting any members of the tribe of Judah
who wished to, to return to their own country. Many did, and began the
heartbreaking task of rebuilding their overgrown ruined estates.
Perhaps they wondered hopefully whether the Messiah would appear to
make life easier for them. They had, it was true, gone back from
captivity, but life was not the same. They groaned under the taxes of
their imperial masters, and as the years passed they were invaded and
crushed by armies from north and south. The great majority of their
brethren remained in dispersion, wandering farther away among the
nations. And no king sat on David's throne.
The Coming of Jesus
A young girl from the tribe of Judah, engaged but not married, sat
in her house at Nazareth. Surprised by a knock at the door, she found
herself speaking to a visitor who claimed to be an angel of the Lord:
"You will conceive in your womb and bear a son", he told
her, "and you shall call his name Jesus". So far, the words
are familiar from Christmas plays. But ponder now the remainder of the
message: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the
Most High", said the angel, "and the Lord God will give
to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the
house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end"
(Luke 1:31-33). There is no mistaking, is there, the link with
those Old Testament promises? "The power of the Most High will
overshadow you", he concluded, "therefore the child to be
born will be called holy, the Son of God" (v.35).
At a stroke, the mystery of centuries was becoming plain. Mary's
son Jesus was a unique being, the only one capable of fulfilling the
covenant with David. He was descended from David, through her own
family tree. He was at the same time Son of God: "I will be his father",
God had said to David, and the power of God's Holy Spirit brought
Jesus to birth.
Further, Jeremiah had promised, "David shall never lack a man
to sit on the throne of David", and the angel said Jesus would
reign for ever, on that very throne. Finally, because David was
descended from Abraham, Jesus stood in the line of Abraham's promise
of a blessing to all nations, as well: "He will save his people
from their sins", was the angel's explanation of his name
(Matthew 1:21), and what greater blessing could there be than to
remove the terrible burden of human sin that brings sorrow, disease
and death to all men? So, quietly and without drama, the one on whom
Israel and the world depended was born in a stable in the city of his
ancestor David.
Christ's Mission
When Jesus began his public preaching at the age of thirty, there
was great expectation in Judah. His followers called him Messiah, or
Anointed-the coming Deliverer. The title 'Christos' or Christ in the
Greek of the New Testament is exactly equivalent to the Old Testament
'Messiah'. Everyone expected Jesus would challenge Rome, set Israel
free from her enemies, and take up the throne. His extraordinary
miracles of healing enhanced this conviction that he was sent from
God.
The people were doomed to disappointment. Jesus remained a
wandering teacher and spurned political ties. His enemies, the leaders
of Israel, jealous of his popularity, successfully plotted his death.
After three years, in which he transformed the lives of thousands by
his example and his quiet teaching, he was betrayed and executed as a
criminal. The Jews remained in dispersion, ungathered. David's throne
stayed empty. Even the body of Jesus disappeared. It looked as though,
yet again, God had made a promise, and it had all come to nothing. For
six long weeks, Jerusalem slept.
The Mystery Revealed
Suddenly, the capital was alive with amazing news. Jesus'
disciples, filled with the same Holy Spirit power that had inspired
the ancient prophets, were proclaiming that Jesus was alive again.
They had seen him, eaten with him, and watched him ascend to heaven.
More startling still, they were able to show from those Old Testament
Scriptures that everyone thought they knew so well, that the Messiah
was always intended to die on the cross, and rise again. Nothing had
gone wrong. It was all God's plan.
"What God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that his
Christ should suffer, he hath thus fulfilled", declared Peter the
fisherman. "Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins
may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the
presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for
you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing
all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets" (Acts
3:18-21).
All had become clear again. Jesus was the Saviour of Israel and the
nations of the world, just as the prophets had said. But he had to
come twice. He had to come once to die as the sin bearer, the
Deliverer from the great enemy of sin and eternal death. He had to
come a second time, to save his people from their oppressors and reign
over the world. He had ascended to God's right hand, but not for ever.
He is there "UNTIL" the time for establishing all that God
had spoken by the prophets.
With this key, the prophecies of the Messiah open up like a
treasure chest. Passages where Messiah's reigning in victory seem
clouded by descriptions of his death become instantly plain. Look, for
example, at Isaiah chapters 52 and 53. Chapter 52 describes the joy of
Jerusalem as she is delivered by Messiah from her captors.
Chapter 53 predicts in painful detail his humiliating crucifixion.
Seen as the two Comings, both chapters make perfect sense.
Or Psalm 2: viewed with one pair of spectacles this passage tells
of Messiah's enemies combining to put him to death. Change the focal
length, and you have Messiah once more surrounded by enemies, but this
time victorious, as his Father decrees: "I have set my king on
Zion, my holy hill" (v.6). We could go on, but you will find
great pleasure in unraveling the mystery for yourself. That is exactly
what the New Testament apostles called the good news -- a mystery
revealed, a secret, to which they now had the key.
The Need for Christ's Second Coming
There was another mystery, too, that the apostles were able to
solve. You may already be asking the obvious question-Why did God
arrange two comings? Why did not Jesus rise from the dead with
immortal power, to reign at once on the throne of David? Why should
there be a long gap of nearly two thousand years? The answer to that
question is particularly important to you and me, and it occupies much
of the New Testament.
Let us read the Apostle Paul's words in Ephesians 3. "The
mystery", he says, "was made known to me by revelation. It
was not made known", he continued, "to the sons of men in
other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and
prophets by the Spirit, that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs,
members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus
through the gospel" (vv. 3,5,6).
These are wonderful words. A Gentile is someone who is not a Jew.
For centuries, God's word and His promises belonged to the people of
God. Now, says the Apostle, the Gospel net has been thrown wider to
include people from other nations. Those great promises of the Kingdom
when Messiah reigns can be ours, too. "At one time," he
writes, "you Gentiles in the flesh . . . were separated from
Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to
the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought
near in the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:11-13).
Did you notice how this passage illuminates our theme, the Hope of
Israel? "Having no hope" was how the Ephesian believers used
to be. It is how millions are today, and how you may feel at this
moment. But they had learned about the "covenants of
promise" which we have been studying. They had seized the Hope
enshrined in those promises. Through the blood of Christ, they had
been brought near.
A Covenant Sealed with Blood
The best of the covenants of promise God made still lie in the
future. We do not know precisely when they are going to be fulfilled.
The majority of people who have believed and hoped in God's promises
are already in the grave, and there is a chance we shall die, too,
before Jesus comes again. Yet the glorious truth is that even if we
die, we can still taste the joy of God's Kingdom. As the Apostle Paul
wrote in his death cell, we can be brought back to life again, to
receive "the crown of righteousness which the Lord", he
said, "will award me on that Day, and not only to me, but also to
all who have loved his appearing".
When the Messiah comes he will raise from the dead all those who
have died in faith, and give them a strong, immortal body like his
own. Abraham will certainly be there, and so will David, and Paul. We
can be there, too.
And it is all possible through the blood of Christ, which has
brought us near to God. For whether we are Jews or Gentiles, we are
sinners. We break God's laws, and deserve nothing but death. Jesus'
death, the offering of his sinless self in sacrifice, broke the power
of the grave for all who join themselves to him. Thus the two Comings
are inseparably linked. The cross precedes the crown; the suffering
servant becomes the king of kings. And the same land where Abraham
waited in his tent and Jesus walked with the good news of the Kingdom,
is given to them both with their family around them, to enjoy for
ever.
When Peter stood up in Jerusalem at Pentecost and began to explain
the mystery of the two comings, he had an urgent message for the
people. Let us look at his words again: "Repent therefore",
he cried, "and turn again" (Acts 3:1 9). He was exhorting
his hearers to prepare themselves for the coming of Jesus by changing
their lives, turning round and going a different way. Earlier that day
when the crowds had asked him what they should do, he said to them:
"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" (2:38).
Heirs of the Promise
Once you begin to appreciate the Hope God sets before us in His
Word, you want to know how to lay hold of it. You realize as you read
more, that He sets a standard for men to follow which you have not
begun to reach. If you really want to please God, you will feel the
need, like those men in Jerusalem, to have your conscience made clean.
The way God has prescribed for us is to be baptized into the Lord
Jesus, symbolically washing away in the waters our old life, and
starting again as if we were newly born, members of God's holy people.
Then, the New Testament insists, we shall be heirs of those promises
of the Kingdom of God: "For in Christ Jesus", writes Paul,
"you are all sons of God, through faith" (Galatians 3:26).
Imagine that! What a privilege, to be called sons and daughters of
God! "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor
free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ
Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring,
heirs according to promise" (vv. 27-29). All that Jesus
inherits -- the land, the throne, the blessing-all will be ours. How
exciting and moving it is, to think what God offers us. It is as if we
are being introduced already to the new covenant God will make with
His people. God's law is written on our heart, our sins are washed
away, and we are enrolled for a place in that age when war and famine,
sin and sorrow will be banished for ever from the earth.
Paul uses another figure in Romans 11. He says we Gentile believers
are like sprigs of a wild olive tree that have been picked up by God
the gardener and grafted into the stem of the olive tree of Israel. We
share the rich sap that keeps the life flowing, and we will be there
in the time of harvest. "I want you to understand this mystery
brethren", he says, as he explains the long gap between the two
Comings: "a hardening has come upon part of Israel". He
means that only a minority of the Jewish people accepted the good news
Jesus and the apostles brought; the hearts of the rest were too hard
for the good seed of the Kingdom to grow.
But Israel's hardness of heart is not for ever. "Until the
full number of the Gentiles come in", he continues, "and so
all Israel will be saved; as it is written" -- and he quotes from
one of the 'Messiah' passages in Isaiah -- "the Deliverer will
come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this will
be my covenant with them", he adds, repeating the passage we read
from Jeremiah 33, "when I take away their sins" (Romans
11:24-27).
Notice the time period-when the full number of the Gentiles has
come in. It has not come in yet. God is still calling us to come into
His family. But one day, soon, perhaps very soon, the door will be
shut. The Lord Jesus will be here with power to rule over the nations,
and bring men to judgement for despising God's laws.
Signs that God has not Forgotten
How do we know the coming of Jesus is very near? There is one
simple answer. Look at Israel! Scattered through the nations for
centuries, they have never died out, as they cannot, if God is to keep
His word. In our own generation, they have started to go back to their
land. In 1967 they took back Jerusalem, or Zion, their ancient
capital. And now their enemies are gathering against them. The scene
is set for the Deliverer to come to his throne, for God to set His
king upon His holy hill of Zion. The signs are all there to strengthen
our faith. The God who keeps His covenants to a thousand generations
is unbaring His arm again.
Let us finish with a lovely passage, which sums up this great Hope
of Israel that we have been thinking about so long. We said it can
give us comfort, direction, and courage to face all the storms of
life. This is just how the Apostle puts it in the Letter to the
Hebrews: "When God made a promise to Abraham . . . he swore by
himself, saying, 'Surely I will bless you and multiply you'"
Sure as an Anchor
"So," he continues, "when God desired to show more
convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of
his purpose, he interposed with an oath, so that through two
unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God should prove
false, we. . . might have strong encouragement to seize the
hope set before us" (Hebrews 6:1318). Two unchangeable
things: we have God's Word, which alone should be enough. To make
doubly sure, He has given us an oath as well. It means we just cannot
doubt the promise will come true. "We have this", he
concludes, "as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul" (v.1
9).
Men and women who believe in God's promises are as safe as a ship,
tossed on a dark night in an angry sea, secured from all danger by the
strong anchor that bites deep into the rock below. Won't you make this
hope your own?
- DAVID M. PEARCE
Bible quotations are from the Revised Standard
Version unless otherwise stated