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CORRECT VIEWS AND WARM RIGHTEOUSNESS (3)
I have a single point I wish to make with this piece and it’s this: God’s elect are called to live righteously in holy generosity but they are also called to bear witness to truth about God as he has revealed himself in human history.
Israel experienced something with God that no other nation experienced. Amos 3:2 makes that very clear (NRSV): “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” The NIV and NAS go with “chosen,” the NJB goes with “intimately known” and the JPS offers “have I singled out”. It hardly needs saying that a special relationship with Israel is implied.
That special relationship was created and publicly signified by God’s gracious choosing of Abraham, his self-disclosure, his redemptive acts and his covenants. God chose to exclude all other nations from these experiences and if the nations got to know anything about them it was from “the outside” (compare Joshua 2:9-11 and 5:1). It was to Israel alone God gave the Sinai covenant, with its promises, feasts, laws, insights, wisdom and all that they involved.
In Romans 3:1 Paul’s imaginary dialogue partner says, [If all you say is true] “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?” Paul’s response is, “Much in every way!” Jews had a multi-faceted advantage over all the other nations and that is precisely why Amos 3:2 goes on to say, “therefore I will punish you for all yours sins.”
Israel was not only blessed with advantages and promises, it was entrusted with them (Romans 3:1-2 and compare Isaiah 49:6 with Acts 13:46-47). Their chosen state was blessing and responsibility. Their mission was to proclaim the name of God in holy lives of warm righteousness that imaged the character of God which is profiled in the Torah (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2: 20:7 and elsewhere]. They were to declare the truth about him as over against the gods of the world and they were to do this by rehearsing his redemptive deeds in teaching and in their ordinances as well as in righteous living.
Others nations did not because they could not know what Israel knew; they did not because they could not experience what Israel experienced. Israel knew better than other nations because God gifted them with knowledge of himself. Israel knew more than other nations because God gifted them with more knowledge of himself.
Other nations walked in sin and darkness precisely because they were sinners and because God was prepared to leave them in ignorance (see Acts 17:30). Israel was just as sinful as the other nations (see Deuteronomy 9:4-27 and note Joshua 24:14, 23) but God in holy generosity revealed himself to them. [It can’t be said too often that he chose Abraham and Israel so that he might bless the world—Genesis 12:2-3 and elsewhere—and not to make Abraham and Israel his “pets”.] Israel’s grasp of truth, Israel’s adherence to that truth, Israel’s proclamation of that truth was an essential part of their national identity and their mission to the world.
God related to Abraham and Israel in covenants that were nothing like anything he had going with the nations (see and note with care Ephesians 2:11-12).
To hold the nations responsible for not believing and practicing all that Israel believed and practiced is to hold them responsible for not being Israel and that would make no sense. It wouldn’t matter that a Parthian had no interest in the Feast of Tabernacles or Passover because he knew nothing about them but it would have mattered a great deal if the Jewish people had simply dismissed them as of no consequence. If Israel put out of their minds the events under Moses and Joshua and lived in that ignorance God construed it as betrayal—see Judges 2:10-13 and elsewhere. The worship of many gods by the nations was sinful ignorance but when redeemed Israel did it, it was construed as treachery and treason.
Manifestly God never approved of the worship of gods which infected later generations with ignorance and an idolatrous culture (Romans 1:19-23). The prophets denounced and mocked polytheism and idolatry, of course, but it was always in the hearing of Israel who were prone to forsake God and turn to idols. The prophetic condemnation of idolatry while it certainly had a message for the nations was more for Israel who had been fully enlightened and had committed to be witnesses for the one true God. The nations were stupid but Israel was treacherous. When they committed to other gods it was in the face of the one true God who had redeemed and commissioned them so that the worship of the gods was not the same thing for the nations and Israel! Israel’s forefathers worshipped gods beyond the Euphrates (see Joshua 24 again) but once the one true God had graciously made himself known to Israel in all the ways outlined above, the worship of the gods by Israel took on a new and more sinister dimension (note carefully John 15:22-24).
To worship other gods meant Israel had to deny its beginnings, its history and its place in the world. Where did they come from, where were they going, how did it come that they were in the wilderness, how did they get out of Egypt and how did it come that Canaan was their home? For Israel in particular the truthful answer to these questions had to centre in the God who revealed himself to Abraham and Moses. For Israel to worship Baal and offer thanks and praise to him as the Canaanites had done was to create a different “Israel”. Canaanites who worshiped the nature god Baal remained Canaanites but for Israel to worship Baal was to obliterate her history and create another “Israel” which was not "the Israel of God" (see Galatians 5:16; Romans 9:6; Revelation 2:9; 3:9).
Israel was called to more than moral uprightness; they were called to be witnesses to the truth about the one true God in the midst of a world steeped in darkness and ignorance that rose out of sin. They were called to declare his praise of him who had called them from darkness into his wonderful light (compare 1 Peter 2:9, Isaiah 43:10 and 44:8).
The nations were responsible and God held them accountable for much (see the sections against the nations in the prophets—Jeremiah 46—51, Amos 1 and Ezekiel 25—32 for example). But he did not hold them responsible for not being Israel. He did not hold them responsible for knowledge he did not give them. God took a nation of sinners from among many nations of sinners and made a special covenant with them; a covenant he chose to exclude the nations from.
God did not condemn the foreign nations for not keeping the Mosaic covenant with all that it contained or for not embracing the mission to which God called Israel alone (cf. John 4:22; Luke 10:21-24).
So what did he condemn them for? He held them guilty for cherishing and practicing wickedness apart from the Mosaic Covenant (see Romans 2:6-12). There was truth from and about God before he established the covenant via Moses came along and the Holy Father poured out judgment on nations when they flagrantly and impenitently suppressed that truth in unrighteousness (Noah’s flood and Sodom illustrates--Romans 1:18-21).
But God’s self-disclosure in word and deed to Abraham and then to Moses in the Sinai covenant was unlike anything that had occurred before. A specific nation was now elect and profound truths were taught them and demonstrated before them. It was required of them that they live righteously but a sweet spirit and an honest life were no substitute for the truths that undergirded such a life for an Israelite. The truth of Israel’s faith was not to be denied or corrupted or forsaken for Israel was a bearer of truth about God before the world and that truth created a world that stood opposed to “the world” of the nations.
An enlightened and God-loving Israelite would never have dreamed of saying, “Teaching doesn’t matter—the only thing that really counts is character and virtuous living.” Others could be ignorant of the truth God invested in Israel and still live virtuous lives (note Ruth, the Moabite in Ruth 1:16) but an Israelite could not despise the truth he had been given; truth he was to proclaim as part of a chosen nation that was chosen by the one true and only God!.
The elect of God has a mission that embraces more than virtuous living—it includes the truth of God that has been committed to them and in the case of the NT elect it is the truth of God that has come to its zenith and climax in Jesus Christ. To suggest that the truth about Jesus should be dismissed and that only virtuous living should be our concern is not true to the NT nor is it true to the mission of the NT elect.
The elect have been blessed to have their hearts and eyes opened (compare Acts 16:14; Philippians 1:29). Vision is a gift and not a merit! Others are yet blind and it is the responsibility of those who can see to be a gracious blessing to those who are blind. The elect are to do more than call people to be virtuous though that is certainly no crime; their business is to bear witness to the truth of God in Jesus Christ and if they won't do it no one else will for no one else can and no one else has been chosen to do it.
Doctrine is to be made attractive by lovely lives (Titus 2:10) but doctrine is not to be dismissed.
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