A friend posted a question to me. I thought it was a very good question so i decided to post it here
Question:
Since God loved everyone the same,
How come He chose Israelites as His chosen people?
And what about the rest such as the Philistines, the Moabites, Babylonians and
etc?
Answer:
This question has a very long
answer. It covers the big picture and the mission that God is doing in this
world. What is God actually up to? This is something I've been trying to figure
out since I started out as a Christian. And God has graciously provided me with
answers, albeit step by step, to help me understand the mission and the world
from His perspective. It has been a wonderful journey of getting to know
Him. (Journaling during your quiet time helps for God to reveal to you
better)
So back to the question. We believe and without a doubt
that God loves everyone the same, right?
So when we read anything in the Bible that seems to contradict this, we need to
go back and look at it again to find out what actually is God's perspective to
this. If we get this right, then we can rest be assured that God is always
good, even when bad things happen in the bible and also in real life.
Now that we got this settled, we will need to see a bit of
background to all of this. Sometimes, when we see a verse or chapter by itself,
it seems to contradict everything that we believe. God’s mission has always
been to save us all from sin and from the beginning of time, He has planned
already that He Himself would be the one to come down in the form of Jesus and
save us all. We see this throughout the bible from Genesis to Revelations and
it has never gotten away from this very revelation. But first, God needed to
show you and me that He has done all that He could to bring you back to Him
before He sent His son to perform the greatest sacrifice.
Some argue that God could have come down and commanded us to
worship Him and we would have done that because what we see is what we believe.
I mean like at this moment, if God would have appeared in front of you and
said, “Hey friend, I am real!”, then you would definitely believe Him. But for
how long will we believe and obey Him? Oh but wait… He already did that at
mount Sinai! (Exodus 19-24). God appeared to the Israelites and, of course out
of love, gave certain restrictions to them to be holy so that when He came
down, they would not die. When God spoke, look at Exo 20:18-21, the people told
Moses not to let God speak to them. Yes, He was that scary. In Exo 24:3, the
Israelites responded to God after God gave them the commandments, that they
will do all that the Lord has said.
Wow, awesome, the story as it should be à God appeared, the people believed, and
they lived happily ever after. But no, that was not what happened. You would think
that after seeing God appear to them that they would remain loyal to him for at
least a generation. But guess what, only after 40 days, Exodus 32 happened. The
people turned away from God. I wanted to punch all the Israelites when I read
this. If I was God…. Let’s just say there will be no more descendants of Israel
there and then, if I was God.
I tell you all this story to say this, that God did try
really hard to bridge the connection with us. And because of this, the whole of
the old testament had to happen before Jesus could come. God had to show you
and I that the great sacrifice of Jesus had to be the last resort when all else
had failed.
Now that we know why the old testament had to be so, let’s
now look at the brighter picture. God actually found a few who understood Him
and feared Him not because they saw Him but simply a choice they made to
believe and commune with Him. One of them was Abraham.
In Gen 12:1-4, Abraham (Abram during that time) got his
calling from God. God did not tell Abram his life story from beginning to end
and asked Abram if he would join Him to make this come true. God simply told
Abram that if he obeyed, God can use him to make a difference to all the
peoples of the earth. Abram trusted God and obeyed. This marked the start of
the journey. We fast forward now to Gen 15 where God made a covenant with Abram
and Abram believed and God credited that to him as righteousness. Fast forward
to Gen 17, and God makes Abram a covenant and a covenant with his descendants.
In Gen 22, Abraham is tested (God told Abraham to kill his son, Isaac) and God
swore by Himself (because there is no one higher than Himself) that He will
surely bless Abraham and his offspring. We understand from here that God had
sworn to make Abraham’s offspring a chosen people, because of
Abraham’s obedience. Deut 7:9 is clear when it says that God is faithful and
will keep his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him
and keep his commandments.
And that my friend, is how the Israelites came to be a
chosen people. J
Now for the second part of
Grace’s question. What about the other nations? The Philistines, Moabites,
Babylonians, etc.
Yes, believe it or not, God
loves them too. But because our bible story is focused on the Israelites as the
chosen people, it fails to capture the daily lives of the other nations. One
instance in the bible that managed to capture some of this is in the story of
Balaam in Numbers 22-24. Very often we assume that God only speaks to the
Israelites, God’s “chosen” people. But here in Numbers 22, it clearly tells
about a prophet of the Lord… in Moab. This prophet had no connections
whatsoever with the Israelites. Balaam was his name and the King of Moab
summoned him to put a curse on the Israelites because whatever Balaam
prophesied, it came true. Balaam spoke to God and God spoke back to him just
like a friend would speak to you (Num 22:9-12). Here we have proof that God was
with the other nations as well.
We do not know all that happened
in the other nations but as told from the bible, a majority of the people there
are idolaters, people who worship other gods. Did they have a chance to hear of
the Lord? Moab seemed to have someone there who knew the Lord well enough. So I
always assume that there are people of God in the other nations as well.
Jonah was another instance in
the bible, albeit a short story, where this prophet was sent to preach to the
Ninevites. Nineveh was an Assyrian empire (a nation filled with idolatry).
Nineveh was a rebellious city and God sent Jonah to reach out to it. And when
Jonah preached to them, they turned from their evil ways. Jonah 4:2 tells us a
bit more about the God we worship (although Jonah was upset when he said this).
Jonah said, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to
anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
How great is our God that we
serve. How great is His love for us. Yes, He loves everyone the same, and as we
saw here, even the nations not chosen by God were loved by God.
I really hope that what I have
written here is God-inspired, because only He can make you understand and
reveal to you what is in God’s heart for you and for the world. If there were
any errors, feel free to point it out. I understand that I’m not perfect and
what I said may not fit your bill perfectly. We may discuss openly.
Lots of love,
Kenny Lim
