Part 2
Avi Snyder's essay entitled "Created to Proclaim (2014)' is worth reposting in its entirety, but I've chosen to break it into several sections. This is Part 2. To read Part 1, click this link: https://bob-mendelsohn.blogspot.com/2021/05/created-to-proclaim-by-avi-snyder-part-1.html
When God called Abram...
...He had a worldwide witness on His mind.
The Lord called Abram with the following words:
“Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).
How were the descendants of Abram destined to be a blessing to the world? The Apostle Paul understood, and he lets the rest of us know. Writing about us, his fellow Jews, he explains…
“...to them [the Jewish people] were committed the oracles of God...to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ [Messiah] came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God” (Romans 3:2; 9:4-5).
I smile warmly when I think of Christians who have told me that thanks to the Jewish people, the world has been blessed with so much artistic achievement, with so much intellectual accomplishment, and with so much scientific advance. But as much as I admire Chagall (and I do), and as much as I appreciate Spinoza (and I do), and as much as I’m grateful for the Salk vaccine (and I am), I have to say in all honesty that these and other “Jewish blessings” are really secondary blessings compared to what God had in mind. Paul explains in the above verses that God selected our people to bless the world with His revelation of Himself: first, through His written or inscribed revelation (what Paul calls the “oracles of God”); and secondly and ultimately, through His incarnational revelation (the Word made flesh, the Messiah Yeshua Himself). Through the Jewish people, God gave the world the Scriptures, and then the Messiah of Whom the Scriptures speak. And so, embedded in the call of Abram, we find a glimpse of God’s heart for the nations and the promise of God’s intention to create a people who will be witnesses to the world.
The fulfillment of that intention to send forth Jewish witnesses to the world becomes clearer and clearer as our history unfolds. For example...
When God redeemed us from Egypt...
...He had a worldwide witness on His mind.
Every year we celebrate Pesach (Passover) and remember our miraculous deliverance from Egypt. But when God brought us out of the house of bondage, was He acting on our behalf alone? No. According to the Scriptural account, the events surrounding our redemption from Egypt were intertwined with God’s desire to reveal to the Egyptians -- and in fact, to all the world -- that He alone is Almighty God. Through Moses, God spoke to a proud and unyielding Pharaoh:
“...at this time I will send all My plagues to your very heart, and on your servants and on your people, that you may know that there is none like Me in all the earth...indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth” (Exodus 9:14,16).
The plagues, the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea -- God orchestrated all the events of our redemption so that Pharaoh, and Egypt, and ultimately the world might know that He alone is God, and that there is no other. And God succeeded. For, even today, in those nations where the Bible is found, the story of God’s judgment on the false gods of Egypt is read and known. And on the very day of our actual departure from Egypt so many centuries ago, the Bible explains that we didn’t leave Egypt alone. We left with a “mixed multitude” (Exodus 12:38). In other words, we were accompanied by Egyptians who made the choice to forsake their pagan gods and cleave to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why did these Egyptians make such a choice? Because God had used our people and the act of our redemption as a witness to them and to the world.
When God gave us the Law...
...He had a worldwide witness on His mind.
The Bible tells us that we were given the Law of Moses for many reasons. For example, we were given the Law in order to keep us alive -- so that we would not just survive but physically thrive (Deut. 6:3). Much of the Law contains a crucial hygienic value, especially in regard to the foods that were classified acceptable or unacceptable. Secondly, God gave us the Law so that we might be blessed as we lived in the Land (Deut. 28:1-14). He promised that as we kept His covenant, He would acknowledge our obedience with the blessings of fruitfulness, victory, and honor. Third, He gave us the Law in order to make us distinct from all the nations surrounding us, and indeed, from all the nations of the world (Ex. 19:5,6). God wanted us to be different from the other nations in every facet of our lives – from the food that we ate, to the way we conducted business, to the manner we grew our crops and treated the land and livestock, even to the way we manufactured our clothes! Fourth, He gave us the Law in order to demonstrate the holy character of God (Lev. 19:2; Deut. 4:8; Romans 7:12). The Law is holy, righteous, good, just and merciful – and so is the Lord who gave the Law. Fifth, God gave us the Law to reveal and teach us about sin, to convict us of our sins, and even to allow sin to increase (Romans 7:7-11). Sixth, God gave us the Law in order to lead us to faith in the Messiah (John 5:39; Gal. 3:24).
But there was at least one more reason that God gave us the Law. Moses explained:
“Therefore be careful to observe them [God’s ordinances]; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?” (Deuteronomy 4:5-7)
The word for “peoples” in this passage is the Hebrew word goyim, and in this context, it refers to anyone who is not a Jew. As startling as it might seem, God gave us the Law as a testimony to the nations surrounding us – because of His love for the gentiles and His desire to see them come to Him. He gave us the Law so that the surrounding nations could see a reflection of the holy character of God in the ordinances that controlled our daily lives.
God wanted every sphere of our existence -- our worship, our social relations, our business dealings -- God wanted our total corporate life to shine as a light to the nations; as a witness to the world. He wanted the nations surrounding us to understand that our God is real; that our God is near; that our God answers us when we call to Him. He wanted the nations to see and understand this, because He wanted them to turn from their idols and serve only Him, the true and living God.
In a sense, you could say that one reason God gave us the Law was so that we might provoke the gentiles to jealousy.
God placed us in the Land and gave us the Law so that we might live as a light to the nations and draw them unto Him. If we understand the evangelistic relationship between our presence in the Land and our practicing the Law as an active means of proclaiming the Gospel to the nations, then we can begin to understand how deeply we grieved the Lord through our persistent disobedience. Our disregard for the covenant not only demonstrated our profound ingratitude toward God for all that He had done for us; it compromised His testimony to the nations that He wanted to reach.
It’s easy to imagine how our disregard and violation of the covenant grieved God’s heart if we think of modern-day, professing believers whose ungodly conduct compromises our testimony to our friends and family who don’t yet know the Lord. So many of us have loved ones whom we long to see reconciled to the Lord. So many of us find these loved ones unwilling to listen or believe when we speak about the difference that Yeshua has made in our lives. And then suddenly, a prominent believer in the public eye “falls,” and the disclosure of this prominent Christian’s sin seems to make a mockery of our faith.
Now our loved ones want to talk to us about the Lord. But they’re not really interested in discussing the claims of Yeshua. They’re interested in pointing out the hypocrisy of those who claim to follow Him. “So that’s what it means to believe in Jesus,” they sneer. Our hearts ache because the conduct of the “fallen” believer has compromised our testimony to the ones we want to reach.
If we can feel disgrace when our witness is called into question by the conduct of others who claim to believe, then it’s easy to imagine the absolute anguish that the Lord must have felt when we claimed to be His special possession but lived no differently than anyone else in the world. We spurned His love and polluted His testimony to the nations. The peoples surrounding us took note of the chasm that separated the claims of our lips from the conduct of our lives. And as a result, instead of causing the nations to desire and bless the Lord, our conduct caused the nations to mock and blaspheme His holy name.
What an irony, and what a tragedy.
In His love for us, and in His faithfulness to our fathers, God had given us the gift of the Land.
In His desire to see the nations confronted with the reality of God, He had set us up as a living light to the nations -- a light that was intended to shine through the daily outworking of our covenantal relationship with Him.
In His mercy, He held back the judgment that our violations of the covenant required.
In His grace, He sent the prophets to call us to repent, so that the testimony could be restored, so that the light would not be dimmed.
Over and over again, He pleaded for us to keep His ways. Over and over again, He cried out against our faithless behavior and called us to return. But finally, His justice compelled Him to execute judgment. So He expelled us from the Land and drove us into the Babylonian Captivity for seventy years. It was as though He were saying, “Because you would not live in the Land as a light to the nations, I am driving you out of the Land, and you will live in darkness and serve the nations and the false gods that they revere.”
(To be continued)
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