I hope you are doing well! We are going to take a moment this week to try and tie a few things together that we’ve touched on before. Overall, these things give us insight into our place in YHWH’s plan.
To start, we’re going to remind ourselves of a covenant. Specifically, we’re talking about a covenant YHWH made with Abraham. He promised that through Abraham, everyone on earth would be blessed (Genesis 12:3).
This covenant was brought up multiple times by Paul, and for good reason. His mission to spread the gospel to the Gentiles had its roots in this covenant. Without this covenant, we would have no scriptural basis in which to trace our connection to salvation through Yeshua’s sacrifice.
There are many places we can find scriptural statements on Israel’s place as YHWH’s chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6, 14:2, Isaiah 41:8, etc.). However, with the exception of the New Testament writings, you’d be hard pressed to find many verses on YHWH choosing Gentiles. In fact, you’ll find quite the opposite. There will be many verses about YHWH telling Israel to stay away from Gentiles, or even to kill them depending on who they were and what they’d done. In many cases, the events recorded in scripture have the Gentiles as the villains!
It’s no wonder that the Israelites back then, and even some modern day Jews today, developed and acted on a sense of entitlement and a “holier than thou” attitude towards everyone else in the world. That’s human nature to an extent though, isn’t it? You find that attitude in some Christians today as they live out a feeling of being untouchable based on their belief in Yeshua’s sacrifice as their salvation. Christians are a holy people, set apart just as YHWH set the descendants of Israel apart from the rest of the world.
There was a reason Israel was set apart, and there’s a reason Christians are set apart, which we’ll get to at some point. For now, let’s jump back to this promise to Abraham we were talking about. The blessing of the world through Abraham was given without caveats, and because of that we know that it applies to us.
It can get kind of confusing when you read some of these things in scripture because we naturally lump things together even though it’s entirely possible each aspect stands on its own. We see this blessing of the families of the earth occur right after YHWH tells Abraham to leave his land and go to the promised land (Genesis 12:1-3). So, naturally we assume the blessing is associated with Israel arriving in the promised land. However, Paul shows that is not the case.
Paul states that it was faith which resulted in the blessing being fulfilled, not the fact that Abraham went from his original land to a new one (Galatians 3:6-8). He keys on another Old Testament verse in that statement, one that is also related to Abraham’s offspring and this blessing (Genesis 15:6). This same basis of faith for a blessing is what we have for our salvation, isn’t it? By having faith, believing in, Yeshua we are saved from the consequence of sin which is death (John 3:16).
What Paul was trying to get people to realize was that long before Israel was called YHWH’s chosen people, YHWH had thought of the Gentiles and their salvation. However, the same thing that YHWH expected from His chosen people in the beginning is what determines their righteousness: faith. That didn’t change for YHWH, as those from His chosen people became cut off as a result of their lack of faith (Romans 11:20).
We, as Gentiles, are grafted into the same tree that was faithful Israel. As we live out our lives, we should be taking in the same living water as that tree. We should be receiving the same nutrients from the soil, the same sun, the same air, etc. However, since we originally came from another tree, we have a unique fruit and we produce that fruit we were already predisposed to produce as we walk in the spirit in our lives as Yeshua’s holy people.
We have to understand however, the context of our living water, soil, sun, air, etc., in order to use it properly to produce fruit. Growing up without the same environment, history, practices and traditions as faithful Israel presents challenges for us in how we can understand and then use what YHWH gave us, scripture, to do His will. We’ll see certain words and phrases as confusing, or even worse, interpret them incorrectly and spread this incorrect interpretation until it becomes ingrained in all of Christianity.
We saw a little bit of this when we went through Revelation. There was certain imagery that would be obvious to an Israelite as to its meaning, but has been misinterpreted by Christians for centuries. There’s not really any blame to be placed for this, as Christians lack the necessary experience and upbringing to properly interpret the signs heavily rooted in the things of Israel.
So, while we are not Israelites, we do get our spiritual sustenance from the same source they did: YHWH. We can’t look at His word from our perspective as a Gentile and end up with the right fruit. We have to do our best to understand how the Israelites would have viewed it, and then we can properly apply it to our lives.
I know this is a short one, but sometimes short is good! I hope you found the message enlightening and even helpful in your spiritual walk with Yeshua. Have a great week! Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!
-Rob and Sara Gene
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