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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Judaic-Christian Salvation, #12
Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. (Exodus 19:5,6)
The only people who will be lost to the purposes of God, who will be refused entrance to the process of transforming us from disobedience into obedience, are those who refuse to participate in God's program of redemption.
God does not call out the elect only to save them from wrath but also to make them the means of guiding other people into the all-important obedience to God.
Exodus 19:5,6 (above) is addressed to every member of the Church of Christ as well as to the sons of Jacob. We are to obey God's voice, becoming a treasure to God above all other people. We are a kingdom of priests, being prepared by the Lord to govern and intercede for the nations of the earth. This is the purpose of the Judaic-Christian salvation.
Salvation comes to the Jew. God gave a law and ordinances to the Israelites that governed their behavior. Obedience to the law and ordinances brought peace with God (Isaiah 26:3). There were then, as there are today, numerous God-fearing Jews living under the blessing of God because of the integrity of their lives and their diligence in following the Law and ordinances of Moses.
We are not teaching that a Jew can ignore the claims of Jesus Christ and please God by following the Torah and the Talmud. Jesus is the Divine sin-offering, and our Lord and it is only by being born again of Him that we can enter the Kingdom of God. If the Jew is faced with Jesus and rejects Jesus he brings himself under condemnation.
We say, "is faced with Jesus." We Christians make an assumption that is not true. We teach that any man at any time can receive Jesus. This is not correct. No man can come to Jesus until the Spirit of God draws him (even when Jesus is being preached on every street corner). We do not choose Jesus, Jesus chooses us. Our task is to preach the Gospel to every creature. God's task is to bring to the Lord Jesus those whom God has chosen.
The Jew can walk in righteousness by diligently following the Torah (although he has no blood-offering and cannot obey literally the opening chapters of Leviticus). God always will bless the individual who seeks after righteousness whether he or she is a Jew or Gentile.
When God speaks to the Jew, convicting him of the truth of Jesus, the Jew is obligated to respond. If he does not respond to God he is not obeying the Torah, for the Torah commands us to obey the voice of God.
In this instance, all of his adherence to the Law and ordinances does not profit him. He is in disobedience to God. We cannot turn our face from God, from Him to whom the Torah brings us, and claim we are walking in righteousness because we are worshiping the letter of the Torah, carrying the scroll on our shoulder. This is idolatry—the worship of the Scriptures rather than the God who gave the Scriptures.
To be continued.