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The Daily Word of Righteousness
You Are My People, #9
And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people. (Isaiah 51:16)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)
"To the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
The Gospel of Christ Belongs Primarily to the Jews
The Gentile religionists have not understood the Apostle Paul, who viewed the Jewish Gospel from the standpoint of a righteous Jew.
The Gospel of the Kingdom is for the Jew first, and only the righteous Jew can understand it properly.
First of all, the devout Jew is waiting for the Kingdom of God, and so a gospel of a kingdom has meaning for him far beyond that which is true of most Gentiles.
Second, and even more important, is the fact that the redemption that is in Christ is a response to the Law of Moses. Since most Gentiles have no background in the Law of Moses, they are prone to misunderstand the new covenant. Let us proceed to explain why the redemption that is in Christ is a response to the Law of Moses, and why Gentiles are likely to misunderstand God's grace under the new covenant.
When the Law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, sin became sin.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. (Romans 7:7)
But this knowledge of sin came only to the Israelites.
Before the Law came, sin was a matter of conscience and guesswork. The recognition of sin comes by the knowledge of the Law. Perhaps the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of the garden of Eden, was the Law; for it is by the Law that we understand what God regards as sin.
The Jews had the Law, the moral light. Meanwhile the Gentiles had only their conscience and the things of nature to guide them in the knowledge of God.
Among the Jewish people there always have been many individuals who have striven to please God by obeying the Law and its accompanying statutes, or the interpretation of the Law set forth in the Talmud. The devout Jew is seeking righteousness in terms of the precepts that have been given him.
The Apostle Paul was one such devout Jew. The desire of Paul's heart was to please God by keeping the Divine Law. But Paul found that forces hostile to the Law of God were dwelling in his flesh.
Paul cried out in his misery, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24). This is the voice of a person whose desire is to please God, who esteems righteousness above all else.
The redemption that is in Christ was Paul's answer to his concern over the demands of the Law.
To be continued.