Word of Encouragement (10/20/2021)

“And they [the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders] sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth’” (Rev. 5:9-10).

Jesus is praised for ransoming people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation.” We should join the praise with thanksgiving because most of us are Gentiles in the flesh and are the direct beneficiaries of God’s universal plan of salvation. (By “universal,” I do not mean that everyone will be saved but God’s salvation extends beyond the boundaries of the ethnic Jews to all peoples.) Jesus Christ came through the nation of Israel as the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of David, but He came as the Savior of the world (John 3:16; 4:42; 1 John 4:14).

The universal scope of God’s salvation was God’s plan from the beginning before He set the Jews apart from the Gentiles when He called Abra(h)am. When Adam and Eve fell in sin, the whole of humanity fell with them. But God injected what I call the “redemptive enmity” into the fallen human race and declared His intention to save some: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). The fallen humanity would be divided between “the city of God” and “the city of man,” which would be at war with each other until the final day. Obviously, this division preceded the distinction between Jew and Gentile. And this division would cut right through the nation of Israel, too, between “the remnant” (or “the elect”) and “the rest” (Rom. 11:5, 7). This was true even within the household of Abraham: Isaac was the child of promise while Ishmael was not, as Jacob was but Esau was not in the next generation.

In fact, God’s universal plan of salvation was made clear even at the time God called Abram and set him and his descendants apart from the rest of the world: “...in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3) and more specifically, “...in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice” (Gen. 22:18). So, Paul, a Jew and a former Pharisee, would say, “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him” (Rom. 10:12). We can say that setting Israel apart was a temporary arrangement. One of the main reasons was to ensure the coming of Jesus Christ as the Son of David and the Son of Abraham (Matt. 1:1), in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18). (This promissory/prophetic element was to show that Jesus was not just a historical accident but God’s designated and anointed Savior of the world.)

When Jesus came as the promised Son of David and of Abraham, God’s old covenant with Israel was replaced with God’s new covenant with the church in Jesus Christ. We can say that the new covenant is the fulfillment of the old covenant. Under the new covenant, God’s universal plan of salvation is coming to fruition. This is reflected in Jesus’ Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).

We see that Christ is faithfully bringing this about through the missionary and evangelistic efforts of the church. You and I are living testimonies to this fact. Even in our small congregation, we see the universal scope of God’s salvation in our multi-ethnic makeup. This is a small preview of what will happen in heaven: a people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation will be joined as one in their praise of their wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ! Let us give thanks to God’s great mercy toward us in Jesus Christ and do our part in “making the church full”!