Today’s
Scripture Reading (June 1, 2017): Ezekiel 36
Christianity,
at best, started as a small provincial belief system. Best guess is that at the
time of the death of Jesus Christ, the one who the religion is patterned after, there were at best maybe
500 true believers of the faith. And there was no distinct people group at whom the belief system was directed. For the Jews, the target audience
for the faith is evident. Judaism is aimed at the children of Abraham, through Isaac
and Jacob (the latter of the two would be
renamed Israel.) For Islam, the other sister faith of Christianity, the primary audience of the faith are the children
of Abraham, through Ishmael. But for Christianity,
the audience, at least according to the Apostle Paul, are the children of
Abraham through faith (Galatians 3). In other words, the directed audience of
Christianity is the world or at least the
portion of the world that wishes to claim to be the descendants of Abraham in
Spirit, whether or not they are physically
linked to the patriarch.
Paul
finds an echo of the Old Testament belief in Abraham in the Gospel that is put
forth in the Christian Testament. Paul writes “Understand, then, that those who
have faith [in Jesus Christ] are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that
God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to
Abraham: “All nations will be blessed
through you” (Galatians 3:7-8).
So,
starting with Paul, this small provincial faith with no real target audience
has seen itself as the realization of God’s promise to Abraham – and to Israel.
It is a promise that somehow through them they would bless the world.
Admittedly, the church has often failed at the task. Somehow at the same time, the world has often been blessed by God
through the church.
And
there is an echo of this same idea in the words of Ezekiel. God says that he
will show the nations the holiness of his name
and that then the world will know “through them.” The idea was that because
Israel knew the holiness of God, then
they would be able to share that news with
the world. The holiness of his name was summed
up in the love that sent God to a cross to die for the sins, not of the
descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob nor of the descendants of
Abraham through Ishmael, but of the children of Abraham by faith. In other
words, those who are the children of Abraham because they have chosen to be
just that – the children of Abraham. They were not born to that
position, but rather they voluntarily have chosen to wear that identification
badge on them.
With
Jesus Christ lifted up on the cross, we have seen the holiness of God. Now it
is time to share that holiness with the
world. Those who are willing to see that sacrifice made on their behalf will also
know that the holiness of God truly has
been proved in front of their eyes.
No comments:
Post a Comment