Tag Archive for 'jeremiah'

The Gentiles

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bcg
on 20 August 2008
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In Jeremiah, there's a lot of judgement, of Israel and the surrounding nations.  The final few chapters basically comprise a long series of judgements on the surrounding nations.

So I was surprised when I noticed that God promises to restore some of them.  For example, in 49.6 God says, 'But afterwards I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites.'  And in 49.39 he says, 'I will restore the fortunes of Elam.'  And so on.

While the language of judgement is common to all nations (not just Israel), normally the language of restoration is reserved only for Israel.  They are God's chosen people; the surrounding nations are not.  Therefore, although they are judged, they are never completely destroyed.

So what is going on here?

I wonder if we have here a prefiguring of the mission to the Gentiles that comes in the New Testament.  The fact that God doesn't simply punish, but also restores the Gentile nations suggests that his salvation is not limited to (although he may primarily be for) Israel.

Of course, the verses only have this significance once the mission to the Gentiles is made explicit.  But they are maybe one of the reasons why the early disciples accepted Peter's vision and Paul's mission.  For I hope that they used the Scriptures to test the words of prophecy and visions, as Paul tells us to do.  If they did, they would have found verses like these (and of course many others, even more explicit) to support the visions.

Judgement and the Old Testament

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Published
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bcg
on 18 October 2007
in Bible
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One of the problems that some Christians have with the idea of penal substitution is the idea of God's judgement (I know because I've been there myself). This concept of a vengeful, wrathful God seems alien to some. And, after all, in the New Testament although God's judgement is regularly threatened, it only rarely gets carried out.

However, I do wonder if the remedy is a bit more of the Old Testament. Many (most) evangelicals today are closet Marcionites - that is, they don't really use the Old Testament properly, if at all. But judgement is a major theme of the Old Testament, especially in the prophets. I have just been reading the tail-end of Jeremiah, where there are a series of judgement prophecies against the nations surrounding Israel, for idolatrous behaviour.

It is against this backdrop of God punishing nations for their sin that God sent Jesus. Judgement is a real and dangerous threat to us because we really sin - so unless his righteous judgement can be carried out, God is not a righteous judge. The glorious thing is that in Jesus God demonstrates both his judgement and his love at the same time, punishing sin and offering new life all at once.

My point here is: God's judgement is real and needs to be carried out, which the Old Testament makes abundantly clear.