WHO ARE GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE?
By: Gerald L.K. Smith
(From THE CROSS & THE FLAG magazine.)
When God called Abraham aside, He made a covenant, assuring Abraham, "In thee and thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Out of the loins of Abraham came the seed which produced the sacred Scriptural House of Israel. These people were chosen to fulfill a definite Divine plan of God for the salvation and the redemption of His children of all the nations
The Old Testament tells the story of the development of this people referred to as Israel. Because of the fact that God chose Abraham and his seed to bring forth the Savior of the world, the House of Israel became known as "God's Chosen People" -- chosen for a great sacred purpose; namely, to introduce the Son of God to humanity.
The word "Jew" was never used in identifying these people in their formative developments. If Abraham were to be resurrected from the grave, or if Isaac were to be brought back to this earth, limited by the knowledge that they had when they died, they would not know the meaning of the word "Jew."
It is unnecessary at this time to summarize the events which took place in the development of the House of Israel and in the preparation for the coming of the Messiah. These people in their houses of learning and in their houses of worship were taught to expect the coming of the Messiah. The Old Testament is filled with prophetic accounts designed to stimulate this great anticipation.
In the meantime, degeneration set in. Aliens, Canaanites and people with strange blood began to occupy the land, and they became the corrupters and the subversives and the hypocrites and the political authorities. They usurped the authority over the true Israel quite as the subversives of the world today are attempting to usurp the authority over the nations which have grown out of Christian tradition.
When Jesus was born of Mary and identified by an angel from Heaven and witnessed by the Wise Men from the East, the area around Bethlehem and Jerusalem and the whole central area of what we now know as Palestine, was filled with evil corrupters who called themselves Jews, but were later referred to in the New Testament as the "synagogue of Satan."
These apostates had corrupted the Temple, had degenerated the synagogues, and became the chief hecklers of Jesus as He introduced Himself to the world as the Son of God.
It will be recalled the when He walked down to the River Jordan to be baptized of John, a dove lighted upon Him and a voice spoke out of Heaven saying, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased."
The people who called themselves Israelites and were not, who posed as the seed of Abraham and were not, could not be satisfied with anything less than death for Jesus of Nazareth. When confronted by a mob of these hecklers, Jesus identified them by saying, "Ye are of your father, the devil, a liar from the foundation of the earth."
Again He said, "If ye were of Abraham's seed, ye would do the works of Abraham", meaning, of course, that they would recognize that Jesus was of the seed of Abraham by way of His mother and the fulfillment of God's covenant with Abraham.
These interlopers and apostates and fakes and imitation Israelites could not rest until they had conspired with the politicians to frame Jesus with false charges (in the night) and stimulate His crucifixion on the cross. Even Herod and Pilate did not want to crucify Him, but they yielded, as many men are doing in this world today, to what is called Jewish pressure. It was Jewish pressure that caused Pilate to flog the flesh off the body of our Lord. It was Jewish pressure screaming in public that made Herod and Pilate realize that if He was not killed it would effect their political influence, both in Rome and in Judea.
At one time the Scripture said, "Jesus went into Galilee because the Jews sought to kill him." These citizens of Judea, who were nicknamed Jews after the word Judea, and the term Jew applied to a wide variety of citizens, not necessarily offspring of the seed of Abraham -- they were as apostatic as the theological professors of this day who are paid to train preachers in theological seminaries, but scream to the world, "God is dead."
The apostates within the Sanhedrin and among the Pharisees were not so concerned because Jesus called Himself the Son of God. They were concerned because His influence among the people jeopardized their authority over the people. It involved an antipathy based on the fear that the righteous influence of our Lord would cost them money and power, so they were instrumental by their conniving courts, held largely in the nighttime, in murdering the Son of God.
How did Jesus distinguish between the apostates on one hand and the devout ones on the other? He referred to the apostates as "goats" and to the devout ones as "sheep". When was the selection made? It was made on the first Pentecost following the Resurrection when the Scripture says, "Devout men were gathered from every nation on earth". When Peter had finished his account under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, these devout men cried with a loud voice, "What shall we do to be saved?" Peter gave them the answer, and they repented and were baptized, thus identifying themselves as Christians.
What happened to the goats - - the synagogue of Satan? What happened to those who still justified the conduct of the screaming mobs as they raised their voices in Pilate's court saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him"? They continued to perpetuate the doctrine of the synagogue of Satan. They continued to represent the seed of Abraham as a fraud and an imposter. They perpetuated this blasphemy and this denial, and they took on to themselves the label "Jew", and they launched a worldwide propaganda campaign which they have continued until this hour boasting to the world, "We are God's chosen people". There is nothing in the Scripture to establish the theory that Christ's worst enemies are God's chosen people. In fact, the words "chosen people" should go rather to those who choose to accept the name of Jesus Christ. The devout Israelites gathered from all over the face of the earth lost their identity in the blood of Christ, and although they were indeed of the House of Israel, and although the Scripture says that we who have accepted Christ have been 'circumcised by faith', the great covenant that God made with Abraham has been fulfilled not in the profane blasphemies of those who dishonestly call themselves "God's chosen people", but fulfilled rather in the blood of Christ and in the obedience of mankind to the will of His Gospel.
Then who are the chosen people? They are the lovers of Christ. They are those who have manifested their love by their faith, their repentance, their confession and their baptism. I humbly boast that I am of the House of Israel, because I have accepted the Divine seed of Abraham fulfilled in its Divinity through the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Spirit. That was the only reason for the House of Israel -- to cradle and conceive and bring forth the Son of God.
When I sit in a church auditorium, or attend a religious meeting, and hear a man who ought to know the definition of the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaim these apostates, these enemies of Christ, as "God's chosen people" I weep within my soul and I pity those who are not wise enough and inspired enough to realize that the only fulfillment of the covenant that God made with Abraham was by way of the Cross.
Note: For the apostates who now call themselves Jews and have stolen for themselves a name that belongs only to the Cross of Christ -- the name Israel -- for these people to call themselves "God's chosen people" is to announce to the world that Christ's worst enemies are God's chosen people. No Christian with a consistent faith in the covenant God made with Abraham and a consistent understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ can ever identify a man as God's chosen man unless that man chooses to accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Messiah of the true Old Testament Israel, and the Savior of the world.
For these apostates to invade the Holy Land and desecrate Christian shrines and represent their barbaric act as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy is to define themselves as Jesus defined them, face to face, "Ye are of your father, the devil, a liar from the foundation of the earth." |
