Only Two Nations

 June 1 – Only Two Nations

Psalm 33:12a – "Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh..."

       The above phrase is a frequent statement seen on church marquis across the United States, from many years prior to this current year of 2021. I just saw it on a marquis of a local Baptist church in my home county. It signifies several things: 1) that America was, and/or still is, a "Christian" nation, one whose founding was based upon Christian principles; 2) that America is/was divinely inspired to be a different/special nation in the grand scheme of the nations of the earth, post-middle ages; and 3) that, perhaps, America as a whole, has left its divine calling as a light and moral example to the rest of the heathen world. There has already been so much written about the creation of this great democracy in the 18^th century AD, regarding the spiritual foundational thinking (or lack thereof) of a new society, rebelling against the oppressive British overlords. This is not the crux of this article.

       My argument here is much broader in nature. Throughout the whole of scripture, there is a theme that re-appears: God's chosen people are pitted against the other people groups in the region, whether they are large (e.g. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon) or whether they are small (e.g. Moab, Ammon, Amalek, Jebus, Canaan). To God, there were only two sets of people: his specifically called people (descendants of Abraham thru Isaac) and all the rest of the world. God even calls his nation his son: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1). God also says "Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation...." (Exodus 19:6a) "I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter...I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites out of your way...little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land" (Exodus 23:27a, 28, 30). The whole theme of Psalm 83, as another example, is planned revenge of the nations surrounding Israel.

       As the new covenant is played out, we find that the Gentiles (nations) are slowly brought into the body of Christ (Acts 10). Verses 34, 35 state "Peter began to speak: I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right." Paul tells us in Colossians 3:11, "Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and in all." Romans, chapters 9-11 presents a back-and-forth argument for the acceptance of the Gentiles into the family of faith. There is even a mention that not even all of Israel belonged to Israel. Then verse 9:30 gives us the crux of the matter: "What then shall we say? That the Gentiles who did pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works." So we see here that God's people even in the Old Covenant were only truly those who lived by faith. The same is true for us now – the Christians are the ones who live by faith in Christ's righteousness, which means that they are God's people, his holy nation (1 Peter 2:9).

       The odd thing about the theme verse above (what was on the church marquis), is that it is missing the 2^nd part of that verse, "the people he chose as his inheritance. A political nation does not choose to be a "godly" nation, even if that is their intention, or even if they impose a religion in order to make God (Allah) the head (e.g. Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, with their Sharia law). One cannot even call a nation Christian, even if a majority of its people belong to God. There are only two nations in God's eyes now, as it always has been: those who are his by trusting in his love, and those who are not by refusing his love.