WHY IS ISRAEL SPECIAL?
Bud Hancock has sent me his latest article explaining the relevance of Israel in Scripture. This is in Bud’s extremely lucid and easy to grasp style. Believe it or not many in the Church are ignorant of Israel being the “Apple of God’s eye”. “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.” Zechariah 2:8
GIbber! Gibber!
Chugley
Why is Israel Special?
By Bud Hancock
Introduction
God has always had a plan for the world, and fortunately for us, He shared His plan in His word. If anyone is unaware of His plan, it is NOT God’s fault. In sharing the plan, we can rest assured that He wants us to know it, and we need to understand the importance of it. There are some who seem to believe we do not need to know His plan in great detail. After all (as I’ve heard many Christians say), God is sovereign and can do exactly what He wants, whether or not we are aware of what He is doing. They seem to be saying that God always gets exactly what He wants, but that is a gross exaggeration. He did NOT want His human creation to fail and present all mankind with no hope for a future relationship with Him.
Even before He created (actually RE-created), the earth, with all its many beauties and wonders, He knew that His humans, His ultimate creation, created in His own image, would fail. Such a failure would have made any ordinary being give up and just walk away in disgust and despair. But God is not what anyone would call an ‘ordinary’ being, no He is SPECIAL! He and He alone, is God. Before man’s failure occurred, He had a plan that would turn man’s failure into the ultimate triumph! What a PLANNER!
God’s PLAN
It is obvious that He carefully planned His entire creation, down to the most minute detail. Read the creation record (and NO it is NOT just a ‘story’, but a complete detailed record of events) in Genesis and follow His plan as the creation unfolds. He never once got ahead of Himself and created ‘something’ before He had everything in place that would be needed to sustain that ‘something’. In a well-crafted and well-executed plan, timing is of extreme importance, and God’s timing has always been perfect.
The question might be asked, and probably has: Why did God not just stop Satan as soon as he deceived Adam and Eve and offer them repentance and forgiveness on the spot? The answer: TIMING. The main point of God’s creation was to have a family, children who would so highly regard Him and love Him that, based on an intimate knowledge of Him and His love for them, disobedience to His commands would never enter their minds. Is this not what every normal human parent wants in a relationship with their children? But that plan had hardly gotten started before disobedience stopped it, or at least, seriously delayed it.
Adam’s failure had activated the curse that God had pronounced on humanity before they sinned against Him. In God’s plan, that curse would need to stay in place until His plan brought the deliverance from the curse, and that deliverance did not appear on earth until Jesus of Nazareth was born nearly 4000 years later. Again, timing is of utmost importance to God.
During that 4000 years ‘delay’, God would provide His complete plan to certain people, whom we call the prophets, the overwhelming majority of which were Jewish men and women specially chosen to display the plan to all humanity. In His wisdom, He did not leave the deliverance of His plan to just anyone. No, He chose a certain people, who descended from a certain man, whom He foreknew would do His bidding and get the information on His plan to the whole world.
Whom To Choose
Have you ever had a very important project or plan that needed some assistance from others to come to fruition? How did you go about choosing those people to help you? Did you randomly pick names from a phonebook? Did you place an ad in multiple places asking for that help? Did you ask for referrals from friends or neighbors looking for the right people to choose? Or did you go through your mental list of people you have known, and learned to trust, and, based on their actions and words over the years, seek out their help? Being human, and with very limited knowledge, you hopefully picked the last option listed above.
But, God is NOT a human with limited knowledge; He is SPECIAL, He is omniscient, all-knowing with unlimited knowledge and wisdom. Being God and knowing the end of all things from the very beginning, He would choose a person that most humans would likely pass up.
God had a host of people from whom to choose. You can read the generations of the children of Noah, the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth, in Genesis 10 and 11. There were many generations between Noah and the man God would choose to use as a pivotal person in His plan, the plan to bring the one who would redeem the world from the curse, the Messiah.
We’re told that God’s plan was settled “before the foundation of the world”. He chose a man who was, initially, an idolator, who was not then intimately acquainted with the true God, a man named Abram who dwelt in the land of Ur of the Chaldees, a direct descendant of Shem, the second son born to Noah.
Many have questioned why God chose this particular man to be the one from whom the promised Messiah would come. I have pondered that question also and have no better answer than any of them, but this I do know: God is never wrong and He does NOT make mistakes. So whatever the reason, it was the right choice.
So, Why Abram?
We know little about this man’s life before he is mentioned in Genesis chapter 12. However, the Apostle Peter does give a little more insight into his life when God called him out of Ur of the Chaldees (Acts 7:2). The area where Abram was said to have been born was known to be populated with those who worshipped idols, namely the moon god. However, God must have had some previous conversations with Abram prior to that, because when God told him to leave his kinfolk and his home and go to a strange land, Abram believed God, was obedient, and it was “accounted to him for righteousness” (Galatians 3:6 KJV). Abraham’s faith in God’s word and His ability to perform His word, were absolutely critical in His calling from God to become the father of the Jewish people, and the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.
Since the sacrifice of Jesus was far into the future at the time God called Abram, witnessed his obedience, and declared him righteous because of his obedience, God obviously had perfect knowledge of the character of Abram, and that character was what God needed in the person from whom the Messiah would eventually come. The character of Abram, and the faith that he displayed in His obedience was what made him so special to God.
A Stop on the Way to Sodom
Recorded in Genesis 18, when God was planning to execute His judgment on the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He visited Abraham on the way and did several remarkable things. First, He prophesied to Abraham that he and his wife, Sarah, previously childless, would become parents in their old age, at which news Sarah laughed. God even foretold the time when it would occur, stating that “at the appointed time,. I will return unto thee”, proving that the birth of Isaac (which means laughter), just as the birth of Jesus, was a supernatural event.
As the Lord was leaving Abraham’s presence to continue His journey to Sodom, He said, “shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. (Genesis 18:17-19 KJV)
Very importantly, Abraham’s character in pleading with the Lord to save the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, based on finding a certain number of righteous souls there, indicates he was a man of love, compassion and mercy. I’m certain God took note of this and that further solidified His choice. God, Who is omniscient and eternal, without beginning or end, surely knew long before He called him that Abram had the character and the desire to be obedient to the true God, so why are we told this in God’s word?
Answering the Question
That is the question that, when answered correctly, will go a long way in explaining why Israel is so special. It goes without saying that God loves Israel and the Jewish people since He showed that love over and over through His many miracles that He worked on their behalf. But God’s love does not stop with the Jews. We are told in the gospel according to John that, “For God so loved THE WORLD, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 KJV)
In this statement God placed Himself, not at a distance from the Jewish people, because they had always been the “apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10 KJV), but in a place that finally demonstrated what His plan had always been and why it was so important to choose the right person to be the father of the Jewish people, and thus the Messiah. The success of His plan allowed both Jew and Gentile to become recipients of God’s love.
Another very important reason for Israel being ‘special’ was highlighted by the apostle Paul in the Book of Romans, beginning in chapter one and continuing into chapter three, and must be considered. In this discourse, Paul explains in the end of chapter two and into chapter three that, in spite of the Jews rejection of His son Jesus, and their dogged insistence on relying on the Law of Moses instead of the blood of Jesus for salvation, God’s undying love for, and mercy toward, the Jewish people has not diminished, nor has He ‘cut them out of’ the inheritance promised to Abraham.
Did God become angry with them for their rejection of His plan and for their stubborn attitude? Of course He did and he chastened them many times during the course of history since the time He chose Abraham. Every parent reserves the right to discipline his or her children without any outside interference. Many times my wife and I would become angry with our children due to their actions, and would discipline them accordingly. However, If I knew that someone other than my wife or I had touched my kids, that person would be in very serious trouble.
You who are parents: Have your children ever done something that was openly and obviously contrary to the words you spoke to them? You know they have, and you likely became quite angry with them and chastened them for their actions. But your love for them did not change, did it? No, as a normal parent you likely increased the teaching and training you provided to them in the hope that they would not again act in a way that would anger you. Your words to them were intended to show them the error of their ways and your undying love for them and their well-being just as the words from the prophets of old were intended as instruction and encouragement to bring the hearers to a better understanding of God and to a nearness to Him.
This indicates another way the Jewish people are special: According to Romans 3:2, “unto them were committed the oracles of God”, and those oracles were recorded and became what we call the old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible. All the prophecies spoken by the prophets, and fulfilled through the centuries, serve as a proof of God’s love for all of us, both Jew and gentile.
Conclusion
I have read many articles, supposedly by Christian authors, basically accusing the Jews of being “Christ-killers”. And yes, the Pharisees and scribes, those religious Jewish zealots and adherents of the Mosaic Law, did give their approval to the death of Jesus, but the Jewish people were no more guilty His death than was any other person who was ever born. Yes, the Roman pagans placed the nails in His feet and hands, but the SIN OF ALL MANKIND is what killed Jesus. To further nail down that idea, the sin that had long separated humanity from God caused God’s love for those separated to allow His son to be sacrificed, and the love of Jesus caused Him to be in total agreement with His own death.
For any Christian group, from ANY denomination, to rise up against the Jewish people, regardless of the many failings they have had in obeying and following the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, indicates a serious lack of knowledge of how God operates in His dealings with both the Jew and the Gentile.
God made a covenant with Abraham which He called an everlasting one, meaning that HE would never change it and no action of the one(s) with whom He cut that covenant could ever bring about its dissolution. God still has many issues with the Jewish people, and a level of anger that He alone can and will work out with them. And trust me, God will do exactly what He has said He will do in dealing with them.
But, just as good and godly human parents should never allow another human to interfere in the way they discipline their children, as long as they are not abusing them, so will God not allow any interference in the way He will deal with the Jewish people.
Unfortunately, many so-called Christian groups have used what they call God’s rejection/disowning of the Jewish people to claim something that is totally false and anti-God; such a claim being that the Church is now the real Israel, and it is a serious error in judgment on their part.
Believe It Because God Said It
If you believe that God is Who He claims to be: the creator of the universe, the One Who made the heavens and the earth and all life that is in both, with such precision and perfection, bringing order out of chaos (Carefully read Genesis 1:1-2, preferably using a good Hebrew to English lexicon) then you MUST understand that He DOES NOT make mistakes, whether in His creation or in those human beings whom He chooses to help implement His eternal plan.
Failure to understand this is tantamount to rejection of Who and What He is. Rejection of God and His word is the primary reason people will forfeit their eternal life in heaven and choose instead to suffer eternally in hell. That being said, you cannot claim to accept the Jewish man, Jesus, as the Messiah, the Saviour, and then reject the Jewish people from whom, regarding the flesh, Jesus sprang. To do so is to reject the wisdom and sovereignty of God.
This essay began with the question, “Why is Israel Special”, and it hopefully has provided several very legitimate and specific answers to the question. In case it did not, please accept the truth, simply stated that……….
Israel is special because, if for no other reason, GOD DECLARED IT TO BE SO.
Blessings!
Born and raised in a small textile town in North Carolina, Bud Hancock’s family moved to Michigan in the hope of finding better employment with General Motors. After graduating from high school, Bud began an apprenticeship with General Motors to become a Metal Modelmaker. Retiring after a 30 year career, which included an eight year stint as a Meteorologist, he and his wife moved back to North Carolina to be near his elderly parents. Shortly thereafter, with both of his parents having passed, he started a new career in the bank security/ATM business, advancing from an entry level technician to one of two North Carolina customer service managers for his employer. Retiring again after 13 years, he and his wife of 51 years relocated to Tennessee where Bud began writing articles specializing in Bible teaching and geopolitical issues. At age 75, he and his wife relocated to South Carolina with their Miniature Schnauzer, Baxter. Bud continues to study God’s word and write articles on Christian living and geopolitical issues from the Biblical end times perspective