Judging from the contents of the Bible, I think I would have to say that God likes a good story—especially if you think about the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the first two-thirds of the Bible, and much of it records the story of Israel in ancient times, and frequently the narrative zooms in on certain individuals. Most of us are intrigued by the Old Testament, but we’re not sure that its all that important for us. After all, the people in the Old Testament lived in very different times and places, and they lived under different commands from God than we live under today.
So why do we even have the Old Testament in the Bible? Why don’t we just focus on the New Testament, which records the commands from God that we are supposed to follow today? Well, according to 1 Corinthians 10:11 the events recorded in the Old Testament “happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
So the Old Testament is here to instruct us, to give us examples to follow and examples to avoid as we seek to live out God’s commands. It has been said that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, so God has recorded sacred history for us so that we can be instructed by it.
Last week, we talked about some ideas that may have been very new to you—like the idea of being rewarded for the way that we live for Jesus today, and particularly the idea of being rewarded with the privilege of reigning with Him in His earthly kingdom. I stressed that God has offered us both a gift and a prize. The gift is eternal life, which we receive by faith, and prize is a special role of service for Jesus, which we receive by faithfully following His commands.
This idea may have been somewhat new to you, but its not new to Scripture at all, because the Old Testament tells us that God related to Israel in the same way—through a gift and a prize. Today we’re going to focus on God’s relationship with Israel and how it provides a pattern for the way that God relates to us. As with our own lives, we will see a gift that is secure and a prize that can be won or lost. Let’s begin with the gift, which is redemption.
1. Israel’s Redemption
Israel’s redemption took place when God delivered them from their slavery in Egypt. This act was a very fitting picture for the word “redemption” because the word refers to paying a ransom for someone or rescuing them from bondage. In the first message that Moses delivered from God to the people of Israel, God spoke in terms of redemption. Turn with me to Exodus 6:2-6, and follow along with me as I read [READ Ex. 6:2-6].
Later, in the book of Deuteronomy, when Moses is looking back on what God had done, he again describes their rescue as redemption. Let’s read Deut. 7:6-8 [READ Deut. 7:6-8]. Notice how these verses highlight the reason why God gave the people this gift of redemption. It wasn’t because of anything special in the people; it wasn’t because they were a great and mighty nation, because they were just the opposite. No—God redeemed them simply because He chose to set His love on them and because He had made promises to Abraham, their ancestor and the founder of the nation.
And in the rest of the Old Testament record, we see that the people hadn’t earned their redemption in any way; it wasn’t any sort of reward. God hadn’t appeared to them and said, “Do this for me and then I will redeem you.” He simply did it because He chose to love them and He made promises to Abraham about a future for His descendents.
The only response required from the Israelites to escape from slavery was a response of faith in God, which they demonstrated on the night of the Passover when they put the blood of a sacrificial animal on their doors to escape death. That response of faith was all that God required for the people to leave their slavery in Egypt, and once they were gone, they were gone—never to return.
I think its important for the question of eternal security to note that even when the people were unfaithful to God later on, God never reversed their redemption. He never sent them back into Egypt to live as slaves. They certainly faced some severe discipline from God, but their status as God’s redeemed people never changed.
So God redeemed Israel by His grace, and after He did, He gave them a task to carry out, with a reward that was promised to them if they would be faithful in carrying out their task.
2. Israel’s Task
Israel’s task can be summarized in two parts, both of which can be found in Deuteronomy 6. Why don’t you turn there with me? First, as we see in verses 16-17, the people were to live before God and worship Him according to the Law of Moses, which consists of all the commands that God communicated to the people through Moses. Let’s read vv. 16-17 [READ vv. 16-17].
God had given the people a very specific way to worship Him and some very specific commands for life, which covered many, many different situations that they might encounter. Thus, if they wanted to live a lifestyle that pleased God, they knew exactly what to do.
Second, God also commanded the people to conquer the land of Canaan and take possession of it. Look at vv. 18-19 [READ vv. 18-19]. Many years before this, God had promised Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to His descendents, for two reasons. First, it was a good, fruitful land. It is part of what archaeologists have called “the fertile crescent,” because it was a well-watered oasis compared to the desert areas southwest of it. Second, the people who were living in the land of Canaan were evil in the sight of God. Remember—cities like Sodom and Gomorrah were there, and the nations that lived there worshiped their gods with child sacrifices and various sexual acts. So by giving Israel the land, He was not only blessing the children of Israel—He was also judging the nations who lived in the land.
So the people had a clearly defined task, and God offered a reward to them if they would faithfully complete their task.
3. Israel’s reward
The reward that God promised them was an abundant life in the land of Canaan. He promised to bless them in every facet of life if they would be faithful to their task. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 28, and let’s see the blessings that were promised to the people [READ 28:1-14]. What an incredible set of blessings that the Israelites had offered to them! Every general area of life was covered in that set of verses, and God said He would bless them in every area.
But remember—the people would only receive these blessings if they were faithful to obey God. These blessings were generous, certainly, but they were not a gift—they were a reward, and the next section states that the people would miss out on this reward if they failed to obey God. In fact, they would receive just the opposite of all the blessings that were just mentioned—their land would be unproductive, their health would be poor, and their enemies would subdue them.
But again, its important to note that their redemption was secure. God would not and did not sever the relationship with them that He established through their redemption. All throughout the prophetic books, as the prophets were scolding the people for their rebellion against God, they kept talking about a day when God would renew their hearts to follow Him so that He could give them their reward. But the generations who were unfaithful to God failed to receive the reward, and that is still true of Israel to this day, which is a sobering and humbling thought.
But this example from the Old Testament sets a precedence of sorts, because it turns out to be the same way that God deals with us.
4. Our redemption
We see in the New Testament that God’s gift to us is also described in terms of redemption, but our redemption of course is in a spiritual sense. In our redemption, God delivers us from the debt of our sins. Ephesians 1:7 states, “In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.” Colossians 1:13-14 speaks of our rescue in very dramatic terms when it says, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Like Israel in the Old Testament, all that God requires from us to receive this gift of redemption is a response of faith in Him to deliver us from the bondage and danger that our sins have put us in. His gift is nothing that we have to earn, its nothing that we have to prove ourselves worthy of—it is truly a gift that He has given us in His love.
But now that God has redeemed us and adopted us into His family, He has given us a task to carry out with a reward that is promised for faithfulness.
5. Our task
Our task can also be summed up in two parts. First, we are called to live before God and worship Him according to the law of liberty. James 2:12 tells us to speak and to act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. This refers to all of the commands that we read in the New Testament for the church age that we live in today.
We are no longer required to live under the Law of Moses today because it fulfilled its purpose with the coming of Jesus. The Law of Moses was meant to teach people about sin and the need for a sacrifice to atone for sin, and as Jesus said in Matthew 5, He came to fulfill the Law and He offered Himself as the true sacrifice for sin once and for all.
So we no longer live under the Old Testament laws today even though we can still learn some valuable things from them. Rather, we are to live under the commands of the New Testament, and some of those commands comprise the second part of our task, which is to serve as representatives of Jesus to make disciples throughout the world. The final command that Jesus gave before He returned to heaven was for us to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19). 2 Corinthians 5 says that now that we have been reconciled to God, He has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation, making us ambassadors for Christ. We are now on a spiritual peacemaking mission to present God’s terms of peace to the rest of the world.
If we will be faithful to represent Jesus well today, then He will allow us to represent Him as an official in His government during His earthly kingdom. That is the reward that is held out to us—the privilege of reigning with Jesus in His kingdom on Earth.
6. Our reward
Jesus has returned to heaven for the time being, but one day He will return to establish a kingdom in this world, and He will reward us if we have been faithful to our task. This truth is expressed very clearly in a parable that Jesus tells in Luke 19. In this chapter, Jesus used the backdrop of a current event to teach us a lesson about His return and His kingdom [READ Luke 19:11-27].
In that parable, Jesus used an event from the people’s recent past to teach them a lesson about their present and their future. Likewise, we can learn from the distant past some lessons for our present and our future. Just as God redeemed Israel by His grace, gave them a task, and offered them a reward, He has done the same for us. His gift of redemption was a free gift to us from His grace and mercy, and now, with the foundation of that gift firmly in place, He offers us a reward for the way that we build on that foundation. The hope of a reward for faithfulness should be a powerful motivation for us to be faithful to Christ today, no matter what comes our way. There is a reason to endure suffering for Christ’s name; there is a reason to press forward when we feel like giving up. The finish line is just ahead, and there is a prize to be had if we will follow the Judge’s rules. Let us never give up in the race!
No comments:
Post a Comment