STAND FIRM: The Epic Story of Truth (part 6)
So far, in this summarized retelling of the complete narrative in Scripture that includes the subjects that are often seen as fringe topics such as prophecy, God’s continued plan for Israel and the unseen world, we’ve looked at the major events in Genesis and their hints to their resolutions or parallels at the end of the age. We started with creation and the flood. These are events we know will be repeated and resolved.
The original creation that was cursed following Adam and Eve’s sin will be redeemed, and there will be a New Heaven and New Earth. Then, just as God sent His wrath on the world with the flood, He will do so again, but this second time, it will be fire.
The New Testament “bookends” to those two events are clear and commonly preached and taught, but the bookend resolution of the Genesis event I addressed in the last article isn’t preached or taught nearly as much.
In the last article, we looked at how Moses’ summarizing of the law and Israel’s early history he gave at the end of his life that’s recorded in Deuteronomy reveals more to the story of the Tower of Babel than we read in Genesis. Moses connects Genesis 11-12 in his retelling of Deut. 32:7-9.
He summarizes that, beyond dividing up mankind and giving different languages, God actually gave the nations away to other angels. Daniel refers to these as “prince” angels. In giving the nations away, humanity lost its inheritance from our Heavenly Father. God then created His own family to be heirs to His promises, which, among other things, include living in the New Heaven and New Earth.
It’s as if all mankind was the family of God, and God gave them the boot, but then He created a new family. This is the origin of the division between Jews and Gentiles. Though this sounds cruel (they had the horrendous tragedy of the flood to warn them), in God’s common M.O., He drops a hint that redemption could come to the Gentiles. He tells Abraham, the Father of this new nation and family, that the nations (those who had lost their inheritance) would be blessed through his descendants.
As time went on, there were Gentiles who joined God’s family. There were Egyptians who joined the Israelites as they left Egypt. Rahab recognized that the God of Israel was the true God, and she asked to be spared. Ruth decided to join as well. For 2,000 years, there was a stark difference between Gentiles and Jews. This difference would build until a moment in the city of Caesarea in Israel, likely 10 years after Jesus ascended to Heaven.
Until this point, the followers of Jesus had only been Jews. This inheritance of redemption, salvation and eternal life continued to only be with God’s family, Israel. Gentiles remained estranged and in the dark. Peter himself limited sharing the good news of Jesus to the Jews.
This world-changing moment is recorded in Acts 10-11. A Gentile, the Roman centurion Cornelius, had an angel come to him and tell him to send for the Apostle Peter, who was 39 miles away in Jaffa. At that same time, Peter was given a vision that seemed to give him permission to share the gospel with Gentiles. When the messenger arrived to fetch Peter, Peter went to Cornelius’s home with him. Peter went in with Cornelius and his family and shared the gospel. The Gentile family put their faith in Christ and received the Holy Spirit. Cornelius’ family would become the first of many Gentiles who would come to follow Jesus. Upon committing to follow Jesus, these Gentiles stepped into the family of God. They were now heirs of God’s promises. The punishment at the Tower of Babel was beginning to be reversed, and that reversal continues even today as more and more Gentiles come to follow Jesus.
Gentiles stepping into the family of God and His promises became a stumbling point for Jewish Christians. Most of the New Testament epistles address this issue. In the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul goes to great lengths to help the Galatian believers understand this reality. He wrote: “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:7-9 NIV).
Paul addresses the subject throughout Galatians, especially in chapter 3. In his letter to the Ephesians, he describes what is happening to the Gentiles as adoption. They were not in the family of God due to the disinheriting at Babel, but through Christ, they have been adopted into the family of God. I should better not say them, but rather, I should say us. In Romans, Paul describes what is taking place with the inclusion of Gentiles into the Lord’s portion as the grafting of trees. In Romans 11, he writes that the Gentiles have been grafted into Israel.
With each new people group reached with the gospel, the consequences of the Tower of Babel were being reversed. The full reversal of what happened in ancient times in Mesopotamia will come when the moment described in Revelation 7 occurs: “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9-10).
Once Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom, as we read in Revelation 19-20, we will get closer to that one family of God, but ultimately that will not come to full reversal until the events of Rev. 21-22.
Dive into the Epic Story yourself by reading Acts 10-11, Galatians 3 and Romans 11.
— Jake is a state missionary and would love to share about the work in Northwest Arkansas and encourage your church to stand firm. (standfirmministries.com)
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Jake McCandless
Jake McCandless authors a weekly column titled, Stand Firm and Live Epic, through which he seeks to encourage the modern church to not just survive, but thrive in current times. He also addresses many end-times topics.
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