Mag. Claudia R. Wintoch
Old Testament Theology
Tom Trout
World Revival School of Ministry
Content
1. Introduction
2. Pre-Abraham
3. Abraham
4. Moses
5. Post-Moses
5.1. Rahab
5.2. Ruth
5.3. Ninevites
6. Conclusion
7. Bibliography
1. Introduction
Wide sectors of the church today
reject much of the Old Testament as not being relevant for today, and certainly
not for the Gentile church. They claim that the Old Testament was a different
dispensation where God acted differently and where He was only concerned with
the people of Israel, while Jesus brought in a new dispensation where the
church replaces Israel and takes its role. However, there are no biblical
grounds whatsoever for such a position and biblical interpretation. Yes, we
follow the people of Israel through history in the Old Testament, however,
again and again it becomes clear that God is not only concerned with that one
chosen people, but all of His creation. As 2.Peter 3:9b states, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone
to perish, but everyone
to come to repentance. (emphasis mine). God longs for all of His creation
to turn to Him, be saved and know their Creator intimately, to advance His
kingdom on this earth and spend all of eternity with Him. God does not choose
one, and rejects another. Every human being has a free will to either choose or
reject Him, and that has always been the case, from the very first humans in
the garden of Eden to the end of the age. The purpose of this paper is to show
that throughout the Old Testament God's invitation to Gentiles was always
present, with some responding and many rejecting it.
2. Pre-Abraham
God created Adam and Eve and
commanded them to multiply and fill the earth. They were His creation, His
masterpiece, in perfect union with their Creator. God's intention was for the
earth to be full of men and women in communion with Him, loving and serving Him
with all their hearts. That desire did not change when they fell and were
expelled from the garden of Eden. Cain and Abel both offered sacrifices to the
living God, and Abel was accepted while Cain was rejected. Even then, God's
desire was for all to know Him, and He communicated with His creation.
Time passed, and wickedness started
filling the earth. People did not care about their Creator, except one: Noah.
Noah walked with God and was blameless before Him (Gen 6:9). God told Noah to
build an ark to save himself, his family and animals of all kinds, while he
would blot out the rest of humanity. Yet, Noah did not just fulfill that task.
In 2.Peter 2:5 we read that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. God did care
about His creation and wanted to save as many as possible. Yet, although Noah
preached for many years, no one would listen as their hearts had been hardened
too much by their wickedness. After the flood, God makes a covenant with Noah
and his sons – the rainbow being its sign for all generations. All humanity on
the whole earth can see that sign of the covenant to this day. That covenant
included all of creation, no one is excluded. It was made long before a Jewish
nation existed, and even Jews acknowledge that people can be saved by the
Noahic covenant. Cohen (1949:65f) states:
“To the Gentiles who were not prepared to enter the fold of Judaism, a moral code, known as the seven commandments of the sons of Noah, was offered. … By righteous conduct, based upon these fundamental laws, they would earn the divine approval … That the righteous of all peoples will inherit the bliss of the Hereafter is the accepted doctrine of Rabbinic Judaism”
3. Abraham
One of the most significant passages
on the salvation for all Gentiles is found at the calling of Abraham. Abraham
is seen as the first patriarch by the main monotheistic religions, Jews,
Muslims and Christians. God started the nation of Israel with the family of
Abraham. Yet, the promise Abraham received went far beyond just one people from
his grandson Jacob/Israel. God said to him, all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Gen 12:4b) (emphasis
mine). All peoples on all the earth – 70 nations at the time – would be
beneficiaries of the promise. That does not exclude anyone. Every person of
every time has access to the promise of Abraham and can appropriate it for
himself.
We see that practically displayed in
the chapters following the promise in Genesis 12. In chapter 14 Abraham
encounters Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who is a Canaanite and is remarkably
called a priest of God Most High (Gen
14:18). Melchizedek blesses Abraham, who then gives him a tenth of all his
possessions. Surely we would not debate that Melchizedek was a true servant of
God, included in His kingdom, even more so as he is frequently quoted in the
New Testament as a type of Christ.
In chapter 18 we see God's heart for
the wicked Gentiles in Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot had moved into the city of Sodom
where he tried to be a good ambassador for the Lord Most High, sitting in the
citygate where the town council members would meet. 2.Peter 2:7 states that he
was a righteous man, who was distressed
by the filthy lives of lawless men. If God wasn’t concerned with the
Gentiles why should the great and grievous sins of those cities (Gen 18:20) be
of any concern to Him? Yet He decided to take action. Abraham intervenes and we
read about God's great mercy and love for the people as He is willing to spare
them even for 10 righteous men. However, they could not be found and God has to
proceed with judgment on His beloved creation.
In chapter 20, Abraham moves to
Gerar and king Abimelech takes his supposed sister Sarah to be his wife. God
could simply have judged Abimelech, but He chooses to warn the king in a dream.
Remarkably, Abimelech calls Him “Lord” and has a dialogue with Him. Abimelech
submits to the Lord and is saved. A whole nation was spared because one Gentile
king acknowledged the Most High God.
4. Moses
We are all very familiar with the
account of the Exodus and see it as the great deliverance of Israel out of the
wicked nation of Egypt. Millions of Israelites marched into the wilderness
after the Pharaoh finally let them go. We think that all the plagues were meant
to punish the Egpytians as a judgment against their oppression of the Hebrews,
and that God enjoyed taking vengeance on them. After all, they were the most
occult nation on the earth. However, every single plague countered and defeated
one of the Egyptian gods. The purpose was therefore to display the power and
supremacy of the Almight God Yahweh. However, that in itself must have a
purpose. We read in Exodus 9:14, 16 what the Lord is saying to Pharaoh: I will send the full force of my plagues
against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that
there is no one like me in all the earth … I have raised you up for this
very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might
be proclaimed in all the earth (emphasis mine). God's purpose was to
not only save His people Israel, but to show Himself to Pharaoh, the most
powerful nation on earth. Pharaoh had a chance to turn to Almighty God, be
saved, and display God's glory to all the earth – that’s what God had raised
him up for. Unfortunately Pharaoh’s heart was hardened and full of hatred for
the Hebrews he finally let go, so that his fate was not salvation and a
testimony of God's glory, but death and destruction.
Moses was not only saved out of a
Gentile nation, he married into one. He married Zipporah, daugher of Jethro,
who was the priest of Midian. After the exodus, Jethro brings Moses’ family to
him into the desert, and before he returns to his country, it is recorded that Jethro,
Moses' father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God, and
Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law
in the presence of God (Ex 18:12). What a picture of covenant! It might
very well be that it was the signs and wonders of God in Egypt that reached the
heart of Jethro who then turned to the living God. Jethro went home a new man,
part of God's kingdom on the earth.
5. Post-Moses
The hundreds of years following Moses are all filled with examples of Gentiles being included in the people of God, which should make it impossible to make a case for the salvation of Jews only in the Old Testament. The Law not only makes place for Gentiles, but many years later God speaks to Isaiah saying,
foreigners who bind
themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD , and to
worship him, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast
to my covenant-these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my
house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my
altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." The
Sovereign LORD declares-he who gathers the exiles of Israel: "I will
gather still others to them besides those already gathered." (Isaiah 56:6-8).
These are very clear words that
leave no room for interpretation. God's wants a house of prayer for all nations, gathering others to the
Israelites, besides those foreigners already gathered to them. He never stopped
gathering Gentiles, and He will never do.
Let’s consider some of the examples
of Gentiles that were included into Israel in the Old Testament:
Joshua leads the people of God
across the Jordan into the Promised Land. Thanks to one woman, a prostitute
named Rahab, the city of Jericho is taken. Rahab not only protects the Hebrew
spies from her own people, but she confesses the Lord with her mouth, saying, I know that the Lord has given this land to
you … the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below (Joshua
2:9, 11). Rahab was heroine. She joined the people of Israel, and the Lord honored her beyond what
she could have dreamed. Because of her confession and demonstrated love for
God, she was included in the genealogy of the very Messiah Himself (see Matthew
1:5).
The book of Ruth records the story
of Ruth and Naomi. Naomi was a Israelite whose husband and sons died in the
foreign land of Moab. Both her sons had married Moabite women, and while one of
their wives stayed in Moab, the other – Ruth – followed Naomi back to the land
of Judah. Not only that, but following Hebrew customs, she married the kinsman
redeemer Boaz (whose mother was Rahab) and was not given a whole book in the
Bible, but became the ancestor of Christ (see Matthew 1:5).
The whole book of Jonah is dedicated
to the salvation of a Gentile city – the people of Nineveh. God is not only
concerned with His people Israel, but He decides to act because of the
wickedness of Nineveh. He does not simply destroy the city, but because of His
great mercy He decides to warn them and give them an opportunity to repent.
Jonah, His chosen mouthpiece, is well aware of God's character and refuses to
go to Israel’s enemies. God could have let Jonah go, executing the planned
judgment, saying, “I tried”, as many of us would have done. However, Jonah’s
life was even nearly lost, but God preserved him until he finally gave in and
obeyed. And against all odds, one of the most wicked people truly repented and
was spared for the time being. Jonah is a great testimony of God's love for all
people, and should be an encouragement to us Gentiles, that He reached us and
that we are to reach others, even the worst enemies of God.
6. Conclusion
We have seen that God has included
Gentiles in His kingdom in all generations, from the very beginning to this
day, and in the days to come, as John describes, 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 in front of the Lamb
(Revelation 7:9) (emphasis mine). Not only has He accepted and redeemed
prostitutes (Rahab) and other wicked people (e.g. Ninevites), but some of them
even became ancestors of the promised Messiah. If God rejected all Gentiles and
only desired His people Israel in the Old Testament, He would surely have kept
the genealogy of the Messiah “pure”. Yet, God's love and mercy are far beyond
our understanding, and He longs for all of His creation to come to an intimate
knowledge of Him and then advance His kingdom to the ends of the earth. Jesus
commanded His disciples to go and preach the gospel to all nations, even being
more specific before His ascension, when He says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). There is no restriction for
salvation, no condition, no border between Jew and Gentile, and contrary to
what many believe, there have never been any. His invitation today is the same
as has ever been: let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is
thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the
water of life (Revelation 22:17).
7. Bibliography
Cohen, Abraham, Everyman’s Talmud, Schocken Books: New York 1949
Kaiser, Walter C., The Christian and the “Old” Testament, William Carey Library: Pasadena, CA 1998
Power, John, History of Salvation. Introducing the Old Testament, Gill and MacMillan: Dublin 1967
VanGemeren, Willem, The Progress of Redemption, Academie Books: Grand Rapids, MI 1988
Westermann, Claus, Prophetic Oracles
of Salvation in the Old Testament, Westminster/John Knox Press: Louisville,
KY 1991