“CHILD OF A KING” THE JEWISH PEOPLE have a way of expressing their sense of distinctiveness - they are Jews; all others are Gentiles, which just means non-Jewish. If you are not a Jew, then no matter what your nationality, you are a Gentile. The Greeks too understood their cultural and intellectual distinctiveness. They called themselves Greeks and all others were barbarians which simply meant non-Greek; it applied to all who did not speak Greek and had not come under the influence of Greek culture and learning. A barbarian may be quite civilized; but he was not Greek. This language grew out of the Greek consciousness of themselves as a distinctive people, separated culturally and intellectually from all others. Christians are likewise a distinctive people -- “an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people peculiarly belonging to God. . .the people of God” (I Peter 2:9, 10). They belong to a class chosen by God before the world was (Ephesians 1:3-5). They are saints -- the called saints (Romans 1:7; I Corinthians 1:2; where called is an adjective in Greek, not a verb), “the called ones belonging to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6; same construction). They were made saints by divine call (II Thessalonians 2:13,14). I believe it is important for Christians to have a sense of their distinctiveness - to understand that they are not like all other people of the world. No doubt such a sense can be abused and perverted, and so it was by the Jews, who often came to feel contempt for others in the consciousness of their own superiority, forgetting that they were a people of mission, chosen for a purpose. In fact, for the sake of others (Genesis 12: 1-3; 22:18; Isaiah 43:7, 10, 12, 21; Book of Jonah; Mark 2:16); judgment being something for the nations, from which they would certainly be exempt (Amos 6:18; Romans 2:1-3 and Amos 3:1,2 for how mistaken they were). But we can take warning from them and understand that what we are , we ate by divine grace and divine call, and therefore have no ground for any pride in ourselves. This understanding of who we are can have a positive influence, first in its demands upon our lives to walk worthily of our calling (Ephesians 4:1); to live “as becometh saints” (5:4); being “light in the Lord,” to “walk as children of light” (5:8). Listen to a king’s appeal to his son; “You are no peasant. You are the son of a king. So act like one.” Finally, we are a people of mission. In the world but not of the world, yet we have a mission to the world. We are saved to save others; blessed to be a blessing. And if we are a special people, we have a special responsibility, for what we have we must share, (Read especially I Peter 2:9 as compared with Isaiah 43:21 in its context from verse 1). And so the consciousness of who we are demands that we live with a spirit of urgency. We are not animals, simply to live till we die. We are a people of purpose and mission.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 00:31:18 +0000
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