Why the Jews?

As a Christian, I've often wondered "why the Jews?" What made them so special that they were called God's chosen people? Are not all people chosen by and loved by God? What did they do to deserve this distinction?

It has only been recently that I have begun to recognize that they really didn't do anything to be called God's chosen people. God did the choosing...not them. God spoke to Abraham first. And God chose them for a very specific purpose. To illustrate this, I would like to share the words of Ralph Winter:

"We were created to glorify God and to worship and love Him forever. The first man and woman did this for an unspecified length of time. But, given the gift of a perfectly free will, they chose to know evil and thus caused a curse to fall on all creation.

From that point on, tremendous evil flooded humanity (murder, worship of stars and created things, etc.) to the point that God, looking at all He had made, was grieved and filled with pain (Gen 6:6). Noah, alone, was fulfilling his purpose and found favor with God. He became the forefather of the human race.  

After the flood, men again chose to worship themselves and created things which culminated in the building of the Tower of Babel. God intervened, once again, and scattered them, forming the different nations at this time. One man, Abraham, was singled out and called by God. 

Abraham obeyed and he was blessed by God in the covenant promises of Genesis 12:2-3. 

        "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; 

          I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

          I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; 

          and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

This intervention by God highlights His desire to draw men back to Himself. It is “the grace of God intervening in a ‘world which lies in the power of the Evil One’ (1 Jn 5:19), contesting an enemy who temporarily is ‘the god of this world’ (2 Cor 4:4) so that the nations will praise God’s name.” 

It is at this point that God has been showing me something...this covenant promise to Abraham was not just for him and his children but for every nation “and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:3). God was intervening and calling Abraham out from the rest of the nations, not just to bless Abraham and his descendants alone, but to extend His blessing, through Abraham and the Jewish nation, to all nations. 

God was never strictly for the Jews. Instead, following Genesis 12, God gradually and indirectly draws people from other nations to Himself through His miraculous interventions on Israel’s behalf and through His show of power to bring them the promises of the covenant (land, children, His presence). In the process, some people of other nations (Rahab, Ninevah, Egyptians, Ruth, ...) are drawn to Him as well.                                                                                                          

Throughout the rest of the Old Testament, God is seen countering Satan’s evil reign with His presence, blessings and intervention on behalf of Israel, for the nations. Israel is given the primary blessing but they are then expected to give that blessing to the nations around them. 

When Israel stopped sharing God with the nations around them but instead worshipped the gods of the nations around them, God caused them to be scattered in the diaspora. This scattering of the Hebrews resulted in their living in various nations, thus bringing to these nations the message of one, sovereign God, a message foreign to the polytheistic cultures around them.                    

This counter-attack to Satan’s kingdom on earth culminated in the birth of Jesus Christ. The arrival of God, in human flesh, his life among people, his atoning death and triumphant resurrection resulted in victory for God and for the human race. Jesus was the ultimate blessing to the nations. It is through belief in Him that all nations can be grafted into Abraham’s family tree and thus receive the free gift of salvation.                                                                        

As believers in Christ witnessed His return to Heaven, Jesus assured them of the blessing of His continued presence with them through the Holy Spirit, but He also charged them with a responsibility that went along with the blessing. Like the Hebrews, they were blessed to be a blessing to all nations. 

In the “Great Commission” they, and all Christians since them, are directed to go into all the world, past Jerusalem, Judea, Syria and even the Roman Empire and preach the good news of Jesus to everyone. And for each person that receives Christ as Savior, Satan loses a bit of ground.                                                                                                                    

Thus, God's singling out of the Jewish nation as His chosen people was not only for Abraham and his blood descendants, but for all of us and for the nations. The same holds true today for those nations, like America, Korea, England and others, who have been greatly blessed by God both in prosperity but more importantly, in Christian growth. 

We are blessed, not so that we can keep it to ourselves, enjoying our prosperity and blessings from God, but failing to bring those blessings to the nations of the earth.  No, we are blessed to be a blessing. We are to take the Gospel to the far corners of the world..to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 2:14). We have been grafted into God's chosen people, not because of anything we have done to earn this but because He has chosen us to be a blessing to others. May we not keep Jesus to ourselves but share Him with the world. 

In the words of famous Olympian and Christian missionary to China, Eric Liddel: "Christ for the world; for the world needs Christ."