God, in His divine pleasure, has bestowed upon all who believe the right to be called His children. Our identity, our seal, lies first and foremost in our innermost being, in our hearts, for “no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.” (Romans 2:28-29) We have been given a title above any other, that we may be called a people set apart for God.
God, in various times and in various ways, has spoken to our fathers by the prophets. (Hebrews 1:1) Not our fathers by first right physical, but by first right spiritual. Through these people, the Jews, a nation was set aside, a nation holy before God, a nation “entrusted with the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:2) To entrust one with something bears a close correlation to the idea of faith, as does the Greek word. The Jews were given the very words of God, and were called to be faithful therein. However, the question arises, if God has set aside a people to be his own, and some have acted unfaithfully to that calling, has God failed in His intentions? It is for this reason that Paul speaks, “What if some were unfaithful?” (Romans 3:3) What God has ordained to be accomplished, He will accomplish, thus being faithful to His own word. Paul affirms this immediately as he glorifies the holiness of God’s truthfulness, “Let God be true though every one were a liar,” and then defends the holiness of God’s truthfulness, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3:4)
We listen to David as he speaks in the Psalms:
“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” - Psalms 51:3-6
God is wholly (and holy) other; He is truth when all else fails. He is the God over the entire universe. He is the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Furthermore, where an action most rightly is (and my rightly, I mean righteously) exhibited, therein will God’s character be. Therefore, as truth brings about the most righteous form of judgment, there becomes a necessity, a necessity, for God to judge. It is intrinsic to His office, even His very nature, for Him to judge, for God delights in the truth. Where there is truth, there is no hypocrisy, as David writes of God, “you delight in truth in the inward being.” We see then Paul’s main grief, which is found in those who “changed the truth of God into a lie.” (Romans 1:25) The Jews had taken the oracles of God, the law and the prophets, and through their hardness of heart, had rejected the truth found within, namely, “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17) Even if God willed not to judge, He must judge, that He may be justified in His words, and remain blameless before all. Therefore, where truth avails, there is a standard, and it would go against the very standard of God to allow unfaithful Jews to go without judgment.
We see, therefore, the necessity for God to judge, but for God to remain faithful to His word, we also see hope, but to fully understand God’s faithfulness through this hope, we must first understand the remedy for unfaithfulness of the Jews. We listen to the prophet Isaiah:
“And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him—for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” - Isaiah 49:5-6
This is a radical statement, for along with those Israelites whom God had preserved, Isaiah is saying there is a necessity for nations to be saved beyond Israel! Paul makes an equally radical statement when he claims that a Jew is one inwardly, and that circumcision is a matter of the heart. When we look at Isaiah’s statement and Paul’s statement side-by-side, an amazing truth unfolds. Our true identity is not flesh and blood, but that to which the Spirit attests; to be called the children of God requires a radical excision of sin from our hearts, an excision that physical circumcision could never achieve. We read in the prophet Jeremiah:
For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.” – Jeremiah 4:3-4
Furthermore, it is in this inward circumcision where God truly delights, for as Paul writes, there is where our praise comes from God, and not of man. (Romans 2:29) Therefore, as God had promised Abraham a nation, and the nation promised had acted unfaithfully, God remains true to His promise by including those beyond the physical line of Abraham into the covenant family, that God my be justified in the truth of His promise…that He may remain blameless…that God may delight.
Yet God’s love for the nation of Israel never changed, though they rejected Him. We hear Christ cry out as He looked over Jerusalem:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” – Matthew 23:37
But in the faithfulness of God, and through His righteousness, there remains a hope.
“In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God. For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction is decreed, overflowing with righteousness. For the Lord God of hosts will make a full end, as decreed, in the midst of all the earth.” – Isaiah 10:20-23
They shall lean on truth, Christ, for the Lord God of hosts will make a full end, the Lord will do right…
“…but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:2-3)
