Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also. Romans 3:29
During Bible times, many of the Jews looked down on the Gentiles for their lack of appreciation of the one true God. But during the centuries since, many Gentiles have looked down on the Jews for their rejection of their Messiah. Some on both sides of this issue claim to have a priority on God’s relationship with them. Do either side have a right to such a claim? It turns out that they both do, and neither does.
There are several ways in which the Jews have a claim on God’s relationship with them. First, the Jews can claim to be God’s chosen earthly people. Deuteronomy 14:2 tells us ‘the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth’. Secondly, the Jews were the recipients of the Old Testament Scriptures. Romans 3:2 tells us ‘chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God’. Thirdly, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, came first to the Jews. Romans 9:5 tells us regarding the Jews ‘of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came’. Fourthly, salvation is from the Jews. The Lord Jesus Himself told the Samaritan woman at Sychar’s well, ‘Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews’ (John 4:22). Fifthly, Paul, when he began preaching in a place, started first among the Jews there. Such as in Antioch in Pisidia: ‘Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles’ Acts 13:46. Sixthly, the Jews have the priority in the final judgment and blessing, as Paul declared in Romans 2:9-10: ‘Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile’. That is a great amount of priority for the Jews. In what ways do they not have priority?
For one thing, the Jews have no priority in righteousness or merit. See Romans 3:9-10: ‘What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one’. Neither do the Jews have priority in how they are saved, as Romans 10:12 declares: ‘ For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him’. Nor are the Jews given priority over the Gentiles in covenant blessings: ‘That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us’ Ephesians 2:12-14.
It is very humbling to the Jew to acknowledge that with all of his priorities, he is on the same footing as the lowly Gentile. It is very humbling to the Gentile to know that he is nothing behind the privileged Jew in God’s eyes. The grace of God is the great equalizer. -Jim MacIntosh