Relations Between Jew and Gentile
” Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh.” — Jonah i. 1.
‘^ They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have pi’ovoked me to anger loith their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy v:ith those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.”
—Deut. xxxii. 21.
THE whole subject of the relation between Jew and Gentile,, in reference to God’s historical development of the scheme of redemption — a subject to which the main purport of the book of Jonah inevitably draws attention — is a very singular one, affording striking and unmistakable illustration of the principles on which the God of grace deals with His disobedient subjects, the children of men. And what is of great value, it illustrates the action of these principles upon a large scale. Reference may be made at present to one of these principles. I allude to the manner in which — when dealing with the Jews to convince them of their ingratitude, to bring them to reason, to recall them ta loyalty and duty, and to put them if possible once more upon their honour — the Lord condescends, in the failure of His many methods through their continued perverseness, to have recourse, as a last alternative, to the plan of casting up to them His corresponding or contrasted relations with the heathen, and thus reaching their sensibilities and awakening something like keen feeling at last, if they were not indeed utterly heartless and finally hardened. The Lord at a very early period intimated that He would freely betake Himself to this method of rebuking and rousing them, and that He would wield it unsparingly. It is of course a dangerous weapon in controversy of man with man. We look, however, for seeing it wielded by God in infinite honour, generousness, and wisdom.
When Moses had brought the Children of Israel, after their long wanderings, to the borders of the promised land, and was about to go up to Mount Nebo and die there, he uttered a prophetic song in the ears of all the elders and the congregation of Israel, sketching the principles of Jehovah’s righteous and gracious treatment of them, and their perverse and provoking dealings with Him. In that song, Moses, speaking in the name of God, or let us say, God speaking by the mouth of Moses, announces his determination — as one perplexed with a rebellious people, wearied with their iniquities, at a loss as it were to find any effectual method of touching their hearts or breaking in upon their torpor — His determination to fall back, as a last resort, on the law or plan of a holy retaliation; to piqne their vain pride by remindino” them how much less He had done for the heathen than for them, and showing them how much more the heathen would have done in the way of grateful return than they. The language in which He made this intimation is very emphatic: “They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation” (Deut. xxxii. 21). They had insulted the true God, by preferring idols to Him. The terms of His covenant with them were: “I will be a God to you; ye shall be to Me a people.” The Gentiles were not a people. The idols were not God. They have moved Me to jealousy by that which is not God; I will move them to jealousy with those which were not a people. The idols, which were not God, they have preferred to Me. The Gentiles, which were not a people, I in like manner will prefer to them. With their vanities, their idols, which are sheer emptinesses, — for “we know,” says Paul, “that an idol is nothing in the world” — with their vanities have they provoked Me to anger, saith the Lord. I will paint their black ingratitude in contrast with the ready obedience of a people little befriended by Me compared with them. I will awaken, pique, rebuke, and confound them, by exhibiting infinitely more fruit, and cherished with infinitely more gratitude, by a people whom I had long and righteously cast off, and whom they had long unrighteously and self-righteously contemned.
It is to this principle or method of — what we desire reverently to call — playing off the Gentiles against the Jews, that Paul alludes in the 10th chapter to the Romans, when, quoting the first intimation of it from the song of Moses, and the commentary and confirmation of it by a later prophet, lie says, “But I say, Did not Israel know?” Had they not received most distinct information that God would send His word to the Gentiles? Though it had been nothing else, were they not assured of it in connection with their own disobedience, as an act of the holy reprisals that God would take upon them?
Let us mark the drift of the Apostle’s argument. At the 12th verse we have the general statement of the suitableness and applicability of the free and glorious gospel to Jews and Gentiles equally and alike: “For there is no difference between the Jew and Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” From this he infers the propriety and necessity of the message of Heaven’s glad news and great salvation being sent forth over all the earth: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? As it is written. How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! “Then, referring to the rejection of the gospel by the unbelieving Jews, he says,” But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. For Isaiah saith. Lord, who hath believed our report? “— a proof that faith Cometh by hearing a” report,” and that report resting on the credit of God’s “word” — “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Referring now, on the other hand, to the reception of the gospel by the Gentiles, he says: “But I say. Have they not heard? “Is not the” word “by which” faith cometh gone out through the Gentile world? “Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the ivorld!’ And why should Israel take offence at this? Specially, why should they profess to take offence at this as an unexpected, unprepared-for, unannounced novelty? Why were they not prepared for it? How could they have kept themselves in ignorance of it? Did they not get most distinct warning to expect and look out precisely for such a movement or evolution in God’s dealings? They can plead no ignorance — save the ignorance of blinded, blameworthy prejudice, that positively refuses to see. For “I say, Did not
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Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people; and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought Me not: I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me. But to Israel He saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands to a disobedient and a gainsaying people.”
I say, Did not Israel know? Did they not know, were they not told, yea, told from the beginning, that God would give His vineyard to others? “First Moses saith it.” At the very beginning of their history, by the mouth of their earliest legislator and prophet, it was a principle definitely announced. There was the first of it. First, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people. That was the first of it; but that was not the last of it, nor the least bold statement of it. It was not lost sight of — not suffered to be buried and lost sight of — with Moses. “Isaiah” took it up and handled it. He had no scruples in doing so. He took it up and handled it in a very unmistakable manner, in clear tones and steady voice; with a “bold” confidence in the righteousness of this plan to which the God of Israel had recourse — its righteousness, its necessity, its very necessity as bearing on Israel’s own good, if anything whatever might yet be the means of recalling them to reason and repentance. Isaiah had no doubt, no scruple, no bated breath in showing how holily and righteously the Lord, to awaken, if possible, Israel to jealousy, to sorrow, to shame, to duty, played ofi” against them the wretched Gentile nations, and His mercy towards them. “Isaiah is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought Me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after Me” (Rom. x. 12-21).
Painful, exquisitely trying and painful, as this would be felt to be on the part of any honourably sensitive Jewish mind, wdien recalled and re-awakened to do justice to his God, the Holy One of Israel; yet just in proportion to that painfulness would be the true and holy and tender and sensitive feelings of contrition, and of returning loyalty, and gratitude, and lowliness, which the right exercise of heart under it was fitted to produce. And sweet and profound and joyful would be the emotions with -which, in .such a case, a reconciliation to his holy and glorious King would be brought round and sealed. We are indeed assured by the Spirit
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of prophecy, casting forward its light upon that most blessed event that still awaits the Church — namely, the return and restoration to her bosom of her first-born children, the house of Israel — that this very principle will be at work, nay, it shall be this very principle, pre-eminently, that shall be in operation, in bringing Israel to that better mind. It shall be this principle that shall secure their home-coming and salvation. Bitter and humbling, though in its very nature it may seem, it is nevertheless a principle of perfect rectitude in Jehovah’s hand; wielded, also, for the most gracious purposes and intents: and the bringing of it into pla)’- is to prove ultimately the very salvation of Israel from extinction, their salvation from final apostacy and sure perdition. Were it not, in fact, for the sure operation of this principle, when “the time to favour Zion shall come” (Ps. cii. 13) it would seem as if there remained none other of sufficient piercingpower and delicacy to reach the dormant heart of Israel. And but for it, they would seem to have stumbled to their utter destruction. “I say then. Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy” (Rom, si. 11). Then, stung at last into spiritual sensitiveness, with fresh, keen, quick feelings, capable of hearing and responding to sentiments of holy generosity, there will tell, with overwhelming force upon them, this argument: “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment against you, and condemn you” if ye repent not: “because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here” (Mat. xii. 41),
Yes, the day is coming when the love of God to the Gentiles will tell with exquisite keenness on the Jewish heart, and kindle there a contrite longing for restoration to that favour which they had compelled Him to transfer to others. When “the fulness of the Gentiles” shall come in, “the blindness” that “hath happened to Israel,” we are told, shall terminate. Simultaneously, the fulness of the Gentiles arrives, and the veil that is on the heart of Israel is removed. A Gentile church, complete in Christ, the very fulness of Him that filleth all in all, rivets the gaze of keen-eyed, sensitive Israel. And instantly Israel is jealous. What I the ofi-cast heathen! iliese the children of her that was called desolate? these a people that were not a people? Have they Relations betzveen Jezv and Gentile.
entered into our inheritance? And are they thus blessed and thus complete — complete in the Christ, in our Messiah? And is this the “riches” of grace and favour with the Father we have so long forsaken? And has it been thus given to aliens and outcasts, while we, the children of the prophets and of the covenant, have had the alien’s and the wanderer’s wasting doom? Alas for our provocations! Alas for our idols that were no gods, our vanities that could not profit! Thou art righteous, O Holy-One of Israel. We provoked Thee by what was not God; Thou hast provoked us by those that were not a people. But was it, O God, Thy gracious design to open our eyes to see our sin and loss? Was this Thy scope and purpose in “provoking” us? Was it with this gracious end in view? Was Thy jealousy holy and gracious both? Was it that Thou wouldst not give Thy glory to another; and also that Thou wouldst have us to be partakers of Thy grace? And shall not this be the very spirit of our jealousy now; even that we will not resign our glory to others, our covenant with Thee, our claim upon Thy love for our fathers and for us in them? “Doubtless, Thou art our Father.” “Behold, we come unto Thee, for Thou art the Lord our God.” We cannot any more endure to see our place in Thy love occupied by others, while we wander in cold and dark estrangement. O God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob! the children of Thy friend come unto Thee. Be not a Father to strangers while they go fatherless and all unfriended.
But will Israel, therefore, be hard to reconcile to the continuance of the Gentiles in the love of God? Kather, will they not, in the very spirit in which they come themselves to God in Christ, be swift to learn that “they who be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham,” that “they that are Christ’s are Abraham’s seed,” and that the “light” as it “lightens the Gentiles” is for that reason all the greater “glory to His people Israel?”
And will the Gentiles fare the worse for the return of Israel? It would darken the whole procedure of God as between Jew and Gentile if they did. God indeed had employed these Gentiles as a means of awakening the Jews to jealousy — a delicate procedure; the like of which in man’s hand is almost certain to break down in unhandsomeness, craftiness, deceit. But with God it is used in infinite holiness and honour and love. He does not make
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a tool of the Gentile Church, when He brmgs her blessed fulness to bear on Israel to make the earlier people jealous. He does not feign a deeper love to the Gentiles than He feels. He does not tamper with their affections, and play them off in heartless game upon their predecessors in His covenant and love. How needless, it may seem, to vindicate thus the honour of Jehovah, Israel’s God! But we may perhaps see here some reason for the beautiful truth that the return of the Jews shall be a time of great enlargement to the Gentiles. The Lord will deal with the Gentiles in such richer and larger favour as shall prove that He had not sought their love for a purpose, and having gained it, is done with them or indifferent to them now. He owns it, as one subsidiary end of His enriching them with blessing, that He thereby sought to pique the Jews to jealousy. But, even as it is said, “He is not ashamed to be called our God, because He hath prepared for us a city” — implying that He would be ashamed to stand in that relation to us without following out faithfully all that it could be held to import — so would He be ashamed to take the Gentiles into covenant and become their God, merely or chiefly to compass some secondary end. Nay, His love to the Gentiles and His blessing on them shall overflow the more abundantly because it has been successful in bringing Israel again to His covenant and His love. So that “if the fall of Israel be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness? If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” The Gentiles shall fare the better, and flourish into larger prosperity when Israel is provoked to jealousy. The handsomeness and honour of Jehovah’s procedure are implicated in His seeing that shall be so.
We have dwelt at some length on these considerations, because we recognise in the book of Jonah an instance of this relation between God’s dealings with Israel and His dealings with the Gentile world. Besides His direct purpose of righteousness and mercy towards Nineveh, God had undoubtedly a design to rebuke Israel and provoke them to jealousy by sending His prophet to the capital of heathendom. He was giving them a preliminary warning of what their continued ingratitude would render inevitable — the removal of the vineyard from them, and the giving of
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it to a people who would bring forth the fruit thereof. He was giving a specimen of His threatening, -’Ye have provoked me with that which is not God, and I will provoke you with them that are not a people;” a threatening, uttered in the youth of their sacred nation, fulfilled in the calling of the Gentiles at Pentecost, illustrated when Paul and Barnabas said to Jews at Antioch, “Seeing ye put the word of God from you, and count yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles,” and to be illustrated on the grandest scale, as overruled and transformed also in its action and issue into a gracious ‘proraise and a means of Israel’s conversion, when, successfully provoked to a holy jealousy, they return as a nation and are received and reconciled; and “What shall the receiving of them be to the Gentiles, but life from the dead?”
We can easily conceive that Rationalism, denying the historic truth of Scripture narrative, and explaining all by its devices of ‘myth, allegory, ideology, and so forth, should imagine it had found an admirable target for its profane wit in lighting on the book of Jonah. A man three days in a whale, and disgorged again! So utterly unhistorical, besides! And such waste of miracle, too, on what, even though true, has no bearing on real history at all! Thus the poor hit takes; and the well-trimmed shaft is shot oflf with a laugh. But does it really hit? Nay, the arrow shivers ere it reaches the mark; and Rationalism is never so weak as when it fancies itself strong. Viewed in the light in which other scriptures enable us to view it, Jonah’s mission to Nineveh assumes an importance which, regarded as an isolated and merely romantic incident in sacred history, would by no means belong to it. It becomes one of the grandest events in the history of redemption, from the exodus of Israel to the advent of Messiah and the calling of the Gentiles; while we see in it, moreover, exactly midway in the history of the ten tribes as a separate kingdom, the bringing into play of a principle in God’s administration, announced in the earliest days of Israel’s national existence, commented on afterwards by her greatest Prophets, illustrated in the earliest labours of Apostles, and yet again to be drawn upon and wielded, on a scale the most splendid and with issues the most glorious, in those “last days” when “the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be exalted in the top of the mountains, and ALL NATIONS shall flow unto it” (Isaiah ii. 2).