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(The following excerpt is part of a forthcoming
book on the foundations of Messianic Theology by Sam Nadler.)
God’s Love Is Personal
God chose Israel by His sovereign love, and by this love He keeps
Israel. Likewise, He chooses you and keeps you by that same love as
well. It seems so simple: God loves you. But this is perhaps the most
profound reality of the Bible. The God of the universe is not
indifferent to who you are, but rather He infinitely wills your good. He
has a personal concern for you and each person in this world. This is
the whole significance of the Good News of the New Covenant and the only
explanation for the sacrificial death of Messiah Yeshua. God didn’t just
send some messenger boy to tell us of His love, but rather, He Himself
came in the flesh to demonstrate this love to us all (John 3:16; Romans
5:6-8).
To God, love is a personal matter. The Hebrew word for “loved” is
ahav-- a deep desire which reflects God’s heart. Even as He
demonstrated that love personally, only personally can we respond
to Him
by trusting in Yeshua and receiving Him. This is also how He is shared with others. We personally share the Good News with
Jewish people because His love is a personal matter.
Does God still personally care about the welfare of the Jewish people?
Paul, quoting Isaiah, writes regarding Israel that God’s hands are
outstretched all day long to a rebellious and disobedient people (Romans
10:21). He continues to reach out and can’t “take the hint.” Where are
His hands today? They are your hands and my hands. As our hearts are
yielded to His heart, our hands reach out on His behalf.
Yeshua wept over Jerusalem because of the lost spiritual state of so
many of His people (Luke 19:41). He is still weeping. But if He weeps
and we are unconcerned, then it’s not the Jewish people with whom we are
out of touch. Rather, we are not walking closely with our God, for He
personally loves and cares for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
God’s Love Is Perpetual
When God loves, it is forever. For experience shows us that everybody
has a breaking point and gives up. The word “everlasting” in Hebrew is
olam (which also means “world”). Olam comes from the root for
secret or hidden. This word gives us a clue as to the unique way that
God loves. What we know in our everyday experience is one thing, but the
“eternal” by definition is hidden from our experience. In fact, most
things of God are beyond our natural experience.
That is why we have “a peace that surpasses comprehension” (Philippians
4:7). This love of God is beyond our understanding. I have two sons, and
would never give up one of them. But, “God so loved the world He gave
His only begotten Son” (John. 3:16). His love for us is based on His
character, and His character never changes.
Our hearts yearn for and need an eternal love. Eventually we all mess
up. Have others given up on you? Have you given up on others, or
yourself? God will never give up on you!
But how is God’s faithful and perpetual love seen today? Through you as
you continue to pray and reach out to the Jewish people (Romans 10:1).
In fact, God has two witnesses to His faithful love today. Paul proves
that God has not forsaken His people through the witness of Jewish
believers that have a present tense Jewish testimony (Romans 11:1-5). In
addition, Paul also shows God’s faithfulness through the witness of the
Gentile believers, for they are specifically called to make Israel
jealous by ministering His mercy to them (Romans 11:11-31). As His
perpetual love in Messiah constrains your heart (2 Corinthians 5:14),
you too will reveal His faithful love to Israel.
We must never give up on the Jewish people, because God will never give
up on us. His call upon Israel is as sure as His faithfulness to His
word. God’s faithfulness is at stake. Together we are a living
demonstration to the Jewish community of the eternal love of God that
will not give up.
God’s Love Is Powerful
The fact that God loves personally and perpetually is wonderful, but His
love also changes lives. This is because His love is powerful. God
continues to draw us to Himself with His lovingkindness, which is chesed in Hebrew.
Chesed is a word that speaks of a
relationship commitment to one another, a covenant love and kindness. It
is what one would expect to receive when in covenant with another.
Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought
your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. (David, 1 Samuel
20:8; see also Psalm 89:28, emphasis mine)
This helps to explain why Yeshua initially sent His disciples only to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 10:6), for they were the
inheritors of the Abrahamic covenant with God. Yeshua’s reticence in
ministering to non-Jews was because they were outside of the Abrahamic
Covenant (Matthew 15:26), since all redemptive covenants were made with
Israel (Romans 15:8). In Messiah’s atonement, non-Jews could accept
God’s gracious invitation and enter into covenant with God and receive
God’s chesed in Messiah (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:12).
Thus, through a covenant relationship, God is faithfully drawing us to
Himself, continuing His lovingkindness toward us, and never letting us
go. Why? Because His character is love He therefore has the constant
conduct of love (1 John 4:8). He loves us personally, perpetually, and
powerfully! |
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