QUESTION RECEIVED: (From a American teenage young lady)
Does God love the people of Israel more
than he loves the rest of the rest of the world? Can Jews have eternal life
without even believing in Jesus? It says a lot of things about God's love for
Israel but it only says once about how God loves The world.
MY ANSWER:
Does God have a special love for Israel? Yes.
God’s gracious love is greater than any human can fully comprehend.
There are two great reasons God chose Israel.
And Jews and Gentiles both benefit in His love because he
came to the Jews.
The first reason is to display His glory by choosing a small
non-descript people to be his people.
Deuteronomy 7:6–8 English Standard
Version (ESV)
“6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord
your God has chosen you to be pa people for his treasured possession, out of
all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were
more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and
chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but qit is because the
Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the
Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of
slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
A second reason I can tell you of God’s great love for
Israel is that Jesus Christ, the Son of God , the salvation of the world, was
born into the Hebrew family and lineage.
Since before the birth of Jesus and after, Satan has railed against
God’s chosen people to keep the prophesies of the Messiah from happening.
Jesus knew this as He tells of his Jewish heritage and his
mission in His word.
Luke 24:44 (ESV)
“44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke
to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law
of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
The Old Testament confirms the Messiah Jesus coming into His
day.
Micah 5:2 (ESV)
“2 But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah who are too little to be
among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in
Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
As the wise men at his birth told, and the sign on the cross
proclaimed, Jesus Christ came to be the King of the Jews.
Matthew 15:24 (ESV)
“24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel.”
Jesus Christ came to establish His church.
He came to the Jews.
Jesus though spoke of and reached out some to the gentiles.
He commissioned Paul and some other Apostles to start the
gathering of the gentiles into the church.
All people who are saved, whether Jew or Gentile, are saved
by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.
He paid the sin debt to God.
The saved receive the riches of Christ by forgiveness of
sin, they miss the wrath of God, and the eternal punishment for sin in hell and
they are declared righteous in the eyes of God and they receive citizenship in
heaven.
Romans 10:12 (ESV)
“12 For there is no
distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all,
bestowing his riches on all who call on him.”
John 10:14-18 (ESV)
“14 I am the good
shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my
life for the sheep. 16 And I have other
sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will
listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 For this
reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up
again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have
authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge
I have received from my Father.”
The Father has saved and made a one “New Man” or church out
of the formerly identified Jewish and Gentile coverts to Christ.
Ephesians 2:14-16 (ESV)
“14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one
and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by
abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man
in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God
in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”
God’s love for His whole creation is shared throughout the Bible.
Even if you say God said He loves the world once that is
enough.
God said He loves the world!
He does not and cannot lie.
John 3:16 (ESV)
“16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave
his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but
have eternal life.”
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