Israel, Spiritual Implications of God's Chosen

In a previous document I established why I believe the biological descendants of Jacob are no longer considered God's chosen people and no longer due preferential treatment. I then explored some of the political implications of this. What would happen to the United States' standing in world public opinion if we gave equal weight to the concerns of Palestinians as we do to those of Israeli citizens? (Granted, we don't treat nations equally anyway....)

At the close of that document I suggested that there were spiritual implicatons to this as well. In viewing these spiritual implications I will have to draw on concepts developed in other pages on this site, as well as on concepts I don't have time to fully develop and support in such a forum. It is my hope that these documents will stimulate thought and further study on your part. I base some of my logic on ideas that you may not accept, but if you will follow me through to the conclusion I believe you'll find compelling evidence in the satisfying nature of my destination.

First of all, I take as a given that God knows the future as well as we know the past, and maybe better. There are some who use this belief as evidence that God has already "chosen" the future and we are powerless to change it. In short, they deny the effectiveness of human choice. We all simply play out the parts God has already planned for us. Whether we are saved or damned depends not on our desire, choice, or effort, but on the choice God has already made. See my document on the doctrine of the sovereignty of God for more discussion on this issue.

Some theologians who favor the effectiveness of human choice have tried to answer this by suggesting that God does not know the future any better than we could given God's knowledge of human nature and of all the existing factors that will influence the future. I choose a different approach, however. I believe that God exists outside of time as we know it.

Let me use a physical metaphor to try to explain. We experience time both monodimensionally, monodirectionally, and at a fixed velocity. Imagine the difficulty of living in a one-dimensional physical world. It's a little easier if we imagine a two dimensional world. We three dimensional beings could appear in a two-dimensional world in a variety of shapes, and even in two places at the same time. We could even fold the two dimensional world over many times in our three dimensional universe. We could appear and disappear in this world at will.

What if time is multi-dimensional? God's presence in our past, present, and future would be no more unusual than our appearance in mutliple locations of a two-dimensional physical world. What does that say of the freedom of human choice? God's knowledge of choices we haven't made yet is no more significant than your knowledge of choices I hadn't made three years ago. For example: if you could see me as I write this it would be obvious to you that I have chosen not to shave for several days. Would your knowledge of that choice now have any bearing on my freedom to choose three days ago?

If God really does know the outcome of events ahead of time, then he* knew when he chose Abraham that the results prophesied in Daniel and Zechariah WOULD take place. That brings up a fascinating question. Why would he do something he knew in advance wouldn't have the desired effect?

*I use the male pronoun based on tradition; not on a belief that God's characteristics are more like one gender than another.

The answer to this question requires an understanding of the cause and nature of evil in the universe. My approach is rooted in a belief that God granted freedom of choice to the creatures he made. As I have discussed earlier we either let God give freedom of choice to someone, or we make him the author of evil. If someone else, having been given freedom of choice by God, decided to bring evil into the universe, then that person, and not God, bears full responsibility.

Even then, we have to account for the spread of this evil. Why wouldn't God just destroy this person who originated evil as soon as it was clear there was no hope this being would repent? This suggests that more important issues were at stake. God's decision to honor the freedom of choice granted to created beings is the most reasonable explanation I have found. Imagine that the first being to have a thought contrary to the harmony of the universe were immediately and summarily executed. "Any color you want, as long as it's black," is the kind of freedom of choice that would develop.

So how does God handle dissent that leads to discord without immediately removing the freedom of choice that made that dissent possible? Suppose he decides to let this being, and some others who chose to follow its thinking, attempt to live out their alternate lifestyle. Once the destructive, pain-generating results of the lifestyle are clear, all beings in the universe can choose freely without danger of repeating the rebellion.

In carrying this rebellion to our planet, this creature put God on trial. Some suggest this creature involved our planet hoping that God would devise a plan to save the rebels. When he did, maybe this creature could also find salvation. Once it became clear that God WOULD attempt to save the residents of the planet, but would NOT save the original rebel, the conflict became more severe. Now this rebel questions every case where God applies salvation. Indeed, the Hebrew name by which we know him, Satan, means accuser.

With this creature and the whole universe watching, God had to demonstrate that he had done everything possible to save humans and that everything he did was consistent with his refusal to save the original rebel. And because of the nature of the accusations that would be made and the questions that would be raised in the minds of other creatures granted free choice, God had to demonstrate why his plan for salvation would not include those things that "common sense" would indicate ought to work.

The one thing that ought to work is to reward those who chose God's way and to punish those who chose rebellion. So about 500 years after the flood God selected a man whose descendants would become a chosen nation. This nation would be given clear choices: follow a comprehesive list of rules and prosper, or forget God and and suffer defeat, povery, and disease.

Did this two-pronged reward and punishment approach work? No, it did not, and some 400 years before God abandoned the project he predicted that it would fail (see the previous document on Israel). So now we should read the Old Testament in the light of this "experiment." Indeed, when Jesus came to earth he proclaimed that God was not as partial as the Jews had come to expect. "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matthew 5:43)

Even one Old Testament prophet predicted that God would abandon the covenant (agreement or contract) of blessings and curses, for it was based on human performance. Instead, he would make a covenant based on his own performance (see Jeremiah 31:31-34). When the Old Testament makes reference to a God of wrath, it must be seen in the light of the surety of punishment needed for this system to work.

I guess the clearest spiritual implication, then, is that salvation is NOT based on human performance. Paul, writing to the believers at Phillipi, assured them that, "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phillipians 1:6) Based on this understanding religion has no business serving as one of society's tools for assuring compliant behavior. But that's another topic to be dealt with in another paper.

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