37: Israel a Missionary People
The Present Truth : January 14, 1897
When God sent Moses to lead Israel from Egypt, His message to Pharaoh was, “Israel is My son, even My firstborn; and I say unto thee, Let My son go, that he may serve Me” (Exodus 4.22, 23); and He brought them forth, and gave them the lands of the heathen, “that they might observe His statutes and keep His laws.” Psalm 105.44, 45. The great advantage of the Jews over other people was that “unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Romans 3.1, 2. To be sure they did not receive those “lively oracles” in all their living power, and thus make their advantage infinitely greater; but that was not the fault of God, and we are not now considering what Israel actually had and were, but what they might have possessed, and what they ought to have been.
Two things have always been true namely, that “no man liveth unto himself,” and that “God is no respecter of persons;” and these two truths combined form a third, which is, that whenever God bestows any gift or advantage upon any person, it is in order that he may use it for the benefit of others. God does not bestow blessings upon one person or people that He does not wish all to have. When He promised a blessing to Abraham, it was in order that he might be a blessing—that in him all the people of the earth might be blessed. It was in the line of the promise to Abraham that God delivered Israel. Therefore, in giving them the advantage of possessing His law, it was that they might make known to other people that inestimable advantage, so that the other people also might share it.
God’s purpose was that His name should be made known in all the earth. Exodus 9.15. His desire that all people should know Him was as great as that the children of Israel should know Him. To know the only true God, is life eternal (John 17.3); therefore in revealing Himself to Israel, God was showing them the way of Eternal life, or the Gospel, in order that they might proclaim the same Gospel to others. The reason why God made Himself known to Israel in so marked a manner, was that they were, so to speak, nearer at hand than other people. The memory of God’s dealing with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and of their faith, was preserved among the Jews, thus making them more accessible. God chose them, not because He loved them more than He did others, but because He loved all men, and would make Himself known to them by means of the agents that were nearest at hand. The idea that God ever was exclusive, and that He ever confined His mercies and truth to one special people, is most dishonoring to His character. Never did He leave the heathen without witness of Himself, and wherever He could find a man or people that would consent to be used, them He straightway enlisted in His service, to make a more full revelation of Himself.