Blessed is the Nation (Hint: not Israel or America) Whose God is the LORD
Patriotism and the fear of God become topical about this time of the year (Memorial Day leading to Independence Day). There seems to be a diminishing group of patriot folk every year in America. There also seems to be a diminishing group of God fearers, too. In the past, these two groups struggled with how much patriotism they should display. There is a third group beyond these two, and I was reminded of them when my electronic verse of the day showed up this morning, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance (Ps 33:12).”
When Psalm 33:12 is the verse of the day, you know there is some bad doctrine blowing along with “Old Glory” in the wind. The implied interpretation, by the verse of the day people, is that if America would turn back to God, we would be blessed. These Christian American patriots might better choose, “You are of your father the devil (Jn 8:44a),” for the verse of the day, on any given day in reprobate America.
Most Americans have a love/hate relationship with the United States. We fire up our patriot spirits a few times a year and hope the new batch of immigrants will not ruin America for us. Things change. It is no longer hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet; but rather, Asian fusion, something-de-leche, and Toyota. Those things are actually helpful additions to our culture. America embraces Little Tokyo, Little Saigon, the Mexican Village, and Greektown. My hometown is Michigan’s Little Bavaria, and there they celebrate German heritage quite a bit. America is still a melting pot, and the Menudo is not just for the weekends anymore. It is everywhere you want to be.
As a Christian, I want to maintain our American Christian heritage, too. Christianity was the key idea in the founding of our nation, and it made America a religious place. The opposition to Christian America was small in the past. Today, it has practically run Christianity to the border. Everyday there seems to be another new, anti-Christian law on the books. Anti-Christian really means anti-biblical, hence, Antichrist. This rubs Christians the wrong way, but our voice has been relegated and often muted by the liberal media.
When Christians fight back in the culture wars, we grasp for just about any advantage to win hearts and minds back to Jesus Christ. Manifest Destiny is the famous ideology employed in days gone by to persuade new immigrants to buy into the idea of American exclusivism. In this arrangement, God chose America to be a special Christian nation among the nations. Hence, you see Psalm 33:12 show up as the verse of the day. Obviously, some people still believe this idea.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,” is prophetic for Israel. Israel is the name given to God’s people, both Jew and Gentile. Even this is disputed by Zionist Christians. We must establish that now more than ever, Yahweh (the name hidden behind LORD) is not the private God of America. The fact is, we do not obey Him, and we are working diligently, year after year, to exclude Yahweh from everything we do. The Christians object, but then they are sued by the A.C.L.U. The death of Christian America, if this concept was ever true, is our trajectory.
History books have a way of morphing the story of history with each new edition, in each subsequent generation. It is not just the Egyptians and the Chinese who re-write history. We do, too. My hesitation on whether America was or was not a Christian nation is irrelevant. America should have never been identified in this way. Christian America is a distortion, and it confuses my Christian heritage.
The idea of Christian America was the seed bed of distorted theology in relationship to the Jewish people, especially after the reforming of the nation of ethnic Israel in 1948. Like a talisman, this tiny nation in the Middle East holds the blessing or curse for America, according to patriot Christians in America. Their eisegesis of current events, placed over top the book of Revelation, is lunacy. This practice of distorted theology, and especially eschatology, has influenced American foreign policy for several generations. Every current event holds some mystical key to unlocking the figures in Revelation.
Some event approaches. Books are sold. Prophecy conferences are sold out. Prepper companies return to fiscal vitality. Then, the event passes, and no one says to the end times fearmonger, “Hey, what about your false interpretation?” We just move on to the next “prophetic” event, whether it is four blood moons, a military movement by Russia or China, or even the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union. It is all fear and no faith.
There is only one nation under God, and it is not ethnic Israel, nor the false claimant, United States of America. It is not any geo-political nation in the world, nor will it ever be. One nation under God is the church of Jesus Christ, the Israel of God (Gal 6:16). Jesus Christ is the head of the church (Col 1:18). If He is the head, His people comprise the body of Christ (See Isaiah 49:1–13 for a picture of this). Together they are one and the same. Israel is the name and church is the title.
God has been saving a people for Himself since the fall from Eden (Gen 3:15). Salvation was part of His eternal decree in His predetermined plan (Acts 2:23; Eph 3:11). Genesis, the first book of the Bible, demonstrates a line of the righteous people and a line of the unrighteous people. There are some who love and obey God, and there are some who hate Him. The God haters despise the law of God, which demands exclusive worship of Yahweh, and forbids the making of carved images to aid in worship (Ex 20:1–6). Looking for carved images? I might recommend…Washington D.C.
God chose Abraham to be a representative of the covenant community, but Abraham was asleep during the cutting of the unconditional covenant (Gen 12, 15), which reveals the nature of God’s over-arching covenant of grace. Salvation is by grace alone (Eph 2:8–9), according to the terms of the eternal covenant (Heb 13:20). Whoever comes under the covenant, which guarantees salvation, must be a believer in the covenant keepers (Heb 11:6). God the Father, Yahweh, is one covenant keeper. Jesus Christ, the God/man, is the other covenant keeper. They are both perfectly faithful and true.
Jesus Christ, the true Israel, is the second Adam (Rom 5:12–21). The first Adam failed in the covenant of works at Eden. All humanity, Adam’s people, fell with him into sin (Rom 3:23). None of these actions were outside of God’s predetermined plan, however. In other words, there was never a need for Plan B at any point in the unfolding story. The second Adam would come and deliver His people according to plan.
In the Old Testament era, which extended four thousand years from Adam to Christ, believers were added to the company of God’s people by His grace. God revealed Himself to certain people, who were considered righteous by their faith in His revealed Word. God spoke to Noah, and Noah demonstrated his faith by obediently building the ark (Gen 6–9). Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas 2:23). Abraham’s faith is seen in his obedient sojourn to the Promised Land. He believed the promises of Yahweh, as those who did before him, and those who did after him.
The line of the righteous and the line of the unrighteous was also found in Abraham’s progeny. Isaac was chosen where Ishmael was not. Jacob was loved by God, but Esau was not (Rom 9:13). Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, but clearly the covenant of grace had already been in effect for over two thousand years. God’s chosen people, His called-out ones (ekklesia and qahal), are there in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. They have various names and titles throughout the Bible, but they are God’s select group of people for salvation (2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 2:10; 1 Pet 1:1).
God chose a people for Himself before He created the heavens and the earth (Eph 1:4–5). He wrote their names in the Lamb’s book of life before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8; 17:8). In love, He predestined them to election. Christ came to save His people from their sins (Mt 1:21). He laid down His life for His sheep (Jn 10:11, 15). Christ gave Himself for His church (Eph 5:25). Believers are the same in every era. Some had more revelation than others, but they have trust in God’s promise of a Savior from the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15), who is Jesus the God-man.
Yahweh is not just the God of the Jews only, is He? No, He has chosen people from every nation, tribe, and tongue (Rev 5:9). Peter writes of both Jew and Gentile elect, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9).” The capital letters indicate Old Testament textual referents pertaining to Israel, yet the apostle is writing to the church in northern Asia Minor (modern day Turkiye).
Yahweh has only one plan of salvation. He has only one chosen race of people. There is only one holy nation. This nation is not the United States, nor is it the reconfigured secular nation state, bearing the name “Israel.” The Israel of God is Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God. He has a people of His own possession, which is called ekklesia in the New Testament and qahal in the Old Testament. That these terms are synonymous is proved by the LXX (Septuagint), which is the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, dating some two hundred year before Christ’s first advent.
Who is the blessed nation of Yahweh? It is the church of Jesus Christ (Mt 16:18), which the apostle Paul calls, “the Israel of God (Gal 6:16).” The Israel of God, the church, is made up of Jew and Gentile believers, who are made to be one people in Christ (Gal 3:28; Eph 2:14).
Christ is the cornerstone, and the foundation is the prophets of Israel and the apostles of Jesus Christ (Eph 2:20). Together with all the saints, from the fall, through the deluge, and throughout all of history, are a building of God’s spiritual Temple. The Day of Pentecost is not the birthday of the church. It marks the beginning of the superstructure. The foundation was now complete by Christ’s finished work, and the visibility of the church would become obvious to all nations, including ethnic Israel. True, it would provoke a bit of jealousy (Rom 11:14), but those who understood would be saved. These carried another name, “remnant” (Rom 11:5).
Men who claim there are two plans of salvation, one for Jews and one for Christians, are in error. Men who claim there are two chosen groups of God’s people, Jews and Christians, are in error. Men who claim there are two covenants, one for Moses and one for Jesus Christ, are in error. Hebrews 3 declares Moses to be a mere servant in the house of Christ Jesus (Heb 3:1–2), but by distorting modern day Israel, these men have made Christ Jesus a servant in the house of Moses.
In Romans 9–11, Paul laments the ethnic Jews for their unbelief. He himself being a Jew, he recognized God’s grace to a remnant of ethnic Jews (Rom 11:5). Was Paul anti-Semitic for claiming the Jews needed to be grafted into Christ? Jesus is the true Vine (Jn 15), not ethnic Israel. He is the source of our life (Jn 6:63; 14:6). Christians do not need to be grafted into the Jewish people in order to receive God’s salvation. Jews (cultivated olive branches) and Gentiles (wild olive branches) need to be chosen by God the Father, and grafted into Jesus Christ, by His sovereign will and power. Jesus is the true Vine, the true Israel of God. Who is the Jew, then?
“But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God (Rom 2:29),” is the apostle Paul’s reply to our query. There is a spiritual Israel and an ethnic Israel, but the true Jew is one with a circumcision of the heart. He is spiritual for sure, and possibly ethnic. Ethnic Israel was a type of Christ, but Christ is the anti-type. Therefore, we do not look for salvation from ethnic Jews, but from Christ, who is the fulfillment of every type. Our hope is in Him (Col 1:27), not them.
It is idolatry to make the nation state of Israel holy and set apart from the church of Jesus Christ. For two thousand years, the church has interpreted the Scriptures one way, and only in the past two hundred years, with greater emphasis in the past seventy years has this misinterpretation of Israel and the church been popularized. Unfortunately, much of evangelicalism is saturated with this false teaching.
In summary: There is only one Savior for both Jews and Gentiles, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” The saved people of God are called out from every nation, including ethnic Israel, to form one nation under God. It is this nation that is blessed by Yahweh (Ps 33:12a). It is this nation which has been chosen to receive the inheritance of God (Ps 33:12b), as heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17).
Here is manifest destiny. It is the sovereign and solemn ingathering of God’s people from every nation, not for the sake of anything political in the United States or Palestine, but for the Promised Land, whose capitol city is New Jerusalem in the heavenly land of Zion. Here is the eternal home of God’s one people, the church, who bear the name, Israel, His beloved.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
May 12, 2021
