Israel Elect from all the peoples and for all the peoples-

Deut 4:37-39

Israel Elect from all the peoples and for all the peoples-

“The Old Testament teaches repeatedly that Israel became God’s people because he chose her freely from all the peoples of the world. Israel did not compete with others and win. God chose her unconditionally and made her his special possession.” … Thus the Scripture can speak of God’s electing the people of Israel by freely loving and choosing Abraham at the beginning , or by freely choosing to take the entire people from Egypt in fulfillment of the promises made to the elect Abraham. In either case the people should ‘lay it to heart,’ and stand in awe that the Lord alone is God.”[1]

“In other words, don’t ever think that God is obliged to choose you because of some human distinctive like you physical descent from Abraham. If God needs descendants from Abraham to fulfill the promises of election, he can create them out of stones. He is not boxed in. He is not limited to you. Beware of presuming on his electing grace. It is absolutely free.”[2]

[1] Piper, Pleasures of God, 125,127.
[2] Ibid.

Comments

Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form. The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts. But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.

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