DESIGNATIONS OF GOD’S PEOPLE
The New Testament uses a number of ways to describe God's
people. "The disciples were called Christians first at
Every serious student of the Old Testament knows that God
selected the nation of
Some observations on this passage are in order. Just
because God chose the nation of
But was not the covenant God made with
I must ask John Hagee the question Paul asked the
Galatians. “What does the scripture say”
(Gal. 4:30)? I am certainly not asking you to take my word for it. Please
listen to the word of God. "For if that first covenant had been faultless,
then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with
them, he says, Behold, the days come says the Lord, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to
the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the
hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my
covenant, and I regarded them not says the Lord" (Heb. 8:7-9).
Who was it that broke the covenant between God and the
Israelites? It would be insulting to accuse God of ever breaking a covenant.
The Israelites broke the covenant and nullified it. You probably recognized
that the author of Hebrews was quoting a prophecy from the 7th
century B. C. prophet Jeremiah. What did Jeremiah say was the reason God would
cancel the old covenant and make a new covenant? The Israelites - not God - broke the covenant (Jer. 31:32).
The author of Hebrews says the Israelites continued not in the covenant (Heb.
8:9). In his great set of books, Word Pictures in the New Testament
(Nashville: Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1932),
Dr. A. T. Robertson says very plainly and succinctly: "The Israelites
broke the covenant. Then God annulled it" (volume 5, p. 392).
The Apostle Peter teaches very plainly: Members of the body
of Christ constitute a "chosen generation." The Greek word translated
"chosen" is eklektos, usually transliterated
"elect" in the King James Version. Paul calls Christians "the
elect of God" (Col. 3:12). The word rendered "generation" is
also translated "race," "kind" and "offspring."
The idea of being chosen or elected is rooted in Old Testament imagery (Isa.
43:20-21).
I have a question for you to consider. How do we become a
part of the "chosen generation" or the "elect nation?" Some
Calvinists argue that we are unconditionally elected. Man has absolutely
nothing to do with his election. As one preacher has written, we are saved by
grace plus nothing. How can anyone preach unconditional election when the Bible
so strongly emphasizes conditions? For example, Jesus taught: "Except you
repent, you shall all likewise perish" (Lk. 13:3). Was our Lord merely
making a suggestion? What did the Apostle Paul mean when he told the
Thessalonians: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to
salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth:
whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 2: 13-14)? How were the Thessalonians chosen
to salvation? "Through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth." And who believed the truth? Was it the Holy Spirit or God? It was
the Thessalonians. Faith was a condition of salvation for the Thessalonians and
it is for us. If they had to believe the truth, they were not elected
unconditionally.
The Apostle Peter calls Christians "a royal
priesthood." The expression could be translated "a kingly
priesthood." God promised the Israelites: "You shall be unto me a
kingdom of priests, and a holy nation" (Ex. 19:6). Earlier in 1 Peter 2,
the apostle referred to Christians "as a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 2:5). The
book of Revelation says that all Christians are "kings and priests unto
God and his Father" (Rev. 1:6; 5:10).
The law of God as revealed in the Old Testament required
the Israelites to separate a whole tribe to furnish priests for the nation. All
the priests were to come from the tribe of Levi. We do not live under the
Mosaic covenant and have only one priest-Jesus Christ. The elevation of any
group to the priesthood under the new covenant is a strict violation of the
gospel. The Reformation movement failed in many ways to return men and women to
the New Testament pattern. But it succeeded in convincing most Bible believers
of the universal priesthood of believers.
The Apostle Peter characterizes Christians as "a holy
nation" (Ex. 19:6). The term comes from the Old Testament, but is applied
to the church of our Lord. God has expected his people in every age to be holy.
Time will permit me to give you just a few examples from the Old Testament.
Following is perhaps the best known Old Testament verse using the word
"holy": "For I am the Lord your God: you shall therefore
sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall you
defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creeps upon the
earth" (Lev. 11:44). The Lord commanded Aaron to make a difference "between
the holy and the unholy, and between unclean and clean" (Lev. 10:10).
Several hundred years later, Ezekiel criticized the Israelite priests for their
moral and spiritual confusion. "Her priests have violated my law, and have
profaned my holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and the
profane, neither have they shown any difference between the unclean and the
clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among
them" (Ezek. 22:26).
In the New Testament, the words "holy,"
"sanctification" and "saint" come from the same root word.
The word involves being separated from sin and dedicated to God. The Apostle
Peter quoted the words I read to you from the book of Leviticus.
"Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end
for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts
in your ignorance: but as he who has called you is holy, so be holy in all manner
of conversation; because it is written, Be holy; for I am holy" (1 Pet. 1:
13-16).
Paul pled with the Roman Christians: "I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service" (Rom. 12:1). Paul knew all people would have to give an account
of their behavior. He admonished the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your
wives, as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he
might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he
might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or
any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" (Eph.
5:25-27).
The Corinthian Christians were converted from paganism,
superstition and gross immorality (1 Cor. 6:9-11). There was always the danger
of their returning to their old ways. That was Paul's reason for exhorting
them: "Wherefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall"
(1 Cor. 10:12). In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul admonished the
members: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, says the
Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a
Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord
Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us clean
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in
the fear of the Lord" (2 Cor. 6:17-7:1).
Should not all Christians examine themselves to ascertain
whether we are holy according to the divine standard? The word of God must
serve as the divine standard by which we measure our conduct. Paul's letter to
the church at
Although the word "holy" does not appear in the
following passage, there can be no doubt of Paul's meaning. "Be therefore
followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also has loved
us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet
smelling savor. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it
not be once named among you, as becomes saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish
jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this you
know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an
idolater, has any inheritance in the
The Apostle Peter completes his list of designations of
Christians by referring to them as "peculiar people." Unfortunately,
the word "peculiar" had a different meaning when the King James
Version was translated than it has today. The New King James Version renders
the term, "his own special people." The New American Standard Bible
translates the Greek, "a people for God's own possession." The
expression is rooted in Old Testament imagery. Moses told the Israelites:
"You are the children of the Lord your God: you shall not cut yourselves,
nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For you are a holy people
unto the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a peculiar people
unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth" (Dt. 14:
1-2).
The verb form of the Greek word translated
"peculiar" is translated "has purchased." Paul exhorted the
elders of the Lord's church at Ephesus: "Take heed therefore unto
yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Spirit has made your
overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own
blood" (Acts 20:28). Paul used the same verb in his first letter to a
young preacher. "For they who have used the office of a deacon well
purchase to themselves a good degree, and great boldness in the faith that is
in Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 3:13). Since we belong to the Lord (1 Cor. 6: 19-20),
should we not dedicate our entire lives into his service?
After listing the designations for God's people I have
discussed - a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and a people
for God's own possession - the Apostle Peter tells us the purpose for God's
calling us to be his people: "that you should show forth the praises of
him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Most of
us are familiar with a song our children love to sing during
Both of these simple songs are based on the Lord's words in
his Sermon on the Mount. "You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt
have lost his savor, wherewithal that it be salted? It is thenceforth good for
nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men. You are the
light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do
men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it
gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in
heaven" (Mt. 5:13-16).
The apostle Paul often expressed concern about a
Christian's influence on others. In his chapter on eating meat as contrasted
with eating only vegetables, Paul urged his brothers and sisters: "Let us
not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man
put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way" (Rom.
14: 13). Paul told the Corinthians: "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to
offend, I will eat no flesh while the world stands, lest I make my brother to
offend" (1 Cor. 8:13). Paul was willing to forego some rights and
liberties in order that he might not hinder the gospel of Christ (1 Cor. 9:
12).
When members of the body of Christ live like the people of
the world, they are not going to lead people to the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world. That was one of the reasons Paul commanded the church at
May God help us to be examples to our own brothers and
sisters in Christ and to those outside the faith!
Winford
Claiborne
The International Gospel Hour