A reminder of the problem: are the gentiles accepted by God without becoming Jewish? That’s pretty much what it’s all about.
The Apostle Paul has been giving a resounding YES to that question. Surely that’s enough. In case anyone questions Paul Scripturally, he uses it.
“Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” (Galatians 3 v 8-9)
So let’s slow this down.
All nations.
Abraham died nearly 250 years before Moses was born. So this ancestor pre-dates the Law of God. He knew the gospel before the rules were created. The coming of Deuteronomy would challenge what Abraham had understood and led to the crying need for a Messiah. Paul is addressing those people influencing others to keep acknowledging the law. They wanted people to keep striving to keep the rules as a means of being acceptable to God. But all nations cannot be those limited by circumcision or keeping the Jewish lifestyle. All nations has to be nations who have never heard of the Law of Moses.
Abraham’s original name meant ‘exalted father’, Abram. But God changed his name to ‘father of a multitude’, Abraham. In that name change Abram realised life was not about him, his own exaltation, but about the nations across the whole world. His move to Canaan was the outworking of that revelation. We too are called to act on what we know. Jesus told us to “go and make disciples of all nations.” To disciple an ethnos (nations) means to transform the existing culture into a new culture of God’s kingdom. Where do you live? The home? The neighbourhood? Every tribe has its own language, rules of practice, location and most hate other tribes and outsiders.
There are Christians in every nation of the world. The church is now a diverse multitude representing thousands of peoples and languages. And the work continues to all nations.
Specific people and ethnic groups bound together by a common culture, language, values, socio-economic or ethnic identity are being blessed. The un-evangelised and under-evangelised groups where there are no Christian witness present, or no indigenous Christian community within that group of sufficient size to complete the task of evangelising that group without outside assistance are now being blessed. The Samaritans are being blessed. These are the people you might prefer not to work among but who very much need to know about Jesus; people who may live near you but who are culturally very distinct from you. Even the hidden people groups who are isolated and hidden from other groups living nearby. The promise is for all and 2,000 years later after Paul reminds us of the historical promise, ALL nations is still the call and it is still the goal and it is happening more than ever.
Paul is saying there are no limits and we should not put limits on anyone because even before the Law Abraham, the father of faith’ understood the gospel.
We would never ask someone from a different ethnic group, different language, from a hidden people group in a nation thousands of miles from us to live out their Christian life in the way that we do in the Western world. “Do it like we do it and God will accept you!” No. We just praise God that this promise is being fulfilled. The God of the west is the God of the east, north and the south. The God of all nations.
Missions Paul 