By the power inherent
in the preaching of the Gospel, and the faith that appears to be engendered by
that preaching, the Creator God has been and is still gathering a people for
His kingdom. Rather than this being limited to ethnic Israel alone, this
renewed Israel (the covenant people to represent the Creator God in and to the
whole of the creation as His royal emissaries) is gathered from all
nations. Yes, as has already been seen, the God of Israel promises to
make them one nation in the land, on the mountain of Israel (promised land),
with no division between Jew and Gentile, but one people. They will never again be divided into two
nations or kingdoms, and they will be placed in the land of promise, with one King,
one Shepherd, that being Jesus, to rule them all.
The Creator God says
that He will gather them and bring the covenant people to their land.
Just as Israel was brought into their land of promise following their exodus
from Egypt, renewed Israel, a renewed humanity, looks to a promised land.
What is that promised land? It is a renewed creation. It is the creation
as it finally experiences deliverance from its bondage to decay and corruption
and death for which it groans in its suffering (Romans 8:22). It is a
return to the land that was given up by Adam when he failed to trust God. That
land was the very good creation into which he was placed to bear God’s
image, to have dominion, and to steward.
Just as exiled Israel
is promised a return to the land that God gave to their father Jacob, which was
the land in which their forefathers had lived, so too will
exiled-though-renewed Israel, a people brought forth from all of mankind, be
brought to live in the land in which their first father had lived, which was
Eden, God’s perfect creation. The Creator God says that such a land will
be occupied by the children and grandchildren of His covenant people, and that
this occupancy will endure forever. It is here, it is said, that His king
will rule forever. This is indeed a dominion which shall not pass away
and a kingdom that will not be destroyed (Daniel 7:14).
As one moves through
the close of this chapter, heed must be taken to the words that are used in
addition to the repeated use of “forever” that have already been seen. The
God of Israel says, “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a
perpetual covenant with them. I will establish them, increase their
numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place
will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be My people. Then,
when My sanctuary is among them forever, the nations will know that I, the
Lord, sanctify Israel” (37:26-28).
Perpetual and forever
are how the covenant God of Israel describes the land into which He will bring
His renewed people. He will do this when, hearkening back to both Israel
and Adam, He “saves them from all their unfaithfulness by which they sinned”
(37:23b). That God says that He “will purify them” (37:23c), and in that
purification, which can be understood to be His bringing to belief in the
Gospel through the Spirit that makes manifest His covenant faithfulness, “they
will become My people and I will become their God” (37:23d).
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