READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Ezekiel 36:22-28
1 Peter 4:7-11
St. John 15:26-16:4
May grace and peace be multiplied to you. (1 Pet 1)
Who speaks to you today, saying:
Jew and gentile. God speaks and He “separates people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats”. On the Last Day He will judge. But until then, we are given to judge, not between people, but between the truth and the lie. Do people get mixed in that? Yes. Does that void God’s Word? No.
God includes this word from His Gospel for us to hear today, about synagogues and service to God, partly so that we understand the difference between Jew and Gentile. Jew is a believer in Christ by faith, as the Bible speaks of it. Gentile is an unbeliever. Now, these definitions aren’t accepted today. However, we are to understand these words so that we are pointed towards Christ, His love for sinners, and our own hope in Him alone.
What we will be talking about today is who exactly these people are that will kill Believers as a “service” to God. There is only one division God makes: belief and unbelief. In the Bible, He speaks of that division as between Israel and the nations. Other words for “nations” are Gentiles, ethnics, pagans, and heathen as we heard in our first Alleluia verse today (Ps 47:8).
The division Jesus points out today is that same division, that between those who offer authorized Service to God and those who offer unauthorized service. That is the proper distinction the Bible makes between these two different groups of people.
The seemingly bad reputation for the gentiles starts with God, as all things do. He declares to Israel in Leviticus, “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean” and “lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you” (Lev 18:24, 28).
The cliche is as old as war and politics: “divide and conquer”. That is, if you divide a large nation into enough splinter groups that don’t care too much for each other, you will have an easier time bringing them under your control.
And it was the American Revolutionary War that took that phrase and made it biblical and political, saying “United we stand, divided we fall”, referencing Jesus saying, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste” (Mt 12:25).
Thus the Jews strategy was division; to keep themselves separate from those other nations who were not like them. And it was God’s Word they used to justify it. One reason we don’t understand this discrimination and are already offended by God, is because we don’t realize or believe that everything in life is religiously oriented. Especially in Old Testament times, if there was a nation that was not God’s, they worshipped false gods. God’s wars in the OT were always religious: Him against a false god.
This is the point where we better understand what a gentile really is and, as always, it is a matter of faith. Deuteronomy 29:18 says, “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations.”
So the division was not a blood division, but an ethnic, cultural division. That is what the word “gentile” literally means: ethnicity. The danger is not skin color, but how you live; your culture, your values. Does your culture, language, and values line up with the one, true God, or are you drunk on “the wine of the passion of [Babylon’s] sexual immorality…and…the power of her sensuality and richness” (Rev 18:3). Even more than that, it is a matter of the heart. An inward distinction, not an outward.
The Jews began to exclude Gentiles from the Temple enclosure completely, apart from God’s Word, utilizing this outward distinction. By the time of King Herod the Great (immediately before Jesus), when he rebuilt the temple, Herod even had priests trained in masonry so that they could carry out the construction of the sacred precincts rather than the Gentile builders he had used in other projects (Josephus, Antiquities 15.390) and had them carve in the stone, proclaimed in Greek: “No foreigner may enter … the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.”
Repent. You are a gentile by this account. You do not have Abraham as your father and neither do you have a family line traced back to any Old Testament patriarch. And yet, you continue to believe in divisions in life which are only skin deep. Divisions that cause pain, hurt, and suffering. Divisions that cause the devil no end of delight, for he is The Divider.
And Jesus is He Who unifies. He draws all people to Himself through His suffering on the cross and He prays that we be one even as He and the Father are one.
Do not be mistaken. You are a gentile in sin, but the chosen of God, in Christ. At least as the Bible says it, a Jew is a Jew by faith alone.
There is inheritance in Christ alone. There is no earthly family tree or hereditary trait that gains you or anyone access to the Lord’s favor. At the Final Judgement, there will be no one asking for your “23&me” papers. In fact, that is probably a good way to get tossed out!
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus in John 8:39-40, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.”
Even claiming God as Father does not work: “If God were your Father,” Jesus says, “you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me”, from the same place in St. John.
What Jesus will ask for, on the Last Day, is the Truth, that is: is the truth with you or not? Do you bear the marks of the cross or not? Do you house the Son or not? Has the water and blood of His righteousness been placed upon you or not? The Truth is Christ Crucified for you, in the flesh, uniting Himself to you. Not you making right on your own.
Because the righteousness of Christ exceeds the righteousness of the Law, all people were permitted to pray and sacrifice to God in the same way the Israelites did:
“For the generations to come, whenever a foreigner or anyone else living among you presents a food offering as an aroma pleasing to the Lord, they must do exactly as you do…You and the foreigner shall be the same before the Lord: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you” (Numbers 15:14-16).
At the dedication of the first temple, King Solomon prayed:
“As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm — when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name” (2 Chronicles 6:32-33).
And the prophet Isaiah records the words of God regarding the Gentiles and the temple:
“… foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant — these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:6-7).
As satan situated himself more and more in the hearts of Israel, the outer court of the Temple became the only place for foreigners to worship and was also where the animals that would be sacrificed were kept, and the noise, stench, and excrement of the many animals hardly made the court a place conducive to prayer.
Gentiles were permitted, encouraged, to donate animals for sacrifice in the temple, but Roman coinage was not accepted, and so money changers conducted a lucrative business exchanging the foreign currency for Hebrew coins which could then be used to purchase sacrificial animals (very likely at inflated prices). Sneaky.
It was this situation, of course, to which Jesus reacted so violently when he drove the money changers and animal sellers out of the Court of the Gentiles, quoting Isaiah: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’” (Mark 11:17). The Temple of God is to be a house of prayer “for all nations”.
At the death of Jesus, the temple curtain blocking the view of the inner temple was torn and St. Matthew records that it was no Jew, but a Gentile – the centurion who beheld Christ’s death – who was inspired to state: "Surely He was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:54).
“in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:26). Those who seek to kill and divide are doing the work of their father the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning. The cultural or genealogical label they give themselves does not matter. An unbeliever is an unbeliever and is only distinguished by the faith he confesses.
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit”, says Romans 8:16, “that we are children of God” now. This is why Jesus says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek…slave nor free…male [nor] female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). It is not that there are no differences between people, but that those differences we usually use to separate us have to do with language, borders, and culture, not faith.
And though Jesus is the God of culture, He gives His own culture. It is no longer worth while to discover who is a Jew and who is a gentile. Those labels are meaningless in front of God. The only label that matters is “Christ”. This is why the Lord has His people named “Christ-ians”, not on their own, but by those who despise Christ and His Church Culture.
“in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26).
And, “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that Name” (1 Peter 4:16).
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the
hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to
God.”
Jew and gentile. God speaks and He “separates people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats”. On the Last Day He will judge. But until then, we are given to judge, not between people, but between the truth and the lie. Do people get mixed in that? Yes. Does that void God’s Word? No.
God includes this word from His Gospel for us to hear today, about synagogues and service to God, partly so that we understand the difference between Jew and Gentile. Jew is a believer in Christ by faith, as the Bible speaks of it. Gentile is an unbeliever. Now, these definitions aren’t accepted today. However, we are to understand these words so that we are pointed towards Christ, His love for sinners, and our own hope in Him alone.
What we will be talking about today is who exactly these people are that will kill Believers as a “service” to God. There is only one division God makes: belief and unbelief. In the Bible, He speaks of that division as between Israel and the nations. Other words for “nations” are Gentiles, ethnics, pagans, and heathen as we heard in our first Alleluia verse today (Ps 47:8).
The division Jesus points out today is that same division, that between those who offer authorized Service to God and those who offer unauthorized service. That is the proper distinction the Bible makes between these two different groups of people.
The seemingly bad reputation for the gentiles starts with God, as all things do. He declares to Israel in Leviticus, “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean” and “lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you” (Lev 18:24, 28).
The cliche is as old as war and politics: “divide and conquer”. That is, if you divide a large nation into enough splinter groups that don’t care too much for each other, you will have an easier time bringing them under your control.
And it was the American Revolutionary War that took that phrase and made it biblical and political, saying “United we stand, divided we fall”, referencing Jesus saying, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste” (Mt 12:25).
Thus the Jews strategy was division; to keep themselves separate from those other nations who were not like them. And it was God’s Word they used to justify it. One reason we don’t understand this discrimination and are already offended by God, is because we don’t realize or believe that everything in life is religiously oriented. Especially in Old Testament times, if there was a nation that was not God’s, they worshipped false gods. God’s wars in the OT were always religious: Him against a false god.
This is the point where we better understand what a gentile really is and, as always, it is a matter of faith. Deuteronomy 29:18 says, “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations.”
So the division was not a blood division, but an ethnic, cultural division. That is what the word “gentile” literally means: ethnicity. The danger is not skin color, but how you live; your culture, your values. Does your culture, language, and values line up with the one, true God, or are you drunk on “the wine of the passion of [Babylon’s] sexual immorality…and…the power of her sensuality and richness” (Rev 18:3). Even more than that, it is a matter of the heart. An inward distinction, not an outward.
The Jews began to exclude Gentiles from the Temple enclosure completely, apart from God’s Word, utilizing this outward distinction. By the time of King Herod the Great (immediately before Jesus), when he rebuilt the temple, Herod even had priests trained in masonry so that they could carry out the construction of the sacred precincts rather than the Gentile builders he had used in other projects (Josephus, Antiquities 15.390) and had them carve in the stone, proclaimed in Greek: “No foreigner may enter … the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.”
Repent. You are a gentile by this account. You do not have Abraham as your father and neither do you have a family line traced back to any Old Testament patriarch. And yet, you continue to believe in divisions in life which are only skin deep. Divisions that cause pain, hurt, and suffering. Divisions that cause the devil no end of delight, for he is The Divider.
And Jesus is He Who unifies. He draws all people to Himself through His suffering on the cross and He prays that we be one even as He and the Father are one.
Do not be mistaken. You are a gentile in sin, but the chosen of God, in Christ. At least as the Bible says it, a Jew is a Jew by faith alone.
There is inheritance in Christ alone. There is no earthly family tree or hereditary trait that gains you or anyone access to the Lord’s favor. At the Final Judgement, there will be no one asking for your “23&me” papers. In fact, that is probably a good way to get tossed out!
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus in John 8:39-40, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.”
Even claiming God as Father does not work: “If God were your Father,” Jesus says, “you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me”, from the same place in St. John.
What Jesus will ask for, on the Last Day, is the Truth, that is: is the truth with you or not? Do you bear the marks of the cross or not? Do you house the Son or not? Has the water and blood of His righteousness been placed upon you or not? The Truth is Christ Crucified for you, in the flesh, uniting Himself to you. Not you making right on your own.
Because the righteousness of Christ exceeds the righteousness of the Law, all people were permitted to pray and sacrifice to God in the same way the Israelites did:
“For the generations to come, whenever a foreigner or anyone else living among you presents a food offering as an aroma pleasing to the Lord, they must do exactly as you do…You and the foreigner shall be the same before the Lord: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you” (Numbers 15:14-16).
At the dedication of the first temple, King Solomon prayed:
“As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm — when they come and pray toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name” (2 Chronicles 6:32-33).
And the prophet Isaiah records the words of God regarding the Gentiles and the temple:
“… foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant — these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56:6-7).
As satan situated himself more and more in the hearts of Israel, the outer court of the Temple became the only place for foreigners to worship and was also where the animals that would be sacrificed were kept, and the noise, stench, and excrement of the many animals hardly made the court a place conducive to prayer.
Gentiles were permitted, encouraged, to donate animals for sacrifice in the temple, but Roman coinage was not accepted, and so money changers conducted a lucrative business exchanging the foreign currency for Hebrew coins which could then be used to purchase sacrificial animals (very likely at inflated prices). Sneaky.
It was this situation, of course, to which Jesus reacted so violently when he drove the money changers and animal sellers out of the Court of the Gentiles, quoting Isaiah: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers’” (Mark 11:17). The Temple of God is to be a house of prayer “for all nations”.
At the death of Jesus, the temple curtain blocking the view of the inner temple was torn and St. Matthew records that it was no Jew, but a Gentile – the centurion who beheld Christ’s death – who was inspired to state: "Surely He was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:54).
“in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:26). Those who seek to kill and divide are doing the work of their father the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning. The cultural or genealogical label they give themselves does not matter. An unbeliever is an unbeliever and is only distinguished by the faith he confesses.
“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit”, says Romans 8:16, “that we are children of God” now. This is why Jesus says, “There is neither Jew nor Greek…slave nor free…male [nor] female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). It is not that there are no differences between people, but that those differences we usually use to separate us have to do with language, borders, and culture, not faith.
And though Jesus is the God of culture, He gives His own culture. It is no longer worth while to discover who is a Jew and who is a gentile. Those labels are meaningless in front of God. The only label that matters is “Christ”. This is why the Lord has His people named “Christ-ians”, not on their own, but by those who despise Christ and His Church Culture.
“in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26).
And, “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that Name” (1 Peter 4:16).
