Nationhood, Ethnicity and the Land

There are a number of important things to notice about the people whose national history is recounted in Scripture as a warning and example for all (1 Cor. 10:11-13). First, Abraham was called out from amongst a pagan people by God to be the father of Israel, in whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. There is no favouritism with God (Rom. 2:11)! There was nothing sacrosanct about Abraham’s culture or background – he was called out of it. Neither was there anything in his biological or ‘racial’ lineage that especially fitted him to be the father of Israel, or that led to God’s special deliverance and dealings with his descendants – it was simply the electing love of God (Deut. 7:7-8).

Secondly, the nature of Israel’s unique national identity was covenantal (that is, religious), not ethnic. It was not by virtue of being from Abraham’s loins that someone became a member of the nation – after all, Abraham had eight sons, and only Isaac, born through Sarah, was a child of the promise through whom Jacob would come and be renamed Israel. Third, we know from the apostle Paul that the fulfillment of the promise that Abraham’s seed would bless the nations was realized in Christ Jesus, who is the ‘seed’ of Abraham (singular: Gal. 3:16), and Christ is the final and true Priest-King, the kinsman-redeemer of humanity and last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45). Fourth, Paul is also clear that the benefit and blessing of Jewish heritage as an Israelite was not ethnic but religious: “So what advantage does the Jew have? Or what is the benefit of circumcision? Considerable in every way. First, they were entrusted with the spoken words of God” (Rom. 3:1-2). Likewise, the deficit position of the Gentile was not ‘racial’ or biological but religious:

So then, remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh—called “the uncircumcised” by those called “the circumcised,” which is done in the flesh by human hands. At that time you were without the Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah. For He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility…When the Messiah came, He proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household. (Eph. 2:11-14; 17-19)

Fifth, the religious, not ‘ethnic,’ character of the nation is amply demonstrated in that frequently, non-ethnic Hebrews became members of the covenant people of Israel, often having a significant role or impact. For example, Joseph married an Egyptian named Asenath, who became the mother of two tribes of Israel, Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. 41:50-52); Moses married Zipporah from an early Arab tribe called the Midianites, known by tradition for their dark skin, not a Hebrew (though descendants of Abraham). We are also told that when the Israelites left Egypt after the plagues, they left as a ‘mixed multitude’ (Ex. 12:38), indicating that there were numerous non-Hebrews who left with Moses in the Exodus having believed God, possibly even placing the sign of the covenant in blood over their thresholds, thereby joining the covenant people. And Israelites were allowed to marry captive women from their conquered enemies (Deut. 21:10-14). Rahab is perhaps the most famous non-Jew in the Older Testament – a Canaanite prostitute in Jericho who exercises faith in God and marries Salmon of the tribe of Judah and so becomes the mother of Boaz, who marries another non-Jew, Ruth. Their son Obed is the grandfather of King David, and so a Gentile prostitute is in the direct ancestry of Christ.

The reality is that, despite Israel’s overall failure to be the missionary people they were called to be (Ex. 19:6; Deut. 4:4-8; Is. 49:6), there was provision for pagan Gentiles to convert and become full members of the covenant nation as described in Esther 8:17.  In fact in Ezekiel, full inclusion in the covenant for foreigners in clearly required when God’s terms are met, including inheritance in the land with God’s people.

You are to divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You will allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the foreigners living among you, who have fathered children among you. You will treat them like native-born Israelites; along with you, they will be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the foreigner lives, you will assign his inheritance there.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. (Ezekiel 47: 21-23)

These things demonstrate why Jesus was dismissive of those who claimed ethnic privilege as children of Abraham and part of the nation of Israel, “I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones” (Matt. 3:9).

In addition, and critically, the land they were granted to establish their nation was not an absolute ethnic right either – as though some ancient connection with ‘place’ or ‘blood and soil’ was what constituted them as a people. They had been wanderers in the wilderness and slaves in Egypt and were told that if they rebelled against God, the lands of the Canaanites, which they were being given because of the idolatry and enormities of the pagans, would spew them out just as it had done the peoples living there before them (Lev. 18:28). As a result of their disobedience, they went into exile and were finally dispossessed.

Israel then was not defined as a nation ‘racially’ but religiously. What made Abraham’s descendants a nation, providing their national unity amidst considerable diversity was that they were a people of faith called to a purpose by the living God – a national covenant made them a people. When they fell into idolatry, the kingdom was divided, and they became hostile to each other. Thus, while the Bible clearly supports the independence of nations (specifically nation-states with real borders), calling them to fulfill their purpose and obligations to God and to stand against an imperial globalism of the pagan order (note that no empire was ever offered to an Israelite king or patriarch because empire belongs to Christ alone), the nation is not defined racially and is always relativized by the concerns of the kingdom of God. This means there is no absolute right of nations to continue their culture or maintain their lands. All such land grants in history are given or rescinded by God himself under his sovereign authority – this explains all the historical changes down through the centuries (Dan. 2:21).

It is God’s own counsel and eternal decree that causes nations and civilizations to rise, fall, and even disappear altogether. For the nations are to God as a drop in a bucket and counted in all their pride and conceit as less than nothing and emptiness (Is. 40:17; Ps. 22:28). There can, therefore, be patriotism and gratitude for our nation’s faith and accomplishments but no absolute nationalistic loyalty to country, land, or people. We cannot stand with our nation in its evils or rebellion against God any more than we can stand with an apostate family member against Christ in the name of familial loyalty (Lk. 14:26) or a faithless and heretical church in the name of denominational loyalty (2 Cor. 6:17; Rev. 2:2-5). Scripture teaches explicitly that neither familial nor national loyalties come before religious loyalty – that is, to God and His kingdom. The priority is always the worship of the living God and pursuing a culture that eschews idolatry:

If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’—which neither you nor your fathers have known, any of the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other— you must not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him (Deut. 13:6-8).

As a consequence of God’s requirement, family, church, and state are relativized in relationship to God’s kingdom. There have been and will be times when the faithful need to leave behind family, people, and even an apostate nation in order to worship and serve the living God:

Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.” But Ruth replied: Do not persuade me to leave you or go back and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. (Ruth 1:15-17)

We can and must plead with God for our family, people, and nation and live faithfully before the Lord amongst them for their good and blessing, for “blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps.33:12). But we cannot stand with them against the Lord. This will mean prophetically declaring the warnings of God’s law for people who rebel against Him. As such, the purpose of the nations is the extension of the knowledge and kingdom of God, not some form of racial realization.

This is not to deny that different nations have a variety of distinctive cultural expressions that are part of a diverse tapestry of God’s work in history. All the nations will ultimately bring their cultural treasures to the Lord in worship and service (Is. 60:11; Rev. 21:24). The end goal of unity amidst the diversity of peoples is well expressed in John’s Revelation:

…You were slaughtered, and you redeemed people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth (Rev. 5:9-10)

The church institute of all places should manifest this reality as we gather around both Word and sacrament as God’s people. The most powerful witness against ethnic prejudice, hatred, or resentment should be seen amongst the multiethnic people of God (Gal. 3:28). When even the apostle Peter himself was drawn into a deeply engrained social separation between ethnic groups in the life of the church (Jew and Gentile, or the circumcised and uncircumcised), the apostle Paul withstood him to his face for behaving hypocritically and seeking to compel others to conform to a national particularity, i.e., to live as a Jew. In fact, Paul regarded his behaviour as ‘deviating from the truth of the gospel’ (Gal. 2:14), so how we handle our relationships in the church with people of other ethnic backgrounds is critically important for maintaining gospel fidelity.

Important then, as the nations are in God’s economy, they cannot be absolutized without idolatry. The nation-state can never become the highest or ultimate organizing principle for our life in the world as though it exists in hierarchical priority over other spheres of life to bring us to our earthly good. A danger always lurks during culturally challenging times, even for Christians, of drifting into primordial forms of nationalism and statism in hopes of rescuing a nation from decline. Here, ‘racial’ identity or ethnicity is exaggerated in its importance, and at the same time, in reductionist fashion, ethnic heritage is made synonymous with nationhood itself, with the nation-state then seen as the central and highest institution in earthly life. The apostle Paul’s teaching to the church in Corinth constitutes a strong correction to those of any nation or people who wish to glory in their blood and ethnicity, ‘For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you didn’t receive? If, in fact, you did receive it, why do you boast as if you hadn’t received it?’ (1 Cor. 4:8)

The English theologian John Stott noted that ethnic diversity does not imply an acceptance of diversity of religions and points to the relation of nation to kingdom:

[I]t is clearly right for each of us to be conscious of our nationality and grateful for it. But since God has also brough us into his new society, he is thereby calling us into a new internationalism. Every Christian knows this tension, and nobody more keenly than Paul who was at the same time a patriotic Jew and the apostle to the Gentiles. Christian ‘internationalism’ does not mean that our membership of Christ and his Church obliterates our nationality, any more than it does our masculinity or femininity. It means rather that, while our racial, national, social and sexual distinctions remain, they no longer divide us. They have been transcended in the unity of the family of God (Gal. 3:28).[1]

All tribes and nations are to be brought into subjection to Christ and His Word so that in their application of that Word to the totality of life, we worship the Lord together in the beauty of holiness and Kingdom unity.

[1] John Stott, New Issues Facing Christians Today (Ebbw Vale: Marshall Pickering, 1999), 257