So, I was reading a book the other day about missions (A Holy Ambition by John Piper) and something hit me. One of the revolutionary things about Jesus coming was that He came to be the Savior of the world.
Maybe that seems elementary. But for the Israelites and other people of the time it was completely unheard of. Israel was and still is the chosen nation of God. Salvation was set aside for them. But when Jesus came, He didn't offer His salvation just to the Jews. He offered it to the Gentiles as well. Before Jesus there was no hope of salvation for the Gentiles.
The Gentiles, they were all of those nations that were wiped out and moved out and enslaved so that Israel could have the Promised Land. The Gentiles were those who worshiped Baal and Molech and Chemosh and had Asherah poles and sacrificed to wooden and metal idols made by human hands. The Gentiles were the ones who were "separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world"(Ephesians 2:12).
As with all people, there was nothing to draw God to the Gentiles, to make them worthy of anything--except for the glory of His Name. Somehow, someway, God received and receives and will receive great glory from saving us--the Gentiles.
"But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone."
Ephesians 2:13-20
It is only in and through and by Christ that the Gentiles had any chance of salvation, as well as the Jews, and it was and is and will be all to the glory of God!
