Articles
God and the Gentiles
God and the Gentiles
“Pharaoh had a dream” (Gen. 41:1). God, in times past did speak to people in various ways, including such dreams (Heb. 1:1). While the story in the Bible, beginning with chapter 12 of Genesis, has turned to mainly tell us about the family of Abraham, yet God is still God of all the earth. God is still God and knows EACH individual. He is aware of not only all of Israel, but of Edom, Midian, Egypt, etc. What we don’t have a record of is what God did with/to/through these peoples. We get only small windows of insight as we encounter various ones who come in contact with Abraham’s family.
· God was aware of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19).
· Melchizedek was a priest to God (Gen. 14; Heb. 7:1)
· Moses’ father-in-law and a Midianite descended from Abraham and Keturah, is seen as “a god-fearing and god-serving man” (the conclusion to the longer article in Baker Ency. Of the Bible).
· God gave dreams and visions to different people such as the servants of Pharaoh (Exod. 40:5), Pharaoh (Exod. 41:1), Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:1)., etc.
· We read of God’s judgments upon the various nations of the world (see Isaiah 13fff,, the book of Jonah, Amos 1, etc.).
While these people did not have a codified law system such as Israel had, yet they were not without knowledge of moral guidelines.
We see this in the NT as the gentiles are confronted with the gospel – they are confronted because they had SINNED against GOD and needed the saving message of Jesus. The longest such accounting is in Romans 1. Ephesians 2 simply states that these gentiles (see Eph. 2:11ff) “were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:1-2).
Thus, the gospel was to be preached unto ALL CREATURES (men of whatever nation), all nations are to be discipled, the whole world is to hear this message (Mark 16:15-16; Matt. 28:18-19; Acts 1:8; etc.). Through his encounter with Cornelius, Peter had learned “…I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him” (Acts 10:34-35).
While curiosity causes me to want to know what God did throughout the years with all of these peoples, yet God has not revealed such to us. He has revealed enough about himself for us to know that whatever it was and whatever the outcome for them on the day of judgment, it will be fair and righteous.
Now, having laid that on the table, I turn to US – for we HAVE had a revelation from God. He HAS told us about OUR history of sin. He HAS warned us of the judgment to come. He HAS not only provided the solution to our problem of sin and death (Jesus!), but He has given us the message of salvation, the gospel of Christ. WE are therefore without excuse. If God is fair with us, our fate is balanced upon our response to this Word. How are YOU dealing with God’s word?
Hugh DeLong
