#38 The God of the Greeks?

For nearly two thousand years, God dealt uniquely with one nation.

Almost 4,000 years ago there lived a man named Jacob, whom God called Israel. Centuries later, Israel’s descendants entered into covenant with God and became His people. All of His prophets were of Israel (also known as Jews and Hebrews). All of the priests were Hebrews. God raised up kings from the tribes of Israel. The thirty-nine books we commonly call the Old Testament were inspired by God through this people.

Then something unexpected happened.

After thousands of years of revelation primarily centered among the descendants of Jacob/Israel, a new Revelation was given—and it was written down in Greek (Koine Greek, the common language of the nations/lingua franca across the Roman world).

God manifested Himself in flesh in the Second Person of the Trinity, and when Greeks came into the land to worship at the feast and to see the Lord Jesus (John 12:20-21), He stated,

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” —John 12:32

How marvelous that the books of the New Covenant would be written, not in Hebrew, but in the common language of the nations. The God who had revealed Himself through Israel was now Speaking to all without distinction through His Son (Hebrews 1:1-2).

There will always be those who believe that the physical descendants of Jacob remain God’s covenant people simply because they once stood in the now-broken Old Covenant that has vanished away (Heb 8:13). Yet the New Testament repeatedly directs our attention away from fleshly thought/ethnicity and toward Christ.

“Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” —Colossians 3:11

And again,

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” —Galatians 3:28–29

Finally, Paul declared to the Athenians,

“And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;” —Acts 17:26

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of one ethnicity alone. He is the God of the Jews and of the Gentiles alike. The Gospel of Grace is not confined to a single nation, language, or bloodline. The twenty-seven books of the New Testament—written in the common language of the Gentile world—stands as a testimony that God’s salvation has gone forth to all nations through Jesus the Christ.

“Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:” —Romans 3:29