9:11
There will be blessings for the nations, but also blessings for the people of Israel. We seem to make a big mistake when we either say Israel no longer has any special place in God’s plans, or we treat Israel as a special case. For the former, the argument is that Israel is now the people of faith. At the other extreme there are some who see Israel as saved on a different basis to the rest of us. Both are mistaken. There are too many promises in the Bible pertaining to the nation of Israel for Israel as a nation to have no special relevance. at the same time, they are saved on exactly the same basis as the rest of us, ie through the sacrificial death of Jesus, and the Old Testament, as here, makes it clear that it is a sinful nation that is saved. So here God speaks of saving them from a “waterless pit”, ie from a place of absolute desolation.
9:12
“Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope”. Israel had many promises, yet fulfillment seemed very far off. Even the return from Babylon was not the salvation she hoped for. She had hope, but no fulfillment. So she was a pris oner of hope. The only solution lay in her returning to her fortress. The Lord is our fortress. There are times when nothing seems to be going right, in those times we should check ourselves to make sure we are still trusting in the Lord, still seeking His glory, and not something else.
9:13
At first glance this seems to be contradictory to verse 10 where God speaks of taking away the instruments of war and proclaiming peace to the nations. So what are we to make of it? Here is a guess (and it is only a guess). Zion would overcome the culture of Greece (representing the Gentile world). The Biblical worldview verses the world’s worldview. Zion would win, but it would not be with human weapons, but divine weapons (see 2 Cor 10:3-5).
No comments:
Post a Comment