60:13,14
We often get these concrete examples of the wealth of the nations coming to Israel, in this case it is the timber products of Lebanon. These will be used in God’s sanctuary to “glorify the place of my feet”. In the New Testament a lot of this spiritualised. So what is going on? The material expressions of these things which are often given in the Old Testament demonstrate the reality, concreteness, of the prophecies. Secondly, we implicitly assume that the material is more real than the spiritual. This is not true. The spiritual is absolutely real (after all, God is spirit! John 4:24), and the material and spiritual are intrinsically linked.
There will be a radical change in the people as well. People who once despised Israel will respect and revere Israel. We do well to remember this when the secular world mocks the church, or accuses us of being bigots. We should remember this not in order to look down on people, but with hope that a day will come when even the most ardent opponents will come to see the glory of the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment