In the Old Testament Scriptures, so revered by Jews in the nation of Israel, repeated prophecies are given regarding the coming of their Messiah as promised by God. The miraculous nature of His birth, the very place of His birth, the lineage and royal line of His birth are all foretold with unmistakable clarity. The very reason for His coming, that of accomplishing human redemption and the means of death through which He would do it, accompanied by the prophecy of His resurrection from the dead…it’s all there. Even though the Christ would come to address and affect the entirety of humanity, yet it was specifically through the tiny nation of Israel that He would accomplish this. John tells us in chapter 1 that Christ came into His own, and His own received Him not. He would later tell His own apostles in Matthew 10 not to go to the Gentiles, the non-Jews, but they were then to confine their ministry to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He would later verify this by telling the Syrophoenician woman, “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
So, what did all this portend? It was merely that, while Christ had come for the needs of the entire world, not only Israel, yet, it was through Israel as a chosen vessel that the Messiah would work. Israel was the divinely delegated spearhead nation through which the entire world would be addressed. This is the principle reason they were selected and labeled the “Chosen People” beginning all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs of the nation Israel.
Throughout the length of Christ’s earthly ministry of about three years, the burning question in all the land of Israel centered on the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Was He, in fact, the promised One who should come, or was He not? He could not be from God and also not be from God. The Jewish people lined up on both sides of the controversy. His apostles, other disciples, and many of the common people believed Jesus to be the One foretold by the prophets. They were persuaded that no one could perform the miracles Jesus did unless He was, indeed, the One promised by God. However, the religious establishment did not agree. That repudiated Jesus as the Messiah, labeling Him as an imposter, eventually conspiring to arrest Him and having Him appear before the occupying Roman authority of Pontius Pilate, and we know what the outcome of that would be.
Even after Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, the controversy continued on among the Jewish people. Many more Jews would become convinced by Peter’s message on the Jewish Feast of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2, and, more still, in following chapters in the book of Acts. Mankind in general, and Israel in particular, had waited four thousand years for God to fulfill His promise to Israel by sending a Messiah. And, when “He came unto His own, His own received Him not. But as many, Jews and non-Jews, as received Him, to them gave He the authority to become the children of God.” Is this not uniqueness? Uniqueness with a capital “U”.
CC-06-06
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