Meditation on the Text of the Week

Why We Are Upon the Earth

God be gracious to us and bless us
And cause His face to shine upon us--
That Thy way may be known on the earth,
Thy salvation among all nations.
Psalm 67: 1-2

The sixty-seventh Psalm is a remarkable revelation. The first verse, “God be gracious to us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us,” could be seen as a typical Jewish prayer, at least of the Third Age. One of the characteristics of that Age was an abiding hatred of the Gentiles (non-Israelites) on the part of the many Rabbis and ordinary Jewish folk.

By the time of the Third Age, the notion that the Lord might show favour and mercy to Gentiles had become blasphemous. It was for this reason, after all, that the Jewish crowd in the temple precinct (ironically in the very Court of the Gentiles) went ballistic and tried to kill the Apostle Paul.

When Paul recounted to the crowd how the God of their fathers had appeared to him and commanded him to go to the Gentiles, Luke records “And they listened to him up to this statement and then they raised their voices and said, 'Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live.'” (Acts 20: 21-22)

The prayer, then, that God would be gracious to us (that is, Israelites) implies naturally enough that His grace would be withheld from non-Jews. Well, actually, no. The rest of Psalm 67 explodes that notion forever. The psalmist prays for God's favour and blessing upon Israel so that the ways of the Lord would be made known to all the earth, and that all the nations would come to bless and praise God.

It has always and ever been so. The redemption of God is global—covering the entire creation and all the nations of the earth. The covenant with Israel was not a denial of this, but a means to that end. Faithful Israelites, Third-Age rabbis notwithstanding, always understood this. They were a kingdom of priests, that they might represent and mediate for all the nations of the earth before the face of the Lord.

It continues to be so today. We, believing Gentiles, have been grafted into the vine of Israel's election not for our own sake, but for the sake of the entire world, that “all the ends of the earth may fear Him”. (Psalm 67:7)

It is entirely legitimate—indeed absolutely necessary—that we pray God for His blessing to dwell upon us in indescribable fullness. Like our father, Jacob we would wrestle with the Lord and not let Him go until He blesses us (Genesis 32: 26). But the reason and purpose and end does not rest upon us. Rather, we seek the blessing of God so that all the peoples of the earth would be likewise blessed.

This is the essence and heart of our calling upon the earth.