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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Whose
Land Will Be Healed? Read 2 Chronicles 7:13
and 14. "If I shut the sky
so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land,
or if I send pestilence on my people, and my people, who bear my name,
humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways,
then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their
land." Before we consider
applying this or any other Bible passage for us today we must know to
whom, why, and when it was originally applied.
We must then search the Bible to see if we can or cannot make a
present day application. In the above passage
"my people" refers to Jews who were exiled in Babylon
in Jeremiah's day. The land
being referenced is the Jewish Applying the words
"my people" and "their land" to Christians living in Canada,
America
or wherever, stems from an anti-Semitism that permeated much of the church
from the fourth century onwards, something the Protestant Reformation, for
the most part, failed to rectify. In
doctrinal terms this is called "Replacement Theology" where
Christians have replaced Jews as being God's covenantally chosen people
while Jewish land has been replaced by land in which Christians reside.
All Old Testament passages, then, directed to Jews are now directed
to Christians. For many
reasons, this doctrine is not my position.
If God promised Abraham and his descendents certain things, which
He did, He will not, even cannot, default on His promises.
As Christians we have
been adopted into the historic covenantal people of God, but, has God ever
promised a specific portion of land to Christians, the New Testament
people of God? He has not.
Hebrews 13:14 states
that Christians "do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek
the one to come." 1 Peter
1:17 tells Christians to "live out your time as foreigners here in
reverent fear." Peter
called Christians strangers and exiles when he wrote this.
"Dear friends, I urge you as strangers
and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the
soul" (1 Peter 2:11). Paul
wrote that "our citizenship is in
heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus
Christ" (Philippians 3:20). Yes,
I am a Canadian citizen, but my primary citizenship and allegiance is with
the Kingdom
of Unlike God's land
promise to the Jews, God has not promised Christians a specific
geographical land. Our
promised land is the Revelation 21 New Earth.
Until then we are aliens in foreign lands who represent the Kingdom
of God. We are ambassadors to the
nations in which we live, nations that the Bible portrays as Babylonian in
nature. There has never been,
nor ever will be any earthly nation that God has chosen as His own
covenant nation other than Israel. All nations, to one degree
or another are ungodly and will fall at the hand of God's judgment
(Revelation 17 - 18). Based on my
hermeneutical approach to Bible study, I believe that we cannot apply a
specific secondary meaning of 2 Chronicles 7:13 and 14 for us today.
If we do, we put words into God's mouth that He never spoke. I
agree with John Walton (past professor of Old Testament theology at Moody
Bible Inst. and present professor of Old Testament theology at Wheaton
College) when he says "the Bible was not written to us but for
us." Allow that to sink
into your hermeneutical conscience as you try to understand what God, in
the Bible, is presently communicating to us today.
Postscript
This article is a
rewritten version of the same article found in my book entitled
"Misunderstanding Scripture."
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