About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman

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My People - Their Land

On Tuesday, January 20, 1981 I resided in Vienna, Virginia, a Washington D.C. suburb.  I was off work from my friend's Arlington Virginia flower shop, just across the Potomac River from Washington.  It was on that day I watched Ronald Reagan's first presidential inauguration on TV.  With his hand on his mother's Bible opened to 2 Chronicles 7, an often misapplied chapter, he took the oath of being the 40th President of the United States .  2 Chronicles 7:13 and 14 reads:                   

"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."

This text has been used by politicians, pastors and ordinary people in support of their country's national interest.  This avoids a hermeneutical approach to the text, resulting in a misapplication.  Christians often say that if their nation humbles itself, prays and turns from sin, God will heal their nation.  Is that what this text says?  We must ask when and to whom these words were directed, and, what land is being referenced?  The answer should be obvious, but obviously it's not.   

The above words were spoken by God to Solomon, and thus to Jews around 959 BC, soon after God blessed Solomon's temple with His presence.  It was then that God said He sends environmental disasters on "His people", the Jews living in "their land", which was a small portion of the land God promised Abraham.  God then said that if "my people", the Jews, humble themselves, pray, and turn from sin, He would heal "their land", their physical geographic land. 

The Jews seldom lived this text.  They actually engaged in a civil war in 922 BC.  The north eventually fell to Assyria in 722 BC while the south fell to Babylon in 589 BC, both being acts of divine judgement.  Ever since, the Jews and their land have suffered from war and verse 13's environmental disasters that God sends.  The Jews are now back in a small portion of the Promised Land, but they still fail to humble themselves, pray and turn from sin.  Their land has yet to be healed.       

The Old Testament prophets tell us that after much bloodshed the Jews will finally return to their God, who they will discover is the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.  At that point their land will be healed and all that was promised Abraham will be realized.

Why do so many Christians misapply 2 Chronicles 7:14 to themselves and their nation when that was never the intent of the text?  If verse 14 applies to Christians today, do verse 13's disasters sent by God apply to their nation too?  This misapplied failure stems from a 4th century Catholic anti-Semitism that the Protestant Reformation failed to fix.    

I don't see any Scriptural support for God promising Christians a specific portion of national land as He promised Abraham.  Christians "do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come" (Hebrews 13:14).  We are "living as foreigners" (1 Peter 1:17) "foreigners and exiles" on earth (1 Peter 2:11).  We have been "raised up with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 2:6) which is God's kingdom we must "seek first" (Matthew 6:33). 

One hermeneutical approach to Biblical interpretation I embrace is that the Bible was not written directly to me, but, it was given for me to benefit from.  As a Canadian Christian, my primary citizenship, allegiance and residency is not to Canada , but to the Kingdom of God .  That doesn't mean I'm a perpetual pew person waiting for a rapture.  I'm actively representing God's Kingdom, as I must.  How that is worked out is a topic for another day, and there will be another day.    

Postscript

More of my thoughts on this text are found in my book entitled "Misunderstanding Scripture", found on all Amazon sites.   

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