Israel's Covenant and Ours

            We’ll encounter this same difficulty in Deuteronomy, but Leviticus 26 is one of those chapters that can really be warped as we try to move from text to application.  Simply put, these words of blessing and of punishment are spoken to Israel, as part of the Mosaic covenant; we are not part of Israel, under the Mosaic covenant.

            This means that we cannot read them in terms of works-righteousness.  That is a serious temptation when we’re dealing with ‘if-then’ language.  It takes very little imagination to go from “If you walk in my statutes . . .” to “God’s blessings—including redemption and everlasting life depend on my obedience.”  The New Testament completely disallows that kind of thinking for the child of God.

            Perhaps a greater, more insidious, temptation is to try to apply these words to the conditions in the world today.  We hear it often enough, “If our country just returned to God, then good things would follow.”  But, look, these words are specific to Israel, as part of the Mosaic covenant.  Is the Lord sovereign over all the nations? Yes.  Is He alone able to send rain in due season?  Yes.  Do believers in every nation rightly look to Him for blessing?  Yes.  But has He specifically tied His blessing to national obedience for any nation other than Israel under the Mosaic covenant?  I don’t think so.  Rome had an incredible 500-year run, and for much of that peak time they considered Jews and Christians alike at least an annoyance or even a danger.

            There is much in the will and mind of God that is simply inscrutable.  Without clear words from Him addressing us specifically, it becomes dangerous to extrapolate from our conditions to some idea about how we could change our conditions by our own efforts and dedication.  Apart from that, Christians need to recognize that they do not live in Israel under the Mosaic covenant.  Why God raises and humbles the nations and when He chooses to do that is up to Him.  We have a calling.  It is to be salt and light in the world, irrespective of where we live in that world.

            Let us be careful about generalizing words intended for a particular time and place.
--reposted from February 9, 2011