#STRask - Isn’t the Covenant in Scripture Explicitly with Israel and Not the Gentile Nations?

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Questions about what gives modern Christians confidence that they’ve inherited the Jews’ covenant with God if Scripture explicitly says it was with Israel and not the Gentile nations, and why the Jews were chosen.   The covenant in Scripture is explicitly with Israel and not the Gentile nations, so what gives modern Christians confidence that they’ve inherited that covenant? Why were the Jews chosen?

This is Greg Kokel and Amy Hall. Welcome back to hashtag STRS. Oh, I got top billing that time. I'll take it. Okay, Greg, here's a question from Jesse. How do you reconcile the fact that the covenant in Scripture is explicitly with Israel and the Jews, not with Gentile nations? Genesis 17, 7 and 8, Exodus 19, 5, and 6. If God's promises were made to Israel alone, what gives modern Christians confidence that they've inherited that covenant? Well, this question is painful for me to hear because there's a very easy answer to this

that the question itself seems to not be aware of. There are multiple covenants in the Old Testament with the Jews. there are three main ones that really are knit together that are the stepping stones that bring us to Jesus. And I talk about this in some detail, and of course we have its standard reason called the Bible fast forward. Eight sessions, 50 minutes eats, DVD, whatever. There's a 150-page syllabus that I put together that goes with it. You don't have to take any notes, but it makes these main points that I'm offering here. So you can see how this works.

Twelve chapters into Genesis, after the mess of the fall and subsequent fallout as a result, God initiates a rescue plan. And the rescue plan is to take one man and from that man to make a nation of people that will be God's representatives to the whole world in such a way, that the world will be rescued. The way the promise goes is that he will be a blessing, so that he will be a blessing. So God says, I am going to take you and make you a great nation. A nation includes a land and a people and a government, essentially, and I'm going to bless you.

That means I'm going to protect you. And those who bless you, I will bless and those who curse you, I will curse. and in you, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. So the very first core covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, Genesis 12-1 through three, has the Gentiles in view. Okay, so then over the next 400 years, we see the unfolding of the fulfillment of that promise. And so the people are given the land, but because of a number of things, they, including a famine, they leave the land under Joseph and the patriarchs.

They leave the land, and they are, in a certain sense, protected in Egypt for 400 years. Now, they're in slavery, but they still prosper. They massively increase in size, and now you have a whole lot of people, but they don't have a common core, except for that they're all Hebrews, and they're all in slavery, and they have a modest understanding of their past. And then Moses is raised up to save them, rescue them, and take them out on their way to the land, and on their way, he receives the law, which is actually quite complicated. It's not just the Ten Commandments. There's Exodus, Leviticus, and then you've got Deuteronomy, which is the second giving of the law before they enter the land.

So this law provides a governmental structure, among other things, for them, and also provides a spiritual foundation. And aspects of the law are, in a certain sense, hints to how God is going to ultimately bless the nations. And then, so now you have the nation and you have, that is the people, and you have the constitution for the people. and you have the land that they end up taking under Joshua. So now that it takes half a millennium, but that one core element of the promise is being fulfilled by God through Abraham and the Mosaic covenant. So now the mosaic gets folded in, but still the purpose is down the line. It's not just for the Jews. It's for sustaining the Jews as a nation to accomplish the purposes God has for them.

and that is to give the Jews his word to be a light to the nations. And I don't know if we've talked about this, Amy, but I think when Jesus is giving the servant on the Mount, and he's saying, you are the light of the world. He is not talking to Christians. He's talking to Jews, because there weren't really many Christians there in Matthew 5. He had his own little band, and people are beginning to follow, but I think he's speaking to the multitudes to the Jews. They were meant to be a light to the world.

Now, Christians, of course, are subsumed under that, but there to be a relight to the world. I go into scriptural detail on this in the series, because texts actually say this. And then when they're in Babylon, the northern kingdom has been dispersed, the southern kingdom in the 5th century BC. There they are, 6th century, and they're being taken to Babylon, so God encourages them that he hasn't forgotten them. And then through Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, we get three great lights of that period of time that talk about a new covenant. Now, it's new compared to the old, the one they broke. But it's not new in God's mind, because this is the covenant that will allow them to have a full knowledge of God and to receive the spirit and to have a totally different kind of relationship with God. And this is going to be a benefit that's not going to be just for the Jews, but it's going to be for the whole world, for the Goyim, for the Gentiles.

And this new covenant, which Jesus came and established in different aspects of it, suffered and died, announced it, whatever, all of those things. And then Pentecost Sunday is the kind of launch of that. All of that is all part of this continuous plan. So it strikes me as odd when someone asks, well, the Jews get all these covenants. What about the Gentiles? Well, the Gentiles were always in view with every single one of them. And the Mosaic covenant was given as a constitution for Israel, and this is something people miss out of because they think that the laws, or some of the laws like tithing, for example,

and other particulars, these are laws that Sabbath keeping, These are laws that we're all obliged to do as well as New Testament Christians when that was a covenant made with the Jews for a very specific reason to manage that nation under a theocracy. But we're not under that theocracy. The Gentiles never were. That was serving a different purpose for the Gentiles, putting things together for the time when Jesus would ultimately come, and then initiate the new covenant. That's the covenant of the giving of the Spirit. So that was like the Bible fast forward really fast, but it's meant to help you see the connectedness of all of this. And this is one of the great things about scripture, the unity of scripture from beginning to end. One tale is being told. One story. There's an architecture to the salvation plan of the world, and the Gentiles are always in view.

In fact, this got Jesus in trouble a number of times. because early on in his ministry when he was at Kaperdom and he was speaking, he has a very dramatic scene where he opens the scripture and he says, you know, this day, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, and it's weird because he doesn't read the whole thing, he only reads part of it. Then he sets it down, and everybody's listening. And at first, you see this in the movies, everybody gets mad at him. Well, they're not reading the text, the writers, because people are speaking well of him when he says that. But then he starts talking in the Old Testament about God's favor to two different Gentiles.

And the text says when he said these things, then they try to kill him. This is very early in his ministry. What is it, Luke chapter 4, I think. And so you have the message of the Gentiles going all the way through the entire thing. And even Jesus is clear about this, but the Jews aren't having any of it. because now they've had their hundreds and thousands of years mixing up with the Gentiles they've learned. They've learned. Now they're circling their wagons. They're not going to have anything to do with Gentiles. Okay. And that, of course, undermines their mission.

As human beings, we're always overcorrecting. Yeah. So I want to add a couple verses to back up what you're saying about this always being the case. It's not that suddenly in the New Testament they changed everything up and it was a totally new thing. This was always hinted at before. You mentioned the promised Abraham that he would bless all the nations of the earth. But here are a couple more. This comes from Isaiah 49.

Is it too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel? I will also make you a light of the nation so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. That's an Isaiah. Here's another one from Isaiah 66. The time is coming to gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory. I will set a sign among them and will send survivors from them to the nations. Tarshish put Ludd, Mishik, I'm brutalizing these names here, but. If you see it with confidence, nobody knows that you mispronounced them.

To the distant coastlands that have neither heard my fame nor seen my glory. And they will declare my glory among the nations. Then they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as a grain offering to the Lord on horses and chariots and litters, on mules and on camels. To my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, just as the sons of Israel bring their grain offering and a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. I will also take some of them for priests and for Levites, says the Lord. In other words, he's bringing them into the ministry so far that they are ministering to others. This is shocking to them, which was why Jesus was condemned for this. But it was always promised that the Gentiles would be brought in eventually. It was just unclear how God would do this. And so when you get to the New Testament, what you find is that Jesus, who is a Jew and fulfilled all of the law and was under that old covenant, He rose from the dead, and now we as Gentiles, and Paul explains this in 9 through 11 in Romans,

we as Gentiles have been grafted into that route so that we are now part of that promise he made to Abraham, and we are part of his covenant. So we inherit in Jesus. And here's how Galatians 3, 26 through 29 puts it. for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free man. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, errs according to promise. So we inherit in Jesus. Jesus is the error. And we are grafted in. And one last point I want to make about this from Romans 11 because again, I think Paul goes through all of this because the Jews had to work

this out who believed in Jesus. You can see this in Acts. You can see this in Romans. You can see this in Galatians. They had to figure out how to put all of this together because it was, as you said, something new to them. But in chapter 10 of Romans, Paul is explaining, he's going through the question of, well, did God reject his people? And he says, No, he didn't reject his people. I'm a Jew. So obviously he didn't reject his people. And then he goes through all of these objections. Well, they never heard. And he says, well, they have heard. And then one thing that he explains way back in a promise that God made way back when when the Jews went against God. And he quotes this, I will make you jealous by that which is not a nation, by a nation without understanding, will I anger you?

And if you go back, that was a promise that God made about the future, what would happen. And so then Paul goes on to say, so right now the Gentiles are coming in and making them jealous, but then they will come back after that. So that's another example of this being predicted in the past and being fulfilled now. So it didn't come out of nowhere. So hopefully that gives you an idea of how it was predicted, plus how it was worked out, how it actually came to be. These questions come up because, unfortunately, and I'm not being critical. I'm just trying to make a – I mean, it is a criticism of sorts, but Christians aren't taught this stuff, which is the reason that I did this course called the Bible Fast Forward. When I was a brand-new Christian, fairly new, first three years, two and a half years, as a Christian, I was part of a Christian community in Westwood Village in the early – the mid-70s.

And there was a wonderful teacher there that was part of our community. He was Dallas Seminary trained. His name was Mark Erington. And Mark did this course that kind of filled in these gaps that I'm talking about now for me and was my inspiration for doing the Bible fast forward. And it was such a help to me as a fairly young Christian to be able to be able to to see the coherence of the whole, to see how it all work together. So many Christians are camped in the New Testament, and they are in the Gospels and

it's all well and good. But as Nancy Peirce points out in her forward to the story of reality, that as a student of Francis Schaefer, she learned from him that the gospel doesn't start with, you know, in the beginning was the word. You know, it doesn't start with Jesus. It starts with, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Of course, that's why I start in the story of reality, trying to give the big picture. In that book, I don't cover these particulars because there are four topics that I address in the book, God, man, Jesus, cross, resurrection.

And all of what we're talking about is that big lacuna, the big hole between man and Jesus. You know, I go quickly through this in the story of reality because I'm trying to help people conceptually understand. how the story fits together. But historically, how it progresses from the fall and then to Abraham, and then finally there's Jesus. There's a whole lot that happens in between that we've been talking about, and this is the kind of stuff that people get bits and pieces of. But they don't see how it's all connected together. And then I can see the question becomes, hey, what about the poor Gentiles of God's just working with the Jews? Because God's goal has always been the Gentiles, and he's chosen the Jews as a vehicle to reach them.

And the question here, what gives Christians confidence that they've inherited the covenant? I think what gives us confidence is that Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus proved who he was. He also paid the penalty. He was the inheritor of the covenant promises. And when we're joined to him, when we're united to him, our confidence is in him. that everything we receive is in him. So that's why we have confidence. And also remember the Great Commission. Here's Jesus.

Let's just go back to the historical details. This is not hard to answer this question. So there's Jesus at the Last Supper. He's about to be crucified. We all are familiar with all of that. Okay. And he says, this is the cup of the new covenant, my blood, which will be shed for forgiveness of sins.

There's a nice summary of what the Old Testament talked about. the new covenant that's coming. Then he says, you know, wait until the Holy Spirit is given, and that comes on Pentecost. And then he commands the disciples to go onto all the world and preach the gospel. Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. Well, Jerusalem is Jews, Judea, Samaria, those are half-breeds, Samaritans. And then the uttermost parts, those are all just. centiles. So we can have confidence is for us because of what Jesus said. He sent them out

to evangelize, make disciples of every nation. So I don't get the mystery here, so to speak, unless maybe, this is the kind of question I think that someone would ask who has not been around Christianity very long and doesn't see how it all fits together. He might not be a Christian at all. I'm not sure. And this isn't to disparage. The point is to make the The point is that this isn't a tricky thing to answer. It – the fullness of the text, the story, the account, the program makes clear the answer to this. And I would say if you have no previous knowledge of Christianity or little knowledge, what you might want to do, obviously reading the whole Bible is ideal. But what you might want to do is just read through Romans because Paul hits the major theological.

ideas of the whole worldview, a Christian worldview. So if you just want to read through that, you might get a better idea of what's going on with Christianity. Or you could read story of reality. Yes, of course. But Romans is shorter than the story of reality or Bible fast forward. All right. We're going to hit one more question here. This one comes from Steve. What is our answer when asked why the Jews were chosen? It's not a big problem I encounter. I am, however, interested in how you approach the question? Well, in a certain sense, there's a practical matter. Remember where Abraham's commission is positioned historically. It's in Genesis chapter 12 versus 1 through 3 right after the Tower of Babel. Now you've got the dispersion of all these people

over the world speaking different languages. So you've got kind of a chaotic circumstance. And so on a practical matter, God chooses a man to eventually give birth after a fashion to an entire nation who will be a nation of missionaries. I mean, that's really the point there, so that the rest of the world can receive the blessing that is necessary for them to know God. So, why the Jews? And by the way, so there's a practical matter. So it's strategic. In that part of the world, too, is a strategic location because it's a crossroads of so many other cultures, et cetera. And then this project requires God communicating with the world in a propositional way.

and so God provides prophets that will communicate these messages and write them down so there's a record. And the record is not just in the writings, but the record is in God's actual dealings with the people. So God intervenes into history. It isn't just a bunch of people reading a book. It's in relationship with a God. It's a theocracy. Their God is in charge. He's running things.

And he provides for them. He protects them. He speaks to them. He preserves them ultimately and moves them on towards their ultimate destination. And from this group also comes the Messiah. And this is also in Romans. So why the Jews then? Romans two or three somewhere in there.

Well, what benefit is of? It's great. God has chosen you. He's delivered the oracles of God to you. He's blah, blah, blah. So he's answering that question there in Romans a bit as well. I can mention two specific places where God says why he didn't choose them. This can help us get along the way of why he did.

He says, Deuteronomy 7, the Lord did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more a number than any of the peoples. For you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers. So he didn't choose them for their strength or their number. and then Deuteronomy 9 says it's not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess the land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So he didn't do it because of their strength or their righteousness. They weren't better than other people. He was doing it to uphold his oath that he made to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob.

So then the question, of course, is why Abraham? And I think God chose to put his love on Abraham. He's a gracious God. It wasn't because Abraham earned it. It was because God chose to show his grace to Abraham. And then ever after, it was because God was fulfilling his word, his promise. And he was working through a people that just think if they were mighty, and they were righteous, then everyone would think it was because of what they did that all this

came about. But God chose a small people who would fail and fail and fail because he wanted to reveal his grace. And he wanted to reveal his glory by showing us his grace. So this was all working towards revealing who God is. And you'll see this throughout the Bible. He chooses the weak things. He chooses the small things. He chooses the foolish things in the sense that he wants to reveal his power by choosing those who clearly are depending on him for everything so that he gets the glory through all of those things. But why specifically Abraham? Because God chose to love Abraham. I mean, that's the bottom line. That's right. He chose to reveal his grace through him and his promises and his faithfulness.

All right, we're out of time, Greg. Thank you, Steve, and thank you, Jesse. We appreciate hearing from you. Send us your question on X with the hashtag STRask, or you can always go to our website at STR.org and just look for our hashtag STR Ask podcast page. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.