This post is part of a series walking through the first volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace.
In the last post, Kuyper argued that a proper understanding of the role of Israel in the Old Testament requires the ability to distinguish between symbol and type. The former serves its purpose and the is set aside, while the latter is ongoing. When the substance comes, the shadow goes. Christ has come, so the symbols of Israel should go.
“The nations do not exist for the sake of Israel, but Israel has been as it were inserted for a long time into he great drama of world history for the sake of the nations [Kuyper’s italics]. Israel has and maintains its significance until the kingdom of heaven comes. But no sooner was the arrival of that kingdom of heaven announced than the task entrusted to Israel came to an end.” (438)
We should resist the ‘shadow-worshipers,’ just as the author of Hebrews did. Instead, we should realize that Israel was created ‘for the sake of the nations’, and was important in its passing time.
The mistake Israel made was that it assumed that it was God’s kingdom. John the Baptist fought this view when he called not only the Gentiles to baptism, but the Jews as well. We see in Scripture that there were large numbers of Jewish converts in the early church, though later generations of believers forgot this as the numbers of Gentiles grew: “after a few centuries no one could tell whether someone originally belonged to the Jewish nation or whether his ancestor had belonged to the Gentiles.” (439) When I first read that, it struck me as an odd phrasing. On reflection, I think Kuyper might be assuming that the primary way the church grew in the first few centuries was through reproduction and transmission of the Gospel through families, while I tend to assume that it grew through evangelism and conversion. I don’t know that either of us has strong historical grounds for our assumptions… Fortunately, I don’t think it matters because his next point is certainly true anyway.
Namely, Kuyper goes on to argue that the Chiliasts have forgotten this early universalism that blended Jews and Gentiles, and instead have reverted to nationalism. They have done this by replacing the Gospel call with Zionism. Still, they do get something right: ancient Israel was absorbed the nations. They are simply wrong about the theological nature of its re-constitution. Geography, history, and Scripture all teach that the nation of Israel as seen in the Old Testament existed for the sake of the nations in that when it had produced the Messiah, it vanished.
And while Israel did exist, it wasn’t in pure isolation. In fact we see three spheres of contact: with the Gentiles remaining in Israel (contrary to their original mandate); with the nations immediately surrounding; and with the world-powers of the day (Egypt, Babylon, etc). (444) Within these spheres of contact, Israel had various kinds of interactions with the nations: economic, political, religious, etc. Though Kuyper doesn’t use the word exactly, he argues that in the religious relationships of Israel we have a type of what Christians are today. The other relationships were symbols, and have since passed away. That is, Israel acted as a point of religious contact between God and the nations, whereby His voice was heard, His judgments pronounced, and His offer of mercy made. At no point was God’s gaze either “limited” or “narrow”, but instead was “always large and wide.” (445) In the same way Christians today are called to speak to the whole world while maintaining a separation only the sense that we do not compromise our beliefs or our pursuit of holiness. We must be careful not to make the assumption of ancient Israel and attempt to withdraw our witness.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO
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