This post is part of a series walking through the first volume of Abraham Kuyper’s Common Grace.
As we’ve seen in previous chapters, Israel existed for the sake of the nations. Yet, Jesus stuck pretty close to Israel–even to the point of only choosing Jewish disciples. However we should not assume a broader place for Israel as a result of this. In fact, none fell farther or are more harshly judged than Israel–often by Christ himself. It is true that they ‘existed only to bring forth the Messiah’ for the world, but instead of worshiping Him, they killed Him. (458)
Nonetheless God’s calling remains. The elect arose from the Jews, who still exist as a people. And here we see one of Kuyper’s reflexive racial assumptions where he goes on to note that the Jews in ‘our’ time are in service of ‘Mammon.’ (459) What’s more, Kuyper argues that Jews who repent and become believers in Christ struggle to embrace their crushing historical guilt.
Even with all their problems (and yes, this is a difficult passage to read for someone with 21st century sensibilities), God’s election will break out among the Jews again near the end of days. Israel, and all nations, will stand purified before the Lord as brothers and equals. And at this point Kuyper uses an example which, as the footnote points out, is unclear. But the general poitn seem to be that Jews and Gentiles alike will be redeemed by the blood of Christ on repentance and faith.
Moving in a somewhat clunky manner to a larger topic, Kuyper zooms back out to remind us that after the Fall, the world was saved rather than damned. Humanity was pruned in the Flood and salvation was provided through Abraham. After Christ came, there was no more need for Israel. Christ, after all, came to rule the world: not just Israel and not even any particular nation.
We see this universal nature of Christ’s rule at Pentecost where Jews and Gentiles flow back together in one people and stand opposed to the city of man [my term, or at least Augustine’s term, but I think it works here in Kuyper]. The Jews as a nation vanish as the church rises.
Kuyper notes that this discussion of Israel is not really a digression from the topic of common grace. We are often tempted to be sidetracked by the particularism of the dispensationalist view. But we must be careful to have an appropriate perspective on the Old Testament. That is, we must not make the mistake of the dispensationalists by bringing Old Covenant Jewish ideas back into the church. But neither must we make the Lutheran mistake of neglecting the Old Testament too much. We must instead get back to good old-fashioned Reformed universalizing.
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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