Being chosen for the other's inclusion

Being Chosen for the other’s Inclusion

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            In the last year and a half, I have intentionally listened to people with perspectives that differed from my own. My thinking has been challenged, sometimes changed and occasionally confused in the process. But I would rate it a great blessing to look over the horizons of reality from new sites and perspectives. Still every once in a while there is no greater joy than to discover that you are standing on a solid ledge with a sense of a truth that is refreshing and you are sure it will pass the test of time for the rest of your days. It is a rewarding experience to gaze across a scenic valley and simply breathe in, breathe out and enjoy a view to remain precious throughout time.

This ledge is a place where I can stand firmly and will forever more remember the valley below.

 

            Throughout the first thirty years of my Christian life I was firmly in a theological camp described by the terms “Sovereign Grace” or “Calvinist”. I owe much to my “Reformed” background. Perhaps I am not even responding to Reformed theology as much as to the Reformed theology as I understood it. But in the last year I have begun seeing being chosen in Christ with a different sense than in my past. Much of this change came by thinking upon how God chose the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I began to realize that when these patriarchs were chosen, the ones they were chosen over still seemed in the Genesis accounts to have stories of redemption and reconciliation. I began to see that in God’s form of election he chooses one not to exclude everyone else, but rather he chooses one that many might receive grace. That has helped me to see the world in a vastly different way than earlier in my Christian life.

            This begins in God’s choosing of Abraham over all the nations. He calls Abraham and tells him he has chosen Abraham and his seed, and is going to make his seed a great nation. We might be tempted to think that the rest of the nations are going to be cast aside. But God tells Abraham that he is going to make of him a great nation, and through this great nation all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed.

            We then get to read the story of how God chose Isaac and his mother Sarah over Ishmael and his mother Hagar. With all the talk of how Ishmael was the wild child we sometimes miss the beautiful story of how God heard Ishmael’s cries and Hagar’s prayers. Hagar and Ishmael had been cast out of Abraham’s protection. The ancient world was often not a good place for a woman who had no family, tribe, or clan to protect her. Hagar was turned out to wander without protection. She felt powerless to protect or provide for her son. She laid him down in the wilderness. She walked a ways away from him, hearing his cries as she moved away. She prayed and asked God the most pathetic and painful of prayers. She asked that she would not have to see him die. God spoke to her, in what manner we know not. But he encouraged her that he had heard her son’s cries and that God would make of him a great nation because he was also of Abraham’s seed. So even if Sarah and Isaac are the chosen ones, Hagar and Ishmael are still connected to the blessing chosen to be fulfilled in the seed of Sarah and Isaac.

            Finally we read of the story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob cheats Esau of both the birthright and the blessing. Esau is angry enough that Jacob flees for his life. Many years pass and Jacob overstays his welcome with Uncle Laban. Jacob returns with his wives and livestock. He is headed for the land of Abraham and Isaac. But before he can get there he discovers that Esau stands in his way, and that he has more of an army than Jacob. Jacob decides to try to put bargaining chips between him and Esau. He puts his livestock first, his servants, then his concubines, then Leah and finally his most loved wife, Rachel. He is afraid that Esau will seek vengeance. Instead Esau sees Jacob, and like the father in the Prodigal Son story Esau runs to meet, greet, and embrace Jacob. Esau does as an elder brother to Jacob exactly what the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal never did. There is reconciliation between Jacob and Esau.

I understand that Scripture says “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” It seems to me to be a hyperbole of comparison. Jacob is given the honor of fathering the twelve tribes of Israel. Through Jacob’s lineage would come all of Israel’s prophets, priests and kings. Finally when the time was at hand, his family line would culminate in the birth of Jesus Christ. In comparison with such blessings what did Esau receive? Esau received nothing. Everything was given to Jacob. One was loved and the other hated in comparison. That was the appearance but the reality was that Jacob and Esau were granted reconciliation.

My concept of God’s choosing people has a different kind of mathematics these days. In my past I thought that if God chose one person everyone else was rejected. But now I can see that in choosing one God chose many. My newer perspective of being chosen allows me to view the world I live in differently than in my past.

If we have been chosen in Christ, then surely there must be the many others who will be blessed because we have been chosen in Christ. If we are citizens of a holy nation then surely all the nations of the earth around us will be blessed. If we are priests within the royal priesthood of Christ, then surely a nation of priests have been created to pray and intercede for all those around us. To be chosen should not lead us to believing others are thereby necessarily being excluded but rather ought to lead us to believe that the many are now to be included.