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One Messiah, One Gospel, Many Peoples · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I'm your host and I am really
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glad you're here with us. It's good to be here.
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We're taking a bit of a different approach today.
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You know, when we open the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and
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John, we often read them as a series of disconnected events.
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You get a miracle here, a parable there, maybe a
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confrontation with the Pharisees.
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It can feel a little bit like a scrapbook of Jesus's life.
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Right. Like a collection of moral
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tales. Yeah, but we want to look at the
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Bible as a cohesive system of truth.
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That's the goal. And you know, coming from the
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Protestant Reformed tradition and holding to the Westminster
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Confession, we view Scripture as a unified whole.
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It's one single story of redemption, really, from Genesis
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all the way to Revelation. Not just fragments.
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No, it's a single architectural blueprint.
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So today we're opening up a specific source that helps us
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see that unity very clearly. We're looking at biblical
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missions, principles, priorities and practices, and specifically
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a chapter by Mark Tatlock. A great chat.
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It is, and the focus here is on the non exclusive nature of the
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gospel. Now that might sound a little
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dry or academic at first, but let's unpack it.
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We're talking about Jesus as a Messiah for all peoples and how
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he really had to fight against the culture of his day to
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establish that very point. It's such a vital topic and to
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grasp the weight of what we're about to discuss, you really
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have to understand the tension of the 1st century.
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You have to. Put yourself there.
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You do. You have to place yourself in
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the sandals of a Jewish person living in Israel at that time.
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They were expecting a Messiah. They were praying for a Messiah.
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But, and this is the key, their expectation was very, very
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specific. They weren't looking for some
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kind of spiritual teacher who would, you know, hold hands with
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everyone, were they? Far from it.
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No. They expected a military
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conqueror, and crucially, they expected a conqueror for Israel
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alone. The dominant mindset was that
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the Messiah would come, he would expel the Romans, and he would
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establish Jewish political dominance.
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So when we read the Gospels, we have to see that Jesus is
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walking into a a minefield of these expectations.
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So the mission of our discussion today is to prove, and we're
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going to use 11 specific episodes from the life of
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Christ, that Jesus completely upended that expectation.
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He did. He unapologetically affirmed
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that he came to save both Jews and Gentiles.
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And I just want to add a theological hook here before we
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get to 4. This isn't about about modern
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ideas of inclusivity or, you know, just being nice to
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outsiders. No, this is something much
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deeper. It's about the covenant of
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grace. Yeah, it's a return to the
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specific design God had from the very beginning, which is
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redemption for the elect from every nation, tribe and tongue.
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I love that. So let's go back to that
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beginning section. One of our deep dive is the Old
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Testament backdrop because if we don't get the backdrop right, I
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mean the rest of the play just doesn't make sense.
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It really doesn't. We have to talk about the
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original promise. We do, and we have to go back to
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Genesis first, Genesis 33.15, the promise of the seed of the
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woman who would crush the serpent's head.
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And you have to remember that promise of a savior wasn't given
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to a nation. It was given to humanity.
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To Adam and Eve. But then you Fast forward to
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Genesis 12 verses one to three. This is the Abrahamic covenant.
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And this is the big one. This is where God calls Abraham
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out of earth. He does, and listen to the
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promise. God says that through Abraham,
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all the families of the earth will be blessed, not just
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Abraham's family. All families.
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That's a massive scope. It is, and the apostle Paul
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picks up on this in Galatians 3. He actually calls that promise
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to Abraham the gospel. He says the scripture for seeing
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that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preach the
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gospel beforehand to Abraham. So the Jews were the first
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recipients, Absolutely, but they were never meant to be the only
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ones. Never.
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They were the delivery vehicle, so to speak, but the package was
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for the whole world. OK, so if that was the plan, a
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global blessing, what went wrong?
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How did we get from all the families of the earth to the 1st
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century where they frankly hated the Gentiles?
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Well, that's the tragedy of Israel's history.
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You have to look at the impact of the exile.
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God had made a covenant with Israel, the Mosaic covenant.
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Keep my laws, you'll be blessed. Worship idols, you'll be cursed.
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And they worshipped. Idols they did.
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They wanted to be like the nations around them.
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And so God, being faithful to His Word, kept His promise.
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He sent the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, and Israel went
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into exile. They lost their land, their
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temple, everything. Now here's the shift.
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When they came back from exile around 538 BC, their mindset
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changed. They realized, OK, idolatry is
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what got us into this mess. So they needed to stop.
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And they did. They largely abandoned idolatry,
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but the pendulum swung way to the other side.
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They began to hate the nations that had enslaved them.
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Which I mean, that makes a certain amount of psychological
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sense, right? You're oppressed by Babylon,
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then Persia, then the Greeks. You start to see salvation
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through this lens of nationalism.
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You start thinking God loves us and he must hate them.
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Precisely. And the intertestamental period
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that you know that 400 years between the Old and New
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Testaments, it cemented this. You had the Seleucids,
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especially Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a brutal, brutal rule.
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Tried to force Greek culture on the Jews.
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He did. He desecrated the Temple.
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Then he had the Romans and Herod the Great.
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The Jewish people were suffering.
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All they wanted was political autonomy.
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So they redefined redemption. It stopped being about save us
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from our sins and started being save us from Gentile domination.
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That is the perfect way to put it.
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So Jesus arrives on the scene. He steps into a culture where
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the dominant ideology is this exclusive Jewish nationalism.
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Yet his message is John 3.16. God so loved the world.
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Talk about a conflict of interest.
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OK, so let's look at the clues. The source material points out
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that the clues for this global mission start before Jesus even
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preaches a single sermon. They start with his family tree.
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Matthew's Genealogy, Matthew 1 And you know, usually when
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people read this, their eyes glaze over.
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They just skim it. It's a long list of names.
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We all do it. But for a 1st century Jewish
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reader, this list was shocking. I mean, Matthew is establishing
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Jesus's credentials as the King of Israel, the son of David, but
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then he drops in the names of four women.
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And not just any women. No Taymor, Rahab, Ruth and Beth
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Sheba, who is very pointedly referred to as the wife of
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Uriah. Let's break those down for a
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second. Rahab was a Canaanite right from
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Jericho. A Canaanite prostitute from a
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people that Israel was commanded to wipe out.
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But what did she do? She rejected the gods of her
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people. She recognized the God of Israel
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was the true God, and she's in the line of the Messiah.
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Incredible. And then you have Ruth.
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A Moabitus, the law in Deuteronomy actually said that
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Moabites were excluded from the assembly of the Lord.
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But she clung to Naomi and said, Your God will be my God.
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And Bathsheba was married to Uriah the Hittite, another
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Gentile. So you have these Gentile
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connections woven right into the bloodline of the King of the
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Jews. It's completely intentional.
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You know, think about Paul's analogy in Romans 11 about the
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wild olive branch. He says Gentiles are like wild
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branches grafted into the cultivated olive tree of Israel,
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right? These women in the genealogy are
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the proof of that principle. They show us that being a child
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of Abraham is not just about biology or your bloodline.
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It's about faith. They were grafted in.
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That's such a powerful insight, right at the very start of the
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New Testament. And then you move from the
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genealogy to the birth narratives.
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We usually separate these at Christmas, right?
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We get the shepherds in one scene and the wise men in
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another, but when you put them together, there's a fascinating
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contrast. A beautiful contrast.
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In Luke 2 you have the shepherds.
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These are your Jewish witnesses. They're humble, everyday
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Israelites. And the Angel tells them, I
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bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the
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people. All the people, not just some of
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the people. Right.
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But then in Matthew 2 you have the Magi, the wise men from the
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East. These are gentiles.
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And the source mentions they were likely familiar with
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prophecies from Daniel's time in Babylon, correct?
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That's the most likely connection.
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I mean, Daniel was a high-ranking official in Babylon
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for decades. It makes perfect sense that he
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would have left a legacy of messianic expectation there
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among the learned classes. So you have these learned
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Gentile men looking at the stars, and God alerts them.
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It's amazing to think about God sent a star to Gentiles to bring
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them to the Jewish Messiah, and what do they do when they find
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him? They worshipped him.
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They fell prostate. It shows the Messiah was
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anticipated by the nations, not just by Jerusalem.
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And then just a little bit later, you have the presentation
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in the temple. This is the story of Simeon.
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Luke chapter 2. Simeon is this righteous, devout
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Jew. He's been waiting his whole life
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for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit reveals to
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him that this little baby Jesus is the One.
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And listen to what he prays. He holds the baby, and he says,
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my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in
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the presence of all peoples. He specifically calls Jesus a
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light. A light for revelation to the
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Gentiles and in the glory of your people, Israel.
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But the order is even striking there.
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But even Simeon, this obedient, law abiding Jew understood
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through the spirit that this baby wasn't just for him.
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Who's for the world? OK, so the stage is set.
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You have the genealogy, the birth, the dedication,
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everything is pointing to a global savior.
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But then Jesus starts his ministry and this is where the
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rubber really meets the road. I want to talk about His sermon
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in Nazareth. This is in Luke 4.
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This is such a pivotal moment. Jesus goes back to his hometown.
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He goes into the synagogue, stands up and reads from Isaiah
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61. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
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me. He declares that He is the
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fulfillment of this prophecy and at.
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First, they love it, the text says.
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They spoke well of him and marvelled at his gracious words.
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They're thinking, hey, local boy makes good.
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This is Joseph's son. Oh, they're swelling with
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hometown pride, but then the pivot happens.
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Jesus knows their hearts. He knows they want a Messiah who
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will do special favors for his hometown and his people.
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A local hero. Exactly.
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So he confronts them, He says no prophet is accepted in his own
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hometown, and then he brings up two examples from the Old
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Testament that just act like a splash of cold water in their
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face. He brings up Elijah and Elijah.
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Yes. First he mentions the widow of
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Zarephath. He says, look, there was a great
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famine in Israel. There were many Jewish widows
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starving, but God sent Elijah to a Gentile widow inside him.
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And then he brings up Naaman the Syrian.
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There are many lepers in Israel, but Elijah healed Naaman, the
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commander of the enemy army. That had to sting.
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It did more than sting, it enraged them.
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And you have to ask why. It's because Jesus was saying
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that God in His sovereignty bypassed his own people who are
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faithless to bestow grace on Gentiles.
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He was showing them that grace is not a birthright.
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And the reaction wasn't just, you know, Boo hiss.
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They tried to kill him. They drove him out of the town
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and tried to throw him off a Cliff.
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Think about that for a second. The first attempt on Jesus's
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life wasn't because he claimed to be God or because he broke
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the Sabbath. It was because he suggested
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God's grace extended to Gentiles over faithless Israelites.
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That's how deep the nationalism. Ran.
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It was everything to them. That is a very sobering thought.
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It just shows how offensive the grace of God can be when we
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think we own it. OK, let's move to another famous
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story, the Good Samaritan in Luke 10.
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We sure this turn Good Samaritan so much it's lost all of its
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edge. Oh, completely.
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We have hospitals named Good Samaritan.
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It just means a nice person who helps out.
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We've sanitized it. Yeah.
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To feel the impact, we have to understand who the Samaritans
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were. They were the descendants of the
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northern Kingdom of Israel who had intermarried with Assyrians
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after the exile. They were half breeds in the
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eyes of the Jews. And religiously, they were seen
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as heretics. Right.
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Absolutely. They had their own temple on
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Mount Garism. The Jews hated them.
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There's a record of a Jewish prayer that literally asks God
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not to let Samaritans partake in the resurrection.
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That's how deep the animosity went.
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So when Jesus tells this story, he's answering a lawyer who
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asked who is my neighbor? And that lawyer wants to limit
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the definition of neighbor, doesn't he?
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He wants to draw a neat little circle where he doesn't have to
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love the people on the outside, of course.
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So Jesus introduces the characters, a priest and a
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Levite, the religious elite, the insiders.
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They walk right past the dying man on the road.
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And then comes the Samaritan. Who in the Jewish mind should be
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the villain of the story? He's the enemy, but Jesus makes
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him the hero. The Samaritan is the one who
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actually fulfills the law. He loves his neighbor as
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himself. Jesus is contrasting the
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religious insider who has the title but no mercy with the
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hated outsider who has the fruit of the Spirit.
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It was a complete reversal of their entire worldview.
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It seems like Jesus just keeps poking this specific nerve.
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He refuses to let them sit comfortably in their ethnic
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superiority. You can't let them sit there
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because that superiority is a barrier to the true gospel.
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The gospel requires humility. It requires you to realize you
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have nothing to offer God and nationalism is a form of self
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righteousness. That leads us right into Section
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4, skepticism and miracles. In Luke 11, the crowds are
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demanding signs. They want Jesus to do a magic
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trick to prove himself, and Jesus calls them a wicked
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generation. And he brings up two witnesses
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against them, and again, who are they?
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Gentiles. He mentions the Queen of the
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South, the Queen of Sheba. He says she traveled from the
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ends of the earth just to hear Solomon's wisdom.
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She was a gentile actively seeking truth.
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And then he mentions the men of Nineveh.
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Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the ISIS of the ancient world,
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Yes. The most brutal, violent empire
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imaginable. Yet when Jonah preached to them,
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what did they do? They repented.
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And sackcloth and ashes. They did, and Jesus says these
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Gentiles will stand up at the judgement and condemn this
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generation of Jews. And the reason is that the
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Gentiles responded to lesser light Solomon and Jonah with
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faith. The Jews have something greater
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than Solomon standing right in front of them, and they're just
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skeptical. You mentioned Jonah there, and I
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think the connection to Jonah is really key for our listeners.
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Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh.
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He ran the other way, literally. And why did he run?
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In Jonah chapter 4, after God spares the city, Joni gets
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angry. He prays to God.
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He says, I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow
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to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
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So he didn't run because he was afraid of the Assyrians, he ran
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because he was afraid God would forgive them.
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Exactly. He resented the grace of God
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being shown to his enemies and Jesus is saying in effect, I am
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here to buy that specific grates that Jonah resented so much.
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He's the anti Jonah. He runs toward the Gentiles, not
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away from them. And we see that again with the
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10 lepers in Luke 1710. Men are healed, a miraculous
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event, but only one comes back to say thank you.
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And Luke makes sure we know his identity.
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He was a Samaritan. And Jesus asks, almost with a
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sense of sadness. Was no one found to return and
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give praise to God except this foreigner?
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It's a recurring theme. It is faith is often found
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outside the expected boundaries of the covenant community.
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The insiders take God's grace for granted.
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The outsiders are often overwhelmed with gratitude for
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it. So let's talk more about that
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running toward the Gentiles idea.
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In John four with the woman at the well, the text says Jesus
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had to pass through Samaria. Now, geographically, that's not
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strictly true, is it? Jews would usually go around
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Samaria to avoid defilement. That's right, it would take the
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long road across the Jordan River.
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So when the text says he had to pass through, it implies a
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divine necessity, a divine appointment.
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He had an appointment. He did and he meets this woman.
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He offers her living water. He gently exposes her sin.
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And what I love is the result of that conversation.
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The disciples come back and they're just confused.
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Why is he talking to her? But Jesus tells them, lift up
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your eyes. The fields are white for
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harvest. A stunning statement.
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It is the disciples see a hostile heretical region filled
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with enemies. Jesus sees a harvest field and
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the result is an entire Gentile city comes out to meet him and
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listen to their confession. They don't say you're the
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Messiah of the Jews, they say this one is truly the Savior of
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the world. The Savior of the world.
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It clearly shows Jesus's joy in saving those outside the
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traditional Jewish fold. Then we have the Roman Centurion
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in Matthew 8. This is maybe the most shocking
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interaction of them all, because this man is a Roman occupier.
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He is the face of the oppression.
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He represents the very power that the Jews wanted the Messiah
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to come and crush. And he comes to Jesus asking for
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healing for his servant. And just notice his humility.
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He says, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come into my roof.
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He understands authority, he says.
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I'm a man under authority, with soldiers under me.
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Just say the word and my servant will be healed.
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And Jesus marvels. That word marvel is only used
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twice in the Gospels regarding Jesus, once at the unbelief of
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the Jews in his hometown of Nazareth, and here at the
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incredible faith of a Gentile soldier, he says.
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I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.
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And then he drops a really hard truth on the crowd.
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He warns that many will come from East and West, meaning
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Gentiles, and they'll sit at the table with Abraham, Isaac and
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Jacob in the Kingdom, right? But the sons of the Kingdom, the
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natural heirs, will be cast into outer darkness.
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This is where we need to apply our Reformed understanding
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right. Jesus is making a clear
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distinction between the visible church, the nation of Israel,
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the sons of the Kingdom, and the invisible church, the true elect
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of God. That's it.
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Being born Jewish, or today, being born into a Christian
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family, that doesn't save you. Faith saves you.
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And here the Gentile has the faith, and many of the natural
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heirs do not. It's a powerful warning against
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presumption. We just cannot zoom upon God's
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grace because of our background or our family.
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Absolutely not. Now we have to deal with the
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difficult passage. Section 6 in our dive hard
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sayings the sire Phoenician woman in Mark 7, Jesus is in
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Gentile territory near Tyre and Sidon.
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A woman comes begging for her daughter's healing, and Jesus
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says something that sounds, well, to our ears.
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It sounds very harsh. He says it is not good to take
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the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
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It does sound harsh, and we have to unpack the context here very
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carefully. First, Jesus uses a diminutive
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term for dogs. The Greek word implies little
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dogs or household pets, not the wild scavengers of the street.
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But it's still a challenge. It's a test.
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It is a test of her faith. He is stating the economy of
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salvation to the Jew first. He's saying my primary mission
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right now is to the children of Israel.
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They must be fed first. He's drawing a line of priority.
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He is asserting his priority to Israel.
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And now watch her response. This is everything.
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She doesn't get offended. She doesn't say how dare you
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call me a dog. She accepts her position.
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She says, yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs under the
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table eat the children's crumbs. It's an incredible display of
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humility, she's saying. I understand the priority.
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I don't need the main course. I just need a crumb of your
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power. That will be enough for me.
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She submits to his lordship, and Jesus praises her for her great
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faith. He grants her request.
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The lesson here is so important. While there's an order to the
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gospel Jew first, there is no barrier to the Gentile.
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If you come in faith, even if you feel like a dog compared to
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the religious insiders, you will be fed.
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Finally, we have the cleansing of the temple in Mark 11.
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We usually focus on the money changers and the corruption, the
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turning a House of prayer into a den of robbers, but the source
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points out the location of this event is key.
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Yes, it is. This all happens in the court of
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the Gentiles. You see, the Temple had
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different sections. There was the Holy of Holies,
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the Holy Place, the Court of Israel, the Court of Women, and
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then the outermost court, the Court of the Gentiles.
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And that was the only place a non Jew could come.
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The only place is the only spot on earth where a Gentile could
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come to pray to the God of Israel, and that is where they
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set up the market. They filled it with animals and
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noise and commerce. But he basically said Gentile
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worship doesn't matter. This space is not sacred.
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We can use it for our profit. They completely dismissed the
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redemptive purpose God had for the nations.
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So when Jesus clips the tables, he quotes Isaiah 56.7.
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My house shall be called a House of prayer for all the nations.
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Exactly. By clearing that space, Jesus
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was physically reclaiming the right of the nations to worship
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God. He was saying you have clogged
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up the access to God for the world and I am here to clear the
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way. It wasn't just about money, it
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was about theology. It was about the global scope of
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the temple's purpose. And that action, more than
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almost anything else, solidified the plot to kill him because he
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threatened their exclusive control over access to God.
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It was the final straw for them. OK, so let's synthesize all of
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this. We've looked at the genealogy,
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the birth, His ministry, the miracles, and his actions at the
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temple. What is the big picture here?
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The big picture is that Jesus consistently and from the very
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beginning, shattered the 1st century exclusivist worldview.
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From the moment his genealogy was penned with those Gentile
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names to the mourner, he cleared the court of the Gentiles right
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before his death. His entire life was a testimony
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that the Gospel is for the world.
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It wasn't a later invention by Paul.
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Not at all. The mystery of the gospel, as
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Paul calls it, is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs.
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This was not Plan B. This was God's plan from Genesis
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chapter 12, ratified in the Abrahamic covenant and executed
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perfectly by Christ. It's the fulfillment of that
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original promise to bless all the families of the earth.
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Amen. That's exactly what it is.
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As we wrap up here, I want to leave our listeners with a
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thought. We spend a lot of time
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criticizing the religious elite of Jesus Day, and it's easy to
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do right. We've talked about their
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nationalism, their pride, their exclusion of the other.
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It's very easy to look back and judge.
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But here's the provocative thought I want you to consider.
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What boundaries do we unconsciously place on God's
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grace today? Are there groups of people
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politically, culturally, socially that we look at and we
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secretly think God surely isn't for them?
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Are we in our hearts sometimes like Jonah, resenting the mercy
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that God might show to our cultural Nineveh?
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That is the question we have to wrestle with.
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If we believe in the doctrines of grace.
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We believe that God saves who He will, often in spite of our
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expectations, not because of them.
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And we must be so careful not to stand in the way of the wild
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olive branches that God is grafting into His Kingdom today.
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A powerful challenge for all of us.
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Thank you for taking this deep dive with us.
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It was my pleasure. And thank you to you, the
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listener, for engaging with this episode of Reformed Thinking.
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We hope this helps you see the cohesive, beautiful system of
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truth in God's Word. Until next time.