Romans 9:25, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call, ‘beloved.’”
Short Thoughts:
Anyone who bows their soul to the risen Lord has been transformed from the core…no longer “not beloved,” but “beloved,” no longer in exile but welcomed home.
Long Thoughts:
The “long thoughts” are actually based on Hosea 2:33. These are the musings that resulted in today’s pictrue…
Hosea 2:23, “I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”
Here is an example of the truth that nothing is too hard (too wonderful) for YHWH. He can look at a people whose name is “Not My People,” and call them, “my people.” And, of course, what God calls something is what it is. His words, His commands, His decrees, His assertions are the roots of reality. Ultimately, we are nothing other than what God has named us.
Who is this Not My People whom the Lord declares to be His people? In the immediate context of Hosea, it seems to be the people of Judah and Israel, God’s covenant people whom He had rejected in 1:9. 2:33 anticipates a day when “all Israel” will be brought back to the Lord. However, in Romans 9:26, Paul interprets this language (as it appears in 1:10) to anticipate the ingathering of the Gentiles. In fact, Paul shamelessly takes this very Jewish prophecy and applies it to the gathering of the nations into the people of God through Christ, the grafting in of wild branches, as it were.
So, is Not My People wayward Israel, or is it the Gentile nations? I think the answer is “yes.” By the time that the Word becomes flesh and dwells among us, “Not My People” is everyone—Jew and Gentile—all of whom have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom.3:23, etc.). In Christ, on the cross, then, YHWH says to all of humanity You are my people and I am your God…..He gives Himself in infinite covenant faithfulness to all of Adam’s race, showing Himself to be YHWH, to be the Covenant Lord of all…..That is, of all who will receive Him……all who will see in the slain and risen Jesus the LORD Himself…..all who will hear in His cries from the cross the saving declaration, “You Are My People”—and hearing—all who will respond, “And you are my God.”
And yet……..that is not quite the right picture. Because YHWH’s declaration, “You are my people,” is not an offer, it is an assertion. It is a word with as much creative power in it as “Let there be light,” or “Lazarus, come out.” It creates what it commands, it forms what it declares. And so, unless we say that eventually all people are made His people through the work of Christ on the cross (and, Abba, it does not seem that your word teaches that….), we must conclude that He chooses to decisively say this only to those whom He has also ordained to save. The response, “And you are my God,” is created only by God in the heart of the responder.
Consider again…..what does it mean to be named “Not My People.” It is a negation. If this is our name, then at the very core of our being is a negation; at the very heart of who we are is an exile, an alienation, a being on the “outside” of the glad heart of reality. Not My People is, by its very nature, a soul in perpetual exile from Him who is its Home.
And so, what a glorious reversal is worked when Not My People to hear themselves called, “My People”! For God to call Not My People “My People” is for Him to work a transformation at the very core of their being, it is to change everything about them. Where once there was exile there is now intimacy, where once their was alienation there is now welcome home, where once there was division there is now unity, where once their was enmity there is now friendship……the door that once was locked and bolted is flung wide and the table once barred to us is now spread before us as our own (Psalm 36:8).
What a beautiful transformation at the very core of one’s being is worked when we hear declared from the throne of our God, “You are my people.”…..you are mine…..I receive you, I accept you, I welcome you, I claim you, I name you, you are mine.
This happens….when? How? It happens at the cross. Yet we cannot hear the summons of the cross, we cannot hear the declaration of the cross, we cannot hear the Name of our God at the cross and so respond as His people unless the crucified one has been raised…..unless the cross is viewed in light of the empty tomb. And now, when we perceive the Name of the risen one as we behold His crucifixion by faith, and when we perceive in that Name the glory of the One True God who is for us in the Son—when that perception is worked in the roots of our soul by the Holy Spirit—in that moment, we hear the words that create what they declare, “You Are My People,” and by the Spirit who now dwells within us, we are granted to respond from the heart, “You are my God!”
