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| Chapter CXIX.—Christians are the holy people promised to Abraham. They have been called like Abraham.
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Chapter CXIX.—Christians are the holy
people promised to Abraham. They have been called like Abraham.
Then I said again, “Would you suppose, sirs, that
we could ever have understood these matters in the Scriptures, if we had
not received grace to discern by the will of Him whose pleasure it was?
in order that the saying of Moses2400
| 2400 Literally, “in the time of Moses.”
| might come to pass, ‘They provoked me with strange [gods],
they provoked me to anger with their abominations. They sacrificed to
demons whom they knew not; new gods that came newly up, whom their
fathers knew not. Thou hast forsaken God that begat thee, and forgotten
God that brought thee up. And the Lord saw, and was jealous, and was
provoked to anger by reason of the rage of His sons and daughters: and He
said, I will turn My face away from them, and I will show what shall come
on them at the last; for it is a very froward generation, children in
whom is no faith. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not
God, they have provoked Me to anger with their idols; and I will move
them to jealousy with that which is not a nation, I will provoke them to
anger with a foolish people. For a fire is kindled from Mine anger, and
it shall burn to Hades. It shall consume the earth and her increase, and
set on fire the foundations of the mountains; I will heap mischief on
them.’2401
And after that
Righteous One was put to death, we flourished as another people, and shot
forth as new and prosperous corn; as the prophets said, ‘And many
nations shall betake themselves to the Lord in that day for a people: and
they shall dwell in the midst of all the earth.’2402
But we are not
only a people, but also a holy
people, as we have shown already.2403
‘And they shall call
them the holy people, redeemed by the Lord.’2404
Therefore we are not a people to be despised, nor a barbarous
race, nor such as the Carian and Phrygian nations; but God has even
chosen us and He has become manifest to those who asked not after Him.
‘Behold, I am God,’ He says, ‘to the nation which
called not on My name.’2405
For this
is that nation which God of old promised to Abraham, when He declared
that He would make him a father of many nations; not meaning, however,
the Arabians, or Egyptians, or Idumæans, since Ishmael became the father
of a mighty nation, and so did Esau; and there is now a great multitude
of Ammonites. Noah, moreover, was the father of Abraham, and in fact of
all men; and others were the progenitors of others. What larger measure
of grace, then, did Christ bestow on Abraham? This, namely, that He
called him with His voice by the like calling, telling him to quit the
land wherein he dwelt. And He has called all of us
by that voice, and we have left already the way of living in which we
used to spend our days, passing our time in evil after the fashions of
the other inhabitants of the earth; and along with Abraham we shall
inherit the holy land, when we shall receive the inheritance for an
endless eternity, being children of Abraham through the like faith. For
as he believed the voice of God, and it was imputed to him for
righteousness, in like manner we having believed God’s voice spoken
by the apostles of Christ, and promulgated to us by the prophets, have
renounced even to death all the things of the world. Accordingly, He
promises to him a nation of similar faith, God-fearing, righteous, and
delighting the Father; but it is not you, ‘in whom is no
faith.’E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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