Saved Gentiles during the Millennium won’t have it as good as we do today.
APPRECIATING OUR SPECIAL PRIVILEGE
Part 2
In Part 1 we looked at the temporary nature of the special privilege Gentile believers now enjoy. Today we look forward to a time after the Rapture during the millennial kingdom when Israel has “Most favored Nation” status. Then, Israel will be elevated above all other peoples and nations (consisting of Gentiles saved during the Tribulation).
No Longer Sanctified
Those Gentiles, no longer being “sanctified by the Holy Spirit,” can no longer worship God as they do now, freely; but they will have to go up from all over the earth, to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and be subordinated to the priestly nation of Israel (Zech. 14:16-19). Just as the “Israelite” branches were “broken off,” so will the Gentiles be according to Romans 11:17. Yet, today the Gentiles feel as proud and self-sufficient before God as the Jews. Let Paul’s words to the church at Rome sink in:
All the more boldly, therefore, in a measure, I wrote unto you [in this epistle] on account of the grace that was given me of God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, officially administering the gospel of God; that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:15-16).
Ministering the good news of God, and thus making the “offering up of the Gentiles” acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit must cease when the Church is raptured and the gospel which Paul preached has ended its ministry. The Gentiles then will be as before, far away and unclean. Israel will be forgiven, cleansed, restored, becoming the priestly nation the Gentile nations of the world must seek out to find the knowledge of the true God.
(Jews who had been raptured will reign with raptured Gentiles as the Bride (wife) of Christ, ruling and reigning with Christ (in our glorified bodies) over all the earth, including national Israel. All others, including national Israel will still have their earthly bodies.)
Don’t Take it for Granted
This brings us back to our situation today in hopes that we will gain a new appreciation for the things we Gentiles have ignored or taken for granted regarding our privileged status. Sadly, Gentiles have adopted “religious rites” and customs similar to those of the Jews and pagans and have not regarded that peculiar “offering up” of them, through Paul’s priestly ministering of the Gospel of God to them. These powerful words of Paul highlighted above must not be “spiritualized” away into mere figurative speech. They represent God’s purpose for saved Gentiles today. Consider the words of William Newell in his commentary on Romans:
Today the nations don’t have to come “as crawling things licking the dust before Jehovah’s glory,” as they will do in the Millennium. Words fail us to express the glory of the privilege that today prevails in the humblest gospel meeting as a means of access to God, with an amazing free gospel-welcome to God direct, through the shed blood of Christ, that will cease instantly upon the rapture of the Church, when the Gentiles will no longer be under the astonishing blessing which has been theirs during the present gospel dispensation through the apostle Paul. In priestly ministration of the gospel he offered up the Gentiles, by which God made them “acceptable”; and upon believing, “sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (not as Israel had been, by circumcision and outward religious ordinances).
What a privilege we enjoy today. May we never take it for granted.
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ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
Joe Biden’s version of old sayings:
You catch more flies with a sow’s ear.
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Title Photo by Sean Neilson
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