A Blessing to All Nations

A Blessing to All Nations

God’s Covenant reaches to all nations in all times.

“Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” Deuteronomy 31:12, 13

The land of promise, across the Jordan, was to be the staging-ground for the next stage in the unfolding of God’s Covenant with Israel. There, by obeying His Law, the redeemed people of the Lord would grow in love for God and neighbor and would enjoy and disseminate the blessings of God’s Covenant among themselves and to the surrounding nations.

In His Covenant with Abram God promised that all the nations of the earth—presumably, throughout the whole course of history—would come to know the blessings of God’s Covenant as His people walked in obedience to His Word. Only occasionally in the Old Testament do we see even the barest hint of such blessing going beyond the land of promise to other nations (cf. 1 Kings 10).

The full realization of this promise, the promise of blessing to all nations in all times, would only begin to be known when the Holy Spirit came with the Kingdom of God to inaugurate the last days and accelerate the advance of righteousness, peace, and joy through all the world. For nearly 2,000 years now this final promise of God’s Covenant has been coming to fulfillment. God’s people continue to envision new ways of reaching unreached peoples and of bringing the Gospel of the Kingdom into places and cultures it has not yet penetrated. The Church has sustained a vision for the nations from its earliest days, but it must not expect to see that vision come to reality apart from obedience to God’s Law.

In each generation the covenant people of God must faithfully study and obey His Word and faithfully pass it on to the next generation. The promises of God, which we see in visions at this point, can become living realities in and through us as we, like Abraham, walk in obedience to what God commands. The Law of God, and all the Word of God, show us the way of obedience for gaining the promises of God.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T. M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.