Reader asks: Does God Discriminate?

A reader wrote...

Your site continuously proclaims that Jews are God's chosen. This sounds like you worship quite a racist deity who plays favorites amongst his creations. Why didn't God make Africans his chosen? Or Indians, or perhaps the Chinese? How am I supposed to believe that God loves all humanity equally when in reality he plays favorites amongst humans? Assuming all humans are equal in worth, that a single race even possess the title of "Chosen" denotes discrimination.

The Refiner's Fire's response...

The fact is, God DOES love us all equally and He does NOT play "favorites". However, the Bible tells us that He chose the Jews to become His "Chosen" because they were the ONLY ones to obey Him in lieu of other gods. This does not mean that they are automatically "saved" and will go to heaven because, so far, most of them still do not believe in God's only Son, Yeshua/Jesus, who is the ONLY way to heaven (John 14:6). However, because of God's promise to redeem the Jews, in the end times, Israel as a whole WILL turn to her Messiah and be saved (Romans 11:26, 27). In the meantime, any believers in Yeshua/Jesus, are automatically "grafted in" and may partake of the Tree of Life:

According to the Hebrew Bible, Israel's character as the chosen people is conditioned by obedience to God's commandments. Most of the people of the earth chose their own various deities rather than YHWH.

Exodus 19:5 and 6: "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people. For all the earth is mine: and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation".

Deuteronomy 7:7, 8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your ancestors."

The obligation imposed upon the Israelites is emphasized by the prophet Amos (3:2): "You only have I singled out of all the families of the earth: therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities." This idea is also expressed in Deuteronomy 14:2: "You are a holy people unto the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a peculiar people unto Himself, above all peoples that are upon the face of the earth."

Please see an indepth explanation at Stewarton Bible College, which outlines exactly why the Jews are God's "Chosen", even until today. In part, is says:

Here is what Scripture says about Israel being the Chosen Nation:

Deuteronomy 7: 6 "For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth...."

Deuteronomy 10: 15 "... The Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day."

Isaiah 41: 8 "But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend. 9: Thou whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, and called thee from the chief men thereof, and said unto thee, Thou art my servant; I have chosen thee, and not cast thee away."

2 Chronicles 20: 7 "Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever?"

Only two men in all Scripture are referred to as "friends of God." They are Abraham and Moses (Exodus 33:11). As the texts above prove, Israel was chosen because of Yahweh's love for His friend Abraham. And that is why throughout the Stewarton Bible School site, Israel is referred to as the Chosen of God!

Also, see the article below - "Are the Jews still God’s chosen people?" (From the Institute for Creation Research):

Many churches and denominations in Christendom have believed that the Jews forfeited their claims to God’s covenant promises when they refused to accept Jesus as their Messiah and when their leaders demanded that He be crucified. This belief was especially prevalent during the long centuries when they were scattered among the nations of the world, cast out of Jerusalem and the land of Israel, and with no country of their own.

However, with the almost miraculous re-establishment of the Jews in the land of Israel, as a nation among nations once again, many are re-thinking their conclusion that the Jews had permanently lost their position as the chosen people of God. Marvelous promises and prophecies were made concerning the land and the people of Israel in the Old Testament, but many Christians have tended to "spiritualize" these prophecies and to apply them to the Christian church instead of Israel. But now it appears that at least some of them are being fulfilled today in the literal nation of Israel. For example: "I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).

Many peoples, of course, resent the idea that God would have a "chosen people" at all, especially the Jews. "How odd of God, To choose the Jews" is the familiar couplet. The intense anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages, as well as in Nazi Germany more recently and Communist Russia today, is no doubt in large measure a reaction against such seeming divine favoritism.

God’s choice, however, was not based on ordinary human criteria. As Moses told his people: "The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people" (Deuteronomy 7:7).

Several factors were involved in God’s selection:

  1. His instructions to mankind as a whole had been challenged by a united rebellion of the people against Him at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), and He consequently had forcibly confounded their languages and divided them thereby into distinct nations (Genesis 10:32).

  2. His promise of a coming Redeemer, to reconcile a lost world to Himself, required that God Himself should become man some day, and He would thus have to born into some one particular nation and people.

  3. Such a nation would have to be specially prepared, both by divine revelation and by national experience, to be the nation through which the Savior would come. The choice, furthermore, would have to be made long before this purpose was accomplished, in order to allow the necessary time for these preparations.

  4. All of the nations formed as a result of the judgment at Babel were already in rebellion against God and thus unsuitable for this purpose.

  5. God, therefore, in sovereign grace, chose one man, Abraham, a direct descendant of the patriarch Shem, to establish a new nation, through which "all families of the earth would be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).

Abraham’s faith in God’s Word was subjected to severe testing again and again. But “he was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform” (Romans 4:20, 21). Consequently, God confirmed to him an unconditional covenant. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16).

Furthermore, the promises to Abraham included not only the eventual coming of Christ into his family, but also the permanent possession of the Promised Land. "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18). No condition whatsoever was attached to this gift, provided by God’s grace in response to Abraham’s obedient faith. The same promise was confirmed to his son Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5) and his grandson Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15; 35:10-12), both again unconditionally.

Consequently, the promise is still in effect and will be fulfilled completely in time to come. There have been many occasions when the children of Israel had to be disciplined, because of unbelief and disobedience. This discipline, more than once, has included subjugation to other nations and even forced expulsion from their own land.

Their greatest sin, resulting in their most severe chastisement, was in the national rejection and crucifixion of the promised Redeemer when He finally came. Jesus said: "For there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:23, 24).

Nevertheless, God’s unconditional covenant with Abraham has not been forgotten. "I say then, Hath God cast away His people? God forbid . . . God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew" (Romans 11:1, 2). "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in" (Romans 11:25).

God, in His wisdom, has used Israel’s rejection of Christ as the very means by which He would suffer and die in atonement for the sins of men in all nations, and following which He would "visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name" (Acts 15:14). Even in this age, many individual Jews—including all the original Christians—have accepted Christ, and thus have already inherited a portion of the promises. Eventually, during the period of Christ’s second coming, the Jewish nation as a whole will turn to Christ in repentance and faith. "And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins" (Romans 11:26, 27).

God keeps all His promises, including those to His people Israel. "Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 31:37).


Another question...

Secondly, the "God's chosen people" theme is very old testament. Many Christians I've spoken to claim that Jesus established a new covenant between God and Humanity. If Christians are content on revering Jews based on Old testament scripture, than why is it I don't see Christians keeping Kosher? Or Keeping the Sabbath? Or abiding by the many laws of the Torah?

Our Response...

Because they don't understand the meaning of Torah and the fact that God promised a final SIN sacrifice via Yeshua. Yeshua NEVER said He came to abolish His original teaching and instruction! The Bible is one, continuous, God-breathed document, not two separate "testaments" in which one superseded the other. If you want to believe in the abolishment of the Old Testament, then you also need to ignore the Ten Commandments which are outlined in Chapters 19 and 20 of the Book of Exodus. If God hadn't given us His commandments, WHERE would we have discovered, for instance, the difference between right and wrong?

Please have your Christian friends tell you exactly WHERE God made a covenant between Himself and "humanity". Christians don't keep kosher because the choose to ignore God's original teaching and instructions (Torah). They erroneously believe that "Jesus did away with the Old Testament". Please read Matthew 5 for what it actually says:

Matthew 5: 17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Have heaven and earth "passed away"? Has "All" been accomplished yet?

The church tries to say that the Old Covenant was "nailed to the cross", but this is totally untrue. WHEN did God ever tell us to stop keeping His feasts, or change His sabbath to Sunday? You won't find that in the Bible. Man skewed God's Word and gave birth to all these silly "religions". (Check out our "Challenging Religions" page, which exposes many religions that go totally against the Bible, including the Pagan and very dangerous religion of Islam which God is using right now to help bring about His "end time scenario": About Islam, and Germany, Wake Up!)

Christians don't keep the Sabbath because they have gone "with the world" in which CONSTANTINE and others did away with the God's Sabbath because of their hatred for the Jews. Tell me, WHERE in the Bible did GOD tell us to make Sunday the holy day of rest, or to celebrate the birth/death of His son via holidays steeped in Paganism (Christmas and Easter?) Please also read the article about the 613 original commandments along with some of the contents of our Explaining Netzarim Page.