To Preserve Israel

Yesterday, we read Galatians 3:22-24:

“But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise of faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (3:22-24)

In these words of Paul, there is a phrase which reveals one further important function of the law in connection with Israel. Speaking as an Israelite, Paul says:

“We were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.” (Gal. 3:23)

The law kept Israel as a special nation, set apart from all others, separated out by its distinctive rites and ordinances, preserved for the special purposes for which God had called them. The prophet Balaam, in his God-given vision of Israel’s destiny, sets forth God’s plan for them.

“A people [Israel] dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations.” (Num. 23:9)

God’s perfect will for Israel was that they should dwell alone, as a unique and separate nation, in their own land. But even when Israel’s disobedience frustrated this first purpose of God for them and caused them to be scattered as exiles and wanderers among all nations of the world, God still ordained that they should not be reckoned among the nations.

In the past nineteen centuries of Jewish dispersion among the Gentile nations, this decree of God has been most wonderfully fulfilled. In all the lands and nations whither they have come, the Jews have always remained a distinct and separate element which has never been assimilated or lost its special identity. The main instrument in keeping Israel a separate nation has been continued adherence to the law of Moses.