Last week we discussed why God fought so hard to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Enslaving them was bad enough, but Pharaoh intended to extinguish them! And God wouldn’t tolerate that; they were His chosen ones. (Bible verses are from the ESV.)
“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 9But the LORD’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted heritage.” – Deuteronomy 32:8-9
Israel was unlike the Gentiles; it belonged to God. But who oversaw Egypt and the other nations?
According to Moses, the sons of God did.
Who are they?
The Old Testament mentions them five times.
“The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose … 4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” Genesis 6:2, 4
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” – Job 1:6
“Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.” – Job 2:1
“When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” – Job 38:7
The sons of God are angels, members of the divine council. They had the privilege and responsibility of assisting God’s governance over creation. But some of these beings didn’t obey the Lord. Genesis 6 points out the perversion they pursued.
But after the dispersal of the nations at the Tower of Babel (see Genesis 11), those whom God assigned to watch over the nations abused their power and sought the worship of their charges. This accounts for the universal spread of idolatry.
Yet God wasn’t surprised by this turn of events. He knew these angels would exceed their authority and exalt themselves. But to preserve His own people, He warned Israel not to follow in the steps of the Gentiles who’d succumbed.
“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. 19And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of His own inheritance, as you are this day.” – Deuteronomy 4:15-20
Idolaters believed their images and statues made the gods accessible. Not so with the Lord! He reminded the Israelites that He addressed them in the midst of spiritual fire on Mount Horeb. He needed no statue!
Besides crafting idols, the Gentiles also took to worshiping the objects of the heavens. The nations treated these like statues–bodies of the gods. The Lord was not taken off guard. He realized sinful humanity would degrade even further after He distanced Himself following the Babel incident.
But that’s why He chose Abraham. To bless the scattered nations, the Lord sought to build a nation.
“In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” – Genesis 22:18
This promise finds ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
“They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” – Romans 9:4-5
Paul opens his letter to the Romans by integrating the promises to Israel, the divine sonship of Jesus, His saving work for the world, and the call of God to spread this message throughout the world.
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3concerning His Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations, 6including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” – Romans 1:1-6
The gospel solves the problem of the estranged nations. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, sinful people now have a way to a holy God. Christ’s death forgives them and His resurrection by the Spirit provides them new life. God’s plan worked. The Jewish Messiah is the Savior of the whole world!
But what about the gods? What does the Lord do with those angels who disobeyed His commission to look after the nations?
We’ll explore that next week!
[…] ended last week’s post with a question: what does the Lord do with those sons of God who failed Him? Responding to the […]