only Jews among the nations? It is quite plausible that they thought this way, and that the disciples’ understanding was constricted to their eyes only opened to a small and somewhat nationalistic appreciation of what was meant by the necessity of Christ’s death and suffering at that point. In whatever way we understand what is meant by the disciples’ minds being opened, it took some time before it was realized that the gospel is for non-Jews as well.)
What caused such a delay? Why were the disciples entrenched in the notion their God was God for Israel only? We need to consider then God’s clear and particular favor for Israel before Christ came, even though some signs had long beforehand been pointers to the salvation of Gentiles as well.
From the outset it soon became evident that Israel was central to God’s plan for mankind. David Dorsey, author of The Literary Structure of the Old Testament, claims that from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Joshua is found “an intricate and overarching symmetric scheme” of the centrality of Israel in God’s plan for mankind. For after the Fall, as Genesis 1–11 reveals it, peoples of the earth came to live in their respective lands upon the divine overthrow of Babel—all peoples, except the descendants of Abraham. As Dorsey says: “Conspicuous by its absence (in Genesis 1–11) is ...Israel.” Then in Genesis 12, in what could be called a lopsided account of things in Genesis, the history of Abraham and his descendants is accorded much attention in the divinely inspired record, until Israel finally receives its own land (Joshua 13–24).
We are to observe then that when Israel has “the rapt attention” of God in the center of the giving out of the Sinaitic Law, Israel is promised upon her obedience to him the status of being God’s treasured possession so that she is to be for God a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Several scholars have noted how vital the text of Exodus 19:6 is, and therefore they see it as foreordaining Israel “to meditate and intercede as priests between the holy God and the wayward nations of the world, with the end in view of not only declaring his salvation, but providing the human channel in and through whom that salvation would be effected” (Eugene Merrill endorsing the view of Walter Eichrodt). While Israel may not have become conscious of her existence for such universalism at the time of the Sinaitic Covenant, later prophetic writings allude to Israel being groomed for such a universal priesthood, though the struggle to become a holy nation was ongoing. In fact, those prophets with the keenest of prophetic eyes only saw from a far distance the time when Israel would actually be the holy nation, holy enough to possess the pure priests required to evangelize the world. There were prophetic eyes that were compelled to see even beyond the Exile and the Return from Babylon.
Prophets such as Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel looked into the far distance when the nation would only be purified at the appearance of the Davidic Messiah. According to Jeremiah, God would establish with the house of Israel a new covenant that would see God’s law put in the hearts of his people so that in reality as a nation at last he was their God and they were his people (Jeremiah 3:31–34). The fortunes of the land would only be restored “as at first” when the Righteous Branch sprang up from David’s line, the Branch who would bring about righteousness in the land, at the time when a satisfactory priesthood was established as well (Jeremiah 33:11–22). Ezekiel predicts the kind of return to the homeland whereby the nation will no longer suffer the disgrace of famine, and will see the people with a new heart and spirit (Ezekiel 36:22–32).
Ralph Alexander observes that the return of Israel under Zerubbabel did not see the complete restoration for land and people predicted by Ezekiel. It refers to an End-time Return. Then in Daniel we meet him who is the Son of Man, the Messiah, but who will only prove to be Israel’s Messiah and King in full at the End-time. Until Israel is characterized as a holy nation—and not merely possessing relatively few godly individuals—will she become a Kingdom of priests. Not merely priests but a kingdom of priests. Israel must have the King Messiah enabling her to reign as a kingdom, and in the authority and power of kingdom-rule that has a holy manner to reach out to the nations.
Now, while much emphasis was placed in the Old Testament writings on Israel’s destiny as a holy nation and a kingdom of priests, there also appears in one place or another that which may seem to some a sense of superiority or disdain towards Gentiles when her destiny is realized. For instance, in Isaiah 60 we read of Gentiles coming to Israel’s light in the latter days, and the Gentiles acting as servants to assist Israel in bringing back the rest of her people to the land of Israel. If Gentiles do not serve Israel in any way needed, they “shall perish” and will be “utterly laid waste.” Then, in Micah we read that the remnant of Jacob in the latter days shall be in the midst of many peoples “like a lion among the beasts of the forest”, which “treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.” Does this mean Israel will be superior to the Gentiles, with the Gentiles having to serve them, so as Gentiles they do not enjoy a complete reign as Israel will under the Messiah?
Even if such a prophet as Isaiah predicts the Gentiles will seek God with success, and that the Messiah will bring justice to the Gentiles so that their hope is realized in him, will restored Israel lord it over both the converted and the unconverted Gentiles all the same? Will there be a strata in terms of rank when the Messiah reigns?—the saved of Gentile and Jew to the Jews’ greater favor?
Does the book of Jonah shed any light on this issue? For it is a record of how God took pity on Gentiles in the Ninevites, when Jonah was loath to have pity on them.
There was a hesitancy on Jonah’s part to obey the Lord when he was commissioned to go to Nineveh, even though he was told to “preach against it.” He might have been most eager to preach against the very wicked city in order to see it destroyed through its refusal to repent. At a time when Israel (the northern Kingdom) was hurtling to its destruction because of its godlessness, Jonah left his country when it would have been natural to regard those Gentiles as enemies of Israel, yes, just when Israel seemed soon to be given up to Gentile power and destruction. Jonah would have been sensitive to certain self-righteousness in regard to this. It is not far-fetched to believe Jonah was hoping against hope that Nineveh would not repent and thus be destroyed so as to spare Israel of destruction from her. Jonah’s initial disobedience reflected not only his own but that of Israel’s disobedience as well—with pride in God’s election of her becoming a stumbling block against emerging as priests to the Gentiles. That Jonah hoped for the great city’s destruction is evident, even though he finally agreed to go to Nineveh. He went “obediently”—under duress.
When God is seen as merciful to such heathen people, Jonah waits to see if their repentance is genuine. When it appears to be genuine, he sulks. It is then that he must learn that God desires to show favor to Gentiles. Through chastisement the prophet’s conduct was meant to be such that he desired, like God, the salvation of Gentiles, especially of so many children who were relatively innocent.
So does the book of Jonah shed any light on the kind of future status in salvation that Gentiles are to possess in relation to Israel? It shows God may be gracious and compassionate towards Gentiles, “slow to anger and abounding in love” as much to Gentiles as to those who initially were his elect people. Yet, Jonah as a book reveals little of what some other prophets declared concerning the leading position Israel is to adopt when many Gentiles are saved, and when we are all living under the reign of the Messiah on the renewed earth. So Jonah sheds no light on Israel’s future status as the center of the Davidic Kingdom, in the exercising of a unique form of kingship as a royal priesthood, if Exodus 19:6 as a promise is to reach fruition.
With the salvation that came to Nineveh, the experience of Jonah serves as a rare example of salvation to Gentiles before Christ, so that Peter still had to be compelled by a vision to see God’s intention to save Gentiles, that is, in addition to saving homeland Jews and Diaspora Jews. Says Keil and Delitzsch: “ . . . (the reluctance to seek the salvation of the Gentiles no doubt saw Jonah sharing on his part as the prophet) the feelings and general state of mind of the Israelite nation towards the Gentiles.” Keil and Delitzsch as Old Testament scholars wisely speak only of a general state of rejection of the Gentiles by the Jews. There were instances of Gentiles being accepted but acceptance of any Gentile was somewhat of a rarity when God exercised his free will and prerogative in favor of revealing himself almost solely to Israel of the