So, are you saying that God was somehow "misleading" the Jews in the O.T.
or that His "promises" are vacuous? This of course implys that God is a liar.
BTW, the Gospel of Grace (for the GENTILES) is nowhere found in the O.T.,
it was revealed to the Apostle Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (not "the 12").
The 4 "gospels" present the Gospel of the Kingdom (Jesus as King of the Jews).
Missions is the heartbeat of God. It is the means whereby God accomplishes his eternal purposes in this world. God does not need the help of missionaries to achieve his ends, but he has chosen to graciously include those creatures made in his image in this divine endeavor. That purpose is clear: to fill the world with the image of God. When this purpose is accomplished, when the “knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters the sea,” the world will be utopia. Paradise will be restored. Men will beat their swords into plowshares and peace will cover the Earth. Missions is the means whereby God will bring this noblest of all endeavors to pass.
This task is not a New Testament phenomenon as many suppose. It is not only found in both testaments; it is the focus of both testaments. The first commission given to the first human being is the Great Commission. When Christians typically think of the Great Commission they think its origin is at the end of a couple of New Testament Gospels. However, a brief examination of the first recorded words God ever spoke to a man reveals that the Great Commission in the New Testament is only a fresh rendering of the commission given to Adam at the beginning of the Old Testament. Genesis 1:26-29 says:
Then God said, “Let us make manh in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God told Adam, his image bearer, to multiply and fill the earth with other image bearers until the whole earth was subdued and in the control of those who bear the image of God. That is the Great Commission. We are to go forth bearing God’s image restored to us by Christ who is the perfect image of God and into whose image we are daily being conformed. We are to multiply the ranks of those who bear that image until the whole earth is filled with the image of Christ and Christ reigns over the face of the whole earth. Matthew 28:19-20, what we typically think of when we speak of the Great Commission, says:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Baptize the nations and teach them to obey Christ’s commands. That is just another way of saying, “Fill the Earth with the image of Christ and by that image subdue it.” Christ says that all the authority is his and so we should go and restore it to the earth by baptizing the nations. It was the image of God that reigned before the Fall. Since the Fall the Bible has been about restoring the rightful rule of that dethroned image.
All this talk of rule, reign, authority and commands may sound a bit authoritarian which certainly does not seem congruent to the warm spirit of compassionate Christianity taught in the Bible. But what one needs to understand is that Heaven is heaven only because Jesus Christ reigns there. It is neither the streets of gold nor the mansions that make Heaven, heaven. It is the undisputed reign of Jesus Christ. And wherever his reign is enthusiastically embraced, there is a piece of heaven there as well. Under the roof of the family home where all its inhabitants welcome the reign of Christ can be a piece of heaven on earth. The same is true with a town filled with people who welcome the rule of Jesus Christ. A town that is taught to “observe whatsoever [Christ] has commanded” will be a piece of heaven. I say “piece” because there will still be hardships like sickness and catastrophes that visit that town. But the people who gladly bow to the reign of Christ will have a piece of heaven there. The same can be said for a nation. Nothing is more compassionate or warm than persuading all the people of the world to enthrone Jesus Christ as their ruler and making his ways and commands their own.
One day the world will bow to the Lordship of Christ and the oldest of commissions given to man will be accomplished. The earth will be filled with people who are like Jesus (bear his image) and Paradise will be restored. Imagining a world where everybody from pole to pole is very much like Jesus is a thrilling prospect. Making that prospect a reality is the pith and morrow of missions. Bringing it to pass is the first commission ever given to man. It is Christ’s Great Commission given to his disciples before he ascended back to the Father. It is that commission that the Church has been seeking to fulfill for two thousand years, but the same that God’s people have been responsible for since the first human being was made.
The Old Testament is rife with passages that affirm God’s desire to bring the nations of the earth to himself. One of those great passages is Isaiah 11. In the passage God promises to send the Messiah he calls the “root of Jesse.” This Messiah will bring peace upon the earth by the “rod of his mouth” such that the “lion will lay down with the lamb.” Verse 9 declares why there will be such peace, “for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The knowledge of God will bring this to pass and that is precisely the whole point of the Gospel. It is the very heart of the Great Commission. The “rod of his mouth” is the Gospel. Jamieson Faucet and Brown say this refers to “condemning sentences which proceed from His mouth against the wicked (Re 1:16; 2:16; 19:15, 21).” And that is what the Gospel does. Jesus said in John 16:8 about the Holy Spirit who would come to empower the disciples to carry out this commission, “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” The Greek word for convict “elegchō” means: to convict, refute, confute
1. generally with a suggestion of shame of the person convicted
2. by conviction to bring to the light, to expose
This is how Luke describes Paul’s Gospel work applied to Felix. Luke says in Acts 24:24-25
After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”
Note that what Paul is speaking about is “the faith of Christ” i. e., the Gospel. Putting Isaiah 11, John 14 and Acts 24 together, one can see that the way in which Christ will bring peace on the earth is through the proclamation of the Gospel which, among other things, convicts the world of sin. The Gospel is the “rod of his mouth.” Of course, the Gospel does other things very different from convicting sinners as well like comforting the penitent and reconciling the world to God. But the point here is that Isaiah 11 is speaking of the Gospel work of ushering in peace on earth through Holy Spirit empowered missions exemplified in the ministry of the Apostles.
