The Reign of God 4: The Abraham Principle

Continuing with the excerpt, which ended in Part 3 when God begins to transform the world with an individual, Abraham.

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From all this we can already see that the people God chooses and creates cannot rest within itself. It is not self-enclosed, existing for its own sake. It is chosen out of the mass of the nations for the sake of those nations. Abraham was, after all dragged out of his family and his homeland so that he could be a blessing for many others. In the people that came from him was to be made visible and tangible what God wants for the whole world: nonviolence, freedom, peace, salvation.

Because God desires the salvation of the world, that salvation has to be tangibly present in the experimental field of a small nation, precisely so that the other nations can see that there really can be justice and peace in the world, so that they can see that justice and peace are not utopia, not "nowhere," and so that they can freely take on this new social order. Of course that puts a shocking burden on this nation: the burden of election. Because if the people of God does not do justice to its task, if instead of peace in its midst there is conflict, instead of nonviolence it works violence, instead of showing forth salvation it spreads disaster, it cannot be a blessing for the nations. Then it falls short of the meaning of its existence; then it will not only be a laughingstock for the nations but will do great harm

Jesus of Nazareth by Gerhard Lohfink

Next Part 5: A Basic Biblical Constant