The Books of Chronicles place the storyline in its history and ensure the historical context is accurate. The Chronicler, whom I believe was Jeremiah, begins his account with Adam. He then gives us the genealogies of Genesis up to Abraham. Abraham’s line is traced to Israel’s David and the kings of Judah, ending with Israel as God’s chosen people. It’s all about the connection of his present with the past. The Israelites are God’s people. Someone once said, “How odd of God to choose the Jews!” But the Chronicler corrects that and says, “How good of God to choose the Jews.” He did not choose them because of some inherent quality that made them better than others. He chose them as the conduit to bless the entire world.
We might say of believers today, “How good of God to choose you.” Through the Jews came the Messiah. Matthew and Luke begin their accounts of Jesus’ life by connecting his birth with his past heritage. In the Book of Matthew, we get the lineage from Abraham to Jesus. In Luke, we get it back to Adam. One would think Matthew and Luke knew the genealogies in the Book of Chronicles. These two accounts affirm the origin of Jesus and assure the Jewish people that this one is the messiah promised in the Old Testament. Yet, the religious leaders of Israel didn’t want him. Once they rejected him, a new genealogy began. It’s this one that matters most. Those who accept the Jew’s Messiah, Jesus, are adopted as God’s chosen people. That’s us! According to Galatians, true believers in Jesus can now trace their genealogies back to Abraham and even back to Adam. In our relationship with Jesus, we have a historical context for our being.
Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2016. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
This does not sit well with the world. We should love our neighbors as ourselves. This means we must accept every religion as being as valid as the one taught in the Bible. They say that to love our neighbor means we must see all religions as just one of the many alternative ways of reaching the one God, whatever name we give Him. To say that by faith, we are God’s chosen is to belittle others. How arrogant! The Church has often been criticized for its stance on their position as God’s chosen people. It’s presumptuous. It’s blatant self-centeredness. In Western civilization, it’s currently not politically correct to identify as God’s chosen people. The Gentile world hates the Jews because they do it. Bible-believing Christians are grafted into this heritage, and the world hates them too.
But if we understand that loving our neighbor means respecting every religion equally, we surrender biblical truth. According to Jesus, the first commandment is to love God with our whole hearts, minds, and souls. To love others is the second greatest commandment. To push love for others to mean that we must see all religions as the same to respect the views of others is to reverse the order. God is first, and others are second. According to the Bible, Jesus has exclusive rights to the salvation of mankind. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus tells us, “No man can come to the Father except through Him.”