Everything in Christ

 The divisions created at Babel were meant to be temporary from the beginning, and from the moment of Israel’s Exodus they began to be erased. 

When Israel left Egypt, they were accompanied by a “mixed multitude” of people, those who were not of Israel (Exodus 12:38).

From the Exodus on there were always Gentiles who, seeing the God of Israel was the one true God at work in the world, sought to join themselves to Israel and her God. “The terror of you has fallen upon us,” Rahab told the two spies. The nations knew that the one true God was Yahweh, because of the mighty works He did for Israel. As long as Israel remained faithful, God worked victory for them, and the nations could see it.

Rahab and Ruth were both in the lineage of our Lord. Racial segregation was never the point of God’s setting apart of Israel.

By the end of Israel’s exile, the lineage of some had become so lost that they could not tell for sure that they were of Israel (Nehemiah 7:61-64). Any racial unity that existed in Israel was gradually being torn apart by the sovereign hand of God Himself. 

Through the mouths of the prophets, God called the nations to account for their sins. This was in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

The goal from the beginning was not that the Gentiles might merely “eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table” (Mt. 15:27), but that all the nations might sit with Israel and feast together at the table of the Lord. All things and peoples were to be gathered together into Christ (Eph. 1:10).