The Everlasting Covenant

A Separated People

Through the prophet who opened his mouth to curse, but who instead uttered blessings, God said of His people Israel, “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.” ¹ The people of God are in the world, not of it, for the purpose of showing forth the excellency of Him who has called them out of darkness. But this they can do only as they acknowledge God to be supreme. The church is the kingdom in which God rules alone, and its only law is God’s law of love. It is God’s voice alone that it hears and follows, and it is God’s voice alone that speaks through it. EVCO 405.2

Let it again be repeated, however, for it is a thing that we must never forget, that while God’s true people Israel are separate from the world, they are not indifferent nor exclusive. The Israelites ought not to have made a league with the Gibeonites, but they might have received them into their number. The Gibeonites might have become Israelites in the same way that Jacob himself became one, namely, by faith. When God’s people make a league with the world, then there is only one standard—the worldly; but when they keep separate, then they hold up a standard which reveals a place of refuge for the weary and oppressed inhabitants of earth. EVCO 405.3