A Light to the Nations

We are partway through a series on God’s global mission, tracing God’s rescue plan across the Scriptures to see how his intention was, from the very beginning, to bless all nations. While we could have started earlier, from the promise of Eve’s descendant crushing the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15), and stopped at other waypoints in the Biblical journey, the few we have chosen to highlight make clear the logic of what God has been doing from Abraham to the new creation.

It begins with God’s choice. In the wake of humanity seeking to build themselves a great name and secure existence, God chooses an almost-dead, barren couple: Abraham and Sarah (Romans 4:19-25). He will build this family into a great nation with a great name who live secure in God’s own land (Genesis 12:1-3). But this choice was never simply to display his great power to the nations but was always a choice for the nations so that they might share in his blessing.

Yet, after God preserves and grows this couple into a great nation (Exodus 1:7), there’s a problem: they are enslaved and oppressed by the might of Egypt (Exodus 1:8-14). But God has not forgotten his choice (Exodus 3:6-7), and so God rescues his people to be his priests to all the earth (Exodus 19:1-6), who bring God’s favour and blessing to the peoples and who bring the peoples’ praises and blessings back to God (e.g. Genesis 14:17-20).

But this people repeatedly proved stubborn, preferring to embrace the idolatrous ways of the nations rather than to hold out the blessing of God. Rather than merely renege on his promise and obliterate his people, however, God promises to send a servant to restore them and remake them into his light to the nations, who shine into the dark prison of idolatry and death.

Simeon recognises Jesus—at the time just a child—to be this servant, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). And so, once he is raised with all authority for all time, Jesus sends his people to disciple the nations.

And this great global mission results in people from every nation and language gathered around God’s throne full of praise to the true and living God (Revelation 7:9-10), a future reality we bear witness to every time we gather as God’s people to praise him (Romans 15:8-13).

God’s people are chosen and rescued to be a light sent to the nations so that people from every nation, having received God’s blessing, might praise him.

But this all raises a slightly uncomfortable question for some of us, particularly because of where and when we live: isn’t this storyline a tad imperialistic? Don’t those nations, peoples and languages have something to teach us? Can we really presume to be those who have been enlightened with “the Truth”?

Historically, this is a fair question. Western missionaries have in the past been guilty of not simply bringing the gospel of Christ but also western Christian culture. Or worse (though rarely), western culture alone parading as Christ. Mission agencies such as CMS have recognised this and work hard to embrace mission with Christ’s humility, working under local leadership to enable them to discern what it looks like to honour Christ as Zimbabweans, Moroccans, Peruvians, or Italians, for example.

However, while we rightly hear and respond to the critique of colonialism, we also need to critique something in our own culture: pluralism. Pluralism is not merely the idea that we need to give other religious cultures equal respect (a good thing to do), nor even that other religions might equally recognise some part of God’s ways (something the Bible suggests). Instead, it is the idea that we must afford every view as equally valid, life-giving and leading to God.

There are many responses to pluralism, but perhaps the simplest is to not speak for the nations (an act of imperialism) but to let them speak for themselves. When Paul and Barnabas preach Jesus in Antioch of Pisidia in Acts 13, the people beg to hear more. And when the Jews reject the message and Paul and Barnabas turn exclusively to the Gentiles (or nations), what do the people do? They rejoice (v48) and are filled with joy and the Holy Spirit (v52). And this response could be multiplied across every nation who see the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ.

We need not feel uncomfortable about mission, for the nations (including us) are thirsting for Christ (Isaiah 42:4).