Israel's heirs.
"Hath he no heir?" Most wonderful is the preservation of the Jews as a distinct race amid the strangest vicissitudes of fortune and through centuries of exile—surviving the devastating deluge of the successive Oriental monarchies, the captivity in Babylon, the cruelties of Antiochus Epiphanes, the sweep of Roman conquest, the persecution of the Middle Ages, and the cosmopolitan citizenship of our own day. Yet, much as Israel has contributed to the philosophy and trade of the modern world, and great as her future mission may yet be, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that her lonely glory of religions preeminence has passed away. Others have entered into this proud inheritance.
I. THE INHERITANCE.
1. The knowledge of the true God. This, and not the land flowing with milk and honey, was the chief treasure of Israel's inheritance. When all neighbouring nations were following polytheism, idol worship, and immoral rites, Israel was led by prophetic voices to look to one God—a spiritual presence who could only be in the beauty of holiness. That people, therefore, which has the highest worshipped knowledge of God, and the purest religious life and worship, wilt be the true heir of this part of the ancient possession of the Jews.
2. The mission to enlighten the heathen. The Jew was not called to his privileged position wholly for his own sake. He was an elect people that he might be an apostle to the world; that in him there might be developed the revelation of truth which was for the healing of all the nations; that he might cultivate, preserve, transmit, and disseminate this abroad. His was the proud mission of the torch bearer to the nations that sat in darkness, that through his light they might see their light and life. This mission was often ignored, and it was never perfectly developed in Old Testament times; but the work of Jonah and Daniel, and the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah concerning the heathen, are partial accomplishments of it. It waited till Christ came for its full exercise. Then the Jew became the missionary of the gospel. The faith of the new age was given to the world by Jew apostles.
II. THE arms. If the Jew has lost his proud religious pre-eminence, who has become his heir?
1. The Christian is the heir of the Jew's knowledge of the true God. He and he alone, whether he be of the stock of Shem, of Ham, or of Japheth, is the true Israelite, the "royal priesthood," etc. For Christianity is the fulfilment and perfection of the Jewish faith (Matthew 5:17-20). In the New Testament we see a higher knowledge of God, a more spiritual worship, a more devoted service. If this be true, to reject it and rest contented with the lower faith of the Old Testament must be to give way in the race.
2. The most Christian missionary is the truest heir to Israel's mission to evangelize the world. If there be any one race upon whom the mantle of Israel has fallen, may we not think that this is the great English-speaking peoples of Britain and America? Such an inheritance is not to be made out by ingenious arguments about the fate of the lost ten tribes. If we were the descendants of those apostate Israelites, we should be none the better for the fact, nor are we under any disadvantage because the hypothesis of an Israelite origin proves to be groundless. To make much of such a point is to go back to the lower conceptions of Judaism, and to disregard the higher spiritual conditions of Christianity. The true heir of Israel is the possessor of Israel's faith in its full development. It is not our birth and descent, but our personal religion, that can secure the inheritance to us.