I don't understand why the Jewish were God's chosen people.?

Question

Does that mean until Jesus came that God didn't allow any other people into heaven? What was so special about the Jews. If I lived back in Old Testament times and wasn't Jewish but believed in God would I be in heaven right now? I don't understand.

Answer 1

It was not really the Jews that were chosen, it was Abraham. He was chosen by God because of his great faith and obedience to God, and rewarded for that faith by becoming a father of many nations. God made these promises to him and then when his sons Issac and Jacob also followed in Abraham's steps of faith the promises were passed on to them. There are the Patriarch of the Jewish nation. The promises are listed in Genesis 12:1 "Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; 2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."
These promises were added to even until the time of David, and one of them was that through this nation would come an Anointed One (Messiah/Christ) who would bring salvation to the world.
Salvation did exist outside of the Jewish people in the old testament but the message of faith and living righteously came from that nation to the other nations and it was only through that that a gentile could be saved. Jesus said in John 4:22 "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

God has been faithful to His promises even down to this age and Israel is still under the protection of God even though they are in unbelief of His Messiah. The day will come when God will again honor Israel and give them fully the land He promised them and make them the blessing that He said they would be.

Answer 2

Christians' God started out as the Jews' God. So they had him first and believed that they were His chosen people (if you believed in that particular god you were Jewish - like now if you believe in Jesus you are a Christian). Then Jesus (a Jewish man) came along and started a new thing called Christianity. Same God but new information. So it is like Christianity evolved from Judaism. Christians have the same Old Testament but have added on the New Testament to explain Jesus. So basically if you lived back in the Old Testament times and believed in God you would be Jewish because that was their religion! I hope this helps.

Answer 3

>>"Does that mean until Jesus came that God didn't allow any other people into heaven? "<<

christianity thinks this is how it was. but judaism does not, Judaism has a concept of a "righteous gentile" that is, a non-jew who leads a good enough life to get into heaven, despite the fact they are not jewish. but Judaism also does not claim to be exclusively correct, it doesn't say that everyone else goes to hell or any such thing. in fact Judaism does not HAVE an eternal hell like Christianity does.

>>"If I lived back in Old Testament times and wasn't Jewish but believed in God would I be in heaven right now? I don't understand."<<

by jewish beliefs, the answer would be "probably" in fact even now, if your a good person, by jewish standards, you could very well go to heaven, basically Judaism does not say you won't, it says that you should be a good person, and the rest is between you and God.

(think of it as being jewish, being like... getting in the carpool lane, where everyone else has to take the regular lanes, its not to say they won't get there, but its just not as ideal, though, to reinforce it also does not say its the only "fast track" either.)

Christianity invented the whole "we're the only ones who are right" thing.

Answer 4

Thank you for writing such a great question.

You are correct in what you are feeling about the chosen people of God. There is only one chosen people of God, and its those that God has created.

The children who were created on the sixth day and also those that were created on the eighth day. If you don't understand this go to the book of Genesis and its there for you to read when you will.

At the time of Jesus Christ, Jesus only referred to the Jews when He had fear that they would hurt or try to kill Him. These Jews that He refers to are Kenites who occupied the seat of Moses, the Law of the land. The people, the tribe of Judah are not the Jews that are spoken of there.

Until the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, everyone lived under the law. Those of the sixth day did not have the law so they were not judged the way the eighth day were.

After Jesus was died, He opened Heaven to whomsoever will. This began the Grace of the Lord. Heaven is opened to anyone who will choose to accept Jesus as Lord.

Don't forget that the day that Jesus Christ died He went to the all the peoples that had died before who had not heard the Good News of Jesus Christ. Many were saved from that place of holding.

So in a nutshell, the chosen people are they that will. I hope I have helped you and possibly have given you some curiosity to get deeper into the Word of God.><>

Answer 5

The Jews are God's chosen people because His covenant was established with them. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. However, even the heathen may have part in the first resurrection and may be assigned to one of the kingdoms of glory after their time in the spirit world. (Depending on their degree of knowledge, words, works, thoughts, and the loving grace, mercy and perfect judgment of an Eternal God). A teaching process is going on there right now, begun when as recorded in 1 Peter 3:18, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: (19) By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; (20) Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." And in 1 Peter 4:6, "For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit." The Gentiles become the "wild olive tree branch that is grafted into the tame olive tree (the Jews)", and are thus adopted into the house of Israel and thus become of His covenant people. This is open to all and thus the "last shall be first and the first shall be last". Christ fulfilled the law of Moses. He was the ultimate sinless sacrifice, "the lamb slain from the foundation of the world"Now for a sacrifice the Lord wants a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Since Jesus said that "except a man be born of the water and of the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven" the dead are covered through the scriptures explained (if they accept the teaching Christ instituted in the spirit world) and are also covered provided the ordinances of baptism and the receiving of the Holy Ghost by proxy as mentioned in the book of 1 Corinthians 15:29. You could still go to heaven and not be a Jew. Ruth was a Moabitess and not a Jew, but was accepted in and became the wife of Boaz, who was the father of Obed, who was the father of Jesse, who was the father of King David. Go back to the flood also, we all sprang from those remaining eight souls.

Answer 6

Dear, God existed before the Jews ever had a god, When Moses was able to free the then Hebrews from the Egyptians. Moses did not want his people to be like the Egyptians and Moses being a philosopher and scribe. Created The Torah the Hebrew law and thus they became a nation and Gods choose people, that simple they wrote it and put themselves above all people, thus creating a nation. They are self declared, so if your not Jewish why are you a christian, if one. It's a scam, Jews are very talented, the Egyptians would never had the pyramids if not for the Hebrews & Hitlir would not have had such great wepons had it not been for the Jews forced labor & know how

Answer 7

The Jews were chosen to bring the knowledge of God into the world. Until the Jews, as an entire people accepted God, most of the nations denied that there was any supreme being.
According to Jewish tradition, righteous people from other nations can also get into Heaven

Answer 8

There is no one in Heaven at this point with exception of the saints, a couple of extremely Godly prophets and God and his angels. Not too many Jews were able to live like God wanted as there were many hard and fast laws to follow for His chosen people. The people that died before Jesus are the same as the ones who died afterward. The only difference is the ones who sleep from before Jesus' time will be called up first to be judged by their works as they did not have knowledge of Him. Those who have been asleep since Jesus' granted all people salvation will be judged according to their acceptance of his gift of salvation and the living of a christlike life. That was the whole purpose behind the crucifixion. It was to create a new covenant for all peoples and to eliminate any boundaries according to race.

Answer 9

God chose to work with a particular peoples, that through them all nations would be blessed.

Because God decided to become one of His creation (the Incarnation), He needed to enter the human race through some one.

So, He chose it to be through the line of Abraham, Isaac, David ...and on down the way.

As some have observed:
How odd of God
To choose the Jews

None others got into Paradise?
Well, what about Adam, Eve, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, etc., etc.

Even in the Old Testament it was by Faith that people pleased God; by Faith they looked forward to when the Salvation would come.

The Jews were God's Chosen People in that He would guide them and through them would come as Messiah.

Answer 10

The Jews do not believe in heaven. Go to one of their funerals.
They celebrate. God has chosen the people he wants to work with Jesus in and after the resurrection. They come from all over the world and from all time periods. Yet their numbers are just 144,000. Study revelation for answers.