https://youtu.be/pjZYZ-D0FPY
In our verse-by-verse study of Romans we just started Rom 3:1; with the phrase translated "What then the advantage of the Jew."
This caused us to take a look at the advantages of being a Jew and we noted their unique gene pool, doctrinal, and national advantages. This brought us to a study of the doctrine of the priest/client nation. since Israel was a priest nation.
We noted that a client/priest nation is a national entity under God's patronage that is assigned the responsibility for the formation, preservation, communication, and fulfillment of the canon of Scripture.
Before Israel became a nation, custodianship of the word of God involved verbal divine revelation without scripture. But when Israel became a nation, it was involved in the authorship, custodianship and dissemination of God's written Word starting with Moses.
Additional responsibility was assigned to Israel in the formation of the New Testament, since most of the NT writers were Jews.
During the time of the formation of the New Testament, the client nation changed from priest nation Judea the client nation Rome, in 70 A.D.
In Exod19: 4-6; we have a reference to the client nation concept, "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself.
Now therefore, if hearing, you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine;
then you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to Me. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel."
Deut 7:6; "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth."
Deut 26:18-19; "And the Lord has today declared you to be His people, a people for His own (a treasured) possession, as He promised you; therefore, you are to keep all His commandments;
and that He will set you high above all nations which He made, for praise, fame, and honor; and that you shall be a holy people to the Lord your God, as He has spoken."
There are two categories of priest or client nations to God in human history: the Jewish priest nations of the Old Testament with a specialized priesthood and the Gentile client nations during the dispensation of the Church with a universal priesthood.
No Gentile nation of the Old Testament was a client nation to God. The Gentile client nation category follows exactly the same pattern as Israel with some dramatic differences related to the uniqueness of the Church Age, both in grace provision and in spiritual life.
Client nation is a synonym for a priest nation. The name "priest nation" is used for Israel because it had a specialized priesthood. The term "client nation" is used for any Gentile nation that performs the same functions during the Church Age.
In Roman culture a client was someone dependent on another family. Instead of calling a Gentile nation a priest nation as such, the believers in the Church Age are a holy priesthood comprised of God's royal family dependent on the Lord Jesus Christ.
1Pet 2:4-5; "And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but elect and precious in the sight of God,
you also, as living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house (Heb 3:6) as a result of a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through the agency of Jesus Christ."
Israel was always called a holy nation. The Church is called a holy priesthood because every believer is a priest in the Church Age.
Jesus Christ tested and proved the prototype spiritual life. Heb 12:2; We offer up spiritual sacrifice by the fulfillment of the three stages of the adult spiritual life.
God does not want sacrifices and offerings; He wants the sacrifice of the spiritual life. The spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God are the spiritual mechanics of the spiritual life. John 4:23-24;
1 Pet 2:9, "But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out from darkness into His marvelous light."
The idea of an elect race comes from the Greek phrase in 2Cor 5:17;
The Greek words translated "new creation are "kaine ktisis" that mean, "a new spiritual species."
"Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new spiritual species; old things have lost their power, behold, new things have come to pass."
The new things that have come to pass are the spiritual mechanics and the spiritual objectives of the spiritual life.
In the privacy of the priesthood, every church age believer has the option to succeed or to fail in their very own spiritual life and as goes the believer so goes the client nation.
The royal priesthood is related to positional sanctification. Our Lord is a king-priest from the line of David.
Believers in Christ are in union with Christ. As members of God's royal family they are indwelled with God the Holy Spirit and they have the option to be filled with the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit is the key to Gentile client nations in the Church Age.
A client nation to God is a nation under divine protection, because it has a significantly large pivot of mature believers. These mature believers are the predicate for blessing by association to those around them and they provide historical blessing to their nation.
A client nation is destroyed by the reversionistic believers who are beguiled by satan's lies and "spin-off" from the pivot of mature believers because they have rejected Bible doctrine.
As the pivot shrinks, the nation loses its client nation status and undergoes the cycles of discipline. Only a small remnant of positive believers had impact through the spiritual life of Israel in the Old Testament.
A major source of God's influence on human history in the devil's world is through client nations. The most important client nation and the key to all client nations is found in the history of Israel as a priest nation. The client nation is responsible to do five things.
It must evangelize its own population at home. It must communicate Bible doctrine to the believers in the nation. It is responsible for the custodianship of Bible doctrine. It provides a haven for the Jews in the devil's world and it is responsible to send out missionaries to evangelize other nations.
There were five Jewish client nations in the Old Testament. The theocratic kingdom, B.C. 1441-1020, from the Exodus until the prophet Samuel. The theocratic kingdom ended when the Jews said, "We want to have a king like other nations."
The United Kingdom from Saul to Rehoboam, B.C. 1020-926.
The Northern Kingdom from Jeroboam to Hoshea, B.C. 926-721. In 721 B.C. the fifth cycle of discipline was administered by the Assyrians under Sargon II.
The Southern Kingdom from Rehoboam to Zedekiah, B.C. 926-586. The fifth cycle of discipline was administered by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar in B.C. 586.
After the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were destroyed, while no Jewish client nation was independently operational Jews outside of the client nation while in Gentile nations filled the gap. We see this in the books of Esther and Daniel.