(2 Ch 7:12) Then the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.
(2
Ch 7:13) When
I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the
land, or send pestilence among My people,
(2
Ch 7:14) if
My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek
My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and
will forgive their sin and heal their land (cf. 2 Chron 7:15-22).
Let’s
face it; if most believers cherry-pick or neglect the Scriptures altogether,
you can imagine they are not going to Chronicles to catch up on some Bible
reading! Two of the most popular verses that have emerged from the Chronicles
are the prayer of Jabez (1 Chron 4:10) and Yahweh’s words to Solomon during the
night after the dedication of the Solomonic Temple or house of Yahweh in 2
Chron 7:12-22, more specifically 2 Chron 7:14.
Concerning
Yahweh’s words to Solomon in 2 Chron 7:14, there is this tendency of readers to
spiritualize this text in such a manner by reading into the phrase, if my people [Jews, contextually] who are called by My
name, with
Christians. Land
(Israel,
contextually) becomes the home nation of the reader, like the United States,
for instance. Is this interpretation violating the context?
Technically,
yes, it is or depending on who you ask, of course, because there are two
different schools of thought on that. In its setting (time, place, and people),
did the Holy Spirit intend during inspiration that the phrase, My people, was referring to
Christians? No. We are still in Solomon’s reign (B.C. 971-931), centuries away
from NT times. Can an application be made today that now the phrase, if My people, today refers to
believers in Jesus Christ? Others will say, “Yes.” I think this affirmation is
from those who maintain that the Church is spiritual Israel, having been spiritually
grafted into the Olive Tree (Israel). I can see their point, but I am reluctant
to say that here in this verse.
Do
you ever hear spiritual leadership of some local churches or Christian writer
suggest that America is in trouble because of God’s people is not living for
the Lord? It is a belief that says, “As the Church goes, so goes the nation.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the byproduct of a
misinterpretation of 2 Chron 7:14, “If we humble ourselves, pray and seek the
Lord, and turn from our sins, there will be forgiveness and America will be
healed.”
There
is such a strong connection between Israel and the Promised Land like no other
nation on earth with the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant (Gn 12:1-3; 15:18:
17:7). There is no other nation on earth that is on the radar of Jesus Christ
like the Promised Land because He literally cut a covenant with the patriarch Abraham,
father of the nation of Israel and reiterated that covenant with Abraham’s son Isaac
and Isaac’s son Jacob.
This
does not erode the truth of Jn 3:16 by any stretch. He will literally rule for
a thousand years in the future from Jerusalem, not the United States or any
other nation. However, my position does not preclude an application of a
principle emerging from 2 Chron 7:14 that transcends all economies (OT to the
present time).
Do
you understand the meaning of Yahweh cutting a covenant with Abraham? There are
two basic types of covenants between God and man. A bilateral covenant (conditional) where both parties
(God and man) are responsible for its fulfillment and a unilateral covenant or
agreement or testament that is unconditional; Yahweh is solely responsible for
its fulfillment. This is what we have here in the Abrahamic unilateral covenant.
Well, we know that God is going to do His part in either type of covenant. Let’s
look at cutting a covenant or making a covenant without giving all of the
particulars.
And
the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: lift your eyes now
and look from the place where you are—northward,
southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you
and your descendants forever (Gn 13:14-15).
Later,
Abram asked the Lord GOD, after his Gn 15:6 experience, how he will know that
he will inherit the land (Gn 15:8). Yahweh will be giving Abram the sign of the
covenant promise that he asked for.
So
He said to him, bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat,
a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. Then he brought all
these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece
opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two (Gn 15:9-10).
What
we have here is a pathway between the half-pieces, save for the two birds probably lying whole across from each other. Abram drove the vultures away from
the carcasses with the going down of the sun.
And
it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there
appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On
the same day the LORD made [lit, to cut] a covenant with Abram, saying: to your
descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river,
the River Euphrates (Gn 15:17-18).
Yahweh
walked between the pieces ratifying the covenant. Alone and passing between these
pieces symbolized the character of the covenant was unconditional; He would be
solely responsible for its fulfillment, not Abram. How certain was Abram on how
he will know that he will inherit the land? I love these verses in Hebrews,
For
when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater,
He swore by Himself, saying, SURELY BLESSING I WILL BLESS YOU, AND MULTIPLYING
I WILL MULTIPLY YOU (Heb 6:13-14).
I
get the passion behind such an error; as believers, we want forgiveness and
healing so badly for our country, to obey rather than disobey God that we take
verses out of context (cf. Psa 33:12, note: the psalmist here has reference to
Israel, too, but this principle can be applied to any nation that submits to the authority of Yahweh – blessed, yes?). In these
unrestful times of experiencing cultural and political upheaval and pestilence
like COVID-19, the Church in America could be hitting on all cylinders for God
(that would be miraculous in and of itself), and America would still continue along
its downward trend. Then we mistakenly look to 2 Chron 7:14 taking it out of context and making it our template for the
healing of America; are we to tell the people of America it is our fault? It is akin to taking on a burden that is not ours to bear.
My friend, it is always a good and safe practice to establish the immediate context of any
passage and ensuring that our interpretation is not conflicting with the greater
context of revelation before attempting to make personal application
(cf. Rom 15:4; 2 Tim 3:16-17). God knows our heart, but He responds to the contextual
truth of Scripture (what the Holy Spirit intended in the text during
inspiration, 2 Tim 3:16), not a good old boy or girl approach to His Word with all
the good intentions of the world that naively overlooks the context based on
feelings!
You
may or may not share my opinion here, but I am persuaded that the grammatical/historical
approach to Scripture is the best way in discovering the original divine intent
of the biblical text. I firmly believe that the sovereign of hermeneutics (the art
and science of interpreting Scripture) is c-o-n-t-e-x-t. Step outside of that,
which a lot of people do, and you can prove just about anything from the Word
of God.
You
have probably heard this said, “A text without a context is a pretext for a
proof text.” Such a practice invariably leads to a host of preconceived and
erroneous assumptions. It is good to remember that Yahweh will always honor His
Word, without exception, and He will never be guilty of taking any text out of
its context. He expects us to do the same (cf. 2 Tim 2:15).
We
should look at the immediate context of 2 Chron 7:14 then pay a visit to the greater context of
Scripture and offer a couple of reasons why we cannot apply it one way
(nationally, other than Israel) but perhaps in another way (individually). This
article has a dual purpose: (1) to remind us while interpreting any verse of
Scripture to establish the context before attempting any application,
and (2) to emphasize the need of living by the Book in obedience to God no
matter the direction a nation or our nation should take that is in opposition
to Yahweh spiritually, morally, ethically, culturally, and et cetera.
It
is impossible to live by the Book if we are interpreting it incorrectly, taking
a cafeteria-styled approach of selecting what we like and passing over what we
don’t, or ignoring it as irrelevant altogether. Our obedience to Yahweh as a
believer in an ungodly nation is vital when you consider that the nations [who do not know Yahweh]
before Him are as nothing, and they
are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless [compared to the surpassing
greatness of God, that is] (Isa 40:17).
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