Thursday after Whitsunday

Scripture: Isaiah 45:22-25 (NKJV)

45:22 “Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.

23 I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that to Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath.

24 He shall say, ‘Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, and all shall be ashamed who are incensed against Him.

25 In the Lord all the descendants of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory.’”

Devotion

There is only one God. And there is only one way to God, and that is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. No matter who one is or where one comes from, all who hope to be saved must come to God through the Christ. All who do not will perish forever. For this reason, salvation is found only in the Christian Church, for no other religion approaches God through the Lord Jesus Christ. The modern-day Jewish faith cannot save, because it denies the Lord Jesus Christ.

About whom, then, does the Lord speak when He says, “In the Lord all the descendants of Israel shall be justified, and shall glory”? St. Paul answers with these words: “They are not all Israel who are of Israel…That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed” (Rom. 9:6, 8). The phrase “descendants of Israel” in this passage does not mean the earthly nation of the Jews, but only those who are “in the Lord”—that is, those who have faith in Jesus Christ.

The true Israel is the Christian Church. The promise of salvation does not belong to any earthly nation. Instead, all those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ have become the true heirs of the promise of salvation and are the true children of Israel by faith.

We pray: O God, who didst teach the hearts of Thy faithful people by sending to them the light of Thy Holy Spirit, grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and evermore to rejoice in His holy comfort; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Amen.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.