Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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The One True Church
Chapter 21 – The Kingdom of God in Utero
The phrase “in utero” is Latin that means “in the womb” or “in the uterus.” It is used by doctors, lawyers, and others to describe the roughly nine months each of us spends in our mothers before being presented to the world.
Jacob and Esau, likewise, were once in utero…together. Here’s the quote I gave you in the previous chapter…this time with some context.
Genesis 25:19 Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son: Abraham became the father of Isaac;
Genesis 25:20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.
Genesis 25:21 Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.
Genesis 25:22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the LORD.
Genesis 25:23 The LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”
Genesis 25:24 When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.
God used Isaac and Rebekah to foreshadow the great struggle that would occur in the last days of Israel – the time period covered by the New Testament. This was the time of spiritual Israel coexisting with fleshly Israel.
The New Testament church – that is, spiritual Israel – was the kingdom of God in utero.
We should not be surprised that the God who designed human beings to have a period of gestation between conception and birth might also use such a process to bring His kingdom to birth.
The moment of conception was Jesus rising from the dead to the right hand of God. He was the solid rock upon which Peter and the other apostles built the church. The signature moment for this conception is recorded in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles – Peter being the first to proclaim it.
Acts 2:36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ–this Jesus whom you crucified.”
The embryonic kingdom of God was strictly Jewish (“the house of Israel”). In the years that followed, Gentiles were added – again with Peter leading the way. Here’s what he said in the moment that he first preached the gospel to Gentiles, almost a decade after he’d been the first to preach it his fellow Jews.
Acts 10:34 Opening his mouth, Peter said: “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality,
Acts 10:35 but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him.
And here’s what he said looking back on that moment that believing Gentiles were included in spiritual Israel, almost another decade later.
Acts 15:7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.
As a baby develops gradually in a mother’s womb, so the kingdom of God was developing gradually in the church – amidst great internal struggle. Fleshly Israel’s resistance to spiritual Israel was only intensified by the acceptance of believing Gentiles into spiritual Israel.
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