For the believer, today’s Scripture is a wellspring of encouragement, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession (emphasis mine), out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6).
Because the Lord is holy, His choosing of Israel meant that, in her selection, she too was to be holy. It meant this separation of a people who belonged especially to Him was to be his treasured possession; that is, a King’s personal treasure.
It was a treasure chosen to sanctify the earth by first purging their land of inheritance from all the idols of its inhabitants.
Well-known commentator Warren Wiersbe pens:
“A defiled Israel could never give the world God’s Word and God’s Son. Moses’ argument in this passage is simple: Israel is God’s special nation, a chosen people, separate from all other nations. This principle of separation runs throughout the Bible; God separated light from darkness (Genesis 1:4) and the waters under the firmament from those above (Genesis 1:7). He commanded Israel to be separate from the other nations (Exodus 23:20–23). He commanded the church to be separate from the world (2 Corinthians 6:14–18).”
For believers today, both the Apostles Peter and Paul draw from this truth of being the Lord’s holy people and living a separated life.
Peter writes that we are a holy priesthood and a people for God’s own possession (1 Peter 2:9). Paul adds in 2 Corinthians 4:1-7 the principle of separation by distinguishing light from darkness; truth from dishonesty; the saved from the lost; the god of this world from Christ Jesus the Lord; and the preaching of Christ rather than the preaching of themselves.
Because of Israel’s separation millennia ago and their position of a treasured possession, we who are now born-again believers can possess the Treasure—Jesus Christ—in our jars of clay and, at the same time, be His prized possession too!
