Christians in the West look on with confusion as they ponder their apparently unforgivable guilt. They cannot imagine that their rejection by the world is anything except their own fault.
How different is it to learn of the posture which Jesus himself taught? Recognizing that the outsider to Israel’s covenant was not privileged in the same way that the insider was, Jesus emphasized that particularity. We could even say that Jesus discriminated.
When the Syrophoenician woman wanted Jesus to perform a deliverance miracle for the benefit of her daughter, Jesus discriminated.
He said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). He clearly affirmed there were distinctions of privilege that discriminated between the metaphorical children and dogs.
We may call Jesus’ approach localism, nativism, sphere sovereignty, and even a sort of racial privilege. But truly his approach was to see the electing, particular choice of God in setting his special, discriminating covenant affection upon Israel. This special covenant discrimination was so special, that a Gentile or covenant outsider needed to join themselves to Israel in some manner in order to get the residual benefit of Israel’s blessings.
When Jesus was approached by the Syrophoenician woman, she was not joining herself to Israel but was coming to Jesus. So in Old Covenant terms, she was not doing what was required to get the discriminating blessing of God reserved for Israel. Jesus knew this, but Jesus received the woman’s appeal directly to himself.
We are told of how this outsider responded to Jesus, in verse 28, “But she answered him, ‘Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” The woman clearly understood that she had no right to the blessings and that they belonged to the privileged ones (the children). But she appealed to Jesus for mercy. Not only that, she was content to get a small portion of the privilege (the children’s crumbs). Humility and gratitude were revealed in her appeal.
Jesus granted her request. He extended the privilege to her. He didn’t have to. He chose to do so. This privilege was still discriminating (not all lepers in Israel were healed see Luke 4:27), but it was sovereignly extended to an undeserving person. So long before John Calvin or even before Augustine, Jesus exercised a sovereign extension of privilege to the undeserving. He did this out of his free grace, and according to his own fidelity to a new covenant which he ratified in his own blood.
Christians in the West can feel guilty that they must extend the privileges of gospel forgiveness to everyone else. Yet they fail to see that the extension of those privileges is conditional on the recipients’ repentance, humility, gratitude, and loyalty to Jesus. No one in the world has a right or entitlement to the discriminating privileges of the New Covenant. It is not for the church to convince the world that the gospel is good enough for them. Rather it is for the world to humble themselves and beg for the children’s crumbs. Only when the worldly dogs appeal to Christ for mercy can they have the children’s privileged breadcrumbs given to them.
