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 I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
These words from 2 Chronicles 7:14 are perhaps amongst the most well known, most quoted and perhaps most misunderstood and misused in Scripture. Frequently over the years, I’ve heard them used to promise that repentance either within The Church or wider populace would lead both to revival and to national renewal. Similarly, the inverse has been true. Verse 13 says:
“3 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,
The result has been that everything from foot and mouth disease through storms and floods to the COVID-19 pandemic have been blamed on specific sin leading to specific judgement. All of this despite the fact that plagues, floods and pandemics have always been part of life in a fallen world. My own home city, Bradford, has faced its own tragedy, the 1985 Fire Disaster. Fortunately, I’ve not heard anyone claim that was some judgement of God. If I did, I would be furious and so I get to some extent what it must be like for people to hear the tragedies they experience to be blamed directly on them.
Now, all of this significantly predates the recent rise of Christian Nationalism as a term, concept and movement. However, it does seem that this new movement has increased that kind of language. Specifically, some Christian Nationalists are arguing that this nation has in the past made covenants with God and so are subject to the same blessings and curses that we find in Deuteronomy 11 and 28. The problem with this is first, that when you look at covenants in Scripture they are initiated by God with his people. A nation might attempt to make a covenant but in fact, manmade efforts tend to prove futile. We need God’s infallible covenant promises.
Secondly, it is to miss the context of what is happening. Why is it that sin and idolatry leads to curse on the land in 2 Chronicles 7:13 whilst repentance leads to blessing in v14? It’s that back in Genesis 12:1-3 the initial covenant with Abraham and his heirs was one of people (descendants), land and blessing. We often talk in Biblical Theology terms of God’s people, in God’s place under God’s rule, provision and protection.
Christians according to Ephesians 1 receive their glorious inheritance in Christ. This is a reminder that the Covenant promises are fulfilled in him. We are God’s people because Christ is the firstborn, the second Adam, the true and better Abraham. We are in God’s place and that means in Christ. We are under God’s rule because Christ is our king. There is of course expectation of full physical fulfilment but that is not just for one people group in one place, the promise is that God’s people will be from every tribe and tongue and will inherit the earth.
What this means is that we cannot take this covenant promise and apply it to one nation. It’s a promise for all God’s people. It means, big picture, that because Christ humbled himself, not only do we have all the spiritual blessings of Ephesians 1 but that also God is healing the whole of his creation. It means that in this time, when the church humbles itself and repents, then God brings fruitfulness where there has been barrenness.
Faithroots 