What is a Gentile?
The word "Gentile" is one of the Bible's basic dividing lines, yet it carries no moral meaning on its own — it is simply a way of saying "the nations." What made it a loaded term was God's choice of one nation for Himself, and what dissolved it was the cross.
The plain meaning of the word
At root the term is not religious at all. It becomes significant only because God set one people apart, leaving every other people on the outside of that circle.
W. TrotterMany of our readers are no doubt aware that the words translated "Gentiles," whether in the Old Testament or in the New, simply mean "nations." Any distinctive use of these words must therefore have begun when God had selected one nation, Israel, from among the rest, to be specially His own. Israel became the one nation, owned, protected, and blessed of the Lord, while all others began to be called "the nations" or "Gentiles," as distinct from the one favoured and chosen by God.
Where the nations came from
The many nations were not part of the original design. Scripture traces them to Babel, where people tried to keep themselves together and independent of God.
J. N. DarbyWe find God making nations, as a result of man's attempt to remain united so as to be independent. Among these nations we have, in Nimrod, imperial power, individual and despotic, connected with Babel, the place of man's wickedness. In fact, the division of mankind into nations comes by judgment.
Outside the privilege, not below in character
Being a Gentile meant lacking a position, not being a worse kind of person. Israel's advantage was an outward one, and it did not make Israelites better.
Hamilton SmithIsrael formed an earthly commonwealth, with earthly promises and earthly hopes, and were in outward relationship with God. Their religious worship, their political organisation, their social relations, from the highest act of worship to the smallest detail of life, were regulated by the ordinances of God. This was an immense privilege in which the Gentiles, as such, had no part. It was not that the Jews were any better than the Gentiles, for, in the sight of God, the great mass of the Jews were as bad as the Gentiles, and some even worse. On the other hand, there were individual Gentiles, such as Job, who were truly converted men.
How dark that position was
Paul's summary in Ephesians 2 lists what the Gentile lacked: Christ, the commonwealth of Israel, the covenants, hope, God. One writer draws out what the missing covenants meant.
F. B. HoleSince they did have the covenants of promise they were the only people with definite hopes securely founded on the Word of God. As regards all this the Gentiles were "aliens" and "strangers" and "without hope." Not a streak of light appeared on their dark horizon.
Gentile power and "the times of the Gentiles"
The word also names an era. When Judah's sin ended God's throne at Jerusalem, world rule passed to the nations.
W. TrotterThings continued this way until the time of Nebuchadnezzar... God's throne being removed from Jerusalem, a solemn grant of universal dominion is made by God to Nebuchadnezzar. The times of the Gentiles began with him. In his days began that rejection of "the Jews," and supremacy of the Gentiles, by which the times of the Gentiles are marked throughout.
The cross ends the category for believers
For those who believe, the answer is not promotion into Israel's old advantages. Something entirely new was made.
William KellyThus the Gentiles had been afar off in the ways of God, the Jews were comparatively near; but now they were taken completely out of their old condition. It is not, you will notice, that the Gentiles who believed are raised up to the level of the privileges which the Jews used to possess, but that there is now "one new man," in which is neither Jew nor Gentile.
Three groups on the earth now
The old two-way split no longer describes the world. Paul's instruction to the Corinthians names three distinct groups.
W. G. TurnerThe family of mankind is no longer sharply divided into two sections as Jews and Gentiles, as was the case for the preceding fifteen hundred years, but now, while all the world is guilty before God, there are found on earth Gentile nations, the Jewish race, and the Church of God.
Summary
- Word. "Gentile" simply means "nation" — everyone outside Israel, the people God chose for Himself.
- Origin. The nations themselves came into being by judgment at Babel, when people united to be independent of God.
- Position. The Gentile lacked outward privilege, not moral standing; Israel's advantage never meant Israel was better.
- Poverty. Outside the covenants there was no securely founded hope — no light at all on that horizon.
- Answer. The cross does not lift Gentiles up to Jewish privilege; it makes "one new man" in which neither exists.