Although God has made it plain who comprise the peoples of Israel today, most Israelites have not even a clue to their true identity. Few Europeans, Canadians, Australians, or Americans could tell us much about Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. Indoctrinated by secularism, they accept the notion that their distant ancestors evolved from primates long ago and developed, through trial and error, the civilization we now call "the West." They blindly practice their secular religion, all the while sneering at the idea of a sovereign God who rules history and to whom they are responsible.

Most Israelites today dwell in the darkness of this ignorance because their forefathers long ago rejected the sign that pointed them to the God who, quite literally, promised Abraham the world (Romans 4:13). That sign is the seventh-day Sabbath.

God commanded His people Israel to "remember the Sabbath day" (Exodus 20:8). A short time after He issued this commandment, He told the Israelites why the Sabbath was such an important institution: "It is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. . . . It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever." (Exodus 31:13, 17)

The Hebrew word translated sign means "mark" or "evidence." The Sabbath day is the mark God gave His people to identify them as His own. By it, the people of Israel would have evidence of—and therefore know—the divine Source of their sanctification.

To sanctify is "to set apart for holy service"or "to make holy." God's purpose for Israel from the start was to set it apart from otherpeoples by giving it His laws and His statutes. God has a special relationship with Israel. Speaking through the prophet Amos to "the whole family [i.e., all the tribes] which I brought up from the land of Egypt" (Amos 3:1), God reminds the people that, "you only have I known of all the families of the earth" (verse 2). He revealed His law only to Israel. When He did so, He made it clear that Israel would "be a special treasure to Me above all people, . . . a holy [sanctified, set apart] nation" (Exodus 19:5-6), if the people "obey My voice and keep My covenant" (verse 5). The theme is repeated in Deuteronomy 7:6: "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God, . . . [who] has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth" (see also Deuteronomy 14:2).

God's intent from the beginning was for Israel to be separate from other nations. This meant acting in a way different from that of the Gentiles, not walking "in their ordinances" (see Leviticus 18:3-4). In Leviticus 19:2, He makes His purpose clear: "You shall be holy [set apart], for I the LORD your God am holy." God's purpose—the intent behind all His laws—is to create a people like Himself (Genesis 1:26), a people sharing and reflecting His most prominent attribute: holiness.

Obedience to God's law causes one to be sanctified. Law-keeping and sanctification are intrinsically connected. In a national context, God states that obeying His laws creates a people unlike others on the earth, a people set apart from others, a holy nation.

If commandment-keeping separates people from the nations while connecting them to God, disobedience of God's law has exactly the opposite effect. Commandment-breaking separates a people from God, and connects them to the ways of the nations. Individuals who disobey God's law become like the "world," the cosmos of the New Testament (I John 2:15).

Through the prophet Ezekiel,God shows that disobedience causes separation from Himself. He reiterates that He

gave [Israel] My Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them. Yet the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they did not walk in My statutes; they despised My judgments . . . and they greatly defiled My Sabbaths. (Ezekiel 20:12-13)

Verses 23-24 then tell the consequence of Israel's refusal to become sanctified by obeying God's laws: God says He "lifted [His] hand in an oath, . . . that I would scatter them among the Gentiles and disperse them throughout the countries, because they had not executed My judgments, but had despised My statutes, profaned My Sabbaths. . . ." If Israel insisted on acting like the nations of the world, God says that He would physically place them among those nations. Israel would then become separated from God and the land He promised them. They would become "sifted" (see Amos 9:9) among the Gentile nations.

Leviticus 18:24-30 outlines the inevitable separation that a nation (or an individual) will undergo as a result of commandment-breaking: "The land vomits out its inhabitants" (verse 25). This is the national consequence of breaking the commandments. God states the result to individuals in verse 29: "Whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people." Vomiting and cutting-off are both metaphors for separation.

Nationally and individually, commandment-breaking always yields the same ultimate punishment: separation from God (see Isaiah 59:2). The history of the children of Israel proves the point. God wanted Israel to be a special, sanctified nation—a holy one. He promised to bestow incredible blessings on it if it acted to separate itself from the social and religious practices of other nations. But Israel failed as a nation because it failed to be holy!

Next time, we will consider Israel's history in greater depth and see why most Israelites living today have no idea that they are indeed descendants of Jacob. We will also discover in Judah's history why the Jews retain their identity as Israelites.