To be God’s treasured possession
is the result of God’s sovereign election, by which God brings his chosen people into a unique, intimate covenant relationship with himself.
Becoming God’s special possession is not a status earned, but freely given by grace. However, to remain God’s treasured possession requires covenant faithfulness from God’s chosen people. In Exodus 19:5–6a, God declared, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
In this disputation, we confront the majority of God’s covenant people who claim that there is no profit in serving the Lord, and as a result no longer serve God faithfully. We also confront a minority of God’s covenant people who fear the Lord and serve him faithfully. In this verse and the next, the Lord makes a distinction between the unfaithful and the faithful. The latter alone will be God’s special possession. The former will be excluded from that privileged relationship with the Lord unless they repent.
17 “They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.