"AM I A DOG?"

by Ivan Maddox

West End Bible Fellowship

Atlanta, GA

Today, in the culture in which we live, dogs are considered respectable, loveable, and sometimes highly honored animals. We keep dogs as pets, sometimes keeping them inside the house with us. We train dogs to guard our families and property, to do tricks for our amusement; we even train some dogs to act as eyes for the blind. We breed certain breeds for our enjoyment and profit, we manufacture special foods and toys and beds and even clothes for our dogs.

Even so, with all the respect and love we give dogs, if you call someone a dog, that person has no trouble at all recognizing that he has been insulted.

Dogs were not so highly regarded in Palestine in Biblical times. There, dogs were considered unclean animals, scavengers.

In light of this, it is almost impossible for us to imagine Jesus Christ referring to anyone as a "dog"; yet, when a woman came to Jesus begging him to cast an evil spirit out of her daughter, Jesus lovingly classified her as a "dog".

Why would Jesus Christ refer to ANYONE as dogs? The parallel record of this incident in Matthew sheds more light on his reasons.

Jesus' first answer to her provides the clue we need to understand the reason he referred to this woman as a "dog". The "lost sheep of the house of Israel" in verse 24 are the same as the "children" in verse 26; therefore, the "dogs" in verse 26 have to refer to those who were not of the house of Israel. This woman was "a woman of Canaan" (v. 22), "a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation" (Mark 7:26); she was a non-Jew, a Gentile. As such, she was not the object of Christ's ministry, and had no right to the promises of God.

Two Gentiles in the Old Testament asked the question, "Am I a dog?" In each case, the question was asked rhetorically. In each case, the man subsequently lived down to his self-imposed epithet.

Goliath asked this question when he found himself challenged, not by some mighty warrier like himself, but by the youth David, unarmored and armed only with a sling and stones.

Goliath's question demanded an answer of "No!" He had challenged Israel to send out their best to fight him one on one; instead of a skilled fighter, he found himself confronted by this youth. A challenger such as David, armed as David was, was an insult to a soldier of Goliath's skill and stature.

David's response to the Philistine's curses and threats was to raise the stakes. Goliath had threatened only to enslave the Israelites if their champion lost. David made it clear that he not only intended to kill Goliath, but that his army was going to destroy the Philistine army as well. This is no way to talk to a man who is bigger and stronger and more heavily armed than you, and who has an army at his back as well!

But David was not counting on his own strength or ability to win the day for him; instead, he was relying on God, to whom victory belongs.

David, armed with the power of God, made short work of the mighty Philistine. David went to Goliath armed for dog, and he took down Goliath as if he had been a dog. Goliath's question, "Am I a dog...?", had demanded an answer of "No!"; but for all practical purposes, the answer was "Yes!"

The term "dog" as used here implies contempt, emphasizing a dog's relative weakness and inability to defend himself. In the eyes of men, Goliath was formidable; seen from God's point of view, he was a contemptible opponent.

This question was also asked by Hazael the Syrian. His king, Benhadad, was sick, and had heard that Elisha the prophet had come to Damascus, the capitol of Syria.

As king of Syria, Hazael proceeded to live down to the label he had so adamantly rejected. What had seemed unthinkable to him as a subject became standard procedure to him after he became king. The term "dog" as used here refers not to any weakness on his part, but rather to the cruelty with which he would wage war. Such cruelty was, in Hazael's own estimation, more worthy of a dog than of a human being.

When a man calls himself or another man a dog, we pay no attention; human beings are often cruel to each other, both in word and in deed. But when God calls someone a dog, or when someone speaking on God's behalf calls someone a dog, it's time to take notice and find out why.

What Goliath said and what Hazael said could be ignored if their words were all there was to the matter. There were others in the Bible who referred to themselves, or were referred to by others, as "dogs": David referred to himself as a dog (I Samuel 24:14); Abner, a general, when falsely accused of evil, asked "Am I a dog's head?" (II Samuel 3:8); Mephibosheth, son of David's friend Jonathan, referred to himself as a "dead dog" when he first appeared before David (II Samuel 9:8); and when Shimei, a man of the house of Saul, cursed David, Abishai, one of David's officers, referred to him as a "dead dog" and offered to remove his head to remedy the situation (II Samuel 16:9). What sets Goliath and Hazael apart is not their asking indignantly, "Am I a dog?"; but rather how their question, and the events that followed, look in light of what God's word says about the status of Gentiles in general with respect to God.

Unlike Goliath and Hazael, the Syrophenician woman did not bring up the word "dog" with respect to herself; Jesus made the comparison as a means of making clear her relationship to the promises of God. The woman did not reject this label; she accepted it meekly. However, she refused to allow her unenviable status to alter in any way her request and her faith for her daughter's deliverance. Even in the face of Jesus' apparent refusal she believed, and she received deliverance for her daughter.

Notice that Jesus did not argue in this instance that the Gentiles had no access to the promises of God. The question here was one of priority. In order for the Gentiles to have anthing at all to receive, the Jews must receive first. Just as the dogs (in those days before specially prepared dog food) did not eat until the people had eaten their fill, so also the Gentiles could not receive until the Jews had received the fulness of what they were to receive from God.

The other Gentile of note in this context is the centurion who sent representatives to Jesus to ask him to heal his servant. Unlike the other Gentiles we’ve looked at, this man did not use the term "dog" in reference to himself; neither did anyone else call him a dog. Yet his words indicate that he underrstood and accepted his position with respect to the promises of God. Like the Syrio-Phoenecian woman, though, he did not allow this to stand in the way of what he wanted from God and from Christ.

The centurion did not go to Jesus in person. Instead, he sent a group of prominent Jews to represent him. They presented his request to Jesus, and bore witness to his character and his love for God’s people.

When Jesus agreed to go and heal his servant, the centurion’s representatives delivered a second message to Jesus from him. "I am not worthy," he said, "that you should come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed."

Why did he not consider himself worthy for Jesus to enter into his house? If he was as familiar with the Jews as it appears he was, then he knew that it was unlawful for a Jew to enter into his house, because as a Gentile he was unclean.

The centurion did not challenge this, or question it, or in any way allow it to become an issue regarding his servant’s healing. Instead, this military officer for the occupying army meekly confessed his unworthiness to receive Jesus as a guest in his home.

This man’s faith in the words spoken from Jesus’ lips was so considerable that Jesus marvelled at it. Just as remarkable was his meekness. He not only asked Jesus not to visit himm personally; he bore witness to his unworthiness to receive him. Like the Syrio-Phoenecian woman, he accepted his unworthiness; and like her, he did not allow it to stand in the way of receiving what he was seeking.

One who was born a Gentile automatically inherited this "dog" status. Most of humanity falls into this category. But being a Jew did not automatically exempt one from being a "dog." Under the Law, certain sins carried with them the penalty of being "cut off from the people;" that is, excluded from the congregation of Israel, or "excommunicated." A person thus excluded was considered a Gentile, and thus a "dog."

Thus in Deuteronomy 23:18, God instructed Israel that "the price of a dog" was not to be brought into the house of the Lord in fulfilment for a vow. From the context, it is clear that a "dog" refers to a religious homosexual prostitute.

There is a second way that an Israelite could becoeme a "dog." That was through unbelief.

Here Jesus is not talking about Gentiles when he refers to "dogs." The door was not yet open during the ministry of Jesus for the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Rater, he was talking about preaching to the "dogs" among God’s people, and warning about the response one could expect if one did. Nor did he mean that none of God’s word was to be preached to unbelieving Jews; else how could they believe? Rather, the "pearls," the deeper truths of God’s word, were not to be taught to everyone, but to "those who have ears to hear." This is the pattern Jesus followed in his own ministry. The gospel of the kingdom was preached to all; but the mysteries of the kingdom, the deeper truths, were taught in parables rather than openly.

In Philippians, Paul refers to unbelieving Jews as dogs.

These three terms — "dogs," "evil workers," "the concision" — refer to the same group of individuals. This is seen even more clearly when we consider the verses that follow.

Thus we see that it was not only the Gentiles who were considered "dogs" in terms of their relationship with God. Jews who refused to believe or to walk according to God’s word were also counted as "dogs."

Paul in Ephesians 2 establishes quite clearly the condition of the Gentile before God without Christ.

This does not mean that God condemned all Gentiles out of hand. God has made it quite clear in His word that He will judge the Gentiles justly, and on a different basis than those who know His word and will.

Luke in Acts 10 also testifies to the fact that God has not rejected the Gentiles.

Indeed, God made it quite clearr all through the Old Testament and the Gospels that the coming of the Messiah would result in the Gentiles being blessed. However, the Gentiles were never promised the same blessings as the Jews. Any blessings they received would be dependent on and subordinate to the blessings received by the Jews.

Short of being circumcised and becoming a proselyte, a Jew by conversion, a Gentile had no access to God, and no direct right to the presence of God.

Christ changed all that. By means of his death and resurrection, he all who believe in him, both Jew and Gentile, into one new unit, which is neither Jew nor Gentile.

To the Jew who was used to having a privileged status before God, Jesus Christ did the unthinkable. He not only allowed the Gentiles to feast on the crumbs that fell from the table; he fixed them plates and invited them to eat at the table as members of the family! The one-time "dogs" were now equal with the children. Those who had once been "without God and without hope" were now "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ."

All of us, both Jew and Gentile, have one problem in common: we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Because He loved us, God sent His son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for the sins of all men, both Jew and Gentile. Through him we have all been given access to and fellowship with God, as well as life in the ages to come.

It was this truth — that God would not only bless the Gentiles through Christ, but make them equal partners with the Jews of those things He had promised in Christ — that God kept secret in Himself from the foundation of the world.

From where we sit, it does not seem like a remarkable thing for a Gentile to have access to God, and to the promises and blessings bestowed by Him. It is only when we understand how hopeless and miserable our position before God was without Christ that we can appreciate the enormity of what God did for us in Him. He took us from being "dogs," unworthy to eat at the master’s table, to being sons of God, and a suitable dwelling place for God Himself.