Age of
Israel: Abrahamic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant
"How can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto
according to Thy Word," Psalm 119:9. "Thy Word have I hid in my heart
that I might not sin against Thee," Psalm 119:11. "Thy Word is a lamp
unto my feet and a light unto my path," Psalm 119:105. "Jesus prayed
to the Father, to sanctify them in truth, Thy Word is truth," John 17:17.
"For the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall
stand forever," Isaiah 40:8.
Before we get started this evening we will have a few moments of silent
prayer. The purpose for that is to give everyone the opportunity to make sure
that they are in right relationship with God and to join fellowship with Him.
When we sin that fellowship is broken and we are restored to fellowship when we
confess our sins, which simply means to admit or to acknowledge sin to God the
Father in silent prayer. At that instant we are forgiven of the sins we confess
and then we are cleansed from all unrighteousness so that we recover that we
walk by the Spirit that Paul mandates for us in Galatians 5:16. We will bow our
heads together and after a few moments of silent prayer then I will open in
prayer. Let's pray.
Father we are thankful that we have this opportunity to come before You at Your throne of grace in prayer because Jesus Christ
opened the way. He is our great High Priest. The veil that separated us from You has been rent asunder and we as Church Age believers,
members of the body of Christ, have direct access to Your throne of grace. Now
Father we come before You this evening recognizing our need to understand You
and to understand Your Word, understand Your plan for history. And as we
continue this study we pray that it might give us a greater understanding and
perspective of Scripture, how to read and understand Scripture so that we can
take what is directed to us and apply it to us and understand what is there for
implication and application and relate that as well; and that we would be
responsive to the challenge of all the principles that we see in Your Word. We
pray this in Christ's Name, Amen.
We are going to go back a little bit this evening. I want to pick up a
couple of more things from the Abrahamic Covenant, which we looked at last
time. Remember we have opportunity for Q&A for questions from anyone in the
audience. I will stop a few times for questions. Those who are watching via the
live stream have the opportunity. There is a link there on the website where
you can write in your question and they will immediately come into the
congregation here and someone will ask the question for you.
I want to go back a minute to the Abrahamic Covenant. Just by way of
review, we are looking at the biblical covenants. Biblical covenants are
distinct from theological covenants. In fact, this last week as I was studying
there is actually a covenant in the Scripture that is an eternal covenant and
it is not on the list. I have found a new covenant. It is kind of fun when
something like that happens and it is interesting how it fits into the scope of
Scripture. The primary biblical covenants, the ones that we usually talk about,
are the ones that are in the chart on the screen (see
slide #3–8 Biblical Covenants). They are the Gentile covenants. I believe
these are the Creation Covenants. I like that term; the more I use it, the more
I like it. Instead of Edenic and Adamic; they sound a
lot alike and people can get that confused. But it is the original Creation
Covenant and it established when God creates man and woman, male and female, in
His image in Genesis 1:27-28. It establishes the framework for and the purpose
for the human race to rule over creation, to rule over the fish in the sea and
the birds of the air, the beast of the field. And of course, this is the number
one verse in Scripture that the environmentalists hate more than anything else
because they believe that the human race is just part of something else a part
of all of the rest of the evolutionary mess that just happened by chance as
opposed to something that is distinguished and set over the rest of creation as
the unique representative of God.
The Edenic Covenant of the Creation Covenant had to be modified at the Fall when Adam disobeyed and ate the fruit of the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That brought sin and spiritual death into the
human race; therefore, there were new conditions and consequences. I have
reiterated this many times. There is a penalty. The legislative penalty from
God for sin was spiritual death. Their consequences to spiritual death and the
consequences that entered into creation; that is what is outlined in Genesis 3.
That becomes the foundation for the Adamic Covenant; the mandate basically
remains the same: to multiply it, fill the earth, and to subdue it. Man doesn't
do that; he succumbs to evil and God brings a worldwide judgment in Genesis
6-8, which is the worldwide Noahic Flood. God then reestablishes His covenant
with man, with Noah in Genesis 9. That is the Noahic Covenant, which is still
in effect today.
There is failure on the part of the human race though because at the
Tower of Babel there is an attempt for man to run his destiny according to his
own purposes. That is where we really begin to see the Bible begin to bring in
the purpose for history. There is going to be a shift that takes place there.
God judges the nations by giving them different languages and this breaks the
human race up into different subsets or different tribal groups, which
eventually become nations. At that point God is, Genesis 12, we saw last time
is juxtapose to Genesis 11. Genesis 11, the
descendants of Ham through Nimrod attempted to make a name for themselves. God
calls out Abram in Genesis 12 and says, "I will make your name
great." That is the foundation for the Abrahamic Covenant, which is then
broken down into three subsequent covenants or rather expanded into three
subsequent covenants: the Land Covenant, the real estate covenant, the promise
of a specific piece of real estate; the Davidic Covenant, the promise of an
eternal descendant on the throne of David; and then the New Covenant. We just
worked through mostly the Abrahamic Covenant already; and then tonight we will
get into the Mosaic Covenant.
We broke the panorama of human history down into four basic ages (see
slide #4–The Ages of Civilization): the Age of the Gentiles, which will
be subdivided into three dispensations: the dispensation of Innocence, the
dispensation of Conscience, and the dispensation of Human Government ending at
the Tower of Babel. This then is the context for the call of Abram and this
begins a new age, a distinct age. We can't really grasp how revolutionary the
Abrahamic Covenant is. Everything after this is different. All
of human history since Genesis 12:1 is determined by Genesis 12:1. God
is calling out a unique people and it is through this unique people that He
will bless everyone else. It is the destiny of those people that is at the
centerpiece of human history until it ends with the destruction of the current
heavens and earth and the New Heavens and New Earth. Then there is the Cross, which ends the Age of Israel; then the beginning of
the current Church Age, at the Day of Pentecost in AD 33. This actually ends with the Rapture. Then there is a seven-year
Tribulation, which is the last seven years of the Age of Israel that comes at
the end of the Church Age or after the end of the Church Age; and then we have
the Millennial Kingdom established, the Messianic Kingdom that lasts for a
thousand years. That will conclude with the judgment bringing in Eternity
Future.
1. To Abraham personally: we looked at the Abrahamic Covenant last time
(see slide#6–D. Categorizing the Provisions). We looked at the key
passages in Genesis 12, Genesis 15, and Genesis 17; went through all the
different stipulations in parts of it. I wanted to come back this time and
break down the provisions in terms of three components. There are certain
promises that are addressed to Abraham personally; there are certain components
that are addressed to Israel, to his descendants, to the seed personally; and
then there are certain promises that are made to the Gentiles as a result of
the Abrahamic Covenant. So what are the promises that were made to Abraham? God
says/promised:
a. He is going to be the father of a great nation; many kings will come
forth from him later, but the great nation that is mentioned is Israel,
the Jewish people.
b. He himself will possess the land. God says,
I will give this land to you. The problem with that is that Abraham
never possessed the land; in fact, he only purchased one small piece of real
estate located down near Hebron, which is the Cave of Machpelah, where he
buried Sarah and where he is buried. Isaac, Jacob and their wives are also
buried there as well.
c. Other nations will come from him. These would be the Arab peoples
that are descendants from Ishmael, via his relationship with Hagar; and then
through Esau, his grandson, the twin of Isaac. What makes Jewish people Jewish
is not that they are descendants from Abraham or Abraham or Isaac, but that
they are descendants through the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is
what distinguishes them from all of the other descendants of Abraham.
d. Kings will arise from him. Kings to the various
other nations that are descendants through him. You have the descendants
through his descendant Lot, the Medianites; you also have the Moabites and you
have the Arab nations.
e. Certain personal blessings.
f. He himself was to be (it is a mandate) a blessing to those around
him.
g. His name would be great among men. It is not because Abraham was
great or promoted himself, but because God promoted him. No one is really
promoted unless God promotes you.
2. To the seed of Israel: the next category is promises to the Seed
Israel (see slide #7).
For Israel He promised:
a. The nation will be great and distinct above all nations. Most of you
have seen that Israel has the vast
number of awards and accomplishments by the Jewish people; the number of Nobel
Prize actors, actresses, musicians; they (Jewish peoples) excel above all other
people. For a small group of people that consist of no more than about 14
million people, they have the lion's share of percentage of the awards and
accomplishments in the human race.
b. They are destined to be innumerable; not that God
can't number them, but it is a statement of hyperbole that their number
would be like the stars in the sky or the sands on the seashore.
c. They (are destined to) would possess the land that God had given to
them. To understand that we have to understand it in terms of the literal sense
when God gave the boundaries from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates to
the Great Sea, the Mediterranean. This would incorporate all the land today
that makes up modern Israel as well as Jordan, elements of Syria, probably
Saudi Arabia, and parts of the Sinai Peninsula. All of this is part of the land
that God promised to Israel as an "everlasting possession." That word
"everlasting" is so important because this is an "everlasting
covenant."
d. And the seed of Israel are promised ultimate victory over their
enemies. This has not happened yet in history. Just as the promise to Abraham
that he would possess the land has not happened yet in history, so too the
ultimate blessing, the ultimate glorification of Israel, their possession of the
land has not yet happened in history and their victory over their enemies. So
that is yet to be fulfilled. This is in the future.
3. To the Gentiles: the third area is God's promise to the Gentiles
(see slide #8).
That God would:
a. Blessing for blessing; bless them if they blessed Israel.
b. Cursing for cursing; judge them if they treated Israel lightly or
with disrespect.
c. Be spiritual blessings for the Gentiles through the Seed of Abraham
as stated in Galatians 3:8-9.
The Apostle Paul applies this singular word "Seed" to the
Lord Jesus Christ. The word "Seed" actually in Hebrew can be plural
or singular, and so at times the context indicates it has a plural sense or
corporate sense and at other times it has a singular sense. Paul took it that
way to make his application in relationship to Christ in Galatians 3:8-9.
So that summarizes the provisions of the Covenant. Now, another thing
that is important to realize here, is that whenever God makes a promise in the
Scripture, He makes it to either a person or a group of people. He made certain
promises to Abraham. We can't go back and read those promises given to Abraham
and then claim them as if God is bound by that promise for us because that is
reading somebody else's mail. That is looking at somebody else's contract. God
did not promise that to us. He promised that to Abraham or to the Jewish
people. So we always have to be careful. There are some principles that can be
extrapolated at times. Often a promise is made to Israel is merely a
manifestation of a broader principle or broader reality within the plan of God.
But it is always one of the challenges in interpretation to determine what is a
promise that is historically conditioned to a people or to a person. And those that have a universal application. And as I have
said in the past, the Abrahamic Covenant is made up of three components (see
slide#9–E. Three Basic Motifs):
1. A promise for the "land"
2. A promise of blessing in the "seed"
3. And a promise of worldwide "blessing"
The Abrahamic Covenant is confirmed many times in the remainder of
Genesis as well as in the rest of the Old Testament (OT). God confirmed the
covenant with Isaac in Genesis 26:2-5 and Genesis 26:24. That He would make the
same covenant with Isaac that He made with Abraham. In Genesis 26:3-4 He told
Isaac to "sojourn" or travel in the land "and I will be with you
and bless you, for your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will
establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. I will multiply your
descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these
lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be
blessed." It is a complete reconfirmation and reiteration of the Abrahamic
Covenant to His son Isaac. So God promises blessing to Isaac and to Isaac's
seed. But these promises are not merely to Isaac's seed but just like with
Abraham, they are promises made to Isaac himself that God would bless him.
Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob, and God chose Jacob. That doesn't
mean that Jacob was saved and Esau wasn't. The selection wasn't for eternal
destiny in heaven. The selection was for the plan of God on the earth. So this
is not an example of the doctrine of soteriological election, which is how many
people misread the passage. It is an example of God selecting different groups,
different people for certain destinies in history, and He did that with Jacob.
He reiterated the promise to Jacob in Genesis 28:13-15, where God said to
Jacob, "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of
Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your
descendants." To your seed; that is that same
word. We have words like that that have a corporate sense. They may be singular
in function. They may be used singular or they may be used as a plural. The
noun "deer" can be singular or plural. We have the same kind of thing
in English. The word "seed" is the same way and here it has the idea
of "descendants" plural. Genesis 28:14-15, "Your descendants
shall also be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread out to the west
and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your
descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed." And then God
said, "And behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and
will bring you back to this land."
So, with those words Esau was excluded from the covenant line and the
covenant is confirmed only with Jacob. Neither Abraham nor Isaac owned land.
They just had the Cave of Machpelah. Now this is important because of what
happens at an interchange with Jesus later on in the Gospels. It has to do with
the doctrine of resurrection. Jesus got into a conversation and debate with the
Pharisees and Sadducees. Now the Pharisees did believe in resurrection; the
Sadducees did not believe in resurrection. So the Sadducees came to Jesus one
day (see slide #1–Matthew 22:23ff.) Matthew 22:23, "On that day some
Sadducees (who say there is no resurrection) came to Him and questioned
Him." Now they are going to come up with a hypothetical question. It is
always a problem; I don't like it when people say, well just hypothetically
speaking. Because those kinds of things
usually don't happen in reality; they just happen
hypothetically. But they come up and they say, Matthew 22:24, "Teacher,
Moses said, 'If a man dies, having no children, his brother as next of kin
shall marry his wife (this was known as Levirate Marriage in order to preserve
the inheritance within the family or within the clan) and raise up an offspring
to his brother.' "
Matthew 22:25-30, " 'Now there were seven brothers with us;
and the first marries and dies, and having no offspring he left his wife to his
brother, so also the second and the third, down to the seventh.' " So here
is the story, this woman marries one brother and he dies. Then she marries the
other brother and it is not long before he dies. Then she marries a third
brother and it is not long before he dies. And when they get through with this
all seven have died mysteriously and last of all the woman dies. Their
(Sadducees') question is in the resurrection
whose wife of the seven shall she be? It seems to me the question would be are
they convening a grand jury yet? (Laughter…)
So the question they ask; note the Sadducees don't believe in resurrection.
They are asking the question, they say, "whose
wife of the seven shall they be?" "But Jesus answered." He is so
sophisticated. He doesn't answer their question. He says, "You are
mistaken." He just challenges them – you guys don't even believe in
resurrection. How can you be even asking this question? You don't understand
the Scriptures and the power of God "for in the resurrection they neither
marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven."
The issue here is that this passage is often taken as well, those sons
of God mentioned in Genesis 6 that cohabited with the daughters of men; that
can't really be angels because this passage says that angels can't have sex;
they cannot take on human bodies and have sexual relations. Is that what that
passage (Genesis 22:30) says? No, that passage says that they don't marry.
There is not an institution of marriage in heaven. Now that implies that there
is not a sexual procreation among the angels. I would agree with that, but that
doesn't mean that angels that have immaterial bodies don't have the ability to
transform themselves into creatures with material bodies that emulate the
functions of the human body materially. When the two angels that accompanied
the Preincarnate Lord Jesus Christ to Abraham in Genesis 17, they were tired;
they rested; they ate; they drank; they slept; all those things. They
transformed themselves into human bodies that had corporeal bodily functions
for all practical purposes. So that would not be an argument against; that is
what I call a rational argument that has no foundation in the text that is used
to try to debunk the text that has firm lexical theological exegetical basis in
at least three different Books of the Bible, Genesis 6, 1 Peter 3, and Jude as
well.
So Jesus is not making an overall statement about some fact of some
other situation. He is just saying that there is not marriage in heaven. So it
doesn't really matter what the circumstances were on the earth, but then He
says, Matthew 22:31-33, "But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have
you not read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, 'I am the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'." He is emphasizing
the present tense of the verb. Sometimes you wonder why I emphasize verb tense
or grammatical minutia in the text. Well we get this from the Scripture. There
are several times Jesus built His whole argument just on a tense of the verb.
Paul built his argument (Galatians 3:8-9), the one we just mentioned in
Genesis, when he said when the Abrahamic Covenant refers to "Seed" it
is a singular and not plural and that referred to the Lord Jesus Christ. He was
building his whole argument on an exegetical point that the noun was a singular
and not a plural in the verse from which he quoted it. So the Lord is doing the
same thing here. He said God said, "I am the God of Abraham, and the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He said that when Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob were already dead in the ground. So if there is
no resurrection then God would have said I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. By putting it in the present tense, the Lord is indicating that they are
still alive in their intermediate existence and He is currently the God of the
living. That is His point at the end of the verse. Jesus said, " 'He is
not the God of the dead but of the living.' And when the multitudes heard this,
they were astonished at His teaching." So He just flipped the argument
back on them completely.
So the point there is that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never realized the
fulfillment of the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant during their lifetime. So
that implies that there must be a resurrection in the future during which God
will fulfill His promise to them and the Abrahamic Covenant will come to
complete fulfillment and at some future time. So as we wrapped up, I pointed
out the aspects of the status (of the Abrahamic Covenant, see slide
#13–Abrahamic Covenant, G. Status):
G. Status:
1. That it is a permanent, unconditional covenant; it is still in
effect.
Now, as we will see in this list in terms of the last point, is that
the sign of the covenant, the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision. Circumcision,
therefore, is still mandatory if you are Jewish because the covenant with
Abraham is still in effect. The circumcision is not for salvation. The problem
that you have in Galatians with the Judaizers was that they were taking circumcision
from the Mosaic Law and making it mandatory for salvation or for
sanctification. But what the Abrahamic Covenant does is that it makes it a sign
of the Abrahamic Covenant, which is eternal and everlasting. And so, if you are
Jewish, there is still that mandate, even if you become a believer and you are
in the Church Age. You are still racially and ethically Jewish and a descendant
of Abraham; therefore, that covenant, because that is still in effect, would
still apply to a Church Age believer who is ethnically Jewish. Just because you
become a believer doesn't mean you are no longer ethnically Jewish. It just
means your Jewish status doesn't have something to do with your relationship to
God.
Galatians 3:28, where we have the verse that says that in Christ there
is no longer Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond or slave. Let's take
something a little more obvious. You're a man; you trust in Christ as your
Savior; are you still a male? Yes, you are still a male; but it is not an issue
in terms of your relationship with God. In the OT if you were a male it was
significant because you could have closer access to God in the temple. If you
were a woman you couldn't. You couldn't get as close to God as a man could. If
you were not Jewish you could not come into the temple;
so that kept you from being close to God. So being Jewish in the OT meant that
if you were a Jewish male and you were free, you could have access as close as
you could get to God without going into the Holy of Holies where only the High
Priest could go. So the point that I am making is that I think we have often
misunderstood passages like this. Just because your Jewishness doesn't impact
your relationship with God and your spiritual status doesn't mean that it is
still not significant in relation to the Abrahamic Covenant. That is why Paul
had Timothy circumcised as we have studied in our study in Acts.
2. The New Testament does not change the unconditional nature of this
covenant, which I clearly stated in Galatians 3:6-18. That is Paul's argument
there; that the Abrahamic Covenant is still in effect.
3. Paul's argument is that whatever the purpose of the Mosaic Covenant,
it could not nullify or set aside the previous unconditional covenant.
Now that is important in Galatians 3. Paul is saying that the Mosaic
Covenant was of a temporary nature. It was of a lesser quality. It could not
supersede or replace a previous covenant. I'll come back to that in a minute,
but we are talking about the Abrahamic Covenant being unconditional. It cannot
be replaced by a temporary covenant.
Now this last week I got a question that came to me and I was asked the
following question from somebody who was reading in Hebrews
8 and they read verse 13, Hebrews 8:13. This is a problem that happens if you
don't contextualize what you are reading in the Scripture; you don't understand
it in terms of its surrounding verses. Hebrews 8:13 says, in that He said, that
is God speaking to Jeremiah in the passage just quoted, Jeremiah 31:31-34. In
that He says, "A new covenant,"
He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old
is ready to vanish away."
Now the way this person read that when they read "He has made the
first obsolete." He thought the first covenant was the Abrahamic Covenant.
That is easy to do and it is understandable if you haven't worked your way
through the context of Hebrews 7-8 where the writer of Hebrews is only dealing
with two covenants, the temporary Mosaic Covenant and then its replacement, the
New Covenant. That becomes clear because in Hebrews 7 he is talking about how
the priesthood of Aaron, which is established by the Mosaic Covenant, is
inferior to the High Priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, which allows the Lord
Jesus Christ to establish a superior covenant, which is the New Covenant, which
is the topic in Hebrews 8. So, it is just a point that a temporary covenant
does not nullify the Abrahamic Covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant is still in
effect.
4. "Seed:" we see the emphasis on the word "Seed"
that it is an everlasting seed.
5. That this covenant begins the dispensation of patriarchs or promise,
which is what I looked at the last time.
Are there any questions? No questions.
Just a quick review; I went through this last time but I wanted to just
hit it again [see slide #14–Dispensations 4: Patriarchs (Promise).]
A. Scripture: Genesis 12:1-Exodus 18-27 for the Dispensation of the
Patriarchs, new administration, new revelation; all the features are here.
Genesis 12:1 gives the new revelation and this extends to Exodus 18:27 before
God gives the law.
B. Central person: Abraham. God makes the covenant with Abraham. God
binds Himself alone.
C. Name: two names are used by dispensationalists:
Patriarchs: which
recognizes the role of the three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Promise: which emphasizes the promise made
to Abraham, Romans 4:1-20; Galatians 3:15-19; Hebrews 6:13-15; Hebrews 11:9.
D. Responsibility: there is a responsibility given.
Now this is important. I am going to really emphasize this when I hit
this dispensation and the next one. It is what distinguishes them is going to
be new revelation, which is what is given in the Abrahamic Covenant. The new
revelation will define a "new responsibility." And here the
responsibility is to the Abrahamic Covenant; to keep the seed isolated, to
separate from the surrounding pagan cultures. And then that will lead to a test
(see slide # 15) to see if they will do that and remain separate from the
Canaanites, Genesis 24:3; Genesis 28:1 compared to Genesis 28:6-9.
F. Failure: there is failure which is their
intermarriage with the Canaanites and assimilation with the culture around
them.
G. Divine judgment: this leads to Divine
judgment where Jacob and his sons are removed from the land. The land is a
picture; it is literally the place of blessing. God takes them out. He says you
are really disobedient; you are just messing up by the numbers. I am taking you
out for your own benefit, to protect you, where you are going to grow in a
different environment and then I can bring you back where there will be an
opportunity to grow and mature because your numbers will be great.
H. Grace: But even in that we see God's Grace in the midst of
judgment. He preserves the nation ethnically and spiritually and they prosper
even in the midst of slavery.
Key application for us: Sometimes God is going to put us in really bad
situations, but God knows what He is doing and we may not understand it. It is
a Romans 8:28 issue that all things work together for good because we are in
God's plan, because God loves us and He is working things together for good.
That doesn't mean all things are good. Being a slave was not a good thing, but
God used it toward His ultimate purpose to build the Jewish nation and to
prepare them to serve Him in the land.
X. Then we come to the Mosaic Covenant (see slide #16–Mosaic
Covenant):
A. Scripture: Exodus 20:1-Deuteronomy 28:58; Exodus 20-40.
In the Age of Israel we come to the Mosaic Covenant. Now the Mosaic
Covenant and any one of these covenants is new revelation. What is one of the
key elements that we know indicates that we are moving into a new period of
God's administration of history? There is new revelation; there is new
information given. God is going to modify the way in which He is administering
human history and administering His people. So this is the Abrahamic Covenant
and in a broad sense it is covered in Exodus 20:1 with the giving of the Ten
Commandments, which are basically the prelude to the Mosaic Law and extends
through Deuteronomy 28:58. Deuteronomy 29 deals with the Land Covenant. But the
covenant proper is really the Law itself, the mandates in Exodus 20-40. There
are additional ones in Leviticus, of course, with the offerings and the laws
related to the priesthood and other ceremonial laws listed there.
B. Persons: involved are God and Israel. God as party
of the first part. Israel as party of the second part.
God is entering into this contract with Israel. I want you to see two
passages. You should underline these in your Bible because these are just
absolutely central to understanding God's plan and purposes for Israel and that
is important for understanding things that are said later on in the Bible. As
we have gone through our study of the Sermon on the Mount I have taken the view
of the Sermon on the Mount that is not a majority view at all. I don't know if
there is a majority view. There are a lot of views. But I have worked my way
through it and had a lot of stimulating discussion with different pastors and
different individuals. One of the things we have to understand is that Jesus in
the Sermon on the Mount is giving the Divine interpretation of the Mosaic Law
and righteousness. I mean the kind of righteousness that God expects from those
who are going to be obedient to the Mosaic Law. Now is that righteousness that
is expected from the Mosaic Law an imputed righteousness, which would relate to
their justification? Or is it an experiential righteousness?
Now one of the important things to understand is that when God calls
out Israel and redeems them from Egypt that is that redemption at the exodus
that is analogous to salvation. Does God redeem them before or after He gives
them the Law? He redeems them before He gives them the Law. He gives the Law to
a redeemed people, which means it is not about how to
get redeemed; it is about how redeemed people live. The whole purpose of the
Law then is not related to imputed righteousness, but it is related to
experiential righteousness, how the people in Israel should live. If they are
obedient, God promises blessings to them. In Deuteronomy 28
and in the first part of Leviticus 26. If they are not
obedient, if they are unrighteous, then God promises cursing and judgment.
We will look at that as we go through the Age of Israel. So when God is calling
out Moses to go to Pharaoh, He says in Exodus 4:22, "Then you," that
is Moses, "shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says YHWH,' " the covenant God of Israel, " 'Israel is My son, My
firstborn.'" So is God looking at Israel corporately as a nation as saved
or unsaved? He looks at them as saved in this passage.
Now the other verse I want us to go to is
found in Exodus 19 just before God gives them the Torah, Moses goes up to God on Mount Sinai. They have had the
exodus event. They are across the Red Sea. They have gone down into the Sinai peninsula and gone to Mt. Sinai. Moses went up to God and
God began to speak to them and the people said they did not want to speak with
Him. They could not stand His voice. He blew out all the microphones we have on
our mp3 recorders and we really can't get this down, so Moses, go up there and
transcribe it. Exodus 19:3-6, "Moses went up to God and the LORD called to
Him from the mountain and says, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and
tell the children of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how
I bore you on eagles wings, and brought you to Myself.' " That is their
redemption. "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My
voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above
all peoples, for all the earth is Mine." Is He talking about justification
or sanctification? Sanctification. Is He talking about the redemption of Israel
or is He talking about how the redeemed people should live in order to realize
the blessing of God? He is talking about how a redeemed people should live. He
says, "And you shall be to Me a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation." That is a result of living in obedience. If
they don't live in obedience then God is going to put them under judgment.
So the issue here isn't how to get saved or justified, but how a saved
people live. Let's go back to the Mosaic Law. First of all the Scripture is
Exodus 20-40 primarily. The persons are God and Israel. Let's talk about
provisions.
C. Provisions (slide #16 continued):
1. There are actually 613 specific commandments. One of the reasons
that in the second temple period, possibly first temple period, that they used
a pomegranate as a decorative item on the robes of the high priest was that
there are 613 seeds in a pomegranate. So they selected that as a symbolic
reminder of the Law. So there are 613 specific commandments in the Law.
2. There was blessing for obeying it.
3. There was cursing for disobeying it.
4. There are substitutionary blood sacrifices for many sins; Day of Atonement, Leviticus 17:11. For other sins there
was no sacrifice, but capital punishment instead.
5. The token of this covenant is the Sabbath, not circumcision,
that is the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. The sign of the Mosaic
Covenant is Shavuot.
Somebody recently asked me this question, where did this go that we
don't worship on Sabbath anymore? The reason is because of the Ten Commandments
the only one that is not reiterated in the New Testament (NT) is the
commandment to rest on the seventh day. After the resurrection of Christ the
early Christians met on Sunday. Now when did they meet on Sunday? They probably
met at night. How many people got Sunday off in the Roman Empire? None. In
fact, this was a real problem for the Jews when they went out into captivity
because here you get the Jewish people who are doing two really weird things:
one is circumcision and that is a big. That is talked about a lot in the
ancient world. They were really weird because they got circumcised. But then they
didn't want to work one day a week. That was unheard of in the ancient world.
They want to take Saturday off? Who are these people? And they are going to do
what? They are going to go worship? Nobody else did that. So these things
really distinguished them and made them unique. That is related to being a holy
people.
The Mosaic Law is signified by the Sabbath. So
the church met on Sunday. There is no mandate to meet on the first day. It is
what they did and usually in the evening is or early in the morning. Question:
The early Christians were Jewish, and they did rest on Saturday. Yet the early
Christians were Jewish. So they were switching from Saturday to Sunday in their
worship? Yes, they would meet on Sunday morning. I think very early in Acts they
would meet early in the morning. They still had to work. If you are in Israel
and you are Jewish they were still following a lot of the Law because that was
their ethnicity, their history, their tradition, their background. They were
not doing it for spiritual reasons. They did it because that was the Law. So
they would only meet on Sunday morning or on Sunday night before work or after
work. So that is when they would meet and in the early, early church, probably
in those first chapters of Acts, they would meet early in the morning.
I am really glad that we don't do that anymore even though I am a
morning person. You'll notice, I have never had a
sunrise service. Even in my first church when they pressured me. I'm not
getting up at 4:30 in the morning to preach a sermon to sleepy people at 5:30
a.m. I have never done that. What else? Well if they were still resting on
Saturday but then going to work on Sunday? Yes, they did not have a five day work week like we do. Why do we have a five-day work week? Or why do we have a six-day work-week
and have Sunday off? It is because of that Judeo-Christian heritage. The idea
of not working everyday is a sign of that. Now one of the great points about
this sabbatical law is that if you were to work six days. What is that? Exodus 20:11. For God says for just as I created work for
six days and rest on the seventh. So you work for six days and you work. It was
a mandate. There are like three or four commands in the Sabbath command and
they are mandated to work six days a week. Many people miss that. They just
think they are being mandated to rest on Saturday, but they are mandated to
work six days a week and to rest on the seventh. Just as God
did.
So the question is, if those days, which are patterned after the days of
creation, if the days of creation weren't literal 24-hour days as we know them,
then why can't you be justified in saying, well you know those days were just
literary figures. That is a real popular teaching today. That
that is just a literary structure in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is not to be
understood as literal six 24-hour consecutive days this is just a literary
framework. But once again you get over into Exodus 20 and the mandate on the
Sabbath if it is anything other than a literary framework then any Jew can come
along and say, "I can make a lot more money if I don't have to take
Saturday off. I am just going to work 24/7 because I don't have to stop because
God didn't stop for a thousand years or two thousand or ten thousand or one
hundred thousand. Those days were just ages. So I don't have to stop work until
the 700,000th year and then I will take 100,000. Well I won't live that long so
I can work my whole life." See it opens the door to actually a destruction
of the language of that command. It is meaningless unless the prototype is a
literal 24-hour six consecutive day creation week.
D. Purpose:
1. In relation to Israel the purpose of the Mosaic Law was to
distinguish Israel from all of the people around them, Leviticus 11:42-44. The
dietary laws were not given to make them healthy.
You will read that in books like the Maker's Diet. Health had nothing to do with this. Are there healthy
benefits? Possibly. But that does not have anything to do with it. Why do I say
that? Because in Acts 10 when God lowers the big table cloth
with the big banquet of tref food, unclean food for Peter, and He said,
"Eat." Nothing had changed other than the dispensation. Peter had not
been instructed on how to cook it better. You know, the shrimp, the lobster,
all the other scavenger food that was on that table cloth was still just as
much a dietary problem as it was before, but God declared it was all clean at
that point. So clean and unclean have nothing to do with diet. Always be
careful of that because I have read this in so many books. Somebody always
wants to know if we are going to live longer and healthier if we eat what Jesus
ate. Well, you can't get that out of the Bible without distorting the text.
2. In relation to the Gentiles, now, the Scripture says that the Law
had purposes in relation to the Gentiles. Ephesians 2:11 states that the Law
was a wall of partition that kept the Gentiles away. It separated them.
You know we live in a world where we want to include everybody. But
God's mandates and God's Word more often than not excludes people. The purpose
for the Law was to keep the Gentiles away from the covenants and away from the
privileges and blessings of the covenants according to Ephesians 2:11. The only
way a Gentile could enter into those privileges was if he took on the
obligations of the Law for himself and became a proselyte to Judaism.
3. In relation to sin, according to Romans 7:7-8:4.
a. The Law was to show what sin is. It was to give evidence of what sin
is and how pervasive sin is. In Romans 7:7ff, through the Law comes the
knowledge of sin.
b. Second, it was to cause us to sin more. You just tell some kid not
to do something and the first thing he wants to do is to do what he is told not
to do. So by giving somebody 613 commandments, things not to do, then people
just wanted to do it even more. So it aggravated sin.
c. Third, in relation to sin, the law was to show that a man can do nothing on his own to please God. Then man really
can't fulfill the Law a hundred percent. He can fulfill parts of it, but not
all of it. Parts of it all the time; all of it some of the
time. But you have got to do it all all of the time or you haven't
obeyed it.
d. Last, in relation to sin, it leads us to the Messiah, recognizing
that the Law cannot be a basis for salvation.
e. Status
The Mosaic Law is no longer in effect according to Romans 10:4;
Galatians 3:15-19; Galatians 3:23-4:7; Hebrews 7:11-12; Hebrews 7:18; Ephesians
2:11-15; 2 Corinthians 3:3-11. (Repeats Scripture passages.)
E. Test: The test in the Mosaic Law is to obey the whole Law and to
accept Messiah as the Prophet, Redeemer, the Seed of the woman according to
Deuteronomy 18:15-19, the prophet that will come that is greater than Moses. That
is clearly a Messianic prophecy. So they were to do the whole Law and they were
to accept the Messiah as the Prophet, Redeemer, Who would deliver them from
their sins.
F. Failure:
1. But they failed. They failed to keep the Law according to Romans 10:1-3.
2. They failed to obey the Prophets according to 2 Chronicles 36:14-16; Jeremiah 25:4. They failed to obey the prophets.
3. They failed to accept the Messiah when He came, John 1:11. His
people did not receive Him.
G. Judgments. As a result there are Judgments. We will look at the
details of this in just a minute. There are five cycles or stages of judgment
that God warned them they would go through if they were disobedient.
H. Grace. But there is still grace (see slide #20). In every
dispensation there is Judgment and there is Grace.
1. In Grace God gave the sacrificial system for the restitution of the
sinner. The primary purpose of the sacrifices was not salvation, but so that
the saved person could be restored to fellowship and could worship the God of
the covenant, the God who inhabited the temple or the tabernacle.
a. The Day of Atonement was given for the whole nation in Leviticus
23:26-32.
b. There was individual sacrifice given for the people, Leviticus 1-5.
2. The Messiah finally comes to Israel despite their sinfulness.
Now, I want to add a section. I haven't taught through this before in
quite as much detail as this. Israel is viewed as a redeemed people. I think a
lot of people have had trouble with this. We've dealt with this in many, many
different ways. We've dealt with it in Revelation. We dealt with it in Hebrews.
We are dealing with it in Matthew to some degree. That the
Scriptures view Israel corporately as well as individual; as a collective whole
as a nation as well as individual people. So corporately they are viewed
as redeemed people. We also dealt with this a lot in Romans 9-11. Romans 9-11 is primarily dealing with Israel corporately and
not individually (see slide #21–Israel Viewed Corporately as a Redeemed
People). In Exodus 4:31, notice that you have Exodus 4:31 and
Exodus 14:31, so that you can remember those because the only difference is
those ten chapters later. Basically 4:31 in both of them.
After God sent Moses to the people, and Moses announces his mission to
the people, what is their response? "The people believed"; amen. "The
people believed, and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel and that He had looked on their
affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped." They believed
and then they worshiped. This is the response of a saved people. Not one Jew
died when God brought death to the firstborn in Egypt. They all believed about
the Passover Lamb and applied the blood. They were all saved. Well, I can't say
that they were all saved, but almost all of them because you might have a
household of fifteen people who have the blood applied outside and there may be
somebody inside who was there against their will, but generally speaking they
were all believers.
Then in Exodus 14:31 we read, "Thus Israel saw the great work
which the LORD had done in
Egypt; so the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD and His
servant Moses." The use of the word believed is significant
throughout Exodus. (See slide #22–Israel Viewed Corporately as a Redeemed
People.)
1. First of all it is the hiphil form of the verb amen. The hiphil form is the causative form and it has the sense of
believe as the Theological Wordbook of
the Old Testament (TWOT) states, it
"expresses genuine faith throughout the Old Testament." This is one
of the key words to express faith.
2. Secondly, there are six occurrences of the word "believe,"
the hiphil of amen in Exodus 4:1;
Exodus 4:5; Exodus 4:8 twice; Exodus 4:9; Exodus 4:31. Some of them are
"they did not believe" and "they believed" so there is a
contrast there; but it all "marks the faith of the people as a central
theme of the chapter." (TWOT) They believed what God told them and what Moses
told them God said.
3. The third observation is that the genuineness of their faith is
marked not only by their initial worship, but also by their obedience in
observing the Passover (see slide #24). They worship in Exodus 4 but it is
after that the tenth plague comes later. So they initially believed; they worshiped and later they observed the Passover. They
have believed God just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as
righteousness.
4. The fourth thing is that the LORD promised them
"salvation" from the Egyptians (see slide #25). Now it could be
argued by someone that the salvation that God promised was just physical
deliverance, but if you look at the rest of the context it is more than that, other words are used. Their response to the deliverance
is again that they "believed," but here it is added that they
believed "in the LORD." So it is
not just physical deliverance. They are believing in Yahweh, which indicates an entrance and
relationship or trust with the LORD. So they are
viewed as saved, Exodus 15:13; Exodus 14:30-31.
5. Fifth we have the Song of Moses, which Miriam sings in
Exodus 15 reciting the deliverance by God, which again uses the same word
"salvation," Exodus 15:2 (see slide #26). It refers to their
salvation, their being "redeemed," Exodus 15:13, and their being
"purchased," Exodus 15:16. All of these are terms that are richly
related to the concept of salvation.
6. Other Old Testament passages confirm that though they
had sinned, God redeemed and forgave them (see slide #27). Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm
78:38; Psalm 78:42; Psalm 99:8; Psalm 106:8; Psalm 106:10; Isaiah 63:9.
7. And then after they are delivered, redeemed from Egypt,
then God gives them the Mosaic Covenant. This illustrates their redeemed status
(see slide #28).
8. Their redeemed status is affirmed in Hebrews 11:29; Hebrews 11:39
(see slide #29).
9. Conclusion (see slide #30): The Law was given to define how a
redeemed people were to live. It describes the experiential righteousness
needed to remain in the land with God's blessing; otherwise, they would be
removed.
XI. Dispensation of the Law (see slide #31–Dispensation 5: Law).
A. Scripture: Exodus 19:1-Acts 1:26.
Now the reason we do that is because that is when the church begins.
Now what are we going to do with the Life of Christ? We will find that out when
we get there. I will explain that when we get there. Nobody outside of Israel
knew what was going on with Jesus. So it is one of those interesting little
hinge type dispensations that last for three years or a little over three
years; something different is happening in Israel, but if you are living in
Turkey; if you are living in Italy; if you are living in Tarshish; if you are
living in Babylon or in India and you are Jewish, you don't have a clue what is
going on with Jesus of Nazareth in Israel, so every thing continues the same
for you; but if you were living in Judea or Galilee, it was different. There was
a new message; there is a new test; there is new revelation; there are new
responsibilities; and there is a distinct failure.
E. Test: the test during the age of the Law was to do the whole Law; to accept Messiah as the Prophet, Deuteronomy 18:15-19.
F. Failure:
1. They failed to keep the Law, Romans 10:1-3.
2. They failed to obey the Prophets, 2 Chronicles 36:14-16; Jeremiah 25:4.
3. They failed to accept the Messiah, John 1:11.
All of that is the Dispensation of the Law. Then we get to the five
Judgments.
G. Judgments: Five cycles of discipline (See slide #34–Five
Cycles of Discipline):
1. First cycle of discipline; these are all
described in Leviticus 26:14-46 and Deuteronomy 28. The first cycle of disciple
described in Leviticus 26:14-17 says that if they are
disobedient God would bring:
a. Terror or fear upon them. They are going to have anxiety attacks.
b. He is going to bring disease upon them. It is not related to
anything you can put in a laboratory and measure. You can't measure the cause
and effect relationship between their failure
spiritually and what happens medically. But God says there is a relationship.
That is because there is something above the physical laws that is controlling
things.
c. They are going to have stolen crops, which is equivalent to failure
of their economy. They are going to lose the value of their money.
d. They would start being defeated by their enemies.
2. In the second cycle of discipline (see slide #35), Leviticus
26:18-20:
a. Pride: Their pride of power is broken; their economy is destroyed.
b. Drought: There will be a drought. In an agricultural environment
this is a real tragedy.
Just think about all these people that are living out in west Texas.
There are a number of communities in Texas right now that are within 45 days of
running out of water. There are a number of other communities in Texas that are
within 90 days of running out of water. Southern California is having a
horrible drought. Now we have had droughts before. When did we have a drought
before the Dust Bowl? Remember what happened before the Dust Bowl? The roaring 20s, great apostasy from liberalism in that time.
This isn't the same. It is similar. The five cycles of discipline are for
Israel, but there are similar patterns because God is not going to allow unjust
people to disobey Him in a flagrant manner. So there are going to be
similarities. But for Israel this is the second stage. There will be drought.
The heavens will be like iron, the earth like bronze, and this means that it is
going to be impossible to plant because the ground is so hard.
c. Bad harvest: they will have a bad harvest and work hard but have no
results.
3. We get to the third cycle (see slide #36), Leviticus 26:21-22.
a. Plagues: there will be plagues; so there is an increase in disease.
You have disease in the first stage and now it is going to be increased.
Something painful is going to take place.
b. Violence: there is going to be an increase of violence from wild
beasts. The curse is going to be intensified.
I find it so interesting that in the blessings sections God said I will take all the wild beasts out of the land. I will remove
them. If you are disobedient I will bring them back. So what did we do in our
worship of nature? We reintroduced the violent species back in, the wolves,
bears, mountain lions, and all of those kinds of things out of our own
arrogance. It is nothing more than idolatry.
4. The fourth cycle of discipline (see slide #37), Leviticus 26:23-26:
a. Sword: the sword will come, which means death by violence, violent
death. God will bring military invasion into the land.
b. Flight for refuge: they will fly for refuge. They will gather
together in their cities. They will leave their homes,
leave their farms. They will seek shelter from the
invaders.
c. Pestilence: there will be pestilence. Disease intensifies and
spreads. There is massive death from all these people gathered together in the
cities. The loss of sanitation.
d. Rationing: there will be food rationing. Ten women with one oven
means that there is not going to be sufficient fuel in order to cook food. They
will deliver bread by weight and that also indicates food rationing.
5. Fifth cycle of discipline (see slide #38), Leviticus 26:27; Deuteronomy 28:49-57.
a. Cannibalism: there will be cannibalism.
I just read this the other day in Josephus that there was a case as the
armies of Titus were on the verge of breaking through the walls of Jerusalem in
AD 70. Josephus tells a story of a mother who killed her baby and cooked it
– cut the baby in half stored half of it for the next day. Well there was
a smell and some scavengers came banging on the door wanting her food because
they could smell that something was cooked. And she said that she would share
with them and they were just repulsed by it. Word of this spread through the
city. It is right out of Leviticus 26. It was a great testimony. This was God's
judgment. It revolted Titus and the Romans. It was said that they wanted to
destroy Jerusalem so that they would put an end to this kind of misery among
the people. Even the pagans couldn't believe that they were killing their young
in order to survive.
b. God promised there would be a destruction of the religions
which were an abomination to God. The idolatry would be destroyed.
c. Cities would be destroyed.
d. Places of worship would be destroyed, the sanctuaries, the temple.
e. Utter desolation of the land.
f. People would be driven out of the land that had been promised to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would be dispersed among the nations.
This is the fifth cycle of discipline. It happened in 722 BC with the Assyrian invasion. It happened in 586 BC with the Chaldean
invasion. And it happened in AD 70 with the
Roman invasion. Probably not since 722 BC have there been as high a percentage of worldwide Jews living in the
land of Israel as we have today. That has prophetic significance. I am not
saying that it fulfills prophecy, but it has prophetic significance. This is
unique. It has never happened. You did not have a return like that under
Zerrubabel, Nehemiah, Ezra, none of them. It is
unique. Any questions before I close? Nothing.
Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for this opportunity to look
at this this evening, to reflect upon the Law, upon its purpose, and how You
fulfilled Your promises both in terms of blessing when Israel was obedient, but
especially in terms of the judgment as outlined in Leviticus 26, and how
horrible and awful this was. Now Father, we recognize that all this was to
teach us something and to instruct us and to prepare us for the coming of the
Messiah and that as we look back in history we see how You worked all of this
together to bring about that proper time, the fullness of time as Galatians 4:4
says of the arrival of the Messiah Who would take away the sins of the world.
And Father, we pray that we might be challenged to the understanding of Your
Word to go back and rethink how we understand the Law in terms of its significance,
its purpose, its audience, the ones to whom it was given, Israel, and how that
worked itself out. We can't understand the rest of the OT and much of the NT if we don't
understand the Law correctly. We pray this in Christ's Name, Amen.