The
Holy Spirit: New Covenant and the Spiritual Life
Romans 7:1-6; 2 Corinthians 3:1-10
We're in 2nd Corinthians, chapter 3, just briefly
tonight. The reason we're here is because this is part of a broader
study, wherein we are looking at the relationship of the Law to grace, as
taught in the New Testament, specifically by the Apostle Paul but also by the
writer of Hebrews, by Peter, by others who have addressed this issue of Law
versus grace. It's one of those things that really hasn't been thoroughly understood,
both by those who would agree with us in our basic theological framework and
those who don't. In this era, where we have a lot of new ideas and
scholarships, some good and some not so good, it just goes way beyond the
amount of time I have in my life to look at all the new literature that's been
written on this topic in just the last ten years. It's just amazing what's come
out. We don't always have to read everything that's come out as long as we
understand what the Scripture says. The Scripture really isn't that difficult.
It's very clear.
Now some of the ways I'm handling and focusing on some of these passages
may be a little different from how you've heard them taught. That's
because some of these passages, especially in this passage, it's been a little
fuzzy. That's not unlike what I discovered some twelve or fourteen years
ago when I was approaching a study of John, chapter 15 with the “abiding in
Christ” metaphor. I went back and listened to several different people who I
had studied under in the past and read a lot of different material and realized
that there was not a lot of clarity. John 15 was not talking about salvation
but was only talking about the Christian life. It seems very clear now but in
the sixties and seventies the issues related to the free grace gospel and all
of its ramifications and how that impacted the Upper Room discourse were not as
clear so a lot of times people said one thing and then five paragraphs later,
they said something else, one of which fit with the free grace gospel and one
of which didn't. One of the fascinating things about the Word of God which
should always excite us, is that there's so much to learn. We think we have a
real handle on some things and then we come to realize 'maybe not'. It's
not that we were that wrong, but we can always get a greater, tighter focus on
what the Word says.
The principle, though, is clear. The age of the Law ended. What was
provided for believers in the age of the Law, in the dispensation of the Law,
in the age of Israel, to be more precise, was very little for the individual
believer. He didn't have the power of the sin nature broken, which is broken
only in our identification with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection,
the Baptism by the Holy Spirit. That was clearly a new thought for me, a new
thought for many of you, to realize that in our study of Romans, chapter
6. Then to build on that and to come to understand they don't have the
indwelling of the Spirit at all; we knew that. They had regeneration but what
comes with regeneration isn't the same thing that comes with regeneration
today. And guess what! What we get with regeneration today isn't what
comes in the Millennium Kingdom. They're going to get more under what is called
the New covenant, which is what I'm going to look at this evening. We may go
into another Bible class on it, just to help clarify it, because there's
this connection between when the new covenant comes into effect, when it is
fully here [not that it's partially here now but some people teach that], but
when it is enacted.
We know from those passages that the covenant is made with the house of
Israel and with the house of Judah. The new covenant has a heavy Jewish
flavor to it. It is not what we're experiencing today. And yet, when
I was a student at Dallas Seminary back in the seventies, and even reading men
who wrote in previous generations [I'm not going to mention any names because
I'm not sure who taught what at this point], it was often thought and said,
that in some sense, the new covenant went into effect on the Day of
Pentecost. The problem with that is it means that, in some sense, the
Kingdom would have come in. There was some spiritualization of these
terms in terms of the Church Age. And yet as dispensationalists we realize
that dispensationalism emphasizes a consistent, literal interpretation of
Scripture. And to allegorize or spiritualize anything, even if it’s the
new covenant and the kingdom, is to compromise on a basic foundational
principle that we always interpret literally.
Now that's an issue that's often been misunderstood. Literal
interpretation doesn't mean a wooden or artificial type of
interpretation. It doesn't deny the use of figures of speech, but figures
of speech have literal meanings. They're just an idiom so that when
somebody tells someone to “go jump in the lake”, he doesn't literally mean for
them to go jump in the lake. That idiom has a literal meaning and that
means to “go away”, “leave” or whatever they're saying is irrelevant and nonsense
so they need to not be involved in the conversation any more. So even
though it's an idiom, it has a specific meaning. You can't just assign any
meaning to that idiom. You talk to one person and then talk to another
person, they're all going to assign the same meaning to that idiom. That
has a lock down, figurative meaning.
So when we talk about literal interpretation we use that kind of
meaning. Now that's important because a lot of modern religious talk is
allegorical. You go to many different churches, Roman Catholic churches,
Lutheran churches, some Presbyterian churches, Episcopal churches, you will
find a lot of spiritualization and allegoricalization taking place in the
sermons because it's nice to take an event in the Bible and try to universalize
it to apply to people and then people think it's something relevant to their
lives. Because you sacrificed its literal, original, historical,
grammatical integrity it does not really make it relevant because what you're
applying isn't what the text says. It's important to understand that.
One of my favorite quotes I ran across several years ago was when
Justice of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, was speaking to a group of
judges in New York City at a law conference and he made the statement that “if
you don't interpret the law, the Constitution, in light of the original intent
of the writers of the Constitution then you're just making it up.” That's
just so simple. That's just exactly what happens in 90% of the churches in
America, maybe 95%, in this country. Without paying attention to the
writer's original intent and really digging into the Scripture to understand
it's literal meaning, you're just making it up. So people go to churches
week after week and they hear a pastor just sort of make up what they want the
Bible to say.
When you get into passages like the one we're in in 2nd
Corinthians, chapter 3, where we're talking about the letter of the Law and
we're talking about the Spirit and we're talking about that which is written in
stone, that which is by the Spirit, then this has lent itself to a certain
amount of non-literal or allegorical interpretation. And yet, this passage
is often gone to by people to support the idea of a non-literal interpretation
and they will misquote from this passage that, “Well, the letter kills but the
spirit makes alive, so let's not interpret the Bible literally. Let's do it
according to the spirit.” They act as if the spirit is some sort of
wishy-washy, here it means one thing; there it means another thing, some kind
of influence on the writers of the Scripture.
We have to understand that first of all this passage isn't talking about
interpretation. It's not giving us a basis for interpretation. What it is
talking about is that there's a contrast between the Law, which was given to
Moses, and what was given to Church Age believers. What was given to Moses was
something that was temporary. It was not permanent. What was given to
Church Age is permanent. And the distinction is that in the Law, while the absolutes
of God were revealed, God doesn't provide a means in the individual believer to
fulfill the Law. But in the New Testament period, He does provide a way whereby
the believer can fulfill the Law. So that leads to life.
This is what is meant when we look at the sixth verse that the letter
kills [it kills because all the Law does is bring judgment] and the Spirit
makes alive because with God the Holy Spirit we can experience the fullness of
life. In verse 6, it says, “That God made us sufficient...” He gave us the
ability; that's the sense of this particular word in the Greek hikanos [i(kanoj] which means to be able or to be
competent. Now that's a little bit different idea than the idea you have
over in 2 Corinthians 12:9 where God tells Paul, “my grace is sufficient for
you.” There you have the word arkeo
[a)rkew] which has to do with the idea that it is
enough. Here the emphasis is on its ability to enable someone to
accomplish the task.
So God has made us “ministers of the new covenant”. Now that's that word
diakonos [diakonoj]. So Paul is talking
specifically about the apostles but I think it has application to pastors, to
anyone who is proclaiming the death of Christ. Remember Jesus said at the Last
Supper when He took the third cup of wine, the cup of redemption, according to
the Jewish tradition. He said, “This is a new covenant of my blood which is
given for you. As often as you drink this, do so in remembrance of Me.” What
Jesus is saying there is that what happens with His sacrifice establishes the
basis for the new covenant. Covenants are established with a
sacrifice. But that did not bring the new covenant or enact the new
covenant. We learn that from looking at other passages, which is what I want to
do this evening.
So as we look at these verses here that Paul is saying that God gave us
the ability. He's recognizing the fact that as apostles, as ministers, as
pastors of the Gospel, anyone proclaiming the gospel, our ability is not based
on human factors. It's not based on education. There have been some
wonderful pastors and theologians who have had great influence in their
generation, like Charles Haddon Spurgeon in England in the 19th
century, and had no formal training and not much formal education. But he
had a powerful impact on England and with the spread of the English empire
throughout the world. Then men like Lewis Sperry Chafer who did not know
Greek or Hebrew at all yet he understood his ability to handle the Word of God
would have been much better if he had known the original languages so he
founded a seminary that would emphasize the original languages and the
importance of knowing Greek or Hebrew. Just because people do well without
knowing certain things does not mean that should be the standard. Sadly,
in our tradition and in the tradition of many evangelicals the high standard of
education has been 'dumbed down' tremendously in this last generation.
There's a number of different reasons for that but we have to hold the
standard high. We have to maintain an attitude of excellence. That doesn't
mean you can't function as a pastor; that God can't bless you, if you haven't
studied hard, if you haven't gotten a formal education, if you don't know the
original languages but you're limited and the better the education, the better the
training, the more opportunity a person has and there are ways that God can use
them that can't be used otherwise but ultimately, it's God that gives that
ability. This is what Paul emphasizes. It's God who gives the ability to
ministers; it's not based on our IQ, it's not based on where you went to
seminary, it's not based on how many degrees we have. Ultimately none of those
are the determinative factor, though they are all very important. The
sufficiency, the competence comes from the Holy Spirit as we minister the new
covenant.
That's the connection here. We're ministers of the New covenant,
which means we are announcing something. We are announcing God's plan for
human history, that sin has been paid for, that we're in the Church Age and
where we're headed down the road is to the kingdom. It's not here now but
it's down the road. Now there are some that teach that it's already here
but not yet fully. So sometimes that's called the “already but not yet
view”. There are non-dispensationalist pre-millennialists who hold that view.
There are dispensationalists, for example at Dallas Seminary who hold the view
called progressive dispensationalists. I've always liked what Bruce Waltke said,
“I don't know how they came up with this. It's neither progressive nor
dispensational.” In fact, when Bruce Waltke defected from dispensational
theology a couple of decades before this, when he read about it said, “You
know, they've just become a-millennial theologians and don't know it and don't
want to admit it.” This means they have shifted so far away from a literal
interpretation of Scripture that they were beginning to interpret key
Scriptures just the way a-millennialist interpreted those Scriptures, focusing
on some sort of spiritual kingdom.
Now that spiritual sense of a kingdom is often related to some present
enactment of the new covenant. But what we see in Scripture is the new
covenant is clearly characterized by certain things that are not true
today. Now there are some things that are similar but similar is not
identical. It's just similar. So what I want to do is take a little time
to look at that. We looked at 2nd Corinthians 3:6. We see that
“We are ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter [that refers to the
Mosaic Law] but of the Spirit [that is the Holy Spirit]. The Mosaic Law didn't
give the ability to obey but the Spirit now indwells every believer, identifies
every believer with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ so that from
the instant of salvation the power of the sin nature is dead and you are given
new life. The letter kills; all it can do is point out judgment and failure.
But the Spirit gives life.
Verse 7 says, “But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on
stones...” Notice now he moves from the letter kills to the ministry of
death, the Mosaic Law, was written on stone. Now that doesn't mean the
Mosaic Law was bad. Paul said it's holy and just and good but it didn't
give life. It wasn't a means of salvation and it didn't give the new life
that comes from the Holy Spirit. That's why there had to be a new
covenant. “If the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones was
glorious so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of
Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,
how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?” So in these three
verses: 6, 7, and 8, there is the contrast of the letter and the
Spirit. There is an implied contrast between the new covenant and the old
covenant, although the old covenant isn't mentioned here, only the
new. And there is a contrast between the glory, and there was a clear
glory associated with the Mosaic Law and the greater glory of the new covenant
and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We need to look at both of these images
from the Old Testament.
Turn to Exodus, chapter 34. Exodus is the second book in the
Pentateuch. This is after the rebellion of the Israelites when Moses was
initially on Mount Sinai and at that point he came down the mountain and he
heard the sound of revelry, sound of an orgy going on down there. They had
convinced Aaron to melt down a lot of the gold and silver and to make a golden
calf for them to worship. They slid right back into idolatry. This is
when Moses got mad and broke the tablets so this is a replacement of the
tablets. Let's start at verse 10 to pick up the context. God is
speaking. “And God said, 'Behold I make a covenant. Before all your
people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth or in any
nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the
Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.” So God
establishes the principle that He's the One who's going to provide for Israel;
He is the One who is sufficient for them. That's a parallel with what's
going on in 2nd Corinthians, chapter 3. God is the One who
ultimately does the work but that doesn't mean that Israel didn't go to battle.
They went to battle but God's the One who gave them the victory. So the
following verses talk about how God is going to give them victory over the
enemies and what some of those restrictions were going to be and the promise
that God makes. For example, down in verse 24, He promises, “For I will cast
out the nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither will any man covet
your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the
year.”
By the way, this is a promise by God that He will enlarge their borders. A
few years ago there was a book that came out called “The Prayer of Jabez.” It
mentioned a rather obscure passage in Chronicles about Jabez who was in the
conquest generation. He was praying that God would expand his inheritance.
There were people going around saying this is how you pray, you just cite it
over and over again like a mantra. What they missed was that all Jabez was
doing was asking for more real estate. That's all it was. He was
taking this promise of God to expand their borders and applying it in the
conquest saying, “Lord, we're obedient, You've blessed us. I'm just asking
you to expand the inheritance which is what you promised.” It was simple
faith-rest drill and yet people today who should have known better because they
were trained well and had a history of writing better, spiritualized that
particular promise and made it something other than what it was. He just wanted
more land. That's all there was to it.
After Moses was up on Sinai with the Lord, we're told in verse 28, “So
he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread
nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten
Commandments.” As I've pointed out before, in terms of fasting, you can go
three days, maybe four, depending on the circumstances, maybe five without
water but you need to drink after that. So this is clearly miraculous
sustenance because he went forty days and forty nights without eating or
drinking. You can go forty days without eating but after that you pretty much
have to start eating soon or you will start having problems. So that part is
not necessarily miraculous but the water part is so that shows, by including
both, that God miraculously sustained Moses during this period. It wasn't the
fasting that was significant; what was significant was that God is revealing to
Him His Word. It's so important that there's no time for the mundane
chores of life to eat and drink. That's the significance in fasting. Fasting
has no power in and of itself. It doesn't impress God that you or I go hungry.
The significance of fasting in the Scripture is that something is so important
that we're going to set aside time to pray and in order to do that in the
ancient world, especially in an agricultural society where it took a lot of
time to prepare food...they didn't have microwave food where they could just
heat some food up in two minutes where the whole meal process could take less
than three or four minutes. In that culture, it took several hours. That would
take your time and energy away from the focus of prayer. So this is why fasting
was important because it showed what they were emphasizing and that there were
more important things to do rather than take care of one's physical desires to
eat.
So Moses is up on Sinai for forty days and forty nights and when he came
down, in verse 29 we read, “Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount
Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses' hand when he came
down from the mountain) that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone
while he talked with God.” So Moses is in the presence of God and his face
shines. We have a way of talking about this. We call it the Shekinah glory. The
implication of this is that this is a particular kind of glory. The word
“shekinah” is from the Hebrew word shikhon which means the dwelling presence of
something. The word for the tabernacle in the Hebrew is mishkan and this isn't a particular type
of glory. It's just that when God is present there is the effulgence of His
essence, which is light shining forth and it was so brilliant, it's as if it is
absorbed and reflected by Moses' skin. As Moses leaves the presence of
God, he has the golden glow, not the rosy glow. There's just this light beaming
off his face and people could see it. The problem is it wasn't permanent.
It's like kids that go off to camp. Now there's nothing wrong with kids
or adults going off to camp and getting away from all the everyday distractions
of life and focusing on the Word of God. Frequently they come back and they
realize, maybe for the first time, maybe for the fiftieth time, that they need
to straighten out some things in their life and focus on spiritual things.
That's great. There's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is thinking that
that experience is normative.
One of the damaging consequences of that kind of thinking occurred back
in the sixties and seventies. A lot of baby boomers went off to Christian camp
during the summer and as they grew up in high school, college, and adulthood,
they went off and had great experiences. There is nothing wrong with having a
great time with other Christians studying the Word. They came back and they
wanted to have that every Sunday. But you see, you can't have that every
Sunday. That's not what the normal Christian life is like. That's just an
abnormal life. They sang different kinds of songs and they had fun singing and
that's just great. I have great fun singing traditional Christian hymns. So
they came back and they wanted to have those kinds of camp songs inserted into
what was going on on Sunday morning. Songs having a lot of clapping, a lot of
physical jumping around or whatever, which is fun. There's nothing wrong
with singing fun songs. There are such great kid songs, some great songs for
camp that are just fun. There's nothing at all wrong with that. What's wrong is
thinking that the emotion that are generated by that are what should be
normative for the Christian life so you want to change up everything that goes
on on Sunday morning so it can be that mountain-top camp experience every
Sunday. All that does is teach people to rely on their emotions and not on the
Word.
So this was one of the problems here when Moses came down from Mount
Sinai. He's got this glow and people are impressed. “Moses has been with
God.” As time went by, as we see in this story, the glow faded just as that
experience from camp or the retreat or whatever it was fades then people begin
to think, “Well, God's not really with me anymore; God's not really with Moses
anymore.”
In verse 29 we read, “So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw
Moses, behold the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near
him. Then Moses called to them and to Aaron and to all the rulers of the
congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. Afterward all the
children of Israel came near, and he gave them as commandments all that the
Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking,
he put a veil on his face.” Now why did he put a veil on his face? Because he
didn't want the people to see the glow fade because if they saw the glow fade
their enthusiasm, their commitment, everything would fade. We're such fickle
creatures. I don't care how straight we are on doctrine, we still have trouble
with emotion.
In verse 34, we're told, “But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to
speak with Him, he would take the veil off until he came out and he would come
out and speak to the children of Israel whatever he had been commanded. And
whenever the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses'
face shone, then Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in
to speak with Him.” What was going on? Moses did not want the people to be
distracted by emotion. Nothing wrong with emotion; I'm not saying this,
but it can be a terrible distraction in the Christian life. One of the
great tests in life is how we deal with emotion. Do we let emotion push us,
motivate us, to making bad decisions, making decisions that aren't wise because
we're driven by emotion rather than the truth of God's Word? You can have
great emotion when you're driven by the truth of God's Word. It's not one or
the other. The issue is how are you going to respond and how are you going to let
emotion affect your decision making process.
So this becomes a major part of the last part of 2nd
Corinthians, chapter 3, starting in verse 7, “But if the ministry of death,
written and engraved on stones, was glorious [see that's that glory that it's
talking about] so that the children of Israel would not look steadily at the
face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing
away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the
ministry of condemnation [that's the Law] had glory, the ministry of
righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious
[that's the Law] had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels
[that's the Church Age glory]. For if what was passing away was glorious,
what remains is much more glorious.” So the whole point through here is that we
have something that is more glorious. Some people think, “Wow, if we could just
see something like that.” But we have something better that's based on not
seeing it, that's based on the testimony of God's Word. And that's really
all we need, the testimony of God's Word.
All of this takes us to understanding something significant here that's
mentioned in verse 6, the new covenant. Let me just give you some basic principles
on the new covenant. The new covenant is the eighth and final covenant in the
Old Testament. It's the fifth Jewish covenant. What was the first Jewish
covenant? The Abrahamic covenant. Then you have the Land covenant,
the Davidic covenant, and you have the Mosaic covenant and then the new
covenant. These were Jewish covenants because they are made between God and the
Jewish people. Also you have the Gentile covenants, the Creation covenant, the
Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant. These were all Gentile covenants before
God ever called out Abraham and the Jewish people. So this is the fourth
permanent covenant for Israel, related to Israel.
We have to understand something about what a covenant is. A covenant
is a legally binding obligation of God to man. God enters into these
covenants which are all between God and man. It is a legally binding
obligation. It is similar to a contract but a covenant technically goes
beyond a simple contract. We don't use covenant too much in our culture so
we use the idea of a contract because that's familiar to everybody. But a
covenant is really something. It's a contract plus. So whatever is true of a
contract is also true of a covenant. Biblical covenants are based upon the
character of God. They're based upon God's pledge, His promise, to fulfill
certain promises, certain things to those included: the other parties of the
covenant. He's going to do certain things for them. He will bless them or He
will bring judgment upon them and that's part of His solemn pledge and He is
legally bound by this contract.
Now that gives us great confidence and great hope. That's why the Old
Testament often emphasizes His love, His chesed love, because His chesed love is a love that is loyal and
faithful. It doesn't change. He's not going to go back on that
contract. That becomes a foundation for understanding what real love is.
Real love is something based on God's character. Human love can be based on
God's character. It can't be based on your character or mine because that's
pretty tenuous. But it's based ultimately on God's character. God is faithful.
He is not going to go back on His word. So you can count on Him fulfilling His
promises. He's not going to change.
So the third point is that a covenant is a legal contract or
covenant. The fourth point is that it's between two parties of equal
stature, for example, husband and wife, or it can be between a superior and an
inferior, for example, a king and a commoner, or a king of a great nation and a
king of a much lesser nation or between God and humans. So this is the idea.
It's this legal binding. Why does God do this? God enters into this so
that He, as it were...theologians use the word 'condescend'...I don't like that
word much but it gives the idea that God is willing to limit Himself to the
framework of the creature in order to demonstrate to the creature His
faithfulness. So God willingly limits Himself in these ways to these
finite structures, such as a legal covenant. He doesn't have to do
it. He does it willingly so that we can come to understand some things
about Him that would be pretty difficult to understand otherwise.
The fifth point focuses on the Greek word syntheke, which is like the Mayflower compact. These are all just
slightly different ideas, all related to a legally binding agreement between
two parties. The Greek word diatheke
[diaqhkh] has the sense that the Hebrew word berith does
not have as the sense of a unilateral contract. A unilateral contract is
when one person enters or binds himself to a contract and it's not dependent on
the action of the lesser party. So that a conditional contract is when you
say, “If you are obedient, then I will do these things for you. But if
you're not obedient, I won't do these things for you.” It's
conditional. It's bilateral, because the party of the second part has to
act a certain way in order to get the blessing from the party of the first
part. So it's a bilateral contract, two people involved in bringing about
the final benefits of the contract; whereas a unilateral contract [uni for one,
like a unicycle] means that one person guarantees the blessing, the promises of
the contract, without regard of the party of the second part. If they're
disobedient or obedient; it doesn't matter what their behavior is, the party of
the first part is going to fulfill His part of the contract. This word diatheke [diaqhkh] has this same sense
in secular Greek use. In Aristophanes play, The Birds, he used the word
covenant where two parties had overwhelming superiority over another and could
dictate the terms. So it's used in the same way the Bible uses
it. You have a superior person making a contract with someone of lesser
significance and it is a unilateral covenant.
The sixth point is that covenants have often been categorized as
unconditional and conditional. If you've been around very long you've
heard people teach on covenants and you've heard dispensationalists talk about
the Abrahamic covenant as an unconditional covenant and you've heard the Mosaic
covenant is a conditional covenant. That's really not the best language because
even the Abrahamic covenant has conditions. God said, “I'm going to give
you the land, but if you're not obedient, you're not going to enjoy the land.” That's
a condition. It's yours but if you're not obedient, I'm not going to let you go
into the land and enjoy it. That's a condition. So there are
conditions even within so-called unconditional covenants so the best term is to
refer to them as permanent covenants versus temporary covenants. God
permanently promised the land to Israel. The Abrahamic covenant is a
never-ending permanent covenant. The new covenant is a never-ending
eternal covenant. The Davidic covenant is a never-ending eternal covenant
but the Mosaic covenant was a temporary covenant. It was only designed for
a short period of time, from the time God gave the Law to Israel until the time
that the Messiah would come and fulfill the Law. Then it would be replaced
by the new covenant. That's the whole argument of the writer of
Hebrews. In Hebrews 8 it's called the old covenant because it would be
superseded by a new covenant. So permanent and temporary are really the
best words to describe these two types of covenants.
The seventh point is that the new covenant is the third permanent
covenant with Israel based on the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic
covenant promised three things. If you went through the Genesis series you
know these, or at one time you could dream about them: land, seed, and
blessing. The land covenant is expanded in the real estate covenant in
Deuteronomy, chapter 29. The Davidic covenant is the seed and God's
promise of a Messianic king and the new covenant fulfills the third part of the
Abrahamic covenant which is a blessing to all the peoples in the world, a
spiritual blessing and that comes through the new covenant. So the land
covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the new covenant are all based on the
Abrahamic covenant and they're all permanent covenants.
The eighth point is that the new covenant is an unconditional covenant,
meaning that the fulfillment of the promise is not dependent upon human actions
or human obedience. This is seen in Ezekiel 36:21-22, although in the
passage it is stated that their realization of the covenant is going to be
related to their obedience. It is not their obedience that causes God to
give them the covenant. God will give them the covenant and God will give them
a new heart and then they will be obedient to God.
The ninth point is that whereas most of the other covenants are material
and national in nature, the land, the king, the throne...the new covenant is
spiritual. It has to do with a change inside of the person. He is
given a new heart, a new capacity, and he's given new capabilities. He's
going to know the Word intuitively so that there's no need for anyone to teach
one another. Now did that happen in Acts? No. See none of these
things have happened yet. They're similar because God the Holy Spirit does
some similar things in the Church Age to what He will do in the future kingdom
but they're not the same. There are lots of similarities between you and
your next-door neighbor. You have houses that are very, very similar in
many ways. You have a mortgage or a lease that's identical 99.9% ways to your
neighbor. They're very close but just because your mortgage contract is
99.9% like your neighbor doesn't mean that he's obligated to your terms or
you're obligated to his terms or that you can change your terms to his because
his are better. Doesn't work that way. So these covenants are
distinct. The new covenant is spiritual, not physical. Last, the new
covenant is everlasting in nature. It is permanent, just like the
Abrahamic covenant, just like the land covenant, the Davidic covenant; they're
all permanent.
As we look at this, we need to look at some of the Scripture. ((CHART)). Now
that's a lot of Scripture up there and I'll leave it there a little
bit. The key passage is Jeremiah 31:31-34. That's the only passage
that actually mentions the term, 'new covenant'. Turn there and we'll just
look at those verses. It's four verses in the Old Testament but in the
Hebrew it's six or seven. I want to read it to you because it's so
important to understand what it says. We pick up certain characteristics. “Behold
the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah [it doesn't mention the church].”
There have been dispensationalists in the past who have tried to claim on the
basis of new covenant in the New Testament in 2nd Corinthians 3 that
there's a new covenant with the church. It never says that. The new
covenant is with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It has
application to Gentiles. Just has the Abrahamic covenant was with God and
Abraham and had application to the Gentiles. Just because it has
application to the church doesn't mean there's a covenant with the
church. It's very different.
So God says I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah “not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land
of Egypt.” When He says 'in the day' He's not talking about the
twenty-four hour period that they came out. He's talking about at that
time period when he brought them out of Egypt. Where did he take
them? He took them to Mount Sinai. And what was the covenant He gave
them at Mount Sinai? It was the Mosaic covenant so he's contrasting the
new covenant with the Mosaic covenant. That's where it gets it's
identification: new versus the old. It's not going to be like that
covenant. That's what's stated in the Old Testament in Jeremiah.
God continues, “My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to
them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant I will make with the house
of Israel after those days.” There will be a covenant in the future, after
those days. When is 'after those days'? This is that time period of
what we call the tribulation, the time period of Jacob's wrath, the time period
of discipline on Israel. After that, God says He will make this covenant
with Israel. God says, “I will put My Law in their minds and write it on
their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be My people.” Now
this is just basic, basic hermeneutics. That means basic Bible
interpretation.
When God says, “I will put My law...” who is He referring to? That
refers to God. We're getting really basic here because we stumble over the
a-b-cs. “I will put My law [God's law] in their minds.” Who is the
'their'? To whom does that pronoun refer? It refers to the house of
Israel and the house of Judah. It refers to the Jews. He's not
talking about the church here. He's going to put it in their minds and
He's going to write it on their hearts. “And I will be their God and they
shall be My people.” Is that happening today? No. Did that
happen in A.D. 33 on the Day of Pentecost? No. Is God putting His law in
anybody's mind like this or writing it on their hearts like this now? No,
he's not doing that to church age believers either. We have to learn it;
we have to study it; we forget it and we have to go back and read it
again. We have to listen over and over again, thousands of hours of Bible
teaching and finally it penetrates our dense little brains and hearts. God
doesn't write it there for us. Now in some sort of extended sense, He
does, because God the Holy Spirit teaches us but that's not what this is
talking about. This is talking about something much different than the
normal process we experience.
That's expanded in the next verse which says, “No more shall every man
teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying Know the Lord.” Is
that true today? That nobody has to teach anybody else? You flunk if
you say yes. Today you have witnesses, you have pastor teachers,
evangelists but in this scenario because the Word is implanted and there's this
intuitive knowledge of the truth there's no need to tell your neighbor, “Do you
remember what the Law says?” because you know he remembers because it's written
on his heart. He can't forget it and you don't need to tell your neighbor
'I told you so. Why don't you pay attention? You didn't go to church the
other day.” You don't have to go. You already know it. It's
there. God continues, “…for they shall all know me [from those who dropped
out of school in the third grade to those with PhDs. They'll all know
it.] For I shall forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no
more.” Now that's an important phrase at the end of verse 34. It's a
phrase that's picked up in other passages such as Isaiah 54 and 61. These
are passages that talk about God's forgiveness of Israel's sins in the
Millennial Kingdom. So what this tells us a unique role of the Holy Spirit
when the new covenant goes into effect, a unique knowledge of the Word of God,
a new unique national forgiveness of Israel when the new covenant goes into
effect, and this applies to everybody across all social and economic
indicators.
He goes on to says in verse 35: “Thus says the Lord Who gives the sun
for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by
night.” Notice it grounds this in creation. If God isn't the creator
the way the Bible describes Him, as being the creator, then there's no foundation
for these covenants. “Who disturbs the sea and its waves roar.” “If
those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the seed of Israel
shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.” So here he
introduces the concept of the nation Israel. So verses 31-34 are all
talking about the nation Israel. This is a national promise. So what
we see here coming out of this verse is that the new covenant is between God,
the party of the first part, the superior One, and the house of Israel and the
house of Judah as the second party. It's important to see that it provides
for the national regeneration of Israel in the Millennial kingdom. Not
just as individuals.
Now why do I say that? Because, think about this. We went
through Revelation. How many years did we study Revelation? How many
years have we gone through prophecy? What happens in the mid-point of the
tribulation? This is a quiz. Mid-point of the tribulation the
Antichrist goes into the holy of holies. What does he do in the holy of holies? He
sets up in there to be worshiped and then he puts his image in the holy of
holies. And then what does he do? Then he starts persecuting the
Jews. What did Jesus say to do when you see this happen? He said,
“When you see this sign, you flee to the mountains. Woe to the woman who
is pregnant, who is with child.” This is the sign when the Antichrist goes
into the holy of holies then it's time to leave. Now who is going to
listen to Jesus and leave? Is it going to be the cynical, skeptical
agnostic Jews or the Jews who have said Jesus is really the Messiah?
Jewish believers are going to get out of 'dodge in a hurry'. Where
are they going to go? They're going to go to the mountains. So if they're
listening to Jesus and they're obeying Jesus and they're saved, are they
regenerated? Yes. They're new creatures in Christ. I'm not sure
if the Baptism by the Holy Spirit will apply. Other aspects of the Church
age don't so the Baptism by the Holy Spirit doesn't but they're going to be
regenerated. Is this before the new covenant comes into effect? Yeah,
two or three years before. So regeneration that happens when the new
covenant goes into effect isn't regeneration per se. It's the regeneration
of the nation. It's the new national regeneration, a new national
distinction, related to these individual believers.
The best analogy I have is that Old Testament believers like the
disciples of John the Baptist. They show up in Ephesus where Paul
is. Paul says, “With whose baptism were you baptized?' They say,
“John the Baptist.” Are they Old Testament saints? Yes, but they have
a limited spiritual life. They haven't experienced the baptism of Jesus
and the baptism of the Holy Spirit yet. They haven't heard anything about
Jesus. They're Old Testament saints with that limited spiritual life and
then when they hear the gospel, they shift from believing in the Old Testament
presentation of salvation to a church age completed Christ-oriented presentation
of the gospel and at that point they get a whole new spiritual
life. That's what's going to happen to those Jewish believers who flee to
the mountains during the tribulation. They're regenerated and they have a
certain enhancement in their spiritual life but then when Jesus returns and
establishes the new covenant, they're going to go from zero to hundred in zero
point 2 seconds and they're really going to go into hyper drive in their
spiritual life with all these additional enhancements.
Remember the church age believers haven't been around for 7
years. That's you and me and we're gone with our spiritual
life. Baptism of the Spirit, filling of the Spirit, indwelling of the
Spirit, that's gone. That's not going to be there during those seven
years. So they're going to go from something that's somewhere between the
Old Testament spiritual life and Church age spiritual life and what comes up
under the new covenant. So that's why it's worded this way. It
provides for the regeneration of Israel and the fulfillment of all the other
covenants to them. So the new covenant is fulfilled, the Davidic covenant
is fulfilled in the physical presence of Jesus as the ruler of the earth and
the land covenant is fulfilled when all of Israel is going to be in the land.
There are ten different provisions stated in these passages and we'll
hit some of them as we go through them. We'll start next time with Isaiah
61:89. I'm just going to hit a few passages so we understand what the
characteristics of the spiritual life in the new covenant are and we'll see
that we don't have that today. But there are similarities and the point
that is being made here from Paul in 2nd Corinthians 3 is that when
the Law ended the Law didn't provide any of this. It didn't provide what
we have in the church age and it's not going to provide what's there under the New
covenant. The Law is over with and that's the point.