Sacramental issues

After two weeks slogging through one of the toughest subjects in all of Christendom (Baptism), I thought I might try a written response to clear up some of the ambiguity remaining. Let me start by saying that I knew that this was going to be difficult, but my policy is to deal with the subjects that arise in scripture when we come to them rather than find easy topics and find the scripture to go with them. That policy is one I believe strongly in maintaining. We need to think about, pray about, and discuss tough topics.

One general note before I proceed. We are having a Bible Study, not an Anglican Study. Our source material is scripture, not the Book of Common Prayer (origins of this fine prayer book notwithstanding). While there will be Anglican particulars mentioned, the point of this exercise is to explore and learn about the Bible. If you feel that we are losing track of that point, please interject and we will adjust our trajectory.

There are two sacraments instituted by Jesus during his earthly ministry: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In this we are in agreement. We are also in agreement that the Holy Spirit is the active agent in both sacraments. What follows then is my description of these two sacraments and answers to all of the questions that arose over these two meetings.

A sacrament, according to the Anglican lexicon, is an outward, visible sign of an inward, invisible truth. Some of you may not have heard this definition before, but those of you who have an Anglican background certainly have, and probably also those of you who have a Methodist background. This means that we are doing a ritual, but that there is something unseen going on there as well. As we stated before, the Holy Spirit is the active agent. Therefore, what we need to discover is what the Holy Spirit is doing in both of these instances.

Baptism is instituted as a necessary initiation into the covenant community by Jesus in Matthew 3. We know that this is a necessary part of the salvation equation because in the Great Commission [Matthew 28:19], Jesus specifically states that we should go forth baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We know that washing with water is necessary from John 13, the baptism of the apostles. We have discussed that the Holy Spirit is present, but the implications of that presence need to be emphasized.

The notion of covenant inclusion is ground that we have covered in our meetings. In the Old Testament (OT), covenant inclusion was set out in the Abrahamic Covenant [Genesis 15-18] with a sacrament of circumcision [Genesis 17]. Circumcision was the outward, visible sign of an inward, invisible truth: inclusion in the covenant family of Abraham. Baptism is instituted as a new sacrament of repentance that is the outward, visible sign of the inward, invisible truth of inclusion in the New Covenant family of Jesus. Following the Jewish precedent, circumcision was not done until at least the eighth day of life [Genesis 17:12], but it was not exclusively an infant event. Many people were brought into the Jewish covenant family by adult circumcision [Genesis 17:12-13]. The difference between circumcision and baptism, then, is a matter of into which covenant are we inviting the new member. The New Covenant in Christ Jesus is the Better Covenant because He fulfilled all the prior OT covenants and established His New Covenant through His blood.

So, while the outward visible sign is clear, water baptism, let us explore the nature of the inward, invisible truth. While only men were circumcised, we baptize all people including women. It is important to understand that the English word “man” comes from German and it means people in a general sense without respect to gender. Likewise, the Greek words used in the institution of this sacrament are not gender specific. Therefore, we can in good conscious baptize women as well as men. This is an important step. Nowhere does Jesus specifically baptize a woman. Importantly, neither is this specified concerning John the Baptist. We can, therefore, surmise that Jesus is MORE inclusive than the OT model.

We can also say that the Holy Spirit was clearly present when John baptized Jesus. In fact, as one of us so adroitly pointed out, this was the first public expression of the Trinity [Matthew 3:16-17]. This presence of the Holy Spirit is a key point that cannot be overstated. The Holy Spirit is present in the sacraments. This is what makes them sacraments.

Digression for a moment is necessary at this point to discuss the condition of sin. We all agree that sin entered into the world through one man, Adam, and his sin is imputed on all of his offspring forever. The wage of sin is death and all men inherit this wage from Adam: we all die. Just as clearly, we are all born into sin. This means that no man is capable of doing good on his own. Indeed, given the choice, no man can or would choose God on his own [Romans 3:1-12]. This means very specifically that every man born is sinful by nature from the moment of conception. It requires the intervention of the Holy Spirit to change this truth. This is an important point and one of which we must not lose sight: we cannot and would not choose Christ on our own. An adult is baptized after an encounter with the Holy Spirit. But who is to say that an adult is not coerced into being baptized or is lying about his faith, and has his first encounter with the Holy Spirit in Baptism. That encounter is genuine nonetheless.

God is faithful all the time; and all the time, God is faithful. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is faithful all the time; and all the time, the Holy Spirit is faithful. If you are predestined before time to be a vessel that the potter has made for salvation [Ephesians 1:3-14], then the efficacy of baptism is 100%. If not, then efficacy of baptism is nil, because the Holy Spirit knows true faith and knows which vessel is to be good. This is a key point between some Protestants, particularly Lutherans, who believe that baptism delivers what it promises: redemption and transformation. Others believe in regard to apparent failure of regeneration in a person one of two possibilities, either that a person may “fall away” from Christ, or that the baptism was not authentic in some way, meaning that the Holy Spirit did not enter into the person being baptized at that moment. Both of these possibilities are troubling. If the Holy Spirit is always present and enters into the recipient of the sacrament, then if a person appears to fall away from Christ, then the Holy Spirit is not always faithful. I cannot, of course, accept that as a possibility. This leaves me with the other possibility: some vessels are meant for salvation and others are not. The Holy Spirit knows the difference. But let us never forget the example of Luke 23:39-43, the second prisoner on the cross next to Jesus. Even in the last moments of life, the Holy Spirit is faithful. We as mere human witnesses are not able ultimately to discern the difference. While true faith and salvation demonstrates good fruit, it is important to bear in mind that we are not God. We do not ultimately decide which vessel is meant for salvation and which is not.

We do as a covenant people hold the keys to the covenant community. In as much as that is true, we hold the keys to the sacrament of Baptism (there is an obvious quandary and corollary concerning the thief on the cross and his baptism). As those who hold the keys to the sacrament of baptism, how do we best control entry into the covenant community?

There are obviously two models: paedobaptism and credobaptism. Paedo is a Greek root meaning child. So, paedobaptism is the baptism of children. Credo is a Latin root that means belief. So credobaptism is the baptism of believers. It is interesting that the root words are from Greek (paedo & baptism) and Latin (credo). Greek is the language of the New Testament (NT), while Latin is the language of Rome. Do with that what you will! I only point it out for academic interest, not a proof point.

When engaging the issue of paedobaptism, I think it is important to go back to scripture. The most obvious point is neither side is given definitive inclusion or exclusion by scripture. Read John 13, particularly verse 7 along with verses 12-20. The apostles did not understand what was happening to them even as Jesus Himself was instituting the sacrament of baptism. The argument can go either way from here. Either, as Jesus states, they will come to understand soon, or the Holy Spirit does the action on them that day, only to bring full understanding to them later.

This leads us down the two roads we discussed above. If we argue that Pentecost completes the baptism of the apostles, but could not occur prior to Easter and is therefore a separate event for them only, then we can say that there is one baptism as in the Nicene Creed and that believers baptism was present for the apostles as well. This is sort of the same way that Abraham’s covenant spills out over 4 chapters rather than being in one neat, concise package. If we argue that Pentecost is either a second baptism or, better, a second encounter with the Holy Spirit that brings understanding, then we have baptism of the apostles without true belief at that point, but with the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit as the agent of regeneration. Still, this is troubling as it leads us to dangerous ground of a second baptism if that language is taken into Acts 2.

For the record, the word ‘baptism’ does not appear in Acts 2. It just doesn’t. What it says there instead is that the Holy Spirit comes and enters them. It does not even say that it is their first encounter with the Holy Spirit, although some may argue that it is implied by Jesus when he says that the Paraclete cannot come until he is gone. So, does this mean that the Holy Spirit was not present at the baptism of the apostles? Remember Matthew 3. The Holy Spirit was already present with Jesus. The difference in Acts 2 is that now the Holy Spirit has come to take residence in all of us. This is a change in locus not a change in function. This is an Easter generated event, a one-time shift from external to internal dwelling of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we can argue that the apostles’ baptism is unique. While the Holy Spirit was present at their baptism due to the presence and participation of Jesus, the consummation of the new residence of the Holy Spirit in the covenant people is instituted at Pentecost. This is not a second baptism. Subsequent to Pentecost, the Holy Spirit immediately assumes His dwelling inwardly in the recipient of the sacrament of baptism. Therefore, regeneration occurs simultaneously with covenant community entry in those who are known by the Holy Spirit from before time.

This discussion is not meant to say that adults are not or should not be baptized. That is a ridiculous notion. All the apostles were adults. Even in the Anglican Communion today, far more adults are baptized than infants. What is meant here is not either-or, but both-and. Remember what we said much earlier: Jesus is MORE inclusive than Abraham, not less.

Still, we hold the keys as covenant leaders to the sacrament of baptism. Who shall we baptize? Here, we must look again at biblical precedent. If baptism is to circumcision as Jesus is to Abraham, then the eighth day seems to be appropriate if the new infant is born into a covenant family. This is a key point. The family must be a covenant family. If a communicant elder knows the family, then this part is easy. He may baptize the infant. If the elder does not know the family, or only knows one parent, this becomes more difficult. The responsibility of raising the child in covenant community lies not only with the parents, but with the whole covenant community. Let us suppose that a parent desires the an elder who baptized them to also baptize their child, but that parent no longer attends the congregation of that elder. Instead, they attend a congregation in another town. It would not be appropriate for that elder who does not know both parents to do the baptism. Indeed, it would not be appropriate for that elder’s congregation to take on the responsibility for raising that child in covenant community when the parents are a part of another covenant community. I hope that this clears up one of the statements that I made concerning whether I would or would not baptize a particular child. The responsibility is not just on the elder, but on his congregation, in addition to the parents.

Concerning adults, who shall we baptize? Is the Holy Spirit just as faithful for adults as He is for infants and children? Of course. Nonetheless, we have the opportunity with adults to lead them to greater understanding prior to the institution of the sacrament of Baptism. The notion of a believer’s baptism makes greater sense in the context of an adult. But Baptism is not just about belief, it is about repentance. An adult is able to understand that they are sons of Adam and therefore born into sin needing salvation from an external source. An adult can be taught the full equation of salvation: why it was necessary for Jesus to enter the world, why Easter was necessary, why faith is sufficient. An adult is already the head of his own nuclear family, be it only a family of one. His responsibility is greater in that regard. He must repent and accept the futility of his own works. This implies that the adult has already encountered the Holy Spirit prior to baptism (unless there is coercion or falsehood involved). Why would we be surprised about that, that the Holy Spirit has already been at work? What are the means of grace? The means of grace are the preaching of the Word and the sacraments. The Holy Spirit encounters man when we preach the Word (correctly). Again, adult baptism is not the exception, it is the majority.

Finally, concerning baptism, there is the problem of multiple baptisms. Some people feel that when they have fallen away from God for a while or that their relationship with God has gotten stale, that they need to do something to renew their zeal. They will seek a second (or third) baptism. This is not the same as someone who either does not know if they were baptized or whether their baptism was valid due to the apostasy of the celebrant. For those people, reassurance is necessary that the first baptism is valid. The power lies in the Holy Spirit, not in either the elder or the new covenant member. If a second baptism occurs, it is OK. It is not necessary, but it is OK.

Returning to the issue of the person who has "fallen away" and seeks re-baptism for this reason, there is a major flaw with this thinking. There is the assumption that how a person feels about God matters to how God feels towards His people. This very assumption flies in the face of the sovereignty of God. God is faithful all the time; all the time, God is faithful. God does not need us to do anything. It is already done. It is finished. Baptism was designed as a onetime event to bring us into the covenant community, to bring about our regeneration, and to begin the process of sanctification. There was another sacrament designed by Christ and instituted by Christ that is designed for repeat usage, in fact, it is designed for whenever we are gathered together. This is the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion.

The institution of the Lord’s Supper [Matthew 26:26-29] begins a sacrament of memorial for events yet to come at that point in history (prior to Easter). And yet, we can say truly that the Holy Spirit is present, because the Holy Spirit was present with Jesus at that moment. When Paul is chastising the church in Corinth [1 Corinthians 11], he frames the scene as this: “When you come together as a church….” He proceeds to discuss the Lord’s Supper. The implication here is that when we come together as a church, we share the Lord’s Supper. While many churches do not do communion regularly, some do. My intent here is not to argue an issue of frequency (you already know my views of this point); my intent instead is to argue the issue of the presence of the Holy Spirit in this sacrament.

If we need renewal, and all of us do need renewal from time to time, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is there for us. If as Paul says that this sacrament is available whenever we gather as a church, then surely we should take him at his word. Some saints may argue that repeating this sacrament regularly takes away from the specialness of the sacrament. They might say that they do not feel particularly in tune with that sacrament on a particular day. This is the same error that those same saints make concerning baptism. The power is not in the person administering the sacrament or in the person receiving the sacrament. The power is in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God; the Holy Spirit is faithful all the time; all the time, the Holy Spirit is faithful.

We are so wound up in what we do, that we can lose sight of who is actually doing anything that matters. It isn’t us. Jesus spoke that it was done. The Holy Spirit is sanctifying us as we live and breathe, even when we do not recognize his hand. The means of grace are God’s Word and the sacraments that Jesus has given us. Through those means of grace, the Holy Spirit is working on us despite ourselves. Our reverent mood or zeal is not required. The Holy Spirit is faithful all the time; all the time, the Holy Spirit is faithful. What can we possibly offer that God doesn’t already have? What can we do that hasn’t already been done? I don’t really like the slogan “Let go and let God,” but there is certain applicability to this discussion. We must let go of our desire to control God. We must let go of our desire to believe that we bring anything of value to the table. Salvation is not about us and what we do. Salvation is about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It is for us, for all of us whom He has chosen. We have an advocate with the Father; He always wins His cases. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who never loses one of His own.

Let us continue to use all of these tools that we have been given, to the glory of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Marks of the Church: The Second Hypothetical

As we move into the new year, our debate will finally get to the subject originally promised. The main lesson I’ve learned is that I’m going to stop quoting Presbyterians, as I keep picking the ones who have been defrocked. Rather than any major regrouping, I’d rather start by pointing out the obvious. There are a couple of questions that remain unanswered from the earlier posts.

The phrase that muddies the water is, again, that there should be a distinction between the sign and the thing signified. While this is clearly evident as a Roman failing when we think of transubstantiation at Communion in Roman theology, what is not at all clear is how the Holy Spirit is involved in the Presbyterian Lord’s Supper. The pneumatic presence that is part and parcel of this theology is not explained. Let’s go to the standard, a place where MDA (Monroe Doctrine Author) will have to stand fast.

Chapter XXVII of the Westminster Confession of Faith, interestingly enough the last chapter, states the following. Sacraments are the holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ and His benefits; and to confirm our interest in Him: as also, to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the Church and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to His Word. Clearly, signs and seals of the covenant of grace means something important here, but I would have MDA sort this out.

Westminster goes on with this, that there is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other. Now, this is exactly the issue. My several reads through this seem more similar to Anglican theology and less similar to Presbyterian theology as I am coming to understand it. Some explanation will be required in this section as well.

The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them; neither does the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that does administer it: but upon the work of the Spirit, and the word of institution, which contains, together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers. As far as the location of the power being in the Spirit and the word of institution, we have no argument. This is classic Reformed thinking and is mirroring the 39 Articles very closely.  What is still unclear is that there are benefits of sacraments mentioned, but what exactly are those benefits in the Presbyterian system?

The last two points are not worth a discussion as they are Reformed givens.

Any Anglican can see why this emphasis on separation of sign and thing signified seems contrary to the very essence of a sacrament, that there is something sacred at work. What is more, the Westminster standard seems to agree with the Anglican position. Surely, I have misunderstood this emphasis and I am therefore making much of little. I leave these issues to MDA for explanation.

Second Hypothetical

Let us consider an adult male member of each church. Let us for a moment assume that this man is baptized and a member in good standing in the church. The obvious theological point is that this man is a covenant member. He is outwardly and visibly a member of the covenant community. However, there is no clear knowledge of his inward or invisible faith. In other words, despite his participation in church, he may not actually be among the elect. Now, let us add a visible sin to the picture. This man owns a local hardware store. His store is open Saturday and Sunday (for clarity and to sure there is a fourth commandment issue), and he not only works in the store himself on these days, but forces his employees to do the same. He is unwilling to hear of anyone telling him otherwise. Let us begin.

I chose this example for several reasons, but there are two compelling issues here. First, many would say that this isn’t really a sin. I fail to see the wiggle room myself, but if MDA chooses, he can change the sin to one more suited to his arguments. Secondly, once we accept this is a true violation of the fourth commandment in the intention of the man, we can easily move past the issue of its habitual nature.

Now, it is to MDA to explain how he views the situation of this man in terms of his ultimate salvation, membership in the church, state of repentance and finally whether and how he is fenced and disciplined. My own thoughts I will save for second place as I have far too much ground to cover without first understanding the process about which we will spar.

To all who chance upon this blog, I wish you a blessed 2014.

– Troll –

Eternal Edicts and Covenants

As we discussed in the last post, there are specific events that are theologically supposed in the beginning of the universe before time.  It is important to understand that these events, while discussed chronologically are logical orders as opposed to chronologically ordered.  For God, there is no time.  Nonetheless, there is structure and order to this argument.  The importance of these will become apparent as we go along.

The first of God’s eternal edicts is the decision to Create the universe and with it man.  Later in this discussion, we will see an extreme position in which this is not the first of the eternal edicts.  But for the most part, we can assume that the decision to create came first.

The second of God’s eternal edicts is to permit the Fall.  Without much debate, the four major orderings of soteriology (study of the religious doctrines of salvation) will place the fall after creation.  There will be some discussion in a few areas about this ordering, but again, this is fairly consistent.

At this point in all of the soteriological systems, we can start asking questions.  There is the problem of evil and sin.  There is also the problem of salvation, how does it happen and for whom does it happen?  We will examine passages for each of these questions after we finish laying out the edicts, but I wanted to point out where the questions will arise.

I have mentioned above that most views of soteriology view that the fall of man occurs at this point.  It is important to understand that a heresy that is now rampant in the modern religious world holds that the fall of man is figurative or symbolic, and that the actions of Adam could not possibly have any consequence for anyone but Adam.  It must be said that the whole of Christianity other than full blown Pelagians rejected this idea in the fifth century.  There is another position as well (Semi-Pelagianism,) that we will discuss later, but it does not deny the fall.

Since Pelagius, no prominent theologian advanced a theology based upon a denial of the fall of man until Charles Finney in the nineteenth century.  Now, thanks to Charles Finney and revivalism, the default position of most people in the United States is Pelagian.  It is hugely important to recognize that this position was uniformly viewed as heretical prior to Finney.  This is the sadness we face in the church today, that so prominent a leader in US Protestantism was a heretic.  In the next post, we will discuss Finney, Wesley and Arminius, and how Finney's point of view makes light of these eternal edicts, while Wesley and Arminius have somewhat different edicts.

Finishing up the eternal edicts, we have in some order depending on which school of thought, the decision by God to save some or all, the decision by God to make possible the salvation or some or all and the decision by God to not save others or passively to overlook others.  That will be two points in most of the arrangements, depending on the theology involved.  We will call these two steps Election and Provide salvation.

Finally, there will be some sort of Call by God to his elect or to everyone. There is some agreement again that this Calling is mediated by the Holy Spirit.  Notably, in the synergistic (working together) systems, this Calling will not look the same as it does in monergistic (working alone) systems.  The reason for this we will investigate in the next post.

Switching gears for a moment, there are eternal covenants as well.  There is an eternal covenant between creator (God) and creature (man).  There are eternal covenants between the persons of the Trinity.  These covenants are not explicitly mentioned in Scripture, but they are implied by scripture.  Later, we will examine how these covenants work.

In summary, the purpose of this post was to point out five eternal edicts, which have to do with salvation or soteriology.  These five edicts are Creation, permitting the Fall, Election, Providing salvation and Calling.  We discussed that there are eternal covenants between the Persons of the Trinity and also between God the Creator and his creation, man.  In the next post, we will explore how rearranging these edicts greatly effects our theology, or vice versa. 

– Troll –

“Why Can’t I Own Canadians?”

“Why Can’t I Own Canadians?” Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth - White Horse Inn Blog

The title alone should make this worth the read! Direct response is becoming the word of the day. Enjoy this brief word on rightly discerning the Old Testament.

--Ogre--

Hebrews 6

This chapter has two distinct parts.  The first part flows from the last portion of chapter 5, discussing the elementary doctrine as opposed to the mature doctrine.  The second part sets up the explanation of the order of Melchizedek.  Let us look closely at each part and set the stage for chapter 7.

We left the last discussion with a discussion about the Word of Righteousness and the powers of discernment.  And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Ephesians 4:11-14.  The mature Christian has to exercise his mind.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:2.  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.  Hebrews 5:14.  Am I pummeling the equinus rigamortis?  Perhaps, but it is only because I saw him flinch.

Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.  

Repentance from dead works is an interesting phrase, worthy of its own series of posts.  James talks about dead faith, but what is this about dead works?  The answer is clear from all that we have discussed thus far.  Works are not the path to righteousness; works are the path from righteousness.  Why are we to leave behind discussion of what is essentially the Gospel?  Because the writer wants us to understand how all of the Old Testament types and shadows fit together with the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Covenant.  This is the next level to which he would have us aspire.  Of course, Paul never really thought you could assume the Gospel.  He spends the first part of every letter reiterating basic doctrine, always making sure that the foundation is solid before building upon it.  In our day, this approach is more necessary than ever.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

We spend so much time on this concept, worrying about this and that person falling away.  Really, if you have the proper reformed categories, this is a non-issue.  Let me explain.  Let’s assume for a moment that Romans 9-11 and several other places in the both the Old and New Testaments are accurate in discussing the idea of the elect.  I like making this assumption because I believe that it is true.  But for those Arminians who read this, let’s just make the assumption for a moment.  How does that presupposition effect the above passage?  The elect cannot fall away.  Jesus states that He is the Good Sheppard and He will not lose even the least of His flock.  So, to whom, then, is the writer referring that may have fallen away?  They cannot be the elect, because the writer states that it is impossible to restore these to whom he is speaking.  At this point, some might try and apply that phrase from the Synoptics of which this is an example: But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” Luke 18:27.  Here is the difference.  The writer of Hebrews specifically discusses covenant blessings through the Holy Spirit.  Then, he talks about crucifying Jesus once again.  The point is this.  Not all who are part of the visible church are actually part of the invisible church.  Was Judas a circumcised Jew?  During life, did he receive the blessings of being within that covenant community?  Is he a part of the True Church?  In the same way, Baptism brings us into the covenant community.  But not all who are Baptized are part of the True Church.   

When those who do not have true faith participate in the Sacraments, particularly in Communion, they are doing exactly the unforgivable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  By partaking in Communion without the faith that goes with it, they are, in a very real sense, crucifying Jesus again.  The believer goes beyond the crucifixion to the resurrection.  The reprobate only goes to the cross, but never to Easter.  Therefore, they may appear to drift in and out of covenant community during their lives, without ever truly being believers.   

This is not to suggest that we are fruit inspectors.  All sheep will certainly stray for a time.  But their path back is not blocked, for they return for true repentance, because they understand the source of their righteousness before God.  So, like the rain that falls on all ground, all those that receive the Sacraments may not produce good fruit, because that ground was not fertile.  They were not among the elect.  That ground was only going to product thorns and thistles.  Therefore, all of this drifting away was inevitable.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

OK, my friends.  What exactly is going on in this paragraph?  Let’s start with the phrase things that belong to salvation.  Salvation is about judgment.  We cannot lose track of that point.  The door to salvation is faith in the redeeming work of Christ on the cross, in His propitiating sacrifice.  Now, let’s examine God’s justice.  For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.  Does this sentence undo every other line of scripture concerning justification?  And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.  How does one have the full assurance of hope until the end?  You have that assurance by knowing that our justification is independent of these works.  Remember how this section began, talking about repentance from dead works.  God will not overlook your good works any more than He will overlook your sin, if you want to base your righteousness on your own works.  The point is that, outside of Christ, there are no good works in terms of God’s righteousness, only the righteousness of man, which Paul told us was rubbish.  Jesus Christ sanctifies our  works as well as the rest of us.  After we are justified by faith, we are sanctified by faith so that even our works now are sanctified and truly good works, not those dead works of above.  The only way to be imitators of those who inherit the promise is to be one of those who inherit the promises.  And since you are one of those, act like it.

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

In Bible study, we referred to the Covenant ritual of God with Abraham.  Here is that passage from Genesis 15:17.  When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.  In these rituals, there were always TWO things passing through the pieces.  The first thing is the Great High King.  The second thing is the vassal king, and the blood of the animals was sprinkled upon the second king to remind him of the curses.  The conditions, the blessings and the curses, all fell upon the second king.  Notice the Covenant ritual of God with Moses from Exodus in chapter 24 and of the Aaron in chapter 29.  The blood was cast upon Moses, the Israelites, the altar, the Law, Aaron.  In the first example, God, the father, and God, the Son, pass through the pieces. They are clearly of the same substance.  All of the Covenant responsibility falls upon God, not on Abraham.  All of the Covenant responsibility at Sinai falls upon Israel, not God.  These are two totally different types of Covenants.  Finally, Jesus had gone behind the curtain, into the Holy of Holies, on our behalf.  He is the firstborn from the dead.  He tears open the veil and allows us to end boldly, in confidence, in His name.

He is the eternal Great High Priest of the order of Melchizedek.  In the next post, we will finally come to Melchizedek.

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Hebrews 2

After careful thought, I decided that I needed to go backwards and get us caught up to the present.  Next week, we are entering into a key point of the book, but perhaps without the background necessary to understand the argument.  Hebrews builds an argument in much the same way as the Book of Romans.  Perhaps no two other Books in the whole of the Bible build up momentum and construct an argument with such tightness and clarity as these two.  Therefore, we need to continue from where we left the story.

The first word of chapter 2 is therefore.  Already, we have to start looking back into chapter 1 to see the antecedent of therefore.  Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is the Messiah, and much loftier and greater than the angels.  Therefore, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.  As we finish the first paragraph, the question that must be asked is: what is the topic?  The topic is salvation.

Let us pause for a moment and consider salvation.  Remember the audience to whom the writer is speaking: believing and converted Jews.  Throughout the whole of this epistle, it is vital to remember that audience.  Because of that audience, the writer will make some assumptions, assumptions that we should perhaps clarify.  Salvation is not about the here and now, in this present evil age.  Salvation is not about these Last Days, after the revelation of God’s redemptive plan through Jesus Christ and His Incarnation, Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension.  Salvation is about the result of these events upon our verdict on Judgment Day, after the Second Coming of Jesus when He will gather his sheep and separate the wolves.  This whole argument, then, will be about the end game.  This book is about Salvation.  Keep that in mind.  When we come to passages about works, remember that those passages have this vital assumption in mind.  We are talking about Salvation first, and works second.

Look now at verse 5.  What is the meaning of the world to come?  This phrase will filter back into the argument later in the letter, so let us be sure to understand it now.  We are talking about the world after the Second Coming, when the elect are resurrected and living with Christ in His Eternal Kingdom.  The world to come is not this present world in these Last Days in which we currently live.  This is a vital point.  The writer is setting up this contrast intentionally.  This is the contrast that we have discussed in the past concerning the types and shadows of the Old Covenant, Mount Sinai, the original covenant people (the Jews), Israel, Jerusalem, Moses and the Law, with the fulfilled and fully realized counterparts in the Age to come, the world to come, where each becomes their real selves, the New Covenant, Mount Zion, the new covenant people (believers in the promise of salvation through the redeeming work of Christ), the full and complete Israel with its adopted members, the heavenly Jerusalem discussed by John, Jesus and the Gospel.  I have tried to maintain parallel construction of that last sentence so that you may see clearly the types and shadows of the old juxtaposed with the fully realized new.  This is what the writer of Hebrews is doing in this book.  He is setting up this vision of our future.  Why?  We will come to that eventually.

Psalms 8 is directly quoted in the next few lines.  What is meant by the line you made him for a little while lower than the angels?  Again, what was the antecedent argument to our current argument?  Jesus is much in every way superior to the angels.  But now, for a little while, He is lower than the angels.  This is a direct reference to Jesus condescending to become incarnate through Mary as fully human.  The reason for this will be discussed again shortly, but it is important to understand the direction of the argument.  It sounds a bit like the Gospel of John.  In the beginning was the Word, and now He has become incarnate.  Why?  This passage is about Salvation, so there will be a link developed soon in verse 9. 

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  So, the writer is making a direct connection between Grace and death.  Look at that again.  By the Grace of God, He might taste death for everyone.  It cannot fail to be obvious to even the casual reader that has to be some benefit or purpose behind the death of Jesus.  There is Grace involved, and Jesus is dying for everyone.  Why?  Yes, the writer is going to help us out with that.  Remember, this is going to be about Salvation.  What is Salvation?  Salvation is about getting the sheep verdict on Judgment Day instead of the wolf verdict.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.  That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers

Now, if you are like me, this verse was akin to being whacked with a 2 x 4 across the head.  This is the whole point of chapter 2, so let’s break it down.  The first He in this passage is referring to God the Father.  Notice that the writer says for whom and by whom, and yet he does not say through whom.  Through whom is the second person of the Trinity and that is also the second He of this passage.  Who are the many sons to glory?  Look in the mirror.  We are talking about the elect, the believers, the sheep, all those who will be saved on Judgment Day.

I don’t know how to draw any more emphasis to these next two phrases than I have already, but focus now.  I’m going to move the antecedents back into the phrase for clarity.  Watch this.  For it was fitting that God should make Jesus, the founder of their Salvation, perfect through suffering.  Why?  What’s up with that?  Jesus is the founder of our salvation.  Founder means the one who founds or establishes.  So, we have several implications here.  There was no salvation before Jesus.  That’s tricky, but we will deal with the Old Testament patriarchs soon enough.  There is no salvation without Jesus.  This one is not as clearly implied here, but it is the logical flow from the first point.  The founder becomes the foundation, the first born from the dead.  That is the idea that we will be developing later.  Keep hold of that thought.

Now, the second part of that phrase is more difficult.  God makes Jesus perfect through suffering.  This is NOT saying that Jesus was not perfect before.  This is discussing salvation.  Remember the difficult question from earlier.  How does Jesus dying involve Grace?  Purpose.  There must be a purpose.  Jesus is being made a perfect sacrifice.  We have to connect all of the dots.  Remember again that the audience for this letter already know the Old Testament.  They know about the sacrifices and the roles of the priests and the relationship between all these things and the people of Israel.  When we get farther into this epistle, that statement is going to seem odd.  But for now, remember that the types and shadows are known to this audience.  The writer is connecting the dots for them.  So, the issue is that Jesus became incarnate in order to be made a perfect sacrifice.  Now, what’s this about suffering?

As an aside, I don’t want to deal yet with the Trinitarian issues that scream out to us throughout Hebrews.  We have to assume the Trinity and know that we cannot separate the Trinity as we read Hebrews.  The arguments for the Oneness of the Trinity are not contradicted by Hebrews, but that is far too much to tackle while we are developing the Salvation theme. 

Suffering.  The writer continues.  Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.  OK, that makes it clear.  Suffering means to share in flesh and blood.  Another way of saying this is that life, by definition, involves suffering.  Or maybe that Jesus, being God and condescends to incarnation as flesh and blood is suffering relative to His original state.  But finally, the only way to defeat death is to die, and then resurrect his body.  To die from flesh and blood is to suffer the penalty of sin.

Slavery.  We are slaves to sin and death, the fear of death.  When Jesus overcomes death, He frees the believer from the fear of sin and death.  Notice that He doesn’t eliminate our sin or our death.  He frees us from the fear of the Wrath of God, which are the ultimate cause of our fear of sin and death.  Our bodies remain IN Adam.  We will have to die to Adam to be reborn in Christ, unless the Second Coming happens during our lifetime.  While spiritually, those true elect believers in the New Covenant are already dead to sin and reborn in Christ, bodily we must await the Second Coming.

Pushing on to the last passage, who are the offspring of Abraham?  To understand this, we must go back to Genesis 15 and understand two things.  First, based upon what is Abraham deemed righteous.  This is getting back to that question earlier.  If Jesus is the founder of Salvation, how are Old Testament people saved?  The answer is there for us in the Word.  He is deemed righteous based upon His belief in the promise of God.  Abraham knew that Salvation was beyond himself, and that it would require God’s mercy and grace.  Second, the promise of God to Abraham and his offspring gets to the notion of family.  There are natural members of his family, the Jewish branches, and there are the adopted members of his family, those Gentiles grafted into the family.  Sons through adoption are full inheritors of the mercy and grace of God through the Redeeming work of Jesus.  So, don’t forget that we are adopted into this family.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

My goodness, that is a mouthful.  Here, we are introduced to the term high priest.  This will also be developed later in Hebrews.  I keep pointing out that the audience is supposed to already understand the types and shadows.  They know what a high priest does.  The writer is connecting the dots.  Jesus is the New High Priest.  He is the First, Last and Only High Priest.  That is the revelation in redemptive history that has brought us into this period in time, these Last Days, the time between the First and Second Comings of Christ.

I want to focus my last thought for this post on the end of verse 17:   to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  I have spoken in great detail in the past about this word.  In some translations, the word is removed, changed, edited, discarded.  But here it is again.  Hilasterion must be translated in some way, and propitiation offers the most full and complete manner of understanding all that Christ accomplishes for us.  As the Great High Priest, Jesus not only washes away our sin, but He reconciles us to God.  Both parts of this are vitally important.  You cannot be saved if you are still in enmity with God.  There must not only be a cleansing of the sin, but a turning away of the Wrath of God from those elect who are Christ’s own. 

So when we get to the last verse, how does Jesus help those who are being tempted?  Does Jesus prevent us from sinning?  No, we are still born IN Adam, under the curse.  We still will fail in our efforts to keep from sinning.  Jesus helps us by becoming the Great High Priest, our Intercessor, our Only Mediator and Advocate.  When does this happen?  He intervenes for us on the Last Day, Judgment Day.  How is this relevant to us now?  Well, for that, we must wait for later chapters.

Therefore is used frequently in Hebrews.  The writer is building an argument.  We must keep straight the points of the argument as we go, so that we understand the full argument at the end.

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A Review of Eschatology

In this post, I am going to attempt to lay out the various views of eschatology, and then suggest which I believe makes the most sense.  To begin, I have posted a two part series on Daniel 9 in the past, (Daniel 9, part 1 post, Daniel 9, part 2 post), which gives a good background for this discussion.  Daniel 9 is important because one particular interpretation of those passages drives much of the popular apocalyptic fiction available today.  After reading this background post, tackling those two posts on Daniel 9 will be significantly more easily accomplished.

While eschatology is the study of redemptive history from Genesis to Revelation, it is often condensed to a discussion of end times.  The reason that this occurs is that there are presuppositions concerning which events have already occurred.  As Christians, we can generally agree that Jesus, the messiah, has already come incarnate, died, arose and ascended into heaven.  This covers a lot of time, but it is important to state explicitly what is assumed to have already occurred before discussing what is potentially yet to come to pass and also what may or may not have already come to pass.  That particular event in redemptive history we will call the First Coming.

How we interpret the whole Old Testament, particularly the prophets, Jesus, Acts and the Epistles will weigh heavily on how we view end times.  You will notice that I have not even mentioned Revelation.  Eschatology is contained in every word of the Bible.  The mistake that is easily made is to try to interpret John’s Revelation without any redemptive historical context, or with an inaccurate historical context.  Before we even wade into Revelation, at least some sort of framework or grid for dealing with that book is very helpful.

Let us start with a concept called the millennium.  This is literally a thousand year period.  Most views of eschatology that we are going to discuss will be either named or classified based upon their understanding of that term.  To begin, from where in the Bible does this term originate?  For the rest of this discussion, you will find these charts helpful.  Follow this link and then click on the pdf file link on that page to get the charts.  By the way, I want to take this opportunity to plug both the series of lectures found on the right column of that link on eschatology called Amillennialism 101 as well as both of Dr. Riddlebarger’s books on this topic, A Case for Amillennialism and The Man of Sin.  Back to the Bible, let’s try 1 Chronicles 16 for a moment.  I do not believe that this is the first mention of this idea of a thousand generations, but it is certainly clearly expressed here.  In verses 15-16, we see the idea of a thousand generations for the duration of Abraham’s covenant.  Interestingly, the Genesis text uses words like everlasting to describe the duration of the covenant.  So this reference is clearly a mixture of texts by David.  Even the Davidic Covenant prophesy in 2 Samuel 7 contains the word forever.  In fact, it is clear that this reference refers to the Mosaic Covenant found in one instance in this section of Deuteronomy 7.  We can therefore begin to understand the confusion among the Jews concerning the covenants when David himself is quoted (perhaps misquoted) as saying that there is a thousand generation duration to the Abrahamic Covenant.  In Psalm 105, David is again quoted as saying the same thing regarding this time span and Abraham.  But the point of this verbal gymnastic is this: perhaps this is a metaphor for a very long time that equates with forever.  Psalm 90, called A Prayer of Moses, seems to suggest this very point.  We’ll come back to that thought in a moment.

Now, let’s go to the back of the book, Revelations 20.  This clearly talks about a thousand years.  Go to the charts for a moment and notice that in all four charts, the millennium comes prior to the Last Day of Judgment.  The differences lie in two important areas.  The first difference depends upon the idea of whether the thousand years are literal or metaphorical.  In the first two charts, Dispensationalism and Historic Premillennialism, there is a clear and definite literal millennium.  But these two also have a second difference.  In these two, first Christ comes back to establish the Millennial Kingdom, then He comes back again at the end of the Millennium for the Last Day of Judgment.

Now, let’s break down the differences between the first two and the second two, Postmillennialsim and Amillennialism.  Dispensationalism is a subset of Premillennialsm in which, not only is there a second period of apostasy after the Millennial Kingdom and an actual second revolt before Judgment Day, but the dispensations and periods are marked by the changing focus of Redemptive History.  We are in the pre-Rapture period where God is dealing primarily with Gentiles.  Notice in the chart that in the post bodily second coming millennial period of Jewish conversion, that there is a return to Temple Worship.  This should be a red flag to your Christology that absolutely sinks this system beyond any possible consideration, and yet this is the most commonly held position in the US today.  So many passages suggest that there is no role for the Temple after the Ascension that this idea is preposterous.  The Historic Premillennialism view softens some of the rhetoric, no rapture and no post second coming temple worship, but still has a revolt of believers after the second coming of Christ, and the split of the second coming into two events separated by a thousand years.  Even if you turn my prophets seeing two mountains as one argument from a few weeks ago back on me now, do you really think that having believers in a millennial kingdom revolting against Christ is theologically sound?  And the last issue against these premillennial systems is the splitting of the Second Coming and Judgment Day into two events.  There are simply too many passages that suggest that these are one event.  Let’s try out this passage of Matthew 25 for starters.  It all sounds like one event when Christ comes back to me, and, frankly, to the reformers as well.

The other two systems either do not look at a millennial kingdom at all, or that the millennial kingdom is figurative.  The idea of pre- versus post- millennialism is based upon whether the Second Coming is before or after the millennium.  In these last two systems, since the Second Coming is concurrent with Judgment, the Second Coming is after the millennial period.  The difference between these two models is that Post-Millennialism still requires the transformation of this present age into a predominantly Christian realm prior to the Second Coming, while Amillennialism doesn’t care about the state of this present evil age, only that the Gospel has reached all corners of the world.  This difference between the need to actually convert the majority of the world versus actually just deliver the Gospel to all corners of the world is subtle, but important.  One could certainly argue that Christ may come back at any time now if you are Amillennial in your views.

So, which system do I support, if I haven’t made this clear yet?  The millennial arguments did not come into popular believe until the last 150 years.  The Chilists, or historical premillennialist appeared in the fourth century, but their view was refuted by Augustine and later the reformers.  Amillennialism as a system satisfies all of the pertinent texts without leaving unanswered questions and contradictions.  Therefore, the hour of the King’s return is completely unknown, and it could be tonight, and it might not be for thousands of years still.

The most important aspect of eschatology is that your hermeneutic for Biblical interpretation determines your eschatology.  A completely Christocentric hermeneutic combined with Covenant Systematic Theology yields an amillennial view of the end times.  These things go together naturally and easily.  If you keep those charts available whenever you read passages that have eschatological importance, and they are everywhere in the Bible, and then go through the exercise of deciding how to interpret these passages in each of the four systems that I presented, you will soon see both which system you prefer, and what assumptions you have to make for that eschatology to work.

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Nehemiah, Jeremiah…and Bears! Oh, my!

In this concluding post on the book of Nehemiah, I want to try and accomplish three things.  First, I would like to drag some of the prophesies of Jeremiah, Isaiah and Ezekiel into the discussion, particularly Ezekiel and Jeremiah, in order to establish that the second temple truly was a prophetic event realized in redemptive history.  Second, I want to complete the discussion of covenants in terms of Nehemiah, his actions and his results.  Third, I want to put the Second Temple back into its place in redemptive historical context.

The book of Isaiah is far too long to tackle in one post, but a brief overview is worth the time here.  Isaiah is roughly divided into three sections based upon time.  Because Isaiah is thought to have lived in the earlier time period, the second two sections are viewed as being prophetic.  The middle section, chapters 40-55 assume a Jewish audience in Babylonian exile.  The last section, chapters 56-66 assume a Second Temple Jewish audience and speak to time eternal.  In the middle section, after foretelling the Diaspora, Isaiah tells Israel that they will need to return to Jerusalem.  The details have more to do with the politics of the situation and less to do with the actual temple and city, but there is plenty of prophesy and covenant conversation for the reading.  I posted on chapter 59 just this weekend.  For our purposes today, let us move on to Ezekiel and Jeremiah.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah were personally part of the exile.  They witnessed the fall of Jerusalem.  Their prophesies are therefore full both of lament for the covenant curses that have befallen an unfaithful Israel as well as our indication that God did indeed intend to restore Israel to Jerusalem for a time in the Second Temple era.  In fact, some people hold that Lamentations was a further work of Jeremiah.  In it, the people of Israel hold out hope that despite their deservedly received Wrath, they will yet receive the Mercy of God.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel are more specific.

In Bible study, we have already seen how Ezekiel foretold the fall of the first Temple in chapter 8, and gave us the reason for it.  Israel has persisted in horrible sin in the House of God, in His Temple, and in verse 18, for this they will receive His Wrath.  Through the middle chapters, we get the fall and the exile.  Finally, starting in chapter 40, Ezekiel tells of his vision of the Second Temple.  I would draw some attention, besides to the obvious overlap with Ezra, to the details of language concerning the prince and the son of man in chapter 44.  There is talk of separation.  There is discussion of circumcision by heart and flesh.  These are the key points of Ezekiel, and we see the echoes of this vision in the actions of Nehemiah.  It is no wonder that Nehemiah goes bananas in chapter 13 when he finds that Israel is already committing the same abominations in the Second Temple that caused their downfall in the First Temple.

As we go back through Nehemiah chapter 9 and 10, notice the correlation between those and Ezekiel 43.  There is clear instruction and obedience demonstrated here between Ezekiel and Ezra a century or more later.  Further, the admonishments by God to Ezekiel in chapter 44 are echoed by Nehemiah.  The correlation is not accidental.  We will come back at the end to these important issues.

Jeremiah lived through the same events.  He and his scribe Baruch record much of the historical events in much the same manner as other books.  But let’s find some of the true high points of his book.  Let us focus for a moment on Jeremiah17:1-13.  As you read this, compare this with two sections of the NT.  First, notice the blessings and curses language that is similar to the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5.  Notice also, that Jeremiah comes down hard on the sin of man.  Look at verses 9-10.  This is bad news, folks.  Yes, God sees inside our hearts, and what he sees is desperately sick and deceitful.  Compare this with Paul in Romans 3:9-12.  Paul didn’t make that stuff up.  Here is but one place where the heart is described harshly.

Jeremiah 25 is a sobering account of God’s Wrath.  There are a couple of items to point out here.  First, when we are saved, we are saved from God’s Wrath.  Nowhere is this more clearly recorded.  Secondly, the Wrath of God will be delivered to all nations.  Jeremiah doesn’t just deliver the Wrath of God to Jerusalem, he goes everywhere.  We tend to view the Old Testament story in terms of Israel alone.  Remember that Israel are a type and shadow of the true Israel, those who believe in the promise, those who include the wild vines grafted into the family tree of Abraham.  Jeremiah, and later God, will give this cup of Wrath to all nations. 

Jeremiah 29 is a passage that gets abused and taken out of context.  Much of the Old Testament suffers the same treatment in this present evil age.  But this particular assault is fresh on my mind.  Looking at verses 10-23, we find a prophesy for the return to Jerusalem for the exiled.  Early in Bible study, I made a statement concerning the covenant relationship of God with the Second Temple.  I asked the question, where is the God side of the Covenant?  God speaks through His prophets as well as through fire.  This is not a new covenant; this is a renewal of the old Sinai covenant.  It reads like Law, just as Sinai reads as Law.  Here is God granting the return of the exiled to Jerusalem.  But, importantly, there remain the blessings and the curses.  This is still a “do this and you shall live, do it not and you shall perish” type of Law Covenant.  But in this, we can see the reason that Nehemiah and Ezra looked to Moses rather than to Abraham.

Is it surprising, then, that we find statements such as Nehemiah 13:30-31?  Nehemiah is operating in terms of the blessings and curses principle of the Law.  Remember me for my good deeds.  Can we say then that Nehemiah is a Patriarch about whom we should view as righteous based upon his belief in the promise?  I am not the Fruit Inspector General, but it would seem that Nehemiah condemns himself with those words.  God will use believer and unbeliever alike towards His purpose.  Is belief in God enough for salvation?  Jesus says a resounding “no” to this question.  Even the devil believes in God.  Nehemiah clearly demonstrates his belief in the prophesies concerning the return to Jerusalem, but did he believe also in the promise, as did Abraham? 

For extra credit, try Romans 4 for a moment as Paul explains the covenant meaning of circumcision.  Going back to the notion of circumcision of the heart and of the flesh from Ezekiel 44, we can say that Paul spiritualizes circumcision of the flesh to mean that full and complete cutting off of Jesus.  Through our Baptism, we become covenant members of this circumcision through the Blood of Christ, the Grace of which we have renewed in us through Holy Communion.  The circumcision of the heart is the gift of faith, by the Holy Spirit, that transforms our hearts, making us new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5), through the meritorious work of Jesus on the Cross.  All that we hold to be true in the New Covenant was first foretold in the Old Testament.  All of the types and shadows of the OT have meaning, and come to fruition in the New Covenant in Christ.

Through all of this prophesy, from Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah, Israel remains laser pointed at the Law, completely overlooking other aspects of the prophesy.  Jeremiah 23:3-5 concerns the righteous branch of David.  Read it now.  There was a purpose beyond the restoration of ethnic Israel to a land and renewal of old long broken covenants to the Second Temple.  That purpose was the introduction of the root of Jesse, the righteous branch of David, the Prophet, Priest and King, the Messiah, the Son of Man, our Savior, our Only Mediator and Advocate, the Paraclete.  All of these phrases appear or are described first in the Old Testament concerning the One who will come.  This is the purpose of rebuilding the Temple.  God will enter into the world from the Eastern door of the Sanctuary of the Temple (Ezekiel 44).  And thus Jesus was born to the East of Jerusalem, in the city of David.

Nehemiah fulfilled his purpose unto God.  Israel was restored to the land for a time, and the Second Temple and the wall was built.  But in the book of Nehemiah, I see that man is not changed.  Man is still fallen.  Man still needs a Savior.  Man needs a New Covenant where God does all the work for us.

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The Old Testament Covenants

Another great topic from last week was that there are five Covenants in the Old Testament.  This post will review each covenant and discuss how it is a type and shadow of what Jesus would do later in redemptive history.  As we have said often, every word of the Old Testament is about Jesus in much the same way that every word or the New Testament is also about Jesus.  The Old Testament presents types and shadows of the New Covenant in Christ.  What does this phrase mean?

 

Let’s look for a moment at cars.  The regrettably named Smart Car is a type of thing in the group that we call cars.  Yes, this is debatable, but that helps make the point.  There are other types of cars that we place in this group that we call cars.  Let us take for example the Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4.  This even sounds like a more impressive car.  Look how impressive the name of the car is.  Now, let’s look at the car itself.   Now that’s a car!  It has a 396 cu. in. V12 engine with 700 horse power.  It goes from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in only 2.9 seconds.  To give you some perspective, the Smart Car comes in blue; the Lamborghini comes in red.  While the Smart Car was a type of car, it was only a shadow of the Lamborghini, and a poor shadow at that.

In much the same way, we can say that Jerusalem is a type and shadow of heaven.  It was meant to give us a vague idea of what heaven might be like.  The Jewish people were a type and shadow of what God’s people would be like.  The Old Testament goes a step farther than this.  It compares a wagon or a skateboard to a Lamborghini.  The type and shadow is so vastly inferior to the real thing that we sometimes do not realize that the skateboard was actually pointing towards the Lamborghini.  And yet, some people mistake chapters and verses and even books of the Old Testament wanting to talk about skateboards instead of Lamborghinis.  Every word of the Old Testament is pointing forward to Jesus Christ and His redeeming work for His people.

Now, let’s move on to the Covenants.  All five of these Old Testament covenants point forward to an aspect of the New Covenant in Christ, but each has a different purpose in redemptive history.  Some of them are still intact and some have been broken.  Let’s start with a table and then fill in some details as we go.

Covenant	Lesser King	Blessings	Curses
Creation	Adam	Remain in Eden	Banishment from Eden; Sin; Death
Noah	Noah	No further cataclismic distruction	More trouble
Abraham	God	People the planet	?
Moses	Jewish people	Land promise	Destruction of Temple; dispersal
David	God	King will come from his line	?

The Creation Covenant, Genesis 2-3 is unlike all other covenants in the Bible in one aspect.  This covenant is not specifically spelled out as such in the text.  The covenant is understood.  We know that it is a covenant because it has the characteristics of a covenant.  There were blessings, curses and conditions.  This conditional covenant had the provision that Adam should never eat of a particular fruit.  He broke this covenant and suffered the consequences of that action.  The curse of this covenant was that sin and death entered the world.  The curses of covenants remain intact, while the blessings are lost.

At this point in redemptive history, God looks at His creation and it is doomed.  His creation is totally incapable now of passing judgment.  Since I am handling the doctrine of original sin elsewhere, I will not belabor the point here.  For our purposes, God needs to create a scheme by which He can save some of His creatures for the Age to Come.  We are not told why He chose progressive revelation or why He didn’t just wipe us out and start over.  We are given a series of covenants that point to the New Covenant in Christ.

When we come to Noah, the situation is that God was angry again and had just wiped the slate nearly clean.  Notice Genesis 6:5.  I would ask what is different now.  Paul’s answer is that nothing has changed.  It is interesting that man sort of receives a second punishment for the creation covenant here.  God saves Noah and then he makes a new covenant with Noah.  In Genesis 6:9, Noah is accounted as righteous, blameless in his Age.  By what means was Noah accounted as righteous?  Was Noah accounted righteous based upon his works?  Noah was still in Adam.  We are given his genealogy in chapter 5 to prove this.  His condition was still of sin.  He was included in the statement of God in Genesis 6:5.  Why was he accounted as righteous by God?  Noah believed in the promise of God.  He believed in the flood and the promise of God to deliver him from this peril.  Noah was accounted righteous based upon his faith in the promise of God.  In Genesis 8, we see that while God had decided not to punish the whole earth again on account of man, the condition of man has not changed.  The intension of man’s heart is evil from his youth.  We still have a sin problem.

Let’s examine the actual covenant in Genesis 9.  First, what are the conditions?  There are two.  Don’t eat live animals.  Don’t murder.  What are the blessings?  God promises never again to use a flood to wipe the earth clean.  The issue and imagery of water both here, in the Exodus and with Jonah makes for an interesting issue, but I will return to that later.  Remember that everything here is a type and shadow.  What are the curses?  If you violate this covenant, you will die by the hand of man.  One can also argue that the curses came first in the form of the flood, but that line of thinking is fairly thin in my view.  With whom is this covenant made?  Noah’s offspring and all living creatures are included in the covenant.  The sign of the covenant is the rainbow.  Now, for the tough question: is this covenant still intact?  Of course it is.  We have empirical evidence of this in the sky.  Has man violated this covenant?  Absolutely.  But as we have said before, God never breaks covenants.  Man is the one who breaks covenants.

At the end of the first two covenants, here is the situation.  God has cursed man through Adam and his sin.  This curse is the remnant of that covenant and it is intact.  God has not flooded the whole earth again and we still have rainbows, but man commits murder with alarming regularity.  Both the blessings and the curses are intact for this covenant, although man continues to violate it.  God is indeed merciful.  But man still has a problem: man is still evil in his heart and not worthy to stand before God in judgment and receive a verdict of righteousness.  With Abraham, God will get the ball rolling in the righteous direction.

Abram was deemed righteous before God.  The Abrahamic Covenant sort of tumbles out over 7 chapters and has several parts.  I will ask the covenant questions and then go get the answers.  By what means was Abram accounted as righteous?  From Genesis 15:6, we see that it was due to Abram’s belief in the promise of God.  This is an enormously important point.  Abram had already deceived Pharaoh concerning his wife.  This was not exactly righteous behavior.  His righteousness is specifically attributed to his belief in the Promise.  Who guarantees this covenant?  This is the most amazing section of Genesis, and perhaps the most important of the whole Old Testament.   The smoking fire pot representing God passes through the pieces first, as usual.  However, the flaming torch, representing the Son of God passes through second.  They are both fire, of the same substance.  One, the torch, comes from the fire pot, the father.  The guarantor of the covenant, therefore, is God!  The blessings and the curses will therefore fall upon God Himself.  He creates the covenant in Abraham through which Salvation will finally be possible.  He does all it.  He takes all the responsibility on Himself.  He demonstrates infinite Mercy and Grace.  Who benefits?  Clearly, there is a land promise that has to do with Abraham’s offspring.  Read this part of Genesis 13.  Now, it will be Paul who will spiritualize this land promise both in terms of the land itself and the beneficiaries.  That discussion will be in the Progressive Revelation series, part 2.  Who carries the curses if the covenant is violated?  The torch does. 

Now for the confusion, let’s go to Genesis 17. “Walk before me and be blameless.” The grammar of this sentence is a declaration.  There is no work of Abraham involved in this declaration of righteousness.  We already know that Abraham is adjudged righteous based upon his belief in the promise.  What do we make of verse 4?  Do we take this at face value?  Will Abraham be the direct patriarch of a multitude of nations?  Perhaps.  Paul will answer this question.  Now, we move to verse 10 and circumcision.  The male will have the covenant seal on his body.  I will make mention of a modern Jewish commentary on Paul and circumcision in the Part 2 post to which I have referred above.  In the lines of Genesis, the seal of circumcision is required for covenant benefits.  Again, Paul will have much to say on this topic.

Now, let us move on to Moses.  The problem is that God’s chosen people, the Israelites, do not realize that their behavior is an affront to God.  God needs to teach them the meaning of sin.  God needs to spell it out for us.  Moses was deemed righteous before God.  As another aside, I will come back to the Passover when we discuss the water issue of the Red Sea.  God gives Israel the Law through Moses.  The Covenant of Mount Sinai is sealed with the blood of a sacrificial animal.  Notice upon whom the blood is poured in Exodus 24.  Half is poured out on the altar and half is sprinkled upon the Book of Law and the people themselves.  This is not just a random ceremony.  The burden of obedience to the Law is attached to the people of Israel through the blood of the ceremonial sacrifice.  The curses of the Covenant will fall upon them if they break the Covenant.  The blessings of the Covenant were deliverance from captivity in Egypt and a new homeland.

Notice at this point something vastly important.  Circumcision is associated, not with Moses, but with Abraham.  Many Jewish scholars throughout time have viewed the Mosaic Covenant as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, and that the Mosaic Covenant supersedes or replaces the Abrahamic Covenant, but this cannot be the case for two very important reasons.  First, a Covenant that involves different parties than the original cannot supersede the original.  It wouldn’t make any sense.  Secondly, the terms of the Mosaic Covenant have clearly and obviously been broken by Israel, bringing about the curse portion of the covenant, while the Abrahamic Covenant is still completely in force at this point, unbroken by either party.  The purpose of the Covenant of Law is to demonstrate to Israel that they cannot possibly keep the Law, and they should therefore be repenting and begging God for Mercy.  Unfortunately, man doesn’t see things as they are intended.  Israel actually believes that they can keep the Law.  They create more and more rules to protect the actual Law from being in danger.  They do not see or understand the spirit of the Law, much less the letter of the Law.  But this was the purpose of the Law: to teach man of his sinful nature.

David’s Covenant was similar to that of Abraham.  David, whose highlights include arranging the death of Uriah and taking Bathsheba as his own although after the covenant is made, is reckoned righteous.  Look at the actual Covenant blessing in 2 Samuel 7.  The key word is the word “offspring.” In many places, this is read as meaning a collective noun implying family.  It is often translated as such.  But the Hebrew is in the singular number, not plural.  There is one seed, one offspring.  Notice the language of the rest of the passage.  I will establish the throne of His Kingdom forever.  I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son.  This is all singular.  We are talking about one man in this passage, one king, one messiah.  It is clear that David believes that Israel is ethnic Israel over whom he is king.  But Paul will, again, take this in another direction, spiritualizing this Covenant as well.

In summary, we have looked at the five Covenants of the Old Testament.  I have hinted at some of the types and shadows that we will find in the Old Testament.  In order to fully understand what it is that Christ did for us, in His life, in His death and in His resurrection, we must fully understand what it was that God did in redemptive history in the Old Testament.  Although we are in Covenant with God through Christ and His blood, we are still the wild vines, grafted into a Jewish family by adoption.  It behooves us to learn about our adoptive family.

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