The Messianic Covenant (part 2)
What are we to learn from this? Well, if we look at the present order of things and observe the condition of the church where the enemy is having a field day; where the voice of God’s true servants seem to be less and less effective; and where secular humanism and political correctness are so proudly advanced, there is a tendency to believe that all is lost.
But God still has a remnant of His people and they can confidently look to the amazing future that is before the church. This was the position of hope that the prophets placed before the people. Listen to this encouragement:
· Jer. 32:37-40 I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. 38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.
As if this was not enough, Ezekiel has this to say:
· Ezekiel 34:22-26 I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. 23 I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. 24 I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken. 25 "'I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of wild beasts so that they may live in the desert and sleep in the forests in safety. 26 I will bless them and the places surrounding my hill. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing.
We cannot escape the clarity of:
· Jeremiah 31:31-34 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
Any method of Bible study or any system of interpretation where we depend on our own understanding apart form the teaching of the Holy Spirit, is unproductive. Oh, we may learn some things, but we will not have the spiritual understanding that is there for us.
The big question for the Bible student in the above passages is: Who is being addressed? To deal with this question we must return to Genesis where we saw God deal with Jacob and change his name to “Israel”. But he was not always thereafter called Israel. Sometimes he was still called Jacob. Therefore, we are led to consider the context as “spiritual” when the name “Israel” is used, and to consider the context according to the flesh when the name “Jacob” is used. So in these passages we interpret “Israel” as the spiritual descendants of Abraham and not to his natural descendants. For example:
· Ps 73:1 Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. Obviously this verse does not refer to the nation Israel, all the descendants of Jacob, because it could not be said that all the people of the nation of Israel were “pure in heart”.
· John 1:47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, "Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false."
Jesus here chose His words very carefully. He meant that Nathanael was a genuine son of Israel, a man of great faith and prayer, as well as being honest and righteous.
· Matt. 15:24 He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
Jesus surely did not intend the fleshly descendants of Jacob, because Scripture plainly says that He was also sent to the Gentiles. “The “lost sheep of Israel means of the elect.
· Rom. 9:6-7 It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children.
This was a particularly sore point with the Jews. When Paul says here that “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel”, he means that not all natural descendants of Jacob belong to the elect.
In the opening phrase of verse 6 Paul is not suggesting by his teaching that God’s Word is wrong, but that the promises had never been given to men in the flesh but rather spiritual men. Then he makes a distinction between spiritual Israel and natural Israel.
So he wants us to understand that there are two kinds of Israelites; the carnal and the spiritual. And then he says that all of the descendents of Abraham are not “children of promise”.
· Gal 4:22-23 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.