Tag Archives: New Covenant

Review of “What About the New Covenant,” Part 3

April 6, 2014 James Pyles 9 Comments

Session Three: The Inner Torah

Lancaster began this lecture by recalling a time when he was teaching a Torah class at a large, Charismatic church. One of his students really loved the class and decided to bring her husband. The husband was less enthusiastic and told Lancaster after the lesson was over, “This sounds like the oldness of the letter, not the newness of the spirit.”

It’s the contrast between these two ideas and the traditional Christian misinterpretation of these concepts, that Lancaster presents through out this forty-three minute sermon.

Lancaster followed up with a fictional story about him running a stop sign while driving and being pulled over by a police officer. In this made up scenario, Lancaster told the officer, I know the letter of the law said “stop” but as long as I didn’t hit anyone or cause an accident, I obeyed the spirit of the law.

In real life, that wouldn’t work out very well.

Let’s take another example from the lecture.

When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof; otherwise you might have bloodguilt on your house, if anyone should fall from it.

–Deuteronomy 22:8 (NRSV)

This is included as one of the 613 mitzvot or commandments in Judaism. The letter of the law is that, assuming you have a flat roof on your house where people can stand, you shall build a barrier around the roof to keep people from falling off. The spirit of the law, that is the intent, and in this case, it’s God’s intent, is that you should locate and remediate any dangerous hazard on your property.

The spirit of the law doesn’t abrogate or somehow cancel the letter, the spirit is simply the intent behind the actual law.

But in Christianity, the letter of the law and the spirit of the law are placed in direct opposition to one another. The letter usually means the Torah or the “Old Covenant” conditions, while the spirit usually means the grace of Christ or the New Covenant. The spirit is an easier law, one people are more capable of obeying than the letter.

However, Christians are somewhat justified in their assumption which they get from Paul:

But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

–Romans 7:6 (NRSV)

Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

–2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NRSV)

I can see why some people want to get rid of Paul, especially when many of us are trying to interpret Paul as pro-Torah, not anti-Law.

But what did Paul mean? The peshat or plain meaning of Paul’s words seems to indicate that he is contrasting the law with the spirit, the Torah with Jesus. Is this the way we should read Paul? Is there another “plain” and more accurate way to understand what he’s saying?

That requires a little background, perhaps the very background possessed by his original audience.

According to Jeremiah 31:34, we know the New Covenant language declares that in the future, Messianic Era, there will be a universal revelation of God. Everyone will know God. We will have an apprehension of God that will be greater than that of John the Baptist, all of Israel will be saved, because the Torah will be written on the hearts of Judah and Israel.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.

–Deuteronomy 6:4-6 (emph. mine)

Hey, wait! That’s the Shema. That was given way back in the days of the ancient Israelites. But the Torah of God isn’t written on our hearts yet. What gives?

I’ll get to that.

We know that God will give Israel a new spirit and new heart, and God will put the new spirit into the hearts of the Jewish people (Ezekiel 36:26-27) so it will be possible for people, Israel and the people of the nations who join them through faith in Messiah, to obey God, not just the list of mitzvot, but the intent behind them, not out of fear or obligation, but because we want to and fully understand why we should do good. I know Gentiles are included because God’s Spirit will be poured out on all flesh (Joel 2:28-29) and that our evil natures will be bound and unable to sway us (Revelation 20:1-2).

But we aren’t there yet, are we? That’s what Lancaster said in session two. So what do we have?

Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.

–2 Corinthians 5:5 (NRSV)

So God gave believers His Holy Spirit as a pledge or down payment. Against what? According to Lancaster, against the promise of the coming Messianic Age which was inaugurated and started beginning to arrive with the death and resurrection of Jesus, but will not fully arrive until the return of Messiah.

Until then, we know what we want and what we should do (such as stopping at a stop sign) but we don’t always do what we know is right because of our human nature or what is called in Judaism the evil inclination.

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

–Romans 7:14-20 (NRSV)

A person who has received the “down payment” of the Spirit knows what is right and what pleases God. God has just started writing the Torah on that person’s heart. But they still possess their will to be disobedient, and so two natures war within the person, and they always will be until the resurrection. We can live in the flesh, that is, in our human nature, but then we don’t even desire to please God. We can live by the letter of the law, attempting to please God, but only with our human strength. Or we can live in the spirit, desiring to please God and relying on the Spirit of God to help us obey him, even though we know we will continually be in a battle with our human nature.

This isn’t a battle between the Torah and grace, but between the Holy Spirit within us and our human nature.

To some degree, this makes it seem as if we’re off the hook, since being evil, even possessing the Spirit, the best we can do is try to do good but continue to sin.

Lancaster says Paul doesn’t make it that easy.

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh — for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

–Romans 8:12-13 (NRSV)

Once we receive the Spirit, God expects us to live as if the Messianic Age has already fully arrived, not to just blow off God’s desires.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!

–Romans 6:15 (NRSV)

By the way, that “law” Paul mentions is not the Torah. You’ll have listen to the entire recording of the lecture to get the full argument, but the “law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2) means the wages or consequences of sin is death (Romans 6:23). If we give in to the temptation to sin and don’t even resist the evil inclination within us, then the result is death. We must keep fighting, the old man against the new man, wrestling like Jacob and Esau in their mother’s womb (Hosea 12:3).

I’m reminded of the sermon and subsequent Sunday School lesson I heard last week in church. The message was on the perseverance of Paul in the face of almost certain death.

But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.

–Acts 20:24 (NRSV)

We know, based on what Paul said in Romans, that he continued to struggle with his human nature and disobeyed God, but we also know that he “fought the good fight…finished the race…kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7), remaining obedient and faithful to God and his mission to the Gentiles, never teaching against the Torah or against the Jewish people (Acts 28:17-20).

So it’s possible in this life with the current troubles we face (and how many of us have ever had the struggles Paul had to deal with?) to obey God and to commit our lives to our Master, with the old nature and new creation within each of us struggling “like two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound” (quoting from this movie) at the return of the King.

I wouldn’t be giving a complete review of “The Inner Torah” unless I talked some about the Rabbinic perspective on the Messiah and the Messianic Age. Lancaster says that according to the Sages (he didn’t provide a specific reference), Messiah will teach the Torah, correcting all of the misinterpretations, and he will even bring a new Torah, the Torah of Messiah. This is somewhat misleading since the Torah of Messiah is the Torah of Moses, but…

…it’s thought that there is a perfect, heavenly Torah, which is God’s wisdom, will, and intent. To make it accessible to people, the Torah was “clothed,” so to speak, so that it could take on physical properties and be given to our world. That is the Torah we have as represented by scrolls in arks in synagogues and by books of the Bible we carry with us. But you can only include so much of Heaven in an object meant to exist on Earth. Messiah will be able to “unlock” the greater mysteries of the Torah, the heavenly essence, so to speak, and teach that Torah. It’s still the same Torah, but it contains so much more than we can currently perceive.

This is the inner Torah, the same Torah that was given at Sinai, but fully “unclothed” and fully written within us, so that we will not only know all good and everything that pleases God, but we will have a total desire to do all that is good and we will understand why each thing God wills is good and perfect, because it will be written within our natures. There will be no more fighting inside of us. The old creation is dead and the new creation lives on victorious (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The messianic age will be characterized by the peaceful co-existence of all people (Isaiah 2,4). Hatred, intolerance, and war will cease to exist. Some authorities suggest that the laws of nature will change, so that predatory beasts will no longer seek prey and agriculture will bring forth supernatural abundance (Isaiah 11,6-9); others like Maimonides, however, say that these statements are merely an allegory for peace and prosperity. What is agreed on by all is a very optimistic picture of what real people can be like in this real world, the like of which has never been seen before.

All of the Jewish people will return from their exile among the nations to their home in Israel (Isaiah 11,11-12; Jeremiah 23,8; 30,3; Hosea 3,4-5), and the law of the Jubilee as well as the rest of the special agricultural laws in the Torah will be reinstated.

In the messianic age, the whole world will recognize YHWH, the LORD God of Israel, as the only true God, and the Torah will be seen as the only true religion (Isaiah 2,3; 11,10; Micah 4,2-3; Zechariah 14,9). There will be no more murder, robbery, competition, or jealousy.

-Mashiach: The Messiah
mechon-mamre.org

Near the end of the lecture, Lancaster briefly mentioned that the Torah written on our hearts doesn’t mean that Gentiles become Jews or that Gentiles and Jews all wear tzitzit, lay tefillin, and wear payot. How the Torah is applied varies between Jews and Gentiles. I want to add that people struggle hard enough with our human natures and our sins. It’s not like wearing a tallit will cancel being stingy, or repeatedly losing our temper, or other sins of which we’re guilty.

As Lancaster interprets Paul and presents in his lecture, we may still struggle between righteousness and sin, but we are also responsible for continuing the fight. Paul kept the faith all his life and he’d have lived a longer life if he wasn’t obedient to God. But the Master taught, “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” The New Covenant is only beginning. We are still at war within ourselves. But as we battle, the finger of God slowly is writing His Torah on our hearts and the King is coming. We must continue in his will and grace, be obedient, and prove ourselves as worthy servants until his return.

Addendum: I just read a commentary on New Testament scholar Larry Hurtado’s blog on N.T. Wright’s new book (tome) Paul and the Faithfulness of God. This is the last of a series of reviews Hurtado has written, and I found the following quote appropriate to the current discussion:

We do have Wright emphasizing correctly that for Paul God’s eschatological programme had already begun in Jesus, especially in Jesus’ death and resurrection. So, to use terms familiar in the history of NT scholarship, Paul held an “inaugurated eschatology,” the final events already underway, the programme to be consummated at Jesus’ parousia (return). (I still like Oscar Cullmann’s analogy: For Paul, Jesus’ death and resurrection was D-Day, and his parousia V-Day, and Paul thinks he is living in the exciting time between these two events: Christ and Time, pp. 144-74, esp 145. )

Also, Wright links (again correctly) the Spirit with eschatology, and so the presence and experience of the Spirit in early Christian circles was for Paul evidence of the new age underway, the Spirit raising new possibilities, new energies for obedience to God, even among former pagans.

For the full content of Hurtado’s commentary, please read Paul’s Eschatology: Further Comments on Wright’s New Opus.

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Review of “What About the New Covenant,” Part 2

March 30, 2014 James Pyles 18 Comments

Session Two: The Breit Chadashah

D. Thomas Lancaster started this second lecture in the series by taking me more than a few years back into my own history in the Hebrew Roots movement. He said that when he first became involved in Messianic Judaism, even though most people in his group didn’t know Hebrew, there were a few “Hebrewisms” that everyone was expected to observe.

Never say “Jesus”. Always say “Yeshua”. Say “Messiah” instead of “Christ”. Say “Torah” instead of “Law”. Really remember to say “Rav Shaul” rather than “Paul.” Also, say “Breit Chadashah” instead of “New Testament.”

Although some of my readers are scrupulous to use these “Hebrewisms” when emailing me or commenting, even though they may not be well-versed in Hebrew (though a few are quite proficient), some of them probably feel they have to follow this sort of “Messianic Political Correctness speak” in order to be acceptable or perhaps they feel they’re correcting past wrongs and, after all, Messianic Gentiles and Hebrew Roots Christians don’t want to sound too “church-y”.

But there’s a fundamental misunderstanding that most people in the Church and many in the Hebrew Roots and Messianic movements have, that the “New Testament,” that is the books in our Bibles that start with Matthew and end with Revelation, is the same thing as the “New Covenant.”

It’s not.

But to understand that point, we have to understand what the Old Covenant is and that the Old Covenant is not the same as the Torah or what Christians call “the Law.”

I covered some of this territory in last week’s review but Lancaster adds more detail in today’s sermon.

Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”

So Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. The people all answered as one: “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.

–Exodus 19:5-8 (NRSV)

This is the Old Covenant in a nutshell. It’s an agreement and a rather simple one at that. God says, if you, Israel, obey me, then I, God, will make you a ”priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” More simply put, God agrees that if Israel obeys Him ”Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God.” (Exodus 6:7)

Once the people agreed to the Covenant, then Moses initiated it.

Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the people of Israel, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “See the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

–Exodus 24:3-8 (NRSV)

This formally sealed the Covenant relationship between Israel and God. If you look at verses 9 through 11, you’ll see representatives of Israel having a meal in the presence of God since, in last week’s lecture, Lancaster said it was traditional behavior among two human parties, such as a great King and a vassal nation, to share a meal after a treaty had been settled.

The actual Covenant was the agreement between God and Israel, and Israel, for their part, were responsible to obey God in order to hold up their end of the bargain. But how? That’s where the Torah comes in. It defines the specific conditions and stipulations that Israel must obey.

However, there’s a problem. Israel’s obedience was rather poor. In fact, the first time they disobeyed was very soon after their initial agreement by building the Golden Calf (see Exodus 32). After that, the Covenant had to be renewed and it was renewed many times. But Israel, sadly, fell into a pattern of disobedience and sin. As part of the Covenant conditions, if the people obeyed, then God would be their God and they would be His people, but when they disobeyed, He ceased to be their God and they ceased to be His people. Then God sent an army and great destruction usually happened, sometimes with the people going into exile. Once they cried out to God and repented, God would send a rescuer, defeat Israel’s enemies, and restore the people to their Land.

And this happened over and over again. The Book of Judges is a good chronicle of this but the pattern is recorded in much of the Tanakh (Old Testament).

I mentioned that a lot of New Covenant language is found in Jeremiah 31 and Lancaster said that we need to understand the context of Jeremiah to get this.

In Jeremiah 3:1-5 we see Israel depicted as an unfaithful wife, and in spite of many calls to repentance, such as in verses 6 though 25, Israel remains uncaring and God sends the armies of Babylon to destroy Jerusalem.

But amid this tragic tale, Jeremiah introduces hope in the form of a future redemption, but one like Israel had never seen before.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

–Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)

Now remember, the conditions of the Covenant are not the Covenant itself. The conditions of the Old Covenant are the Torah, but Jeremiah isn’t saying that the conditions are what’s new, it’s the Covenant that’s new.

What’s so new in the New Covenant?

In the Old Covenant, God spoke the words of the Covenant to Moses who spoke them to Israel. Israel agreed and everything was written down on scrolls or tablets and the people were to refer to those conditions to, first understand what they had agreed to, and then to actually do what they’d agreed to do by performing the mitzvot.

In the New Covenant, instead of doing all that, God writes the conditions of the Covenant on the hearts and puts them in the minds of the people of Israel and then it becomes second nature for them to obey. The Torah conditions are internalized rather than being externally referenced.

The Old Covenant was written on scrolls and the New Covenant will be, or is in the process of being, written on human hearts and human natures.

But the conditions are the same.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking if Gentiles are also benefiting to the New Covenant through faith in Jesus (Yeshua), then are those same conditions being written on our hearts as well?

Yes and no.

In the Torah is there a condition for Gentiles to circumcise their males on the eighth day of life? No, that requirement is only for the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Gentiles are exempt. I’ve said before that the Acts 15 decision formally spelled out the conditions that Gentiles are responsible for carrying out, and it’s only through the blessings of one part of the Abrahamic covenant that the nations are attached to the New Covenant at all. Jews already knew the conditions that applied to them because they were the same ones established by the Sinai (Old) Covenant and they never changed.

But what about this?

But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one.

God finds fault with them when he says: “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…

–Hebrews 8:6-8 (NRSV)

It’s scriptures such as this that Christians use to prove that the Old Covenant was replaced by the New, but look at what the writer of Hebrews is actually saying. As he is about to quote from Jeremiah 31, he says, ”God finds fault with them (emph. mine)…” He doesn’t say God found fault with it, that is, the Old Covenant, but with them, with Israel, with the people, because they didn’t obey the conditions of the Covenant because of sin.

The solution wasn’t to change the Covenant but instead, to change the people, so it would be possible to fulfill the conditions of the Old Covenant originally spelled out at Sinai. The New Covenant (and not renewed) is a new method of delivery and institution so Israel will be obedient by design.

So how did we get into the mess we’re in as Christians today? How did this get screwed up?

According to Lancaster, the Church Fathers in the second and third centuries CE knew that they didn’t have to keep the conditions of the Old Covenant as did the Jews but they didn’t know why. The Apostles taught that Gentiles had a different (and somewhat overlapping) set of conditions but once the last of the Apostles died, the Gentiles made a few assumptions (or perhaps a few deliberate errors to serve a specific purpose, but that’s my opinion). Lancaster said these Gentile Christians assumed that everyone, Jew and Gentile in Jesus, kept the Gentile standards of obedience, and the Gentile Christians actually criticized (and later persecuted) Jews for not abandoning the “Old Covenant” conditions.

The other shocker for some Christians is that we aren’t really living in New Covenant times right now. Sure, the death and resurrection of Jesus started a process by which the New Covenant era began to arrive but it’s not fully with us yet. Otherwise, we wouldn’t sin. Otherwise the conditions of the New Covenant would be written on our hearts rather than in the Bible and we would all just naturally obey God.

Sadly, I must confess that I do not naturally obey God. I have to struggle with obedience. Chances are, you do, too. It will only be when the New Covenant Era fully arrives that we really will be “new creatures” and “new creations”. We aren’t there yet. We’re a work in progress.

That doesn’t stop you and me from repenting now. Why wait? Messiah is coming.

If my reviews are piquing your interest, you can find the complete, five-disc set of Lancaster’s New Covenant lectures at First Fruits of Zion. I’ll review the third lecture next week.

For more on this topic and how historical and modern Christianity has misunderstood the New Covenant, see my blog post The Two-Thousand Year Old Christian Mistake.

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Review of “What About the New Covenant,” Part 1

March 23, 2014 James Pyles 14 Comments

“I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”

–Jeremiah 31:31

Does the New Covenant really replace the Old Covenant? Christian replacement theology is solidly based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of the new covenant. The church teaches that the new covenant cancels the Torah and God’s covenant with the Jewish people.

Messianic Judaism teaches that Yeshua did not abolish the Torah, but if that’s true, what about the new covenant? Doesn’t the new covenant of grace and faith replace the old covenant of works and law? In five engaging lectures, Torah Club author D. Thomas Lancaster digs into the Bible’s prophecies to dispel many of the common myths and misunderstandings about the new covenant.

-from the First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) webpage for the
What About the New Covenant sermon series

Introduction to the Series

About eighteen months ago, I began my personal investigation of the covenants in an attempt to understand how Gentiles (including me) were able to have a covenantal relationship with God without converting to Judaism. This investigation resulted in an eleven (twelve, really) part blog series I euphemistically called “The Jesus Covenant” which I started here. It took over six months of study and anguish, but I finally arrived at a place where I could be at peace about where I fit in the New Covenant as a Gentile.

When I received the five-part audio CD lecture series called “What About the New Covenant” from FFOZ in the mail several days ago, I was interested in how my discoveries and conclusions map to those of theologian and teacher D. Thomas Lancaster. Was I completely off base or would Lancaster confirm that I am standing on solid, Biblical ground as far as my understanding of the covenants, and especially the New Covenant?

The material on this set of audio discs is repurposed from several sources, including parts of Lancaster’s Holy Epistle to the Hebrews sermon series, FFOZ’s Torah Club Volume 5: Depths of the Torah, and Lesson 3 from FFOZ’s HaYesod Program.

That said, organization and presentation of this information is completely new, and these teachings, once “trapped” within much larger tomes and recordings, have been “freed” so we can access specifically what Messianic Judaism teaches about the New Covenant. One caveat: this is Messianic Judaism as First Fruits of Zion sees, understands, and practices it. I should emphasize like any other Judaism or any other Christianity for that matter, Messianic Judaism isn’t a single, monolithic entity and opinions among the various groups may differ somewhat.

Session One: The Covenant Maker

The first session is nearly fifty minutes long and as you might imagine, is pregnant with both amount and depth of information. Here, Lancaster takes his listeners on a grand tour of all of the covenants God made with humanity and Israel (all of the covenants except the Noahide covenant were made with Israel) and attempts to answer the all important question, “What is a Covenant?”

A good question has a long afterlife.

-Ismar Schorsch
“What Do I Look at When I Pray?” (pg 382)
Commentary on Torah Portion Shemini
from his book Canon Without Closure: Torah Commentaries

It’s true, we don’t really understand what “covenant” means in our world today. The only covenant we have left in modern times is the marriage covenant, and even that one has been nearly destroyed by our lack of understanding of the binding nature of covenants. If we did understand, divorce wouldn’t be such an epidemic, at least among the faithful.

I mentioned the Noahide covenant that God made with all life, including all of humanity. God created a set of obligations for humanity and in exchange for obedience, God promised not to destroy the world again by flood. The sign of this covenant is the rainbow we periodically see in the sky (see Genesis 9 for details).

But it’s not until Lancaster begins talking about the covenant God made with Abraham and all of Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob, the Jewish people, that we begin to understand the nature of this covenant and all the covenants to follow.

The first big point to get is that all subsequent covenants build on prior covenants rather than replacing them. In fact, this is really important for ancient and modern Israel because whenever Israel violated the covenant made with God at Sinai (such as the incident of the Golden Calf recorded in Exodus 32), it was God’s promises made in the Abrahamic covenant that allowed Him to repeatedly redeem Israel. You might want to review God’s promises to Abraham and his descendants by looking at Gen. 12:1-3, 7, and 22:18. You’ll also see this covenant being inherited by Abraham’s son Isaac in Gen. 22:18.

Interestingly enough, although it is commonly believed that Abraham had no obligations he had to fulfill apart from participating in the sign of this covenant, which was circumcision for himself and all the male members of his household, this is not actually true. Abraham was required to have a lived-out faith that God periodically tested. And the results of those tests really, really mattered.

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.”

–Genesis 22:15-18 (NRSV)

God said “Because you have done this…I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven.” These are conditions. You did this and in response, I will do that. Abraham had to demonstrate perpetual fidelity to God by faith, trust, and obedience, and doing so, God responded by fulfilling the covenant promises He made to Abraham and his descendants.

It is the same for us as James, the brother of the Master famously wrote in James 2:14-26. Lancaster says we are justified by faith and works, which is a rather radical thought in traditional Christianity, but as you’ll discover, his presentation of covenants including the New Covenant, is also not the “norm” from an Evangelical perspective.

As a side note relevant to justification and deeds, see Derek Leman’s blog post Our Deeds are Not Filthy Rags.

As far as the “duration” of the Abrahamic covenant, according to the Apostle Paul:

Brothers and sisters, I give an example from daily life: once a person’s will has been ratified, no one adds to it or annuls it. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it does not say, “And to offsprings,” as of many; but it says, “And to your offspring,” that is, to one person, who is Christ. My point is this: the law, which came four hundred thirty years later, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.

–Galatians 3:15-17 (NRSV)

In other words, later covenants do not get rid of, annul, cancel, or make obsolete earlier covenants. In addressing the covenant God made with Abraham, Paul says it’s forever. A later covenant can only ratify an earlier one, not abolish it.

Lancaster spends some time on the Mosaic covenant, the covenant God made with the Children of Israel, that is, Abraham’s, Isaac’s, and Jacob’s descendants, at Sinai. One important point he makes is that this later covenant builds on the earlier one and in fact, the making of this covenant actually fulfills sections of the earlier, Abrahamic covenant. One example is the continuation of the promises that Abraham’s descendents would possess the Land of Israel, cementing this promise by establishing the laws specific to the Jewish people living in that Land.

Another important issue Lancaster brought up is the difference between the covenant and the Law. The Torah is not the Sinai covenant, it represents the conditions of the covenant, defining the responsibilities of each party: God and the Children of Israel. It also defines the sign of the covenant which is the Shabbat.

This sign is unique in that it is not a manifestation in nature, such as the rainbow, or a physical condition or procedure, such as circumcision. Shabbat is an “island in time” or, as Lancaster quotes Abraham Joshua Heschel, “a sanctuary in time.”

Therefore the Israelites shall keep the sabbath, observing the sabbath throughout their generations, as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign forever… (emph. mine)

–Exodus 31:16-17 (NRSV)

Notice that the Sinai covenant and its sign are forever and perpetual. No exchanges or replacements allowed.

As I mention above, whenever Israel disobeyed the conditions of the Sinai covenant, according to those conditions, God punished Israel. There is no provision in the covenant for its annulment. All covenants God made with Israel are forever. Is that clear?

Lancaster moved on to describe the Aaronic covenant, which is the promise that Aaron’s descendants will always be High Priests, and the Davidic covenant that states David’s descendants will be Kings over Israel. The conditions state that should a King disobey, he would be disciplined, but God would not remove his love from the Davidic dynasty (see 2 Samuel 7). The Davidic covenant is also the hope of the Messiah, for a sinless King must rule one day over Israel, that is, King Messiah.

So far, all of these covenants are built one on top of the other. Each later covenant expands upon the previous covenant in some way. But what about the New Covenant?

First, let me, thanks to Lancaster (though I knew this already), relieve you of a burden. The New Testament, that is the collection of scriptures from Matthew through Revelation, does not equal the New Covenant. I heard a highly intelligent, well-educated, and abundantly accomplished Pastor tell me once that the New Testament is the same thing as the New Covenant and I almost fell out of my chair.

According to Lancaster (and I agree with him), the New Testament is a collection of scriptures that record how Yeshua (Jesus) initiated some of the conditions of the New Covenant, but it is not the covenant itself. Lancaster (and again, I agree) says that the New Testament would be better named “The Apostolic Writings” or “The Apostolic Scriptures”. Just as the Torah is not the Sinai (or “Old”) Covenant, neither is the “New Testament” the New Covenant.

So where do we find the New Covenant? It’s all over the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, but as you hopefully already know, the key scriptures are these:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

–Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSV)

I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

–Ezekiel 36:24-28 (NRSV)

Taking all this together, first notice that the New Covenant is made only with Judah and Israel. No mention is made of the Gentiles and particularly “the Church” at all. It seems that outside of the Jewish people, God has no covenant relationship with humanity and never will. Also notice that nothing in this language whatsoever changes, annuls, cancels, or abolishes anything in any of the previous covenants God made with Israel. That means, among other things, that the Torah is perpetual and that Jesus didn’t lie:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

–Matthew 5:17-18 (NRSV)

Jesus never intended to come and abolish what God established in relationship with Israel, and the Torah will not change at all until Heaven and Earth pass away and until all is accomplished.

Well, Heaven and Earth are still here as far as I can tell. But what needs to be accomplished? I mean, didn’t Jesus say “It is finished” on the cross right before he died? (John 19:30) (Hint: If he said “It is finished” and then died, it’s very likely that what was finished was his suffering).

I said before, echoing Lancaster, that Jesus initiated the New Covenant by his death and resurrection. Jesus himself said that the bread and wine the Apostles ate at the last meal with the Master (and Lancaster taught that after a covenant was made in the ancient Near East, a meal was always eaten together by the participants of the covenant) were the New covenant in his body and blood (Luke 22:19-20), so the New Covenant started at that point. Jesus got the ball rolling. But what happened to the covenant after that?

Look at the passages from Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 again. Do you see all that happening? How can the Word of God be written on our hearts if we as believers still sin? How can the New Covenant be initiated but not completed?

For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God.

–2 Corinthians 1:20 (NRSV)

He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

–2 Corinthians 5:5 (NRSV)

What is this promise and guarantee? It’s the sign of the New Covenant. Lancaster says that the New Covenant encompasses all of the previous signs (Shabbat, for instance) but also has its own sign. It’s also unique in that the sign functions as sort of a down-payment or promissory note that Messiah will return to complete what he started, that is to deliver on the rest of God’s promises outlined in the New Covenant language.

That’s why we as believers have the Holy Spirit but still don’t see evidence of the full arrival of the Messianic Kingdom, the Kingdom promised by the New Covenant. It is a promise of what is yet to come.

I said before that the New Covenant doesn’t annul or change any of the previous covenants but then why is it “New?” Look again at Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Judah and Israel are still obligated to obey God’s Torah but the big difference, the only real difference, is that this time, God will make it possible for man to obey.

Many Christians say that God gave Israel the Law to prove that they were incapable of obedience to God’s standards and, once He made that point, He replaced the Law (Torah) with the Grace of Jesus Christ, which doesn’t rely on man having to do anything, including, if you’re a Calvinist, exercising enough free will to accept that free gift of salvation. Lancaster says that God didn’t change His expectations of obedience, there has always been grace, and that knowing man cannot obey God consistently out of his own will, God places His Spirit in man and God writes His Torah on man’s heart, circumcising that heart, so that man will “naturally” obey God’s desires. That’s the “New” in “New Covenant.”

This is a beautiful way to dispense with the requirement in the Church that we retrofit modern Christian theology into the Old Testament and invent new interpretations to explain Christian doctrinal dissonance in trying to make the older and newer scriptures fit together. Lancaster creates a seemless progression across all scripture that doesn’t make it necessary for us to “jump the tracks” at Acts 2 and invent a never prophesied entity known as “the Church”.

But I mentioned before that the New Covenant, like all of the prior covenants except the one made with Noah, were made with Israel, that is the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is really good news, the gospel message to the Jewish people, but what about the Gentiles? Have we been left out in the cold after all? Where is the gospel for us?

In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

–Ephesians 1:13-14 (NRSV)

The Apostle Paul (Romans 11:11-24) said that the God-fearing Gentiles are grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel through fidelity to the Jewish Messiah King, that is, to Jesus, and that by swearing such allegiance and in obedience to our King (which I speak of in this blog post), we are added in to that commonwealth alongside the born citizens of Israel, the Jewish people.

Lancaster was quick to point out that such “grafting in” does not make Gentile believers (i.e. Christians) Jewish nor does it obligate us to the Torah in the same manner as the Jews. Yes, we Gentile believers are obligated to some of the conditions in the Torah, but that obligation is unique to us as Gentiles, and many other conditions are only applied to Jewish people, whether believers or not.

Again, this does not mean there is one, identical application of the Torah mitzvot for both Jews and Christians, and it absolutely doesn’t mean that the Church, under the New Covenant, has replaced Israel and the Jewish people or anything in the Old(er) Covenant made at Sinai…or any of the other of God’s covenants.

…remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

–Ephesians 2:12-13 (NRSV)

This particular doctrine on the New Covenant is certainly a lot easier to make sense of and follows the flow of the entire Bible much better than the traditional Christian understanding outlined, for instance, by gentlemen such as Dr. Thomas Schreiner in his book 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law which I reviewed a time or two.

I’m grateful to Lancaster and the other fine folks at First Fruits of Zion for producing this teaching and making it available to people like me. It certainly is a breath of fresh air and illuminates the Bible in a manner that we’ve gotten far away from in Christianity over the long centuries. It’s time to take back the lessons taught by the Apostles and to lead a new “reformation” of our own in the Church.

I strongly suggest that you acquire this audio series for yourself. I didn’t include everything Lancaster taught on disc one (though you must imagine I did given the length of this blog post) and he presents further information that solidifies his argument regarding the New Covenant.

I look forward to writing reviews on the rest of the series and having Lancaster show me just “how deep the rabbit hole goes” (with apologies to Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne).

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The Candles of Rosh Hashanah

September 5, 2013 James Pyles 6 Comments

When I got home last night after my meeting with my Pastor, the Shabbos candles were lit. I was pleasantly surprised. For the past week or so, my wife has been at the Chabad helping the Rebbitzen prepare for Rosh Hashanah. My wife didn’t stay for services, which somewhat disappointed me, but the fact that she lit the candles when she got home was heartwarming (and hearth warming).

Unfortunately, there’s a limit to what I can say to her about it without crossing barriers, so I have to keep my feelings to myself (don’t worry, I’m pretty sure she never reads my blog).

As I said, I visited my Pastor last night, basically to discuss Chapter Eight of D. Thomas Lancaster’s book, The Holy Epistle to the Galatians: Sermons on a Messianic Jewish Approach. We actually started on topic but managed to drift into the definition and purpose of “the Church,” the collective body of Jewish and Gentile disciples of Jesus, the Messiah. Pastor’s opinion is that the New Covenant creates an entirely new entity, the church, and that Jews who become part of that New Covenant join a new entity and leave the older covenant, Sinai, behind.

But if newer covenants cancel older ones, then what about Abraham?

What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

–Galatians 3:17-18 (NASB)

Nope. Newer covenants do not invalidate older ones.

Pastor kept trying to make his point about the New Covenant from Ephesians 2, but we were missing what it says in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, which is the only way to understand the Biblical “core” of the New Covenant:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

–Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NASB)

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.”

–Ezekiel 36:22-24 (NASB)

I wrote a multi-part series starting here that charted the massively complicated course of the New Covenant in terms of what it does and doesn’t say about Jews and Gentiles. This is a very good example of not being able to adequately “prove” the particulars of the New Covenant using only the Apostolic Scriptures (New Testament, which by the way, does not mean the same thing as “New Covenant”).

First of all, look at the object of the New Covenant. Jeremiah 31:31 says it’s “the house of Israel and the house of Judah,” so basically, the Jewish people. But what is the New Covenant and how does it differ from the old, according to Jeremiah? Verse 33 says “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God and they shall be My people.”

I have no reason to believe that when God says “My law” that He means anything other than Torah. The difference is that instead of the Torah being externally recorded, it will be part of the internal Jewish motivation. Verse 34 says that they (the Jewish people) “will not teach again, each man and his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all will know Me…”

Today, Jewish people, and in fact all of us, “know God” because of the Bible, an external document that gives us the details of God’s holy standards for the Jews and the Gentiles who are called by His Name. True, the Holy Spirit was given to all believers, but we still have our internal, human nature that struggles against both the Spirit and against conforming our lives to Biblical standards. “After those days,” the Messianic Era, those who are part of the New Covenant, Israel and Judah, the Jewish people, and those of us who are grafted into the root through our faith in Messiah, will have that law, as it applies to each of us, written on our hearts, so that it will be “natural” for us to be obedient to God.

What I don’t see is that the content of the law or the differing roles of believing Jews and Gentiles will change in the slightest. It doesn’t say that in the text.

To support this, Ezekiel 36 says that because of God’s great name, which has been profaned among the nations (verse 23), God will renew Israel, so that the nations (the rest of the world) will know that God is God. Verse 24 continues saying God will take the Jewish people from the nations and return them to Israel. This too is part of the New Covenant, the redemption of national Israel.

So what do we know about the New Covenant. God will write His Torah, not on a scroll or on stone tablet, but on the hearts of the Jewish people, so that they will more perfectly obey His Torah. He will also redeem the Jewish people from their long exile and return them to their Land, to Israel. This is the New Covenant.

Quite a shift from what Pastor was talking about.

I’ve already written about how Gentiles become part of the New Covenant through Abraham, so don’t worry…we’re there, too. I tried to pull it all together in a final (or almost final) blog post called Building My Model which I think you’ll find is a pretty good summary of how the whole New Covenant develops.

Ephesians 3 is part of that description, but because my Pastor mentioned Ephesians 2, I’ll include links to my own interpretation of that chapter as well as an illuminating online conversation on Ephesians 2 and why it does not describe the swan song of the Torah. In fact, I recently said that it is impossible for the Jewish people to repent and to be redeemed by God without turning back to God and obedience of His Holy will through Torah observance.

But what does this have to do with Rosh Hashanah?

During the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, religious Jews take the opportunity to hit the reset button on their lives, to take stock of the previous year and to repair any damage they may have done in their relationship with other people and with God. In the long history of enmity between Christianity and Judaism, we in the church have demanded that Jews distance themselves from the Torah (and thus from God) by burning Torah scrolls, volumes of Talmud, numerous synagogues, and sometimes Jewish people.

If the New Covenant includes and intensifies the older covenants rather than replacing them, then we Christians have some “making up” to do with the Jewish people. In our mistaken attempt to reconcile them with Christ by destroying Jewish observance, Jewish lifestyle, and Jewish people, we’ve been opposing rather than obeying God. If we Christians are serious about being part of the New Covenant, then we cannot inhibit the Jewish people from also being included. In fact, if they aren’t included, then we have no direct linkage, since Abraham is the father of all.

Last night, while I was out of the house, my wife lit the candles to commemorate the start of Rosh Hashanah. As a “good Christian husband,” what is my duty to my Jewish wife, given all I’ve just said? Part of my duty is to be delighted that the warmth and glow of the Shabbos candles once again grace the interior of our home.

L’Shana Tova Tikatevu. May you all be inscribed in the Book of Life and enjoy a wonderful new year.

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The Jesus Covenant, Part 11: Building My Model

March 1, 2013 James Pyles Leave a comment

For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

–Ephesians 3:1-13 (ESV)

Why is Paul doing this to me? No, he’s not doing this to me, but why did he say, “this grace was given (to Paul), to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ…”

But why is he bothering to preach the unsearchable riches of Messiah to the Gentiles? I mean, why go through all the trouble?

Oh yeah. There’s this:

Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

–Acts 9:10-15 (ESV)

Jesus declared Saul (Paul) to be his “chosen instrument…to carry my name before the Gentiles…” So Jesus had this in mind all along.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

–Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV)

I’m indebted to Marc’s comment on Derek Leman’s blog for making me think of Ephesians 3 in relationship to the “mystery” of the New Covenant for Christians and to Proclaim Liberty’s comment on my own blog for attempting to take my investigation of the “New Covenant connection” one step further.

It seems clear that Messiah intended the Gentiles to be made into his disciples and that through him, we would be saved. He specifically commissioned Paul to be the emissary to the Gentiles and to preach the Gospel to us. Those facts are indisputable as we see them presented in the scriptures, but the “mechanics” of how we enter into any sort of covenant at all with God through Messiah remains a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” to paraphrase Winston Churchill. I’ve been forced to reduce it down to a simple formula just to keep from going crazy. It is obvious to me from my reading of the Abrahamic covenant that the nations were always intended to benefit in connection to the Messiah.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

–Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)

To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

–Galatians 3:15-16 (ESV)

I created a detailed breakdown of the covenant God made with Abraham to illustrate that of all the provisions God created in the Abrahamic covenant, only one of them (see Genesis 12:1-3) has anything to do with the nations being blessed by Messiah. That provision is the starting point for my understanding of my connection to God through Christ. My simple formula for understanding “the Jesus covenant” is this:

God creates a provision in his covenant with Abraham that allows the Gentiles to be blessed through Messiah (Abraham 12:1-3).
The New Covenant (Jer. 31, Ezek. 36) renews, affirms, and amplifies all of the previous covenants God made with the people of Israel and the people of Judah which, by definition, includes the Abrahamic covenant.
Messiah alludes that the (new) covenant is poured out in his blood (death), (see Mark 14:22-24, Luke 22:19-20) for all people.
Paul interprets the Abrahamic covenant provision referring to Gentiles as Messiah being our connection to God (see Galatians 3:15-16).
Paul describes the process of Gentiles being made co-heirs to the Messianic promises through Messiah as a mystery (Ephesians 3:1-13).

Somehow in all of that is enough of a connection from the days of Abraham to the apostolic era (and forward in time to us) for me to be able to say that I really am attached to God in a (more or less) demonstrable way through Messiah Yeshua; through Christ Jesus. And as Proclaim Liberty states:

I can point to Zechariah and the Sukkot celebrations incumbent upon non-Jews in the messianic era. Remember that their participation was a requirement for rain upon their lands. Midrashically, there is a lot of significance to be derived from the concept “rain”. In fact, all manner of benefits upon non-Jews specifically can be derived from it. Combine this with Is.56 and Yehezkel 31 & 36 references, and one begins to see the formulation of a special vision for non-Jews — much better than mere “crumbs off the floor” (and, by the way, “dogs under the table” generally eat offerings from the childrens’ willing hands rather than from the floor).

There’s a lot I’ve left out such as the prophesy of Amos (Amos 9:11-12) referring to the “Gentiles who are called by My Name,” and of course, “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples…” (Isaiah 56:7), but you get the idea.

Somehow, in some way, God has made a lasting provision for the people of the earth to be able to become attached to Him through the Messiah. Messiah directed the Jewish apostles to make Gentile disciples. Peter witnessed the Gentile Cornelius receiving the Holy Spirit and thus salvation without having to convert to Judaism. Paul was specifically commissioned by the Master to be his emissary to the nations and to preach the gospel of Christ to the goyim. Putting it all together should present us with a path for the Gentile to God. It’s there. It’s all there. It’s just hard to nail down the specifics.

My commentary on Brother Yun and Pastor Saeed Abedini shows us that being a faithful Gentile servant of God is more about faith, heart, devotion, and drive than the little bits and details we find in the Bible that make us (me) crazy, or the petty bickering we often find ourselves embroiled in on the Internet.

What is the purpose of the Torah in the lives of Jews today? When Messiah rebuilds the Temple in Holy Jerusalem, what role will the sacrifices play in the Messianic age? These are vitally important questions and they cannot be left in the mud waiting for the Messiah to come and pull them out, clean them off, and present them to us in pretty wrapping paper and tied up in a bow. But especially for the “Gentiles who are called by His Name,” it’s equally important to answer the basic questions, “Who am I?” Where do I belong?” “Does God care about me?” “What is my role in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

–Matthew 25:34-40 (ESV)

If we Christians are searching for our “Torah,” I can think of no other teaching that we need to start out with than those words of the Master. If we are searching for covenant, we have it in Messiah. Having a relationship with God is like being married. While the marriage certificate is important, it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on unless we actually live out the relationship in love and devotion. As time passes, the “marriage” grows, matures, and finally realizes its own magnificent potential, which was created by God for us through Messiah.

Addendum: One more valuable piece to this puzzle can be found by reading Gifts of the Spirit Poured Out on all Flesh.

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The Jesus Covenant, Part 10: Hebrews and the Covenant Mediator

February 19, 2013 James Pyles 21 Comments

There still seems to be some confusion between the Torah delivered at Mt. Sinai and the covenant made with Israel.

The Torah is not to be surrendered by anyone who is born of the Ruach and is now a child of YHWH through faith in Messiah Yeshua. I’ve not said that and I haven’t read here where anyone else has made that assertion either.

As far as following through on “their end of the bargain”, they, Israel, didn’t. Which is why a new covenant was promised to be cut with both houses of Israel. And holding onto a covenant which cannot be accomplished due to the weakness of the flesh while trying to affirm the operational specifics of the current covenant would cause some tension to say the least.

Maybe someone could provide a detailed explanation of what a child of YHWH should look and act like so we can all see what it means to be a son or a daughter of our Father in Heaven. Perhaps then we could cease from making so much noise about who is pretending to be a part of one culture group or another.

And by the way it was not “their covenant with God”. It was His covenant with them. His terms His conditions. I did not say that He replaced that covenant, He did. I’m just agreeing with the text of scripture. Now if someone wants to seek their justification through that covenant they are welcome to do so. But they will come up empty. Of course, if someone was trying establish something else through that covenant I would have to wonder what their motive might be. And what their ultimate objective was.

-Russ
from a comment on one of my blog posts

This is the tenth part of my series on trying to understand what the “New Covenant” is, how it relates to the previous covenants we see God making with humanity (and specifically with the Children of Israel) in the Bible, and what it’s supposed to mean today.

I’ve neglected this series terribly, mainly because it’s so hard to write. Part 9: The Mysterious 2 Corinthians 3 was published last October which will give you some idea of how long I have left this one alone. It’s not that I’ve come to any satisfactory resolution to my problem. It’s just that sometimes trying to understand all this has the same effect as repeatedly smashing my forehead against a brick wall.

But then Russ’s comment reminded me that the New Covenant is still sitting out there taunting me; daring me to try to comprehend it. Russ seems fully convinced that he understands its meaning and that it must mean something about creating a people who are born of the Spirit and (perhaps) relegating Jewish identity to that of a “culture group”.

Did God obliterate all His previous covenants with His people Israel because they were unfaithful? That sort of sounds like God tried plans A, B, and C and they didn’t work out, and then he devised Plan D: writing it on their hearts, which couldn’t fail. If covenants are replaced because covenant members are defective (which God should have known all along) and God has to (finally) create a covenant they can’t because it’s written on the heart, why couldn’t He have started out with the unbreakable covenant and avoided a lot of pain and anguish?

I don’t know, but it sounds like a set up for God to make a covenant with Israel at Sinai knowing that they were going to break it, and knowing that the consequences for breaking it was forfeiting their unique relationship with God as a distinct people and nation.

Oh, if you haven’t read through the “Jesus Covenant” series or you haven’t read through it in a while, it might be a good idea to at least scan through it again, starting with Part 1: The Foundation, just to get up to speed.

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

–Hebrews 8:6-7 (ESV)

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

–Hebrews 9:15-22 (ESV)

This is where I left off last time. These verses were to be the last step in my investigation into the New Covenant. I seriously doubt that I’m going to reach any useful conclusion here, but at least I’m continuing on the trail.

In reading these verses from Hebrews, it certainly seems as if God has tossed the Covenant He made with Israel into the trash can (and Israel along with it) and created a New Covenant replacing the Old using the blood of Jesus Christ. Of course, I can’t read Biblical Greek, so the mystery of what the oldest texts from Hebrews is trying to tell me remains a mystery. I can of course read the various commentaries on Hebrews 8:6 when I scroll down the page, but there’s not exactly a cohesive explanation telling me what I need to know.

But Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible for this verses does say something interesting:

…which was established upon better promises; which are not now delivered out as before, under the figure of earthly and temporal things; nor under a condition to be performed nor confined to a particular people and nation…

I can accept the fact that the Sinai covenant was made specifically between the God and the Children of Israel and that the New Covenant has provisions that include all of humanity through Christ. If the New Covenant didn’t function in such a manner, then no one outside of Israel could be saved. I can accept the fact that the blood of animals could never take away sins (Hebrews 10:4) and that salvation for all human beings must be through Messiah.

But where does it say that the Jews as a people must surrender being Jews in order to enter into the New Covenant? Sorry, but whenever I hear “the Old Covenant has been replaced” language, I wonder how do you do that and still keep the people who were attached to it as a people?

The days are coming,” declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

–Jeremiah 31:31 (ESV)

Waitaminute! God is saying He will one day make a New Covenant with the people of Israel and the people of Judah. Doesn’t say anything about the people from the nations who are gathered together and called by His Name through the Messiah. Of course, there are a lot of Christians who see themselves as the new “spiritual Israel” and so they write themselves into the script that way. Others believe that the Jewish people are “Judah” and that in some manner or fashion, the Gentiles who are attracted to God, the Torah, or Christ become (or in some fashion are) the lost tribes of Israel (see the book Twelve Gates: Where Do the Nations Enter for the much more likely explanation that representatives of “the lost ten tribes” actually did return, intermarried, and were eventually assimilated into Judah and Benjamin…thus, modern day Jews contain the descendants of all the Tribes of Israel).

Now try to understand the following within that context.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

–Ezekiel 36:22-23 (ESV)

In that sense, it’s easy to see that Israel: the Jewish people, are very much written into God’s plan for the future and they have not been discarded and dissolved as a people or a nation by God. The mystery that I was trying to investigate when I started this series was not what happens to Israel, which seems a given, but how in the world do we from among the nations get added in to this covenant? Certainly, the Abrahamic Covenant includes the nations, but we are not mentioned again in subsequent covenants until the New Covenant, and our inclusion isn’t made clear until we see Paul make his commentaries on the meaning of Messiah for the rest of us (remember, the oldest texts we have of Jesus and the “Last Supper” don’t include the word “new” when he talks about the covenant in this body and blood…we have to assume that’s what he means).

But the passages I quoted from Hebrews do give the impression that what was old is being replaced with what is new. Is that a completed act, though? I don’t know. Messiah has yet to return. He has not yet completed his work. There is no new Temple built by him. There is no worldwide peace as far as I can tell. Israel is not at the head of the nations yet and she is still being threatened on all sides by numerous adversaries.

We know that the New Covenant is inexorably tied to the Jewish Messiah and he is the inescapable mediator and motive force of the New Covenant with Judah and Israel and even with the nations. All I can suggest at this point is that the New Covenant hasn’t simply been flipped on like a light switch if, for no other reason, than we aren’t really acting like the Word is written on our hearts. If it were, would we in the body of believers still be so defective, and cranky, and flawed? What if the enactment of the New Covenant is a long process, not a sudden event? After all, the many and numerous conditions and enactments of the Sinai covenant weren’t “turned on” all at once, probably because many of those conditions required the Israelites to live in the Land, and for forty years, they were wandering in the desert.

And what about this?

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.

–Revelation 21:22-25 (ESV)

I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t understand what’s going on and how all this is supposed to work, but it seems like there’s a sequence of events that have not yet been completed. Will the Law, what defines the significantly unique relationship God has with Israel, the “Jewishness” of Jewish people, and the holiness of Jerusalem be eliminated from existence or meaningfulness until everything that God has said He will do has been accomplished?

I seriously doubt it but the secrets of the Bible continue to elude me. This doesn’t preclude my pursuit of a holy and meaningful life, but it does make it difficult to respond to anyone who wants the New Covenant to land on the Jewish people like a ton of lead, mashing them flat, and leaving a completely new “product” in their place.

I don’t know if I’m going to write a “Part 11: Conclusions” blog post, at least not right way. There’s still so much more to try to comprehend. But as my friend Carl said, maybe it’s the struggle that matters, not what we may come up with as a result.

I am not suggesting that there is a chaos of interpretation and no absolute truth, but that interpretation is part of the human condition, our relationship with all texts (and people, for that matter). The Holy Spirit helps us but it does not erase our humanity. In fact, your blog can be considered in large part a struggle to find an interpretive approach to the Bible that is coherent, satisfying, and works for you.

I wish we could all dial things down just a bit concerning truth-claims. We have been told that love endures but knowledge is partial. That would include my knowledge (or interpretation) of the Bible. I hold a certain interpretive approach to the Bible (in common with a number of others) that I believe to be coherent and satisfying even though I know that it is limited and hope to learn from other approaches until the day I die..

I guess what I am saying is that “we know in part . . . but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.” Since we are finite and the perfect is infinite, it makes sense that our knowing is partial until will are face to face.

Finally though, we can’t ignore this:

I will never break my covenant with you.

–Judges 2:1 (ESV)

Israel may have been unfaithful on many occasions, but God never let them go. Instead, He made it possible for others to come to Him as well, all through His son.

"When you awake in the morning, learn something to inspire you and mediate upon it, then plunge forward full of light with which to illuminate the darkness." -Rabbi Tzvi Freeman