Q&A 32: Covenants, stewardships & ages (continued)

Okay, we have been looking at covenants and stewardships and ages and things of that sort. And just along the way there ends up being several points to clarify. And one of those is we've got somewhat of a confusion in terms that's set itself in place. We have these terms old covenant and new covenant. And we also have terms Old Testament and New Testament. And there are places in some of the various writings among Christians where those words covenant and testament are used interchangeably.

And so we want to get some clarification there. In classical Greek, which was spoken before the military exploits of Alexander the Great, that was 323 BC, Syntheke was a solemn agreement between two parties. We now refer to that as a covenant. But what happens, see Alexander the Great came in and he decided to change the language and enforce it by military authority. You are now going to speak a new kind of Greek. And that was like, yes you will. You most certainly will. There's just no question about it. You're going to speak a new kind of Greek."

And in fact, it worked quite well. He was rather an egotist, and he wasn't thinking very far ahead, but that's one thing he had a huge impact upon. Alexander the Great named nine different cities Alexandria. So he had no problem with self-esteem, I suppose. And then he went and decided that different people were moving different places. He asked the Jews to move to Alexandria in northern Egypt, and they complied.

But at any rate, he changed the language, and one of the things that happened was the use of the word syntheke for covenant dropped out. So what happened is it combined into this word dfake, and that word, which originally was like a last will and testament, became the combined word for both an agreement and the last will and testament.

So by New Testament times, that's the way the words were used. So when we look at the passages in the Bible, we have to look at the context to tell which meaning is intended. Most of the time, with rare exception, most of the time the meaning has to do with an agreement. The one instance that comes to mind is like Hebrews 9, 16, and 17, where it talks about what seems to be a testament that is a last will and testament kind of statement. Same word in the Greek, but we understand a different meaning by context. Okay, now, hopefully that didn't confuse you, because the next part might. in about the century after the New Testament was completed.

Because people, first of all, think of it, do any of the books in what we call the New Testament refer to the Old Testament? They do, but not by that term. Yes, they do. You're quite correct. What are some of the things the Old Testament is called in the New Testament? Scriptures, yes. Good. What else? The Law and the Prophets. Some reference to the Psalms. Sometimes by specific names of the books.

So you'll have various terms that the Old Testament is called, but it isn't called the Old Testament. The idea of calling the Old Testament the Old Testament and the New Testament the New Testament didn't come until about a century after the Old and New Testaments was completed, that is after the death of John. And by that time, the guys who were writing about it were speaking Latin. So there were two words that they came up with, and the main writer here was a guy by the name of Tertullian. Tertullian thought that we should call the collection of books that we call the New Testament, a testamentum.

And a testamentum, so it sounds like testament, right? But there's this little um at the end. And I'm not saying um. Well, I am, but you know what I mean. Okay, so there's a testamentum, and then the other term that became popular was instrumentum. Neither testamentum nor instrumentum mean the same thing as a covenant. Now, when you carry it back into Greek, they would make it sound like it was. So here's my reason for bringing this up.

We need to be careful that we don't use the terms Old Testament and New Testament to derive any doctrine. Because it's not from the Bible, those are terms applied later out of the Latin vocabulary. So when you hear Old Testament, New Testament, those are fine handles, but just be careful that we don't start making some kind of doctrinal conclusions from those, because those are just handles, those are word terms that have been applied later out of Latin. So that's the main thing. Read Scripture for what it is, but I would just caution against not using the terms Old Testament and New Testament as a means for deriving doctrine.

Yeah, Art? Was the Old Testament written in Latin because of the Roman-Japanese difference? Yeah, just a quick summary. The Old Testament, what we call the books of the Old Testament, written primarily in Hebrew, a little bit of Aramaic in Daniel and Ezra, but primarily in Hebrew. The New Testament was written in Greek. Occasionally some words of other origins sneak in there, but in Greek. But between the Old and New Testaments, because of this guy Alexander the Great, the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew and Aramaic into Greek.

It's because the Jews who were told, you will go to Alexandria, and things like that, forgot how to speak Hebrew. And so their only access to scriptures was by a translation done about halfway between the end of the Old Testament time and the beginning of the New Testament time. Now that may be more answer than you had in mind. So, main conclusion from that is, go ahead and use the terms Old Testament, New Testament.

Just be careful that you don't derive doctrinal conclusions from those terms. Because they're terms that are used, they were applied later, after the books were written. They're not inspired. They're just things we call it. Right? I've been called lots of things. But, you know, not all of them are inspired. Some are really not inspired. Okay. Now on page 2, we have here the number and purpose of the covenants. We have just a quick summary of some of what we've included before.

We have with Adam impacting Adam and all mankind. We have the Edenic Covenant and the Adamic Covenant. And the main reason for calling the Edenic Covenant what it is, is because Hosea 6-7 seems to I say that that's what the arrangement with Adam was. You also have the covenant with Noah. And the covenant with Noah is one where it's quite clear this is a covenant. It had the three typical elements of the covenant right in the passage, which were an oath, a swearing by a deity, where God swears by himself, and then a physical sacrifice. to go along with that.

Pardon? Yes, yeah. So you have those those elements. Yeah, a sign or a gesture basically is the way it those work and you have in this case God has a sign and there's a sacrifice associated with it. Yes. So you're saying here carried out to all of mankind throughout the ages. Yeah, let's take an instance just to clarify. Here's Noah.

God made these statements before Noah, and there was only the eight of them that survived the flood. And yet the impact from that carried on even to now, right? We still have rainbows, right? We still have rainbows. The Lord has allowed some pretty big floods, but not a big worldwide flood as happened then. We are permitted, not commanded, permitted to eat meat, whereas prior to the flood that was not the case. There was instituted capital punishment at that point in time. So those were some changes that took place at the flood impacting man even now.

Then we have with Abraham impacting his descendants, Sir Isaac and Jacob, then all mankind is the next one. And again what you have is you've got an oath, you have a swearing by a deity, a sign or a gesture. and confirmed by a blood sacrifice. Then we have these four with either a representative of or all of Israel impacting Israel.

So the Mosaic Covenant, this was basically the giving of the law. 613 laws, 365 of them that say don't do this, don't do that. The Palestinian Land Covenant, I put the land covenant in there because Nancy told me, she says, that's confusing to me. So I put parenthesis land. It's the idea that it has to do with the land. And what does it do? It ties the Mosaic covenant to the land. That is, if you read through the Law of Moses, there's a lot of places where it says, in the land, in the land, in the land. Which land is he talking about? Land of Israel. And why Israel? Why can't he just pick the Hawaiian Islands or something? Why Israel? But why is the land of Israel particularly the place?

And that's what eventually came to be, but why before that do we know that's specifically the land? What did God say to Abraham about the land? their sight because they're covered with Canaanites, the sand of the Canaanites. The sand was full. So Abraham was supposed to walk through the land that he was on. And that's right, in Genesis chapter 12, it's the land that I will show you. So what did he do? He showed it to them, right? The land that I will show you. So we have the Mosaic Covenant. The Palestinian Covenant was a conditional covenant. That is, the Jews had to obey and abide by the law of Moses in order to have the blessings. What would happen if they didn't obey and abide by the law of Moses? What would happen? Curses. Blessings if you obey, curses if you don't.

It was a conditional covenant. And ultimately it says the land will spit you out. And guess what's happened? The land spit them out, using the figure of speech. They've now been restored, although with great pressure and constraint. But even that is expected biblically and prophetically. Now we have the Davidic covenant, the promise to David. And what was the promise to David? He's going to have a descendant sitting on His throne. You will have a descendant sitting on your throne, and the ultimate fulfillment of that promise is yet to come. Christ, the descendant of David, will sit on David's throne. It could be as soon as seven years from now.

And then finally, the New Covenant with Israel. The New Covenant with Israel has, I saw a tally of actually about 11 specific components, but some of the key features of this are the Jews will be universally in the Millennial Kingdom, the Jews will be universally, that is every single one, constantly, all the time, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and empowered and enabled to live out the law, and they will not need a teacher. So even what we're doing right now, what I'm doing with you, they won't need that. They'll have it all down automatically. All of those are going to be during the Millennial Age.

Let's walk quickly through this because we don't have time, but think about will the covenant with Noah be applicable during the Millennial Kingdom? Well, think about it. Will there be a flood during the Millennial Kingdom? No. So that will hold. Will they eat meat during the Millennial Kingdom? Yes. Yes, they will. So the covenant with Noah fits there. Will there be capital punishment during the Millennial Kingdom? Yes, there will be. So everything from the covenant with Noah applies. Okay, let's try the next one. Abrahamic covenant. Will they be in the land? Will Abraham be blessed? Right? So what you have is the fulfillment of the Noahic covenant, of the Abrahamic covenant. Both of those will be completely in place. You will have the Mosaic covenant lived out by the Jews. See, the problem right now is with the Jews.

Without the empowerment, they can't do it. but they will have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit as we do, but for a different purpose. They will have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit universally, all the time, just like we in the church, but for a different purpose and a different end. And how will they be blessed? They'll be blessed earthly. We're blessed heavenly, they're blessed earthly. So having the Holy Spirit means something quite different, although the need for the Holy Spirit is the same.

Got that? Alright. The Palestinian covenant, whereas the Palestinian covenant says, you'll be blessed if you do this, cursed if you do that. Guess what's going to happen? They will be blessed. Why? Because they're empowered to carry out the law of Moses. So they will absolutely be blessed all the time. Blessed for a thousand years. Okay? That's pretty good.

The Davidic covenant. Jesus will reign on David's throne. from Jerusalem over Israel and over all the Gentile lands. He will be King of the Jews over the people of Israel. He will be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the Gentiles. And the new covenant will be the means for them to carry all these things out with continuous blessing. Everything will be summed up in Christ. Everything, okay? Ephesians 1, 9 and 10. Pardon? Are these people living eternally at that time?

Well, let's talk about... Jack asked the question, are these people living eternally? There will be those who are resurrected in new bodies on the earth, and those people will already be living eternally. those people who will have bodies like ours will still have bodies like ours. Now, will there be death? Yes, there will be. However, it will be said that someone who lives a hundred years had a short life. So what you'll see is a significant Not a total, a significant restoration. So there will be those who have begun to be living in their new bodies, and those living on the earth in bodies like the present ones that are not living in the new bodies. Eternal life, when you use that term, actually comes from believing, right? And so we've got people who have eternal life right now. Right? Yes? Bodies like ours, right.

Yes, yeah, but someone who just lives a hundred years they'll thought, oh that guy didn't live very long. Yeah, more like old times, more like the early Old Testament times. Yes, yes there will be. Yes, there will be babies born during the millennium. over Israel and Jerusalem in that area. So does that mean the environment is probably going to be changed? Yes, there will be a radical change in the environment.

Places that are now just barely making it in terms of productivity will suddenly blossom phenomenally. The descriptions in the Old Testament of the productivity just will come to fruition. What is promised as a blessing in Deuteronomy 28, first 14 verses or so, will be the norm. You know, phenomenal productivity.

And here's something else. Gentiles will come in and take care of the crops and take care of the flocks so that the Jews can act as the world's priests. A number of Gentiles will grab hold of a Jew and say, please take me to your Messiah. And the Jews will be so occupied with serving the Messiah and being priests for the whole world that they won't have time to take care of the land, but there won't be a problem because the Gentiles will come in and take care of the land for them. That's what the Old Testament describes. Isn't that amazing?

Now, next section here we have is covenant theology. Covenant theology, and it's interesting, doesn't have to do with the biblical covenants primarily. The ones we've been talking about doesn't have to do with that. It's primarily not about the covenants of the Bible made by God. They're listed above.

Covenant theology was brought together in the early part of the 17th century, and while there are variations in the teachings among different ones, we'll summarize it like this. We've got a little diagram. There is a covenant of redemption, and by the way, not all people who believe in covenant theology believe there's a covenant of redemption, so that's one of the variations. But the covenant of redemption basically covers the entire creation, and it's a covenant among the Godhead to redeem people. And then in Eden, it's called a covenant of works. And then after that, a covenant of grace.

And in covenant theology, saved Gentiles, saved Israel, and the church are all basically the same. There are some who would say that the saved Gentiles are not, but that Israel and the church are basically the same. And so the way of expressing that is saved Israel was the Old Testament church, and the church is spiritual Israel. So that's covenant theology. But one of the conclusions of covenant theology, since it doesn't see that much distinction between Israel and the Church, is it places the Church under law.

Usually what will happen is they will put some refinement to that. The Church is under the law, but not the same penalties. Or the Church is under the law, but not all of them. And they'll limit it by, well, we don't have the temple sacrifices, but we have the rest of them. Or we've just got the Ten Commandments. Some kind of limitation like that is typical, but there's a variation on that. So that's covenant theology. So, turn to page three here. Covenant theology has some element of Israel being rejected. So the church takes Israel's place as spiritual Israel.

However, and we quote Romans 11, 1 and 2, I say then, God has not rejected his people, has he? May it never be. For I, too, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Or, later on in that same chapter, 25 through 29, I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, so that you will not be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Is a partial hardening until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in the same as having utterly rejected them? No. One of the teachings that began to take root within a couple of centuries of the end of the writing of the New Testament times was the teaching that God hates the Jews and if you're a good Christian you will too.

And that has, not universally, again there's variation here, that has also tended to find its way among those who believe this covenant theology viewpoint. And again, I'm generalizing because there's all sorts of variations. I'm going to resume at verse 26. And so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, the deliverer will come from Zion, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.

This is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. From the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. We're beloved or are beloved? Are beloved, okay? Present tense.

And for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. Did or does God do everything through covenants? The answer of covenant theology would be yes, because everything is covered by a covenant. Everything. There's a covenant for all time and for all actions. That's the answer of covenant theology.

However, these do not deal primarily with what the Bible calls covenants. Because what happens is that those covenants that we listed on the prior page, the Abrahamic, the Noahic covenant, those are considered secondary to these covenants that we're talking about here. By the system of covenant theology, Israel is the Old Testament church and the church is spiritual Israel. Not that much different.

Also, by covenant theology, the Church is under some element of the law of Moses. The exact parts of the law and the punishments under the law regarding the Church vary among its adherents. There are those who say that we've got to get a hold of the U.S. government and enforce the full law of Moses, with the exception of the temple sacrifices, on all the people. That's what we're supposed to do and that's what God wants us to do.

So, some teach that. Those who do not hold to covenant theology, and at Hollywood Hills Bible Church we don't hold to covenant theology, just to be clear, will point out that God did many things through stewardship, and stewardship is the priority principle over covenants. What do I mean by that?

What's a stewardship? A stewardship is where there is an assignment, a responsibility, another way to put it is a responsibility is entrusted to someone else. You can have a stewardship be very big or you can have it be very small. But didn't God give Adam a stewardship responsibility over Eden? Over the land and the plants and the animals and even his wife. There was a stewardship responsibility that God gave him. When we look at the covenants, there is even in that a stewardship responsibility. And sometimes the stewardship responsibility God assigns to Himself.

So let's take it for instance. Let's look at the covenant with Noah. God said, I'm not going to flood the earth anymore. And just to show you, here's a rainbow. God assigned himself the stewardship responsibility. But then he said to Noah, you can eat meat now. And if someone takes a life, his life must be taken.

Two points of stewardship responsibility that are man's. And all of us, as we mentioned a week or two ago, all of us have some kind of a stewardship responsibility, and probably several at once. Do you not have a stewardship over your physical home? Do you not have a stewardship in your relationships of various kinds, whether at home or otherwise? We have a stewardship here, don't we? So for all those things, there's a stewardship. There's also a question of what's the principle of stewardship?

Is it a legal principle or a grace principle? Yes? So the principle would probably be, going back to what Paul said, all things are possible, but not all things are possible, right? Under grace, that's the primary consideration. Yeah, it is the principle of stewardship, yeah.

What's required of stewards? Responsibility. to be faithful. This is writing in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 1 he says, you know, we're stewards of God. You guys need to figure it out. And then the next verse, it is required of stewards that they be faithful. Faithful to what they've been commissioned and entrusted to carry out, right? And again, that's why Paul was so adamant about carrying out his gospel and he kept, in all the different books and stuff, he kept saying that this was given to him and he had this responsibility to make sure that what Christ gave him, he did.

Yes. Think about it. Is being an apostle a stewardship? Yes, it certainly is. An apostleship is a stewardship because it's a special messenger assignment And let's say, over what area was Paul given stewardship? To the Gentiles. That's exactly right. He was given a stewardship responsibility over the Gentiles.

The other apostles had a different area of responsibility. And until later on, they kind of hung around Israel. So what you see is this principle of stewardship carries throughout all time. And we keep seeing the principle come up again and again in big ways and in small ways. Lots of different stewardships. Now there's also the principle of stewardship that's critical here.

We would say that we in the church, and I'm reading from about line four in the last paragraph on page three, we would say that by Christ's death, we in the church died to the law. We're not under any part of the law. We died to the law, Romans 7, 4-6, Galatians 2.19, and we're not under a veil as Moses was, which was a ministry of death and condemnation. We're no longer under the Tudor, the Pedagogas.

Things are said to be true of us in the church that are not true of Israel in the Old Testament regarding, for example, blessings. The Jews in the Old Testament were blessed if We're blessed with no if. How about that? And then the other question is where are we blessed? We're blessed heavenly. The Jews under Deuteronomy 28 are blessed earthly. How about empowerment? We now have the empowerment, to use the three E's, we have the enabling, empowering, and energizing of the Holy Spirit within us. The Jews will also have that, but they did not have it in the past. They will have it in the future.

Being in Christ. The Jews were not said to be in Christ. As a matter of fact, Romans 6 says that we were baptized into Christ. But 1 Corinthians 10 says that the Jews were baptized into Moses. Very interesting. Baptize into Moses or baptize into Christ. So there's a different baptism for us in the church, right? Okay. Appendix A at the end of this document has what the church believer has spiritually speaking. We won't go into it. It's too wonderful. We don't have time for it. And then I'm looking on page four here.

God made covenants first with a couple of Gentiles, that is, Adam and Noah, until he made the covenant with Abraham, after which all clear covenants were made with Abraham, the forefather of Israel, and with Israel were Israel's representative. In Romans 9, 1-5, I have bolded in verse 4, the things that are true of Israel, the Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption of sons and the glory and the covenants. And then in Ephesians 2, it says that in verse 12 of Ephesians 2, we have bolded there that the Gentiles are strangers to the covenants of promise. And then he talks about having taken the law out of the way, which was the covenant with Moses, which is the same message we've been reading previously.

In the middle of page four, it says, God's covenants with any man or group of men that are clearly covenants in the Bible all have an earthly element, but God's relationship with the church is heavenly. What do I mean by that when I say all the covenants that we see in the Bible have an earthly element? How about with Noah?

Does that have an earthly element? Yes, it does. It has to do with the flood and what you eat and what happens here on earth. Abraham, there's the land and the people descended from you, so there's a lot of earthly aspect. Is there a spiritual aspect? Yes, there certainly is, but an earthly element. We go down here to the Mosaic Law. Does that have an earthly element to it? It certainly does.

It has to do with how you do things here on earth. and has to do with things in the land. The land covenant, that has to do with the earth. And even the Davidic covenant, where is David's throne? Here on this planet, in Jerusalem, in Israel. That's the place. It's also a physical lineage. Does it mean it's completely non-spiritual? No. But it has an earthly element to it.

And we finally go even to the New Covenant, the Jews will be empowered to live out the law, which has an earthly element, to be blessed in the land, which is an earthly element. But we in the church have heavenly blessings, not conditionally as the Jews had.

Ephesians 1.3.

We have heavenly citizenship, Philippians 3.20.

And we have a heavenly seating, every believer in Ephesians 2.6.

God has done some things over time on the basis of covenants with people, but God has done other things on the basis of His character. See the difference? God can make a promise, God can make a promise and covenant to do something, and He's certainly free to do that. However, God sometimes will do things simply because it is His character to do so. for God so loved the world that He gave."

Galatians 2.20, same pair of words, loved and gave. Twice in Ephesians 5, He loved and He gave.

God's grace is so awesome, Ephesians 2.7, that through the rolling ages to come on into eternity, He's going to be demonstrating and showing His grace.

Grace is His character. Yeah, now let's think about the law. Why is the law his character? Oh, it's righteousness. It's what, you know, it's the goal. The law reflects God's moral character is primarily what we see. Yes. Pardon? It's also orderly. Yeah, God is a God of order. God isn't just random. Yes. Yeah? Another thought? That's why I was saying that. That's why Paul said he was a tutor because So when we know that, we can better understand grace and mercy. Because if we didn't understand where we were supposed to be, grace and mercy really would not have any meaning. Let's ask this question.

Are we under a tutor now? Are we under the law which is a tutor now? Actually, what we have is we have the indwelling life of Christ and we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. We're no longer under a tutor. We're no longer under law and the principle of law.

So what about the New Covenant and like Luke 2220? We're going to be getting to this passage soon in our study of John at the Thursday night study at home. Luke 22.20 says, And in the same way he took the cup after he had eaten, saying, This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

So was Jesus establishing a new covenant with the church with these words or extending the new covenant promise to Israel? in whole or in part with the church, Christ's death on the cross, which was the fulfillment of the eternal covenant, that is, the covenant between God the Father and God the Son, and prefigured by all the sacrifices involved in the prior covenant since the fall, was the sign or gesture confirming the new covenant with Israel.

See, here's the thing. When Christ died on the cross and was buried and rose again, It was connected to all sorts of things. It wasn't just one thing or the other. When Christ died on the cross, was that a part of the eternal covenant between God the Father and God the Son? Yes, it was, right?

So here's Christ. That's part of that covenant. Is Christ dying on the cross not part of the fulfillment of the blessing through Abraham? All people will be blessed, right? So that fits that too. We also have it confirming the New Covenant, as a confirmation of the New Covenant.

And so this is what we see Christ saying here is, you think, did Christ make some new promise when He was there? at the Last Supper. He didn't make any new promise there. So what was this? This was the physical sacrifice which was to confirm, some use a different term, but to confirm the New Covenant that God had given in the Old Testament to the Jews. So here He is.

This is the New Covenant in my blood. The Jews would have understood only, I mean the disciples there would have understood only the New Covenant that was promised in the Old Testament. Yes? So would I be right in saying that the New Covenant is just one more aspect underneath the Eternal Covenant? Here's I think the way to say it, is the Eternal Covenant had to do with Christ dying on the cross and being buried and rising again, right? And so that was going to happen regardless of any of the other points that God made. But what did God choose to do?

He instead made connections with several of these covenants, and certainly every one of the sacrifices that was associated with one of these covenants was connected to Christ dying on the cross, either as a prefiguring In this case, you look at it, what blood sacrifice confirmation did God give when he promised through the Old Testament prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel? When he promised through those three Old Testament prophets the new covenant, where was the blood sacrifice that confirmed that? It was Christ himself, that's what he was saying.

And so what he would do, he wasn't making any promises there, those were all given in the Old Testament, but he was making the confirmation by his death on the cross, confirming with a blood sacrifice the new covenant. Just like all the other covenants were confirmed by a sacrifice, right? The exception of the first one. So once the fall came about, there was a blood sacrifice. Christ's death on the cross was the fulfillment of a number of these prior covenants and The connecting point was the confirmation. It was the blood sacrifice that confirmed the New Covenant, and that's why he would stand there before them, these Jews who would think of all these places that talked about the New Covenant in the Old Testament, and he would say, this is the New Covenant in my blood. I am confirming the New Covenant by my death. Was he not also fulfilling all the sacrifices that were prefigured in all the other covenants? Yes. Was He not also fulfilling the eternal covenant with His Father? Yes.

Now here's something that wasn't even mentioned at the Last Supper, and they didn't even know about it. When Christ died on the cross, every believer here today was identified with Him on that cross, and the disciples didn't even know it. God says, I'm going to do something else too. Right? So He not only connected up all these covenants and confirmed the new covenant, He did something He didn't even tell the disciples about there at the Last Supper. He says, I'm going to identify all these believers in the church, because they didn't know what the church was, I'm going to identify all these believers in the church with this death.

And so the way I'm fond of describing it is that cross was crowded. It was crowded with you and me. The cross was crowded. And then when they buried Jesus in the tomb, they thought they were burying just one guy. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. A whole bunch of us. And then when the tomb was opened, it was a mass exodus. The Roman soldiers may have only been shocked to find one guy coming out of the tomb.

What they didn't have the foggiest idea about was the huge crowd of other people that were also coming out of the tomb. And that includes everybody here in this room. So God accomplished a great number of things that day that Christ died. A massive number of things were fulfilled and blessings were given that had not yet even been revealed that day there on the cross.

Let's look on page 5, the last part there. How have Christians seen themselves in relation to the New Covenant? There have been, with some variation, four primary ways. One, the New Covenant with Israel is now taken over by the Church since Israel was rejected by God. That's the New Covenant theology view. We in the Church assume all that was promised to Israel. So that's the covenant theology view. Israel goofed, they get booted out, we take their place. We're the spiritual Israel.

Next one, the new covenant with Israel will be in effect in the future millennial kingdom, but the church is a present beneficiary of parts of the new covenant. Or similar words, a dispensational view. That was frankly what they taught at the seminary where I went. We get some benefits, some of the benefits of the new covenant. The next one, the church has a new covenant separate from Israel.

There's a separate one. What I'm finding is those who held that view are often dropping it. Charles Ryrie is one of them. John Walvoord is another, and I talked to both of them about this. And then number four, the church has no covenants with or from God, which is the dispensational view held at Holyhills Bible Church.

It's not a part of the doctrinal statement, something that has only been recently discussed. This year, as a matter of fact. So that's going through a lot. The buzzer just went off. I'm astounded that we got this far. Any questions? I'm highly questionable. Go ahead. Yes. Well, what I'm telling you is the fourth one, and let me give you brief reasons why.

One is we know from Romans chapter 11 that Israel was not rejected, that when God makes promises they're irrevocable. The next thing is the New Covenant with Israel and us being a beneficiary, there's nothing that actually says that. The reason why that's sometimes seen as, well, Israel has the Holy Spirit continuously and so do we, but there are a great many things that don't fit.

We, for example, are not empowered to live out the law. We are empowered to live out the life of Christ apart from the law, right? And so that's one. The other is what's interesting is the Holy Spirit's empowerment enables people to teach in the church. That same empowerment eliminates the need for teachers among the Jews. The enabling in the New Covenant with Israel allows them to live out the law in the land.

I don't live out the law and I don't have any land here on planet earth to live it in. So there are too many things that don't fit. I think that people who are looking at number two, which again, that's what I was taught at seminary, people who are looking at number two are seeing that there is a common need for empowerment. There is a common need for living out the kind of life that God intends.

But God has carried it out differently among Israel and the church. And God has not rejected Israel in order to do that. So you're saying a dispensational view, not the dispensational view. Yes, what you find is the last three are varying dispensational views. Various? Yes, yes. Various dispensational views. And another reason, notice I pointed out that the covenants have a pattern, the covenants with man have a pattern of having an earth-based element. All of our blessings are heavenly, right? We have a citizenship that's heavenly. By the way, the Jews will be citizens of what city in the Millennial Kingdom? Jerusalem. Just like in New Testament times, Paul had never been to Rome, but he had a Roman citizenship. You had a citizenship in a city in biblical times. The church has a new covenant separate from Israel.

That's a view that Walvord, well Schaefer had it. Walvord did have it and then he died within this last decade. But I talked to him about it before I went home and he said he no longer held that view. And then Ryrie, who so far as I know is still alive. I saw him a few years ago when I talked to him, he said, no, he no longer holds that view either. So it's one. And he did his master's thesis on that, trying to make that point, but decided, no, that's not where he's going to go. Yes.

Well, and see, here's the amazing thing. The covenants, while you see them as a persistent and powerful thing in scripture, The covenants, all of them with man, have an earthly element. And one reason you'd say, well, why don't we have a covenant? And one of the key reasons is because we're heavenly blessed, we're heavenly seated, we're heavenly citizenship. Set your minds on things above. We do not have a covenant because all the covenants were earthly. Secondly, I don't need a covenant because instead of a covenant, I rely upon God's very character. I am in Christ. Nobody else gets that. And Christ is in me. The Jews don't even get that. They have the Holy Spirit to empower them, but I am in Christ and Christ is in me. That's unique.

And that's dependent upon God's character. not God's covenant. Yeah. Okay, this may take too long to explain, but I'd ask that they're probably understanding. You said the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Christ, is that one and the same? The Holy Spirit and Christ are two different persons. I understand that.

Yes. But Christ was obviously indwelled with the Holy Spirit. Yes. He also had another spirit, just like we do, right? Yes. I think what we have to look at is, we look at their explicit statements that we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and He is a separate person of the Trinity, and we also have Christ living in us.

This is with Galatians 2.20 and other passages. So we have both, and actually you can find passages that says the Father indwells us too. So amazingly... Through the Holy Spirit or the third person of the Trinity. Actually, all three. All three are involved in our living out this life. To me, this is amazing. There are eight places in Ephesians where all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned together. Eight places.

And so, when you look at it, all of God is involved in all of us. All of God is involved in all of us, each of them having different roles and indwelling us for different purposes. Yes, and of course that image thing, now you're on to another topic that could take a whole session. Yeah, we are being conformed to the image of Christ, although before the fall we are created in the image of God. So very interesting, there is a specific person of conformity that's going on in the believer right now. Indwelt by the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the conformity, however, is in the direction of Christ.

Our beholding is of Christ. Let's pray. We've run out of time. Lord, we thank you for what you have laid out here. We thank you for this, oh, it is awesome, amazing grace. It is something that will continue to occupy us and thrill us and we will be enthralled with for all eternity. Thank you for who you are and your most amazing, astounding grace. In Jesus' name, amen.