All God's Promises Are Fulfilled in Christ

The Nature of Expository, Topical, Instructional, and Polemic Sermons

If you have your Bibles, please open them to 2 Corinthians 1 and hold your place at verse 20. I want to preface today's message with a few thoughts before we read the text. First and foremost, I want to say that there are different types of sermons.

Often we hear the distinction made between expository and topical, but that's not the distinction I want to make. I think that all sermons should be expositional, meaning we draw from the text what it says, not try to impose on the text something else.

You can look at a subject and still be expositional in how you draw from the text, so that's not the distinction I'm making. But some sermons are meant to encourage. Some are meant to drive home an evangelistic message.

Some are instructional and some are even polemic. And polemic simply means to make an argument. And it's not bad to make an argument. It's not bad to argue for something that is true. And if I was going to put today's sermon into a category, I would say today's category is both instructional and polemic.

In that I am going to seek to instruct an important truth about the nature of the people of God, but I am also going to argue against a very popular understanding, which I would even venture to guess many of you have either held or are holding or have been taught at some point in your Christian walk.

Now in my exposition today, I am only going to look at one verse. I often look at the section and look at the context. And if you were here last week, you will know that we have looked at the context of this passage and if you weren't here last week and you feel like I'm somehow being unfair to the context, I would encourage you to go back to last week if you were not here to listen to that message to at least understand that this is not being pulled out of its context, ripped from its understanding and some understanding being imposed upon the text.

I believe that this is in fact the very heart of what Paul wants us to know in this sentence. Really it is just one sentence. Last week again we looked at chapter 1 verse 12 all the way down to chapter 2 verse 4 to look at the broad context, but today I want to look at just this one verse.

The broad context is this, Paul is pointing out that there are those who have called the faithfulness of his ministry into question. More specifically, they have called him into question. If you remember last week we talked about the fact that there were those who had actually sought to defame the Apostle Paul by accusing him of waffling, of vacillating, of not being a man of his word.

And he pushed back against that and said that he had never sought for his yes to be yes or his no to be, or for his yes to be no or his no to be yes, but his yes was yes and his no was no. And then he makes a statement about the promises of God.

And he uses that as the foundation point of his message. In one statement is contained what I believe is an important key to biblical knowledge. And rightly understood, I believe it helps us put everything in scripture into a proper perspective.

So with that being said, let us stand together. We will read, as I said, only the one verse and then we will ask God to bless our study of his word. 2 Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 20 says this,. For all the promises of God find their yes in him, and to him there is Christ.

That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. Father, I thank you for your word. I pray even now, O God, that you would in your mercy keep me from error. For, Lord, I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error.

And I pray, Lord, that though this message may be academic, I pray, Lord, that it would not be that people would turn their minds off, that people would begin to allow themselves to drift, but that they would stay focused on what we have to say today and that your Holy Spirit would be the teacher.

That I would decrease and Christ would increase in this place. And that we would see that all of the promises of God find their fulfillment. They find their yes and amen in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May we, Lord, be moved by that truth. In Christ's name, amen.

You may be seated.

Dispensationalism as an Ecclesiology and Its Assumptions About Israel

Much of Christian thinking today has been influenced by a system of thought that the rank and file average Christian has probably never heard, but has been influenced by. And when I say has never heard, you maybe have never heard this word.

And this word is a long word. It's somewhat of a complicated word. And so if you hear me say this word and it's somewhat outside of your normal vocabulary, please do not turn off your minds today. Please do not think that this message is too academic for you to follow along.

It is not. There's not a person in here that lacks the mental intelligence to understand what I'm going to say, but sometimes we let big words and concepts scare us. Sometimes we assume those are for theologians and not for the rank and file Christian.

We ought not think that way. We ought understand that these things, these concepts are able to be grasped even by the youngest among us. So the word I want to share with you is the word called dispensationalism.

Now, how many of you have ever heard the word dispensationalism? You may raise your hand. All right, how many of you have never heard that word? Okay, well, that's good. That's because I wanted to know so that I know where to start.

And it's important if we're going to talk about something that everyone understands what the word means and what we understand about it. Now, this position called dispensationalism is often associated with things like the pre-tribulational rapture.

How many of you have heard of that? Well, what's the pre-tribulational rapture? That means that before the tribulation, which is the last seven years of human history, which will be marked according to the dispensationalists by three years of bad and three years of very bad.

Three and a half, I'm sorry. Three and a half makes seven, not three. Three and a half years of bad, three and a half years of very bad. But that will be preceded by Christ returning in a rapture event.

If you've ever read the books Left Behind, those books began to come out in the 90s, and boy, were they hugely popular. Read every single one of them. And they were good Christian fiction. But they were promoted as eschatological fact.

Now, what does eschatological mean? The word eschatology simply means the end times. Comes from the Greek word eschaton, which means last things. So, eschatological fact. It was taught this is what's going to happen.

This is the truth of what's going to happen. Jesus is going to snatch the church away in a rapture, and then seven years of tribulation will end with Jesus returning with His church to culminate and begin the millennial reign.

And that where He will rule and reign from Jerusalem for a thousand years. And only after that will come the final eternal state. This is the dispensational view of the end. It's an eschatological, or end times view.

However, dispensationalism... I feel like I've already lost it. Please stay with me on this. Dispensationalism is not so much an eschatology as it is an ecclesiology. What is ecclesiology? Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church.

Ekklesia is the Greek word for church. Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church. And dispensationalism really is more about the nature of the church than it is about the nature of the end times. Because what dispensationalism does is it distinguishes between Israel and the church.

And it says God does not have one people, but God has two people. Dispensationalism. This is it in a nutshell. I don't think a dispensationalist would argue with me. But if you are one and I'm wrong, tell me when we're done.

But the idea is that God has two people, the church and Israel. And both have unique promises and plans. That is the heart of dispensationalism. What results from that... By the way, how many of you have ever heard that?

God has a plan for Israel, right? You've got to have heard that. That God has a plan for Israel that doesn't involve the church. That it's only for Israel. The church did not exist until Acts. Before that it was Israel.

The church will exist from Acts until the rapture. And after the rapture God is going to turn his attention back to Israel. The church then is a parenthesis which is inside this parenthetical note of history.

Where Israel was the focus in the past. Israel will be the focus in the future. And in the middle is this little parenthesis called the church. That is the heart. I've heard John MacArthur use the parenthesis argument.

John MacArthur is one of the most well-known dispensationalists in the world. And just because he may be one of the best preachers in the world, don't make him right about this. John MacArthur can err.

And if you don't think John MacArthur can err, trust me. I can err. He can err. R .C. Sproul can err. None of us are perfect. And every one of us should have our theology be, our theology must be able to be taken back to Scripture and examined.

So, the reason dispensationalism often is so associated with eschatology is because of this idea that God still has promises that he made to Israel that haven't been fulfilled yet. Let me say that again.

The reason why dispensationalism is so associated with end times is because of the idea that there are certain promises that God has made to Israel that aren't yet fulfilled. And since those promises aren't yet fulfilled, God has to turn his attention back to Israel or God would be a liar.

Because God made promises that aren't fulfilled yet, therefore, God would be a liar if he didn't turn his attention back to Israel.

That's the argument.

And I understand the heart of that argument. No one wants to say that God is a liar. No one wants to say that God's promises have failed. So, I understand the heart of the argument and I sympathize with the heart of the argument.

I just think it's wrong. Because this idea that God has to turn his attention back to Israel, God has to turn his attention back to the Jews, and has to turn his attention away from the church and back to Israel to fulfill his promises, misses the heart of the truth and that is this.

All of the promises that God made to Israel find their fulfillment not in some future eschatological reality, but in the person and work of Jesus Christ. See, one of the reasons why I'm not a dispensationalist is because I believe God's promises are fulfilled in Christ.

Look again at our verse for today. For all the promises of God find their yes in him. Some of your translations say it a little bit differently. But essentially it says because some of them say find their yes and amen in him.

The problem with putting the two yes and amen together is all of the promises of God are yes is God saying yes and amen is our agreeing with it. That's why the ESV translates it the way that it does. All the promises of God find their yes in him.

This is why through him we say amen. That's where the yes and amen come from. God says here's my promises, they're yes in Christ. We look at those promises fulfilled and say amen. So it's a statement from God and a reaction from us.

God says yes, we say amen. One translation says this. The promises of God are all answered yes in him. The New English translation says this. All of the promises of God are fulfilled in him. That's the heart of what this is saying.

See I don't believe that there is anything God promised Israel which does not have its fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I want to quote Graham Goldsworthy. Now if you're not familiar with Graham Goldsworthy, he is a scholar, teacher, commentator.

And this is what he says. He says Christ is the end to which the Old Testament points. The goal to which it moves. The single central message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is God's unfolding plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.

All of the Bible is about Jesus.

All of the Bible.

I've heard people say Jesus is not the central figure of the Bible. Israel is. Shame on you if you've said that. I'll say it.

Shame on you.

If you can look the son of God in the face and say it's not really about you.

Come on now.

I mean honestly. Paul Barnett in his commentary says this. He says since Christ is the fulfillment of all of God's numerous promises, it follows that the Old Testament where the promises are made really makes sense only when read with Christ in mind.

You understand when you read the Old Testament. If you read the Old Testament apart from Christ, it's like reading a novel that is a novel about something that's going to happen.

And you don't have the last chapter.

It's like reading a mystery novel.

And you don't have the chapter that tells you what it was all about.

If you read the Old Testament, this is why people say, oh, the Jews know all about the Old Testament. If they deny Christ, they don't. Don't come to me and say, oh, because they know Hebrew, they know all about the Old Testament.

No.

If they deny Christ, they have rejected the meaning of that book. And again, I'm passionate about this because I see the church divided over this issue. We have politicians that are so moved by their dispensational thinking that are so...

I heard a guy the other day.

We have to support Israel because God says so. Now, I'm going to tell you something. I didn't want to get political today. Israel is our ally. We support our allies. But don't tell me that it's because God says so.

You're taking the Lord's name in vain. You are taking the Lord's name in vain because God's people are those who trust Christ. And the vast majority of Jews today don't trust Christ. Oh, but they have a special plan and purpose with God.

That's the dispensational thinking I'm trying to push out of you today.

If you think...

I tell you who I heard. Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson, which is no good name. Pat Robertson was a dangerous false teacher. And if you send him money, ask for a refund. But Pat Robertson was sitting across the table one time from a Jew. I watched this interview.

I watched it. I know he said it. He was sitting across from a Jewish man. And the Jewish man said, Well, Pat, you believe because I don't believe in Jesus, I'm going to hell. And Pat Robertson said, No, no, no, no.

You're a Jew and all Israel will be saved. Therefore, you are safe. Now, that is not what a real dispensationalist would say. A real dispensationalist would hopefully know better than that. I have some godly men who I trust who are dispensationalists who I disagree with.

But that's where the thinking goes. That's where this false understanding will take you. It's to an understanding that there's two ways of salvation and not just one. And that is a dangerous place to go.

And that's why I'm passionate about it. So what I want to show you today, I have three points because I'm a good Baptist. I want to show you three examples of how the promises of God to Israel are fulfilled in Christ.

And I think there's many others. But three examples. The three most common examples cited about promises given to Abraham and his descendants is a promise of a seed, a promise of a land, and a promise of a kingdom.

A promise of a seed, a promise of a land, and a promise of a kingdom. All three of those are fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's look first at the seed promise. If you have your Bible, you can turn to Genesis chapter 12.

Go to Genesis chapter 12.

You may remember this.

I preached through Genesis not too long ago. And I talked about this when we were here. But I'm going to say it again because we always have new folks. And I'm sure that probably many of you don't remember what I said the first time.

And that's okay. But this is the promise and the call to Abraham given by God. And it says this. Now the Lord said to Abram. This was before his name was changed. It says, 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.

Now very quickly turn over with me to Genesis 15. And we see God reiterating this promise with the promise of a seed. He says, After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram, I am your shield.

Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, This man shall not be your heir. And he brought him outside, and he said, Look toward heaven, and the number of the stars, if you are able to number them.

Then he said, So shall your seed, or your offspring, be. So shall your offspring, so shall your seed be. Now, this is the promise given to Abraham. You will have a seed. You will have a seed that will be blessed.

And those who bless your seed, I will bless. And those who curse your seed, I will curse. But you know what, this promise of a seed didn't begin with Abraham. This promise of a seed actually goes back further in the Bible.

Turn back to Genesis chapter 3. After man fell, after Eve listened to the serpent, took of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she ate, and gave to her husband, and he ate, God then gave a proclamation of judgment to the serpent, to the woman, and then to the man.

But listen to the proclamation of judgment that he gives to the serpent. Verse 15, chapter 3. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

Now, I re-translated that as I was reading it. The ESV says offspring. It says between your offspring and her offspring. But if you look at it, there's a subscript right next to the word offspring in the ESV.

And if you drop down, it is the Hebrew word for seed. Understand that all the way back, right after man fell, there was a promise of a seed. But this seed that was promised in Genesis 3 .15 is referring to one specific individual.

And this one specific individual was the seed who would crush the head of the serpent. This seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. And when God pulls Abraham out of all of humanity, and he promises Abraham, he says from your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.

He is talking about Jesus, and I'll prove it to you. Turn to your Bibles in Galatians. Go forward. All the way over to Galatians chapter 3. Now, I want you to understand, Paul in Galatians 3 interprets Genesis for us.

So, he interprets it with a Holy Spirit inspired interpretation. Meaning it's right. This isn't Keith Foskey's words. This isn't my interpretation. This is Paul's interpretation of Genesis. And you go to Galatians 3 .16 and listen to what it says.

Now, the promises were made to Abraham. We just read them. What are the promises? Go from your land and your country to the land that I will show you, and I will make you great, and I'll make your name great.

I'll make you a blessing, and those who bless you, I'll bless. Those who curse you, I'll curse. In you, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. I'll give you a seed. I'll give you descendants. As many as the sand on the seashore, stars in the sky.

Notice what he says. 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. In the King James it says, he didn't make it to the seeds, he made it to the seed.

See, Paul distinguishes between seed plural, or seeds plural and seed singular. He says the promise to Abraham is actually in the seed who is Christ. Christ is the promise given to Abraham. If anyone is in Christ, he is a son or daughter of Abraham.

Turn again, with me, to Romans chapter 4. I don't mean to be, this is not string of pearls theology. I'm just showing you how you have to understand this, looking at Paul's argument based upon the Old Testament.

In Romans chapter 4, Paul is answering the question, how can a person be justified by faith? And he says, Abraham was justified by faith. And by being justified by faith, he became the father of us all.

Look at Romans chapter 4, look at verse 9. He's talking about the blessing of God, the blessing of having our sins forgiven. Verses 7 and 8. Verse 9, he says, is this blessing only for the circumcised or for the uncircumcised?

We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness, that's Genesis 15, 6. Now then, excuse me, how then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised, he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith, while he was still uncircumcised.

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

Understand, circumcision is what divided the Jews and the Gentiles. Jews were circumcised, Gentiles weren't. But Abraham becomes the father of both. Abraham is the father of both. That's why, I mean, don't you remember?

Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham. Only the Jews count. I ain't trying to be ugly, but did we ever sing it that way? I am one of them, and so are you. The promise of a seed that would be as massive as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore is fulfilled in Christ, because all who trust in Christ, which is an innumerable amount, according to Revelation, remember I looked and I saw 144 ,000, and then I looked and saw a number that could not be counted, and that's the number of the elect.

Remember that? I looked and I saw a number that could not be counted. That is not just the Jews. That is every man, woman, and child who has ever trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ make up that number that is so high that man cannot count it.

Sand of the sea, stars of the sky. And by the way, I know we left Galatians, but I want you to know something. In Galatians 3, verse 8, Paul says that God preached the gospel to Abraham. Did you know that?

If you want to make a note of it or go back and look at it, in Galatians 3, verse 8, it says this, The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel before him to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.

You go back to Genesis 12, that's where that quote is from. In Genesis 12, God says to Abraham, I will make you a great nation. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you. And in you, all the nations of the world will be blessed.

Paul says what God was doing is he was preaching the gospel to Abraham by saying, In you, all the nations of the world will be blessed. Because how are all the nations of the world blessed through Abraham?

It ain't because of the economic strategies of the Jews. It ain't because of the power and the prestige of Israel.

It's because of Christ.

That is how all the nations of the world are blessed through Abraham. Now again, get mad at me, but listen to me. I'm not saying anything that was controversial up until about 200 years ago. And by the way, dispensationalism as a system is about 200 years old.

It was popularized during the rise of the Adventist movement, which arose in the 1800s, which began to believe that Christ's return was imminent. And many systems that were built around the idea of his return, such as the Advent Christian Church, the Jehovah Witnesses, which are an Adventist movement, the Seventh-day Adventists, many of those groups find their foundations in the mid -1800s, as does dispensationalism as a system in the mid -1800s, as a rise of looking for the end to come.

Nothing I'm saying today was controversial except for the last 200 years. Christ is the seed promise. He is the seed. The promise to Abraham. But what about the land promise? Well, let's look at that.

Abraham was promised a specific portion of land, and that land belongs to his physical offspring. That is the argument that is made. Now again, I understand. I've got to shed this thing. I understand that's a political touchstone, and it is not my purpose to stand up here and argue politics.

But I'll say this. Abraham was promised more than just the land of Israel. You're in Romans, I think. Romans 4 is where we stopped, right? Go down to verse 13. For the promise to Abraham and his seed that he would be the heir of the world did not come through law, but through the righteousness of faith.

What did that say? Abraham is the heir to a small piece of land in the middle of the Middle East? No. Abraham is the heir of the world. In Hebrews 11, it says this in verse 8. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of a place that he was to receive an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Understand that that piece of land over in the Middle East is a type, but it is not the fulfillment. The fulfillment is not that strip of land over in that land in the Middle East. What is the fulfillment is the new earth.

That is the promise to Abraham and his descendants.

He will be heir of the world,.

And he is looking forward to a city built without hands. When do we see that world? Well, in Revelation chapter 21, what does it say? Then I saw a new heaven and a new what? A new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

You see everything you're standing on right now? Up in smoke. Man, it's going away. Everything you're standing on is going to be converted. They say you can't take it with you. They ain't lying. You're going to get a new body, and you're going to have a new earth.

And we who are the sons and daughters of Abraham will inherit a new earth. God has made a promise of land, and he will fulfill it, has fulfilled it in Christ, because we have been told that in Christ we are already seated in heavenly places with him.

That has already taken place, and we just look forward to the day when the consummation comes, and he splits the eastern sky, and he comes and he converts this old earth that's full of sin and destruction and death and decay into a new earth that will never rot, rust, or ruin ever again.

Isn't that a better promise?

You see, you understand the new covenant is the Papa John's covenant, man. It's better priesthood, better sacrifice, better everything. Sorry, I can't help make that joke every time, but it is. We know this is the promise.

Everybody wants to go backward.

You understand that's the battle Paul fought all the time with the Judaizers, is wanting to go back to the old covenant, wanting to go back to the old law, wanting to go back to the old promises. And Paul says, no, we've got a better system.

We've got a better sacrifice. We've got a better priest. We've got a better promise.

Why are we so desperate to hold on to those things which were types when we have the anti-type, when we have the fulfillment, when we don't need to stand in the shadows because we have the substance.

See? And so do they. See, this is the thing. I'm not writing the Jews off. I'm saying they can have Christ too.

You understand?

Paul was a Jew.

What does he say in Romans 9? He says, I wish myself to be accursed if it meant the salvation of my countrymen. See, he did not care about the ethnic Jews, and I care about the ethnic Jews. I'm not up here telling you don't care about ethnic Jews.

What I am telling you is that national Israel is eschatologically insignificant. That's what I'm saying. Because there's a difference between talking about ethnic Jewish people and national Israel. Ethnic Jewish people are significant because there may be a revival among them, and I pray that it does, but guess what?

They live all over the world.

Ethnic Jews live in New York. Ethnic Jews live in California. Ethnic Jews live in Saudi Arabia. Ethnic Jews live everywhere. See, it's not about national. It's about ethnic if you want to have that argument.

And we can say, will there come a day when God brings a revival among ethnic Jews?

I pray so. I pray that God's going to bring a revival among the whole world.

I'm two steps from post-millennialism, man.

I just want to see it all get good.

I just can't go there yet, but what I'm saying is I'm hoping that they're right. I just don't think they are. And if you don't know what that means, don't even. Sorry. We're all millennialists. Here we are.

What does that mean? That means we believe Christ came in the first millennium. The millennium began when Christ first came, and it ends when he returns. We are in the kingdom now, but the kingdom, when Christ returns, will give way to the eternal state.

The new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem. There's no in-between period. There's no three or four comings. I had a guy tell me the other day there were six raptures. I'm like, I know you're making that up.

The Seed Promise Fulfilled in Christ

Seed promise fulfilled in Christ. The land promise fulfilled in Christ and in his return. Last, the kingdom promise. In Genesis chapter 49, Jacob, also known as Israel, is given the promises and the statements of prophecy to his sons.

Remember, he had the 12 sons, the 12 tribes. One of the sons that he spoke to was named Judah. And he says in verse 10, The scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.