A New Covenant for Israel - Hebrews 8:7-8

Kootenai Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

Now, you'll need your Bibles open to Hebrews chapter 8 if they're not there already. So please turn in your copy of God's Word to Hebrews 8.

00:15

We're going to read together verses 8, 9, and 10 this morning before we begin. Read verses 8, 9, and 10 and then we'll open in prayer.

00:22

Hebrews chapter 8, verse 8, for finding fault with them, he says, Behold, days are coming, says the

00:28

Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which

00:34

I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the

00:42

Lord. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their

00:51

God, and they shall be my people. Let's pray together. Oh, Father, you are gracious and good and kind to give us your

00:58

Word, and even though some of the things that we've been talking about in weeks and months past have been very difficult to understand, difficult to grasp, we do pray that you would enlighten our minds to understand these things.

01:11

We thank you for the understanding that you have given and that your Spirit is our teacher. These are praiseworthy and thankworthy things that you have bestowed upon us, graces that you have given.

01:22

And so we would ask for the assistance of your Holy Spirit today in understanding the truth of your Word, and let us in our hearts and in our minds and in our wills to bow the knee to the clear revelation of Scripture, and we pray that you would encourage our hearts together today, this morning, as we look afresh at your

01:38

Word, and we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Last week, we jumped back into Jeremiah chapter 31 in order to get the context of the new covenant, which we have been talking about in recent weeks.

01:49

And we looked at the historical situation in which the new covenant was given, and that is significant and it's important, and the reason we jumped back into Jeremiah 31 to look at that context is we wanted to make sure that we understand how a

02:01

Jew would have understood in Jeremiah's day the meaning and the intent of the new covenant. We want to make sure that we get the context of the original mention of that correct because the

02:10

New Testament writer, when he would quote that, would be assuming a certain understanding of the context that his audience would have.

02:16

And unfortunately, we don't have the same familiarity with the context of new covenant and the new covenant in the

02:22

Old Testament. We don't have the same familiarity with our Old Testament, actually, that a first century Jew would have.

02:27

So the original author of Hebrews, whether he spoke this or whether he wrote this, he had something in mind when he quoted the new covenant from Jeremiah chapter 31, and his audience would have had a certain understanding in mind.

02:39

And as the author of Hebrews begins to quote from Jeremiah 31, it would have put into the mind of every first century

02:45

Jewish hearer or reader the context of all of that. They would have understood chapter 29 and 30 and the historical setting of that, and chapter 30 and the meaning of that, and all the promises in chapter 31 and 32 and 33, all of that massive text that we covered last week.

03:00

A first century Jew would have had almost instant recall of all of that because they were familiar with their Scriptures.

03:05

Well, the author assumes that of his audience. We don't have necessarily that understanding of the context, so it's beneficial for us to jump back and to make sure that we're catching all of what a first century

03:15

Jew would have understood concerning the new covenant. So today, sorry, when we did this,

03:20

I jumped ahead of myself there a little bit, I'm excited to get into this. When we did that, we discovered two very important things about the new covenant, and just want to review these.

03:29

We covered a lot of stuff, but I just want to review these two main things that I want you to keep in mind for our study this morning. The first is that that promise was given at the lowest point of the nation of Israel's history up to that point, the low point.

03:41

The kingdom would have divided hundreds of years earlier into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom fell to the

03:47

Assyrians in 722, the southern kingdom fell to the Babylonians in 586. And Jeremiah was living in the time and the day of the fall of the southern kingdom.

03:55

He was a citizen and a resident of the southern kingdom, and God called him to be a prophet to the southern kingdom. He predicted its downfall, he predicted that the

04:01

Babylonians, that Nebuchadnezzar was going to come in and ransack the city and destroy the temple and destroy the king's palaces.

04:07

Jeremiah predicted all of that, and then it came to pass. By the way, he did all of that even while all of the false prophets of the time were saying, peace, peace, and the

04:15

Lord is with us, and we'll just be in the temple of the Lord, and everything will be good, we're still God's covenant people. And they were telling everybody what they wanted to hear, massaging their backs and letting them know everything was going to be fine, and Jeremiah as a lone voice was saying, no, it's not going to be fine,

04:27

God is going to judge these people for their sin. And that happened in 586. The southern kingdom fell, Nebuchadnezzar came in, a fulfillment to all the promises that Jeremiah had predicted.

04:37

He destroyed the city of Jerusalem and tore down the temple and ransacked the king's palaces and all of it laid in ruins.

04:43

And so as Jeremiah writes and gives the promise of the new covenant, it was at the lowest point in the nation of Israel's history.

04:49

For all intents and purposes, if you were to have looked at the southern kingdom in the nation of Israel, it would look to any observer as if the

04:56

Jewish existence was over. Over. Taken out of the land, run out of the land, the land possessed by infidels and pagan idolaters, and there was no

05:09

Davidic monarchy, there's no kingdom, there was no palace, there was no temple, all of the sacrifices had been brought to an end.

05:16

To any observer, it would have looked in Jeremiah's day as if all of the promises of God had been nullified and cast off and abrogated and God had no plans for the nation of Israel whatsoever.

05:27

That's what it would have looked like. And every Jew would have wondered, what about the promise of Abraham? He promised us a land. And now we're being taken out of the land.

05:34

Nebuchadnezzar took the best and the brightest of the people out of the land. That's how Daniel ended up in Babylon.

05:40

He took the best and the brightest out of the land. And so they had been taken out of their land and pagans had come in and been inhabiting their land.

05:48

What about the promise to Abraham? And then what about the promise to David? David promised a kingdom and a king and a

05:53

Messiah who would sit on this throne and rule and reign forevermore. How can that possibly happen?

05:59

And so from Jeremiah's perspective, the Jewish existence was over. There would have been no conceivable way in the mind of any

06:07

Jew in 586 BC, there would have been no conceivable way that all the promises of God could ever be fulfilled to the nation of Israel.

06:16

And it's in that context that the new covenant is given and promised. The second thing we observe, not only that it was given at the lowest point in Israel's history, but second, in the context of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31, that context contains promises for the fulfillment of all the other covenants.

06:35

The context contains promises and reiterations of the promises made to Abraham and the promises made to David explicitly.

06:42

And not only that, but those promises were reiterated before God gave the new covenant and after giving the new covenant in Jeremiah 31, those promises were reiterated and restated again after He gave that covenant.

06:53

So on both sides of the giving of the new covenant, God was saying, I'll fulfill it. Everything I promised to Abraham, you get the land, you get the prosperity, you get to dwell in it, you'll be my people,

07:01

I'll be your God, all of that that I promised to Abraham, a blessing to the nations, it's all yours. And what I promised to David, a king and a kingdom and a monarchy, all of that, and a rule and a reign forevermore, you get to enjoy all the blessings of that kingdom through the son of David.

07:13

It's coming. And then the giving of the new covenant. And then after that, almost as if we're too dull to catch what

07:18

God is saying, He reiterates it all again. Don't worry, I'm going to bring you back to the land, I'll prosper you. You'll build houses again, you will dwell here again, you will have children here again,

07:26

I will build you up again, I will make you my people, you will be my people and I will be your God. And all the promises to David, all of them will be fulfilled, of a kingdom and a monarchy and a king and a blessing and prosperity, all of it that comes with that, all of it will be fulfilled.

07:38

And in the middle of all of those reiterated promises on both sides is the new covenant. And I suggested last week that the new covenant is the means by which

07:46

God will fulfill His promises to the nation of Israel. All of the other covenants will be fulfilled in the fulfillment of the new covenant.

07:53

They're all these covenants that we've looked at in recent weeks. It wasn't recent because we stopped meeting for a while, but all of the covenants that we looked at months ago, all of them will be fulfilled in the keeping of the new covenant and in the fulfilling of the new covenant.

08:06

So today, we're diving into the details of the new covenant as given here in Hebrews chapter 8.

08:12

And there is one last interesting detail, and this is just simply a trivial detail. This is Bible trivia stuff, there's no theology that you can build on this, it's just an interesting thing and it is this, that Hebrews chapter 8, well let me back up.

08:25

The New Testament is all about our relationship to the new covenant. It's all about the new covenant. It's the blood of the covenant, the

08:31

Gospels talk about the one who came and initiated the covenant, the epistles work out the implications of the new covenant, the

08:37

New Testament is about the new covenant and our relationship to it. But in all of the New Testament, even though it's all about the new covenant, there's only one place where the

08:45

Old Testament promise of a new covenant is quoted, and that's Hebrews chapter 8. Only one place, even though the rest of the

08:50

Testament is about the new covenant, only one place is Jeremiah quoted, and that's Hebrews chapter 8.

08:55

And interestingly enough, and sort of a reverse bit of trivia, Jeremiah chapter 31 is the only place in the

09:03

Old Testament where the words new covenant can be found, even though the implications and the details of the new covenant are all over the

09:10

Old Testament, Jeremiah 31 is the only place where the words new covenant are promised, and Hebrews chapter 8 is the only place where Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant is quoted.

09:21

Now what do you make of that? You shouldn't make anything other than this will come in handy sometime when

09:27

I'm playing Bible trivia, and the question is, where's the only place in the New Testament where Jeremiah chapter 31 of the new covenant is quoted?

09:33

You will know it, Hebrews chapter 8. And where does Hebrews chapter 8 quote Jeremiah chapter 31? So keep that in mind, you'll be a trivia king, other than that let's move on to our text for today.

09:42

Today we're looking at the issue or the question of to whom were the promises of the new covenant given?

09:48

Remember in recent months we talked about how Christians are divided on this subject between covenant theology and dispensationalists.

09:56

A lot of it comes down to this understanding of to whom are the promises of the new covenant actually given, to Israel or to the church, to Jews or to Gentiles, or to both or to neither.

10:08

There's a lot wrapped up in that question of to whom are the promises of the new covenant given. So that's what we're looking at today.

10:13

Our text is going to be verses 8, 9, and 10, most specifically, because we're going to be kind of drawing out bits of that, even though we're going to be coming back and revisiting those verses in the weeks ahead.

10:24

I want you to notice that it is specifically addressed, oh one last thing, the quotation of Hebrews chapter 8 is virtually word for word for Jeremiah chapter 31.

10:33

So there are really no translational differences that we have to deal with other than one phrase that's in verse 9, at the end of verse 9 it says,

10:40

I did not care for them says the Lord, and in Jeremiah chapter 31 it says, although I was a husband to them.

10:45

And so there's a bit of a translational difference there, we can deal with that maybe next week or the week after that. But other than that, it is basically a word for word quotation of Jeremiah chapter 31.

10:54

So you'll notice in verse 8, I want you to just pay attention to whom are the promises of the new covenant given.

10:59

Verse 8, behold days are coming says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

11:07

Now I want you to notice verse 10, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. The house of Israel and the house of Judah in verse 8, the house of Israel in verse 10.

11:15

Now here's a little interesting detail, because the kingdom was divided after the reign of David into the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, the northern kingdom was after the division of David's kingdom, the northern kingdom was always called

11:26

Israel, the southern kingdom was always called Judah. And in the time of Jeremiah, the northern kingdom had already fell over 150 years earlier in 722

11:33

BC. The northern kingdom had already collapsed to the Assyrian and the southern kingdom had now fallen. And so the northern kingdom was gone even though they would still have been called

11:41

Israel at the time. So when God addresses the new covenant or talks about who He's going to give this new covenant to, notice that He distinguishes two different kingdoms.

11:49

This is the covenant that I will make, I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Why did He distinguish between the two?

11:56

Because in their mind there were really two Jewish kingdoms, a northern kingdom Israel and a southern kingdom Judah, and they had not been united for centuries.

12:04

And so now they are two separate and distinct entities and God in distinguishing between the two of them and including both of them in the promise is basically saying that this covenant that He is making, the new covenant, is made with the

12:17

Jewish nation which would be comprised of all twelve tribes, not just the northern ten or the southern two.

12:23

So He's not just making a new covenant with the house of Judah, which would have been understood to be the tribe of Benjamin and the tribe of Judah in the south, and He's not just making a new covenant with just the northern ten tribes which would have been all of the other ten tribes of the twelve tribes of Israel.

12:37

He's not making a covenant with just one or just the other. In God's mind, in Jeremiah's mind, in the

12:43

Jewish mind, God's promise of a new covenant is made with a united one group nation of Israel, all of those descendants of Abraham, the

12:52

Jewish people. It's both kingdoms that are intended here. Which is why He says in verse 10, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.

13:00

Because back before the division of the kingdom, all twelve tribes together were referred to as the nation of Israel.

13:07

They were the descendants of Israel. So in verse 8, it's two different houses because it was a divided kingdom but in God's intention the new covenant is made with all together, both tribes, both kingdoms together and so it is reiterated in verse 10 with the house of Israel which is how you would describe all of the

13:23

Jewish tribes together. So to whom are the promises of the new covenant made?

13:31

House of Judah, house of Israel, or we could say the United Nations of Israel, not the

13:37

United Nations, United Nation of Israel, Judah and Israel. They are the recipients, they are the promised ones of the new covenant.

13:44

Now just in case there is any confusion, look at verse 9 where the author distinguishes between the new covenant and the old covenant or the second covenant and the first covenant.

13:53

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers. Whose fathers? The house of Israel and Judah. Both tribes together,

14:00

He brought them up out of the land of Egypt, verse 9, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt for they did not continue in my covenant and I did not care for them.

14:09

Verse 10, for this is the house of Israel, verse 10, I will write them on their hearts that is His laws and I will be their

14:15

God and they shall be my people. Who are the they and the them of verse 9 and verse 10?

14:20

They're national Israel. Not just believers in general, but national Israel. Every single

14:26

Jew of the first century and of Jeremiah's day would have understood that the New Testament, new covenant promises, the promise of the new covenant was given not to God -fearers in general, not to Gentile nations, but to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah, the

14:41

United Kingdom of Judah and Israel together, the house of Israel. They are the descendants of the fathers who came out of Egypt.

14:49

All of this is national Israel. Do you see that? We're not talking about Gentile nations, we're not talking about the

14:54

New Testament church, we're talking about the kingdom of God or the kingdom of Israel that was brought out of the nation of Egypt.

15:02

They are the ones, now the descendants of them, they are the ones who received the promises of the new covenant. So to whom are the promises of the new covenant given?

15:09

The house of Israel and the house of Judah. There's a reason why I'm beating this drum now, because it's going to save me a lot of drumming later on.

15:18

So I'm beating it now. So we could say that the promises were given to national

15:24

Israel. There is not a Jew alive in Jeremiah's day who would have heard this promise and thought that must be

15:31

Gentiles. Not a Jew alive. There's not a Jew alive in Jeremiah's day who would have thought that can't be for our nation,

15:40

Israel and Judah. That has to be for some future people of God, some other time that are without national distinctions.

15:49

No Jew in Jeremiah's day would have thought that. No Jew in Jesus' day would have thought that. I would argue no

15:55

Jew of the first century would have understood that. Why? Because to whom were the promises of the new covenant given?

16:01

Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, I'll effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. So the they and the them who came out of Egypt, the they and the them of the passage are the house of Israel and the house of Judah, we're talking about national

16:13

Israel. Now here's what we need to understand. The new covenant was not promised to the church.

16:21

The new covenant is not given to the church. God didn't make a new covenant with us. He made a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

16:31

We say but when we take communion, we did it last week. Don't we say this is the blood of the new covenant, do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me and we drink the juice together?

16:40

Aren't we in that moment by reading the New Testament and understanding all the terms of the new covenant, aren't we in some way included in the new covenant?

16:47

How is it that the new covenant is made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah and yet we all who are not national

16:55

Israel, we are not the house of Judah or the house of Israel, how is it that we partake of the new covenant? How is it that we confess our inclusion in the new covenant if the new covenant was not made with us?

17:06

The new covenant was not made with us. Let me repeat, the new covenant was made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah and yet we in some way participate in it, do we not?

17:18

We do and we confess this every time that we partake of communion. We are in some way included within the provisions of the new covenant even though the new covenant was not made with us, the church.

17:31

It was made with national Israel, with Israel and with Judah. So now this raises a whole bunch of questions.

17:38

How do these promises that we read here in Hebrews chapter 8 and Jeremiah chapter 31, how do they pertain to us?

17:44

How do they include us? How are we included in this new covenant? Why do we confess our inclusion in the new covenant if we are not national

17:51

Israel and we are not national Judah and we are not Jews by birth? How do we confess our inclusion in the new covenant when we partake of communion and we worship the one who initiated the covenant?

18:00

How do we participate in it if the covenant is not made with us? There are four ways that people have answered this question over church history and I'm going to give you these four ways.

18:10

I'm going to, I will tell you right now because I'm going to lay all my cards out on the table, I'm going to tell you that my way, the way that I view this is the fourth way.

18:17

So as I'm going through one, two and three, I don't want you to be thinking in your mind, is this where Jim is at? Is that what Jim believes? I'm number four, so wait for number four because that's the payoff of what

18:25

I'm going to give you. The first three, I'm not asking you to check out, I'm just asking you to realize you can sort of sit back and not wonder where I'm at as I go through the first three.

18:35

So here are the four ways that people have understood the new covenant and our relationship to the new covenant or you could say four different views of the new covenant throughout church history.

18:44

And there may have been some other ways in this but I'm giving you sort of the four that you'll find if you just read the books that are written on this.

18:50

There's always, no I won't say that. There are, I shouldn't have started that.

18:57

Let's just go on. Okay, the church, this is the first view, is that the church has replaced

19:03

Israel. First view is that the church has replaced Israel. This would be the viewpoint of covenant theology.

19:08

This would be what amillennialists believe and what postmillennialists believe. They would say that the nation of Israel has been permanently displaced.

19:16

Sometimes this doctrine is called supersessionism, though there are people who are in new covenant theology or covenant theology

19:23

I should say. There are people in covenant theology who are covenant theologians who would object to that term. They would say, well we don't believe that the church has replaced

19:30

Israel, we just simply believe that the covenant in eternity past was made with Christ and included in that are all believers regardless of national distinction.

19:39

And so in the Old Testament it looked a lot like Israel. It was called Israel, it was a nation. But in the New Testament, though it's a different group of people, it includes

19:46

Jews. So it's not like one has replaced the other. Some would argue that. But instead it is one has sort of morphed into and become the other even though they're all the same sort of group of people.

19:57

So they would say that Israel is the Old Testament version of the church and the church is the New Testament version of Israel but they're one and the same people.

20:04

That's how some people would catch that out. They would argue that all of the blessings that were promised to national

20:11

Israel belong to the church and that Israel's disobedience in rejecting the

20:16

Messiah meant their exclusion from these promises as a nation but not their exclusion from these promises as individual believers who might then come to Christ and be born again and regenerated.

20:29

They can be included in those promises in the same way and to the same extent that you and I are but that God has no promises, no plan, no purpose to fulfill any promises to national

20:42

Israel, to Israel as a nation. Though individual Jews might come into the new covenant by faith in Christ and enjoy what we enjoy, there is nothing reserved for them as a nation.

20:53

You understand the distinction between that? So no promises or no plan and no purposes, no promises to fulfill to Israel as a nation.

21:01

And they would say therefore that the fulfillment of all of those promises to national Israel have been spiritualized in some sense or are in some either spiritual or allegorical way fulfilled in the church.

21:13

Those national promises of a land, of a kingdom, of a king, of a throne, of prosperity, all of those national promises that you read that seem to be in Jeremiah 31 promised to the nation of Israel, they are fulfilled in some other way spiritually by us today.

21:30

And so we are receiving all of those blessings. Israel as a nation gets none of them unless individuals in that repent and they become part of the enjoyment of the new covenant like us.

21:39

But as a nation God has no plan or purposes for them. Now to the extent that you can interpret the house of Israel and the house of Judah to be the church in this age, that is the extent to which you would be able to hold to that position of covenant theology.

21:54

That's how covenant theology would interpret that. Now since this is probably the predominant view that is not mine,

22:00

I'm going to spend a couple of moments just addressing why I don't think that that is correct. The context of the new covenant in Jeremiah was clearly a national promise.

22:09

Could anybody doubt that? I mean even after the giving of the promise, he says, if the fixed order of the day and the night can be altered, if the seasons can be altered, if the sun rising and shining and the stars shining, if those fixed orders of all of creation can be altered, then

22:24

Israel can cease to be a nation before me. Now that is right in the context of the, Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34 is the new covenant.

22:33

Jeremiah 31, 35, the next verse affirms the everlasting nature of the nation of national

22:40

Israel. Not just Jewish people in general, but national Israel. And therefore in the context of Jeremiah, nobody could have ever understood those promises to not be to Israel as a nation.

22:50

It had to be to Israel as a nation. Every Jew would have understood that in Jeremiah's day, and I reiterate, every

22:56

Jew would have understood that in the first century. Second, how would the people to whom this promise is given have understood it in Jeremiah's day?

23:03

Would they have understood it? Well, I guess the promise to the house of Israel and the house of Judah must mean some people of God distantly that is in no way at all related to our nation.

23:12

They would have never understood it that way. They couldn't have understood it that way. It would not have made sense to them to hear those promises as they were given.

23:20

So I ask you, you're reasonable people, what is the plain meaning of the text? Verse 8, behold, days are coming, says the

23:25

Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers when

23:30

I took them out of Egypt. Does that sound like promises to us? Does it sound like we have replaced

23:36

Israel? Or does that sound like promises to national Israel? What's the plain meaning of the text?

23:42

The plain meaning of the text is that the new covenant was made to national Israel, to Israel as a nation.

23:49

If God intended for that to be understood in any other way, Jeremiah 31 would have been the point where God would have said it.

23:57

God had two opportunities in giving us the text of Jeremiah 31 to tell us exactly what

24:03

He meant by Jeremiah 31. At the time of Israel's destruction in 586 BC, when the kingdom, the palace was broken down, the people were exiled from the land, and there was, for all intents and purposes, looking at the nation of Israel, nothing left, no more

24:16

Israel, basically destroyed. The legitimacy of the Davidic covenant and the Abrahamic covenant and to whom those promises was given, all of that would have been up in the air in the mind of any

24:25

Jew in Jeremiah's day. That would have been the time for God to say, look, you have violated the terms of the old covenant.

24:31

I'm making a new covenant, and it's not going to be with you. Your days of the promise are over. When I make this new covenant, it will be with a new people, a different people.

24:39

It will be with believers who believe in me through the Messiah. They will inherit all of these promises. So then at that time,

24:45

I will fulfill everything that I said to Abraham spiritually, and I'll fulfill everything that I said to David, I'll fulfill it spiritually.

24:52

Jeremiah 31 would have been the time when God would have said that, because that would have made sense to a Jew in Jeremiah's day.

24:57

You know what didn't make sense to a Jew? To be told, I will bring you back into this land, and I will prosper you, and I will raise up a spring from the root of David, and he will rule and do justice and righteousness in the land, and he will establish a kingdom, and he will fulfill all of the promises that I made to Abraham and to David.

25:13

That wouldn't have made sense to a Jew in Jeremiah's day. What would have made sense to a Jew has been to said, look, you had your chance.

25:18

You violated the covenant. We're done. We're making a new covenant with a different people. Somebody else is going to replace you. That would have made sense to a

25:25

Jew. Jeremiah 31 would have been the point where God would have said, if He intended us to fulfill those promises, that would have been when

25:33

God would have said, we're fulfilling the promises, but He doesn't. Or we could argue that Hebrews chapter 8 would have been a perfect opportunity for God to give some clarification as to exactly to whom these promises were given.

25:45

But you'll notice that the author doesn't say that. The author is writing to Hebrew Christians, and what does he say? This is the covenant that I will affect with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

25:54

The house of Israel and the house of Judah. This would have been the perfect opportunity for the author of Hebrews to clarify and say, listen,

26:01

God made these promises to us as a nation in Jeremiah 31, but we violated the covenant.

26:07

Our nation rejected its Messiah. Now these promises are all going to be fulfilled in some spiritual sense in the church.

26:13

That would have been the point when that should have been clarified. But neither Jeremiah makes that type of clarification, nor the author of Hebrews.

26:21

So what are we to understand? What is the plain meaning of the text? That the new covenant is made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

26:30

Let me give you an illustration, and I don't know how well this is going to go because I just came up with this this morning, but let's imagine that sometimes these are really good, sometimes these are like, you get to the end of the illustration, you think, you know what,

26:41

I should have thought that through a little bit more before I started it, but I thought this one through enough that I think I'm going to risk it. Let's imagine that we go back a few years when my kids were younger, and I wake up one morning and I say to my oldest daughter,

26:52

Taryn, I say, look, today when I get home from work, we're going to have a daddy date. I'm going to take you out, we're going to go out to dinner, you pick the restaurant, we're going to go out to dinner, and then when we're done with dinner,

27:02

I'll take you out for ice cream, then we'll go down to the beach and you can play on the swing set, a little 10 -year -old Taryn. We'll go down to the beach and play on the swing set, and we'll watch the sunset together, and then we'll come back and we'll watch your favorite movie, it'll be a great night, just a night, just a daddy date night, and she gets real excited about that.

27:16

And then she, and I tell her, no matter what happens, no matter what, there's no conditions to this one, no matter what happens, when

27:23

I get home tonight, this is what we're going to do. And then at some point during the day, she and Shepley are fighting over some toys, and she gets mad, and she yells and screams at Shepley and throws his toys across the floor.

27:34

And her mom has to disappoint her for her, and I come home that night, and Deidre tells me about it, and then I say right before dinner time, all right,

27:41

Aidan, it's time for your daddy date night, put on your shoes, let's go, favorite restaurant, ice cream afterwards, going down to the beach, watching the sunset, and then we'll come home and watch your favorite movie afterwards, daddy date night with Aidan.

27:53

Taryn would be, have every right to object and say, you made those promises to me, not to Aidan.

28:02

And I can say, well, yeah, I made those promises, but then you sinned grievously against your brother during the day, therefore you have forfeited all those promises, and I'm now going to fulfill all the promises that I made to you,

28:15

I'm fulfilling them to Aidan, to not you. And then Aidan, Taryn might object and say, but daddy, the conditionality of those promises was neither stated nor implied when you gave them this morning, because that's how a 10 -year -old would talk.

28:30

And I would say, but even though the conditionality of those promises was neither stated nor implied when

28:36

I gave the promises, and they for all intents and purposes sounded to you as if they were unconditional promises,

28:43

I'm going to fulfill them by taking Aidan out for a date night. Now let me change the illustration, and this one

28:50

I came up with even later, so this is even shakier, but let me change the illustration just a little bit to be more like what we have here in this text.

28:58

Let's say that I say to Taryn in the morning before I go to work, I say, tonight when

29:04

I get home for dinner, I'm going to take you out to our favorite restaurant, your favorite restaurant, you get to choose, afterwards I'm going to take you out for ice cream, we'll go down to the beach, we'll play on the swing set, we'll eat our ice cream, watch the sunset, come home and watch your favorite movie tonight, it's

29:16

Daddy Date Night. She gets really excited, as she did in the previous illustration, by the way, she was excited about that in the previous illustration, she's excited about it again in this new updated illustration.

29:24

So then I go to work and then I come home at lunch, and at lunch, while I'm there watching her, she has this exchange with Shepley while she throws his toys across the floor and yells at him.

29:32

And she gets disciplined and then she starts to wonder, well, are you still taking me out for Daddy Date Night?

29:37

And then I reiterate to her, honey, listen, your sitting as your brother doesn't affect the promises that I made to you earlier,

29:44

I want you to know that when I get home from work tonight, we're still going out to dinner, we're still going to go out for ice cream, we're still going to go watch the sunset, you're still going to get to play on the swings, and we're still going to come home and watch your favorite movie at night when we're all done with it.

29:57

So don't worry about it, all these promises are still, it's all still there, it's all good, don't worry, you've been disciplined, it's done, promises are still in effect.

30:05

And then I come home, and once I come home, as I walk in the door, I hear crying up in the bedroom, and Shepley's crying, and Taryn is crying, and I asked

30:14

Deidre what happened, she said just now they did it again, the whole thing all over again, but it was worse, Taryn destroyed

30:20

Shepley's Lego house and his rocket ship and then went up and trashed his bedroom and she cussed him out, and it was an ugly thing, and I disciplined her and it's all done, and then

30:34

I say, and then I say, okay, dinner time comes around, I say, okay Aidan, you and I are going to go out and we're going to have daddy date night, all the promises that I gave to Taryn, I'm now fulfilling by giving all of those exact same things identically to you.

30:49

Now Taryn might say, but you told me that these were unconditional promises, even after I send grievously at lunch, you restated and reiterated all of these promises in their original form, that they were coming to me, and the conditionality of your promises was neither stated nor implied when you originally gave them, neither was the conditionality of those promises stated or implied when you reiterated them at lunch.

31:16

Would I be justified in saying yes, but I can take all of those promises since they are mine to give, and I can pour out those blessings on your younger daughter, somebody else, because you forfeited those, because see,

31:28

I knew that you were a hard -hearted and stiff -necked little girl, and I knew that you were likely to sin against your brother again, so even when

31:35

I made those promises, I actually intended them for Aidan, knowing that by the time I got home, you would violate again the terms of my parenthood.

31:44

And so when I got home, I knew you would have forfeited those, and so then even though I stated them to you, I knew all along that I was eventually going to give them to Aidan.

31:53

Now listen, that is exactly what I think covenant theology does. I know that sounds harsh, but that is exactly what

32:02

I think covenant theology does. To whom was the promise of the new covenant given? The house of Israel and the house of Judah.

32:11

You're telling me that even after they sinned and God reiterated those promises in unconditional terms, that once they sinned again by rejecting their

32:22

Messiah, that God cast off His people whom He foreknew and has now taken all of those blessings and decided to make them for somebody else?

32:31

Is that what you're telling me? That, I think, is covenant theology. If you're hermeneutic, sorry,

32:46

I think the only way you can arrive at the conclusion that these promises are for the church or that they are completely fulfilled in the church is if you bring to this text a hermeneutical perspective and you read the text through the hermeneutical perspective.

33:02

If you just read the text, what does the text say? What does the text say?

33:08

It is only if I bring my covenant theology, and again we're back to the red glasses, it is only if I bring covenant theology to the text and put it over top of the text that I can come to the conclusion that house of Israel and house of Judah means the church.

33:25

It's the only way you can come to that conclusion. And I know that sounds harsh. And again I'm saying, I have great love and respect for people who believe covenant theology.

33:33

But this is the point of divide between those who embrace covenant theology and those who don't.

33:39

To whom are the promises of the new covenant given? They are not given to the church, they are given to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.

33:46

So that's the first one. Man, we're poof all of that. I hope you don't have another kid illustration for any of these next three, but I don't.

33:55

Okay, so here's the second view. The first one is that the church has replaced Israel as the recipient of all of these blessings.

34:02

Now, I understand if you're in covenant theology that you're going to say, well we don't, some of us might not exactly like that description or that way of describing it.

34:10

I understand that. Weeks ago I talked about this. There are nuances on both sides of this and I am painting with big brushes.

34:16

If you weren't here to hear that, understand I'm aware that I'm painting with big brushes and I'm also aware that I may not be representing your particular view of covenant theology if you hold that, just as I'm aware that I may not necessarily be describing your particular view of dispensationalism when

34:30

I describe that perspective as well. Second way that people have viewed the new covenant, that the new covenant is with Israel only.

34:38

That the church in no way participates in the new covenant. That the details of this covenant in Jeremiah 31, Hebrews chapter 8, those are all of them solely reserved to Israel.

34:47

And there's going to come a time when God will give all of those blessings to Israel, but whatever God is doing with the church, it's kind of His side project.

34:54

He still has a plan that He is going to fulfill with the nation of Israel, but we are in no way included in any of the promises or blessings of the new covenant.

35:02

God is just doing this thing on the side, saving Gentiles out of the nations, but that's not necessarily a new covenant work that He is doing.

35:10

All of the new covenant that has yet to be fulfilled, every detail is only with Israel. Now the people who hold this, and there are not many of them today, in fact

35:17

I don't know of any major dispensationalist who holds this perspective today. It's kind of an older dispensational view that believes that all of the new covenant was only for Israel, Israel only.

35:28

It's kind of an older view and I don't know of anybody who holds it today, but there might, again, be somebody out there who does. They would hold this because they would look at the promises of the new covenant and they would say, they obviously are not all fulfilled in the church.

35:39

And they are obviously not all fulfilled by the church and the covenant is given exclusively with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

35:46

So therefore it's only for Israel. Now on the one hand, covenant theology would say it's not for Israel, national

35:51

Israel at all, because we've replaced them in some sense. On the other hand, some people would say it's not for Israel at all.

35:57

Sorry, only for Israel and not for anybody else. So not Israel at all, only for Israel, those are sort of the two extremes.

36:04

The third way that people have viewed the new covenant is that there are actually two new covenants, one with Israel and one with the church.

36:12

Because we read the terms of the new covenant here and we say, well, this doesn't seem to be fulfilled in the way that it is intended or written in Jeremiah or Hebrews 8 with the church and therefore that can't be the new covenant that covers us and yet when we sit down and partake communion, we say this is the new covenant in my blood, do this as often as you drink it.

36:27

And so in some way we observe that we are in a new covenant, that God has made a new covenant, but this doesn't seem to be this covenant.

36:33

So therefore, people have concluded there seems to be two new covenants, one with Israel and one with the church. This is popular in some ways in some dispensational circles and I would disagree with that.

36:42

I would say that there's no distinction made in the New Testament between two different covenants. And so when you read in the

36:48

New Testament about a new covenant, you're kind of left, it's kind of left in the lap of the interpreter to try and determine which of these new covenants the author is talking about.

36:55

Is he talking about the new covenant with Israel? Well, that would be obvious in Hebrews chapter 8. Or is he talking about the new covenant with the church? And so it's left in the hands of the interpreter to decide which one this is describing.

37:04

And since it's nowhere spoken, nowhere described in the New Testament, that there is a new covenant explicitly with the church and a new covenant explicitly with Israel, I would reject this position.

37:14

The fourth view on the new covenant is that there is one new covenant, and I'll state this twice because this is going to sound confusing at first.

37:24

There is one new covenant, we participate in it now, soteriologically.

37:30

We and Israel will enjoy it in the future, eschatologically. I'll say it again.

37:37

There's one new covenant, we are participating in that new covenant now, soteriologically, but we and Israel will participate in the new covenant in the future, eschatologically.

37:49

Now what that means is that the new covenant has been initiated by the blood of Jesus. And now there has been a period of time while some terms of that new covenant, verse 12 of Hebrews chapter 8,

38:03

I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. That's the salvation aspect of the new covenant, the forgiveness of sins.

38:11

In this period of time, we are enjoying the salvific benefits of the new covenant. The soteriological salvation benefits of the new covenant, they're ours.

38:19

We're enjoying them even though we're not Israel. We've been grafted in as it were, brought in to the benefit of the new covenant, salvifically speaking.

38:26

But there still awaits a fulfillment of all of the details of the new covenant and all of the promises of the new covenant with national

38:33

Israel. So we have the best of both worlds. We have promises yet to be fulfilled to national

38:40

Israel at the end, and we have the salvific promises that benefits that we enjoy even today.

38:46

So there's one covenant, not two, not one with Israel and one with the church. There's one new covenant, one new covenant, but we enjoy salvifically the benefits of the new covenant now and we await for the fulfillment of all of the elements of the new covenant in the future eschatologically.

39:02

Does that make sense? So in that way, we are brought into this new covenant even though the new covenant is not made with us.

39:10

The new covenant was initiated and inaugurated by the blood of Christ, all of the blessings are secured by him.

39:15

He is the mediator of the new covenant. He is the messenger of the new covenant. It is his blood that purchases all of the blessings and the fulfillments of all of the promises of the new covenant.

39:24

And he, as God in human flesh, was the one who made the new covenant with Jeremiah. And now one of those blessings is complete forgiveness of sins, though not every blessing of the new covenant is being realized now.

39:36

Not every blessing of the new covenant is being realized now. There are future blessings to be realized later.

39:42

Now if that is the case, and I'm going to make this case here for a moment, if that's the case, then it would be just like, in some sense, the

39:48

Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant. When God made the covenant with Abraham, did God fulfill all of the terms of the

39:54

Abrahamic covenant at once? He promised them a land that took 400 years.

40:00

He promised Abraham a multitude of descendants that took more than 400 years. He promised

40:05

Abraham things that Abraham didn't even see in his own lifetime. Some of his children didn't see it, and his grandchildren didn't see it.

40:11

It was generations later before some of the terms of that covenant that God made, some of the promises that God made to Abraham, were ever fulfilled.

40:18

With the Davidic covenant, were all the promises that God made to David, were all of them fulfilled in David's lifetime?

40:24

Did David ever see the king who would live and reign forever? No, David lived a thousand years before Christ was born.

40:31

So there are promises in the Abrahamic covenant that were not fulfilled for hundreds of years, thousands of years, that still have not been fulfilled.

40:38

There are promises given in the Davidic covenant that were not fulfilled in David's lifetime and have not even been fulfilled to our day today.

40:45

We're still waiting for the fulfillment of the promises given to Abraham and the promises given to David. And I would submit to you that the new covenant, through which

40:53

God will fulfill all the promises of the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant, that new covenant, though we enjoy some of the blessings now in our lifetime, that new covenant has terms and conditions and promises that we are still waiting to see fulfilled.

41:07

Just as with the Abraham and the Davidic covenant, there is a long period of time between the giving of the promise and the fulfilling of all of the conditions of that promise.

41:16

And so it is with the new covenant. There is a long period of time between the initiation of that new covenant by the blood of Christ and the fulfillment of all of the terms of that new covenant in the blood of Christ.

41:27

And we are in that period of time. So, God made one covenant with the nation of Israel to replace the old covenant.

41:35

That new covenant was inaugurated and sealed by the one time completely sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

41:42

And He will fulfill all of the terms of that new covenant. And between the time of Him inaugurating the new covenant and returning to fulfill that, during that period of time,

41:53

God is calling out of all the nations from every tongue and tribe and kindred and people on the face of the planet,

41:59

His chosen ones, His elect ones. And He is gathering them in and bringing them in through faith in Jesus Christ.

42:05

They are participating salvifically in the salvific benefits of the new covenant. So though we are not descendants of Abraham physically, we are the spiritual descendants of Abraham who end up receiving the salvation bell blessings promised to Abraham and his descendants.

42:21

And in that way we are grafted in as God gathers in His innumerable elect over all of the time periods, over all of human history, over all of these ages.

42:31

And when the time has run its course and God has gathered His elect to Jesus Christ, Christ will return and He will fulfill all the national promises that He made to the nation of Israel.

42:43

Zechariah says, they will look on Him whom they have pierced and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son.

42:49

In the words of Isaiah, they will say then, He was stricken for our iniquities. He was bruised for our transgressions.

42:56

By His stripes we have been healed. That's the confession of national Israel when they finally recognize who

43:03

Jesus Christ is and return to Him. And then Jesus Christ will gather all of them back into the land of Israel after He has destroyed every nation and every kingdom on the planet.

43:13

He will gather them in and in fulfillment to all the promises given to Jeremiah. He will prosper them.

43:18

He will rebuild them. They will inhabit the land again. They will be His people and He will be their God and they will obey

43:24

Him because He will write His words and His law on their hearts and put His words and His law in their minds.

43:31

And they will give willing and glad worship and obedience to Him as they fulfill all of His word and fulfill all of His will.

43:39

Why? Because one of the promises of the new covenant is an enablement to obey the terms of the covenant. And then they will dwell in the land and He will prosper them.

43:48

And that one whom He promised from the root and the offspring of David, He will rule in the land with a rod of iron as Psalm 2 promises.

43:55

He will be exalted as Psalm 110 promises and He will execute justice and righteousness in the land just as Jeremiah promised.

44:03

And all of those national promises to Israel will be fulfilled. He will establish a

44:10

Davidic kingdom and the knowledge of Him will fill the earth so that no one needs to be taught from the least of them even to the greatest of them.

44:18

And in that kingdom we will see the full and final fulfillment of every promise that He has made through all of His covenants.

44:25

They will get the land. They will dwell in it. He will establish a Davidic monarchy. That king will rule and reign forevermore.

44:33

All of the promises made to Abraham and to David will be fulfilled. All God's people will be gathered together, all of the elect from all over the world, from every nation gathered together to worship and serve the king.

44:47

In the land they will serve David, their king. That's what we saw Jeremiah promise last week.

44:54

And in fulfilling the terms of the new covenant God will fulfill all of His promises to national

44:59

Israel through and all of the other covenants as well. This is your future, beloved.

45:07

This is what the new covenant gives us. We don't have to take parts of it and say, well, we'll kind of minimize this and say it's spiritually fulfilled over here and this part here belongs to this group and this part here belongs to that group.

45:20

All of these blessings and promises from Abraham through David and the new covenant and the fulfillment of all of it, it belongs to us in the future because we participate in the forgiveness of the new covenant right now.

45:34

God made a promise to Israel and He will keep His promise to Israel.

45:41

And because God will keep His promise to Israel, He will keep His promise to you. He cannot cast you off.

45:47

He will not cast you off. This is our God and this is the blessing of the new covenant.

45:54

Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank

45:59

You for Your tremendous mercy in saving the people for Yourself. We thank You that what we enjoy and what we see now is not all that is to be enjoyed and received by Your people.

46:11

We thank You for a future fulfillment of these promises, very real promises. For us, it gets nothing but better from here on out.

46:20

For those who are in Christ, we have received not just salvation, but we also receive the future hope of a kingdom and to enjoy that kingdom with Jesus Christ, executing justice and righteousness in the earth.

46:31

And Lord, we long for that day and we thank You for the promise of it. We pray that You would fix our hope upon that and help us to realize that You are a covenant -keeping and a covenant -making and covenant -keeping

46:41

God. That because You have kept Your promise to Israel, because You will keep Your promise to Israel, You also keep

46:46

Your promises to us. And because of You being a promise -keeping God and keeping

46:53

Your word to national Israel, we have been included in those blessings as well. And we thank

46:59

You for the salvation that is ours in Jesus Christ. We thank You for these things in His name. Amen.