How God Writes History And Fulfills History Through Covenant

John 7–8 and the Festival of Booths

As you will remember from John, I've been in John 7 and John 8, and both of these chapters actually exist in the same week of Jesus' life. We're basically six months away, seven months away from the death of Christ, and this is in the autumn time.

It's the final festival of booths that Jesus himself is going to be attending. And right at the end, on the seventh day, in the middle of the day, Jesus cries out at the top of his lungs, and everybody's looking at him and wondering what is going on.

And if you remember, it was the priests who were carrying up the water that they were gonna pour on the altar, and Jesus cries out in that moment, and he says, I am the living water, taking the focus off of the ceremony and onto the Christ.

At the end of the day, as the sun was going down, and as the lanterns were burning out for the last time in that particular ceremony, in that particular festival, as the lanterns were burning out, Jesus cries out again with a loud voice, and he says, I am the light of the world, taking the focus again off the ceremony and putting it onto him, the Christ.

Jesus is showing that every single facet of the Festival of Booths is all about him. And that was critical teaching for the people who were there in Jerusalem, because he was showing them who his identity is.

He is the covenant God who's come to fulfill the covenant ceremonies, and not just one, but all the festivals are gonna find their fulfillment in him. All the sacrifices are gonna find their fulfillment in him.

All the rituals, all the temples, all the tabernacles, all the synagogues, all of that, which we call the Mosaic Covenant, is going to find its fulfillment in him. But as we've seen, they weren't too happy about that.

They should have been excited that their God had finally showed up in the flesh. The leaders should have been thrilled to step aside and make everything about the glory of Christ, but instead they rejected him.

Jesus teaches them, and it throws the city into a panic of sorts. There's citywide confusion, division. Some mocked him, some hated him, some ridiculed him, and some believed in him, although falsely, which means that they were still alienated from him.

The leadership rejected him. We know all about that. They're salivating in John 7 and John 8, ready, in a moment's notice, to murder the one that they should have worshiped. Now, there's this theme of rejection that permeates John 7 and John 8, and when it looks like, for a moment, is that they're the only ones who are doing the rejecting.

They're rejecting Jesus. But as we learned several weeks ago, and just a couple weeks ago, in John 7 and in John 8, Jesus also is rejecting them. They're not only rejecting him, he is rejecting them, and he says so to them.

He says, you're going to seek me, but you won't be able to find me. Where I am going, you cannot go, and he says, because of that inability that I've now pronounced over you, you will die in your sins.

He doesn't say you maybe will die in your sins, or if you don't believe in me, you'll die in your sins. He says, you will die in your sins. What a severe pronouncement. That Christ speaks over the city of Jerusalem for their sin.

They are going to die in their sins for four specific reasons, which we learned about a couple weeks ago. The first is they had a wrong view of Jesus, and if you remember, in typical fashion, I've put 14 sub-points under that.

They're all important. They're going to die in their sins because they have the wrong view of themselves. They have an inflated ego and a deflated look at Christ. They're going to die in their sins because they've ignored divine revelation all throughout the Holy Scriptures, and they're going to die in their sin because they didn't just reject the doctrine of Christ, they rejected the person of Christ, and they rejected him relationally.

All four of those indictments are going to be what stands against them in eternity when they are sent to hell. Now, it seems like that some in John 8 are actually going to believe. John 8, 31 kind of shows us this.

It says, so Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and then, emphasis, mine, you will know the truth, and then, emphasis, mine, the truth will make you free.

The whole point Jesus is saying is, you say that you believe in me, but you're actually not a true disciple of mine if you don't continue in the faith. If you don't continue in obedience and worship and truth and faith, if you at any point in your life apostatize from me and you don't continue following me, then you were never a true disciple.

That is what Jesus says. So that the clearest evidence of true saving faith is if you continue with Christ. They said that they believed, and they don't make it out of chapter eight before they're picking up stones to kill him.

This is the first time that someone picked up a weapon against Jesus. The rejection is intensifying. Now, John 8, 33 through 59, that's the text that is before us, and that is the text we will not be covering today.

It's a big text. And the reason we will not be covering it today is because it's a debate between Jesus and this crowd, and I actually think that there's something going on under the surface that we need to understand before we get to it.

There's a reason why the crowd is confused. There's a reason why the crowd doesn't understand. There's a reason why Jesus and the crowd are both talking about Abraham, and there's a reason the crowd and them are both talking about fatherhood and paternity.

There's covenantal elements underneath this text, and if we don't understand, as Americans, 2 ,000 years separated from covenant theology, then we're not gonna understand why this is so significant. So what I want us to do today is I want us to bookmark John 8, 33 through 59.

We'll deal with that in the coming weeks. And what I want us to do today is look at the mountain that's underneath it, which is what I like to call progressive covenantalism. I'll define that in a minute.

Now, I am gonna read the passage because I want you to notice the word Abraham and how many times it shows up. I'm gonna read the passage because I want you to see how many times fatherhood issues come up.

So I want you to mark those, I want you to put those, and as a little footnote, we'll deal with them later, but we are gonna read the passage, and then after we read the passage, we're gonna deal with what's underneath it.

Sound good? So if you will, turn with me to John 8, 33 through 59 as we examine these things together. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in him, I'm starting at 31, if you continue in my word, then you're truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.

And they answered, we are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. Did they not remember their history? How is it that you say that you will become free? Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son does remain forever. So if the son makes you free, then you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, and yet you seek to kill me, because my word has no place in you.

I speak the things which I have seen with my father. Therefore, you also do the things which you heard from your father. They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, if Abraham's children do the deeds of Abraham, or if you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham, but as it is, you are seeking to kill me.

A man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God, this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father. They said to him, we are not born of fornication. We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, then you would love me.

For I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on my own initiative, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he is speaking out of his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

But because I speak the truth and you do not believe me, which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God. For the reason you do not hear them is because you are not of God.

The Jews answered and said to him, do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? So Jesus has accused them of being children of Satan. They're accusing Jesus of being possessed by a demon.

This argument is certainly intensifying. Jesus said, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me. But I do not seek my glory, there's one who seeks and judges. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.

And the Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died and the prophets also. And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death. Surely you are not greater than our father Abraham who died.

The prophets died too. Whom do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say he is our God. And you have not come to know him, but I know him.

And if I say I do not know him, then I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, you're not yet 50 years old and have seen Abraham.

And Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. This is God's word. Let's pray.

Lord, there is so much in this passage and a conversation that you actually had. God, thank you so much for your Holy Spirit inspiring John to write this down for us. Thank you that we have what you wanted us to have from this conversation.

Thank you that there is details in this passage that we'll be able to discuss today. Lord, I pray for your grace and for your mercy because in the complexity of this passage, Lord, I stand before you and just ask of your mercy that I would be able to communicate this rightly.

Lord, let me not go to the left or to the right of what your truth is in your word. Lord, let me speak only what you want me to say. Lord, let that time of preparation and study have produced truth that is consistent with your word.

And Lord, I pray that as we examine the truth of your word, that Lord, we would actually grow together as disciples of Christ. Lord, let us not have the heart of the Pharisees and of the Jews who wish to constantly challenge you and mock you and misattribute your power to the power of Satan.

Lord, let us together as a humble little church help us to see your word, believe it is true and rejoice in it like Abraham, our father did. In Christ's name, amen. Now, there's a lot that we need to understand here.

And I do want us to get home before dinner. You laugh. I'm gonna be talking about today an idea called progressive covenantalism. And what I mean by that is that God is telling the story of biblical history one covenant at a time, meaning that history progresses as each covenant is given.

And there's five covenants that are given in the Old Testament. And that really does tell us the entire story of the Old Testament. God gives five progressive covenants to man and man five times in a row fails to live up to the covenant.

So the Old Testament comes to a conclusion in chaos and disobedience. Also, the New Testament picks up the story of covenants because God makes unique and special promises to his people and God never makes a promise that he does not intend on keeping.

So because man cannot fulfill the promises of God in these five covenants that we're gonna examine, Christ, in perfect successive order, walks his people back through those five covenants and he will fulfill every single point.

So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna look at the entire biblical story to understand the covenantal framework that's underneath it. And when we do that, I believe that it will help us next week or whenever we pick up this again to understand the confusion, covenantally speaking, that's going on in John 8.

The Covenant with Adam

So how does the Bible tell the story of God through covenants? Well, the very first covenant is the covenant with Adam. If you remember, God came and he gave his first covenant to a family. He gave it to Adam and Eve, the first family.

And his covenant was that they were to be a blessed people. We're not gonna be able to go through all the verses in these sections, but I'm gonna allude to them. Genesis 1 .28 says that you will be blessed to be fruitful, to multiply, to spread out to the ends of the earth, to rule over the earth and to subdue the earth and to fill the world full of worshipers.

So God's original design for humanity was that we would be fruitful. There's a few families here who are really not. I'm not knocking that out of the park. That we would multiply, that we would rule over the earth and subdue it, meaning that we would have dominion, and that we would spread out to the ends of the earth and fill the world full of worshipers.

That was the original design of God. That design, God said, was good. And Adam and Eve inherited that promise if they would only obey. Now we know, of course, that Adam did not obey. Instead of Adam being fruitful, he ate the wrong fruit.

He ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of his generation and his progeny and his ancestors multiplying worshipers across the face of the earth, they actually multiplied sinners across the face of the earth until the entire world was filled with sinners.

And God actually said that he regretted the day that he made them. So they weren't fruitful. They didn't multiply. They didn't rule over the world. They were ruled by Satan, ruled by their sin. They didn't subdue the earth.

They were subdued by the serpent. And they didn't fill the world with worshipers. They filled it with, well, they did, but people who didn't worship God, instead they worshiped Satan. Now God gives a near-time judgment.

He causes the animal to lose its life so that Adam and Eve can be clothed with the skins of the animal. And there's beautiful Christ language in that that we could explore. But as their family continues on, the judgment gets more severe.

Instead of one animal losing its life, the entire globe is flooded with a global flood so that God can wash away the sins of this broken planet, and so that he can start anew with another family. The first covenant is given to Noah, I mean, to Adam and his family.

The Covenant with Noah

The second covenant is given to Noah and his family. And just as a side note, you'll see, as you look at the study of covenants in the Bible, they're always given to families, every single time. Noah was set apart by God, and he was told that he would start a new generation of people who would follow after him.

And he builds this ark. I just actually visited it. It's in Kentucky, not the original. And he builds this for over 100 years. He preaches to people to repent and to turn from their sins. No one repents for 100 years of preaching.

He and his family enter into the ark. The world is washed in destruction so that no one is left living. And then as soon as he exits the ark, when it comes to rest on Mount Ararat, God himself gives the covenant.

And the covenant to Noah is actually the exact same covenant that was given to Adam. Be fruitful and multiply, spread out to the ends of the earth, rule over and subdue it, and create worshipers all across the planet.

And the reason that God commanded him to do that is because God himself would bless them. So here you have the same structure. A family is getting the covenant of God. A man is the federal head of his family.

He's receiving the commands. And he's the same kind of person as Adam. Adam was made out of the dirt. Noah was a gardener who tilled the dirt. Adam was intoxicated with this fruit that he wasn't supposed to eat.

So Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, gets drunk, ends up naked and ashamed, just like Adam. And his son Canaan, just like Adam's son Cain, falls under the curse, the special curse. So you have the exact same result that's happening all over again.

God repeats the second covenant to humans and humans fail because humans always fail when it comes to upholding covenant. Adam's, or sorry, Noah's ancestors did just like Adam's ancestors did. But instead of filling the entire world with people who worshiped the serpent and instead of the world being destroyed by water, God promised he would never destroy the world by water again.

But Noah's ancestors rebelled also. But they just rebelled in different ways. God said, spread out to the ends of the earth. And what did they do? They gathered themselves in a field somewhere and tried to build a tower to heaven because they wanted to be like God.

And what's so fascinating about that is that God said he had to go down and look at it because it was so insignificant and puny that he could barely see it. God has perfect crystal clear vision. He can see across galaxies, no problem.

It's irony. God is laughing at this pitiful little anthill that they have tried to erect to their own glory because their glory is so insignificant compared to his. And God judged that group of people.

God judged Adam's generation by alienating them from God. Their relationship with God was severed. Noah's generation was punished by alienation from other people. So if you remember in the New Testament, it says the two great commands are love God and love neighbor.

Adam is the reason why we can't love God. Noah's generation is the reason why there's division and racial hatred and brokenness and division all over the world. Noah's generation was punished because they were divided up by language and by race and by all of these different factors so that they spread out across the world into little nations that hated each other.

So the curse now has affected our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with other human beings. You see how the story is progressing through the Bible? Now God wasn't finished.

The Covenant with Abraham

God could have said, I'm finished with these awful people, but he didn't. Out of all of the nations on earth, he chose a family, the third covenant, the family of Abraham. And he made dramatic promises to Abraham.

And this was in fact actually a unique kind of covenant that God made with Abraham because Noah couldn't live up to the covenant. Adam couldn't live up to the covenant. So there's no hope that Abraham's gonna live up to the covenant.

So God does a unique covenant that doesn't rely on Abraham's ability or on his performance or on his capacity to be able to obey. God himself made a covenant that Abraham could not thwart. God himself promised in Genesis 17, beautiful passage, that he would be ripped apart if the covenant with Abraham did not come to pass.

He put all of the burden on him. And what was that promise? The promise is that they would be fruitful, multiplying, spreading out to the ends of the earth as a blessing to the world. Same promise, this time God is putting it on him.

Now there's seven actual promises in Genesis 12 that I wanna go through. There's lots in Genesis 15 and 17 and 22. We're not gonna go through all the promises God made to Abraham. But the reason why I wanna go through these seven is because God never, ever leaves his promises unfulfilled.

And that will become very important in just a moment. So God makes seven promises to Abraham. And those promises are this, I will make you into a great nation. I will make you into a blessed people. I will give you a great name.

I will make you a blessing to the nations. I will bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you, and your family will bring blessing to all the families of the world. God is promising that one family, through their faithfulness, would bless the entire planet and every family on it, which is a pretty amazing promise.

Now it came to pass briefly and in a short term with the birth of Isaac. Isaac was born when Abraham was an old man in his 90s. Sarah was an old woman in her early 90s. It was a miraculous birth. And then Isaac had a son named Jacob.

Jacob had 12 sons that became the children of Israel. Those 12 sons eventually, at the end of the book of Genesis, became 70. 70 people in this family who were waiting on the promises that God gave to Abraham, a great nation, blessed people, that their name would be great.

These promises, they were waiting on at the end of Genesis. And when you flip over the page to the book of Exodus, it says God increased them and greatly multiplied them and made them fruitful. So his promises are coming true as soon as you turn the page of the book of Exodus.

So God is making his people fruitful and multiplying them and doing the things that he promised to Abraham. Now, there's a problem because they got enslaved and they were under the rule of a tyrant named Pharaoh.

And even when they come out of slavery, they don't ever fully fulfill the promises that God gave to Abraham. So they failed ultimately. But God is the one who is faithful and God is the one who has a plan.

And he's gonna rescue them out of their slavery in Egypt. And he's gonna bring them to a mountain called Sinai. This is Exodus 19, Exodus 18. So now we've gone through the covenant with Adam, the covenant with Noah, the covenant with Abraham.

Now we're in the middle of Exodus. And God is going to give this people his law. Now, you ask yourself the question, why would God make another covenant when the covenant that he had with Abraham was already good enough?

Because God wasn't ready to fulfill the covenant with Abraham yet. God wasn't ready to bring the seed of Abraham, which the New Testament tells us is Christ. So because God wasn't ready to bring Abraham's covenant to fulfillment, his people had to have a way to live in the presence of a holy God because they by themselves were not holy.

So as God's people were waiting on God to fulfill the promises to Abraham, they needed a covenant to be able to bring them into relationship with God. And that covenant was the covenant with Moses. That covenant was the covenant of temples and sacrifices and blood offerings and all of these different things that were going to make them a unique people who could live in the presence of God because you and I and them included could not live in the presence of God if there was not a covenant.

We're not holy people as we talked about before. Now in that covenant, there were so many different elements. It was an entire religious and geopolitical and social structure that covered every facet of their lives so that they could live in the presence of God until God brought about the promises of Abraham.

He gave them a law and the law had three parts. At first it was a moral law and the moral law was given so that the people could live moral lives and not sin. He gave them the 10 commandments and he gave them other commandments in scripture where it says, for I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.

Do this, those are moral laws. He gave them those laws so that they would not sin but they did sin. So he also gave them a second type of law which is a ceremonial law. And the ceremonial law was to, if they sinned, to bring them back in right fellowship with God.

Because as you notice in the book of Leviticus, Nadab and Abihu, that's Aaron's son, Aaron is the high priest, they're trying to serve God in their own way and fire comes down from heaven and consumes them.

So it's a big deal to make sure that they are in right standing with God. So God gives them ceremonial laws. These are things like sacrifices, water cleansings, oil anointings, washings, things like that, to forgive them of their sin, restore them to God.

The final set of laws that God gave them was a national civil civic law because they were a nation. God promised that they would be a nation to Abraham. So they needed a governmental structure. They needed laws that created just laws for a just society so that they could actually be a nation in the midst of nations that hated God.

So they had a governmental structure. They had a system of sort of welfare where they looked after the widows and the orphans. Not modern day welfare, I'm not saying that. Their law helped them live morally, religiously and socially in a world that did not know God.

They had a temple so that they could meet with God who was living in their midst. They had sacrifices in case they sinned. They had priests who would mediate between them and God and they had festivals that would restore the brokenness in their society.

Remember Noah's sin and his family's sin caused horizontal relationship to be broken. Well, festivals brought community together. Adam's sin brought vertical damage between him and God. Festivals always pointed upward to God to show that God would be the one who would restore us back to himself.

So every single facet of the Mosaic covenant was only meant to be a temporary covenant so that these people could live in God's presence until God fulfilled the promises that he gave to Abraham. That is what the Mosaic covenant is all about, that's it.

It was never meant to be a permanent covenant. It was never meant to be lifted above so that the Jews would be so prideful in their religion. It was a temporary bandaid to hold them until Christ came.

That's what the Mosaic covenant was supposed to be about. But they didn't follow it. There's a pattern here. Adam was given wonderful commands, he didn't follow it. Noah was given wonderful commands, he didn't follow it.

Abraham given wonderful commands, his generations didn't follow it. Moses and the people of Israel given wonderful commands, they didn't follow them. By the time you get to the book of Numbers, they're about 14 steps away from Mount Sinai and they're already complaining against God and challenging His authority.

You get to the book of Joshua, after an entire generation of people died, just 15 steps outside of the land, they saw that, they knew that, then they get into the book of Joshua and they still are not following the commands of God.

You go to the book of Judges, they're not following the commands of God. Ruth is set in the time of Judges. People are not obeying the commands of God and perhaps the greatest rebellion in the Old Testament was when they rejected God and they wanted a king, which takes us to the fifth and final covenant.

You have to understand that Israel was a theocratic nation. They were a nation that was ruled directly by God. So there were no votes, you had no representation in Congress, you didn't, your taxation didn't give you a voice as our New England ancestors would love to chant.

You had a single king, he was sovereign, your opinion did not matter, you followed God and they were ruled by him. Now that may sound stifling, but if you think about who would you rather be ruled by, would you rather be ruled by man or would you rather be ruled by an all-powerful, benevolent, loving, wonderful, merciful, gracious God?

His rule would trump any ruler that has ever lived and I don't mean that as a pun, but yet they rejected it again and again. By the time of Samuel, they're rejecting God. They're saying, give us a king so that we can be like all the nations.

They're not saying, give us a king so that king can help us be more like God because we can't do this on our own. They're saying, give us a king so that we can look like the pagans. Give us a king so that we can look like the people who hate you, God.

We are tired of your rule. Give us what we want. What a rejection and yet God, this is the fifth time that God could have said, I'm done with you and strike you down and yet God in his grace gave them what they asked for.

Sometimes that is a wonderful grace from God when he gives you what you ask for so that you realize how stupid your request actually was. That was the whole reign of Saul, but then his grace actually goes much further than that and he gives them David.

He gives them a man who wants to follow God. They give them a man who wants to help them live in relationship with God and God already knew that they were gonna do this. Moses' covenant has a section in Deuteronomy 17, 14 through 20 that says, you're gonna ask for a king and when you do, this is the kind of king that I want you to have.

So the exception clause was already there. God defines what kind of king that he wants them to have and David was the epitome of that kind of king. This is what it says. When you enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you and you possess it and you live in it and you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me, you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord chooses.

One from among your countrymen and you shall set a king over yourself. You may not put a foreigner over you who is not of your countrymen. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself nor shall he cause his people to return to Egypt and multiply horses since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way.

He shall not multiply wives for himself, David. David got in some trouble there or else his heart will turn away. Nor shall he greatly increase silver and gold for himself. Solomon got in trouble there.

Nor shall it come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom. Oh, now it shall come about that he shall write for himself a copy of this law. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The king will write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priest and it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

Now, listen, even though David was not perfect, David did this. David, it is clear because in the Psalms he says, I delight in the law of the Lord day and night. He had a copy. He obeyed what Deuteronomy is saying.

And he loved God's word. He was actually fortunate enough to write some of God's words in the book of Psalms. He wrote a lot. David, one of the very first things that he did in his kingdom is that the Ark of the Covenant was lost.

The people of Israel had treated it like it was commonplace garbage and trash. And the Philistines had actually stolen the Ark of the Covenant. That is the greatest piece of furniture that goes inside the deepest room of the temple where God himself would hover over this golden box and dwell with his people.

So the people didn't have God because they had treated his presence like trash. So the first thing that David does is he puts together a delegation and he goes after the Ark. He doesn't get it right at first.

He sends them on a journey with an ox cart. God never commanded an ox cart. God commanded the priest to carry it. And because David broke the law, God struck down his worship leader, Uzzah. So if ever you see Derek and I with an ox cart, tell him to walk away.

But David went back and it says in Chronicles that he read the law. And then he went back and he looked at the commands that God had given. And he went back and he did it right the next time. And he sent the priest and they carried the Ark into the city and the city was rejoicing.

David was dancing. David led his people in worship. David is the prototypical Israelite king who does what God has said that he should do. So you think that things are looking up. David at the end of his life is gathering wood and stone and gold and silver and all of these things so that he can build a house for God.

God says, no, because you're a man of war, but I'm gonna let your son build this house. And when Solomon builds this house, fire itself comes down from heaven and eats up like 15 ,000 or 20 ,000 offerings right there in the midst of the people.