Published: December 11, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 2 - Exodus, Exile, and Eschatology - Part 14 | Scripture: Hebrews 1-13
Transcript
View Full Transcript →
0:01
meditation. Then finally, we talked about echoes where you hear the echoes of the Old Testament revelation in the New Testament writing.
0:13
If you include the illusions and echoes, then then Hebrews is, I think, without a the most concentrated book in the New Testament of Old Testament references.
0:27
But I think it's very interesting and and several commentators point this out
0:43
that the writer of Hebrews does not take as his frame of reference the temple. the temple. Now it seems rather obvious by what he writes because he writes as if the
0:54
Levitical system and the priesthood was still functioning. still functioning. He said it is soon to pass away. He talks about how the Levites and the high
1:04
priests are still doing what they do when he mentions that Jesus would not be that type of a priest because he's not of the tribe of Levi. So it seems like
1:16
this book I think had to have been written before AD.70 when the temple was destroyed. The temple was the the beating heart of
1:27
Judaism of the first century for the diaspora, the Jews that were no longer living in Palestine. The temple was the direction toward which they
1:38
prayed each day. and to to go up to Jerusalem for one of the feasts and to be in the temple that was somewhat like today a Muslim going to Mecca. So the
1:50
the temp the temple was crucial to the life of of a Jew in the first century. And yet the writer of Hebrews does not
2:01
talk about the temple. Everything he talks about is actually framed around the tabernacle and what we read in the Pentatuk,
2:12
not in first kings or second kings with Solomon's temple and certainly not the second temple uh that that um the exiles when they returned began to build. So
2:25
his frame of reference is that the the tabernacle in the wilderness and he uses that terminology. He does not use the word temple. He uses the word tent or
2:37
tabernacle. The same word that John uses when he says in the opening of his gospel, the word became flesh and tabernacled among us. So
2:49
I think that tells us something about excuse me excuse me about the the writer of Hebrews
3:00
um of the biblical revelation and and how foundational the pentatuk was to that biblical understanding of of what God
3:10
has done in Jesus Christ. um he really doesn't spend a whole lot of time even in the prophets. Most of his time is in the books of Exodus and Leviticus and
3:23
Numbers. So his frame of reference is not the temple
3:40
Now from a biblical theological point of view then view then I would submit that the entire revelation of the Bible
3:50
is founded on the first five books. And and I would go even further to say that if there's a cornerstone to that
4:01
foundation, it's Genesis 1, two, and three. Those are are are just they're indispensable to our understanding of everything that
4:11
comes afterward. It's as if everything that comes afterwards is commentary. But all of the content of the revelation of God for the salvation of his people
4:23
is right there in the first five books of the Bible. So what that means is those are five books that we ought to we ought to know pretty well. uh we have to try to know better. Um they are the most
4:36
quoted except perhaps the psalms. Um but in many respects the psalms are just the pentatuk put to music. But a great deal of the of the psalms is reflecting on
4:47
the pentatuk. And of course the prophets are are founded as as Malachi says to to the law. Well actually um Isaiah to the law and to the prophets or to the
4:58
testimony. Um, and Malachi says, "Remember the law of Moses." Um, so biblical theology then really isn't uh we're we're not going to go through
5:10
every single book of the Bible. And when we first started in the first session, I mentioned that many books that pass for biblical theology today, first of all,
5:20
you can find more biblical theologies of the New Testament or biblical theologies of the Old Testament. Now, both of those titles don't understand biblical
5:32
theology. Either that or they think they have two Bibles, which some people do. Um, also, many biblical theologies are nothing more than surveys of the Bible
5:44
where they essentially start with Genesis and they say, "Well, Moses wrote it and he probably wrote it at this point and this is what and here's the outline and the major characters. Now, let's move on to Exodus." and they just
5:56
go through every book of the Bible and they call that a biblical theology. That's not biblical theology at all. That's a Bible survey. There's nothing wrong with that. You probably have that in the front of your each individual
6:07
book of your Bible in your Bible. Um, if it's a modern publication, uh, it probably has something in the beginning before you actually get to the text where it talks about who the author
6:18
is, when it was written, who the audience was, you know, what are some of the major controversies, and then an outline. That's not biblical theology. Biblical theology is trying to
6:29
understand the revelation of God the way he gave it. And it means reading the Bible in a literary manner.
6:39
literary manner. understanding that like a good and I I hate to say this, please don't misunderstand me, but like a good novel, the entire plot is pretty much laid out
6:52
in the first chapters. If the author brings in new material as he goes along or as she goes along, that's called deos xmachina.
7:04
God is in the machine. And what it means is the author has developed a plotline that he or she cannot resolve and so she will introduce a new character or
7:17
somehow have an early character show up thousands of miles away and solve the problem. Okay. That that's not good writing. Uh, I remember reading, I think I was reading to to you, um, Eagle of
7:29
the Ninth, and the two characters were hundreds of miles away in Scotland. They had traveled over Hill and Dale and
7:40
through Blizzard and and lakes and and they were totally lost. And all of a sudden, they hear someone whistling. And of, of course, it's the same guy. He
7:50
had to be a plumber because only plumbers whistle. Uh, it seems like all plumbers whistle, but um it was a guy from the camp hundreds of miles away and he just happened to be strolling down
8:01
the valley. I I'm sorry, Rosemary. You you kind of you know you you just couldn't figure out a time. God doesn't do that. And and so that that to me is
8:14
is one of the most damning commentaries of the whole hermeneutic of dispensationalism where you're basically looking at seven
8:25
different stories different stories pulled together in one book that we call the Holy Bible. No, there's only one story. Okay? From creation to Revelation, it's
8:36
just one story. And I just marvel the more I read it and and the deeper I can get into it at how seamless the storyline is. And there there's no
8:47
there's introduction of new characters, but there's no introduction of a new story line. story line. Does that make sense? But really, once we get past Genesis 49
9:01
with the prophecy of Jacob for his sons, the cast of characters is pretty much set. Now, obviously, these men aren't going
9:12
to live 2,000 or 4,000 years and be there when Jesus is born, but it's their families. It's their lineage. It's that prophecy. for Judah, for example. That's
9:22
what's going on and being expanded and developed throughout the rest of scripture. But for example, there's no new people
9:33
of God chosen when Israel goes off into Babylonian exile. God doesn't choose the Italians at that point. You know, he he it's there's no change in what God is
9:44
doing. So biblical theology is simply reading the Bible as God's singular revelation of himself and his purpose to his people.
9:55
And when when you read it in that manner, it it really does hang together very very well. Uh I was talking with with Hayden and I had actually kind of just
10:06
seen this, but we had talked in in our class about the toadote of Genesis. The way these are the generations of
10:17
beginning in chapter 2 verse4 which is really the beginning of the book. Everything before that is prologue part of the book but it serves as something different. You have these toodotes.
10:28
These are the generations of these are the generations of. When you get to Abraham or Abram you don't read these are the generations of Abram. You read, "These are the generations of Tra
10:41
and Terra had three sons." Well, who else had three sons? Fred McMurray, right? McMurray, right? Some of you remember that. Who else had
10:53
three sons? three sons? Noah. And in fact, when you go back to Genesis and read, I think it was chapter six, chapter 5, when you read it, it's exactly the same terminology,
11:06
except there it says that Noah was a righteous man and Noah walked with God, which is not said about Terra. But what's what's fascinating is when you read it, there's already echoes.
11:21
Okay. Anyhow, that's that's just an example of of the of the way we can read the Bible to to hear it speaking to us as we go, listening for
11:32
those echoes. And the the point of this discussion is simply to say like the writer of Hebrews, you pretty much can derive the whole story line from Genesis
11:44
through Deuteronomy. through Deuteronomy. Now, again, that does not mean we don't need the rest of the Bible. Don't misunderstand me. There's a great deal of fill-in material and expansion that
11:56
we don't get from the first five books. But without those five books, everything else hangs in the air. There's there's no foundation to our theology, to our
12:07
understanding of the Bible. if we have no understanding of the Pentatuk. So, I don't know when the last time it is you read the Pentatuk, but I highly recommend that you spend a lot more time
12:20
reading this, especially actually Genesis. It's a pretty important book. Um, but the writer of Hebrews approaches this um
12:31
this um in in a manner that is clearly not literal. So let's talk for a moment about his hermeneutic.
12:57
How does the author of Hebrews read his Old Testament? Old Testament? Well, he certainly doesn't read it
13:11
but he doesn't he he's not locked in in any way to the meaning of that passage at the time it was first written or the meaning of the event at the time it was first recorded.
13:23
first recorded. So it's not literal
13:38
Now he's fairly explicit in some places. So for example where he references the entire Levitical system he calls it a parable. So it it he's not uh he's not allegorizing though. So we we need to be
13:50
careful. We've talked about this uh sporadically throughout the whole study. How do we keep ourselves from simply having wild imagination about what we're reading and coming up with whatever that
14:02
imagination puts into our head? That has happened and it still happens. You can still hear sermons today that are just they're just imagination. The the
14:13
preacher reads a passage and then goes off on some flight of fancy. And um sadly a lot of people follow but that's
14:35
and the writer of Hebrews exhibits what I said earlier weeks and weeks ago or maybe in the first session what it is that keeps us safe. Now, we can always allegorize when the New
14:46
Testament allegorizes. So, when you read Galatians 4, you're you're safe because Paul even says this is allegory.
14:56
But even Paul's allegory is not the type of allegory of say origin in the second third century. third century. It's not the type of allegory that
15:08
conservative Christians fear because in Paul's allegory of Galatians 4, Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, Isaac
15:22
are all real historic people. And that's what keeps us safe. Even when we're reading typologically,
15:33
we do not let go of the historicity of the event. We don't just use, for example, Mount Si or Sodom and Gomorrah to launch into
15:44
some moralistic tirade on men's sins. Okay, that's that that's allegorizing. We don't we don't take the actual
15:55
characters or places of the history and turn them in to something else. That's allegorizing. And and it's actually been very popular in Christian
16:07
writing. So it's not allegorizing
16:23
to the history. There's no indication in the book of Hebrews that he even questions, much less doubts the historical validity of everything he's referring to. And he refers to quite a
16:36
bit and some of it is is somewhat when I taught on preached did I teach on Hebrews? I preached in Hebrews. I taught
16:46
on Hebrews. on Hebrews. Okay. I'm sorry. Um, I'm convinced that, well, for what it's worth, I think it was a sermon. It It reads very much like
16:57
a sermon. It doesn't start with a greeting or salutation. It doesn't end with, you know, it it just it seems like maybe he added an epilogue and then sent it off to various churches. Um, but it
17:11
it it um it reads like a sermon in this sense. Um, it is said that Jonathan Edwards wrote out and read his sermons.
17:22
Most preachers do something like that, but not exactly like that. In the in the midst of a sermon, something will come to mind, and you'll just weave it into
17:34
your sermon, a an illusion or a reference or some event in the Old Testament, and you'll just refer to it. I kind of think that that's what the writer of Hebrews is doing when he
17:46
refers to the red hepher, which is really a a rather uh esoteric Old Testament reference in Numbers. Uh
17:56
and it it doesn't necessarily tie in with the thrust of the writer's argument except by way of example. Um,
18:08
and I think if I were writing out my entire sermon, if I were doing that, I'm not sure the red heer would be the one that I would pick, but it probably came to his mind and it works fine. Um, so I
18:21
see it as as somebody who was preaching and personally I I think that it's probably Apollos. Um, if it's any of the men that we know whose name we know, my
18:33
vote goes for Apollos, who was a a very eloquent man who was strong in the scriptures. He knew the Old Testament very well. Certainly, the writer of of Hebrews knew the Old Testament very
18:45
well. But so, that's a very good place for us to to try to answer the question, how do we read the Old Testament the way the New Testament writers read the Old
18:55
Testament? because of course it was their Bible. It was their scriptures. The New Testament had not yet been written. So if we can read the Old
19:05
Testament the way they did it, I think we're in a good place. And the book of Hebrews is a great place. So read pen I'm kind of telling you what books to read. Read Penetuk. Read the first five
19:17
books. Read the book of Hebrews. I think that's another very important one to read multiple times. I think Romans is another one that should be read multiple times. Um, but it it teaches us how to
19:30
how to read in that sense. So, it's not literal. He's moving through the Old Testament. So, he is um he's building
19:58
He deals with angels, Moses, Aaron. He deals with the Levitical priesthood. Finally, he ends up in what I think is the climax in chapters 9 and 10. He ends up with the high priest on the day of
20:11
atonement, which was indeed, if you read through Leviticus, this was the high point of the sacrificial calendar year was the day of atonement. And so he builds to a
20:45
the Holy of Holies. That's that's kind of but he says so much more. So much more. So for example when he says in chapter 8 that the presence of the outer tabernacle
20:56
pro is proof by the holy spirit by this the holy spirit is signifying then the way into the presence of god is not yet made
21:08
manifest. So long as that veil still stands the way into the holy of holies the way into the presence of God is not yet made manifest. That's his point. Now, what
21:20
he's doing all the way through and and this is also very important. At no point does he denigrate any of the old covenant rituals,
21:30
people, institutions, people, institutions, whatever. He doesn't denigrate Moses. He doesn't denigrate Aaron. He doesn't denigrate the Levitical priesthood. He doesn't denigrate the angels. He simply
21:43
is building up the the history of God's revelation. And at every stage, Jesus is better. Jesus is better. Okay?
21:54
Everything that God did was historical, purposeful, necessary, purposeful, necessary, but typological, and temporary.
22:05
Okay? So, the the whole history, just to get put that in there, it's it's all it's historical.
22:28
but it's also typological and therefore temporary. Now, obviously, this is what most of Israel did not see and did not accept, but it was typological.
22:52
That's essentially a summary of of the argument of the book of Hebrews. The culmination of course is Jesus entering into the true tabernacle with his own blood. I mean that that's that's the
23:03
that is the climax. Everything after that is really application. I mean, it's still part of his sermon, and I don't think he had three points in a poem, but I think that the argument,
23:15
the doctrinal argument or the theological argument of his sermon climaxes in chapters 9 and 10. And then we move on from there to the fear, the fear of a of a of a of the
23:28
living God. Our God is a consuming fire. And then then he ends up with things like hospitality in, you know, chapter 13. But um he's really kind of made his
23:40
point and the way he makes the point is again to to go with the knots up and stay with my numbers.
24:09
I wonder if this is one of the reasons that it that Hebrews is one of the isn't Hebrews one of the books that are in the bottom of the of Luther's. Yeah. He Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation are listed in the table of
24:21
contents. The all the other New Testament books are numbered. And then he has these four down separated lower on the page and not numbered because he
24:31
wasn't terribly sure they belonged in there. Um, and one of the reasons is that he had a particular litmus test and that was what does the author say about justification? Well, the author of
24:43
Hebrews doesn't really say anything about justification. about justification. And yet the way he goes about summarizing and recapitulating the Old Testament revelation of the Pentatuk and
24:55
the tabernacle, he says loads about justification. He just doesn't use the word. And I think that this this also shows
25:05
how much of modern evangelicalism, especially reformed evangelicalism, has got have has gotten itself into a systematic theological fog
25:18
thinking that we're seeing clearly, but we're not seeing what's written. We're seeing what our systematic theologies and our proof texts and our
25:29
catechisms and our confessions say is written. But this is actually picking out of the scripture what we find and then putting
25:40
into some lenan classification often of our own devising. And just as the biological or or the chemical classifications, we may be right on some
25:50
points and we may be wrong on many others, but we're not reading the scripture the way the writer of Hebrews read it. And I would submit we're not reading the
26:02
scripture the way any of the New Testament writers read the scripture. I'm not sure we're reading the scriptures even the way the unbelieving Jews read it because they weren't systematic either.
26:12
systematic either. So the the more I the more I the older I get, the more I read the scripture, the less enamored I am of systematic theology. I think it has its place.
26:23
I think it is good for teaching doctrine and why we believe justification by grace through faith. I think it is good to see how that is taught in scripture.
26:34
The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is nowhere simply stated, yet it's in there. And we can find out the various places where both the or the
26:45
father, the son and the holy spirit are refu referred to as persons independent of the other two and divine persons
26:58
and yet we have a clear biblical teaching that there is one god. So the only biblical solution to that is the doctrine of the trinity. So, I don't want to be mis misunderstood into saying
27:09
that systematic theology is worthless. I just think it's it's not in the right place. As I've said several times in this study, in most seminaries, biblical
27:21
theology is maybe a one semester elective. Certainly a reformed seminary. Um, I you if you went to a reformed
27:33
seminary, at least the one that that Mark and I graduated from, you could elect to take biblical theology or not, but you would have to take intro to
27:44
reformed theology. reformed theology. Okay? So, uh, in other words, you you have to learn their systematic framework and you actually have to take that class
27:54
before you take any systematics. So they want to establish the framework so they can shove everything into it as they go along. But a biblical theology course I don't
28:06
remember taking in seminary. Mark, do you remember taking a course of biblical theology? One semester. Okay. Um yeah, I think that's wrong. I think that's it's not
28:17
served the church well. It's not served believers well. Um, it it teaches them how to read their systematic theologians, but I don't think it teaches them how to read the Bible. The
28:28
writer of Hebrews teaches us how to read the Bible. Paul teaches us how to read the Bible. Um, but the writer of Hebrews is is really, I think, uh, pertinent to
28:38
our discussion because of his intense focus on the whole tabernacle system. Okay. So he's moving from Moses to Aaron sacrifices and then chapters nine and
28:51
10. Now the um the emphasis here and I've mentioned this already.
29:10
replacement. And so we don't find in Hebrews Jesus as a replacement for Moses or for Aaron. In fact, we're told, as I said, as I
29:22
referred to earlier, that Jesus couldn't be a replacement for Aaron because he was of the tribe of Judah. And so, we don't have this this hermeneutic of replacement. We don't
29:32
have this situation where we we've got to find out what the Lord's Supper replaces. Oh, Passover. We got to find out what baptism replaces. Oh, circumcision. This idea that if there
29:42
was something in the old covenant, we've got to find its replacement in the new. That that again is is not a it's not a
29:54
mechanism. We we don't find anywhere in the New Testament where that is actually done and stated. It is it is a man-made mechanism and it's a hermeneutic that I
30:05
think is is misleading because it it does not replace
30:23
because replacement hermeneutics fails to understand the typological significance of the historical person or institution or event. It just simply
30:33
it's there and now we have this. Okay? And we we never see the organic growth between the old and the new. We see the
30:44
ironic priesthood. H that's done away with. We don't even think about anymore. And yet the writer of Hebrews, that's where he goes. He goes to the Yam Kapore. He goes to the high priest who
30:55
has to sacrifice for his own sins and the sins of the people. and he enters once a year into the holy place and not without blood. So much better
31:06
is our high priest who has offered up his blood and entered into the heavenly tabernacle, the heavenly sanctuary made by God, not made with hands. So the
31:17
pattern for for instance by which Moses was told to build a tabernacle that pattern that that prototype is the one that Jesus went into.
31:29
So the writer of Hebrews is anchored in the Old Testament story but he's not simply replacing it with a new one. I think this idea of
31:42
replacement is why we have the Roman Catholic Church. Can anybody give me a reason from the New Testament why we have priests?
31:56
There's absolutely no justification in the old in the New Testament for a priesthood, is there? In fact, there's pretty strong arguments against it. against it. But if you're going to replace, then you
32:08
have to replace. And so you have mediation in the Old Testament and now you have mediation in the New Testament church. Now that's an egregious example
32:18
of where replacement hermeneutic goes wrong. But there are also a lot of smaller ones where and like I said before I think the idea of infant
32:29
baptism is is a a travesty of logic certainly biblical logic. U but again it's it's born out of that that hermeneutic of replacement. We've got to
32:40
replace the the um the sign of the old covenant circumcision. We have to replace it. And so now we have baptism. And we were circumcising infants, so now
32:50
we baptize infants. Okay? But even there, you have to have duct tape because they didn't circumcise baby girls, but we sprinkle them. So you got a lot of duct tape being used in in
33:02
these replacement um doctrines. So the writer of Hebrew doesn't do that. I you know I mentioned before he doesn't he doesn't denigrate doesn't denigrate he doesn't um he doesn't speak ill of
33:13
the only reason that the old system is becoming obsolete is because we now have a minister of a better covenant. I mean that's what he says. He doesn't say it
33:25
was a bad covenant. He doesn't say it was a worthless covenant. He doesn't say the whole thing was a waste of time. No it all pointed as Paul says it pointed to Christ. And now that that minister
33:37
has come to the better covenant, then the old covenant is going to pass away.
33:57
Yes. But you'd be surprised, you know, he's saying if you say this was a waste of time, it was no good, that you're saying that God made a mistake because God ordained it all. But you would be surprised how many Christian scholars
34:08
have essentially said just that, including Luther. including Luther. The whole idea that Paul came to the understanding that Judaism was a failed religion and and we've talked about that
34:20
when we did the Pauline studies. That's basically Luther's opinion of where what happened to Paul at the road to Damascus is he had this epiphany that told him that all that he had done before was
34:31
wrong and he needed this new faith. He needed faith. That's all he needed was faith. Um, faith. Um, there's more anti-semitism in that than there is biblical theology, honestly.
34:45
Um, there's more anti-semitism in that view in the Reformation era than there is actual biblical exugesus. But again, what about dispensationalism?
34:56
God fails after every dispensation, doesn't he? doesn't he? Whatever he set up at the beginning of that dispensation fails at the end of it. and he has to come up with another plan. Now, you may argue that he had all
35:08
seven plans in his head, but that's kind of silly. Uh I don't know why anybody would argue that. But whenever you have that kind of hermeneutic where things
35:19
are are are acknowledged as having failed or being worthless or not the way to do it, you're talking about a mutable, a changeable God.
35:30
And I think one of the one of the fundamental in fact I'm going to jump ahead in my notes on the basis of what what you just mentioned because I think there are two principles that must guide
35:40
all theology all theology certainly biblical theology and the first one is the immutability of God.
35:58
He does not change. He says so. He says, "I am not a man that I should repent or change my mind. His purposes have been forged in eternity past and
36:10
they will come to pass exactly how as he has purposed. He is the one who knows the end from the beginning. Who who bends and it cannot be straightened. Who
36:20
straightens and it cannot be bent." Okay, that the you know the whole script scriptural self-disclosure of God is that he is he is one perfect being in
36:34
whom there is neither shadow of turning or change. So I mean that's just basic theology and if you don't start there's
36:45
no way you're going to end up with the truth from the scripture. And then the other one that as believers we must also that all the promises of God
36:56
which cannot change
37:23
I think these these are two irrefutable biblical poles around which our orbit must constantly be maintained. I I think they they uh act reciprocally.
37:36
Obviously, Christ is the person of the Trinity sent to execute the purpose of the Godhead and and in him now all that God has done and said is yes and amen that it will
37:50
be. So, um Abe, you're absolutely right. If if if we think of any of these Old Testament rituals as being a failure,
38:01
then we're saying God failed because God ordained them. But he ordained them for a reason at the time. And we've been talking about that in Leviticus study.
38:12
What remember the fundamental kind of bifurcated question, two-sided question is how does a holy God live in the midst of an unholy people? And the flip side
38:23
is how do an how does an unholy people dwell in the presence of a holy God? See that's what you have going on at Sinai and it's very vivid but that that
38:34
graphic thunder fire noise. God's grace
38:45
would not subject his people to that day in and day out. That'd be like living you know my heritage is from Sicily. It's like, you know, living in Mount Etna. I mean, in Mount Etna. Okay. No, God doesn't do
38:59
that. As soon as they move away from the mountain, then the cloud is a guide, a pillar of fire by night and a cloud of smoke by day, and it descends upon the
39:10
tent of meeting to meet with Moses, who then disseminates what he's been told to the people. But it's it's more uh it's very intimate, and yet it's separated.
39:21
But it's not fearsome. And again, what does the writer of Hebrews say in chapter 12? We do not come to a mountain burning with fire and thunders and lightning. Okay? Yes, God is a holy God.
39:33
He is an all-consuming fire, but he has veiled himself with humanity, the humanity of Jesus Christ. And in that gentleness, he dwells with his people
39:44
Israel throughout their journeys in the wilderness. And yet, they're still unholy. and he's still holy. So these things don't these don't change
39:55
these two. All right. So continuing on discussing uh just the book of Hebrews and we have a couple other things I want to go ahead.
40:16
Yes, something is true. Now you are an old guy and and I am too and truth in the old days meant truth but Satan has been very successful in
40:29
our modern culture in redefining truth. Now, he actually started in terms of our culture back in the late 1700s with Emanuel Kant, but it took a while for
40:41
people to figure out what it was Kant was actually saying, which if you've ever read Kant, you can understand it would take 300 years to figure out what he's actually saying. Okay? But what he's actually saying is truth is what
40:52
you think it is. And that's the world in which we live. And yet we cannot let go of the reality that by definition truth is truth.
41:03
is truth. Okay, that's you you just you can redefine a word and still use the word, but that's that's like linguistic slight of hand. That lacks integrity for people
41:14
who to call themselves Christians, for example, who do not believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. Well, that's what the word means. You know, for people to think that God
41:26
does not know the future need their Miriam Webster and they need to look up God OD and find out what the definition of a
41:36
god is and it is someone who knows the future. So what we do is we change the meaning of words. But if to for ourselves we can't do that and and our testimony uh will be worthless if we
41:49
yield for a moment on the im immutability of truth. That doesn't mean we necessarily have a grasp of it ourselves. In principle we understand that what
42:00
what you said is exactly right. If it's true it's always true. Okay? Because God who is truth is always God. And and really, I mean, what you're describing is just biblical theology. That's how we
42:12
should be reading our Bible. We should not be reading our Bible mining for proof texts. That that is not the way to read your Bible. Um, and unfortunately,
42:23
that is often the way that we're guided in devotionals. So, as I said, he the writer of Hebrews does not try to replace any of these things with something new. He doesn't try to come up
42:33
with a a new Levitical priesthood. doesn't represent Jesus as a new Aaron. In fact, he says he's a priest according to the order of Melkisedc whose priesthood is without origin and
42:45
without end. You know, it's mysterious and yet it's divine. So, it's it's the fulfillment of the of the Levitical and the ironic priesthood. Um, I had a note
42:57
here. Let me let me read this paragraph. The new covenant does not replace the old. It fulfills it. In the same manner, the Lord's day does not replace the
43:07
Sabbath, nor does the Lord's supper replace Passover. replace Passover. Baptism as the sign of the new covenant does not correspond directly with circumcision as the sign of the Old. It
43:19
cannot be stressed enough that the New Testament writers were not developing a replacement doctrine and rituals in order to reorient their faith around Christ. Rather the meaning of the New
43:31
Testament practices and ordinances was to be found in the reality of fulfillment in Christ. Th this thus a hermeneutic of fulfillment allows one to stand firm on
43:43
the historicity of the ancient events and institutions while seeking to understand their meaning both as ancient types and as prophetic pointers. So all
43:54
of these things, circumcision, Sabbath, dietary laws, the sacrificial system, the tabernacle itself, the holy of holies, all of these very important
44:05
components of God's revelation under the old covenant. And the old covenant itself, we're told in Jeremiah 31, is going to be replaced with a new one. A new
44:16
covenant I will make with the house of Israel and the house of Jacob or Judah. Um so we've talked about this. I think it is is very important point that we
44:28
look to our own thinking and ask well how much of my hermeneutic how much of my thinking is just trying to find a Christian replacement for a
44:42
Jewish practice. Jewish practice. That's not valid. We're not replacing the old covenant. It's fulfilled. We're not replacing the Abrahamic covenant. It's fulfilled. We
44:54
belong to it. Paul says that we who were once without hope and with without God in the world have been brought near in Christ. And he has made of the two Jews
45:07
and the rest of the world one new man. So it's it's not again we're not replacing Israel. The church hasn't replaced Israel. The church has grown
45:17
out of Israel because Jesus himself was the fulfillment of Israel. So it it really everything you can think of from the Old Testament to the New. Um
45:29
even even the Davidic king has not been replaced. He's been enthroned. So um what do we get from this? Well,
45:42
I want to I want to use uh an analogy that was was actually uh coined by the designer of the great seal of the United States. The thing you see in the White
45:54
House um whenever there's a press conference that's on the front of the podium, the great seal has a Latin
46:17
Novas ordo secllorum. It means a new order of the ages. And the um the the person who was charged by the first congress to
46:29
develop a great seal. Um what was his first? Charles Thompson I think was his name. He came up with the seal that we have with the eagle and then this phrase
46:40
because the men who framed our constitution our government believed that this was almost a new creation. Now
46:51
I'm not saying that the United States United States is a Christian nation. I'm not saying that God was involved or inspired Charles Thompson. I'm just saying that's what they thought. Okay? And there is an analogy between what was
47:04
going on here in the political philosophy of the the new United States and what did happen in Christ through
47:15
his death and resurrection. I think that Paul would have agreed with this phrase novous ordo secllorum
47:26
if it were referred to the church of Jesus Christ a new order of the ages. Now the the important point here is that the United States was not created ex
47:37
nilo out of nothing. In fact the political philosophies that most of our founding fathers read and incorporated into their writings came
47:48
from French and British writers like John Lockach and John Milton and and Thomas Hobbes and Jeanjac Crusoe and
47:58
Voltater. The United States was a new order of the ages coming out of the old order. And that's how our political leaders, at least through the first century and a
48:12
half up to around World War I, that's how they understood who we were. We were always set off against Europe.
48:24
We were the the new age, the new order. That was the old order. Okay. We came out of that and so we could see the inefficiencies, the insufficiencies,
48:37
the the the lack of liberty, the lack of opportunity, all the things that were important to making the United States would then eventually spread back over
48:48
the Atlantic to Europe. So when we think of the of the church and the the new heaven, the new earth, the new creation, it's not like the
48:59
original creation before which there was nothing. Does that make sense? It's like our own personal salvation.
49:10
We are born again but not exhilaration we're still the same person we were before in terms of our name and our
49:21
looks and our personality often too much um it it's not like God simply kills the old sinner and out of the dust of the ground creates a new perfect human
49:32
being. It doesn't work that way and God is not going to do that with the actual physical universe. physical universe. It will be purged with fire but it will
49:43
be this earth. We know that from Romans 8 because this creation is groaning for its redemption at the revelation of the sons of God. So this whole the whole
49:54
concept of what Christ has done is indeed a new order of the ages. But that doesn't mean we can simply jettison the whole heritage of divine revelation that
50:07
led up to Christ. And and if we recognize as biblical theology does that all of this does grow out of organically grow
50:18
out of the typological prophetic history then there are at least three things that I think we will gain in our reading of scripture. first. Um, and I don't
50:29
really know where to put this, so I'm just going to write one, two, three.
50:48
I don't know what the number is, what the letter is. I'm kind of off. But I think these are benefits that each one of us and the church as a whole even more derives
50:59
more derives from understanding this perspective of scripture as being organically linked in a growing fulfilling manner. Um, I guess
51:11
going back to this idea
51:30
all under the the larger rubric of the hermeneutic of fulfillment. So I'm kind of summarizing summarizing the things that we've talked about over the past few weeks and now
51:41
where do what do we gain from this? What what benefit do we actually acrewue from approaching the scripture as a hermeneutic or with a hermeneutic of fulfillment where the first one is the
51:52
content of the promise. Now when two people are married they exchange vows
52:04
exchange vows and those vows are the content of their commitment. Does that make sense? U and they should be seen as such
52:15
because vows are are taken very seriously by God. And and um I meant by God, not by God, like some Scott might say. They're very serious. You know, we
52:27
should not take them lightly. And it's it came out in my head. It's like I'm some sailor saying bug on. All right. The brain is a strange thing. Um so the
52:40
content of the promise is essential to our living in it. If if two if a man and a woman exchange vows and then those vows just flushed
52:52
from their brains, then the life they will live together has has no no meaning. It has no reference to the promises they made to one another. And I think we see that all
53:04
too often. That's why marriages fail because there's really very little understanding of the content of the vows that are being made. I I think if there is marriage counseling leading up to a
53:16
wedding, I'm not sure what exactly the advantage is, but I I think that the that that studying the content of the vows would be a really good start. What
53:27
are you saying to one another? And and will the content of the promises that you're making one to the other, will that then inform your life together from
53:38
that day onward? Okay. All right. The other thing is the third and the second one is the manner of its fulfillment.
53:58
Now I think it could be argued that that this one is not necessarily as important but frankly I think the manner of the fulfillment of God's promises is
54:11
awesome. It is just absolutely majestic to think of of how he has tied together his revelation across at least 4,000
54:22
years to the time of Christ without skipping a beat without losing a single generation
54:34
without dropping one jot or tit of any promise made including such things as the aerial extent of the promised land
54:44
which we read about in Genesis 15 and then we don't read about again until sometime in 2 Kings. Okay, a whole hundreds and hundreds of
54:54
years pass between Abraham and Solomon and we don't read about the the promise until it's fully fulfilled under David
55:06
and then there it is again. See, nothing was dropped. So I think understanding the manner of its fulfillment as we trace it with a biblical theology through the revelation, the redemptive
55:17
history of the scripture is just awesome. And I like reading novels and I I do I particularly like Dickens and Jane Austin. Um I think Dickens is for
55:29
me he's fascinating the way he builds characters and then ties them together. Um but none of them compare to God. The scripture is the most astounding
55:41
narrative of history that's ever been conceived, much less written. So I find it just awesome to to to ponder the manner by which God has fulfilled his
55:52
prom. Too many times Christians think that it just boils down to I'm a sinner. I can't do anything about it. So God sent Jesus to do it for me.
56:12
I mean, that's it. that's it. We got 66 books and that's all it says? I I don't think so. You know, it it's really I mean, the exile, the the
56:23
diaspora, all of this uh e even the the providence in in uh Saul of Tarsus being both a Pharisee Jew and a Roman citizen.
56:33
All of these things are just really amazing. So the manner of the fulfillment I think is is something that will lead to our greater adoration of the God who promised
56:45
that his like when when we read uh Philippians 1 vers6 he who began a good work in you will complete it to the day of Jesus Christ he will bring it to
56:55
perfection. Well that's me or the church. God has begun a a good work, but we can see thousands of years of history where God began a good work with the
57:05
creation of Adam and brought it to perfection in the last Adam, Jesus Christ. Even though most of the way it did not look like it was going to end
57:16
well, but it's not like we finally get to Judea in the first century and John the Baptist hears that guy whistling in the valley. You know, God just brings in a character. No, it's it's seamless. And
57:29
and again, I just I just find that awesome to me. And and I think with that, the third one, I just don't
57:51
was Dwight Moody, Dwight Moody, which would have been the early 20th, late 8 19th century, early 20th century, made the comment that American Christianity is 3,000 miles wide and an
58:02
inch deep. inch deep. I don't think that's changed since Moody's time. Moody's time. I think that most of what you might read, especially popular Christian
58:14
literature and then most conversations among believers is very incipid, very shallow.
58:25
very shallow. And we're talking about God. We're talking about the one, and I don't know that I'll be able to uh to to find it quickly. Um, it's it's one of my This
58:38
is really bad. It's one of my favorite passages. I know you shouldn't have favorite passages. That's bad. But I can't remember where it is except that it's in the book of Job.
59:13
Well, I'm going to start in verse five. It It comes down to verse four. I'm going to read the whole thing. I'll read the whole thing. It's only for Then Job responded, "What a help you are to the weak." He's talking to his friends. "What a help you are to the weak. How
59:25
you have saved the arm without without strength. What counsel you have given to one without wisdom. What help what helpful insight you have abundantly provided. He's being sarcastic. To whom
59:37
have you uttered words and whose spirit was expressed through you. The departed spirits trembled under the waters and their inhabitants naked as shol before
59:49
him. And Abdon had no covering. He stretches out the north over the empty space and hangs the earth on nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds and
59:59
the cloud does not burst under them. He obscures the face of the full moon and spreads his cloud over it. He has inscribed a circle on the surface of the
1:00:10
waters at the boundary of light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are amazed at his rebuke. He quieted the sea with his power. And by his understanding, he shattered Rahab. By
1:00:22
his breath, the heavens are cleared. His hand has pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are the fringes of his ways. And how faint a word we
1:00:35
hear of him, but his mighty thunder, who can understand? can understand? It's just fascinating that it's a beautiful poetic passage where he's
1:00:45
talking about the mighty works of God's creation and of his overcoming evil. Rahab, we talked about Rahab as the as the the the dragon when we talked about
1:00:55
Pharaoh and the and the battle of the plagues. But he goes on through all this litany of what God has done and he said these are just the fringes of his ways. Who can know the depths of his thunder?
1:01:08
Okay. So if if your Christianity is Jesus loves me, this I know, grow up.
1:01:19
grow up. You can't keep, you know, eating that pap. It it's there's just so much more. And
1:01:31
we can't we cannot mature. It's it's like a tree. It cannot grow tall if it doesn't sink its roots deep. And I think many people's Christianity
1:01:42
to outward appearances looks very tall. But there's no root structure. So um I I and and that's why I'm not advocating systematic theology because
1:01:53
all that does is fill your head. And what I've experienced is it fills your head with pride like a Pharisee because you know things
1:02:05
And you can utter doctrine. And you can prove doctrine using the Bible. That does not really mean much. What means what really means the most is
1:02:17
understanding God, knowing him, and being known by him. And he's revealed himself in his word. He he actually didn't reveal himself in the systematic
1:02:27
theology of of um Robert Lewis Dabney. as good as it is, it's it's not the revelation of God. And Dabney would never have maintained that it was, I
1:02:39
don't think. So, the depth of meaning that this offers um really points back to these two things that I put up here a little bit prematurely, the immutability of God and
1:02:50
the consummation of all things in Jesus Christ. So shifting in this last 20 minutes that we have, I want to shift back to um a
1:03:02
discussion that I started a couple weeks ago in terms of the law, Torah, because the church is still faced with the reality of the presence of the law
1:03:15
in both the Old and the New Testament. And we're told by Paul that the law the law is holy and righteous and good. And yet we're told we're not under law
1:03:26
but under grace. And we're told that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. So one of the perennial problems of the church for 2,000 years has been what do
1:03:38
we do with the law? And I've mentioned the the various ways of dealing with it. Okay? We we look we divide it up into ceremonial law and civil law and moral law and we get rid
1:03:51
of the first two or we at least get rid of the first one if we're a theonomist. We want to keep the second one but we all want we want to keep the third one the moral law as if the whole law wasn't
1:04:05
moral. Obedience to God is the ultimate morality or disobedience to God is the ultimate immorality. So that kind of uh hermeneutic or exugesus where we take
1:04:17
the law and we take the individual ordinances and everything and we put them in their classifications. Again, that's what we're doing. We just it's like we can't get away from Lanaeus.
1:04:27
We want to stick things into their kingdom and their filmm and their genus and their species and know what to do with them that way. But that's not how they're given to us. They're given to us
1:04:38
mediated through a living human race. a people of whom we are the rightful heirs. So our heritage is where the answer
1:04:52
lies, not in our classifications. But I do think though that there are at least two least two uh ways
1:05:03
uh ways that we can parse the law accurately. That we can recognize aspects of the law that not only do not apply but must not
1:05:18
apply. And as we read through Torah, we can ask our questions the qu these two questions. Does this particular institution or ritual or ordinance does
1:05:30
it mediate it mediate between God's people and God? That's one question. The second one is
1:05:40
does it represent an ethnic physical separation physical separation between Israel and the nations.
1:05:50
So mediation and separation are two aspects of the old covenant both of which are cancelled by the work of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy
1:06:03
Spirit. Let me
1:06:15
All right. So, we'll go back to my outline.
1:06:32
I don't think this one really needs a whole lot of explanation, especially for those who've been in the Leviticus study, but it's fairly obvious to anybody who's been reading the Bible
1:06:43
for some time that the Old Testament system was a system both of proximity and infinite distance.
1:06:54
That God dwelt in the midst of his people, but he did so through mediation. And that mediation was very rigid. It was physical and visible.
1:07:05
It was a a priesthood and then a high priest. And it was only one day a year that there was any anyone went into the presence of God.
1:07:16
And I don't think enough has been made of the fact that the ironic priesthood was a silent one.
1:07:27
that at no point as we read through Leviticus at the various sacrifices and even the day of atonement at no point do we read of the high priest or any of the
1:07:37
priests saying anything. I think that's that that's there's more to that than just than meets the eye. It
1:07:48
really to me it kind of uh it it's it's in indicated by Ecclesiastes where the writer says, "God is in heaven and man is on earth. Therefore, let your
1:08:02
words be few when you come into his presence." Well, according to Leviticus, the ironic priesthood indeed had very few words, like none. They had no ritual
1:08:15
sayings, no expressions, no they when they laid hands. There was nothing said when they did the scapegoat there was nothing said. It was all symbol, all
1:08:28
visual, no words. I don't know what to make of that. I think one thing that could be made of it is that God knew that there was any words to be said, they would be
1:08:39
perverted by man. And the history of religion has shown that. And because there are no words actually in the scripture, guess what the rabbis did?
1:08:52
They put words into the mouth of the high priest during this the ritual of the scapegoat. They actually said, "Well, this is what he says." And they came up with all these long prayers and and basically rabbitic
1:09:05
baloney. Well, not baloney. Um beef baloney. Okay. baloney. Okay. Watch my dietary laws there. All right.
1:09:27
Constant. He he gave the whole law to the people. In fact, most of his life was speaking as far as we can read it. Yeah. But he also wasn't the priest. He wasn't the priest. The priests had nothing to say. They simply they simply
1:09:39
did. They mediated blood between the sinner and God. And and without mediation, there was no sustaining of that relationship at all.
1:10:02
with Moses. No, the Levites talked to the people. They just did not talk to God when when they were out. Yes, it was their responsibility. They did teach the people. That's what they were supposed
1:10:13
to do. They were teaching the people the law that God gave to Moses, God, Moses, Aaron, and then the people. Fine. But when But what I'm saying is during the sacrificial ritual, the mediation,
1:10:26
they didn't say anything. There was no formula spoken over the different sacrifices. They were just told what to do, what to take, what to burn, what to bury, what to wear, where
1:10:37
to go. to go. But there's no dialogue in the whole system. And and I just think that's fascinating that there's a total lack. It's
1:10:49
especially fascinating when you compare it to other ancient religions which were full of various mantras and and uh and chibths and and and formulas and no none
1:11:02
of that. So it's a silent ministry. Um it's it's a ministry that does not highlight the priest. It is simply the responsibility of the priest to mediate. Now when you when you
1:11:15
look at that fact and then move into the New Testament um the first thing you see is there is a dual barrier
1:11:28
between the priesthood and God. Now go the priesthood is the mediation but even there it's not you know just come in come out you know and talk to God and
1:11:39
get up on daddy's knee and that kind of garbage that we sometimes hear in modern um pulpits or pigsty or whatever they really are
1:11:57
their calling as Levi and then the family of Aaron But they were separated from God, the writer of Hebrews tells us, by two spatial and temporal barriers.
1:12:10
The spatial barrier. Now, this ties into our discussion of sacred space and sacred time
1:12:21
that we had several weeks ago. So, it all kind of flows together. Uh spatial was of course the veils. The the courtyard itself was was
1:12:32
enclosed by as it were a veil fabrics were put over the framing. And then you come into the the tabernacle proper and you had a veil
1:12:42
before the outer tent where there was the table of showbread and the lampstand and the altar of incense. And then another veil before the ark of the covenant and the holy of holies. These
1:12:53
were physical spatial barriers that every Israelite could see, at least the main one. And when they were at the altar, they could see the veil before
1:13:05
the holy place. What they could not see was the veil before the Holy of Holies. But the priests could because every day they would go into the outer tent and
1:13:16
minister before the Lord with the altar of incense and the lampstand and the table of showbread. And every time they were doing that, they could see the other veil. The veil that they weren't
1:13:28
allowed to go through, the veil that only the high priest could go through and only once a year. So the writer of Hebrews talks about these veils. He talks about these spatial separations
1:13:39
and then he talks about the temporal He says they were prevented by death from continuing.
1:13:51
from continuing. You see what he's trying to drive at is that these veils in order for their to the Holy Spirit to show that the way to God is made manifest these veils have to disappear. There can be no veils between
1:14:03
the people of God and their God. Otherwise that the way the unto God has not been made manifest and it also has
1:14:13
to be one that goes beyond death. We have to have a high priest who ever lives to make intercession. So you have a spatial barrier and a
1:14:23
temporal barrier. You have sacred space. You have sacred time. And all of these things are woven into the revelation of God pointing to Jesus Christ, who
1:14:34
abolishes the barriers completely. At his death, the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom. And now we're told by the writer of Hebrews that we go
1:14:44
in the veil boldly into the presence of God to seek mercy and grace in our time of need. See that that barrier is gone. And we have a high priest who ever
1:14:57
lives. He he tasted death. He conquered death. And now that temporal barrier is gone. So we're told in the New Testament, Paul writes to Timothy that there is one
1:15:08
mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ the righteous. Pet uh John says in his first letter that we have an advocate with the father, Jesus the
1:15:18
righteous. Again, where did anybody come up with a pope in the New Testament? only by replacing the high priest of the Old Testament.
1:15:31
Where do you come up with a an intermediate a mediatorial priesthood in the New Testament only by trying to replace the one of the Old Testament?
1:15:41
But all of those are sacrilege because they take the place of the finished work of Jesus Christ. They're not the gospel.
1:15:51
And I don't know how any Christian can sit under the guidance of a priest.
1:16:06
Yes. We don't have to go through anyone if with the confession of our sins, with our prayers, with our adoration and our praise. Our relationship with God in Christ is now fully open.
1:16:18
And because the Holy Spirit dwells in us, it is reciprocal. So Paul says the Holy Spirit groans with with groanings deeper than words and intercedes for us.
1:16:29
So we have the Holy Spirit interceding in us and the high priest ever living to make intercession for us and we are to now boldly coming into the presence of God. I mean really when you get a I
1:16:42
don't think any of us really get a gets a handle on that. But that's what we have now in Christ. Okay. Is that that absolute freedom of access that there
1:16:52
can be no and and this is a this is a kind of another litmus test for any believer's relationship within their church. Do you view Mark andor me
1:17:05
as a mediator between you and God?
1:17:15
hospital and someone else from the church comes and prays for you that you get better, but that doesn't really count because he's not the pastor.
1:17:34
That is what many people think. And that is false. That is really, really, really wrong. Because every one of the believer, any believer in Jesus Christ is a priest unto his God. Okay?
1:17:45
And every believer's intercession for one another is as powerful or as weak as any other one. There's no there's no priesthood. There's no mediator because
1:17:58
that's gone. So anything we read in the Old Testament concerning mediation cannot apply under the New Covenant. The second one is separation. And I'm
1:18:09
going to have to go quickly here. And we talked a little bit about this before and of course we got into the discussion about yes, we are supposed to be separate. So what I am talking about is the three specific
1:18:24
physical visible means of ethnic distinction that set Israel apart from all the other nations and was intended to do so. that
1:18:36
is circumcision, the dietary laws and the Sabbath. the Sabbath. Now, when you read the New Testament, both the Gospels and especially Paul's
1:18:48
letters, those three are dismantled. circumcision and I think that's primarily because he
1:19:00
was sent to the lost sheep of Israel and he was born under the law and he had not yet fulfilled yet fulfilled through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the meaning of circumcision.
1:19:13
But he did declare all foods clean by saying it not is not what goes into a man that defiles him but what comes out what comes out from his heart. thus
1:19:23
declaring all foods clean. And in terms of the Sabbath, he did not abregate the Sabbath, but he did say the Son of Man was the Lord of the Sabbath.
1:19:34
And that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So he didn't take as far a step as Paul would take, but then of course Jesus had not
1:19:45
yet taken the step that would allow Paul to do what he did with these three. He had not yet gone to the cross. He had not yet conquered sin. He had not yet
1:19:55
entered into his rest at the right hand of the father. But when we start reading Paul's letters, we find that there there the kingdom of God is not a matter of
1:20:06
food or drink. He says that one man can eat meat and another doesn't. And his primary focus seems to be food sacrificed to idols. When he talks about clean and unclean,
1:20:18
Jesus himself said, "You are all clean because of the teaching which I have given you." Now, of course, that didn't refer to Judas a Scariot who he mentions elsewhere, but they are all clean. They
1:20:30
don't need to have their whole bodies washed, just their feet because they are already clean. Paul takes that up again and he shows that food sacrificed to an idol is nothing. that he can eat it, but
1:20:43
he will not use his liberty to cause a brother to stumble. We'll be getting into that in January in Romans 14. This whole concept of of food and drink, but he he clear he clearly lays it out in
1:20:54
that chapter that that's not the issue, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, that's the kingdom of God.
1:21:04
Circumcision. Well, again, Jesus doesn't say much about it, but what does Paul say? Well, it's easy to say that Paul was against it. That is not
1:21:16
as nuanced as his actual treatment. He actually had no problem with Jews continuing to be circumcised. And he circumcised Timothy, whose mother
1:21:27
was a Jewish, because he did not want to unnecessarily offend those he would be preaching to. He knew he had enough necessary offense to give them not to have any unnecessary offense.
1:21:39
So he never tells a Jewish convert, in fact, he specifically says in First Corinthians, if you were saved while circumcised, do not become
1:21:53
uncircumcised. Have you ever wondered what that means? Because as we talked about before, it's not a reversible operation, right? It means if you're a Jew, stay a
1:22:05
Jew. Don't become a Gentile unless you want to. But you know, he says you don't have to change the circumstance in which Christ finds you. If you're circumcised, be c if you're uncircumcised, don't get
1:22:17
circumcised. He would absolutely not permit a gentile to be circumcised. So his position was very ambivalent in
1:22:27
the sense of who got circumcised. He did not just simply forbid it entirely. But what he says is in 1 Corinthians 7,
1:22:37
circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. What matters is obeying the commandment of God. You see what he's doing there?
1:22:49
Obeying Torah is what matters. Not circumcision and not uncircumcision. Those are non-issues anymore because
1:23:00
what circumcision here we go the content of the promise and the depth of meaning what circumcision I think clearly points to in the Old Testament is the
1:23:10
circumcision of the heart. That's Ezekiel 36. I will take out of you your heart of stone and put into you a heart of flesh. Jeremiah 31. I will
1:23:22
write my law upon your heart. That's what circumcision points to, not baptism. Baptism represents death and rising
1:23:33
again. The death and resurrection. Circumcision points to regeneration. Okay? So they are associated but not one replacing the other. So circumcision to
1:23:46
Paul is fulfilled by the work of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, Jews, if you want to keep circumcising your sons, fine. I don't care. Gentiles, don't you do it. He says to the Gal to the
1:23:57
Galatians, if if you do if you become circumcised, Christ is of no benefit to you. You have fallen from grace. That's a pretty
1:24:09
powerful statement. Okay. Galatians 5 1 and two if you want the reference. All right. Finally, Sabbath. Well, we spent a long time talking about the Sabbath.
1:24:20
Um, but again, what does Paul say about the Sabbath? Jesus says that the son of man is the Lord of the Sabbath. And and he apparently broke the rabbitic traditions at least in uh in eating and
1:24:32
and plucking grain from the field or his disciples did on the Sabbath, healing on the Sabbath. In fact, I think Jesus was kind of poking the bear a lot of times because he he tended to do a lot of his
1:24:44
miracles on the Sabbath. like, okay, let's just gigg him a little bit harder. Um, but I also gave him an opportunity to teach the truth. Paul,
1:24:56
uh, again, he's quite ambivalent. He says, "One man considers every day the same, and another considers one day more important than the others. Let each man be convinced in his own mind." He says
1:25:07
to the Colossians, "Do not be brought under bondage by those who emphasize days and festivals and Sabbaths." Well, some argue, well, that can't refer
1:25:18
to the Sabbath because the Sabbath is the fourth commandment. Well, if that's the case, then Paul could have been a little bit clearer. He could have kind of helped us out a little bit by saying, "Now, I don't mean
1:25:29
the weekly Sabbath here, okay? I just mean all the other Sabbaths." But that's not what he says. Like food, days are of no importance to him. You
1:25:42
want to celebrate it, fine. You don't, fine. be convinced in your own mind. Now, that actually personally that and maybe I'm wrong, but for my own
1:25:54
conscience that settled Christmas for me. That's a day that's obviously very important to many Christians. Wasn't always that way. In fact, during the
1:26:05
Puritan era, it was absolutely not that way. But knowing that we're not commanded to celebrate the nativity of Jesus Christ, first of all, knowing secondly that is
1:26:16
highly unlikely, if not impossible, that he was actually born on December 25th, that what we're really dealing with is a pagan holiday of the winter solstice being co-opted by Christianity during
1:26:28
the Middle Ages in order to get pagans kind of hooked in. That's what Christmas is about.
1:26:41
And yet it's such a wonderful time. I love it, you know, and and so it was really difficult for me to come to the conclusion that I couldn't celebrate Christmas. So again, this may be just justifi just
1:26:52
justification. Um but I consider one day more important than others. You know, I consider Christmas to be a wonderful time of the
1:27:05
year. you know, a time of beauty, of peace, of giving, of love. Um, and I think it's pretty neat that today start getting longer again. You know
1:27:16
what's that? what's that? Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Yeah. Right. You know, for you especially, you know, I'm thinking of you, brother. Um, but I mean, what what this means is that
1:27:27
we don't have to hold ourselves to certain rigid standards and hold each other each other other to these rigid standards. Paul says, "No, just be convinced in your own mind because anything done apart from faith is sin."
1:27:39
So if you don't observe the day and yet you're not convinced that you shouldn't, you're sinning. Actually, you're sinning more than if you just did observe the day. And and we're causing one another
1:27:51
to sin from the pulpits when we say, "Well, you can't do that. Well, you can't do that." We're not walking in faith. We're walking in legalism and in
1:28:03
bondage. And and so these things when when we read the Old Testament, we see, oh, this was something that had no inherent meaning in terms of holiness. We talked about that in Leviticus with the dietary
1:28:15
laws. There's nothing wrong with pork. There's nothing inherently wrong with pork. And as I said then, God could have easily taught them how to cook it. Most
1:28:27
of the ironic priesthood was Julia Child in the kitchen. Of course, Elvin only had one setting. Olam burnt offering. Okay.
1:28:40
I've been in kitchens like that. Not mine. Not not Angelus, that's for sure. Um, what was I saying? When we when we read things in the Old
1:28:51
Testament that seem to only be there to erect a separation, an ethnic separation between Israel and the nations.
1:29:04
We need to remember that there is now no distinction between Jew and Gentile. that all of that has been united in Jesus Christ and therefore we can have
1:29:16
no such separations within the church whether it's male or female Jew or gentile black white slave free rich poor all those social distinctions and the
1:29:28
once religious distinctions have been abolished in Jesus Christ he has made the two into one new man let's close in
1:29:39
prayer Father, we do rejoice and and thank you for the work of your salvation in Jesus Christ and ask that you would deepen our understanding of your promises and their
1:29:51
fulfillment in him that we might live in those promises and even bask in them and rejoice in them and yet also live according to the responsibility of those
1:30:02
who have been given the promise. that circumcision means nothing and uncircumcision means nothing but what matters is obeying the commandments of God. Guide us into the path of truth and
1:30:14
obedience. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.