Published: November 6, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 2 - Exodus, Exile, and Eschatology - Part 10 | Scripture: Exodus 19-20; Deuteronomy 4-5
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So the question I have up on the board, what was Israel? Um, represents probably the most fundamental divide in modern
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evangelicalism in terms of not just our interpretation of the Old Testament, but actually the overall redemptive purpose of God, past,
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present, and future. and and and of course it impacts our politics too. Uh what was Israel has several possible
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answers. Um the first and and I'm going to go through the most common first. The first two um Israel was a new way of
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Now there is an element of truth in in each of these um optional answers to the question what was Israel was Israel um and of course elements of truth or
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what make error so effective. So, a new way of salvation. Well, you can reasonably say that during the
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period of Israel's history, pretty much no one outside of Israel was saved in the sense of being a member
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of the covenant community. Paul says that in Ephesians, you were apart from God. You were without hope. Okay? So, uh you were cut off from the covenant. you
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were you know and God and God in Christ has brought you near. So he he basically describes the condition of the rest of the world which was known as the ethnoi
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or the nations or also translated gentiles. Um so the world was divided up into two peoples the uh Israelites and the rest of the world the nations. So
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certainly in a sense in a in an in an analogous sense of that phrase um extra eccles outside the church there is no salvation. Well, if you're talking about
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church in the right meaning then that is a true statement. You're outside of Christ there is no salvation. Well, if anyone wanted to be and they didn't really use you don't really find the
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word saved in the Old Testament. So, I'm speaking anacronistically when I say if anybody wanted to be saved under the old covenant like a Rahab or a Ruth, um you
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you'd have to say basically as Ruth did, your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God. Um you had to uh the procilitize you you had to come into
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the covenant community uh in which case you were treated as if you were a native born Israelite. So there's a sense in which a new way of salvation is a true statement. Uh but there's even a more
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important way or sense in which it is not true. Okay. Um so this idea that Judaism is established as a works religion again
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this this is pretty much prevalent in most Christian thought in the west mightily influenced by Martin Luther
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and his assessment of the Apostle Paul which was essentially that Paul was a frustrated Jew. frustrated Jew. and that his epiphany was to come into
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the realization that Judaism was a works religion and salvation is by grace. Um, that is totally wrong and does not even remotely reflect Paul's writings. It it
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most certainly reflects Luther's thoughts much more than it does Paul's. But Luther's thoughts were very
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um persuasive to the reformed church. uh and there isn't a whole lot of love lost in the Catholic Church towards Judaism either. So by the time of the reformation and and much earlier Judaism
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had essentially been written off as a works religion and and a a failed attempt um at at bringing a people to God. The law was deadly. Okay. So the
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idea of a works religion or a works salvation
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and and it's this concept of a works salvation that I think gave Luther such a hard time with the book of James that he just could could not understand how anybody could mention Abraham's
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works um and and uh without actually advocating a works righteousness or a works salvation. works salvation. Again, I think Luther's judgment was clouded. Um, he was a product of his
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time. Frankly, anti-semitism was quite rampant at that time. Um, and there really wasn't very very few evangelical scholars bothered to learn Hebrew. That
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was very rare. So, by that time, the Old Testament had been um well, at least the religion of the Old Testament had been pretty much written off. But but we still have this idea that in you know
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Judaism they were saved by the law and if they kept the law then um then they were okay. God would preserve them.
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Not so much Lutheranism. Definitely Catholicism mixes works and grace, but Luther was pretty pretty strong on justification by faith alone. And um I
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don't know about so much about modern Lutheranism. Yeah, modern Lutheranism I think is is mostly a social religion and your good works are helping the poor and you know
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good social works. Um I I don't know that you would consider much of modern Lutherism even as evangelical. Is that a fair statement? If you know, I mean, um,
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so I I think they're they're they're kind of like Methodism. They they're they're not, uh, they're not the denomination of Martin Luther or Philip
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Meenthon um, or Spain or the the Lutheran of the 16th and 17th century. They're pretty much a kind of a mainstream liberal denomination. And the the works that
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they're talking about are are not even the works of righteousness that you might read in the Bible. They're not works of faith. They're they're works of social action and and and good works
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like that. So this idea of work salvation, it's it's justification
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And Luther would say, you know, that's what Paul used to think. And then when he when he saw the light, he could write to the Galatians, by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. So he
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he realized the error of his early years and his early belief that Judaism was just frankly um in a sense almost a false religion. Now, that that presents
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a problem because it is certainly a religion that's presented to the Israelites by God. Um, and so you got to do a little bit of gymnastics there to show how it turned false. Um, but the
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easiest thing to do is just kind of ignore it and and don't don't really get into the the weeds of Old Testament Judaism. Now this view um and uh I I
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have been told that I I do come down too hard on dispensationalism. I have been told that on a number of occasions. Um and I beg to differ. I
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honestly don't think I come down hard enough. Um I I I think every the older I get, the more I read, the more dangerous I consider that entire hermeneutic
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on many different counts. Uh the least of which is their esquetology about which I which I would wouldn't give uh two cents. I
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could care less. I couldn't care less. Forgive me. Um but their view on on the gospel, on the scriptures is just so completely wrong on Israel, on the
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church, uh it is so completely wrong as to be um heretical. So anybody who thought I've been too hard on dispensation, you can put that in your
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pipe and smoke it. Okay? So, but dispensationalism here in the United States, which is where it's really caught root, okay? not so much in
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Europe. Uh maybe a little bit in Great Britain, but I don't think it's really prevalent there. Not like it is here. But dispensationalism But dispensationalism is is to this view of of Judaism as a
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separate works religion uh kind of analogous to Darwin's origin of species. And that is it takes an esoteric theory and makes it popular through books like
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Left Behind, which is what you should do with the books. Okay, leave them behind. Um, but Um, but the the idea of dispensationalism neatly
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separates us into seven I'm adding a word here that we really haven't I I've described it in the past
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but I haven't used sotiological come from the Greek comes from the Greek word soter which means to save. So, soiology is the doctrine of salvation.
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So, these dispensations, these seven dispensations, I think we we need to realize these are so terriiological, which means each one of them is a
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hermetically sealed, unique, and complete method of salvation for fallen man.
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Okay, that that's really important to understand because what it means is that God has had so far six plans of how to save men.
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Five of them have utterly failed. According to dispensational esquetology, the sixth will not fail because we're all going to be beamed up before it
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Scotty and the seventh of course is going to be the uh remediation of the fifth when the failure will become a success. All right. So these are these
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are so te so teological. I I hope you see how important that is because what it does what it posits is a god who's trying everything.
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he's just trying anything, you know, and then when it fails, he's like, I'll try something else. Um, that's not the God of scripture.
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of scripture. It is also a hermeneutic that divides the scripture. And the irony is that Scoffield especially camped upon that verse in uh first Timothy. Um study to
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show yourself approved a skilled craftsman able to rightly divide the word of truth. Um I can't remember who it was but he made the comment that in
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attempting to rightly divide the word of truth dispensationalism has wrongly divided the word of God. And that is a very true statement.
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So I I again I I imagine if I if I stick around much longer, I'm going to be harder and harder on dispensationalism as time goes on because there's very little redeeming in it. Um in fact,
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none. I can't think of anything that redeems that hermeneutic. Um and so here we we kind of have I mean I don't know that you what familiarity you have with
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dispensationalism but but certainly a fundamental tenant of dispensationalism of dispensationalism is that Israel was a the the Mosaic covenant was a means of salvation
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and with the death of Israel's Messiah that brought that dispensation to a close in complete complet failure. Israel rejected her Messiah. And so God
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has instituted now the church age where the means of salvation is simply grace, simply faith. Now hopefully you can see
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that this is going to have a massive impact on how you read and interpret the Ten Commandments, right? Um and that's where we're headed. We're going to be talking about the Ten Commandments. Um,
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next week we're not going to I'm not going to execute the Ten Commandments. That's not the point of this class. I want to try to show the role of Torah with the Ten Commandments as as their
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primary summary statement in the overall picture of what God's doing here with Israel at the foot of Mount Si.
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Mount Si. Because I do agree with the commentator um Fretheim. I've never heard of him before. I have his commentary on Exodus, but I I do agree with his section where
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he he talks about the relationship of the story to the the law. And I mentioned this last week that liberal uh scholars tell us that the the law came
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during and after the exile and then the story was developed to go around the law. Fredim points out that that's totally
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backwards. Uh the irony is he's actually a liberal scholar and very much um in love with the documentary hypothesis and the multiple sources and all of the different criticisms, higher, tradition,
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form. And yet he he doesn't seem to hear himself talking because he's disproving his basic fundamental uh ethos as as
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he's saying that no the story is what the law comes out of. The the story is the the uh the setting of the law and
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and the law cannot be understood without the story nor can it be pulled out of the story. And I think he's absolutely right. And I think um when we start looking at the Ten Commandments and how
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Christianity has handled them, especially reformed Protestant Christianity, I what we've been trying to do is pull this the Ten Commandments out of their
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setting. Like they're a a jewel, a diamond, and we don't need the ring. or they're a they're a they're a a a
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valuable crown jewel and we don't need the crown. We can just pull it out and leave the other stuff. But his point is, and I he makes it very well. I've quoted him some
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in the notes. His point is you can't do that that you cannot understand the Ten Commandments apart from its setting in history. And and that history still has
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us at the foot of Mount Si, which we're going to be there for a while. as not only do we do do we get the ten commandments and Torah in its entirety but we also get the tabernacle which
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we've been talking about in our Leviticus study. Uh tabernac or Torah and tabernacle constitute the second exodus complex and also a year of
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Israel's life. Okay. So that's a very important period and and I would say uh from the from the standpoint of the grammar of the Old Testament where we
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are right now with Israel at the foot of Mount Si is the most important historical event for the for the entire rest of scripture up into the at least
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into the New Testament and then into the New Testament. But of course at that point it's going to be superseded by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Okay. So um the first one is Israel is a
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is a new means of salvation. The second one kind of is very much like the first.
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bffs. And again there's an element of truth to this. Certainly we read in Exodus 19 that we looked at last week that God chose Israel from among the nations for and he
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says for all the nations are mine. So he's in a sense he seems to be showing favoritism here although he makes it very clear in for example in Deuteronomy 7:7 that it had nothing to
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do with Israel. It it certainly wasn't for their merit or their power or their wisdom or any such thing because in Egypt they had none of that. Um it was
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for his promise to the patriarch Abraham. Um and then purely from his gracious merciful will that Israel has
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chosen. But Israel itself became very ethnosentric and very proud of its being God's
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people. And that happened early on. But then it happened, it was very much the case in Jesus's day and in Paul's day um in Romans 2 when when Paul says, "You being
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a Jew, a teacher of nations, the the the guide to the blind, um he's basically saying the things that the Jews said of themselves, you know, and and the Jews
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turned into a very exclusive and arrogant people. arrogant people. Anti-semitism is is entirely
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because no one likes a person much less a people who consciously and proudly avoid any
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assimilation or even association with other peoples. If you put those disassociated people into the diaspora
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where they are a distinct minority in every country in which they live, you can begin to understand why they became a hated people.
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Does that make sense? No. No. It was essentially adopt. They took it. They're they're what was put upon them
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upon them came after they they made it very clear that and and and rightly so that they were not going to intermar and they were not going to to sacrifice two idols. I
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mean they're being an exclusive people which was quite right as they should have. Please don't misunderstand me because we should be the same way. What I'm saying is that attitude in the world
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will engender hatred. Is that is that understood what I'm saying? Okay. They're not going to people are not going to say, "Oh, that's fine. You just do what you want right in
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our midst and you ignore all our customs and traditions and spurn our religion and our daughters and our sons. Yeah, fine. And we'll just be fine with that."
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There's never been a people who said that. Okay. What they what people do say is, "No, we will wipe you out." Or, "If you want to be so isolated, here's a ghetto for you. Go live there." Okay?
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And and I'm so I'm not justifying anti-semitism. I'm just saying historically, this is it's like when Jesus said or when Paul said, "All who would live righteous shall suffer
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persecution." Now, I'm not saying the Jews at this point are righteous, but they are they are isolated and exclusive, especially the chapardic, you know, and the Ashkanazi, the those that suffered the
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most. Many Jews in the modern era did assimilate into western culture and inner marry, but more of them did not.
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And they maintained their cultural which engendered the hatred of the host culture almost inevitably almost
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unavoidably because of man's fallen nature. So that's offered simply not as a justification but as an understanding of the of the advent and persistence of
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anti-semitism since AD.70. Okay. Um but but this idea that they are God's chosen people is also a central tenant of dispensational
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teaching especially esquetology but it impinges directly on their ecclesiology because in dispensationalism it is
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impossible to understand the church of Jesus Christ in any relationship to Israel because Israel is Isra Israel, the
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church is the church and they are indeed hermetically sealed. So the idea of God's forever people is it comes down to
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this. What was promised to Israel
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Now that that reres havoc on the New Testament use of Old Testament scripture applied to the church. I really don't know how the dispensationalist gets away, for example, with Hebrews 8. Well, I do know
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Hebrews 8 is a repetition of Jeremiah 31, which is the promise of the new covenant. And the way though, and 1 Peter 1 um calls the church uh a
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peculiar people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood uh verses that we just read in Exodus 19. Now, the way the dispensationalist gets away with that is to simply say that the
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writer of the Hebrews and Peter, they were writing to Jewish Christians. That gentile Christians cannot take those verses to themselves.
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That's that's that's where you end up when you do this. When you keep Israel and the church forever separate, then you you have to manipulate passages
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in the New Testament so that you can get around the fact that the New Testament writers are applying Old Testament fulfilled promises fulfilled promises to the church, to believers.
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Now there's no distinction made in Hebrews, no distinction made in first Peter that would would that justify the idea that this was written specifically to Jews, Jewish believers and not also
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Gentile believers. When we add in Romans 11 or Ephesians 2 where we learn that we have been grafted in or that in Christ who is our peace, he has made the two
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men into one, Jew and Gentile without distinction. When we read those, we understand that the writer of Hebrews was speaking to believers, Jew or
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Gentile, and Peter was doing the same thing. And so they could freely use these Old Testament descriptive terms of God's people now in application to the
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church. So a view that they are that they are God's forever people. It lies behind this um this this idea
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that what failed in the fifth dispensation will be remediated in the seventh. that Israel will once again be restored as a as a sovereign nation with Christ
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as her king during the millennium. So this brings us into dispensational
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and so these two views of Israel, what Israel was Israel was are are again very related and they do flow out of dispensationalism. They're they're just a little bit diffological
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and the other one is more national that God is not going to have another uh Christian nation which I agree with. I don't think he's going to have another
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nation in the sense because we are the holy nation, the church. The problem is I I don't believe that u Israel will ever again be what it was at the foot of
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Mount Si that that that was eradicated in AD.70. in AD.70. And in fact, historically, all possibility of such a restoration is
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impossible because all of the records, all the genealological records have been destroyed. They're gone. And so they have no idea who a Levite is. No notion. U now I I was told that that God will
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make that clear at that time. That's not how God works. And in fact, that what I just said is a biblical statement because after the exile, when
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the returnees came back to to Judea, they were to celebrate the Passover, but some of the priests did not have their genealogical records. They were not
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allowed to minister. Okay? God did not give some Urim and Thumim that said, "Yes, they are Levites." Nope. They didn't have their genealogical. They didn't have their birth certificate.
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they didn't have their ancestry.com documents. So, nope, you don't minister. Okay. So, God doesn't bend those rules. What he did do, though, is obliterate the whole database. Okay? Um and and
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that's a very strong apologetic for for believers, especially with with Jews if they do pay attention to their scripture, which most of them don't. Um
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in fact there was a rabbi in the time of the barba revolt in the early 2nd century that I don't know why I think from the basis of the the visions of Daniel
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he had concluded that Messiah would not come. Now this is after the destruction of AD.70 of AD.70 which is really the dumal of the four
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kingdoms of Daniel 7. Okay. So, he he I can't remember who it was. It wasn't um Hakiba. It was one of his colleagues.
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He basically what he said was I remember what he said. He says grass will grow in your beard and still Messiah will not have come.
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have come. You you will be long dead is what he's saying. And he was denying and that's what where Israel is today. They do not believe in a personal Messiah. whatever messia messianic views they
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have have to do with the nation of Israel. It has nothing to do with a personal uh servant of Yahweh or or son of David or any of that. They've given that all up. Okay. Um but the after AD70
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there were those who simply that's it. There's going to be no Messiah because the point being is he should have already come.
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There's no way any Jew who reads his the way they're written could come away thinking that the
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Messiah is still to come. He should have already come. He has to be of the tribe of Judah and he has to be of the family of David. of David. Again, both of which have been
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So the idea that God that God has chosen um Israel as his forever people falls at the at the reality of what has
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happened to Israel. A and the reality is Israel as a people has been
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horribly disfigured in the sense that it it no longer has the the important distinctiveness that it had under the old covenant. So those two I think they just don't
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hold water. Um, now the third one we're going to I think holds more to
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Israel is a special treasure, a peculiar or um particular people chosen by God from among the nations.
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To what purpose? Scripture makes it clear, as I already alluded to, Deuteronomy 7. Scripture makes it clear that God did not choose Israel because of any any merit he found
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either past, present, or future in the nation of Israel. Even Moses's song in Deuteronomy
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inherently predicts their falling away. Jeson will grow fat and will kick. Okay? and and actually prophesies the exile. So, um So, um there was nothing in Israel that
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justified God's election of them as a nation. It was done because of his love for Abraham whom he also chose out of the pagans on the on the east of the of
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the uh Euphrates River. So, Abraham did not find God. God found him. So, we we've already established that. So um so Israel is a special nation from among
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the nations for all the nations belong to God. to God. So God is making a choice here. The question is why
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Israel as a people is entirely on account of the grace of God. We've talked about that before. The terminology used for example in Isaiah I think it's 43 is the terminology of
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Genesis 1. Genesis 1. both bar create which is only ever used with God as the subject and the other yatser formed which is used in Genesis 2
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to talk about the creation of Adam that he was formed out of the dust of the ground. So the idea of calling into being that which was not
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is applied to Israel. Okay. So they were not a nation. Now they are a nation. And that's really what Mount Si is all about. We talked about the the charter of the covenant
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the uh the Suzaranti treaty at Mount Si that that God was constituting this people as a nation. So he he calls them the question then
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becomes why? Well,
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I think we can really we can use the terminology of the New Testament and we can use the terminology of the church. Now, what order you put these in is is irrelevant to me. I I think that they
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are actually two sides of the same coin as it were. They're they're not two different functions of God's people. Um a worship that is not also witness is
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isolated and insulated and is not pleasing to God. A witness that does not worship is nothing but duty.
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Uh and there there's no heart in it. There's no love in it. So the the idea of Torah and the tabernacle can be um can be summarized by these two
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active verbs, witness and worship. I think the clearest place is Deuteronomy 4. So let me read that passage. I've read it already uh several times, but I
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think it's well worth uh bringing in here because the question is what you know what was what was God doing when he called Israel into being starting in
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verse uh five of of Deuteronomy 4. See, I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the
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Lord my God commanded me, that you should that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is
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your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and
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understanding people in the presence of." Okay. I I think that's a a I've long thought that that's a a very fundamental
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phrase in our understanding both of the creation and position and responsibility of Israel
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of Israel but typologically in fulfillment the church. the church. What we read of Israel in Deuteronomy 4, we could say is the church's duty.
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That by obeying Christ's commandments, we show ourselves to be his disciples. And where do we do this? Well, we don't do this isolated into a walled cloister
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or a monastery. Those are some of the worst perversions of Christianity over the last 2,000 years. and that is that we need to go
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out from the world into some secluded um community whereby we can be holy. God intended Israel to be a holy nation
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in the midst of the peoples surrounding them. And I I've often pointed this out. If you look at the ancient near east, if you wanted to create a people and
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then put them off somewhere safe where the rest of the world would not influence them, the last place you would put them is in the bottleneck between
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all of the ancient neareastern empires. You have the Mediterranean Sea to the west and the Arabian desert to the east. The only way to get from Assyria to
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Egypt or vice versa or from Egypt to the Hittite Empire was to roll right over that little neck of land where God put
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Israel because he intended for them to worship him as witnesses of his power, his truth, his grace. And so the obedience to the law was not
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unto salvation. unto salvation. It was because of redemption and it was the framework for a holy
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community. Their wisdom and their understanding was given to them by their creator. And they were to display this in a in a part of that ancient world that was the the as I
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said it was the bottleneck not only of the vast armies that rolled back and forth but all of the caravans of commerce ran right through there.
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So it was a great place for Solomon to get rich. You just needed tariffs. They work. They work so well. Um, I
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wonder if they had recessions back then. And it was also a very dangerous place because Israel was constantly threatened by Egypt, by Babylon, Assyria,
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constantly threatened by the powers that surrounded her. So, it was a very dangerous place. But, but in it's very uh I think um directly analogous to the
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church that we are not called to be monastic communities. We are called to be his witnesses and his worshippers in the midst of every tongue, tribe, and
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nation. We're no longer located in one place where all the nations come through. Now we have been scattered into
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all the nations, but the the role of witness still remains. And I think the um the framework of witness still remains Torah. That's where we're
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headed. I throw that out there as an ordev. Uh but but when you look at how Christians deal with the ten commandments and with the law in general, the not only the primary focus,
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I I would say the obsession of Christian exugesus is to figure out how does it apply to me today? Do I have to keep the Sabbath today? Do I have to
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keep the dietary laws today? Okay, that that's all the conversation is either how valuable the law is for you or how dangerous the law is. No one ever seems
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to bother to to understand the law in its historical setting. In other words, understand the law as part of the story. So, that's where we're headed as we talk
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about the Ten Commandments is not to spend time um agonizing over how each one applies, you know, to Christians today. I don't think there's any profit
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in that. I don't think that that ever leads to anything um that is anything more than what's known as natural reason or the light of nature. In other words, for example,
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where in the world is murder legal by statute. Yeah, it's not. Theft is not. Okay. So,
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you don't really do any any good um pointing out that this law or that law still applies to us because you get a you get a resounding duh. Okay. And respect for parents. That that's part of
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every stable culture in human history, is it not? and and when that is lost, so is cultural stability. So, you know, you've got both the positive and the
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negative there. So, there's nothing unique. In fact, there's very little unique about the Ten Commandments. Very little uh mostly in the top four. Okay. After the fourth one, everything
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else is pretty much common uh human wisdom throughout the ages. And liberals have a field day with that because they say, "Well, there's nothing special about this." So just looking at the laws
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themselves doesn't really give us any insight as to why is this such a big deal? Why why are these why is the decalogue so important to the life of Israel when so many of them are just
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common legal code in all of human history. So that's how I want to approach the ten commandments is not to execute each one. We're going to talk primarily uh only about a couple of them
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um in the next coming weeks. But what I want to try to point out is where they fit in this narrative. And and and when we understand where Israel fits in the
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narrative and we see the typological importance of Israel to the church, then everything that went with Israel will go with us.
42:01
except for those things that we can say have been fulfilled in Christ. And that really has to do with the sacrifices, but we'll we'll talk about that when we talk about the tabernacle. All right. So, Israel is a witness. So,
42:14
Israel as a witness, but I'm going to use another use another W. And and this one might I hope it doesn't, but it might shock your sensibilities a little bit,
42:25
but I was going for alliteration here
42:39
There is a an underlying principle or purpose in Israel that is both primary and secondary at the same time.
42:49
ma mainly because it is behind the scenes. Israel is not a separate entity from the flow of redemptive history that
43:02
begins in Genesis 3:15 where we read that the seed of woman will crush the serpent's head. That thread will pass down through the lineage of Seth until it reaches Noah.
43:15
Then it will pick up with the lineage of Shem until it reaches Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the 12 tribes, then Judah, then
43:25
David. Now, at that point, we we lose the trail. David is the the last person who is a specifically messianic ancestor.
43:38
messianic ancestor. But we don't lose the person. He shows up in Isaiah as the servant of Yahweh, the suffering servant as well as the conquering servant. He shows up in
43:49
Zechariah as the priest upon his throne. So he shows up the rest of the way. But the point of Israel in this secondary yet primary sense is that it becomes the
44:04
womb in which the Messiah is gestated and born. Does that make sense? Okay. Again, it's a metaphor. You know, make of it what
44:14
you will, but it it is a in a sense it is a safe place. It's also a place that guarantees
44:25
lineage. Okay. Now, you you might and again this may sound a little bit crude, but you you you know that that you can you can have a situation where the the the
44:36
parentage according to the father might not be known. That never happens with the mother, right? You can't doubt the parentage according to the mother because that's
44:48
where the baby came from. All right? And and so in the sense of Israel, Jesus was not simply going to come from somewhere. He was going to come from a people
45:00
chosen by God. And I won't say in dwelt, but God dwelt in the midst of them. So they became his peculiar people as a witness of worship
45:13
but also as a a womb in which the Messiah, the seed of woman would be preserved by God through the generations until his advent. At which case we might
45:28
say the fundamental purpose of Israel has been fulfilled been fulfilled with the advent of Jesus Christ.
46:17
desperate well I mean people right right and even that though as we're going to see is that um that's a
46:29
violation of scripture that that clearly they were chosen for a purpose. They had a job to do. They had a responsibility. They would fail in
46:40
that responsibility. that responsibility. But in being the womb of Messiah, they would succeed in that responsibility because Israel would by God's grace bring forth the one true Israelite who
46:52
would be both the perfect worshipper and the perfect witness of a holy God. So that that's it's it's all very very discreet. Uh it's very um uh neatly
47:04
packaged even though it's very messy inside that package. What I marvel at is that while the liberal scholars freely admit that the books of the Old
47:17
Testament were written over at least centuries, no one ever claims that the Hebrew scriptures were entirely written during
47:28
the exilic period by one set of authors. So even even the liberal says no they they were written but they can look at how
47:40
almost seamlessly they now have been combined. Okay. and and they're now realizing that that the book of the 12 the 12 minor prophets are actually so intimately
47:52
related to each other that that Amos becomes a commentary on Joel, you know, and and um and that the end of of um
48:02
Obadiah flows right into Habach or I I think I got that right. Um, and and just the the literary marvel of the Old Testament should just astound these scholars like
48:14
how how did they put together such a cohesive story over 600 years? I I think more like a thousand years, but you know, I'm not going to argue that. Um, I find it
48:26
fantastic. Erin, you had your hand up.
48:41
Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. The woman will rule the nation. Yeah. So, it's it's not an unbiblical metaphor. Yeah. Um I I know that I mean some people some people are queasy about discussions of that
48:51
sort. So, I didn't I don't want to upset anybody's sensibilities, but I can't think of a better um word to use to describe how the the promised seed of
49:02
woman and seed of Abraham and and again, we must always remember that in that seed of Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed. Okay, that is one of the most critical statements and
49:12
and most destructive of dispensational thinking is that in Abraham all the nations of the world shall be blessed. So there's no hermetic ceiling at at
49:22
least between Abraham and Christ. There are no dispensations. Okay? And I think it's very easy to show that there are also no different dispensations before Abraham that God
49:35
has has always made his choice whether it was whether it was uh Seth, whether it was Noah, whether it was Shem, he was making his choice and he was preserving
49:46
his promise through that until he came to a point where he uh determined that he would have a people.
49:56
Before that there were the Methuselas there there were the um there were the men who uh who worshiped before the flood the Enochs there were the um
50:07
Mkisedcs after the flood. Uh so there were Jobes you know righteous men who have no affiliation with the the Abrahamic family. So there there were
50:18
those who called upon the name of the Lord as we read in the generation of Seth. But there was no nation. There were no people that were God's people.
50:28
And and so the lineage of the Messiah was, I think, now I'm speaking in human terms, was in danger of becoming so diffused among the nations as to have no
50:42
lineage or trail back to the original promise. Well, God fixed that. He called together 12 tribes into one nation all of one father who was the
50:54
grandson of Abraham and then within that he selected Judah then David but that whole nation was under God's protection even during the exile they were carried
51:06
off as a as a whole into Babylon. And so the generations continued and the lineages were recorded so that by the time of Christ's birth, we have two
51:19
different accounts of his genealogy. One through his father and one through his mother. Okay, that kind of that kind of like an exclamation point on this idea
51:30
of Israel as the Messiah's womb. But again, once the child's born, the purpose of Israel has kind of come to an end.
51:40
And and I do think that in that sense, not that Israel's forgotten by God because his as Paul says in Romans, the promises of God are without repentance.
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He doesn't change his mind. And and and in the Old Testament, he says that though a mother should forget her child, I will not forget you. So Israel is still the apple of God's eye.
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And I think their redemption, whether it be in a stunning inflow of of Jews to Christ in some future time or just a steady influx generation after
52:14
generation, however it is, Paul is right when he says all Israel shall be saved. But Israel as a holy nation, as a peculiar people, that's done.
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We are now that the church is now that peculiar people and its purpose is analogous to Israel's to be a witness of worship in the midst
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of the world, the rest of the nations. That's our job. Okay? Our job is not to clean up the world. It's not to fix the world. And it was never Israel's job to
52:51
do any of those things either. It is our job to have a prophetic voice in the world. as Israel was to have. You see, in the prophets, you know, I don't I haven't
53:02
counted up the the uh the pmical passages, but I think there's quite as many for Moab as for Judah. Okay? I mean, or for Edom
53:14
or for Assyria or for Egypt. Okay? There's a great deal of prophetic uh judgment. I mean, we have an entire
53:24
book, Jonah, you know, that's that's all about the sins of the Assyrians in Nineveh. Pardon me. Pardon me. Oh, okay. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they I mean, and
53:36
Isaiah, they have they have chapters that are speak this oracle to Egypt. Speak this oracle to Kush. Okay. So, that all of that I think we can see if we understand our relationship to to
53:48
Israel as as typological prophetic history. We understand that we have the same purpose and it's not to clean up the
54:00
world. It's to preach Christ. You know, it's to show the power and the grace of almighty God now through the person of his son Jesus Christ. So the content of our
54:12
message in a sense has changed and in another sense it hasn't changed. We preach the seed of woman who has come. We preached the seed of Abraham and the son of David who has come. They preached
54:25
the seed of woman and of Abraham and the son of David who was to come. So we are in a better position than they. And yet if we are in a better position then I would say you know to
54:36
whom much is given much is required that being on this side of the resurrection we have even more responsibility to worship and to witness
54:47
as a church. Okay. and and we'll we'll get into that I think more as we we get into especially the discussion of the kingdom of God. I think that's where it really becomes um uh critical and and
55:00
essential what the church is in the world today and what it is to be doing. So we come to um Mount Si and to the
55:11
giving of the ten commandments. Now I do want to point out so this is um this is
55:27
Now, I've been using those two T's, Torah and tabernacle. And I do want to again emphasize the meaning of the word Torah, which is instruction,
55:40
not legal code. That is not to diminish the fact that the commandments of God are legal code. This was in undoubtedly it contains a
55:53
legal code. But more importantly, I think Torah represents the instruction. And as we've been looking at as our study of Leviticus,
56:05
the fundamental the fundamental uh bipolar question, and I don't mean that in the negative way, is how can a holy God dwell in the midst of an unholy
56:16
people? And conversely, how can an unholy people dwell in the presence of a holy God? That's what we see when we read Exodus 19.
56:30
That blazing and thundering mountain that no one was to touch lest he be stoned or run through with a sword. Okay, that that's what we're talking about. We're talking about a unholy
56:42
people who spent three days consecrating themselves in the presence of a holy God, an allconsuming fire. allconsuming fire. So we're given a graphic visual image of
56:54
this um this conundrum that the Lord is dealing with through Torah and also tabernacle.
57:05
Tora becomes the framework of how this unholy people must dwell not only in its relationship to God but also and I would
57:16
say almost more importantly because of its visibility in their relationship to one another. one another. Now in terms of the ten commandments I want to make a couple comments. First of
57:27
all um it it is it is called it is the decalogue. So if I use that phrase, that simply means 10 words, the decalogue. And that's the uh that's the Latin, the
57:38
kind of derivative that we'll find in the Old Testament. But a couple things about the Ten Commandments.
57:57
They are the only part of Torah that God spoke directly to the people from the mountain.
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now we read this in in Deuteronomy 4 and five um but also in Exodus where where the people say Moses you go up don't let us hear his voice anymore lest we die and when Moses says about uh the the
58:36
graven images. He says that when you were at the mountain, you heard a voice but you saw no form. So the giving of the of the ten commandments, the
58:47
decalogue was directly by God to his people. I think it is probable though I could not possibly prove it right now.
59:14
two tablets. Oops, I'm doing that backwards. Um, as I said about the Suzaranti treaties,
59:27
I believe that these were actually copies of the same law. And I think that most likely what we have on these two stone tablets are the
59:38
two copies of the Decalogue. Now, it is quite possible that the whole of the law was on them. um they would have been big tablets uh in that case but this was it
59:52
it is said that this was the law written by the finger of God. So you you actually have a distinction made in Exodus and Deuteronomy or at least in Exodus there's there's part of the law
1:00:04
that Moses writes as part of the law that's written by the finger of God. I I think as the decalogue was spoken directly by God, I think it was also
1:00:15
engraved on the tablets by God. Now, that is not to I mean that's not to say, okay, you know, analogously, well, the Ten Commandments are in red letters,
1:00:26
you know, because they're spoken by God directly. I mean, really, if we were going to do it that way in a red letter Bible, we would have the Exodus 20 would be in red letters and then the rest of
1:00:36
it would be in black, right? right? If we did it the way we do our New Testaments, um I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that that that means the Ten Commandments are superior. Um, but I do
1:00:46
think it means that in the ten commandments we have a summary statement
1:01:07
which means is as we read the rest of Exodus and especially of Leviticus and then into Numbers and then Deuteronomy, as we read the different uh statutes and and ordinances and commandments. What
1:01:18
we're reading is basically an elaboration of the ten commandments that everything we're reading in the rest of scripture is an expansion on some part of the
1:01:32
decalogue. Which is why I think the Ten Commandments has and should have such a central part in the life of the people of God. Even though we don't always know
1:01:42
what to do with it in in Christian life, we've never been able to get rid of it. And people who have no understanding of what's going on at the foot of Mount Si
1:01:54
will still have the Ten Commandments stuck in their front yard, right? They have to take it up on the Sabbath as they mow their yard. and then they put it back down. Okay.
1:02:15
So, um, what we're looking at here then is a law
1:02:34
is abiding. We We can't get rid of it. We're not in We're not supposed to get rid of it. Even Paul, the one who supposedly saw the light, that the law was was no good, that it was it led to death. The letter kills. Uh he also says
1:02:47
the law is holy and righteous and good. Okay. The the letter that kills is also the school master that leads us to Christ. Okay. the the law the the uh the
1:03:00
the summation of love is four of the ten commandments in in Romans 13. Romans 13. So we can never get rid of it. And if we
1:03:11
look at it the the only one that really gives us trouble is the fourth one. I mean if you think about it Christians are Christians still to have no other gods but God. Has that changed? No. Are
1:03:25
they to take the name of the Lord in vain? No. Are they to make idols and worship them as God? No. Are they to honor their father? We can go all the way down the list. It's like, okay, that doesn't
1:03:38
really help us understand the Ten Commandments because, as I said, that's really not uncommon even among pagans. That the pagans always had a god who intended to be number one. Whether it
1:03:49
was Odin or Zeus or Jupiter or whatever, he was supposed to be number one. Um now again Judaism was unique in its monotheism. Um but the the idea of of
1:04:00
having a special titular god is not uncommon in the ancient world. And then the other precepts of of what is often called horizontal. And I do want to mention that um we're going to look at
1:04:11
this more next week. There are two things that are done with the ten commandments in modern exesus. both of which I think are both
1:04:23
incorrect hermeneutically incorrect hermeneutically and misleading and misleading in terms of interpretation. So I'm going to put this I'll put this
1:04:34
in red. Okay. Common approaches and approaches and I say approaches but they're really
1:04:45
integral. the the the same the same commentators that that do the first also do the second. The first one is a threefold division. Now, I'm I'm laying
1:04:56
them out here today or tonight because I want to go into them in detail next week. So, I would like if you have the opportunity to kind of think about this, especially think about what you've heard
1:05:07
in terms of sermons on the Ten Commandments, what you've read. I mean maybe you've read Arthur Pink's Ten Commandments or you know there there are a lot of Thomas Watson famous Puritan uh
1:05:18
wrote a commentary on the Ten So the three-fold division of the law
1:05:50
Judicial was a common uh word used from the reformation on into about the 19th century. And then beginning in the 20th century, we began to use the word civil because judicial has the the mindset of
1:06:01
a courtroom. a courtroom. Um but civil has the idea of society in general. It's a broader term. So it it allowed us to talk about many of the
1:06:14
commandments um that that didn't really involve a law court but involved how Israelite was to live with his neighbor. Okay. And then finally the moral.
1:06:31
Now there is no indication of this three-fold division in the scriptures The reason this three-fold division has come up is because it be it gives us a a
1:06:45
convenient way of determining what is still valid for us today. And that's really the purpose of it. We can look at the ceremonial for example the
1:06:56
sacrifices of the tabernacle and we can say they are clearly not valid for us today because Christ has has come and his sacrifice is is f full and final. So
1:07:08
by saying okay um the ceremonial law we can say okay that was that was for Israel. the civil law was that was for the theocracy the theocracy and and since that has done away with
1:07:19
you know we no longer have those uh the requirement to follow these although theonomists would wish we did. So not everybody agrees that just because it
1:07:29
can be separated out into one of these categories that somehow proves we are no longer obligated to keep it. But clearly if it's moral, we need to keep obeying it, right?
1:07:46
Well, we'll talk about that. There's some serious problems both within the system and the system itself has has serious problems. I think it's completely illegitimate. Uh and I I have for a very long time. I don't think it's
1:07:57
beneficial. I don't think it's properly executing the scriptures. I think it's isogesis. It's reading in to the scriptures what isn't there because
1:08:07
there is no place where such a distinction is made. And I don't know anywhere where God viewed disobedience to his law as anything but immoral.
1:08:20
Okay. And then the the other um common approach is this one. Well, I'll put it the other way around. the vertical
1:08:32
the vertical and the horizontal. I'll put it as the orientation of the 10, the vertical and the horizontal. And of
1:08:42
course, we all know that the first four are on the first tablet, and they're the vertical ones, right? Have you all heard this before? You know, these have to do with man's relationship to God. How the
1:08:54
Sabbath has to do with man's relationship with God, I haven't figured out. except in the manner that all of them have relationship to God and that is are supposed to be obeyed.
1:09:04
Right? So there's kind of a vertical element to all of them. But the Sabbath in all of its promugations has to do with very mundane things, right? You're
1:09:16
not to work. You're not to walk. You're not to buy and sell. Nor are your children or your servants or slaves. I mean, it has very much to do with your horizontal relationships.
1:09:26
horizontal relationships. And yet it's said to be one of the vertical ones. So the vertical ones are 1 through 4 and of course the horizontal ones
1:09:38
horizontal ones are 5 through 10. Okay.
1:09:48
Well, I will tell you that the fifth one is not horizontal. I think the proper understanding of the fifth one, your honor your father and mother is because it's vertical
1:10:01
and it overflows into such things as honoring those who have authority over you, obeying those whom God has put into positions of leadership in your society.
1:10:13
In other words, honor the king. Okay? the the the honor that is due to your parents is because of their vertical position in relationship to God himself.
1:10:26
That he providentially ordained that your parents should be your parents just as he providentially ordained that your president or your king should be your president or your
1:10:37
king. He put them in place. So everywhere we see an an honor, even if it's wives, honor your husbands, it's
1:10:48
vertical, right? It's not horizontal. Now, you might say it's horizontal because they're humans, too. Uh no, that's not a good way of looking at the fifth commandment.
1:11:00
fifth commandment. That that's really what's gone. That's you know, we have we have leveled society dangerously by looking at it. Well, we're all God's people and we're all on the same level when scripturally
1:11:11
clearly children are not on the same level as parents, right? And you're supposed to honor the aged because they're older than you. You know, there's a vertical element, but
1:11:21
that vertical element is in the fifth commandment just like the horizontal is in the fourth. Okay.
1:11:44
Right. Right. He didn't put any numbers on them, nor did he give any orientation to them
1:11:59
Yes. And he did it in such a way that the one cannot be done without the other. And we will talk about that. But you cannot as is it James or is it John who says you
1:12:09
cannot I think it's John you cannot say you love God when you hate your brother. So um that's really kind of elaborating on what Jesus said as the the greatest commandment and he gives them two. Okay.
1:12:23
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like unto it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Um, and so the the well I guess what I'm
1:12:35
saying is that the horizontal and the vertical are never really separated. If if you murder, if you go back to Genesis 9, Genesis 9, what's the problem with murder?
1:12:48
Man is created in the image of God, right? Because in the image of God, he made man. There's a vertical element
1:12:58
in the prohibition against murder. So we can't. So the problem with this horizontal and vertical division is that we we tend to prioritize some over the others. First of all, certainly the
1:13:09
vertical are more important than the horizontal. Not biblically. Okay. Not biblically. Okay. So we do that though. We think, oh, obviously these are these first
1:13:20
four, they're the most important. And if if you read commentaries, especially Puritan ones, you you see that. And then in the other ones, we just go into prophetic pmic against miserable people
1:13:36
and all the rampid covetousness and adultery that's going on. And we just get up on a soap box because this is all us down here and we're just shoveling manure when we get to the fifth and
1:13:46
through the 10th. No, every single one of them is vertical is vertical in two ways. First of all, they relate
1:13:57
to every human being's relationship as the image of God. And secondly, the fundamental requirement of all 10 is
1:14:08
obedience, which is vertical. Okay? So, I guess what I'm not trying to to parse it at all. I'm saying this is not a valid hermeneutic. This is not a valid hermeneutic. And
1:14:20
what I was trying to show with the fourth and fifth commandments in particular, and I'll go into more detail in next week's notes, is that they're
1:14:33
That there's far more vertical in the fifth than there is in the fourth. Okay? I don't think any of them are purely vertical or purely horizontal. I think they all might have a little bit
1:14:44
more element, but I don't think that's the right way to think because again that distinction is not biblical. What we do to God is only accepted by
1:14:56
God when we also do to our neighbor. That's what you're that's what Jesus was saying that you cannot say I love the Lord my God with all my heart, my soul
1:15:06
unless you love your neighbor as yourself. So the horizontal that whole thought is is uh deceptive and misleading.
1:15:19
That that is not what the commandments are about. Trying to show us how we live before God and how we live among ourselves. Those are so intimately related in scripture that they should
1:15:29
not be separated as if you can put this one over here and and you can read it and talk about that and then this one over here. No, that's that's not the way it works. And we'll get into more detail
1:15:41
on that next week when we talk specifically um about the Ten Commandments. But so what I want to finish up here is an an idea
1:15:53
that we've been an idea that we've been we've been moving toward throughout this whole study. whole study. And that is the idea of paradigm.
1:16:26
A paradigm is a model or a pattern of thought or behavior.
1:16:42
And I'm going to say a thought a thought and behavior. and behavior. Because again, when we're talking about a biblical paradigm,
1:16:52
we cannot separate thought and action. We cannot say, "Oh, I got my doctrine right, but I don't have to actually live it." or I I've got my life straight, but
1:17:03
my doctrine's all messed up. Those are impossible combinations impossible combinations biblically. So, thought and behavior. Now, the idea of paradigm is
1:17:15
made famous in is it Thomas [ __ ] who who wrote um the structure of scientific revolutions? Thank you. Um but he talks about
1:17:28
paradigm shifts paradigm shifts and the most common that's referred to is the paradigm of our planetary system
1:17:38
shifting from geocentric to heliocentric. It's called the capernac revolution. So a paradigm shift Einstein and his
1:17:50
theory of relativity would be a paradigm shift. And that means that the the the broad community of thinkers on this topic have are no longer following this
1:18:02
pattern. The earth is the center of the planetary system. They are now following this thought framework, the sun as the center. So that's a paradigm shift. I
1:18:14
think that's fundamentally what Paul had on the road to Damascus. It it it didn't it didn't change the identity of the earth and the sun and Mars and Jupiter and whatnot. It just
1:18:25
reoriented everything. And for Paul, the reorientation was not even as drastic as Capernacus in the sense that he had always oriented
1:18:36
his thought about God in accordance with God's revelation and promise. when he was brought to the understanding that God had fulfilled his promise in
1:18:50
the man Jesus of Nazareth and in the Holy Spirit poured out his framework shifted.
1:19:01
It was a shift from expecting to now proclaiming. But it did, it looked like a complete change of mind. And that's again
1:19:11
somewhat justifying Luther's erroneous interpretation of Paul. But it was pretty dramatic. He who once preached or persecuted Christians is now preaching
1:19:23
Christ. and he who once was foremost among his colleagues in the Torah is now u blaspheming Moses. Okay, so that
1:19:34
that's the kind of paradigm shift that Paul underwent. Now, what I'm going to what I've been suggesting throughout these biblical theological classes is
1:19:44
that God has been presenting his will, his nature, particularly redemptive history through a series of paradigms.
1:19:56
The first of which is creation itself. So um if we look at these paradigms,
1:20:14
they are frameworks of both frameworks of revel revelatory history. Again, that's the that's the um the the story as well as the the
1:20:24
revelation in the story. So these are historical events that go in which I don't want to say God used them because he created them in which he
1:20:36
is revealing both himself and his purpose and the first one is creation
1:20:57
New creation. Yeah. Again, it's not a radical destroy the one, you know, we didn't destroy the earth and the sun and the planets, right? We just reoriented them. They're still there and they're still going around. But now we
1:21:08
understand better how they're going around. So, I'm not going to do this for every one of them, although there's I think there's an answer to each one.
1:21:19
um the flood the these actually and when I say they're paradigms they're paradigms I I'm also indicating that these become
1:21:29
in a sense part of the grammar of scripture. I've said that many times that an event happens its historicity is crucial.
1:21:40
It cannot be myth or legend because in it God is revealing himself and his purpose, his will. Then in the
1:21:54
event the language of scripture is developed. So the language of creation, as I said just a few minutes ago about Israel itself, the language of creation, barra
1:22:06
and yatser to create and to form are the fundamental creative terms used by Isaiah or used by the Lord through Isaiah with respect to
1:22:18
Israel. And and the the word toou or the phrase toou vabohu formless and void that we see in Genesis 1 is used by
1:22:29
Jeremiah to describe Israel in God's judgment that they will return to a state of formlessness and void. Okay. So
1:22:40
the lang the events become the language. I think that's crucial to understanding and reading your scripture is that it's not just words about events.
1:22:50
It's words It's words through events then becoming grammar. And and I think the flood is definitely
1:23:02
one and of course you know what the flood in terms of its fulfillment. Um but it is also a
1:23:12
paradigm shift because whereas the flood simply cleansed this earth the ultimate judgment will bring forth the the new heavens and earth in which
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as Peter says righteousness dwells. righteousness didn't start dwelling on the earth after the flood. In fact, one of the first things we encounter is a
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violation of the fifth commandment where Ham dishonors his father. Okay? So, um you you see that that sin was not in no way eradicated through the ark. It
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became a picture but only an incomplete one. So other other paradigms um we've mentioned in on in this class and Leviticus study the tabernacle
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and that is of course a picture or a model of the heavenly tabernacle. Hebrews 9 and10. Um Israel, that's where we're headed. I'll I'll put that one last. Uh David,
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oops. and more importantly the Davidic kingdom and of course um
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The point of this this idea of paradigms is a phrase that I've used. I'll go ahead and put it up on the board because I think it's it's very important in our understanding of biblical
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theology. In other words, reading the scripture the way the writers of the New Testament read the scriptures that it wasn't just um a a field or a mine in which they
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could they could cut out the gems of messianic prophecies. messianic prophecies. It wasn't a book of proof texts. It wasn't Sunday school stories.
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Okay. The the way we frequently use the scripture is itself often illegitimate. It is the unfolding, the progressive unfolding of God's person and purpose.
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And so what we're reading, again, this is why the historicity is so crucial. What we're reading is typological
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It's typological. That's what the paradigm means. paradigm means. It it it reflects a pattern that is also prophetic. It's a pattern that will be ultimately
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finished and fulfilled in something else. Okay. So in each case, the paradigm shift that the Bible makes is is an
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advance on the original. It's not a replacement of it. And Capernicus wasn't replacing the the tomic. He was it was an advance.
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Einstein's theory of relativity was also an advance. Einstein did not replace Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics. He advanced beyond them.
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Does that does that make sense? Okay. So, that fluids that that get thicker when you stir them are still called non-Newtonian. All right. Do you ever see the cartoon
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about the the um book of physics and then the book of physics had Newton been sitting under a coconut tree?
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Oh, levity there. Um but it's an it's an advance. All of these are an advance. These these are showing us what it's going to be like. And so they are historical and they're typological and
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in their typology they are prophetic. Israel is where we're at right now. Israel is a paradigm
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of the church. And therefore, as I've said many times, if we're ever to understand the identity and the purpose of the church, we cannot hope to do so without also understanding
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the identity and purpose of Israel. You you cannot just jump in in um AD 33 at the resurrection and just or or at
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the at the day of Pentecost and say boom, there's the church. That's not how the church came to be.
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So, as we look at the Ten Commandments, my my approach and my purpose will be to show how the Ten Commandments and Torah in general serve as that summary
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framework that describes an unholy people living in the presence of a holy God and how a holy God can dwell in the midst of an unholy people. Let's close
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in prayer in prayer again. Father, we do thank you so much for the brilliance of your word. The the intimate connection of all parts
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with each other, the unfolding revelation of your person and of your purpose. We pray that we would be able to better see these things as we continue to read
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and study and that you would by your Holy Spirit enlighten us and cause us to be both grateful and and adoring of your
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great person. And we do pray, Father, that that you would shed more light in this world and cause your churches to be filled with the regenerate. Father, we
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ask this for your glory and for our good. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen.