Published: August 21, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology 2 - Exodus, Exile, and Eschatology - Part 1 | Scripture: Romans 9-11
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That happened one Thursday evening years ago and I had just said something. I I wish I could remember what I said, but it was one of those and then thunder like, "Oh, I love it when he does that."
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Um, so we're resuming the biblical theology course. So that's this is part two um of two parts and the overall uh structure that we're working under is
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first creational and that's what we dealt with in the first session and now covenantal. So I want to put kind of a sidebar on the board that gives you a road map of
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what we're talking about. So God has revealed himself in multiple ways. We read that in Romans 1. But there are two primary revelational
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paradigms. The first is creation.
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And that is primarily what Paul is talking about in Romans 1 because he's talking about the ingratitude uh and the blindness of the Gentiles. He's he
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hasn't gotten into the Jews yet. That comes in chapter two. But creation is however something that uh much of evangelical theology
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evangelical theology has um spent its time arguing about the scientific basis of the creation account versus evolution versus evolution and getting into all of that which which
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has its place but unfortunately we've tended to forget that God's creation was very good and in forgetting that we we tend to
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And when we don't see Adam and that thread weaving its way through scripture, we then tend to miss the last Adam.
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I mean, we don't miss Jesus Christ, but there's an aspect of Christ's humiliation that we kind of bypass where Paul talks
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about the the second Adam. And I I call him the last Adam because I think that's how Paul refers to it in chapter 15 of First Corinthians. I think there was um you you might argue that Noah was an
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Adam. uh if some people call Jesus the second Adam, but I think you might make a case for Noah being the second Adam considering the human race kind of
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restarted uh with the same creation mandate that um God had given Adam. So that's kind of a a rabbit trail. If you miss the last Adam, then this also tends
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to get missed and that is the the new creation. This is the creational line and we
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looked at that in the first session but it's going to show up again because it it is the major rubric under which the second one appears. And
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this is another thing that is is often um reversed um reversed in modern American evangelicalism that we we tend to put the priority on
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the covenantal the covenantal to the exclusion of the creational. And then passages like Romans 8 when we read about all of creation groaning
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under the the uh the futility to which it was subjected waiting for the revelation of the sons of God. that passage doesn't really make any sense. It doesn't have any context. Um and and
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it and yet in Paul's mind, it had tremendous context. Or we we kind of miss the impact of the prologue to John's gospel where he begins in the beginning and and everything in that is
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it begins clearly creational, but he then also transitions very quickly by verse 14 to the covenantal. and we'll be dealing with that in the first few
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lessons of of this study. So, I'm going to put the other one uh a little bit
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kind of view it as being within because it is it's within the creational. It's it's not uh it's not less important. Um but but in terms of of certainly chronology and maybe even uh logic it is
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prior to the covenantal. It's not only prior to it goes on beyond and and that is something that again uh primarily dispensational esquetology
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uh fails to see. So if you if we don't see the covenantal then we um fail to see
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well actually um that's not a direct correlation to Adam. The direct correlation is Abraham.
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So you have uh for example and I'm going to show this um within both of these you also have two christoologgies. You have the Adamic and the Abrahamic.
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So you have the Christ as the seed of woman. That's the Adamic. And you have the lineage of Seth that goes through Enoch and then to Shem after Noah. You see that before Abraham
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is even called. You see how God is separating between brothers or between Abraham and Lot and then between um Isaac and Ishmael and then between Jacob
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and Esau. You see these divisions that is the Adamic Christology. But then you will have the Abrahamic christologology. So these two are very key to the
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biblical theology as a whole. And so through this you get
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Messiah. The Messiah is a uniquely and really exclusively Jewish idea. Jewish idea. There's no promise of a Messiah to the
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nations. It's the Jewish. It's the Messiah of Israel who will be the light to the Gentiles. But the Gentiles aren't getting one.
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Okay. So, the seed of woman, that's universal. But the Messiah of Israel, that's particular. That brings us to the concept of
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election. And really, election in its most biblical form really has to do with Israel. uh and we'll we'll talk a lot about
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that. But then with the Messiah, you come to this the people of God.
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So all of this is within is within the covenantal thread is within the
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That is again often reversed and much of modern American evangelicalism for the last 200 years has emphasized Israel and even reformed
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theology which doesn't do justice to Israel either but in a different way they emphasize the covenants. The problem is most reformed theologians
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have a real hard time. they kind of have to force Adam into a covenant. It's it's somewhat retrofitted because that's the paradigm. That's the
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framework that we've developed. And so we have to somehow shove um Adam into the Adamic Covenant. And it's it's it's kind of it's weak. It's very weak. In
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fact, um, O Palmer Robertson, who wrote Christ to the covenants, admits that the the notion of an Adamic covenant is
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somewhat weak. And then when you look at the other covenants, you you realize that they're not really all that related either. For example, the Noic covenant
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was made between God and creation. It's it's quite a different covenant than the Abrahamic. And then the Mosaic and the Devavidic
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are really just subvenants within the Abrahamic. So the the covenantal view really only has two covenants,
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the Abrahamic and the new. And they're not even different covenants. One is the fulfillment of the other. Okay? The old covenant, which is the Mosaic covenant,
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was a temporary dispensation. Okay. It it was not it it's it's not even salvific. Only the Abrahamic and the new are redemptive. That that make
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sense? Anybody have a problem with that? Anybody? You know, we've been talking about the Mosaic covenant quite a bit. I think it's fairly accepted that that was
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not redemptive. Paul makes that clear, of course, in Romans and and even more so in Galatians that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. So the law has its purpose. The Mosaic covenant
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had its purpose, but only the Abrahamic and the new covenant are redemptive. Okay. So all of this I I guess what I'm what I'm trying to get at here is to just make sure that we understand that in this session we're talking about a
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def definite flow of biblical theology and a very important one, but it is in fact couched within the creational line of redemptive history that we studied
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last time. last time. You mean to by redemptive I mean redemptive at all. I mean having the having the promise of
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redemption. Yes. To all humanity but also to creation. Um now Abra Abrahamic was not to creation at all. That was I don't think you you find any creational
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element in the Abrahamic covenant. Um but but you do have that in both Adam and Noah.
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Christ. Yes. But the but the Christ was not part of the Mosaic covenant or even it was more part of the Davidic covenant. But frankly, the seed of Abraham as Paul teaches us, it's Abrahamic.
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The Christ is Abrahamic. He's definitely going to be part of Israel, but he's not a product of the Mosaic covenant. The Christ is not right. Okay? And and the only thing
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about the Davidic was not really the Messiah, but the coming king. Now, the Jews did not fully understand that the coming king and the servant of Yahweh
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and the and the lion of the tribe of Judah, who was of course the son of David, were in fact the Messiah. They they didn't put all that together in their in their writings, in their
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non-biblical writings. And I'm uh by the second temple, by Jesus's time, there was somewhat question. We know that from what the Pharisees said to John the Baptist, are are you the are you the
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Messiah? Are you the prophet? Uh you know, then who are you? Because they they had these characters that they had not yet amalgamated into one
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fulfillment, one person. And and then the the real big one that we're going to see they struggled with was the idea of a son of God. There was the son of man. Yeah, that's
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in Ezekiel and Daniel. But the idea of the Messiah as as the son of God, well, that's kind of in Isaiah. You know, he's he will be Emmanuel, God with us, right?
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But they didn't put all we've talked about this before. They didn't they weren't able most of them at least to put all that together to where they were looking for one person
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they who was both God and man. See there there's some things that happened in Christ that just looked on at the on the face of it
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would have been confusing to the Jews of the second temple era. And unless the Lord removed the blindness as he did with Saul of Tarsus,
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they couldn't accept this Jesus of Nazareth as Israel's Messiah, much less the son of God. So I think we we we do tend to think that
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Jews even today or in that day knew their religion. Well, that's not a good thing to think on two
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accounts. First of all, they were sinners just like us. And as sinners, they spent as much time reading their Bible as many of us spend reading ours. The prophets
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show us that. And then the prophets show us that even those who were supposed to be reading their Bibles, the priests, normally didn't turn out that well. Okay? So to assume that the Jews knew
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their scripture and we still kind of think, oh well Jews, they know their scripture. No, no, they don't. Just read some of them. I mean, they are seriously inhaling some of these Jewish writers
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today. And we'll be talking about one, a fellow by the name of Michael Kinszer, who's a Messianic Jew. He's he's a a believer in Jesus Christ, but his notions are just really crazy town
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banana pants. banana pants. Well, you might not think so once I tell you what they are and not tonight, but when we talk about it, you might think, well, that sounds reasonable. But hopefully you won't. Hopefully you'll
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see that they're they're clearly uh not Pauline. So, Pauline. So, um, back to your point, the the Messiah was definitely an Israelite. That's very
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important that the whole so both the this lineage this lineage kind of detours through this lineage with the call of Abraham. Okay, but
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we've already seen God doing that when he chooses Abraham to begin with. And then he um I I'm going to put it this way. He throws in his lot with Abraham.
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Okay? And then Ishmael comes along and God says, "No. Oh, that Ishmael might live before you." No, but you will have a son. So, he chooses Isaac. I'm sorry. Uh yeah, he chooses
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Isaac. And then while they're still in the womb, he chooses Jacob. So, you see this the line is being guided by the providence of God into the tribe of J or
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the family of Jacob and then the tribe of Judah, you know. So, it's it's not like it's it's something that all of a sudden God looks upon the whole world and and he doesn't have a plan because he's also directed it from from uh Seth
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down through Noah then Shem. You see that that directing of the lineage of the seed of woman didn't start with Abraham. It started with Shem. I'm not Shem,
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Seth. Okay. So the again what I'm saying is now what we're talking about is really a subcategory of God's redemptive history and and I
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think that's something that that might be uh counter to what you've heard because what what has happened from the 18th century and the teachings of JN
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Derby is that the the whole Israel thing be has become not only primary but the essence of what God is
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doing. And dispensationalism in its classic form basically teaches that the Gentiles are somewhat of an afterthought and are are not on the same level as
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ethnic Israel. ethnic Israel. Uh that is contrary to scripture. It's contrary to the flow of scripture of
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God's self-revelation. God's self-revelation. So, or his self-disclosure. All right. So, this is the kind of the paradigm that we're going to be following. We're over here now. Okay. We'll be we'll be here. But
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this is, you know, these are all coordinate. Okay. The the the last Adam is the Messiah. And the new creation is where the people of God will dwell for
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eternity. Not not in heaven. Heaven is not our home. Our home is the earth. And that's where we will dwell in the
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resurrection forever. So they're they're coordinate. And and being coordinate, I'm going to use the word that I used with the Levitical study. Levitical study. The history of Israel is somewhat of a
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parable. It it is a microcosm of God's overall redemptive plan. It it it contains it contains um clear echoes of Eden
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and of God walking with man in the garden unfettered by man's sin. Now, obviously, it couldn't work out that way because
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Israel was a nation from among men. You know, Israel was not there was no immaculate conception going on here. They were all born in the same sin that
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the Gentiles. It's just that God elected Israel. And and I I'll go ahead and say this. In Isaiah 43:1,
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God says basically, I created you. And the verb there is barah, which is the verb from Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. In
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fact, it's it is a very unique Hebrew verb in that I won't say only ever, but I I know of no exceptions where the verb is used without God as the subject.
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Now, Israel was not created out of the dust of the ground, but it kind of was kind of out of the mud of Egypt. But in terms of a political nation, it
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was created by God in the same sense that he created the heavens and the earth. He politically he created them
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exhil so Israel again even the parallel the the parallel remains that Israel is the creation of God. So in a sense it's a new creation.
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The promised land is referred to as an Eden, as a garden, as a land flowing with milk and honey. Okay? It's it's it's it's um the temple, the tabernacle
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we talked about in Leviticus is itself a microcosm of the garden, even to the point of the the accutrants and the decorations and the weavingings were all reminiscent of the garden. And then the
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prophecies have the the river flowing out of the temple in in Ezekiel's prophecy. So um we get to Revelation 21 and 22 and it's all kind of
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recapitulated there. But I think we we are very are very poorly served poorly served when we in our minds separate Israel
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almost hermetically sealed from the church. And and I'll just kind of summarize the again this is a a a passage that kind of summarized the whole situation the
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context in which we live but um Israel's past is only considered in relation to Israel's future
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Israel's future and not with regard to the church's present. that describes most evangelical writings on Israel. That Israel's past
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when it was before AD.70, okay, really is only reviewed with reference to Israel in terms of Israel's future,
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but not with reference to the church's present. I don't think Paul would agree with that. And I want to start our class in Romans 11
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Romans 11 with the qu you know the answer or beginning to answer the question that Paul asked several times in the center section of Romans and and Romans especially 9 through1 and that is what
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about Israel about Israel and I want to start out by saying as I said just briefly earlier this is a very reasonable question
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reasonable question if we just face facts headon and put ourselves in first century Palestine, a land that was that was teeming with
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expectation, messianic expectation. messianic expectation. Also, a land that was seething with bitter resentment bitter resentment that a country that had not been
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sovereign in many generations, really since the time of the exile. For most of that time, Israel was under
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the um the control of some world power, whether it was Babylonian, Meo, Persian, Greek, Roman, but the current one was Roman. And remember in the prophecies of
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Daniel, the visions of of Rome, especially um is that chapter 7, the living beasts coming out of the the
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ocean. Daniel couldn't even describe the fourth one. Okay. Okay, the other ones were a, you know, a leopard or an eagle, you know, some some noble animal, but the fourth one was just some ravenous,
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devouring, conquering beast. That was Rome. That was truly Rome. Um, Gibbon couldn't have done any better with the description of Rome than Daniel did. And
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so you you go back in the first century and you you have this expectation. You have Simeon, you know, holding up the child and saying, "Now, now let your
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servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen the consolation of Israel." You have Anna, uh, the priestess who'd been in the, um, or the prophetess, excuse me, who'd been in the temple for
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many, many years, and they they see this, the magi, who probably were had been reading the writings of Daniel back in Babylon and knew of this promised
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king of the Jews. Then he's crucified. He's killed by the Romans. Okay. And okay, some of his disciples
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are now claiming to have seen him three days later, days later, but the Romans are still here, right? And nothing's really changed. We're we're still a subject nation.
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And and so if you put yourself back in that situation, apart from the the the the um uh the enlightenment literally of the Holy Spirit, this is baloney that
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No, it couldn't have beef baloney. Um I kind of remember the Leviticus class, right? Um
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right? Um that wasn't in my notes. I humor myself. Um this is not a good story, okay? If you read it as a Jew in the first century, it was not a good story to Saul of Tarsus, right? I mean, you can
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perfectly understand why he actually pursued and persecuted these Christians because what they were saying was blasphemous that God is a man and then a man who's killed. You know, this is this
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is not good. So, I I I want to start out with that by saying when when Paul asks, "What about Israel?" He's not saying can you believe how stupid my countrymen are
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they don't see from the prophets that although Jesus did tell the disciples on the road to Emmas oh you you foolish and slow to understand all that the scripture
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teaches did not the Christ have to suffer but they couldn't see it without the Holy Spirit I mean even as he sat there and described throughout you know
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from the law and the prophets Moses and the prophets he went through the whole thing. Imagine that was a Bible study right there. That that would have been one for the books. Went through the whole thing. I mean,
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that's kind of that passage in in uh Luke 24, I think it is. That's like the patron passage for biblical theology. It really is that through he doesn't
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give us any of the details, but he says going from Moses and the prophets, he told them all about himself. Okay? But they couldn't see it. In fact, I don't know that they even saw
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it then. They say their hearts were strangely warmed when he spoke to them. But their minds were probably in a tumult as he was doing all this until Pentecost until the Holy Spirit who was
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promised to lead them into all truth. But even then after that they had problems like with the admission of Gentiles. So here that really messes things up. Gentiles being on par and equal with the
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Jews without being circumcised. It's like you just threw the whole Bible that they had away. And that's what many people thought then. And that's what
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many scholars today think today. That Jesus and then Paul, especially Paul, basically developed a new religion because the old one wasn't working. It
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was works based and nobody could keep the law. So we need to introduce grace and just throw away everything else. Effectively, that's what much of evangelical Christianity has done with
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this question. What about Israel? Paul would say, may it never be? I mean, his consistent answer to those negative
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responses, is God through with Israel? Is God done with his people? May it never be. never be. So, this is the question we're going to be looking at over the next weeks is
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what about Israel? What what is the relationship of Israel's past and future to our present? Are they actually different dispensations?
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different dispensations? And therefore, we who live in the church age really don't need to consider what happened in the in the Mosaic age. And I don't know why we spend so much time
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considering the millennium because that's not ours either. I think that just piqus people's curiosity and they come up with interesting political theories but by
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their own teaching that's all about Israel. Okay. So u the what about let's look at Romans 11
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how many trees are there? Uh and I think this is a a um watershed question for the for answering the question what about Israel? How many trees are there
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in Romans 11? Just one, right? That I don't think we necessarily
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I know for many years I didn't fully grasp the significance of of that. There's only one
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tree and all branches that have life are either or become grafted into that
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one tree. one tree. There are not two trees. Isaiah 11 is the parable of the vineyard. It's along the same lines as
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Romans 11. And that is that God planted. This is also in the lines of God created Israel. That God brought and placed into
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his vineyard a choice vine. That's Israel. That actually is reminiscent of Genesis 2 when God makes a garden and
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then places Adam in it. So the language of taking and placing in Isaiah 11 is an illusion or an echo of Genesis 2. The
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idea of a garden. The garden in the ancient world and also the description of the tabernacle and the temple were themselves temples.
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themselves temples. So groves, for example, were a major place where the the pagan deities were worshiped. And the idea of the um I've
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mentioned this before, the two Hebrew terms that God uses in his command to Abraham to tend and keep the garden are the same two use words when used
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together are used for the Levitical priests, the ironic priests and their ministry in the tabernacle. which actually it's generally called
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serve and guard, but they're the exact same words as tend and keep. So the idea of temple and garden and
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then in revelation 22 or 21 and then 22 the um the temple that John sees is a garden with a river running through it
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just like Eden and the tree of life whose leaves bear fruit every month of the year for the healing of the nations. So the idea of temple and garden are actually interchangeable in in ancient
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literature certainly in the Bible. They're different perspectives of the same reality and that is the place where God dwells with man. And that's true whether it's a little G or a capital G.
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The same concept of God dwelling with man. We I think we don't have any trouble with that idea as being a temple. But we're going to introduce the the reality of it as being a garden as
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well. So um the idea of the olive tree um certainly flows out of Israel April.
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Israel is not Israel's what? Israel's what? The tree. The tree. Um, no, no, oh, no. Okay. Thank you for asking that because I I was going to head there, but then I wasn't. So, I'm glad you put me back on track. Uh, no. The tree is not Israel.
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Paul calls Israel the branches. The they're the natural branches. So in a sense their life flows flowed naturally from the trunk.
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Ours flows graciously because we're grafted in. Okay. So if we look at the trunk and I'm not nearly as good at this as
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All right. So, um, we have the natural branches, of course, and I think the covenantalists will say that these are all covenant families.
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Um, but no, I'm not going to go there. We know that from because of unbelief, many are broken off. That's what Paul
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says, right? says, right? And because of faith, wild branches are grafted in. Okay?
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Now, notice I didn't put them in the same place because I don't think Gentiles replace, you know, individual unbelieving Jews. That that's not working that way. But the idea here,
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what's going on with the branches, the branches, um, allegorically represent Jews either believing or unbelieving. and Gentiles believing the unbelieving
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Gentiles, they're not grafted in. Okay. But okay, and the unbelieving Jews, Paul says, can be grafted back in. It's their heritage.
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But the point for the Gentiles, no, this tree is not Israel. But what is it? Uh it would be very common to say Jesus.
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And I think that ultimately that is correct. But I don't think that would be the the biblical answer
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biblical answer in the sense of redemptive history as it's disclosed in scripture because Jesus himself was a Jew. So in the sense of the parable or the
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metaphor, Jesus was a branch himself. In fact, he's called the branch And the idea of the stump of Jesse, while very important, I don't think it's
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the same idea as Paul's developing year because that actually ties into the Davidic covenant and the fact that the house of David would be rendered
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completely cut off and really hopeless. And out of that hopelessness would come the branch who was the lion of the tribe
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of Judah, the son of David. So while the metaphor is being used that make it sound like they're the same, I I don't think that one has anything to do, for
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example, with Gentiles. It has to do with the restoration of the tabernacle of David, which Peter speaks of in Acts. In other words, it's the
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restoration of Israel's hope. Okay. The metaphor is similar, but I don't think the message is the same
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um in in its in its intent between the stump of Jesse and that this this tree, for example, is never cut down.
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There there's no evidence that this tree was ever cut off. branches are cut off, right? But not the tree. So, what is
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this tree? Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna offer a a provisional um ultimately, yes, it's Jesus. It's Jesus in the sense that he is the
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eternal redee redeemer. Okay? He is the eternal redeemer. So, that he is the root cause. And we're going to look at this perhaps next week. He He's the
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prototype of Adam, not the other way around. Okay? It wasn't that that Jesus came along as a man because Adam was created as a man. No, Adam was created in
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Jesus's image. Adam was created in the image that Jesus would take because the redemptive plan of God is eternal. It's from before the foundation of the world.
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Okay? So Okay? So again, to say that Jesus is the the olive tree, I think that's yes, it's it's ultimately true. But I think within
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the the biblical flow of revelation, it's Abraham because Paul go has already said in Romans 4 that those who are of faith are
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Abraham's seed. Abraham's seed. that that from a human perspective all the nations of the world would be blessed in your seed. Now that seed is Jesus, okay? But he's Abraham's seed.
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Abraham is the one with whom God made that covenant. that covenant. Does that make sense? Abraham's promise. Abraham's promise. The promise, yes. Of God to Abraham is
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is the tree. Not Abraham. No, Abraham's not the tree in the sense that we're grafted in, but in a sense, we are grafted into Abraham in the sense that we're grafted into Abraham's promise. We become his seed or
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to use the Romans 11 metaphor, we become his branches. The life that we receive in Christ is the life that flows through
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the Abrahamic covenant. Not the Mosaic and not the Davidic and certainly not the Noaic, but the Abrahamic. Eric,
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is that
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Yes, it is. Yes. Um, now I I wouldn't I wouldn't say that the tree of life in the garden is Abraham because it's Yeah. But I I think I think the promise is very much
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analogous to the tree of life. In fact, it it is life eternal. The only life that any branch could ever have as as Jesus himself says in John
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15, I am the vine. You are the branches. Now, in that sense, he's the vine. Okay? and you must be in him. But in Romans, I think the context leads us toward
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focusing on the inclusion of the Gentiles and even the exclusion of the unbelieving Jews from Abraham. Okay? Does that make sense? So I'm not
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saying this is a universal every time you see a tree, it's Abraham. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that in terms of Israel's history, okay? What is happening here is those of us who are in
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this line this line are brought over to this one. This line becomes our heritage. This line becomes the source of our
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redemption because there is no redemption outside of Abraham.
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Now that doesn't mean Abraham's a savior. It only means that God's redemptive plan and his election channels salvation through Abraham. There's no one else of whom it is said
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that in you will all the nations be blessed. Again, you could always say it's Jesus because he's the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Okay? But when when
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you do that, you're somewhat shortcircuiting the redemptive historical disclosure of what God has done. So we we don't we don't just get grafted in
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and then live happily ever after. Any more comments, questions? Who? Oh, Lauren, sorry.
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There's no way of answering that except that it it pleased God. That I mean, that would be like like asking why so many years between um my salvation and
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the end. I mean, why not just get get it over with? Why has it been 2,000 years since the resurrection? because it wasn't 2,000 years between the Abrahamic
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covenant and the Mosaic. It was about 700 years. Okay? So, we're we're pushing three times that long. So, that that's a that's a question that that the
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scripture doesn't answer. It's almost is like Jesus said is not given to you know the days and the seasons. And that's that's God's some things we just say because it pleased God. Okay. Um we can
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look at it from a practical standpoint. um in some respects there was the the the fullness of the sin of the Amorites had not yet been complete
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and God says that to Abraham. So there's you know there's no making that up. He's he says you're you're not going to get the land. You're you're not going to see anything but a cave that you buy for your your wife's tomb and that's it.
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You're going to become a very powerful and wealthy man but you won't own any land. But this land all belongs to you. But it's going to be another four generations or 400 years because the sin of the Amorite has not yet been
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complete, not been filled up. So why not wait and call somebody then? You know, right before the Amorites are going to be because I guess you could look at it again practically the nation had to
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grow, but why not let them grow in the land? Okay, why put them down in Egypt and make them slaves? So there's a lot of those questions that we can't answer.
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Although I think we can see the wisdom of it in looking back in a sense God made Abraham's
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descendants not a nation. And even in Egypt they were still 12 disparate tribes disparate tribes none of whom had any sovereignty. They
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were slaves. So they were a non-nation. And and so in a sense, again, this is just saying what happened, not why it
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happened. But by the time of the Exodus, you have a you have a non-people becoming a people. Okay? And the the title of this course
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uh or the the kind of the pattern that we're looking at is Exodus,
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exile and esquetology.
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I try to alliterate whenever I can, but usually the third one comes out as a P.
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going to do it. But I think that's Yeah. God's going to do it his way, not our way. It's not by not by strength, not by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord. And so the the I I see your hand. Um
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this title follows a definite pattern. And I think this pattern can be seen over and over again in the way God deals
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with his creation. Okay? Now, just accept what I'm saying right now, not as right, but as where we're going. And you can chew on it and meditate on it
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because we're going to be talking about this. But the Exodus
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as death and resurrection. Valley of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. That's not the only place where the return from exile is spoken in resurrection terms. and nor
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is it the only place where um the exile is spoken of as death as the nation actually dying. Okay. And then
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esquetology is the new heaven, new heavens and the new earth.
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that pattern. Romans 6, you have been baptized with Christ, have been baptized into his death and buried with Christ in baptism that you might rise to walk in newness
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of life. of life. It's it's a pattern that God uses. Now, the length of time between these events is is in God's perfect will and not
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mixture on purpose there. Yeah. But Yeah. But but what that is the leaven and the idea of being um permeated and and having its effect that that's absolutely but but
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it's almost like the pattern of God is that once the low is all leavened it's burnt or it just goes completely flat. Okay, that's what happened to Israel.
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you know, at its at its height, the scripture tells us in Solomon's reign, it reached the promised boundaries that had been given, the physical geographical boundaries of the river of
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Egypt to the river Euphrates. And then in Kings, we read that the domain of Solomon reached those boundaries. Okay? So you have from Genesis and you have
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from from first kings or it's in chronicles but it's one of the two the exact geographical limits of the promise are met and where does the kingdom go
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from there uh in which brought out and and I think you Lauren you made the
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comment about Exodus as somewhat of a of a creation. Um, I think that Exodus is an incarnation an incarnation and we're gonna have to talk more about
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that. So, just let that percolate. Um, because it is kind of counterintuitive. But the incarnation itself, I will say this, the incarnation with a capital I,
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the coming in the flesh of the son of God was not a bolt out of the blue. the idea of God dwelling with man
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and even so inhabiting the articles of the tabernacle the tabernacle that if the nonaronic Levites were to even look upon them they would die
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and we'll talk more about that but God's presence I mean the idea of incarnation is Emmanuel God with us so I'm not
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saying that Israel was a bunch of little Christs running around. I'm not saying that or that any of them were in fact the the human incarnation of the Godhead. They were not. But they were a
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type of that. And the Exodus is a type of creation. So we we could even say or I could say we might not say, but I'll say um Israel is a type of Adam.
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Okay? in a in a in a very real prophetic sense, Israel's a type of Adam, which means that Israel is then a type of Christ.
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So there there's so much typology linking who we are in Christ with the whole redemptive history of Israel.
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to to leave Israel out of our thinking is to somehow pretend that there's no longer any sap throwing
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flowing. If you carry and again you can carry a metaphor too far so I hope I don't do that but you use a metaphor because it does have application to your thought.
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You don't use a uh a metaphor because it it's something you like to do. It has to have some meaning. Well, the whole idea here is living or dying. It it kind of
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ties in again with what Jesus says in John 15 that what happens to the branches that are cut off? Well, in John 15, they're gathered up and thrown into the fire.
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the fire. Paul gives the opportunity or the hope that some of these branches will be regrafted. He probably said that or might have said that because he was such a branch that was regrafted. And I think he knew that.
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But the whole idea of being grafted is that it now deres its life from its new
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Right? So that means that the the life that's in that host trunk is the life that now flows through us on natural branches
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natural branches in the church. And in fact, all of the branches now are the church. So that doesn't replace Israel, but it also allows Israel its the history of
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Israel, it it allows it the um what's the word? the the I don't want to say lifegiving, but the life channeling
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of the trunk of the olive tree that that our life in Christ flows through God's covenant with Abraham,
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which then flows through Isaac and Jacob and Israel and Moses and David. Okay? All of this is part of who we are. The
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one tree. Okay.
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The stay. Yeah. The staying the staying in requires them to be Christians. How about How about Oh, yes. He says that if they if they abandon their unbelief, he says, "Yeah, they're not getting back in just because they're Jews.
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They're not getting back in because the tree is short of branches. Now, absolutely, there's only one way to be grafted into this is that's through faith in Jesus Christ. But that means
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that that we're not a separate tree. That that's really that is the essence of the dispensational view of sotiology that there are two trees.
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Okay? One is the Jewish tree, the other is the gentile tree. I don't know where it comes from or how it gets through Romans 11.
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Romans 11. One way it tries to get through Romans 11 is by saying that Paul was talking about that immediate age where there were both Jews in the church and Gentiles coming into the church. But the
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church, the Jews eventually completely rejected and the church became gentile. um it is predominantly gentile but Jews still believe and in a sense those Jews
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who now believe are grafted back in to the tree that was always their natural heritage. Okay in any any descendant of Abraham,
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Isaac and Jacob is a natural branch.
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Is that a fair statement? They are a natural and they're truly natural. They can trace their natural heritage to Abraham. So they're and through Jacob and Isaac. So they're a natural branch. Does that mean they're
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in the tree? No, they cannot now. They cannot be in that tree that they were once all a part of. They cannot be in that tree apart from
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right have to be grafted back in and that's that is um that is that is a fundamental point of the gospel to say anything other is is blasphemy against the gospel
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to because what it is saying if it if you hear anybody offer a different path of salvation of salvation for the Jew then you hear somebody who is blaspheing
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against the gospel it's not Paul's gospel he says according to my gospel you know it's not Paul's gospel and it's not the gospel because Paul's gospel wasn't anything different than the gospel so absolutely um all
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Israel being saved whatever that means and I'm not sure I know ex I I know I do not know exactly what that means but what it does mean is there is no salvation outside of Christ. There's no
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salvation outside of being grafted into this one olive tree, which means by faith being made Abraham's seed because all the nations will be blessed in him.
54:56
Okay. So, within the context of Romans and the emphasis that Paul's already made on a on Abraham and faith, the tree, the olive tree, I think, is
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Now just like the word levan, levan is often used in a negative way but it's not. In fact u many commentators try to take the the parable that you referenced and the levan of the
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kingdom of god and say that this is There's nothing in the parable that would indicate that it's negative except the use of the word leavenan which is
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kind of amazing because leavenan itself is a really good thing. Okay, it gives us good bread. All right, versus bread bricks. Okay, so
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leaven is is a gift of God. Um but but what I'm trying to say is that we get into our head that this this word is negative. We wear the leaven of the Pharisees, right? or the leavenven of
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the Sadducees or the Herodians and they go levan is negative. So wherever we read leaven it's negative. The same thing is true about the metaphor of a tree. You know the tree is a tree. We
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understand how it grows. We understand branches and roots. That's the point. But a tree can be used metaphorically to illuminate different things. That's why
56:20
I said that I think the the stump of Jesse is using we can very much see, you know, that tree is dead. It's been cut off at the ground. Okay? And yet a
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branch, a living branch comes out who is the Messiah. That's using the tree metaphor differently than Paul's using it here in Romans 11. And that tells us
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that's within this. Okay? That's that's here in in this parenthesis where the Abra the uh the Davididic promise that really is the the the Juda Judahite
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promise in Genesis 49 when Jacob says the scepter shall not pass from between Judah's feet until
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Shiloh has come the one to whom it is due. And yet the house of David will be cut off. cut off. There will be no hope of a Davidic king
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and it will be out of that. See there's that there's the death. It'll be out of that that God will raise up David and his tabernacle. Okay? So it's God creating and then in a
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sense destroying only to resurrect. That's a pattern. And we're going to see that pattern running through the whole history of Israel. And in each step, I
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hope to be able to show you how that pattern reflects what God has done now in the church. And we we do need to overcome
57:55
several generations of popular literature that have that have done this.
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Okay. And you're all familiar, I'm sure, with that um kind of framework. Um that's not a good framework. Not at all. It's not biblical. Um it it is
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actually in some respects it's verging on heretical on heretical because it is not teaching the biblical gospel and it is really separating the
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church from the only people through whom the promise of eternal life has come. It's saying that the Gentiles have a
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different source of salvation than Zion. No, we don't. And and even as the church,
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our past, our heritage has become that of Israel. of Israel. They're our scriptures. It's not the the
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Old Testament is the scripture of the Jews and the New Testament the scriptures of the church. That is that is widely believed and horribly wrong. The early church never let go of their
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scriptures. which were what we now call the Old Testament. They belong to us because we belong to Christ. They belong to us in a sense because we belong to them.
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We belong to the word now and and to to kind of make up our own and say that the New Testament is the is the Bible of the church is to create a new redemptive
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plan. And that is essentially what this does. that God has come up with a different redemptive plan for this dispensation, but he's going to return to this one later.