“It is the teaching of God’s Word that Jesus is the true Israel of God, that his incarnation, obedience, death and resurrection was not a by-product of Israel’s rejection of the offer of an earthly kingdom, but the fulfillment of God’s plan from all eternity. This is what Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus. One of them said, “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” 

In part 1 we began to look at the sort of kingdom Jesus brought.

Rather, Jesus came not to build an earthly Jewish kingdom now or later, but always and only his intention was to redeem all his people by his death on the cross, and to rule the nations with a rod of iron in his ascension until his return in judgment.

It is my contention that God’s chief purpose in history has been to glorify himself through the redemption of a people in all times, places and out of all races, which grace he has administered since the fall, in history in a visible, institutional church, under Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and now Christ. Therefore, the premise that God’s intent has been to establish a permanent or millennial, national, Jewish people has it exactly backward. Our Dispensationalist brothers confuse what is temporary with what is permanent, and what is permanent with what is temporary.

It is the teaching of God’s Word that Jesus is the true Israel of God, that his incarnation, obedience, death and resurrection was not a by-product of Israel’s rejection of the offer of an earthly kingdom, but the fulfillment of God’s plan from all eternity. This is what Jesus told the disciples on the road to Emmaus. One of them said, “we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” In response our Lord said,

“How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself (Luke 24:25–7).

The Apostle Paul summarized this same teaching when he told the Corinthians that ” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ” (2 Cor 1:20).

Covenant Defined

We cannot understand what God is doing in history apart from understanding one of the most important terms in Scripture: covenant. This is a very frequent word in the Bible (294 times). Covenant describes the way God relates to creatures. It is a mutually binding oath in which there are stipulations, blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience as well as signs and seals of the oath.

Law and Gospel: Covenants of Works and Grace

God made the first covenant in human history, a covenant of works with the first man in the garden. The promised blessing for covenant keeping was that Adam and all humanity would enter into glory (“eat…and live forever,” Gen 3.22); the threatened curse for covenant breaking was death (“you shall surely die,” Gen. 2:17). The stipulation of the covenant was that Adam should refrain from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). The signs of the covenant were the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life (Gen 2:9).

As you know, Adam failed that test, and Paul says that “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). So we are all now born under this covenant of works.

The second covenant in human history was also made by our God with our father Adam. This covenant, however, was not a law-covenant; rather it was a gospel covenant. In the covenant of grace, God promised on oath a coming Savior (“seed of the woman”) who would crush the head of the seed of the serpent when the serpent struck his heel (Gen. 3:14–16). The blessing of this covenant is eternal life (the tree of life) and the curse for covenant breaking remains death. The Gospel of this covenant is that there is a Savior who will keep the terms of the covenant of works and sinners will benefit from it.

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Go Here To Read Part 3