A New Covenant In Christ

In our study of Hebrews chapter 8 we are back to a discussion of covenants. The writer speaks about the old and the new covenants. The old had its faults and is now obsolete and ready to vanish. The new is up to date and filled with life and hope. Long ago, in the days of Israel's captivity in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah wrote about it (Hebrews 8:8-12). Listen to his exciting words:

"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: 

• I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. 
• And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 
• And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." - Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV

We who live under the blessing and lordship of Jesus Christ see the promises of that new covenant fulfilled in our midst. What are those blessings? Let us add them up one by one.

1. Our High Priest is seated at God's right hand (Hebrews 8:1). No longer does any priest have to kill animals, sprinkle blood or spread out sacrifices on an altar. That work was but an example of what was to come. The final sacrifice has been made. Our High Priest sits now at the Father's right hand, pleading for us on the basis of His one final sacrifice. 
2. Our High Priest ministers on our behalf in the true tent pitched by the LORD, not by man (Hebrews 8:2-3). His public ministry (ministry is our word liturgy) is to plead for mercy on our behalf. The basis for His plea is the fact that He has offered His life, shed His infinitely precious blood for us. All that previous priests could offer was the blood of animals. These sacrifices did not in truth pay for the debts we incur by our sinning. They could not. They were but shadows or examples and copies of what was to come (Hebrews 8:4-5).
3. Our High Priest is our only Mediator (Hebrews 8:6). A mediator is one who intervenes between two. He is the go-between, the one who is able to restore peace and friendship between two parties. Moses previously was one such. He was the one who brought God's commands to the Children of Israel, the one who acted as their mediator with God. This is what Christ and Christ alone is for all men. Through Him we are privileged and able to come into the presence of God Himself. This is what the Apostle wrote in his letter to young pastor Timothy: "For there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Tim. 2:5 - ESV

There was no such High Priest in the Old Covenant. They had no such high priest in the heavenly places. All they had were earthly priests ministering in a tent or temple made with human hands, mere copies of the true heavenly temple. This was the fault or defect of the first covenant. The houses of Israel and Judah needed a new covenant.

But what exactly is a covenant? There are many examples of covenants in the Old Testament writings. For instance, Abraham made a covenant between himself and Abimelech the Philistine at Beersheba to settle the dispute between them about water. The oath between them was sealed by seven ewe lambs that Abraham gave to Abimelech. Therefore that place was called Beersheba (the well of seven in Hebrew) - Gen. 21:22-32.

Covenants were not always between equals, however. Yet they were binding and taken most seriously. So there was a covenant between the LORD God and the people of Israel, not a covenant between equals, but between the greater and the lesser, similar to the treaties imposed by a great king upon one of his vassal kings who owed him homage and obedience. Israel accepted such a covenant when she escaped slavery in Egypt. The people of Israel promised to have no other gods and to obey the LORD. The Mosaic law and the sacrificial system and all these entailed were part of that covenant. But Israel did not keep her covenant with the LORD. She broke it. She turned to other gods. She disobeyed God's laws. The old covenant was a failure.

In view of all this the prophet Jeremiah, as spokesman for the LORD, promised a new covenant. In this new covenant the LORD would write His law on the hearts of God's people, within them. They would truly know Him. And their sins and iniquities would be forgiven. We will explore next time what that implies for us who have put our faith and trust in Christ.

The Circumcision Of Jesus

The Christmas celebration for believers continues well beyond December 25, all the way to January 6 when Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Christ's birth and western Christians the coming of the Magi. The appointed Gospel for the First Sunday of the Christmas celebration is Luke 2:22-40. This text is all about Jesus' and Mary's purification and the family's encounter with two devout seniors who lived in Jerusalem and spent their days at the Temple. Let's start with Jesus' circumcision and its meaning for us now two thousand years later.

And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Luke 2:21 ESV

The reference is to Genesis 17:1-14 and Leviticus 12:3, the law about a boy child's circumcision. All this seems remote and strange to us. In fact not all Christian parents have their sons circumcised. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for example, does not recommend it as a routine procedure for newborn male babies. Nor are believers spiritually bound by such rules since the coming of Christ. The Apostle Paul writes about about circumcision as it was connected to God's mystery, now revealed in Christ:

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance (i.e. soma in Gk. = body) belongs to Christ. - Col 2:6-17 ESV

The organ of generation, that bodily part by which the LORD God brings children into the world, that organ had a sign connected to it since the days of Abraham. The foreskin was removed on the eighth day after birth as a sign of the covenant the LORD made with Abraham and all his descendants. For the rest of his life every male was unavoidably reminded of this covenant. Like the rainbow (Gen. 9:12-13), this sign pointed to the fact that God mysteriously and graciously chose Abraham's children as His own. Both a man and his wife were reminded of this covenant when they had intercourse. They belonged to the LORD and so did the children the LORD would create through that intercourse. This is also why Moses called upon the Israelites to "circumcise the foreskin of your heart". The LORD of heaven and earth in love chose them above all people, not because of their numbers or their goodness. He chose them out of His own grace and mercy (Deut. 7:7-8; Psalms 115:1). Consequently they were to remove anything that hindered them from devoting themselves to the LORD and His plans for their lives.

In Jesus' day the Jews had typically distorted that meaning of circumcision. They turned it into yet another way by which they were gaining the LORD's favor. They made it a good work they performed to show how devoted they were. It had become what Paul calls a "human tradition." Away with this, says Paul. Circumcision and all the other laws about food and drink, festivals and a Sabbath are but shadows. They served a purpose for believers in the days of the old covenant. But those days have come to an end. Christ is the body that cast a shadow in former days. But now he is present and has completed his work. He has taken us and our sins with him to the cross. He paid our debts. They were once and for all eternity set aside, nailed to the cross. So we are free from guilt, shame and sin. We died with Christ and rose again. This is the message of our baptism. And this is also why all those rules and laws no longer apply to us.

And yet Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day. Why? So that it might be clear he was identified completely with God's chosen people, even as he has declared himself now to be the Savior of all, both Jews and Gentiles. What a wonder and what a wonderful reason to celebrate Christmas.

Yes, We Have A Destiny

In my previous post I raised the question of destiny, both my own and the destiny of my nation. Is there indeed a plan for each one of us, as well as a plan for our nations or groups of people? Is the hand of God at work in all of this?

To answer these questions we are asking the Holy Spirit to guide us through the following passage from Moses' farewell speech, given on the day of his death after guiding the Children of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years. Read the entire context in Deut. 32:1-43.

Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. - Deu 32:7-9 ESV

The chosen people of God are called the sons of God or the children of God. They all traced their lineage back to Jacob or Israel, the grandson of Abraham. Step by step over hundreds of years God made them into a people and prepared for them this land they were about to enter. The promises given to Abraham were about to be fulfilled.

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites." - Gen 15:18-21 ESV. See also Gen 17:1-5. 

 This covenant is celebrated in the Psalms.

O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones! He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance." - Psa 105:6-11 ESV

 We can trace God's guiding hand back to the days of Noah and the flood. So we read, 

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth." The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed. - Gen 9:12-19 ESV

Moses invites the people to review their history. Check with your fathers, he urges. They'll teach you about how the Most High God guided these events, including your bondage in Egypt and your wandering in the wilderness these past 40 years. Now you are about to enter a land designed for you, with room for all of you, a land that does not belong to the Canaanites.

The lesson for God's people in these days? God does indeed have plans for His people and each one of us as members of His people. We are called to follow Him and to serve in the place and at the time that He has designed for us. The plans of God reach back to the days of Adam and Eve. They stretch forward across the centuries to the birth, life, death and resurrection of God's Son, Jesus, the Messiah. We who have been called to faith in Christ Jesus are His chosen people, the new Israel. Paul points to this in his letters.

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. - Gal 6:14-16 ESV

 And earlier in the same letter,

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed." So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. 

... For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. - Gal 3:7-9, 27-29 ESV

Destiny? Promises? Guidance? Blessings? Indeed. The hand of God has been guiding all things up to this present day. And know with certainty that if you are in Christ Jesus you are an heir of all God's promises, promises that reach forward to the resurrection from the dead endless ages yet to come.

I'll have more to say about this in my next post.

The Sabbath and the Old Covenant—chp.4

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The Day of Rest

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Biblical Teaching About Time

—An online book about rest and worship—

By Dr. Al Franzmeier

Chapter 4

The Sabbath and the Old Covenant
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In the previous chapters we examined fifteen ways our world changed during the twentieth century.

 In Chap. 3 we studied the Biblical concept of the seven-day week and why the Sabbath, the seventh day and number seven were considered to be sacred. We now continue with a more detailed look at the Sabbath and the Old Covenant, that Covenant that has now been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

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Thinking about the Sabbath, you may have considered how great it would be if everybody could stop working on the same day to rest, relax and spend time with the family. But think about it. This could never happen in our postmodern world.

For instance, what would happen in any city if no one was in charge of utilities or if no policemen or firemen were on duty for a whole day every week? And what about hospitals? We certainly wouldn’t want doctors, nurses and all the other support people to all take off for a whole day. Think also about bus and cab drivers, airplane pilots, the telephone companies, and the Internet. There are many examples. The whole Sabbath idea is very impractical and quite impossible in our world. Before we can apply these teachings of the Bible to our postmodern world, we have to understand them better. Applications will become more evident later.

It will also not be easy to wade into an extended discussion of this topic in an age that typically wants quick, easy answers. We’re too busy to spend much time reflecting on the past and how we got where we are.  Nevertheless, I invite you to work with me. We’re still a long ways from the end. If you agree, we’ll move on. I’d now like to look at how the people of the Old Testament handled the Sabbath.

Remember the Sabbath by Keeping It Holy
Let’s start with the commandment itself, first given through Moses to the people freed from slavery in Egypt.

‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maid servant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy’ (Exodus 20:8-11).

I want to emphasize several points from this passage, some very similar to the points made in the previous chapter.

1. The week was to be seven days long and the seventh day was always a Sabbath, a day of rest.
2. On the seventh day they were not to labor. Work was for the other days. The seventh was a day to rest. That presented a few difficulties, of course, especially since someone had to prepare meals and care for the animals. They worked around those problems in a variety of creative ways.
3. On the Sabbath no one was to work. That included the children and the servants. Even slaves and animals must rest on that day.
4. All this was a reminder that the same LORD who brought them out of bondage and had given them their beautiful land, was the Creator of all the vast heavens, the earth and the sea.
5. By His grace the LORD rescued their forefathers and fed them in the wilderness with manna. However, He gave them no manna on the Seventh Day. It was a day of rest. On the sixth day they could collect what they needed and it did not decay. So the Sabbath was a day to meditate upon the gracious God who continued to feed them. 
6. Their Creator rested on the Seventh Day, the day without end, and so they also would find eternal rest if they but trusted Him.
7. Above all, the Seventh Day was to be viewed as a blessing from the LORD for all believers throughout the long history of God’s people Israel.

 God had miraculously taken them out of slavery in Egypt to put them on a journey to the land he promised Abraham centuries before.

The same command given from the creation of the world to Adam and Eve and the believers descended from them was now restated in the period of the Exodus. That context is very important. In the the Ten Commandments the LORD said, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” They were free at last and must never throw away their freedom. Their freedom was intimately tied to the grace and mercy of the God who had delivered them from the tyranny of Pharaoh and his evil government. A difficult journey stood before the freed people, a journey through wild country. But by God’s grace they would arrive safely in the Promised Land. On that journey they were to set aside one day every week to rest and to remember the LORD who had set them free and was giving them the Promised Land.

The Apostle Paul calls Christians to meditate upon that same journey. In his letter to the believers in Corinth he writes,

 ‘I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ’” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4). 

What is Paul is talking about? How were they “baptized in the cloud and in the sea”? What does it mean to eat the same spiritual food and drink the same spiritual drink from the spiritual rock? And how is it that Christ is that rock?

Paul is saying that Christ was behind everything that took place in the Exodus. Christ is the goal, “the end” toward which everything moved. All the sacrifices, rituals and days pointed to Him. Believers in Christ now share in all that Christ has accomplished, as did the believers in the Old Covenant era. To understand Paul’s and all the Apostles’—and the early church’s—thinking about Christ as the LORD of the Old Covenant we must learn more about what was behind the Sabbath commandment and the number seven to which it was attached.

As pointed out in the previous chapter, seven is the important number in the Old Testament. For instance, the great Day of Atonement was on the tenth day of the seventh month. In the Tabernacle and later Temple ceremonies for that day, a bull was slaughtered, symbolically taking the place of the priests who deserved death because of their personal sins. A goat was also slaughtered in place of the people of Israel. As we now understand it, these sacrifices pointed forward to the sacrificial death of the Christ.

Following those sacrifices, ceremonies in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle (later in the Temple) also involved the use of the number seven. The High Priest sprinkled some of the slaughtered bull’s blood with his finger on the Atonement Cover of the Ark of the Covenant for the sins of the priests seven times. He did the same with blood of the slaughtered goat to atone for the sins of the people.
Then the High Priest went out to make atonement for the altar since the sins of the entire nation were daily placed upon that it in the presence of the LORD. Blood from both the bull and the goat were placed on the horns of the altar seven times.

After all this, one powerful symbolical act remained. The High Priest placed both hands on the head of a second living goat and confessed over it “all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites.” Then the goat was sent into the wilderness to be released and never seen again. So the sins of the people and their guilt were symbolically transferred and taken away.

The goat was called the scapegoat, a term common in our language. When we don’t want to take the blame, we give to somebody else. We make him the scapegoat. The Hebrew name is Azazel. The Bible actually says that the second goat was the ‘goat for Azazel.’ Interpreters disagree on the meaning of the Hebrew term. You will find some who equate Azazel with Satan and still others say that the goat was given to some mysterious supernatural being called Azazel. Some Rabbis teach that Azazel belongs to the class of goat-like demons, haunting the desert. In our day you can still find people who even worship Azazel and his female counterpart Lilith. Azazel is also identified with the serpent that tempted Eve. His form is described as a dragon with hands and feet like a man's, on his back six wings on the right and six on the left. There are a variety of Bible passages used to trace the background of these references. For tons more information about Lilith see The Lilith Shrine.

In Muslim demonology, Azazel is the counterpart of the devil who refused to acknowledge the supremacy of God. His name was changed to Iblis, which means 'despair'. In Paradise Lost (I, 534), the great medieval poet Milton used Azazel as the name for the standard-bearer of the rebel angels.

During the ceremonies the High Priest did not wear his usual elaborate vestments. Instead, he wore the simple white linen garments prescribed for a priest tending the altar. By the way, the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel tell us that white linen is also the garment worn by the holy angels who minister before God in heaven,  It symbolized the highest degree of purity.

When the rituals were completed the High Priest took off his linen garments, bathed himself and put back on his regular vestments. Then he burned the fat of the slaughtered bull and goat on the altar as a sin offering for himself and the people. Finally, the slaughtered bull and goat remains were taken outside the camp or city and burned.

The Day of Atonement, unlike the Sabbath, was a day of fasting. It was the only regular fast day stipulated in the Old Covenant. It was called a Sabbath of rest, a day in which the people were to deny themselves food from the evening of the ninth day of the month until the tenth day ended the following evening.

Since Israelite culture was based on agriculture, the Sabbath was always a complete day of rest, set aside for the worship of God and for sharing among family and friends. It was a day of eating, drinking and celebrating, not fasting. They were not allowed to fast on Sabbath. Sabbath pointed to the blessings of this good earth and the land God had given them. This was a day to celebrate that fact.

We people of the New Testament reflect upon what the Sabbath pointed toward, namely eternal rest, peace and security in a world freed by Christ from sin and rebellion. Baptized into Christ we anticipate that grand Day when He will return to complete the promise given to us upon the cross. For now, he says, “Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The writer of the letter to the Hebrews also wrote, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work” (Hebrews 4:9).

From these and similar passages we begin to see that the Old Covenant Sabbath pointed forward to a better time. Jesus understood himself to be the fulfillment and the fulfiller of the weekly Sabbaths with their promises of rest as well as the Atonement Sabbath of rest. Both Sabbaths pointed to what Christ was to bring, namely rest for guilt burdened people and peace with God through the final sacrifice that He made upon the altar of the cross. Consequently, it is no longer the weekly Sabbath or the Day of Atonement that matters. Both pointed to Jesus. He is the sacrifice and the bringer of rest through that sacrifice. What matters now is following Him every day. That’s where Christians have always gone. We will explore further what God revealed to his people of the Old Covenant about rest, particularly about rest and the land in the next chapter.