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So if you'd rather don't mind, this morning I wrote down my thoughts that I could try to get things in order and not need to figure things out, which I may have done anyway. And other brothers who filled that in.
But what I'd like to do is start just by giving a little introduction as to what covenant theology is and why there are dangers living as opposed to the truth that.
We believe we present in the assembly. So if the brethren are OK with that, I'll just read it. So the thoughts I wrote down. So covenant theology is a system of theology that does not recognize the difference between Israel and the Church, like Kim was saying earlier.
It teaches that man is in relationship with God only by covenant, and it always includes the Law of Moses as an essential part of that covenant.
Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding read quite a bit about it is you'll never find it without the Law of Moses right in the heart and center.
The truth is that Israel was under covenant relationship with Jehovah under law, but in no sense are we under covenant with God as a church.
Since they wrongly teach that we are under covenant with God by the Law of Moses, they also must teach two things that are needed with regard to that law.
In terms of salvation.
First, the law must be perfectly kept for one to live.
And 2nd, if the law is broken, its curse of death must be born, and in fact, the law does require these two things.
Since all have sinned, they teach that the work of the Lord Jesus Christ has two distinct parts that are necessary for the believer to be restored to covenant relationship with God. So it's the only way you can have relationship with God is by covenant. The laws are part of it.
You need something, and these two things correspond to what we just spoke about. First, the Lord Jesus died to bear the curse of the law for every believer.
This they call his passive obedience.
When a person believes on the work of Christ on the cross, they are no longer under the curse of the law. The Lord Jesus obeyed. He kept the law.
For them. We'll talk about that in a minute.
But this would only go so far as to keep a person out of hell. It doesn't bring them into covenant relationship with God.
And so this brings in, say, teach the second part of the work of Christ, that is, that He perfectly kept the law as a man in his life on earth. And this is what they call His active obedience. When a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, they teach that his righteousness is imputed to them. They call this the imputed righteousness of Christ. Have you heard of it?
I did often. I didn't know what they were talking about. Well, they have a very definite meaning by it.
And this is what they're talking about, that the Lord Jesus Christ.
Kept the law and he.
As a man on earth, and that now gets imputed to the believer. And then they when a person believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, that righteousness is imputed to them. And that means to them that the believer now stands before God is having perfectly kept the law, because Christ kept the law on their behalf.
See where they're going with it.
So the believers.
Curse of death is born through Christ's passive obedience.
And the believer can live in righteousness as righteous in covenant relationship with God by having Christ active obedience imputed to him.
Having been brought into this relationship, the believer stands before God under essentially the same relationship as Israel, but through the work of Christ. This is the New covenant. Those in the New Covenant are now subjects of the Kingdom that has Christ as its king and the law as its rule of life. That's king.
And so when you get into common theology, you find much about the king. We're children of the king or in the Kingdom. We are the Kingdom. We know that. But that's basically where covenant theology just dwells in the Kingdom and the law becomes the rule of life for the believer. That's what God gave her covenant with him.
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That, in a nutshell, is more or less what covenant theology is, and it's not.
The truth of Scripture. The fact is that we are not under law at all. We were condemned as sinners before God, having come short of his glory, not just the law. When one believes in the Lord Jesus, he's not forgiven his sins, but he's also justified. That is, God reckons him perfectly righteous simply by faith in Christ, and puts a believer not in covenant relationship with himself, but in the very place of Christ.
That's important. It's infinitely farther than the other. Where government theology.
God puts the believer.
Not in covenant relationship with himself, but in the very place of the Lord Jesus Christ. The believer is seated with Christ in heavenly places. It isn't Christ's righteousness that is imputed to the believer, but instead God counts him righteous because he has believed in Christ.
And God even goes further than that.
The believer dies entirely out of the world.
To which the law applied, so that the law has nothing to say to him its requirement of death for those to whom it abide.
The Jews really is entirely met because the believer dies with Christ and then lives before God.
In a new place in Christ, with a new life, the very light of Christ himself.
It is not the imputed righteousness of Christ that Scripture teaches, but Galatians 220. That's why we learned verses like these are very important. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, and yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. We are now in Christ before God, in a life to which sin cannot attach.
It's holy and made perfectly righteous in him. It is living his life in the power of the Spirit that pleases God, not me trying to keep the Law of Moses as a rule of life.
As a believer, I'm now part of the Church in relationship with Christ, not just as King, but in a far closer and more intimate relationship as his body and his bride. See, what is this so important?
This brings in some of the great problems of covenant theology. Not only does it wrongly put the believer under law, but it fails to recognize the new nature and the Spirit of God is the basis for pleasing God.
They don't, I understand, recognize two natures at all. Only the old you practically denies the heavenly position of the believer and makes him merely a subject of an earthly Kingdom.
Much of the practical truth of the body of Christ on earth is lost, and the nearness of affection of the Bride is also lost. There are many other points that we could take up, and I suppose we have time to do it now, but perhaps this is enough to give some of the main points and to show why we have to really learn dispensational truth and many of these other truths that we present in the assembly.
It's my short statement, I just mentioned one thing.
That I found that sometimes makes it a different topic and that is as you go out, you interact with different Christians who hold to come into theology.
They you may present some of the points that 10% of them they say I don't agree with that, I don't approve this thing. And it's because there is such a mixture of covenant theology out there, not just like there's a tremendous fixture of dispensationalism out there.
And So what what Tim is presenting is core covenant theology, what somebody would believe if they believed truly covenant theology. And I had a guy I worked with one time and he was, he was, he got saved later in life and he was with open brother similar to what we are dispensational. And he went on to Presbyterian Church covenantal and what his hope was it was to create a creating a open.
Cafeteria church. He wanted to mix dispensations and covenant theology, which.
Is like, you cannot, like you can't do it. It makes no sense. But in his mind it could. And what he would do is he would take some from one and some from the other. And so when you would meet somebody like that, you would say, well, if I don't hold that. So we have to look at this as a, as a truth. This is what covenant theology is. But your, your experience running into different people might, might be a little bit differently concerned to a few of the verses that they use.
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It might help because they'll probably, if they know what their theology is, they'll probably turn to some of these.
Then the first one I would turn to would be Romans chapter 5, Romans 5.
And verse 19.
Says.
Whereas by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Now many incumbent theology, perhaps most who know what its teachings are, will come to this first.
And they will say that this obedience is the Lord Jesus Christ, legal obedience in his life, that He kept the law perfectly, and that's what makes you righteous. They won't deny that disobedience includes Him being obedient unto death, as you have in Philippians chapter 2, perhaps the primary way that I understand this verse. And of course, neither will I deny.
That the Lord Jesus had to be obedient in his life or he couldn't be the spotless Lamb of God to go and.
In fact, that death at Calvary's cross, you can see some of the crossover of thought in a verse like this, but this is a verse that they will use to say that the Lord Jesus.
Is active obedience, legal obedience and keeping the law was required, and you're made righteous by it because it gets imputed to you. And they'll talk about that imputed righteousness of Christ over and over again, which if you ask them to find it in the Bible, usually this is the only place that I know. Maybe somebody else knows that, some other places.
Where they try to go, you go to the book of Romans, you see imputed righteousness, but it's God's righteousness, never the righteousness of Christ there They try to make it into that, but it's the righteousness of God. And the first thing it speaks about is God being righteous and justifying the Sinner. How can he be consistent with his own nature in doing it? And he shows how and then how he reckons that to the one who believes in Christ. And we know that Christ is made unto us righteousness. That's in first Corinthians chapter one. That's a different thing.
And we learned that, of course, in other ways it's from himself, the position we have in him, his life, all these things that are taught and other verses, but they take it up in the way that I tried to present at the beginning.
Tim, one verse that really helps me with that earlier in Romans when he when he starts developing the subject of God's righteousness. I'll just read the verse. It's Romans 321.
It says, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. It's the thought of the righteousness of God, not on the principle of law at all. Whether it be our key to the law or whether it be Christ keeping the law for us. That is not the basis of the righteousness that God has in salvation. And so Roman Romans deals with these questions, things that it unfolds the foundation of how we are saved, how we are justified, how we are brought in the blessing.
And then later on enrollments, the subject of what God is doing with Israel and the Gentiles has also unfolded. So the very first epistle, I think by no accident, God allowed it to be the first one in our in our Bibles, deals with these basic foundational questions.
And I'll just, I'll just say one more thing.
I actually have to run. And so I know you guys have continued, but you know, the other pistols in the New Testament deal with these issues head on as far as what the church is. And I know that we'll get to these verses, but there's a verse in Colossians chapter 2 That I think is so important.
If we just look at that verse.
When it comes to what we are part of.
In the church.
Colossians, chapter 2.
It says.
Verse two, That their hearts may be comforted being knit together in love, and unto all riches. Of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God.
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And I think the last few words of that verse are not really supposed to be there. And verse three, in whom or it should be translated, In which are did all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
So if we could just sort of summarize that it's this mystery of God in which are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, what the apostle Paul unfolds in his doctrine, the gospel and the mystery, but specifically the mystery in that are revealed all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the truth of what we are as the church.
Is a mystery that was, did and gone. It is not something found in the Old Testament.
It is not a continuation of Israel, it's something totally new and distinct.
Altogether from and that is if you're being challenged with covenant theology. It's one of the most important things to understand is what is the church. The verses that I I I read did not explain what the mystery is. I think Ephesians chapter three first year visual Ephesians chapter three really unfold that and it's perhaps its fullest way, but understanding what the church is.
Is so important, and the epistles of Ephesians and Colossians really tackle that head on.
And so this is not a peripheral thing. The epistles of the New Testament, especially the epistles of false, tackle these issues head on. And if you just simply, with the Spirit of God, work your way through those epistles and seek to understand what the arguments and the message really is, you'll be fortified against.
The false teaching of the Covenant beyond.
Bruce Ansky has a, excuse me a book on Kevin intelligence book. Many here have read it and I was just wondering he has a pie chart thinking there Christian groups and denominations showing that about 70% Christian believes in covenantology. I'm just wondering what the end game is for all that. What's the motive for wanting to pull that? Seems like they're going backwards. Not anything we would want to put ourselves under.
Why they want to believe that? If anybody thought on that, I think we should understand that.
This sensational truth is a recovery of the truth of God that came later.
Common theologies and outgrowth of things that happened in the history of the Church and the only days of the Church is five in the Book of Revelation and Smyrna. They were under much persecution. They were looking for the Lord to come.
And then after that the hypergamous, which is married and the church settled down the world, became married to the world. And then it was no longer the thing to be looking for the coming of the Lord, but instead it must be that somehow the Lord is reigning down. And Augustine introduced the city of God and it went on from there.
Till Calvin, I think, developed any of the systematic parts of this.
And.
It got put into the lot of the catechisms, the idea of the difference between the Church and Israel dispensations. It was all lost until the 1830s when the Lord recovered those truths. So this is really where Kristen was coming from. Mr. Darby, when he was 27 years old, went from one year of being entirely in common theology, and that was his whole thought like everyone else's.
To a year later, having pretty much all of these precious truths that we now understand and enjoy and teach in the assembly, He had them all given to him by the Lord. And so that was a new thing in Christendom. At first it wasn't a resistance to it, but as time went on, no doubt to hold on to their system and many of the ways of doing things, they continued with it. And covenant theology naturally leads you to the fact that the Lord is the King.
This world is His, which is all true, and and that's our place as Christians right now.
Is to act with a king while we're here and their end time views, there's various different ones, but they all have something to do with that. But essentially means that you're going to get involved because the affairs of this earth, you're going to try to reform the culture. You're going to try to win this world in some way for Christ and it entirely changes the way you live in this world. So obviously if we're here as a company of people.
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Saying no, Christianity is for those who are called out this world, this world is under judgment and can we just preach the gospel that they don't agree with? And now it's been a great deal of resistance that's come in against this truth.
I think that the chapter that.
About an economist replacing the moment of legend, about let's talk about that's true. And when you go through that chapter, it's pretty hard to see when you get to the end of it, how.
You know the.
Israel is brought back again, I think a while to go through, but I knew somebody who grew up and kept theology, and this is the chapter that convinced of that that couldn't be true.
But anyways, there's some other point you want to make on this. Or just point that fact out. I think you're right, they do.
And Roger, you had a point on this chapter as well, right?
Well, I'll just add Catherine.
Certainly something that I'll get because that is not.
Going to restore their effect.
There's so many types of things.
It's interesting recently at home.
And.
White or it's not Isaac.
Stands.
Right.
The Sun is kind of any kind of last year for his wife.
Answered our questions.
And there's children.
Set aside ejector.
We have a set of practices.
Summarize those points just.
Pointing out.
Has gone past the latest people.
And it's clear I'm an Israelite. He's talking about Israel. He says it's Todd Castaway Israel. And he goes to show now and then he says in verse 12, he says.
Sorry, verse 11. Through their call, the end of the verse, salvation has come to the Gentiles.
And then skip to the end of the chapter.
End of verse 25. Blindness and partisan happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles.
Come in. And so all Israel shall be saved. I mean, both of the chapter, you see, very blindly. First Israel set aside Gentiles coming to blessings. Then there's going to be a time when there's a fullness of that and Israel's going to come back into blessing. There's nothing of replacement here. No thought that the church is the New Testament. Israel, it's talking about Israel, Gentiles, Israel. Everything remains distinct in the word of God.
Is that what those verses like at the end of chapter 3 it says?
Verse 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Verse 29. Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, seeing it as one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith and uncircumcision through faith.
So it's a little bit different because you have to understand Romans has three parts is first of all the doctrinal teaching. And in the doctrinal teaching he ends up with there's no difference. That's where he comes all the guilty and then there's no difference. He shows mercy to all. And then you've got the dispensational part that's chapters 9:10 and 11:00 where he has to answer the question of, well, if it's like that, there's no difference that you and Gentile all save now, then what about God's promises?
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And there he's showing very definitely that God has is going to keep every single one of those promises.
None of this truth of the gospel sets aside the promise of God. So it's a little bit different. Romans 3 is talking about the fact that we're all saved the same way right now by faith in Christ.
It's helpful when you go through Romans 2. Imagine all writing that epistle or dictating it to somebody who's writing it, and in that room there's a group of Jews, and every time Paul gets to a different point, they start throwing out questions.
And so the apostle Paul all through Romans addresses these questions that are posed by the Jew in regards to the gospel. And the big one has Tim has said is what about those who promised that were given? And he addresses a little section towards that.
So we if we think about those, those promises that were given, which is a big one.
Covenant theology will.
Say that we have taken over for Israel and that the church is going to realize all of Israel's blessings. The blessings of Israel would be realized in the church. But God gave unconditional promises to Abraham, then to Isaac, then to Jacob. What followed was conditional promises to Israel in keeping the law. This is what I will do. If you don't keep the law, this is what's going to happen.
But God promised something to Abraham on God's own merit, based on who God is. He swore by himself because there there was no greater. And what covenant theology seeks to do is to take those promises that were given, that were unconditional, that weren't based on anything that Abraham had to do, anything that Isaac had to do, anything that Jacob had to do.
And it sets them aside because of future failure some 400 years later. That was on the principle of law they were given before, and the gifts in calling of God without repentance, they read in Romans Chapter 11. And those promises that were given, that were unconditional, God will fulfill. He will give them just as He promised them to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Nothing that follows later we read in Romans is going to annull an agreement that was made previous until you can't come out with a law that then somehow dissin all what God had given unconditionally later. It doesn't work that way. Nobody would operate that way. The Spirit of God our views through the impossible. We wouldn't operate that way in our business, much less a righteous God dealing with his people.
One other thing I wanted to say that covenant theology holds as well is that the 1St man, Adam, is still under test. And because it's a covenant and because the law has a part in that covenant, Adam is still very much alive and still very much having a place before God.
Where what dispensationalism teaches?
Is that God tested man, tested man and tested man and the result of that was complete and utter depravity. There was no hope we can read it in regards to Israel in the Old Testament, which is pretty much a summary of the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 5. It says now will I sing to my well below the song of my beloved touch against vineyard. My well beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill and expensed it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choice of vine built a tower in the midst of it and also made a wine press there in.
And he looked at it should bring forth grace and then brought forth wild grapes history of Israel and now inhabitants of Jerusalem. The men of Judah judge. I pray that which may and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it. Wherefore when I looked at it should bring forth grapes brought forth wild grapes goes on and tell what he's going to do with that. But Darren is going to tear it down When you come to the New Testament where we've already been in Romans.
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We get a history of all of mankind, we get the barbarian, we get the culture Gentile with their laws, and we get the Jew. And he culminates with what Josh was speaking about what? What Josh quoted Romans chapter three, he says.
Therefore by the needs of the law there shall no flesh be justified in this sight by the laws, the knowledge of sin, and now the righteousness of God, without the laws manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ.
Unto all, upon all them that believe there is no difference.
We might sit there and say.
If it was me and I was put into that position of Israel, I would have done it. But the whole of the Old Testament is is written to us for proof that God tested Adam to see if there was anything in Adam that could please him.
And there was not. He gave them the best possible circumstances, not so we could tell God, hey, if you put me in those circumstances, I would be able to be like that. He didn't just show us that we cannot, man cannot, mankind the the race of Adam cannot. So what does he do? He sets aside Adam is done and he presents his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ as the only one who can.
Please him.
And our righteousness.
The righteousness of God, God being perfectly consistent, and who He is a holy God.
And being able to stay band and have a relationship with them is not on the basis of Adam somehow being in a covenantal relationship or keeping the law. It's on the basis of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ of commerce cross, his righteousness. That's that's what he's given to us. Adam has set aside. He came with the 2nd man, He came with the last AD because of the first atom, but not different.
Just to continue a little further then in that chapter, Joe.
Question then is, is our salvation have anything to do with the law or the Lord Jesus keeping it in his life and just going down to verses Romans 324 being justified freely by His grace to the rejection that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be of appreciation through faith in His life. It's not his life or the righteous law keeping there.
It's all based on faith.
In the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is his work on the cross that is given as the basis for our justification before God and it's really important to see that because they use that other to keep all alive the whole principle of life for the believer as well that.
We're under the law and this goes on makes all these points clear. But just to go to chapter 6, I had a somebody come in theology say, well, if if it's not the law that is given to us, then how would we know how to please God? And of course that's a longer subject, but it has to do with what we have presented here in Romans and Galatians about the Spirit and the new life.
But Romans 8 is very clear anyway, just before we get to that.
Romans 6 is a good verse to remember, verse 14.
Sin shall not have diminished over you, but you are not under the law, but under grace. That's pretty simple. You're not underrated, period. It doesn't matter how many thousands of Christians and the other persuasions say so. One verse says they're all wrong. And to go on a little further, Romans Chapter 7, he puts it even stronger than that, he says.
There in verse 4. Wherefore, my brethren, you are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead.
Then why? What's the purpose of that?
We get to the law, how will we know how to please God? Well, God says no, no, no, you're dead to the law. And here's the purpose.
That we should bring forth fruit to God.
That's how it is. You can't live like Joe was saying, as man, as Adam being tested under the law to bring forth truth for God. Even as a Christian, we can't do that.
00:35:10
Instead, we're dead and we're brought into something new entirely, a whole new life in Christ. And that's what God has given to us for this purpose of bringing forth fruit. If you're going to try to live the old way under the law, you're not going to bring forth fruit to God, but he has put us to death with Christ. We are dead so that we have that position where we can bring forth fruit to God. And so this is taking off right through the other verse I was getting at was Romans.
Chapter 8 and.
Verse three, God in the middle of the verse. Well, Betty, the beginning of it.
Sorry, let's go to verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus period. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Now that's plainly saying what we're talking about. There's a whole new law, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That old law talking about the law of Moses, it's a law of sin and advocate only condemn.
We're free from that. Then it goes on to explain why in verse 3 for what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh. God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, He says exist all over all that we were in Adam. Forget it. It's done with what Joe is saying. It's condemned and God's not looking for anything there. He condemned it and verse four, it tells us that the end result, the purpose of it, that the righteousness of the law.
Might be fulfilled in us so you see if you're even taken up with that, there is a righteousness that is in the law and it's going to be automatically filled fulfilled out in US who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. There's a new life, there's a new walk. The spirit is the power of that walk and when we do that we fulfill the thought ever could have looked for in the law and a lot more besides. So these things all answer it when you take them off and come in theology denies.
What we're talking about in these verses.
Doesn't covenant theology also?
Teach that since the Church is now Israel or takes the place of that there's no, there's no rapture that we're on earth until the very end, all the judgments and so forth or not. I have known some who believe that their their rapture, even if it's the same time as the Lord executes judgment. But in talking to them, I came to know that they had no living reality in their hearts.
This was the end when the Lord was going to judge.
Others maybe, I don't know, but the ones that I knew, they didn't speak about the coming of the Lord.
I have a question just like more than general principle of covenant in the Church, I understand all the problems of the accompanying authorities.
People all in the law and give it to us and let's get into your understanding of these problems. But just with the idea of maturing, these are covenant.
I think you'll get the Gospels when Christ institutes for suffering says.
This cup is the New Testament by blood. All of you drink it and just like thinking about the past foods like especially.
And verse 18 starts talking about other Not a lot since you're not going to be such a French buyer on the blackness Darkness masters.
Does Donald Trump?
Ways that are treated other words not so.
There's so much.
In the dark, so terrible.
Then 200 said that you're going to come on the Zion. It's not the city of the living God.
Of the Evangelist, General Assembly of the Church, first floor.
There really doesn't go judicial.
So whoever will give me serious the church and be honest, I'm confused. I guess I just thought this question. I don't know where, where is there?
Any questions? Candidate? But why can't the church be under covenant?
00:40:05
The contract for the treatment and I guess I've heard people to find the new code that possibly church seeing as you mean that whoever trusts in Christ blood saved. What is the issue with this? I was thinking second along a similar line so.
Maybe just go to Jeremiah 31 and actually read the reference in a few places. But actually really it is in a way covenant is a contract to play benefit so much turn. And so the language of the contract can mean something. It's not just, you know, hypertly or something. It really doesn't mean what it says. So in Jeremiah 31 and verse 31 here we have the language of which is called the scriptures of the news and covenant.
Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that ought to make thee new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made their fathers in the day that I took them by hand, bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they pray, although I wasn't husband unto them say glory. But this shall be the covenant that I think the House of Israel after those days say it were out of my law in their inner part in writing, write it in their hearts, and ought to be their God, if they should be my people.
They shall teach no more everyone whose neighbor and command his brother, saying No before they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them say to the Lord, for I will give their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which given the Son of the light by day within the ordinance of news, and of the start of the way for late by night, which divided the sea, and when the waves are abroad, the Lord of goods of its name, if those ordinances depart from me, say it, Lord, then the seed of Israel.
Also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. That is the language of the new continental. Just go to Romans theatre now.
Romans chapter nine, first one, we know that there's this.
Heard the phrase at the end of chapter 8 and it closes kind of the 2nd and now you put kind of chapter marker and and he begins to say that the fall by the Spirit begins to say something different. So he says I say the truth in Christ first one.
I line on my conscience also very new witness in the holy goods, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, for I can wish that myself rehearsed from Christ.
For my brethren, my instant according to the plaque, you are Israelites.
Could this be misunderstood? As a Christian, could he be?
Wishing himself a curse. You know for a Christian that says the first part we just read where Israelites to rule pertaining to the adoption and the glory and the covenants plural covenants. So both the first covenant means clearly Israel could you know the next yes, you bring your own and the giving up the law.
And the service of God and the promises whose are the fathers and of the mess concerning the flesh Christ pain, the Christ known as a Gentile.
Take a Christian.
Becomes a Jew, Israel, and he's an Israelite. What he's talking about in this verse or Israelites is kinsman according to the flesh. I'm talking about Christians. I think that's clear. Covenant geology has to listen and say no, no, no, he's talking about it.
It's not Christians, they need to come to Chapter 11. And so my point there, I'm sorry, my point there is that the covenants still currently as he writes it in this passage nearly 2000 years ago, they belong to Israel.
As has already been referenced, it's divided into two sections. Chapter 11 it's the close of this. This middle section of Rome is divided into two sections. Each section is headed by a question. A personal has already been read.
I say then have got fascinated speak, God forbid, but I also limit Israelite to see the paper now the tribal benchmark, et cetera. God has not passed the latest peoples which he for him. He is saying essentially right now God has not passed away. His people Israel, I'm an Israelite. There's other Israelites. God is not just utterly thrown away. Israel and Israel is called gone right now, right. He was writing this and then he goes on to the future in verse 11. There's two questions is Israel done.
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Right now, the answer no, he's not done. Right now it's not done. There is still a presence of Israelites.
Who are faithful? They're called. But then in chapter verse 11, he asked another question. To put a paragraph, he asked another question. I say then, have they stumbled? But has Israel stumbled? That they should fall?
Now this is King James is going to make this confusing, right? Half of these someone that they should call God forbid or rather through their fault, salvation summons the Gentiles.
Order for both of the jealousy. Well, it sounds like he's saying have they? Some of them they should fall, God forbid. But actually they did fall because it uses the same word fall. But in the Greek the word for fall is different. The second one is often translated transgression, their transgression.
Salvation so much the Gentiles were both into jealousy. The point of this is that Israel did stumble. They crucified their Messiah. They failed in the first covenant. Israel did the stumble, but is the end result of that stumbling to remove them, to lower them to the place of all the other Gentiles to be done with history? This is the heart. This is the question of government theology. Has the church replace Israel as Israel's gone from its place up here down to the level of the world that is place down here? This is the question that we'll ask.
As God did, but rather through their transgression. Salvation is not much the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy and now I know coming back to Denny's question talks about.
If the Jews have been set aside of Israel has been set aside and it's the bringing in of the Gentiles speaks of this verse 12. It's the fall of them being the richest of the world and the diminishing of them, the richest of the Gentiles. Gentiles, how much more their folks because Israel has been.
Set aside, as we say, Gentiles have been brought in, They have been grafted into this tree of lesson. It does not bring people along to them because the language is not written to them. It is with the House of Israel, with the House of Europe. We are not the House of Israel with the House of Judah. It does not break people wrong to us. But has Christ decided we will remember our sins no more? He has.
As Christ written this laughter in regards, in some ways He has. We have the Spirit within us.
So we come into the blessings of the government and that I think answers the question, at least part answers your question to clean up for me about making mistakes, but come into these blessings of the covenants that don't rightly belong to us. We have not replaced history.
The sun so brightness, the moon still rises, the stars are still there, the waves still roar, All those things are still. Therefore Israel is still God's people. So just I'll just say this one last thing that when you come down to the end there.
Verse 26 Long River 25 I would not rather that you should be ignorant of this mystery, but you should be wise your open seats that blindness in part is happening to Israel until the fullest the genocide, and so all Israel shall be.
Your company, you have to read this Israel as the church you have to the church you have to ask a question when he says Israeli dispersed as to me, Israel does to me church in the context of everything in this chapter and ask that question.
Sure, because everything else is right. How could it be the church that's that gets pushed away?
Verse 15 passing away.
Israel is being seen in Chapter 11. That's separate from.
Alex, if I could just summarize, you said the letter of the covenant belongs to Israel. Will always the letter always the letter of the covenant belongs to Israel. It was always there as it actually specifically applies to them as needed. You didn't say this, but Hebrews 8.
Repeat Jeremiah 31 repeats Ezekiel but 37 and says again specifically what you said with the House of Israel, the House of Judah, but the spirit of it.
Belongs to us because we have forgiveness of sins, we have the knowledge of God. These are things that we enjoy, the spirit of the goal. And that's exactly what Paul says in Second Corinthians chapter 3.
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And verse six speaks about him and the other apostles. He says that God also has made us able ministers of the new covenant. That's what that is, Testament covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
With the letter killeth but the Spirit giveth life. That doesn't mean the letter would kill for Israel. The letter belongs to them. But if you take the letter of the new covenant and try to apply to the church.
It will absolutely kill our position. It lowers the Christian position down to no more than Israel. That kills what the church is before God. And so that's what he means when he's saying that the the letter kills and he's not a minister of that. He's a minister of the new covenant in terms of the Spirit only in the church.
Something I think, you know, I said that it's probably 5, but I think that's a little bit worried about why.
That's a little guarantee. So very clearly on I think there's a couple of things to remember and that is that safety plants these seats of legal doctrine it has throughout the church.
And why? Because it diminishes the work of Christ.
Or Jesus Christ their figure, and that is the same brain. So he knocked off with the things that people take out on this other thing is.
Giving me something to do and give me something that I can vote. I don't want to Java and they can refer.
And.
Christianity is not a new stunt, so there's nothing I can do both in there.
Yes. Well, just I can't even say, well, at least I have a good sense of who I trusted before now is that was children, Henry Ford Foundation, Newark and that other thing. So there's nothing. I can't even go and say. Well, at least I had nothing.
Become a theology and replaces course with that, I say.
That's it. So.
It's almost.
So that's why today is attractive.
To people because static that's, you know, everybody wants to be able to do something close to that and as you said earlier.
There's two majors, but we can think of two nations. It's one thing that we know perfect motivation. It may not be the reasonability, even if we're given a loving story, right? You know, if you say, oh.
The Lord was righteous, and so that remains the righteousness. And so now I've got a running side.
By keeping the law.
Mayor that's it's done and it dies like that's dead, man going in there, you have a new life.
And that's how they came by the law.
Is something for the man that hosted instead of the garden, right? Maybe that's not been disobeyed. We can fix this. Hey, that's a big reason we'll fix this, right? We have Israel and Exodus landscape.
Thursday, all the people answered together. Is that all? The board has spoken, We believe. Wow.
You and I don't have to be able to say that all the board has spoken. The Lord Jesus did on his cross. I rested. So that's very it's very clear ridiculous the relationship that we have.
It's not a question related to Ben's, so I'm really going to.
He is saying that because.
The flood is the basis of the department and how we made whether the faithful to experiment and these assignments here are entirely all Christian ground. Yet this is they would.
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It's almost like they're the Lord is telling them that a new covenant will be made in a future day and his blood is the basis for them. Is that correct?
Well, it says in Hebrews said, and maybe it said a testament is common in his own force after.
Death.
So upon the death of Christ.
After his blood was shed, covenant became active, became available and it has not yet brought those in. It has not been acted on and bringing Israel into his blessing. But I think if I'm understanding your question right, if I'm wrong, but I do believe that we are brought into blessing on the basis of a lot of we are not under government.
That's clear, that's but we are brought in this blessing based on the blood of death. That's true. That's the blood of Jesus Christ that Washington.
I also.
This way is about something else.
That.
It's not anytime. So there's there's basically three main views there's.
Post millennial, general post millennial is that at some point in history the Kingdom is going to come, a millennial Kingdom, The price is going to come into the brain victorious, the church will bring into the earth, at the end of which Christ comes and we are uttered into the eternal state, supposedly.
Our millennial believes because I think it's century over this century question all millennials general position. I believe that we are ready now. We're in Millennium brick now running over the church, but things are selling going to get worse and worse and worse. The benefit price is going to come execute all of his judgments and then we're going to be up to the eternal state. And then there's historic premium Lennon, which is less popular.
Those are the two main most laborers.
Like if you were to put a pie chart, and I understand that most believers who are covenant, so are all they don't like.
But they believe, essentially, that there is no physical grant price over the earth.
Done via the church.
So there are different colors and shades.
To introduce yeah. Then there's historical freedom as well, which is still coming up. So that this is how it, this is how it affects us. I, I had a guy who I work with and he was.
A a dispensationalist at one time he believed in a free tribulation rapture and that moved to a post tribulation rapture.
And that then moved to where he currently is right now, a Millennium where it's it's everything's just spiritualized.
And the, the verses that deal with the Millennium are not literal, they're just spiritual. So you just apply this to that. And so I, I asked them, I said, well, what are your views on the Lord coming when you think the Lord is actually going to come back?
And usher you into eternity says, you know, Joe, I just think it's a long way off. And so I asked him the second question. I said what would change if you had a pre tribulation, which would then be free millennial view of Christ's return. And he said I probably have a whole lot more zeal. And this is how eschatology or the study of end times actually has a present effect in our life.
And this is the difficulty that covenant theology practically brings in, depending on what flavor you take up is going to have a greater effect in your life. And so your thought is I'm raining now, and the Millennium Lord's coming a long way from now, and eventually I'm going to inherit the earth. Then your thoughts are probably going to be pretty earthwork because that is your what can I do down here?
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Where if we have a thought that this world is under judgment, that the only way that this world is going to be fixed is through the Lord Jesus Christ coming and judging this world and reigning, and that I have no part in this world, and that He might come at any moment, I'm going to have a lot more zeal to live for Him right now. That actually is a true thought in my mind. Not just acknowledge, obviously, it's actually in my heart.
So these things that we're taking up, they're not just X's and O's. They're not just physically than that belief. They really do have a practical effect in my life. And it's not to say that you're not that every covenant theologist that you that you meet is not going to have any desire to go out that that that's not what I'm saying. It's just a focus is not going to be to be with Christ possibly today.
By and large, that is going to be lost.
And it has to do with our understanding and enjoyment of our relationship.
Is it with God under covenant and with Christ as our King, or is it with our Bridegroom, the head of the body, and our Father? And there's a big difference. There's so many differences in it.
I'd just like to ask one quick question at the at the end of this or I don't know when it's.
The last part of the question and the thing was and why is it so bad?
And so how, what would be how we should give those approval that would be familiar or something to fellowship, whatever they say, how should we do that?
Instead of theology, that's bad. The people are brethren, Beloved, I said the answer you're looking for. That's important, though, so thanks for answering the question. I mean, these are dear, dear brethren.
And we should not look at them with jaundice eyes because of this theology that is really bad. They love the Lord. You meet them, you talk to them, and the Lord died to redeem them. And they know that and they love him and they love the Lord's people too. So we get a wrong view about that. We're going to have a lot of other things for all thanks to our brethren. I think that meant it's time for lunch.
He was timing out.
I just want to ask about.
In Ephesians 2, you know, it speaks about having no hope in this world. What hope can they possibly have under that kind of?
Kevin, they all look forward to having. They're not without hope. For many of them, that is the coming of the Lord. We know that's wrong, but they enjoy it. It's not that government theology has nothing that somebody couldn't find hope and enjoyment in. It just lowers our position so far from what the truth is.
And trigger that opening point. I think Zachary, 14 kind of mentions the end times in the living after the tribulation. With the board comes seven feet down Mount Olives.
Lee, this is during when everything's in the back of Zachariah 14/9.
And the Lord shall be king over all the earth that day. There shall be 1 Lord, and his name one. And if he goes down to verse 11.
Then men shall dwell in there should be no more to utter destruction. If we're honest, is Jerusalem Satan inhabit that we can say so.
They're still being suffered, suffering and the governmentally I think.
Verse 21.
I just had a question about this. Maybe look at the last part of the verse says that data should be no more Canaanite than how Sarah can I have this one right now?
The wrong question.
Refers to that committee. That's a wide range because they spiritualize. Some spiritualize much more than others. The House of the Lord is the church. Then you can certainly have Canaanites in it.
I looked at it in broad sense. I mean, it all depends how these spiritual. I think it was the point Joe made early on that there's a very wide range. We tried to cover some of the art of it here.
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But yeah, but that point is important. It's a critical point that the covenant theologist will look to the Old Testament and they will see definitively that there are literal prophecies that took place. I can't remember if you mentioned this in here already or not, but things concerning the Lord's first coming that were literal. But then what there is, is there's a shift and.
It's subjective and anything that deals with the Lord's second coming is that makes spiritual.
But there's no basis for us to be able to do that. There's no warrant, given the Scripture, for us to say, OK, this was literal and we're going to spiritualize this. If there was something that would tell us, hey, you can do this, it would be fine.
Where dispensations, dispensationalism will look at a literal interpretation of Scripture and when the Lord, when the Word of God presents the Lord's first coming, it was literal. And when it speaks about things that are going to happen during the Tribulation and the Millennium and the Old Testament are literal, they are actually literally going to happen.
There is no shift between literal and spiritual and yesterday 2 verses before we leave. First one is what our brother mentioned in chapter 12 Hebrews and he didn't mention the next clause verse 24 in verse 12.
Gave us the meeting and covenant.
But sprinkling that speak of better things that have table God's covenant like blood and all of the back to David.
Nothing to do with them.
Than we have in Hebrews 13 verse 20. Now the God of peace brought again from dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep what they are lasting covenant. All of our blessings Abel fought out so I'm all keeping it all.
And the board?