Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Matthew (Part 13) BST 12-16-07

Matthew (Part 13)
Bible Study Time 12-16-07

In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul says that:

Galatians 4:4 (KJ2000)
4 . . . when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law

This time of the year we emphasize and meditate upon the amazing truth that God send His own Son, Jesus, into the world. That alone is simply mindboggling. It makes us feel kind of like Mary must have felt when she was told about the fact that she would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. We are inclined to ask with Mary, how can this be? Could it possibly be true that God would send His Son into our world of sin and death to be born as a little baby in a stable? Well, wonder of wonders, this is the truth.

As we go about our daily lives, we may live with the understanding and the belief that Jesus is the Son of God and that He did come out of heaven to be born in Bethlehem, but somehow as we go to work and get the groceries and balance the checkbook, we may fail to truly walk in the full realization of the significance of the birth of Jesus. One of the great things about Christmas is that at this time of the year, we get the opportunity to think about and meditate upon the wonder of the birth of Christ, and then of course, to think about the end result of His birth which is the death of Jesus which saves us from our sins.

We’ve been studying in Matthew about the fact that Jesus was born of a virgin and that He came to save His people from their sins. We’ve seen the miracles of the Lord Jesus and His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The Passover feast was scheduled for six days after the Lord’s triumphal entry, and as the time for the celebration drew near:

Matthew 26:17-18 (KJ2000)
17 . . . the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where will you that we prepare for you to eat the passover?
18 And he said, Go into the city to such a man, and say unto him, The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.

Does this statement not bring conviction to all who love the things of this world? Jesus was and is Jehovah God, the God of all creation, and yet He spent His time on earth with no possessions of His own. Jesus was born in a stable to a peasant girl, and throughout His life, He apparently owned very little. Matthew says that at one point in Jesus’ ministry:

Matthew 8:19-20 (KJ2000)
19 . . . a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.
20 And Jesus said unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

We, humans, are plagued with tremendous insecurities. We sense our own mortality, and we somehow feel that if we can accumulate enough stuff, we’ll live forever. Jesus had no such allusion. Rather, He was content to walk by faith, knowing that the Father in heaven was in fact Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who will provide.

When Jesus needed anything in this material world, it was always provided. During this week before the Passover, Jesus stayed with Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany. This was perfect because it was a couple of miles east of Jerusalem just on the other side of the Mt. of Olives. When Jesus needed a place to eat the Passover meal, God provided the house of this disciple whose name is never mentioned, but I’m sure that someday we’ll meet him, and we’ll rejoice in the reward that he receives.

Jehovah-Jireh provided for Jesus, and He will provide for us as well as we walk by faith. It was Paul who wrote to the Philippians and said, I am so thankful for the gift that you sent to me; not that I need anything, but I’m excited about the reward that you will receive when we stand before the Lord.

So the disciples did as the Lord instructed them. They made arrangements to observe the Passover meal in this little upper room, and Matthew says that:

Matthew 26:20-25 (KJ2000)
20 . . . when the evening was come, he sat down with the twelve.
21 And as they did eat, he said, Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
22 And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?
23 And he answered and said, He that dips his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me.
24 The Son of man goes as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.
25 Then Judas, who betrayed him, answered and said, Teacher, is it I? He said unto him, You have said.

In the scriptures, Judas and the antichrist are the only two who are called sons of perdition. Jesus called Judas the son of perdition in His high priestly prayer in John 17, where Jesus prayed over His disciples, saying:

John 17:12 (KJ2000)
12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name: those that you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

The Apostle Paul referred to the antichrist as the son of perdition when He wrote to the Thessalonians about the Day of the Lord. He said:

2 Thessalonians 2:3 (KJ2000)
3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for (the Day of the Lord) shall not come, except there come the falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

Therefore, in Judas we see the spirit of the antichrist in the sense that Judas determined in his heart to oppose the Lord Jesus. But then Matthew says that as Jesus and His disciples were eating the Passover meal:

Matthew 26:26-28 (KJ2000)
26 . . . Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.
27 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink you all of it;
28 For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

Now this is very significant because this is the first time that the disciples were given any instruction regarding the New Covenant. We can’t be sure, but it may be that some of the disciples were familiar with Jeremiah’s prophesy concerning the New Covenant. If not, this statement by the Lord would certainly have been a crash course. So what did Jeremiah say? In Jeremiah 31:31 we read:

Jeremiah 31:31-33 (KJ2000)
31 Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband unto them, says the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

So the New Covenant was going to cause the Law of God to be written in the hearts of the people, and this of course was going to happen by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jeremiah goes on to say that the end result of this covenant will be that:

Jeremiah 31:34 (KJ2000)
34 . . . they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Some say that we are now in the kingdom of the New Covenant. But if we were, we would not have to tell our neighbors about Jesus because in the kingdom everyone will know Jesus. He’s going to be the one who is seen on TV every day while He rules over the nations from His throne in Jerusalem. And during the kingdom, all of the Jews in particular are going to be saved. As Paul says in Romans 11:26:

Romans 11:26 (KJ2000)
26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

It’s hard for us to imagine a world in which the Jews have dominion over all the earth, but the Bible is very clear about the fact that Gentile dominion over the earth is going to come to an end, and Paul says that when the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, all Israel will be saved and their salvation will take place all at once. Isaiah, Chapter 66, says:

Isaiah 66:8-9 (KJ2000)
8 Who has heard such a thing? who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? says the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? says your God.

God says, I’ve brought Israel this far, and I’m certainly not going to abandon her now. Israel will go through the fires of the tribulation period, but she will be saved at once, and she will enjoy the kingdom that was promised to her.

Now that’s what Jeremiah is talking about when he says that someday all Israel will know the Lord, and he says that nothing can keep God from fulfilling this promise to Israel. He says that as long as the sun, the moon and the stars are fixed in the sky, God will preserve the nation of Israel because He will fulfill all of His promises to her.

When Jesus said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant,” this was truly a powerful, earth-shattering statement. All that the Jews had longed for for thousands of years was about to take place.

Twenty-five years later, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Gentiles in the churches of Galatia and said that Jesus was sent into the world to redeem those who lived under the curse of the Old Covenant Law. He said that all of the promises which were given to the Jews could only be fulfilled through the power of the New Covenant. Galatians 4:4 says:

Galatians 4:4-6 (KJ2000)
4 But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

Well, this is the New Covenant. It is the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit which cleanses the believer and positions Him in Christ as a Son of God. Then Paul says:

Galatians 4:21-25 (KJ2000)
21 Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law?
22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise.
24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from mount Sinai, which brings forth to bondage, which is Hagar.
25 For this Hagar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answers to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

Paul says that Ishmael stands for the Old Covenant Law and that those who live by the power of that Law will never inherit the promises which were given to Abraham. Then he says:

Galatians 4:26,28 (KJ2000)
26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

The Jerusalem which now is will be destroyed and the New Jerusalem will come out of heaven and descend to the earth. This is the heavenly city for which Abraham longed, and this is the city which is the hope of the New Covenant. This city will never be destroyed.

Abraham looked for this city, John looked for this city, and as Paul wrote to the Galatians, he was obviously looking for this heavenly city which is symbolized by Sarah. But this is not what we are looking for today. We are not waiting for the New Jerusalem to come down out of heaven as the capital city of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

No, when the Jews rejected the message of the New Covenant, God set the New Covenant program aside. This heavenly city is not going to come down out of heaven until after the tribulation period. But we know that even before the tribulation period, Jesus Christ is going to appear in the heavens and then we too will appear with Him in glory. That’s what we’re looking for today as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ.

In the fullness of time Christ was born. He was sent by the Father to shed His blood as the atonement for sin. Jesus referred to His blood as the blood of the New Covenant, but it is the same blood that cleanses all believers. Believers who lived under the Old Covenant are cleansed by the shed blood of the New Covenant, and we today who are members of the Church which is the Body of Christ, we too are cleansed by the same blood. It’s the same blood of Jesus that cleanses all believers.

During the Acts period, Paul was reaching out to the Gentiles who would be going into the kingdom with the Jews. The other day, my wife, Joan, and I were talking about Simeon’s proclamation at the time of Jesus’ dedication in the temple. Simeon said that Jesus would not only be the glory of the children of Israel, but He would be a light to lighten the Gentiles. Simeon knew that many Gentiles would be blessed with Israel in the kingdom. Reaching out to the Gentiles with the Gospel of Jesus Christ was all part of the New Covenant program.

The Apostle Paul was certainly aware of this aspect of the New Covenant because he was the one that God called to go out to the Gentiles to tell them how to be saved by believing in Jesus. He said in 2 Corinthians, Chapter 3, that he did this as an able minister of the New Covenant.

Miraculously, wherever Paul went many Gentiles put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, like the believers that Paul was writing to in Galatia. So as Paul wrote to these believers in Galatia, he wanted to confirm to them the truths of the New Covenant. He told them that they were going to be blessed with Abraham in the kingdom because they had the same kind of faith that Abraham had. He told them that this made them, in a spiritual sense, the children of Abraham.

When the Jews rejected the New Covenant Kingdom, however, this program was set aside and the program for the Church, the Body of Christ, was brought in. As we saw in the book of Jeremiah, the New Covenant program was the subject of prophesy, but Paul said that the program for the Church, the Body of Christ, was never revealed to anyone until it was revealed to him.

When Christ appears in the glory of heaven and we are taken up to be with Him, then God will once again offer the New Covenant Kingdom to the nation of Israel during the tribulation period. During that time the nation of Israel will be saved, and when Jesus returns the kingdom of the Jews will be established at once.

Well, it certainly has been a pleasure studying with you this morning, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.

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