Jim's Footnotes

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Day of the Lord (7-23-06)

The Day of the Lord – Amos 5
Bible Study Time 7-23-06

The Prophet Amos spoke to the nation of Israel and predicted a time of great tribulation and suffering. His words had a near fulfillment and a fulfillment which would come far into the future. He said that the nation of Israel had turned justice into bitterness and had cast righteousness to the ground. The bribes which were given to their judges had deprived the poor of justice. Then Amos said:

Amos 5:16-24 (NIV)
16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says: "There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail.
17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst," says the LORD. (Now notice what Amos says.)
18 Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? That day will be darkness, not light.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him.
20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light-- pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
21 "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.
22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.
23 Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!

With His mighty hand, God had delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. He had brought them through the Red Sea on dry land and then to the foot of Mt. Sinai where all of the people agreed to keep the commandments of the Lord. While Moses was up on the mountain, God said:

Exodus 19:5-8 (NKJ)
5 'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.
6 'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."
7 So Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before them all these words which the LORD commanded him.
8 Then all the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do." So Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD.

The people promised to keep the commandments, but then they refused to go into the promised land so that God could do all that He had promised. Isn’t that just like many people today? They want to live for God by keeping His commandments, but they refuse to accept the salvation of God by putting their faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.”

When the Jews refused to go into the promised land, God led them through the wilderness for 40 years and then brought them back to the promised land. This time they believed in the Lord and entered into the kingdom which God had promised.

God drove out the Canaanites who were living it the land, and the Jews lived under a series of judges for many years. Then God used King David to defeat all of the enemies of the Jews and establish a kingdom of peace through all twelve of the tribes of Israel.

However, the full glory of the Old Covenant Kingdom was not realized until David’s son, Solomon, became the king. Under Solomon, the nation of Israel became the envy of all the nations of the earth. Even the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem to listen to the wisdom of Solomon and to see the glory of his kingdom. The Bible says that:

I Kings 10:4-9 (NKJ)
4 . . . when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built,
5 the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers, and his entryway by which he went up to the house of the LORD, there was no more spirit in her.
6 Then she said to the king: "It was a true report which I heard in my own land about your words and your wisdom.
7 "However I did not believe the words until I came and saw with my own eyes; and indeed the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity exceed the fame of which I heard.
8 "Happy are your men and happy are these your servants, who stand continually before you and hear your wisdom!
9 "Blessed be the LORD your God, who delighted in you, setting you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD has loved Israel forever, therefore He made you king, to do justice and righteousness."

Obviously, the glory of Solomon’s kingdom bore witness to all the world that the God of the Jews was the true and the living God and that God is faithful to fulfill His promises. But the glory of Solomon’s kingdom was as nothing in comparison to the everlasting kingdom which God had promised to David.

All of the believing Jews were waiting for the promised Son of David, the Messiah, who would sit upon the throne of David in a worldwide kingdom of righteousness and peace. In this kingdom there would be no exploitation of the poor and there would be no corruption among those who hold public office.

So how did Israel fall so far away from God by the time Amos came predicting their doom and destruction. As we saw a few moments ago, God said that He despised their religious feasts and their assemblies.

This passage reminds me of the folks today who think that their primary duty to God is to go to church every Sunday. Make no mistake about it, God loves to see believers who enjoy the fellowship of other believers and rejoice in the teachings of the word of God, but God hates it when people go to church for the wrong reasons. Those who go to church to earn their way to heaven or to make up for the sins of the previous week have already demonstrated their lack of faith in the word of God, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Amos told Israel that they were facing a time of great tribulation in which God was going to allow justice to roll on like a river. The people had promised to do all that the Lord commanded. They had promised to love the Lord their God with all of their hearts, but they had gone after the pagan gods of the Canaanites which oddly enough can be traced right back to Solomon.

In spite of all the blessings that God had poured out upon Solomon, Solomon was seduced by the pagan gods of his Canaanite wives. Solomon worshiped these pagan gods, and he even built temples to facilitate their worship. As a result, the Bible says that:

I Kings 11:9-12 (NKJ)
9 . . . the LORD became angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned from the LORD God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice,
10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the LORD had commanded.
11 Therefore the LORD said to Solomon, "Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.
12 "Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

True to His word, when Solomon died, God stirred up the hearts of the people in the northern ten tribes, and they went about establishing their own independent nation. They called themselves the nation of Israel while the two remaining southern tribes called themselves the nation of Judah. The Bible tells us that from the very beginning Jeroboam led the nation of Israel into idolatry. He built golden calves for them to worship so that they would not be tempted to travel to Jerusalem to worship as God had commanded.

As the northern tribes worshiped their idols, the prophets continued to proclaim the validity of the promises concerning the future New Covenant Kingdom. The prophets spoke of the coming kingdom and called it the Day of the Lord, but the people mocked the prophets and often joked about the so called “Day of the Lord”.

I’m reminded of the fact that people today often speak flippantly about hell and holiness and even about God, but one of these days everyone will see the seriousness of all of these things. They’ll see what hell really is, and they will see the value of true holiness which can only be found in Jesus Christ.

The people of Amos’ day often spoke of the Day of the Lord as sort of a slang idiom, but Amos seized the opportunity to teach them the seriousness of their words. He said:

Amos 5:18-20 (NKJ)
18 Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! For what good is the day of the LORD to you? It will be darkness, and not light.
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him!
20 Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?

Amos wanted the people of Israel to know that the day of the Lord’s kingdom will surely come, but it will not come until after a day of great tribulation and suffering for all those who refuse to put their trust in the true and the living God. In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul spoke on this very subject. As a minister of the New Covenant, he was looking forward to the fulfillment of all of the promises of the New Covenant, but he knew that many of the Jews would not believe and would, therefore, not inherit the everlasting kingdom. In Romans, Chapter 2, Paul said:

Romans 2:28-29 (NKJ)
28 . . . he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh;
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.

Then in Romans 8, Paul speaks of the time when the true Sons of God are made manifest. He says that even the creation is eagerly waiting for the revealing of the sons of God,

Romans 8:21-23 (NKJ)
21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

In the Day of the Lord, the true sons of God will be revealed by means of the fact they are going to be the ones who will be given glorified bodies. Before the kingdom is established in the Day of the Lord, the saints in the grave will be resurrected and the saints on the earth will be raptured, and both groups will be given glorified bodies.

In Thessalonica, this doctrine had led to some confusion in that some false teachers had come in teaching that the resurrection of believers had already occurred. When Paul heard this, he wrote his second letter to them, saying:

II Thessalonians 2:1-4 (NKJ)
1 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you,
2 not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.
3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

Obviously, Paul wanted to dispel any notion that the rapture and resurrection which is associated with the Day of the Lord had already come for that day could not occur until after the coming of the antichrist in the tribulation period. As Amos said, “The Day of the Lord will be darkness, not light – pitch dark, without a ray of brightness.” This will certainly be a dark day for the those who refuse to believe in the Jesus Christ during the tribulation period.

But all of this stands in stark contrast to the last days of the Church which is the Body of Christ, the Church of our present age. We read in the third chapter of both Philippians and Colossians that the Church is looking forward to the day when Christ will simply appear in the glory of heaven. The curtains of heaven will be folded back, and when Christ appears in the glory of heaven, then we shall appear with Him in glory. There is no hint of the tribulation period or the antichrist in either of these passages that relate to the Church of our present age. But after the Church is taken out, the great tribulation period will begin and then it will culminate in the great and terrible Day of the Lord.

I see that our time is gone for this morning. Thank you for listening, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

Church links:

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

The Process of Time (7-16-06)

The Process of Time
Bible Study Time 7-16-06

It was the Apostle Paul who first gave us an explanation for all of the evil that is so very prevalent in our world today. Early in Paul’s ministry, he went out as a minister of the New Covenant explaining that anybody can become a new creation through simple faith in Christ. This is a powerful doctrine for it teaches that we as human beings can go from being an essentially evil and sinful person to becoming an essentially righteous and holy person.

Obviously, however, an integral aspect of this doctrine is that all humans are essentially sinful and evil until they become a new creation in Christ, and Paul did not back down from that conclusion by any means. Paul said in Romans 7:

Romans 7:18, 21 (NKJ)
18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me . . .

As in turns out, if we look back in Chapter 5 of Romans, we see that Paul had already given us a hint as to the origin of man’s propensity for sin. He said:

Romans 5:12 (NKJ)
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men . . .

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, it resulted in the sin nature being passed down to all of his descendants. So with this understanding we should not be alarmed to find a story of envy, hatred and murder in the very first chapter after Adam’s sin. Genesis, Chapter 4, tells us that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground while Abel brought an animal sacrifice. When God refused to accept Cain’s offering, Cain became very angry and ultimately killed Abel.

Now there was no logical reason for Cain to refuse to bring this animal sacrifice. It would have been a simple thing to do, but the devil specializes in making us do some really dumb things. Things that don’t make any sense. And then he is delighted if and when we have to face the consequences of our rebellion.

Many people today are just like Cain. They have chosen not to accept God’s plan for salvation. God has given us the Bible, and He has given us preachers who preach the gospel of the grace of God from pulpits, from street corners, on the radio and on television, but still people refuse to accept the means of salvation which God has provided. The Bible says that:

John 3:16 (KJV)
16 . . . God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The Bible warns us that:

John 3:36 (NKJ)
36 "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; (but) he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

How simple it is for us to have eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Isn’t it strange that so many people respond to God’s grace by stiffening their necks and hardening their hearts? But God is so merciful and so gracious. He gives us opportunity after opportunity to get our hearts right with God. When the Bible speaks of Cain’s offering, it actually says that:

Genesis 4:3 (NKJ)
3 . . . in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD.

In other words, Cain decided to bring this sacrifice of fruit to the Lord after the process of time. This implies that God had taken the time to explain to Cain and Abel exactly what kind of an offering they were to bring.

God never requires people to do things without first explaining what things they are suppose to do and how they are suppose to do them. God never brings judgment upon people who have never had the opportunity to change their ways and get right with God. God always provides a process of time in which people have the opportunity to get right with God.

In the case of Cain and Abel, we know that God explained to Cain and Abel what sacrifice to bring because the book of Hebrews says that it was by faith that Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. As a matter of fact, it may have been that in the process of time, Cain had brought the proper sacrifice to God on many occasions but then all of a sudden decided that there was no good reason for God to refuse the fruit of the ground which he had grown.

The devil is so good at sneaking in a thought here and a thought there to undermine the word of God, but the fact remains, we are under no obligation to understand the purposes of God, but we are required to take God at His word. Abel just took God at His word and brought an animal sacrifice by faith. He was rewarded with eternal life and was even granted a place in what many people call the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, and I’m sure Abel will be rejoicing throughout all of eternity that he heeded the instructions of the Lord which were given in that process of time.

When we look at the scriptures we see that God has always provided for mankind a process of time for instruction and warning. Peter called Noah a preacher of righteousness, and many Bible scholars believe that Noah preached to the people before the flood for 120 years to warn them of the judgment to come, but through this process of time, only 8 people entered into the ark and were saved from the judgment waters of the flood.

During the years of the Old Covenant Law, God repeatedly warned the nation of Israel about the dangers of not keeping the Law. Even Moses warned them of the curse that would come upon them if they refused to live by the Law. So the Old Covenant Law was in a sense a process of time in which God instructed the people in the ways of the Law and warned them of the consequences of breaking the Law.

John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus came as ministers of the New Covenant and again we see a process of time for instruction and warning. John the Baptist said that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, but he warned them that the coming Messiah would bring a baptism of fire. He said:

Matthew 3:11-12 (NKJ)
11 "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
12 "His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

The Lord Jesus taught that He had come to give life and life more abundant. He said, “If you seek, you will find. If your ask, you will receive. If you knock, the door will be opened unto you.” He said:

John 6:51 (NKJ)
51 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever . . .

John 7:37-38 (NKJ)
37 (He said) "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."

John 11:25-26 (KJV)
25 Jesus said . . ., I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die . . .

But as the Lord spread the good news of the kingdom, He also warned the nation of Israel about the consequences of unbelief. He said:

John 15:1,2,5,6 (NKJ)
1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

When the Lord Jesus offered up His life on the cross, He was shedding the blood of the New Covenant. After the cross there was again a process of time in which the Apostles went out declaring that Jesus was the Christ and that He had been raised from the dead. They warned the nation of Israel that the great and terrible Day of the Lord was at hand and that it was time to repent and get their hearts right with God.

In the Apostle Paul’s early ministry, he went out as a minister of the New Covenant and warned the Jews in Romans, Chapter 9, that only a small remnant of the nation of Israel will ultimately be saved and inherit the kingdom, but then in Romans, Chapter 11, he said that someday all Israel will be saved. Well, how does Paul go from a small remnant being saved to all Israel being saved? Obviously, in the kingdom all Israel will be saved but before the kingdom God is going to purge the nation of Israel, and all those who are not abiding in Jesus Christ will be cast into the fires of judgment.

In this process of time, Israel rejected Jesus as her Messiah, and God temporarily set aside the New Covenant program. At that point, God called the Apostle Paul to reveal the Church of our present age, the Church which is the Body of Christ. Our present age is one in which God is demonstrating His mercy and His grace. He is not overtly sending specific judgments upon people for specific sins, but He is using this time as a time of instruction and warning about the judgments to come.

Sometimes we hear people after a natural disaster who say that God sent that disaster as a specific judgment for this sin or that sin, but God is not working that way today. Today, God is demonstrating that He is full of longsuffering and grace. This is the age in which God is simply opening up his arms to receive all those who come to Him through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now I have to admit that when I see some of the terrible destruction and death that accompanied some of our recent natural disasters, I have to wonder if God is not giving the world a small taste of the suffering that lies ahead for this planet. I think that if I were lost, it would make me want to get my heart right with God.

And if you are listening this morning and you don’t know the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior, I hope that you will consider the things that lie ahead for this world. Someday in the future, and it may be very soon, God will catch up His Church to be with Him in heaven and then this age of God’s grace will end, and the very next thing on the calendar for the citizens of the earth is the great tribulation period.

We can be thankful today that we are still in the process of time which God is using to instruct and warn people like he did Cain so many years ago. God is using this time to bring to Himself all those who will heed His call. Those who heed His call will be saved from the wrath to come, and they will rejoice with all of the faithful throughout eternity.

God instructed Abel to bring an animal sacrifice and because of his faith he was given eternal life. Today God has provided the Lord Jesus as our sacrifice for sin, and all those who are willing to put their trust in His finished work upon the cross are given eternal life. It’s just that simple. As Paul told the Philippian jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time. It’s been a pleasure being with you this morning, and I’ll look forward to being with again next week at this same time.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

Church links:

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Rightly Dividing Part 2 (7-9-06)

Rightly Dividing (Part 2)
Bible Study Time 7-9-06

The Apostle Paul told Timothy that:

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NKJ)
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, (and) thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Oh how we as believers need the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives so that we can apply the word of God to the specific situations we face. That’s what reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness is all about. The other day I was reading in the scriptures about the time that Jesus asked his disciples who they thought He was. After Peter boldly declared, “Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God.”, the Lord took Peter, James and John up the Mt. of Transfiguration where they were allowed to see the Lord Jesus in all of the glory of His kingdom.

As I read that, the Holy Spirit took those verses and applied them to my heart. He said, “If you come to God in simple faith, believing what He says, God will be able to show you the glory of Jesus Christ.” Now that’s a simple application, but the Holy Spirit is so good at using the simplest things to touch our hearts. My heart was rejoicing that God wants to reveal His glory to me. I was reminded of the verse in Jeremiah where God says:

Jeremiah 33:3 (KJV)
3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.

It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to apply the word of God to our lives and give us reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. But when we look at II Timothy 3:15, we see that the first thing on the list of profitable things is not reproof, correction or instruction in righteousness. The first thing is doctrine, and I think that the reason for this is that if we don’t have a good doctrinal foundation, the Holy Spirit will be limited in His ability to properly apply the word of God to our hearts.

For instance, when Peter made his profession of faith, the Lord told Peter that He would give Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven and that whatever he bound on earth would be bound in heaven, and whatever he loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven.

When I read that, I wasn’t tempted to think that if I believe the word of God, I will have the power to control everything that happens on the earth. Praise the Lord, if we have a good doctrinal foundation, the Holy Spirit will be able to properly apply the word of God to our hearts.

And that brings me back to the point that I was making last week, that we need to understand the 3 basic programs of the Bible if we are going to rightly divide the word of truth and approach the Bible on the basis of good, sound doctrine.

Last week we looked at these three main programs of the Bible which are the Law of Moses, the New Covenant and the Church which is the Body of Christ. The Law of Moses, of coarse, was given at Mt. Sinai and continued until the death of Christ. The New Covenant had to be ratified by the blood of the Lord Jesus and so it follows that the New Covenant could not begin until after the cross.

When the nation of Israel’s rejection of Christ was complete at the end of the Acts period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s New Covenant program and called the Apostle Paul to reveal the church of our present age, the Church which is the Body of Christ.

At some point in the future, and it may not be too far away, God will catch up the Church, the Body of Christ, to be with Him in heaven, and then He will resume His New Covenant program with the nation of Israel. That will be the time of the great tribulation period when Israel will be purified through the fires of persecution and suffering. Then after that believing Israel will enter into the blessings of the New Covenant Kingdom.

As I mentioned earlier, the New Covenant per se could not begin until after the death of Christ, but both John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus had ministries that were based on the New Covenant. They went out preaching the blessings of the New Covenant Kingdom and warning about the tribulation that will most certainly precede that kingdom. In Matthew, Chapter 3, when John the Baptist:

Matthew 3:7 (NKJ)
7 . . . saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

John knew that the kingdom was coming, but he also knew that before the kingdom could come, there had to be a tremendous purging of the nation of Israel, and that’s exactly what the tribulation period will be. It will be a time when the fiery judgment of God will purge Israel of her rebellion and unbelief. So John said:

Matthew 3:11,12 (NKJ)
11 "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
12 "His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is one of the outstanding features of the New Covenant. As the Lord said through Ezekiel:

Ezekiel 36:26-28 (NKJ)
26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you . . .
27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
28 "Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

So the Holy Spirit will use the fires of the tribulation period to purify and cleanse the believing Jews, but those who steadfastly refuse to believe in the Lord Jesus will be consumed by the fire. Jesus Christ will gather his believing bride into the kingdom while unbelieving Israel will be burned up with unquenchable fire.

Another hallmark of the New Covenant is the manifestation of miracles, wonders and signs. When the Lord Jesus and his disciples went out preaching the message of the kingdom, they did many miracles. The purpose of these miracles was to confirm the message and the messengers. When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, he said:

John 3:2 (NKJ)
2 . . . "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."

After the blood of the New Covenant was shed, the spiritual power of New Covenant was poured out upon the nation of Israel on the Day of Pentecost. The day of the New Covenant had finally come. Acts, Chapter 2, and verse 1 says:

Acts 2:1-4 (NKJ)
1 Now when the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The people who gathered around were amazed and perplexed as Peter stood up to say:

Acts 2:16-21 (NKJ)
16 " . . . this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.
18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
21 And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

This is the message of the New Covenant which stands in anticipation of the great and awesome day of the Lord. This is the day of judgment which will immediately precede the setting up of the kingdom. This is the day when God will pour out his wrath upon the earth and the creation itself will erupt with a violent display of God’s power. But Peter holds out to his listeners the hope of Joel, Chapter 2, saying that all those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved from the wrath of God and enter into the kingdom.

The Bible says that on that Day of Pentecost three thousand people humbled themselves before the Lord. They repented and were baptized. Then they sold their possessions and lived together as they waited for the return of Christ and the glory of the New Covenant Kingdom.

God continued doing many miracles, wonders and signs as the Apostles continued to preach the message of the New Covenant. Now, as I mentioned last week, this was the message of the New Covenant, but as far as we know, the Apostles there in Jerusalem were never able to articulate that fact in their minds or in their sermons. They seemed to think that these things were all just an outworking of the Old Covenant Law, an extension of the Old Covenant Law.

But when God called the Apostle Paul, He personally revealed to Paul that the time had come to set aside the Old Covenant Law because through the power of the cross God had established a better covenant, with a better sacrifice, and a better priesthood and a better hope. Paul could see that the New Covenant was a totally different program than the Old Covenant Law, and as a result he was set free to go in a totally different direction. He could see that the confines of the Old Covenant no longer applied.

So Paul was sent to the Gentiles, and when the Gentiles put their faith in Jesus Christ, they were saved without the deeds of the Law. Paul was still a minister of the New Covenant, however, maybe more so than the other Apostles. And because Paul was a minister of the New Covenant during the Acts period, there were many miracles, wonders and signs which were associated with his ministry. This is made very evident in the book of Acts.

I have heard some people say that we should never look to the book of Acts for doctrine, but Paul told Timothy that all scripture is profitable for doctrine as well as for reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. It is perfectly consistent and logical that miracles, wonders and signs would follow the Apostle Paul throughout the Acts period because he was serving as a minister of the New Covenant.

Paul’s Acts-period epistles also give clear evidence of his New Covenant ministry. Of coarse, in II Corinthians 3, Paul specifically stated that he was a minister of the New Covenant, but besides that, we see in I Corinthians 6 that he told the Corinthians that they would someday rule the world. And then in I Corinthians 7, Paul said:

1 Corinthians 7:29-31 (NKJ)
29 . . . this I say, brethren, (that) the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none,
30 . . . (and) those who buy as though they did not possess,
31 . . . For the form of this world is passing away.

At the end of the Acts period, Israel’s rejection of Jesus as the Christ was complete, and God set aside the New Covenant program. God called the Apostle Paul to once again reveal something that no one else understood, only this time it was not something like the New Covenant which was simply overlooked in the Old Testament scriptures. This time it was something that had been hidden in God from the beginning of the ages.

God gave Paul the great revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ. In his post Acts-period epistles to the Ephesians, the Philippians and the Colossians, as well as his pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, we see no evidence of the New Covenant. We see no evidence of outward miracles, wonders and signs. We see no evidence of physical circumcision, or water baptism, or the communion service. We see no discussion of the antichrist or the tribulation period.

Instead, we see only the miracle of the new creation which comes through our spiritual baptism into the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. We see only the hope that someday, when Christ appears, we will appear with him in glory.

When we study the Bible, and we see, as we have this morning, that some passages have to be seen in the light of the Law of Moses, while others have to be seen in the light of the New Covenant, while still others have to be seen in the light of the Church which is the Body of Christ, then we can come to the word of God and open our hearts to the Holy Spirit completely yielding our hearts to Him as we trust Him to lead us and guide us and instruct us.

I see that our time is gone for this morning. Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

Church links:

Righty Dividing Part 1 (7-2-06)

Rightly Dividing (Part 1)
Bible Study Time 7-2-06

From his prison house in Rome, the Apostle Paul was able to look back on his life and see the influence of the three basic programs of God. Paul was raised under the influence of Israel’s first covenant, the Law of Moses. On the road to Damascus, Paul met the Lord Jesus from whom he learned the significance of the New Covenant. After Paul was arrested and sent to Rome, God revealed to him the great truth of the Church which is the Body of Christ.

With these three programs in mind, the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, his son in the faith, admonishing him to rightly divide the word of truth. Specifically, Paul said:

2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJ)
15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Without the principle of right division, the scriptures would certainly seem to be a mixed up blend of contradictions, but as we rightly divide the word of truth, we see that all of the scriptures fit together to reveal a complete and total picture of God’s dealings with man, past, present and future.

Paul was raised in the city of Tarsus which was under Roman rule but had a great deal of independence because they had proven their loyalty to Rome. It was a city which was loved and celebrated for its literature and philosophy. Some scholars believe that it was comparable to and maybe superior in culture to that of Athens in Greece and Alexandria in Egypt.

It seems likely then that Paul, even as a child, would have had access to Greek literature and philosophy, but Paul’s father was a Pharisee who probably saw to it that Paul’s primary instruction even as a child was in the Jewish Law, the first great program of God for mankind. In fact, Paul may not have been much more than a child when he was sent to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel who was one of the greatest Jewish scholars of the day. In Acts 22 and verse 3, Paul spoke before an angry mob in Jerusalem and said:

Acts 22:3 (NKJ)
3 "I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers' law, and was zealous toward God . . .

Paul went on to tell how he had persecuted those who had believed in Jesus but how he had been saved on the road to Damascus. He said:

Acts 22:4-10 (NKJ)
4 "I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women,
5 "as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished.
6 "Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me.
7 "And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?'
8 "So I answered, 'Who are You, Lord?' And He said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.'
9 "And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.
10 "So I said, 'What shall I do, Lord?' And the Lord said to me, 'Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do.'

Paul was about to learn that God had a plan for Israel which was much more glorious than that of the Old Covenant Law. From Damascus, God did not lead Paul back to Jerusalem to learn from the apostles. In Galatians 1, Paul said:

Galatians 1:11,12,15-17 (NKJ)
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace,
16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

At this time the original Apostles knew only the promises contained in the Law concerning the Messiah and the earthly kingdom. In Acts, Chapter 3, after Peter healed the lame man, Peter said to the Jewish crowd:

Acts 3:22-26 (NKJ)
22 "For Moses truly said to the fathers, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.
23 'And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.'
24 "Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.
25 "You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'
26 "To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."

God was doing some spectacular things through the Apostles there in Jerusalem. He was using the Apostles to heal the sick, cast out demons and grant the power to speak in tongues, but Peter was still looking at these events through the eyes of the Old Covenant. He could not see this bigger picture. These things were a fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Covenant, but even more than that, they were actually being done in accordance with and as evidence of the New Covenant, God’s second great plan for mankind.

God had chosen Paul as the one who would reveal the details of the New Covenant. In II Corinthians, Chapter 3, Paul said:

2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

It was the Apostle Paul who revealed that this outpouring of God’s spirit was in accordance with the New Covenant and that it would be the power of the Holy Spirit which would bring about Israel’s everlasting kingdom of peace and righteousness. It was the Apostle Paul who taught that God was not just refining the Law and taking the Law to a new level, but God was doing away with the Law so that He could bring in a better covenant.

The New Covenant had a better priesthood, a better sacrifice and a better hope. Paul told the Roman believers in Romans, Chapter 11:

Romans 11:25-27 (NKJ)
25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins."

The New Covenant, based in the power of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, will someday bring salvation to the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel has to be saved before the New Covenant Kingdom can come.

This is the message that Timothy first heard from the Apostle Paul in Galatia. In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul said:

Galatians 4:21-31 (NKJ)
21 Tell me, you who 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 bondwoman, the other by a freewoman.
23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise,
24 which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar--
25 for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children--
26 but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.
30 Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman."
31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.

Timothy had been taught that the New Covenant was a better covenant than the Old Covenant and that the Old Covenant had passed away. It was time to cast out the bondwoman so to speak. With these things in mind Timothy could now understand the words of the Lord Jesus when He said:

Matthew 9:16-17 (NKJ)
16 "No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.
17 "Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

The Old Covenant and New Covenant just don’t mix. They operate in two different paradigms. The Old Covenant operates in the realm of the flesh while the New Covenant operates in the realm of the Spirit.

Timothy had been well trained in the Law by his mother Lois and his grandmother Eunice. He had been trained in the New Covenant by the Apostle Paul. But Timothy was also with Paul there in Rome when Paul wrote his epistles to the churches at Ephesus, Colossae and Philippi. So Timothy was well aware of the revelation which God had given to Paul concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ, the third great program of God.

Timothy’s close association with Paul not only in Paul’s travels but also in Paul’s imprisonment at Rome make it certain that Timothy was aware of the difference between the New Covenant program of God and God’s program for the Church which is the Body of Christ. Timothy would have known that the New Covenant was prophesied by Jeremiah when he said:

Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when 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 lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

But Timothy would have also known that God’s revelation to Paul concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ was something that was never revealed to any person ever, until it was revealed to Paul. As Paul said in Colossians 1:24:

Colossians 1:24-26 (NKJ)
24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,
25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,
26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.

Timothy would have known the difference between the mystery of the New Covenant in Romans 16 and the mystery of the Church, the Body of Christ, in Ephesians, Chapter 3. In Romans 16, Paul said:

Romans 16:25-26 (NKJ)
25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept secret since the world began
26 but now has been made manifest, and by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations . . .

This mystery of the New Covenant was being made known to all nations by the prophetic Scriptures, but in Ephesians, Chapter 3, Paul spoke of the mystery of the Church, the Body of Christ, and said:

Ephesians 3:3-9 (NKJ)
3 . . . by revelation (God) made known to me the mystery
9 . . . which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ;

Ephesians 3:6 (NKJ)
6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel,

The mystery of the New Covenant was hidden in the scriptures all through the centuries, and God called Paul to reveal that mystery during the Acts period. The mystery concerning the Church, the Body of Christ, was hidden in God all through the centuries, and God called Paul to reveal that mystery after the Acts period.

Timothy knew these three major programs of the Bible: the Law, the New Covenant and the Church which is the Body of Christ. Therefore, Paul challenged Timothy and every believer since Timothy to:

2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJ)
15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

I see that our time is gone for this morning. Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

Church links:

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Faith In His Blood (6-25-06)

The Righteousness of Faith
Bible Study Time 6-25-06

It was the Apostle Paul who first taught the message of salvation through faith in the blood of Christ. In Romans, Chapter 3, he said:

Romans 3:21-22 (NKJ)
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe . . .

Romans 3:24-25 (NKJ)
24 (for we are) justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness . . .

Nothing less than the shed blood of the spotless lamb of God could possibly be accepted by God as an appropriate sacrifice for sin so Jesus Christ offered His blood upon the cross of Calvary to demonstrate the righteousness of God and justify His forgiveness for sin.

Adam and Eve were created without sin in the Garden of Eden, but after they sinned, death passed upon all of their descendants. In spite of this death sentence, however, Adam and Eve and their immediate descendants had much longer life expectancies than we do today. Adam lived for 800 years, Seth lived for 912 years, and Seth’s son, Enosh, lived for 905 years.

If you do the math in the book of Genesis, the flood came only 1500 years after Adam was created, and since Adam lived for 800 years, that means that Adam lived nearly half of the time period between his creation and the flood. Furthermore, it was only 8 generations from Adam to Methuselah, and Methuselah was 113 years old when Adam died. Of coarse, the flood came when Methuselah died.

With these long life spans, people during that time before the flood had plenty of time to fine tune their capacity for evil, and that is exactly what happened. Genesis, Chapter 6 says that by the time Methuselah died,

Genesis 6:5 (NKJ)
5 . . . the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

But then, the Bible holds out a small ray of hope for mankind when it says that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. As a result, God told Noah that he should build an ark to protect himself and his family from the great flood which was sure to come. Then Genesis 7 says:

Genesis 7:1 (NKJ)
1 Then the LORD said to Noah, "Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.

It is interesting to note that this is the very first time that the word righteous is used in the Bible, and the fact that Noah is found to be righteous in the midst of an extremely wicked world makes this passage even more interesting, especially in the light of the fact that David said:

Psalms 53:1-3 (NKJ)
1 . . . there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
3 Every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one.

Now, if there is none who does good, then how is it that God called Noah righteous? He said, “I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.” To find the answer to this question we need to look at Hebrews, Chapter 11, where we read in verse six that:

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJ)
6 . . . without faith it is impossible to please (God), for he who comes to God must believe that (God) is, and that (God) is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Clearly, no one can possibly hope to be declared righteous in the sight of God on the basis of their good deeds for truly there is none who does good, but there is hope for sinful man, and that hope is to please God on the basis of faith.

Genesis 7 goes on to say:

Genesis 7:7 (NKJ)
7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Well, there we have it. Noah became the heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Noah’s obedience resulted in his being saved from the flood, but it was his faith that brought him into the ranks of those who possess eternal life.

Noah believed that it was going to rain even though he had never seen rain. He was divinely warned of things not yet seen, but he believed in that which he had not seen because faith is the evidence of things not seen. Because of his faith, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, and he became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Why didn’t God reveal in the book of Genesis that the righteousness of Noah was the righteousness which is according to faith? I believe that the answer is found in the verses we read in Romans, Chapter 3, where Paul says:

Romans 3:21-22 (NKJ)
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed . . .
22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.

The righteousness which comes by faith could not be revealed until after the death of Christ. This righteousness all hinged upon the shed blood of Christ for it was the blood of Christ which justified God’s forgiveness for sin.

As far as we know, Noah did not know about or believe that Jesus Christ would someday come to die for his sins, but it was the planned sacrifice of Christ that allowed God to forgive Noah’s sins and call him righteous. Noah did not believe that Jesus was going to die for his sins, but he did believe what God told him. God told Noah that it was going to rain, and Noah believed God, and in so doing he became the heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

Now, when we get over into the writings of the Apostle Paul, we find that Jesus Christ was and is the Jehovah God of the Old Testament. Therefore, when Noah believed the words of Jehovah, he was also putting his faith in Jesus Christ, and that fits perfectly with the teaching of the Lord Jesus when He said to Thomas:

John 14:6 (NKJ)
6 . . . "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

We read about Noah in Hebrews 11:7, but in the next few verses of Hebrews 11, we read about Abraham, and Abraham was another one of those men who put his faith in Jesus Christ by believing the words of Jehovah. Jehovah told Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldeans and go to the land of promise for eternal blessings. When Abraham believed the words of Jehovah, he was putting his faith in Jesus Christ.

Now Abraham is similar to Noah in that the very first time that the word righteousness is used in the Bible, it is used in reference to Abraham. God told Abraham that he was going to have a son even though Abraham was 99 years old, and Genesis 15:6 says that:

Genesis 15:6 (NKJ)
6 (Abraham) believed in the LORD, and (the LORD) accounted it to him for righteousness.

In other words, Abraham believed in Jehovah when he believed the words of Jehovah. No one can say that they believe in God if they don’t believe the word of God. That’s why we study the Bible. The Bible is the word of God, and how can we say that we believe in God if we don’t know and believe His word. Abraham believed in the LORD, and the LORD accounted to him for righteousness.

The Jews never understood the real impact of this verse until the Apostle Paul revealed the righteousness of God which comes through faith in Christ. Paul made good use of this verse in Romans, Chapter 4. In Romans 4, verse 1, we read:

Romans 4:1-6 (NKJ)
1 What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?
2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
3 For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."
4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.
5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness,
6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

And in Galatians, Chapter 3, Paul said:

Galatians 3:5-9 (NKJ)
5 Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?--
6 just as Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."
7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all the nations shall be blessed."
9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

Both of these passages were written by the Apostle Paul while he was going out to the Gentiles as a minister of the New Covenant. He knew that as long as he was preaching the kingdom which was promised to Abraham, the means by which Abraham was accepted by God was of critical importance.

Paul could see that if simple faith in the LORD, Jehovah, could bring to Abraham the righteousness of God and the promise of the kingdom before he was circumcised and before the Law was given, then certainly that same simple faith in the LORD, Jesus Christ, could bring the salvation of God apart from the Law to the uncircumcised Gentiles.

After the nation of Israel rejected Christ as her Messiah, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope of the New Covenant Kingdom. At that point, the question of whether a person was a Jew or a Gentile was beside the point because God starting calling out the Church which is the Body of Christ in which there is neither Jew nor Gentile.

Throughout the Acts period, the Jews had continued practicing the rituals and ceremonies of the Law, but when Israel’s hope of the New Covenant Kingdom was set aside at the end of the Acts period, there was no longer any valid reason for the Jews to continue observing the practices of the Law. Therefore, Paul said in Ephesians 2:

Ephesians 2:14-16 (NKJ)
14 For (Christ) Himself is our peace, who has made both (Jew and Gentile) one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,
15 having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,
16 and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

Today, salvation is offered to all people everywhere on the basis of faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. So if you’re listening today without the assurance of your own personal salvation, you can take God at His word, like Noah did and like Abraham did. You can believe that Christ died for your sins, and then you can rest in the assurance that God sees you as perfectly righteous, and He has made you an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Then you can say with Paul, “My standing before God is not based in my own righteousness, but it is based in the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

I see our time is gone for this morning. Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

Church links:

Thursday, June 08, 2006

The Power of the Blood (6-11-06)

The Power of the Blood
Bible Study Time 6-11-06

During the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus gave his disciples the cup of wine and said, “This is My blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” According to Luke 22, the Lord went on to say:

Luke 22:29-30 (NKJ)
29 "And I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me,
30 "that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

The New Covenant stands in contrast to the First Covenant which was the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was based in the blood of bulls and goats, and it’s kingdom was the kingdom of David and Solomon. The High Priest had to go into the Holy of Holies once each year with the blood of an animal sacrifice to make atonement for the sins of the people. This covenant did allow for the acceptance of Gentiles but only if they were willing to accept the Jewish religion and live as a Jew. This kingdom was doomed to fail for it had no power to change the hearts of the people.

The Lord Jesus said that the New Covenant would usher in the glorious kingdom of heaven which was to be a kingdom of love, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It would be world-wide, it would last forever, and it would be based in the blood of Jesus Christ. But, as far as the salvation of the Gentiles was concerned, the Apostles assumed that the New Covenant would be the same as the first, that Gentiles would be accepted only if they converted to the Jewish religion and lived as a Jew.

No one knew in the early years after the cross that the New Covenant would open up a whole new world of opportunity for the Gentiles. That would remain a secret until after the calling of the Apostle Paul. Shortly after God saved Paul on the road to Damascus, God told Ananias that Paul was a chosen vessel to bear the name of the Lord before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel.

When Paul did go out preaching to the Gentiles, he knew that he was functioning as a minister of the New Covenant. He said in II Corinthians, Chapter 3:

2 Corinthians 3:6 (NKJ)
6 (God has) made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

In Galatians, Chapter 4, Paul said that Ishmael and Isaac represent Israel’s two covenants. He said that Ishmael represents the slavery of the Law, while Isaac represents the liberty of the New Covenant. He reminded the Galatians that God said to cast out the bondwoman with her son. Paul was very pleased to be a minister of the New Covenant.

Therefore, Paul was a minister of the New Covenant just as the other Apostles were, but Paul’s message was very different in several important ways from the other Apostles. In Galatians, Chapter 1, Paul said:

Galatians 1:11,12,15-20 (NKJ)
11 But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
15 . . . when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace,
16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood,
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and remained with him fifteen days.
19 But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
20 (Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed, before God, I do not lie.)

Paul said, I know that my ministry is different from the other apostles, but I want you to know that the things I teach were given to me by Jesus Christ, Himself. I didn’t learn them from other men. Well, what was it that made Paul’s ministry so different from the other Apostles?

The first thing that set Paul’s ministry apart was his ministry to the Gentiles. God told Paul that under the New Covenant Gentiles could be saved without having to submit to the Law of Moses. He was the only Apostle who taught that Gentiles could be saved by simple faith in Christ apart from the Law.

The Old Testament scriptures often spoke of the salvation of the Gentiles. In Romans 15, Paul quoted four different Old Testament passages to show that the salvation of the Gentiles was a matter of prophecy. He said in verse 8:

Romans 15:8-12 (NKJ)
8 Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers,
9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written: "For this reason I will confess to You among the Gentiles, and sing to Your name."
10 And again he says: "Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!"
11 And again: "Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples!"
12 And again, Isaiah says: "There shall be a root of Jesse; and He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in Him the Gentiles shall hope."

With these prophecies in mind, why was it such a shock to the Jews when God started saving the Gentiles? The reason is that the Jews always saw these verses through the filter of the First Covenant. They just thought that in the kingdom many, many Gentiles would convert to Judaism and come to God through the Law.

But God gave Paul a vision for what the New Covenant Kingdom was really going to be. Paul could see that the spiritual power of the New Covenant was going to reach out the Gentiles of the world without the stranglehold of the Law, and Paul said this message was not given to him by any man, but it was given to him by the Lord.

So Paul went out preaching to the Gentiles that they could be saved through faith in Christ without the Law, but there was something else that was uniquely different about Paul’s New Covenant ministry and that is that Paul was the first of the Apostles to emphasize not only faith in the person of Christ but faith in the work of Christ as well. Paul told the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

Paul said, this gospel which I preach is the gospel by which you are saved. Therefore, he said, hold fast to the word which I preach.

Many people today think that people have always been saved by believing that Christ died for our sins, but that’s not the case. The gospel that Christ died for our sins was never taught until it was taught by the Apostle Paul. The Lord Jesus certainly never told anyone that they could be saved by believing in His death, burial and resurrection. In Peter’s early ministry, he never told anyone that they could be saved by believing in the finished work of Christ upon the cross. In Acts, Chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood before the Jews in Jerusalem and said:

Acts 2:22-24 (NKJ)
22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know--
23 "Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
24 "whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.

Peter said, you killed the Messiah but do not despair. God has raised Him from the dead. He reminded them of David’s prediction that the Christ would suffer and die and be raised from the dead. Now verse 29 of Acts 2 says:

Acts 2:29-32 (NKJ)
29 "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30 "Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne,
31 "he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.
32 "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.

Peter told these Jews that they could be saved if they would just believe that Jesus was who He said He was. They had to believe that Jesus was the Christ. This was a beautiful message which was inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. I doubt that Peter even knew about Joel, Chapter 2, or Psalms, Chapter 16, before he started speaking, but he quoted them by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This message was given by the Holy Spirit, but there was not a word about Jesus Christ dying for our sins. Peter and the other original Apostles had no understanding of the fact that the shed blood of Jesus Christ was the means by which men could be reconciled to God.

The message of reconciliation through the blood of Christ was hinted at and pictured in many ways in the Old Testament scriptures, but no one understood it until it as revealed to the Apostle Paul. Paul said, the gospel I preach is not according to man, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. In Romans 3, Paul said that we are :

Romans 3:24-26 (NKJ)
24 . . . justified freely by (God’s) grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood . . .
26 . . . that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Here, Paul is not only teaching the importance of who Jesus was, but he is teaching the importance of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross of Calvary. The word propitiation is the word for the mercyseat which is the blood sprinkled lid of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. It’s where all of God’s righteous and all of God’s love come together to offer forgiveness on the basis of an appropriate sacrifice for sin.

In Paul’s early ministry, as a minister of the New Covenant, the gospel of the Apostle Paul was that the blood of Jesus Christ was the means by which man could be reconciled to God through faith. It was not until after Paul taught this message that the other Apostles began to teach the same thing. John said in I John 2:

I John 2:2 (NKJ)
2 (Jesus) Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

Here we see that in John’s later years he could see that the blood of the Lord Jesus had opened the door of salvation not only to the Jew but to the whole world.

In I John 4, John said:

I John 4:10 (NKJ)
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Again, we see John teaching that it’s the blood of Jesus Christ that God accepts as a payment for sin.

At the end of the Acts-period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope for the New Covenant Kingdom. At that time, Paul was instructed to reveal the details of the Church which is the Body of Christ, and if the blood of Jesus Christ is the prominent feature of the New Covenant, then certainly it is even more prominent in the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ.

In Paul’s letters to the Church, he emphasized time and time again the importance of the blood of Christ. Ephesians 1:7 says:

Ephesians 1:7 (NKJ)
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace

Ephesians 2:13 says:
Ephesians 2:13 (NKJ)
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

In Colossians 1:13, we read:
Colossians 1:13-14 (NKJ)
13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

And then in Colossians 1:19, we read:
Colossians 1:19-20 (NKJ)
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

The blood of Jesus Christ is the only means of salvation for any person of any time period. All those who come to God for salvation must meet God at the mercyseat and have the blood of Jesus Christ applied to their hearts as the perfect payment for sin.

If you don’t know Christ today, you can be saved through the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. All you have to do is believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, that He was buried and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures. This is the gospel by which we are saved.

Thank you for listening this morning to another session of Bible Study Time. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

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Thursday, June 01, 2006

The New Covenant Part 2 (6-4-06)

The New Covenant (Part 2)
Bible Study Time 6-4-06

The Law of Moses is what the book of Hebrews calls the First Covenant. It was formalized at Mt. Sinai when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. This First Covenant was glorious in that it did reveal the righteousness of God, but it was flawed in that it did not provide its followers with the power to live according to God’s righteousness. Therefore, a thousand years after the First Covenant was given, God promised a New Covenant. In Jeremiah 31:31, the Lord said:

Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when 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 lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

Now, oddly enough, the New Covenant is not a major theme in the New Testament scriptures. The Lord mentions it at the Last Supper, and Paul mentions it twice in his letters to the Corinthians. But then, the New Covenant is thoroughly examined by the writer of the book of Hebrews.

According to Matthew’s account of the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus took a cup of wine and gave thanks. Then the Lord gave the cup to his disciples, saying:

Matthew 26:27-28 (NKJ)
27 . . . "Drink from it, all of you.
28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

That very evening the Lord was arrested and the next day He was crucified.

In I Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul repeated the words which the Lord spoke at the Last Supper because the Corinthian believers were apparently misusing the words of the Lord to justified some of their church traditions. Paul wanted to set the record straight so He wrote in I Corinthians 11:23:

1 Corinthians 11:23-25 (NKJ)
23 . . . I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."

Paul went on to say that there was no way the Corinthian believers could justify the things that they were doing on the basis of the words of the Lord.

In II Corinthians 3, Paul declared that He was an able minister of the New Covenant. He said that the way God had worked in their lives and changed their lives was all that he needed to justify his ministry among them. He said:

2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

God did many miracles, wonders and signs through the Apostle Paul during the Acts period, and Paul understood that these miracles were being done by the power of the Holy Spirit. He understood that this outpouring of the Holy Spirit was in keeping with the ministry of the New Covenant. The Old Testament prophets had predicted that the New Covenant Kingdom would be preceded by this great outpouring of God’s Spirit. Therefore, Paul said that he was an able minister of the New Covenant.

In II Corinthians 3, Paul spoke of the glory of the First Covenant, the Law of Moses. He said that the Law was so glorious that Moses had to put a veil over his face when he came down from Mt. Sinai because his face was shining so brightly. Then, Paul reminded the Corinthians that as time went on Moses’ face stopped shining and his face went back to normal. This pictured the fact that the glory of the Law was a fading glory. Its glory was going to fade away in the light of the glory of the New Covenant. Paul said:

2 Corinthians 3:7-11 (NKJ)
7 . . . if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

The Lord mentioned the New Covenant once, and Paul mentioned it twice, but it was left up to the writer of the book of Hebrews to really explain the details of the New Covenant. In Hebrews, Chapter 8, we see that even before the creation of all things, God had a tabernacle in heaven with lampstands and a table and an altar and all of the things that were contained in the earthly tabernacle that Moses built. In fact, the things that Moses made were patterned after the heavenly things.

In the First Covenant, God called upon Aaron and his sons to offer animal sacrifices and sprinkle the blood of those sacrifices on the altar of the earthly tabernacle. However, all through the years of that First Covenant, there was no blood sprinkled on the heavenly altar. God was reserving that altar for the blood of the New Covenant.

Hebrews 10 says that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Therefore, no blood from the animal sacrifices was ever placed on the heavenly altar. That altar was waiting for the blood of Jesus Christ.

When John the Baptist saw the Lord Jesus, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” When the Lord Jesus gave the wine to His disciples at the Last Supper, He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant.” As Jesus drank that wine, He knew that the time had come for Him to shed the blood of the New Covenant, and He knew that with that blood, He would deal with the sins of the world once and for all.

Obviously then, as God was waiting for the blood of the New Covenant all through the years of the First Covenant, He was using the First Covenant to picture what He was going to do in the New Covenant. The Law was given as a teacher to bring mankind into an understanding of God’s true righteousness and justice. The tabernacle of the Law pictured the tabernacle in heaven, and the sacrifices of the Law pictured the death of the Lord Jesus.

The animal sacrifices pictured the Lord Jesus, but we must not forget that the priests also pictured the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ was designated as both the Lamb of God and the High Priest of God even before the creation. Revelation 13:8 says that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.

Then, when we think of the Lord’s position as High Priest, we have to think about the fact that Abraham paid a tithe to a Priest named Melchizedek way back in Genesis 14. David said that the Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and the book of Hebrews confirms that Jesus Christ is the High Priest of the New Covenant. It says:

Hebrews 5:4-6 (NKJ)
4 . . . no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was (God) who said to Him: "You are My Son, today I have begotten You."
6 As He also says in another place: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek";

And so, Jesus Christ offered His blood as the blood of the New Covenant, and as the High Priest of the New Covenant, He carried that blood into the heavenly tabernacle and placed it upon the mercyseat of the altar. Once that was done, the earth was ready for the outpouring of God’s Spirit and the glory of the kingdom.

Now, if we go back and take a look at Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the New Covenant, we find that God says He will establish the New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. He does not say that He will establish the New Covenant with the Gentiles.

When the Lord Jesus spoke of the New Covenant at the Last Supper, He was speaking to His Jewish disciples about the Jewish people when He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many.” When the writer of Hebrews spoke of the superiority of the New Covenant, he was obviously writing to the Hebrews. But what about Paul? What about his references to the New Covenant in I and II Corinthians? Wasn’t Paul the minister to the Gentiles?

Yes, Paul was the minister to the Gentiles, but in the early years of his ministry, he went out, as he said, as a minister of the New Covenant. In Romans, Chapter 1, he said that God’s offer of salvation was to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In Romans 15:8, Paul said that Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and then he quoted four different Old Testament passages to prove that the salvation of God had to go out to the Gentiles before the kingdom could come.

If we examine Paul’s early letters, we see that in I and II Corinthians Paul mentioned the New Covenant twice. In II Thessalonians 2, Paul warned the people about the coming of the antichrist and the fact that the antichrist had to come before the setting up of the kingdom. In I Corinthians 6, Paul taught that believers will someday judge the world. In Romans 8, Paul said that the whole creation groans with labor pains as it eagerly waits for the revelation of the Sons of God.

Now let me just say that the creation is not eagerly awaiting the rapture of the Church because after the rapture of the Church the labor pains of the creation will become worse and worse until the revelation of the Sons of God at the second coming of Christ.

As we look at statements such as this one in Romans, we cannot help but conclude that in Paul’s early ministry, he was looking, not for the rapture of the church, but he was looking for the return of the Lord Jesus who would defeat the antichrist and set up the kingdom.

On the other hand, when we study the letters of Paul’s later ministry, we see that Paul has a totally different point of view. Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians as well as Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus were written after the Acts period, and in those letters he makes no mention of the New Covenant, the antichrist, the tribulation period or any of those things. Only in those letters does Paul specifically reveal the Church which is the Body of Christ. Only in those letters does he reveal the Church which is the Body of Christ as a heavenly institution. Only in those letters does Paul reveal that all believers today are members of the Church which is the Body of Christ and that, as such, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

There are many doctrines which set Paul’s later epistles apart from his earlier writings, and we’re not going to go into all of those points of doctrine today, but it is to these later epistles of Paul that believers today should look for specific direction.

All scripture is profitable because we can always learn from the wisdom and the foolishness of those who lived before us or will live after us, but we cannot expect to experience all of the things that the people of others ages experience. God’s dealings with the Church of our present age is uniquely different from his dealings with the people of other ages.

During the Acts period, the Holy Spirit was being poured out upon the believers who accepted Christ, and they experienced miracles, wonders and signs. However, when Israel steadfastly refused to accept Christ throughout the Acts period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope of the New Covenant Kingdom. It was at that time that God allowed Paul to start revealing the Church which is the Body of Christ.

After the rapture of the Church, God will bring back the ministry of the New Covenant during the tribulation period, and once again, there will be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit with miracles, wonders and signs.

In Acts, Chapter 2, Peter quotes from Joel, Chapter 2, to show that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was predicted as that which would come before the setting up of the kingdom, but if we look back in Joel, Chapter 2, at the preceding verses, we see that Joel gives us a hint that the outpouring of the Spirit will come in two different phases. Verse 23 says:

Joel 2:23 (NKJ)
23 Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you-- the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.

Of coarse, Joel was specifically referring to the former rain and the latter rain which are both necessary for a good harvest, but in the context of His prophesy concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we see a hint that there will be a former rain and a latter rain. The former rain occurred during the Acts period, and the latter rain will occur during the tribulation period. It will be after the latter rain, that Christ will return to the earth to harvest His elect. Matthew 24 says:

Matthew 24:30-31 (NKJ)
30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

What a marvelous day that will be when the full glory of the New Covenant is revealed on the earth as Jesus Christ rules and reigns for a thousand years.

Well, I see that our time is gone for this morning. It’s been a pleasure being with you, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.

Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com

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