Posted on 09/30/2005 9:26:35 AM PDT by HarleyD
He who would understand the prophets had better begin with Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, where he will find that the Church is one in the Old Testament and New, and the New Testament Church is the fulfillment of all prophecy, the very last phase of God's redemptive work on earth.
He will discover in Galatians who the true Israel is, to whom the promises are made and that there is no other Israel, and no further fulfillment of prophecy.
The problem of the Galatian believers was the conspiracy to impose upon them Jewish interpretations of prophecy, and to claim over them a Jewish priority or privilege. Paul repulses this conspiracy with unparalleled severity.
On this question it was "Paul contra mundum" (Paul against the world) as later it was to be, on another vital question, "Athanasius contra mundum." Even Peter came under his lash- "I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed" (Gal. 2:1 1). Great men were temporarily swept away by the Jewish pretensions to perpetual privilege and priority-- "Even Bamabas was carried away with their dissimulation" (Gal. 2:13).
Here Paul placed his foot, the last man on earth to stand between Judaistic heresy and the safety of the church: "To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you" (Gal. 2:5).
In our day the same Jewish heresies have well-nigh crushed the theology of the evangelical churches and destroyed effective preaching of the Word. The error has taken different forms in our time, but springs from the same Judaistic root whose fundamental ground is that Jewish privilege and priority are perpetual and that the New Testament Church at best is only a makeshift arrangement of providence to tide over the time until the resources of a baffled and well-nigh impotent Godhead are assembled in sufficient force to compel at last a Jewish solution of the problem of redemption.
A glance at any average missionary magazine dedicated to Jewish evangelization will clearly show this. Sayings of present Jewish leaders are eagerly quoted in justification of 2,000 years of Jewish unbelief, as showing that the Jewish expectation of a Messianic kingdom on earth, with restoration of temple, sacrifices, and priesthood, is a true interpretation of prophecy, whereas it was because John the Baptist and Christ did not proclaim such a kingdom of earthly and visible Jewish glory and privilege that the one was betrayed to Herod and the other was crucified by Pilate.
Let the martyrdom of John and the crucifixion of the Savior stand for ever as the final answer to that interpretation of prophecy which displaces the church, relegates the gospel, and establishes for "Israel after the flesh" an earthly empire and a national economy falsely regarded as "the kingdom of Heaven."
The fact that some (but by no means all) earlier Reformed theologians and expositors have given some countenance to the error is neither here nor there; for to a man, they all lived before that final dispensational arrangement of prophecy which has turned error into a heresy.
With happy lack of consistency, the earlier theologians held their post-millennial teachings alongside a truly spiritual interpretation of prophecy, not perceiving that the two were mutually exclusive. Their hearers at least got the benefit of both worlds even though one had to be proved false by the other.
Today, we are not permitted that luxury. The theory has become sinister and subversive through its elaboration into a succession of "ages" to which belong certain well-defined segments of Holy Scripture, all combining to exclude "the church" from all but a fragment of the Divine Word. The Jewish theory predominates. A variety of second comings and last judgments has been invented. The abolition of the gospel has been proclaimed with great enthusiasm for it is fundamental to pre-millennialism that another gospel known as "the gospel of the kingdom" will take the place of the gospel of grace when "the church" is safety removed out of the way.
Paul has a word for those who proclaim "another gospel," or who even proclaim there will ever be another-"Let him be accursed ... though he be an angel from Heaven" (Gal. 1:8).
This perversion of Holy Scripture, now so destructively rife, is significantly at the root of all the modem "cults" which have sprung out of evangelicalism in the last 15O years, all proclaiming "another gospel" which is invariably a thinly concealed doctrine of "works" presented in more orthodox circles under the well-sounding title"Gospel of the Kingdom."
This title occurs very blessedly v in the New Testament, of course, but nowhere is it separable from the gospel "kingdom" which is neither here nor there, neither in Jerusalem, nor Samaria, nor Rome, but is "within you" (Luke 17:20-21). The "Gospel of the Kingdom" as described by our pre-millennialist is suspiciously like that which the sect known as "Jehovah's Witnesses" proclaims.
The inconsistency of former (but otherwise sound) theologians who pursued the millennialist fantasy is testified by our dispensationalists today who indignantly strike from the chapter headings of the Authorized Version of the Bible any reference to "the church" found in those headings throughout the Old Testament prophets.
We are on common ground therefore in acknowledging that the millennialism of the older theologians was inconsistent with modem dispensationalism or even with more moderate post-millennialism. These men cannot be quoted as experts on prophetical interpretation, but we have every ground for asserting that if they had lived after the invention of the dispensational heresy, they would have fled in dismay from their millennial house and cried havoc!
That Mr. Spurgeon did not appear to perceive this, can only be attributed to the fact that he lived too near the onset of the new error and was too engrossed (rightly so.) with the challenge of the new Bible criticism, to perceive the other "downgrade" which after his death became a landslide, and in two generations overwhelmed the evangelical testimony and destroyed theology and divinity, leaving evangelicalism powerless and without nerve or sinew to meet the challenge of world-wide atheism and Satanic unloosing.
We have begun by stating that the key to prophetic understanding of the Old Testament promises lies in the epistle to the Galatians, an epistle specially written to defend the church against all judaizing errors and interpretations.
The Galatian church was the Most Gentile of all the churches of the New Testament, as the name suggests. The inhabitants of that province in Asia Minor were a segment of the great Gaelic-Gautic-Celtic race from which the English-speaking peoples take most of their blood. It is sad to see that the Judaic-dispensational heresy has found only too congenial ground in this race, as it did in their Asiatic brethren in the days of Paul the apostle. It seems that our race is peculiarly prone to Casting away its great privileges and placing its mind in pawn to Judaistic doctrines. "O foolish Galatians! Who hath bewitched you" (Gal. 3:1).
In Paul's day men came from Judea to Galatia teaching that God had set aside neither the Jewish nation nor Jewish privilege, and unless the Gentiles became as Jews they could not be saved. They even insisted that Gentiles become circumcised as Jews. Against this Paul thundered,"I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law, Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Gal. 5:3-4).
It is useless for our friends to tell us that this is not their error, for their interpretations require that in their so-called millennial age Gentiles must be circumcised according to the laws of Ezekiel's "temple." Hence our Savior Christ, supposedly reigning in person in Jerusalem, must preside over the subversion of His own gospel, the undoing of His work of redemption on the Cross and the dismantling of that kingdom of grace and truth which was the sole purpose of His coming into the world. In other words, the "Second Coming" according to the dispensational scheme will undo the whole purpose of the First Coming, and the Law will supplant the gospel.
Those who reject the true spiritual interpretation of Ezekiel 44:6-9 must teach that "the stranger" (that is, the Gentile) is to be excluded from God's sanctuary unless he is circumcised. This passage occurs in that portion of Ezekiel in which the New Testament temple is described but which our friends take to mean an actual temple restoration in Jerusalem during the so-called millennial reign of Christ on earth. As they insist that Ezekiel's temple is to be literally constructed they cannot escape the conclusion that circumcision is to be reestablished in their millennium, on a far more extensive scale than ever before; Gentiles must be circumcised as well as Jews if they are to have access to divine worship.
And who is now the heretic~we who plead for a spiritual and gospel interpretation of prophecy, or our friends who reestablish circumcision, the temple, the sacrifice, the Levitical priesthood, and abolish the church and the gospel, and put Moses in the place of Christ'? When we say that the epistle to the Galatians was written to destroy this Judiastic error, we do not overstate the truth, as we shall now attempt to prove.
The third and fourth chapters of Galatians are crucial to the interpretation of prophecy. Three things are shown therein: (1) The Church is one continuing body in the Old Testament and the New Testament. (2) The New Testament Church is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy concerning Israel (3) Therefore, prophecy concerning the promised kingdom is to be understood in spiritual, not in natural terms .
In the first chapter of Galatians, Paul proves his competence to speak with authority showing that the gospel which he preached and from which the Galatians were in danger of being subverted, was received by him as a direct and specific revelation from God, by- passing all human means, so that his apostleship was not derived from the Jerusalem apostolate with which he had only the flimsiest contact. It was three years after his conversion before he visited Jerusalem, and even then he lived with Peter for only fifteen days, seeing no other apostle save James (the relative of the Lord). His apostleship came direct from Heaven and his knowledge of the gospel from the same exalted source.
He was the man who (whether in spirit or body, he could not say) had been caught up to Heaven and in a personal interview with the glorified Redeemer received that inner knowledge of the divine wisdom in the plan of redemption that exceeded what he was permitted to teach or write (2 Cor.12).
In chap. 2 he records his visit to the great council of the church at Jerusalem called to deal with the Judaistic dispute-a dispute satisfactorily settled in favor of Gentile liberty under the gospel: a liberty unhindered by those Jewish observances which continued amongst the early Jewish believers during the appointed 40 years of Jewish probation terminating with the abolition of the temple, the Mosaic code, the priesthood, sacrifices and the synagogue connection in the Roman war of A. D. 70. In this account of the evangelical council at Jerusalem under the superintendence of the apostle James (Acts 15), the position of the church in relation to the Mosaic Law is clinched by an appeal to the verdict of the prophets themselves. Amos is being quoted as representative of all the, prophets (note the use of the plural)-Acts 15:15. That Quotation governs the right use of all prophecies related thereto, in reference to thee kingdom which Christ came to establish at His first coming, and shows that the kingdom is spiritual and not Jewish, of Heaven and not of earth, and that the rebuilding of David's house has been fulfilled in the perpetual reign of Christ, beginning with the resurrection and the ascension into Heaven.
Though Paul does not recapitulate the history of this great council, he records this result affecting the Gentiles. It was established that Gentile salvation outside the law and outside the Jewish camp was valid, scriptural and eternally binding, though (as Paul declares to his Galatian friends) it would not have mattered to him if the council had gone against him~."God accepteth no man's person" (Gal. 2:6).
Later on Peter came to Antioch and because of fear of the opinion of judaizing emissaries from James at Jerusalem, compromised with the synagogue faction and separated himself from the Gentiles. Poor Peter! The same Peter who denied his Lord still denies him despite the artificial theories of conference men who declare that Peter was a different man after Pentecost than he was before.
What grandeur in Paul's argument! The final answer to the judaizing heresy is that the Cross of Christ has abolished the earthly and temporal Jewish economy and set up in its place an economy of the Spirit which transcends the national, the carnal and the external. "I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live..." (Gal. 2:19-20).
No Break Between Old Testament and New Testament
There follows the Pauline analysis of the nature and history of the true church, as contained in chapters 3 and 4, The first great conclusion Paul presents to the Galatians is that the only true children of Abraham, the heirs to the Abrahamic covenant, blessing and promise, are true believers, whether Jew or Gentile: "Know ye therefore that they which be of faith, the same are the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7).
There can be no appeal from this fundamental statement. In one sentence Paul destroys the entire dispensational, pre-millennial and post-millennial edifice. It is foundational to all three systems that Jewish privilege and a special Jewish future must be maintained on the basis that the Abrahamic covenant was exclusive to the natural (i.e. Jewish) seed of Abraham.
But Paul shows in these two chapters that the "seed of Abraham" is Christ, and that they who are Christ's (and no one else) are "Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise"; that this "seed" abolishes all distinction of birth or privilege, for "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for all are one in Christ Jesus" (See Gal. 3:16,2819). Moreover, the promise (of redemption in Christ took -precedence over the law by 430 years - the time lapse between Abraham and Moses. The Law itself, with its apparatus of temple, priest and sacrifice, was only added "because of transgression" to bridge the gap till Christ came~Gal. 3:17-19.
How say our literalists therefore that the temple and Levitical priesthood and sacrifice, are to be restored in the "Millennium"? If they were only established as a discipline to hold iniquity in check until gospel times, who will re-establish them save at the cost of recalling the sin and transgression which they were fitted only to restrain? And who now is the heretic?
Paul goes further and shows by the nature and history of the true church that no break has occurred between the Old Testament and New Testament Church. The Church of the New Testament is the legitimate successor of the church of the Old Testament.
Few chapters of Scripture have been so maltreated and distorted as the third chapter of Galatians. Evangelical expositors have sought to show from the word: "The Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," that the Holy Spirit uses the Law in evangelical conver sion to drive us through conviction of sin into the arms of Christ. Now whatever experimental truth there may be in this, it is not the subject of Paul's argument. The Galatians were never under "the schoolmaster." The "schoolmaster" is the regime of the Law over Old Testament Israel to preserve the nation in its function as the Church of God in the Old Testament till the "fullness of times" when Christ came at His first advent~"Before faith came we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed" (v.23).
This can only mean that the church was under legal restraints and administration till the time of gospel faith, that is, till the time when the fulfillment of the promise in Christ should release the people of God from all earthly and legal restraints and set them free without priest, sacrifice, temple, washings, outward observances or any such "rudiments of the world," to serve God in the spirit.
Christ said to the woman of Samaria: "Neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father, but the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth..." (John 4:21-24). In these words Christ abolishes temple, priesthood, sacrifice, circumcision and the entire apparatus of the Mosaic Covenant. Though for another 40 years of probation these "rudiments" were permitted to continue (though without legal enforcement) among pious Jews still attached to the nation and the synagogue, the judgment of the Roman war brought all to an end.
Among Gentile believers no such regulations and requirements were to be tolerated. The attempt to impose them was subversive to the gospel itself~the belief so current now among sincere Christians that the "rudiments" of the Mosaic code will actually, after 2,000 years, be reimposed not only on the Jew but on the Gentile also, is a heresy which baffles credence.
The thunders of the Galatian epistle notwithstanding, this subversive doctrine has obtained a stranglehold on theological thought and under the form of "dispensationalism" has vindicated 2,000 years of Jewish unbelief. It must be repelled and repudiated with the utmost vigor if preaching and exposition of the Word of God is to be restored to the church, and in this exercise the Epistle to the Galatians is crucial.
"But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a "schoolmaster" (v.25). The "coming" of faith in the apostle's argument denotes the passage of the church from the Mosaic to the New Testament economy. It is not an individual experience of the sinner coming to the Savior, but a moment in history when the regime of law gave way to the regime of faith, and the "schoolmaster" (the apparatus of the law summarized under the term "circumcision") handed over his office to Christ, and the church passed from its minority" to its "majority."
The conclusion of this chapter (vv. 26-29) is the charter of the New Testament Church and the ground of her invincible claim to be the lawful successor of Abraham, the true Israel, the true circumcision (not in the flesh but in the spirit), the inheritor of the promises and privileges and hope of Old Testament Israel. Hence-"If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise" (v.29). This glorious sentence winds up the Old Covenant, abolishes the law, the temple, and circumcision, terminates the mission of the Jewish nation, ends their exclusive rights and privileges, and provides the key to the understanding of the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets of the Old Testament.
This one sentence is the death-knell of that dispensational heresy which has filled the Church with the rubbish of a dismantled legalism and aims to reimpose in an age yet to come all those temporalities and restrictions which Christ died once and for all to abolish. The subtle doctrine that the gospel of Christ's free grace is going to give away to an imagined millennium of reimposed Jewish privileges, is reinforced by the teaching that there will be in that "golden age" another "gospel" preached, the so-called "gospel of the kingdom" which, whatever way we look at it, becomes a gospel of works and not of grace.
We beg our readers to consider that every false cult or sect which has sprung from the evangelical body in the last century and a half, is dispensational in nature and carries to its logical conclusion this Jewish and rabbinical principle of a gospel of works. It is proclaimed by the "Jehovah's Witnesses" in their significantly named "Kingdom Halls," by Christadelphians and Adventists, and by the newly developed cult launched by Mr. Herbert Armstrong, a financial wizard who claims to be the only man or organization on earth to be proclaiming the truth, and therefore entitled to all the legalistic "tithes" of the Lord's people. Aptly he has been called, "Mr. Ten Percent."
These outrageous impositions are evangelical in their origin and are only variations of that dispensationalism which began in the early 19th century, became standardized by Dr. C. I. Scofield in his "reference Bible" and has ever since dominated the evangelical scene. We cannot proclaim too strongly the dangers of this subtle and incredible movement which now shackles the evangelical mind and destroys all true Bible exposition. It is one of the principal tasks of the movement in our day towards sound Biblical and "Reformed" exposition, to destroy this error. In that task one principal weapon must be the epistle to the Galatians.
If we can demonstrate and prove that the Galatian epistle establishes beyond all cavil that the Church is one, a unity, in Old Testament and New Testament, and that therefore the New Testament Church is the final form of "Israel," the inheritor of all the promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the fulfillment of the prophecies of the kingdom which Messiah came to establish, and did in fact establish-our task will have been completed and our readers must do the rest.
It is our deliberate contention that this is the very position established in the next chapter (the fourth) of our Galatian epistle, established with such force that it can only be avoided by a blindness or an ignorance culpable in its nature.
Chapter four contains Paul's final argument, proving these two things: (1) That the work of "adoption" performed in the hearts of all true believers demonstrates that they are the legitimate successors of the Israelitish church of the Old Testament. (2) He reinforces this by an allegory built upon Abraham's history, showing that the natural Jew is not Israel at all but Ishmael; and that the church of Jew and Gentile believers is the true and only and exclusive Israel of God.
This being so, the promises to Israel in the Old Testament prophecies are to be spiritually understood even when they speak apparently of literal and material restoration of "Israel and Judah. This is the key the only key, to prophetical interpretation. We proceed therefore: Gal. 4:l~"Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant though he be lord of all."
Paul is saying that in Old Testament times the true church, the true people of God, were in a state of minority. Not having "come of age," they were treated as a child in a rich man's household, the heir to all the father's estates and privileges, but not yet at that age when that inheritance could properly be bestowed. Therefore, the child-heir finds himself fenced about with restrictions and officers who regulate his life so that he has no liberty to enjoy his privileges but must await "the time appointed of the Father." This is expressed by Paul in the words, "But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father" (Gal. 4:2).
The tutors and governors of the church in the Old Testament were the regulations of the Mosaic code. Paul deliberately transfers the figure of the child-heir to the church in her Old Testament minority in the words- "Even so we, when we were children, were in bond age under the elements [margin - rudiments] of the world" (Gal. 4:3). The childhood of the church was in Israelitish form under the Old Testament. The "bondage" was the subjection of the people of God to those earthly "rudiments" of visible temple, sacrifices, circumcision, and all other legal observances "in the flesh" which constituted the preparatory condition of the people of God before the coming of Christ.
Of that glorious event when the church obtained her release and passed from under the law to the full liberty of gospel faith, Paul now speaks- "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 4:4-5).
"The fulness of the time" means the times of prophetical fulfillment of all the purposes and promises of God in redemption. That Paul should call the gospel times "the fulness of the time" means that the gospel age is the age of fulfillment of all things which God spake by His holy prophets since the world began-Luke 1:70.
These are "the last days" described by Paul in Hebrews 1:2, "the end of the world" (Heb. 9:26), "the last time" (1 John 2:18). If these are the last days and the last time, and the end of the world, how say the dispensationalists that there is a "time" after "the last time," another kingdom to come after the "kingdom of God" has run its course, another age after the gospel age? We await with confidence their reply.
In this "fulness of time" God's Son was sent forth, born of the virgin, born under the law, that as One obliged by His true humanity and the time at which He appeared, to keep the whole law, did so in the perfection of His mediatorial office, redeeming "those who were under the law" that they with us Gentiles might receive together that "adoption of sons" which sets us beyond the servitude of the law and introduces us to the full inheritance of the sons of God. "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying Abba, Father" (v.6).
This is the difference between the experience of the people of God in the Old Testament and those in the New Testament. The difference is not one of the quality of salvation or the nature of faith, but in the status and privilege enjoyed. Living after the sacrifice of Christ which procured the full restoration of the soul to direct communion with God, the believer now receives the full witness of sonship and is released from the service of outward forms and ceremonies.
After remonstrating with the Galatians for yielding so easily to the subversions of Judaistic teachers, Paul resumes his argument in the famous allegory of Sarah and Hagar. This occupies verse 21-31 of our chapter and is the final word to end all argument of prophetical interpretation.
Abraham had two sons-Ishmael and Isaac. The former, who was the son of the bondwoman, Hagar the Egyptian, was rejected by God as not being the true heir. The other, Isaac, was the son of Sarah the true wife, and this was the true seed through whom the promise of God would come. Then, in the apostle's argument, comes the most startling reversal in the entire history of prophecy. Hagar, the Egyptian bondmaid, is identified with Jerusalem and Jewry. Sarah is identified with the true Church~"the heavenly Jerusalem."
The allegory thus declares that earthly Israel (the twelve tribes) is to be regarded as Ishmael because they are in bondage to the law and not free. The true Church of Gentile and Jew (in which all distinctions of race, degree and privilege are abolished~this is the true Israel to whom the promises made to Abraham apply.
Hagar and Ishmael stand for Jerusalem "which now is" (that is, the earthly Jerusalem standing with temple and sacrifice at the time of Paul's writing). Sarah and Isaac stand for the true gospel church, the "Jerusalem which is from above." The covenant made with Abraham is the promise of the gospel, and from that promise every Jew alive or who ever will be alive, is excluded except insofar as he comes by the same road of repentance, faith and regeneration which the Gentile believer treads.
Paul reinforces his allegory with a quotation from Isaiah 54:1 "Rejoice thou barren [Sarah] that barest not; break forth and cry thou that travailest not: for the desolate [the New Covenant] hath many more children than she that hath an husband [the Old Covenant]." The abolition of the Old Covenant means the abolition of Israel (Jewry) from all her privileges, and the emergence of the New Testament Church is the rise of the new "Israel of God," Jew and Gentile, with all distinctions obliterated, to whom alone the Abrahamic promises belong.
This is tersely and categorically expressed by the apostle in the words, "Now we, brethren [i.e., the church of the N. T.] as Isaac was, are the children of promise." Paul touches in v.29 upon the persecuting envy of the Jews against the church to whom their privileges have passed, and likens it to the hatred of Ishmael against Isaac and concludes his argument by quoting against the Jew the very words originally spoken against Hagar and her son Ishmael~"Nevertheless what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman with her son [i.e., the Old Covenant and the earthly Israel]: for the son of the bondwoman [Israel] shall not be heir with the children of the free woman [that is, the N. T. Church]" (v.30).
The dreadful judgment of these words is unmistakable: Israel is cast off and cast off forever as a nation. Paul gives no hint of any "restoration" though here would be the place to state it, if restoration there is to be. Jewish privilege is ended for all time. The covenant has passed to the New Testament Church in which Israel has no part except as individual believers.
This "casting off' is not anywhere modified by Paul. We have elsewhere shown that in Rom. 11 Paul is speaking of individual Jews and not the nation, when he writes, "If the casting away of them be the riches of the Gentiles, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?"
His last word to the Galatians is, "So then brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free" (Gal. 4:3 1 ). This he writes to the most Gentile of all the churches, showing that to the Gentile church has passed the covenant, the glory, the birthright, the privilege and the redemption hope.
The consequences are most far-reaching. They extend to every prophecy of the Old Testament in which the New Covenant is foretold, even though the words of the prophets are addressed to "Israel and Judah." That "Israel and Judah" is the New Testament Church, and though the prophecies are couched in terms of the land of Israel and employ topographical and geographical details drawn from the earthly territory of the twelve tribes, these are "figures of the true" just as temple, sacrifice and priesthood, passover and feasts were "figures of the true," designed to portray gospel truths to those whose ears are open to hear. It is greatly to be feared that to very few of our prophetical teachers today those words could be addressed: "Blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear" (Matt. 13:16).
It might well be asked of our dispensational friends today-What was it that the Lord hid from the wise and prudent Jews of His day and revealed only to "babes" (Matt. 11:25)? If it were "the things" pertaining to His kingdom which He had come to establish on the ruins of Satan's empire of sin and death, then the "kingdom" which he "offered" to the Jews was entirely spiritual and not natural, and this is the reason why it was concealed from all except those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
The reason why the Jews rejected Christ is the same as that for which they still reject Him today-namely, because they expected an earthly kingdom, and Christ did not bring them this. The prevailing prophetical theories, however, insist that Christ did in fact "offer" this kingdom to the Jews and because they rejected the offer, the gospel was brought in as an afterthought or a substitute. What the dispensational theory is saying is that Christ offered to the Jews the very kingdom which they expected, but they rejected Him and it! At the last, says this extraordinary theory, Christ will relent and will in fact give the Jews the very kingdom which they crucified Him for not establishing at His first coming. The dispensational theory therefore vindicates the Jew for 2,000 years of unbelief and at the same time contradicts itself by alleging that the kingdom which the Jews rejected was the very kingdom which they crucified Him for not offering but which will be gratuitously conferred upon them in the near future as the fulfillment of what God promised to Abraham.
If our friends cannot see the hopeless dilemma in which their theory involves them, we can only marvel at the success of that error of dispensationalism by which evil powers have succeeded in well nigh destroying scriptural exposition and understanding.
The truth is that there is not a breath of suggestion that Christ ever offered" to the Jews any other "kingdom" but the gospel: that this was in fact the kingdom which John the Baptist came to present under the keyword "repent," which Christ Himself presented with the same keyword "repent," that the Sermon on the Mount with which He formally introduced His mission was in fact an exposition of the text- "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." In that great sermon Christ promised or offered nothing to anyone except "the poor in spirit," the "mourner for sin," the "meek," the "brokenhearted," and those who "hungered and thirsted" for true righteousness.
Dispensationalism, faced with the embarrassment that these dispositions of soul are noticeably absent in the Jewish occupation of Palestine today, had to descend to the device that the Jew must go back to Palestine in unbelief though this was the very reason for which the Jew was cast out of Palestine. The theory teaches that the Second Coming of Christ will convert the Jews "in a day" despite the fact that they do not need to be converted to the conceptions of an earthly kingdom of Christ, seeing they crucified the Savior for not setting up this very thing.
The dispensational theory today is jubilantly hailing the prospect of an early fulfillment of Jewish expectation of an earthly kingdom of Messiah. The theorists exceed the rabbis in this enthusiasm, though it is from rabbinical sources that their theory has been contrived. They actually tell the Jews that their present occupation of Palestine, in a state of bitter hostility to Christ and the Christian gospel, is the fulfillment of prophecy and that their ungodly zeal against Christ and truth will be rewarded shortly by God with an instant faith and that this extraordinary act of God will be a fulfilling of the promises made to Abraham.
But Paul in Galatians has already told us who Abraham's seed are, to whom these promises are made, and he mentions not a word about restoration to Palestine, but builds it all on the nature of the Church. He maintains, as we have shown, that the Church is the lawful continuation of Old Testament Israel and the inheritor of the Abrahamic covenant and promises.
We ask our dispensational friends to consider what their position will be if the present Jewish occupation ends in disaster. While they are forming their reply, we would point out to readers that so far from converting Israel and establishing them in the land, the second coming of Christ will overtake them (and all the world) "as a thief in the night," in the which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up (2 Peter 3: 1 0).
Peter knows of no other "second coming" save that which abolishes the heavens and the earth in one stupendous conflagration. Where then is the earthly kingdom which Christ is to bring to the Jew, and where is the "kingdom" of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Christadelphians, the Adventists and the Armstrongites? We fear for the company which our dispensationalists keep and earnestly entreat them to consider Paul's interpretation of who Israel is, what are "the two covenants" and what is the nature of "the promise" made to Abraham?
Our last word is that of Paul, significantly found in the conclusion of that epistle specifically written to deliver the Church from Jewish error and Jewish pride:
"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." (Gal. 6:14-16).
"Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." (Gal. 4:1-5)
The parallel in unmistakable. The "elementary things" here are the old covenant regulations in the law of Moses. This is obvious from his use here ("But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?" (v. 9), and elsewhere (cf. Col. 2:8,16,17,20).
There are bondage in Paul's mind. And in the mind of Peter, "Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" (Acts 15:10) Odd that Peter would refer to these regulations that folks want to adopt as a "yolk .. which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear". Either they are a blessing today for believers, or a yolk. They cannot be both.
Remember these folks were putting themselves under bondage. No one was holding a gun to their head. "I marvel that you are turning away so soon ..." (Gal. 1:6) No doubt the judaizers were very persuasive in the approach to the issue. The neo-judaizers are also very persuasive as well. "We may do it voluntarily, but there is no doubt we are doing what Christ commands, as opposed to the gentile practices of the rest of the church."
The law was a schoolmaster to drive us to Christ and the salvation that He offers (Gal. 3:24). Only children need a schoolmaster. "But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." The mature in Christ have no need of a schoolmaster any more. Paul desire for the Galatians was to be mature and to cast off the elementary things. The neo-judaizers say we cannot truly know Christ without resorting to elementary things of the schoolmaster. Thus the contrast between the religion of Paul and the religion of the neo-judaizers.
First, there's a misconception that under the "old Law" Gentiles had to become circumcised and be Jewish to be saved. This is plainly not true, and there are several examples of "righteous Gentiles" who were saved by their faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but who never formally joined the Jewish people, such as Jethro, Naaman the Syrian, Nebuchadnezzar, and the widow of Sidon.
One of the reasons I believe that the Apostles were so vehement that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised (Jewish) to be saved is that this distorted not only the Gospel, but the teaching of the Tanakh (the OT) on salvation as well. After all, if Abraham, the father of all Israel, could be saved by faith without circumcision, why then should his children force circumcision on Gentiles for them to be saved (Rom. 4)?
Being circumcised was more than just a ritual. It signified that the person was becoming Jewish in body, soul, and spirit, which meant that he was thereafter obligated to keep the whole Torah in the manner of the Jewish people (Gal. 5:3).
As I've said before, there are parts of the Torah which apply only to the people of Israel, such as kosher. As a Gentile, never circumcised into the Abrahamic or Mosaic covenants (though I am grafted into the promises of the former in the Messiah), I am under the Noahic covenant, which gives me the right to eat anything (Gen. 9:3). Even in Israel, Gentiles living among the Jews were permitted to eat that which was unclean to a Jew (Dt. 14:21). I refrain from non-kosher meat (Biblical kosher, not rabbinical kosher, which is a whole 'nuther ball game) simply because Yeshua did. It's a choice. If I were to become circumcised as a Jew, it would no longer be a choice, but a command, and I would sin if I ate unclean meat.
I keep the Feastdays OTOH, because they are fun and edifying, and in my personal opinion, are more honoring to God than certain holidays which still retain their pagan roots in their traditions. While I will give a friendly ribbing to Christians who celebrate Christmas (and happily accept a friendly ribbing from them in return), I don't so much discourage Christmas and Easter as I do encourage Sukkot and Passover--because I want to share something that I think is really neat, not because I think that those who celebrate Christmas are going to hell, aren't "real" Christians, or any other such nonsense.
Second (I took a long time on that first point, didn't I?), I don't think the Jerusalem council was setting down these four commands--not to commit idolatry, sexual immorality, or eat things strangled or with blood--as the once-and-for-all this-is-all-God-expects-from-you-ever commands to the Gentiles. To make such a claim would be tantamount to saying that it is okay for a Gentile believer to abuse their parents or steal or murder or play with astrology, or cast spells, since those commands are not included.
Rather, they seem to be a starting point. All four commands go straight to the heart of the pagan practices of the day, and by following them, the new Gentile believers would be completely separated from their old gods. They would also technically be clean enough to enter into and learn in the synagogues as "righteous Gentiles" or "God-fearers," which explains v. 21: "For Moses from ages past has those in every city proclaiming him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day."
The issue was, as you said earlier, avoiding division in the body. It was also a matter of rightly dividing the Scriptures and showing grace to those who had not been raised from birth knowing God's expectations. Instead of compelling them to keep the whole Torah (and the unwritten traditions of the Jews, which were another part of the equation that people tend to leave out), they would instead separate the Gentiles from their demon-gods and then simply teach God's Word and lead by example, letting the Spirit lead the Gentile believers as He will--for clearly the Spirit had accepted them as they were, giving them gifts from the moment they came to the Lord rather than waiting until they reached some "minimum requirement" of the Law first.
Legalism says that you must do x, y, and z to be saved, that you must be at a certain point on the road in your walk before you can go to Heaven. True grace says that God doesn't care where you are on the road, just so long as you are walking it.
That's not a problem unique to the 1st Century Church. Even today, many have been turned away from fellowship in churches because they weren't wearing the right clothes, or had their hair too long, or who are coming out of a background of addiction. Others go so far into Grace that they tell homosexuals that it's okay to be gay and Christian.
The best churches follow the example of the Apostles: They set a standard that the person has to be given over to Jesus Christ instead of openly participating in another religion as well (including the all-too-common worship of sex), then they teach the newbie the Word and live it out in their own lives as an example to him, and let the Spirit grow him at the Lord's pace, rebuking him gently when he falls back into the things that he already knows are sins, but not sitting in judgment over him, for he too has been saved by grace even if the process of being conformed into the image of God's Son has not been carried to completion yet.
That, I think, is the true message of Acts 15 for today. And you're right, I don't pass judgment on Sunday Christians--the only reason that the Sabbath came up is that topcat and certain others were making such a stink over those who, to honor God, would drop the vowels out of "G-d" and "L-rd" and the like so as to avoid using His Name lightly. I pointed out that they who kept a tradition that was in direct contradiction to the Scriptures (not that worshipping on Sunday violates the Scriptures, but treating it as the Sabbath does) should show a bit more grace to those whose traditions did not.
In other words, I'd just like those who preach grace to show a little--and not turn every single religion thread that I show up in into a quasi-flame-war over Messianic beliefs, worship, and traditions.
Do you think that I'm being unreasonable there?
Let's try again.
What I propose is that any person is free to observe the customs of their heritage for purely social reasons inasmuch as those customs are not in violation of the word of God. So, for example, if a Jewish person who came to Christ wanted to continue to eat certain foods exclusively, or circumcise their male children, or follow their rabbinic customs on pasover for social reasons, that is perfectly fine with me I have no problem. As long as they realize they they are no longer compelled religiously to circumcise their children or restrict their diet. As I said before my family continues to follow an old Italian/Roman Catholic custom with respect to a Christmas Eve "Seven Fishes" meal (with "anglo" modifications for my wife). There's no problem with that. We don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, or continue with the Roman mass. And we don't claim that these Italian customs are religiously superior to the customs of, say, the Irish.
Likewise, if a pagan from the forests of South America came to Christ and had some family or tribal custom that was not forbidden by the word of God, they would be free to continue inasmuch as they attached no religious significance to the practice. No syncretism allowed.
The problem before us does not fall into these categories in my mind. Here we have the matter of Jews and gentiles who seek to keep the traditions of the rabbis out of religious scruples. Even allowing for the ambiguity of Jews folowing their Jewish customs per the example above, there is no place for gentiles to do it. They don't do it because it's part of their social heritage. They do it to please God. Period. This is what I would oppose, because it does attach religious signifiance to something which has no religious significance. Christ did away with the old passover when He died on the cross. He is the new passover, and we participate in the new passover in a spiritual, not carnal way (1 Cor. 5:8).
As long as they continue to make religious claims for their customs, that those customs are religiously superior to the customs of the "gentile church", then there is a problem. And it needs to be opposed.
How terribly legalistic ...
First, there's a misconception that under the "old Law" Gentiles had to become circumcised and be Jewish to be saved.
If you're correcting me, I never said that. What I said, and to which you have not yet responded, was that gentiles needed to be circumcised to fully participate in the old covenant system, especially the passover meal. That demand of the law never changed, at least you have given us no reason to think it changed.
Just so the real issue doesn't get lost behind the smokescreen.
I refrain from non-kosher meat (Biblical kosher, not rabbinical kosher, which is a whole 'nuther ball game) simply because Yeshua did.
Again, Jesus was also circumcised, so why do you draw the arbitrary line at food and not follow Him into circumcision?
and the unwritten traditions of the Jews, which were another part of the equation that people tend to leave out
Probably because they are not the word of God, and therefore not binding in any way. But perhaps you believe they are the word of God and He speaks authoritatively in them.
In other words, I'd just like those who preach grace to show a little--
Grace without truth is not true grace. If someone is in bondage, even if they don't know it, it is not gracious to leave them there.
I think this is fundamentally correct. The Jerusalem council was concerned, in part, about maintaining the relationship between Jews and gentile in the body of Christ. They each had their practices. Many of the practices of the gentiles were no doubt offensive to the Jews. Nevertheless, the council didn't sit up and say that gentiles needed to restrict their eating habits (except in the very narrow case of "eating blood"), or observe jewish holy days to foster greater unity. The council understood that the kingdom was not about food and drink and clothing. There were larger issues. Gentiles were never made to feel uncomfortable because they didn't keep the jewish dietary rules, or observe the jewish holy days out of a sense that such practice was "superior" or "shows your love for Jesus".
Apparently the issues covered there were widespread enough in the gentile community and so offensive they needed to be called out specifically. Does that limit the moral commandment of God to be observed? No, since Paul elsewhere enumerates the moral law in more detail for the gentile church. Besides, he had no need to since, as we see in Acts 15, "For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath". There as enough testimony about was was in the Ten Words recorded in the books of Moses so that the gentiles understood the basic requirement for moral living being without excuse (cf. Romans 1:20; 2;14; 1 Cor. 6:9-11).
Hardly. I've been very consistant about this. Every week, I've said goodbye to everyone Friday evening and not returned to the fray until Saturday night at the earliest. However, I email with friends, make the occassional innoculous post here on FR and elsewhere, and do other things that I enjoy and find restful.
I do not find debating with a modern Pharisee (the cliche of one, anyway) to be all that restful. Fun, sure. But not restful.
Go back to debating Johnny. I'll respond to your posts in my own good time, not yours.
Speaking of pharisees, certainly name-calling must be somewhere on your list of traditional do's and don'ts for the holy days, no?
Go back to your thread-spamming. I'll get around to answering you eventually.
Another overblown statement. I'm very selective in my nit-picking. I don't generally get provoked into the Arminian-Calvinist flame wars, e.g., the Rick Warren discussion. So, thowing out the "C"-word won't work here. If by some unfortunte circumstance some Calvinist adopted your erroneous postion, I'd let him know it too. Just look at the threads with the hyper-preterists, most of whom, unfortunately, happened to be Calvinists.
It's not nit-picking to point out your many biblical inconsistencies. You fancy yourself some sort of teacher on these matters. Error is error, regardless of the theological underpinnings.
With respect, I think you've misunderstood both of those passages.
In the case of Kefa's (Peter's) vision, as with most visions, it was symbolic though the point was literal: Gentiles were considered by most practicing Jews to be unclean by nature, and therefore the Jews would avoid associating with them just as they would avoid eating trief, non-kosher food. Peter himself gives us the real meaning of the vision in v. 28: "You know that it is an unlawful thing (by tradition, not by Torah) for a man, a Jew to keep company with or to come near to one of another nation. But God has shown me not to call any man common or unclean."
In other words, the vision wasn't about food, it was about people.
In regards to Mark 7, you've been taken in by a deliberate mistranslation by the NIV people (one I believed for many years). The literal translation of the passage is, "Do ye not perceive that nothing from without entering into the man is able to defile him? because it doth not enter into his heart, but into the belly, and into the drain it doth go out, purifying all the meats" (Young's Literal Translation). In other words, the "making all food clean" part was not an addendum by an Apostle saying that Yeshua had done away with the dietary laws, but Yeshua saying two things:
1) That eating clean meat with hands that had not been ceremonially purified does not make the meat unclean. This is important because by requiring ceremonial handwashing, the Pharisees were actually violating the Torah's commands to discern between clean and unclean meat (Lev. 11).A couple of passages from the Torah put this one into perspective. First, the Torah is clear that a person cannot sin by being accidentally unclean--only when he was aware of touching something unclean did he have to ritually purify himself (Lev. 5:2ff). By running around avoiding contact with Gentiles, who could potentially be unclean, and rituallistically washing their hands before eating, after handling a Torah scroll, or whatever, the Pharisees were not trusting God to cover them for those things they were unaware of.2) That outside ritual uncleanliness was not the same as sin, and that is is sin that truly defiles us.
The second is Lev. 11 again. We tend to translate the word 'akal as "to be eaten," but it really has more the connotation of "is food." Thus, a Jewish person would no more refer to pork as food than we would call a rock food. Therefore, speaking idiomatically as a 1st Century Jew, Yeshua wasn't speaking to the question of kosher at all--He was speaking to the problem of overemphasis of outward, physical, ritual cleanliness over inner cleanliness from sin.
In both cases, kosher isn't even addressed. By the same token, and as I've already explained, I don't think that Gentiles are required to keep kosher at all--and I can prove that from the Torah, without having to appeal to the NT. It's just something I choose to do.
And I would agree, as long as they don't see it as a religious matter. The same goes for circumcision, etc.
Actually, the problem for Peter was hypocrisy. According to Paul, Peter was just fine with eating with gentiles until certain of the "brethren" came up from Jerusalem. Then he withdrew because of appearance.
Exactly what Peter ate in Galatia we do not know. We have no evidence that the meals he ate were "kosher", i.e., followed all the old covenant rules for food, etc. Perhaps this is why he was ashamed when the "brethren" from Jerusalem appeared. It's hard to believe that they would have had a problem with merely fellowshiping with gentiles, since there are already accounts of that elsewhere.
Peter's problem does not appear to be related to the problem of modern messianics. His was unique to that brief 40 year period in church history when the new covenant was being established, but the old had not yet fully dissolved away. They were still trying to flesh out what this all meant. As in the case of Acts 10, God had to provide supernatural revelation to enforce what He said elsewhere about clean and unclean (Mark 7).
It might have been easier for Jesus to do a "Vulcan mind meld" with the disciples, but He did not. They made mistakes and had to learn. Our job is to not make the same mistakes. Dividing the church along racial lines is one serious mistake that needs to be avoided.
You are not applying the type correctly, Israel is a race. The Church is a race also, children of the king.
Originally the early church shied away from celebrations and ceremonies. Over time this and that celebration was added. The Reformers went back to the original concept of the early church and outside of one or two events refused to celebrate “religious” holidays for fear of wanting to observe days, months, seasons and years. I do think the Reformers might have gone a tad overboard but there is a danger in all of this-certainly a warning.
We certainly don’t know what the motives of the Galatians were but they could have had honorable intentions. However, it doesn’t matter for what reason the it is done. We are told not to observe days and months and seasons and years. This is a warning to professing Christians.
What more needs to be said? We’re not to observe “days and months and seasons and years”. It seems like if a person wanted to be obedient to God's command this might be one area to start.
I use "racial" in a very general sense to identify people according to physical lineage characteristics. In this case "Jews" are the children of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. "Gentiles" are everyone else.
However, I realize that is not entirely accurate. Not all people today who are Jews are directly related to Abraham. Every generation has had its converts to the religion of the Hebrews. Anyone could become a Jew simply by being circumcised (in the case of a male) and following the law of Moses. Thus, being Jewish was really a matter of keeping the covenant, not genetics.
Up until the time of Christ, the people of God was identified virtually one for one with the nation of Israel. Since the time of Christ, what we now call Judaism diverged from the biblical religion of our father Abraham. This was due to the apostasy of the Jews at the time of Jesus who did not become identified with the new covenant. The old covenant religion faded from the scene as a national entity, with the church, the body of Christ, being its foreordained follow on. One was descending while the other ascending. This progression was always part of God's plan for His people. He intended all along to have one people without any "racial" distinctives. "For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him." (Rom. 10:12) "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.'" (Gal. 3:8)
Hope that helps.
The prior verse, Gal 4:8, Says, "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods."
Are you really trying to tell us that the Galatians were practicing Hebrews prior to their conversion.....or were they really pagan gentiles who did indeed observe days, months, seasons and years in their pagan worship.
Do not confuse birth with adoption. They are different in the natural world and therefore different in the spiritual world. Spiritual birth is a requirement for entering the Kingdom of God. Christ received certain rights and privileges because he was adopted by Joseph, but he became a blood descendent of Adam by birth, from Mary.
Nothing in the adoption, made Christ a man.
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