Hebrews Lesson 122                                                 April 17, 2008

 

NKJ Psalm 119:9 How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.

 

For the last (I don’t know how long it’s has been - a good ten or twelve lessons which is probably closer to) 3 months, we’ve been on a little bit of a diversion in studying the whole doctrine of the New Covenant and how important that is.  We use the references to the New Covenant every month when we celebrate the Lord’s Table.  We talk about Jesus statement at the Last Supper - that “this is the New Covenant of My blood which is given for you.”  We talked about the fact that in many contexts how the New Covenant has been established and how based on II Corinthians that Paul said we are ministers of the New Covenant. But, what does that mean? 

 

Somehow we think that we live in the era of the New Covenant simply because as we look at Scripture we see that the Scripture is divided into two parts. We usually refer to them as Old Testament and New Testament, but literally they are identified as the Old Covenant and New Covenant.  So this really draws this distinction between the two.  In the history of doctrine and the history of theology, there have been a variety of different interpretations as to just exactly what the New Covenant was or is, when it came into effect, and what its implications are for the Church Age.  A lot of those issues relate to ultimate eschatological framework whether or not you are post-mill a-mill or pre-millennial.  Among those who are pre-millennial there are different views among those who are dispensational even among those who are traditional what we would call traditional or classic dispensationalists which would be the Scofield-Chafer-Walvoord-Ryrie school of dispensationalism that even those men have held to different positions.  So this is not something that has always been clear; but thankfully because of what these men have studied and worked through, then we can come to some really good conclusions as to just exactly what the New Covenant is. 

 

Last week and this week I took the opportunity as I’ve been going through this study to pull out and go through some different articles on the New Covenant that I have and some different things written by some different people. I hadn’t read him in a long time and I’m at a point now where I never know where I ever learned anything anymore because I have heard it from so many different people.  I went back and in the late 90’s Dwight Pentecost published - I think it was about his last new significant book that came out on the kingdom.

 

 As I read his chapter on the New Covenant I thought, “Well, I can’t find a hairs worth of difference between my view of the New Covenant and Pentecost’s view of the New Covenant.”

 

That is probably a good thing, but what I am saying is some things I’ve done. I have expanded our understanding a little bit especially when it comes to understanding  this whole concept of regeneration as it has been applied to the New Covenant - what that means; but also in trying to bring a little more precision into some areas of study. In doing that we went back through all of the Old Testament passages that are used to reference the New Covenant and the New Covenant to Israel. We looked at passages in Hosea, then Isaiah, and then Jeremiah – the key passage in Jeremiah 31 which is the one that’s quoted here in Hebrews 8:6-8 which is where we are studying in our study of Hebrews and then on into other citations in Amos, last week Joel 2 and how Joel 2 is quoted in Acts 2. Last week I felt a little rushed at the end. but I wanted to connect the Joel 2 passage to Acts 2 because how that is handled.  In fact one of the things – you know sometimes I think I probably end up doing too much; but sometimes the Lord just dumps stuff on me. 

 

I had not announced this here, but some of you wouldn’t know this man.  A theology professor that Chafer Seminary has had Dr. John Beck who has done an excellent job teaching theology for Chafer Seminary for probably the last 12 or 14 years - 67 years old - almost two weeks ago he had serious stroke; then he went to be with the Lord I think it was a week ago this last Tuesday.  So he was directing studies on I think four or five different courses one of which was a course on dispensationalism.  I ended getting the nod to pick up that course and continuing the work on that which isn’t an exceptionally heavy load because it’s only three students working through material that I’m pretty familiar with.

 

But one of the students emailed me a question today and said, “You know I’ve read these three books now on Ryrie’s book on dispensationalism and a couple of other books and I’m still not really sure what the difference is between progressive dispensationalism and classic dispensationalism.” 

 

So I’ve kind of had that floating around in the back of my head today.  But one of the key issues in this debate between the two in terms of the interpretation of Scripture has to do with understanding what Peter meant there in Acts 2 when he said:

 

NKJ Acts 2:16 "But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

 

...and how we understand that prophecy.   

 

I’ve gone through that (I think it was earlier in the fall.), we looked at the four different ways in which New Testament writers quote the Old Testament - one of which is where it is just a matter of application that there may be 5 or 6 different characteristics of the Old Testament event or prophecy and 5 or 6 different characteristics of the New Testament event or prophecy and there is only one thing that they’ve got in common.  That’s what the New Testament writer is saying.  Often we look at it whenever it says, “This is what the prophets – this fulfills the prophet’s statement. “  We think that it’s one-to-one historical or prophetical correspondence like Micah 5:2 prophecy that said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem and He is literally born in Bethlehem. 

 

But sometimes (and frequently) Old Testament passages are cited as comparison or analogy or this is like that.  How you take that will affect a lot of your interpretation of the rest of the New Testament.  So we spent time on that and I made that connection last time between Joel 2. We looked at the Acts 2 quotation there when Peter says - he is talking about the apostles speaking in tongues.   They’re speaking in languages on the Day of Pentecost.  This is simply something he was saying was similar to the kind of manifestations of the Holy Spirit that were prophesized by the prophet Joel in relation to the last event prior to the Day of the Lord which is at the end of the tribulation period.   

 

Then I connected that to Romans 10, a passage that is one that people get very confused about; the passage that is often misquoted and misused in numerous evangelistic settings - a passage that says that if we… I want to quote it correctly, Romans 9 and 10;

 

NKJ Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

 

There are a number of different ways in which good men interpret this verse and handle this verse that I think attempt to deal with the context to some degree and at least recognize that this verse is not saying you have to do two things to be saved - number 1 believe and number 2 make a public confession of your faith.  Many people reject that, but they still come up with two or three different ideas.  I have taught some different interpretations of this as I’ve wrested with it; but where I have been for at least the last ten years is an understanding of the context of Romans 9, 10 and 11 where Paul is dealing with the relationship of the current status of Israel as unsaved in relationship to the righteous demands of God.  The whole book of (the whole epistle of) Romans is written to show the necessity of God’s righteousness being kept – the integrity of God’s righteousness being kept inviolate.  And so that’s why there is this reference here “believing unto righteousness” because of what is said it the first two or three verses of that chapter. 

 

But the quotation there again is a quotation that comes out of Joel 2 that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is such an important concept to understand this because as soon as Americans (who have been so trained in revivalist terminology coming out of the early 19th century) that as soon as you see the word “saved”, you think in terms of phase one salvation and being saved from the penalty of sin which we would call justification-salvation.  But if “saved” here which is the Greek word sozo refers to justification-salvation in my opinion this is the first time in the book of Romans that it refers to justification – salvation. Paul usually uses the word sozo in Romans to refer to phase three glorification or physical deliverance.  He never uses it as a synonym for justification because he has three chapters on justification and he doesn’t want to get people confused on the terminology.  James is the same way.  When you get to James 2,  it talks about what’s the relationship of faith to works.  Someone has faith and not works, can that faith save him?  When he uses that phrase, can that phrase save him?  He’s not using “saved” there as justification-salvation.  He is talking about phase 2 salvation.  So we have to be very careful not to make knee-jerk interpretations just because we see the word “saved” that it means being saved from eternal condemnation and receiving eternal life. 

 

The quote from Joel 2 in Romans 10:13 as I pointed out last time gives us an interpretive key for this passage that it’s not talking about justification-salvation because the time when the Jews will call on the name of the Lord to be saved according to Joel 2 is what happens when they have escaped to the area around modern Petra or Basra-  that area over across the Dead Sea where they flee during the Tribulation.  We’ve studied those passages on Sunday morning in Revelation 11.  In Revelation 12 where the woman who is Israel flees into the wilderness and is protected by God for 1,230 days which is that 3 1/2 year period during the Tribulation.  So it’s at the end of that period that they call upon the name of the Lord to be physically delivered.  If you understand physical deliverance there and this is the ultimate physical deliverance of Israel, that fits the context of what Paul is talking about in Romans 9, 10, and 11 that there is a remnant; but eventually there will be deliverance for Israel.  So this is exactly what happens and I pointed this out last time went to Romans 11 and this shows the ultimate deliverance of Israel that’s covered in Romans 11:25-26.

 

NKJ Romans 11:25 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.

 

NKJ Romans 11:26 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;

 

..that in this manner all Israel will be saved.  Manner is described in the second half of verse 26 which is a quote from Isaiah 59:20. 

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:20 " The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," Says the LORD.

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:21 "As for Me," says the LORD, "this is My covenant with them:

 

This is when that New Covenant is established with Israel.  Now if you turn with me from Romans 11 back to Isaiah 60 - remember that quote comes out of Isaiah 59 and there is a whole connection there between what God is doing and the Messiah.   Isaiah 59 describes this deliverance from God that in Isaiah 59 talking about how their iniquities separated them from God and their sins are hidden from Him so that He will not hear.  Then it continues to identify the causes of their condemnation in the latter part of that section down through verse 8.

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:9 Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For brightness, but we walk in blackness!

 

They are groping for truth.

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:10 We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as if we had no eyes; We stumble at noonday as at twilight; We are as dead men in desolate places.

 

Their transgressions are multiplied. 

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our iniquities, we know them:

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God, Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

 

…indicating that they are far from salvation. 

 

Then starting at the second half of 15 and 16 talks about their Redeemer who will come and redeem them.

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:15 So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice.

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:16 He saw that there was no man, And wondered that there was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.

 

In verse 20 we read:

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:20 " The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob," Says the LORD.

 

NKJ Isaiah 59:21 "As for Me," says the LORD, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."

 

… indicating that that is clearly a New Covenant passage. 

 

Chapter 60 then will describe how the Messiah is going to come and the Messiah is going to come and deliver them in that chapter and 61 relates to the Millennial Kingdom. 

 

So, all of this connects these things together.  So what I wanted to do tonight before we wrap up with our final look at a couple of New Testament passages is to go through a very quick summary in terms of what we studied in terms of the New Covenant.  

 

So we’re going to start the summary and I’ve got 18 points.  So we are going to fly through these because they are very familiar to you.  But, I want to pull it together for you so you don’t forget this and it’s not just a bunch of loose ends.

 

  1. The covenant was made with the nation Israel.  It’s made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  It is not made with the church.  It is not made with the Gentiles.  It is a covenant that is specifically said to be made only with Israel.  Jeremiah 31:31 is the main passage.  It’s quoted the same way in Hebrews 8:8. Other passages that confirm this are in Isaiah 59:20-21 which I just mentioned, 61:8-9, Jeremiah 32:37-40, 50:4-5, and Ezekiel 16:60-63.  All these passages are those that we have gone through in detail in the past few weeks. So it is a covenant that is with Israel and Judah.
  2. This covenant is in contrast to the Mosaic Covenant.  This is the main point of the writer’s quotation in Hebrews that it replaces the old covenant.  Because it is called the New Covenant, the point is that the old covenant has been replaced.  It always seemed to be a temporary covenant.  It wasn’t a long term or internal covenant.  So the covenant is in contrast to the Mosaic Covenant which depended on the obedience of Israel for fulfillment.  The point is that Israel could not fulfill that.  They could not be obedient.  So God is going to give them a new heart and a new mind with this covenant that will enable them to finally be obedient.  Only as obedient people can they enjoy the blessings that God had promised them in the Mosaic Covenant. 
  3. The covenant will be fulfilled after the Great Tribulation.  It doesn’t come into effect until Jesus Christ returns and delivers the people and they are established.  Genesis 30:7.  It’s not in effect now.  The New Covenant with Israel and Judah does not go into affect until the end of the Tribulation.  But, if you have it in effect now, then you to have kingdom realities operational in the Church Age.  That’s what really separates our view from either the progressive dispensational view because they see this already-not yet view of the kingdom.  It’s sort of partially here and partially not so we have certain manifestations of the kingdom today.  It’s progressively coming in.  That is where they got the term progressive dispensationalism - or a-millennialism which just says we’re in a spiritual form of the kingdom.  Well, if we’re in the Millennial Kingdom in any way, shape or form; then I don’t know about you but I haven’t seen too many lions lying down with lambs or too many children putting their hands into cobra’s dens or anything of that nature.   
  4. So that led to another observation as we studied these things.  The New Covenant necessitates a restoration of the Jews to the land in Jeremiah 32:37, 33:11, Ezekiel 11: 17, 36:37.  All these passage point to Israel being back in the land at the time the New Covenant goes into effect.  It is a permanent return to the land in obedience.  So they will be restored to the land and not as an apostate nation but as an obedient nation.  Therefore none of these passages that talk about a return could relate to that return from Babylon that occurred around 538-537 BC. 
  5. During the Tribulation many Jews will be saved, including the 144,000 and those in Jerusalem that are saved in Revelation 11:11.  Now that is an interesting passage.  As I pointed out before there is the earthquake that occurs after the two witnesses go up to heaven.  There is an earthquake and it says:

 

NKJ Revelation 11:13 In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed, and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven.

 

That’s a lot of “all the rest” people.  The view that most people have of the Tribulation is this is a time when massive numbers of unbelievers die and the caricature that you get from the covenant camp and the caricature you get from anybody who is anti-dispensational is we just want to kill everybody and God is this harsh, evil God killing all of humanity in the tribulation period. But what you find and I’ll be pointing out as we go through Revelation is just the enormous number of people that are saved in the period of the Tribulation.  For example (and we’ll spend some time on this when we get there but) in the seal judgments in the fifth seal judgment in Revelation 6 there is this picture that John has of an altar in heaven and underneath the altar all these souls that have been slain for the Word of God.

 

NKJ Revelation 6:9 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.

 

NKJ Revelation 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"

 

And God basically says, “You got to wait awhile.”

 

Then in chapter 7 after the 144,000 are saved and as we’ll see the events in chapter 7 take place in heaven at the same time the seal judgments are going on upon the earth and answer the question   - how can anybody survive these seal judgments? 

 

There is a fascinating passage in Revelation 7:9 where John writes:

 

NKJ Revelation 7:9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

 

How many are there?  These are the martyrs.  These are not Church Age believers or believers of all time because Old Testament saints haven’t been resurrected yet.  Church Age believers are already raptured and rewarded.  These are the ones who come out from the Tribulation.  These are the martyrs. 

 

How many are there?  They’re without number.  Now that doesn’t mean a big, big number because if you look a couple of chapters later in Revelation 9 when you come to the 6th trumpet judgment there is a 200 million demon army that is released from under the Euphrates.  Now 200 million is a whole lot, but it’s not a number that no one can count because you can count up to 200 million.  So we know that 200 million is a number that is smaller contextually than those who are saved who are so many that you can’t count the number.  So that tells you just by the way John uses numbers in Revelation that the number of martyrs that get saved out of the Tribulation is beyond 200 million.  That’s a whole lot of folks that are going to receive the grace of God and benefit from the mercy of God during the tribulation period.  So during the Tribulation many, many Jews are going to be saved, not just the 144,000 and not just those in Jerusalem but among the millions if not billions that are saved on the planet during the tribulation period. 

  1. These Jews (that is the Jews that are alive and remain in the land and are believers) will flee to the desert and the mountains around Petra when they see the abomination of desolation.  So this take us back to the chronology of the tribulation period, the half-way point that when the abomination of desolation occurs and the Antichrist sets himself up to be worshipped in the Temple that at that point the believers were warned by Jesus in Matthew 24:14-15 to flee.  In Revelation 12 it confirms that the woman flees to the wilderness because of the testimony of Jesus.  They follow His orders and so they flee.  So that puts us into that chronological period.  So all these Jews get saved in the tribulation period.  Those in the land flee to Petra where God protects them supernaturally during the second half of the tribulation period. 
  2. Under the 7th point, there needs to be a national cleansing and restoration.  This comes at the end in the last two or three days before Jesus returns as a corporate entity.  They turn and call upon Jesus and there will be a period of national cleansing that takes place for the nation.  Remember they are already saved, but this is a national cleansing and restoration.   It’s necessary because God the Son will once again take up His residence in the land and in the Millennial Temple.  This is when the New Covenant gets established.
  3. We saw that in the past Israel could not remain obedient to God. Again and again and again the writers of the prophets say that they couldn’t be obedient.  They couldn’t fulfill the law.  They couldn’t follow the Law.  They were disobedient. So because they had to be obedient in order to enjoy the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant, the blessing of the land covenant, the blessings of the Davidic Covenant, God has to do everything for them including giving them a new mind and new disposition.  That comes with the giving of the New Covenant.
  4. The New Covenant will take the place of the Mosaic Covenant and will be written “in their hearts”.  I understand heart there not to be the physical organ, but to be in their minds, in their souls.  So the Word of God and doctrine are just going to be implanted in their thinking instead of tablets of stone.  Jeremiah 31:33. We see the same thing in Ezekiel 36 as well as Ezekiel 37. 
  5. God gives them a new ability.  He gives them a new heart and He puts His Spirit in them to enable them to fulfill all of these conditions.  We see the references up there.  We went through all of those. So with that new mind every Jew… this just applies to Jews, not to Gentiles because in Isaiah 2.  When it talks about the fact all the nations will come to worship God to the mountain of God in Jerusalem, they’re coming to learn about God, but Jews won’t need to learn about God according to Jeremiah 31 because God is going to put His Word in them and it’s no longer going to be necessary for a man to teach his neighbor.  “Learning” and “teaching” in Hebrew are cognates of the same basic word form. 
  6. Now that brings us to point 11.  As a result they see when this happens at the end of the tribulation period and the New Covenant is established and God gives them a new heart and puts His Spirit within them - at this point they will see what they have done throughout their disobedience in the Old Testament, their idolatry, how they continuously (as Jesus points out at the end of Matthew 23) put to death all the prophets.  They constantly reject God’s revelation.  They are constantly hostile to Him.  They will see all of that all the way up to Jesus who is the Son of God, the Messiah sent to them and they crucify Him.  They will suddenly see this and in all of its horror and they will breakdown and weep over what they have done – weep and sorrow.  And that’s when they are getting saved and there are many who say that.  They are already saved.  We’ve seen that in the Scripture.  This is now there with this new capacity they suddenly see the horror of all that they have done and they weep and sorrow.  So they have the understanding of that. Zechariah 12:10 says:

 

NKJ Zechariah 12:10 " And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.

 

      They will understand what it is that they have done.

  1. The New Covenant will feature tremendous spiritual blessings for the people of Israel, not for the Gentiles.  Now the Gentiles get blessing by association as they have all the way through from Abraham.  But the thrust of the New Covenant is to provide these incredible spiritual blessings and to bring to fulfillment at the end of the Tribulation all the promises and all the covenants that God had given to Israel - Romans 9:3 that the covenants and the promises belong to Israel.  Paul writes that in the Church Age.  They have not been overthrown; they have not been changed; they have not been abrogated because of Israel’s disobedience.  So the New Covenant will feature these great spiritual blessings for the people of Israel. 
  2. The New Covenant will reveal the glory of God so that it will be no longer be necessary to witness to others.  Now this is within Israel.  This is the Jewish dimension. There is still a need to witness to the Gentiles. So, in the Church Age you have this distinction between Church Age believers and unbelievers.  If a Jew becomes saved in the Church Age, he’s no longer...his Jewishness isn’t a factor.  I have a problem.  I’m not an expert on this, but I’ve a bit of a problem with the so-called Messianic Jewish movement because there are a number of saved Jews who make an issue out of the fact that they are completed Jews as if that makes them somehow different from the Gentiles that get saved.  But the emphasis in the Scripture is that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond or slave, male or female; but we are all one in the body of Christ.  Ethnicity, especially Jewish ethnicity, is not an issue in terms of spiritual blessing in the Church Age because they get their blessing not because they’re Jewish but because of their relationship to Jesus Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  But in the Millennial Kingdom we go back to an aspect that is similar to the Old Testament period.  There are Jews and then there are Gentiles.  The Gentiles receive blessing by association only in terms of their faith in the Messiah.  Now there will be saved Gentiles that come out of the Tribulation who survive and go into the Millennial Kingdom.  They will get married and they will have children and those children will have a sin nature and they’ll have volition and they’ll have to make decisions as to whether or not they are going to trust in Jesus if they’re going to believe the gospel or not.  This is why they have to learn about God and learn about Jesus and this is why all the nations will go to Israel.  So if they don’t make it before then, they will make it to Jerusalem and Israel in the Millennial Kingdom. 
  3. We’ve seen that the New Covenant will feature forgiveness, grace and blessing.  Jeremiah 31:34.  It’s forgiveness for the national sins of Israel in terms of both idolatry and the rejection of the Messiah – the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit when the Pharisees as the corporate representatives of the nation when the Pharisees accuse Jesus of performing His miracles in the power of Satan.  This is why Jesus makes His statement and when He makes His statement about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.  The blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not something that can be done by people today.  It was a historically conditioned sin.  It was a sin of Israel rejecting her Messiah and claiming that He was really the devil.  So that was the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and the result of that was the national discipline in 70 AD.  There is forgiveness for that and that forgiveness is applied nationally as part of the New Covenant. 
  4. In the New Covenant God promised the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is not part of the spiritual life in the Tribulation.  We’ve looked at passages like Ezekiel 36 where it says:

 

NKJ Ezekiel 36:27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

 

And Joel 2:28-29 the pouring forth of the new Spirit at the end of the Tribulation:              

NKJ Joel 2:28 " And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.

 

NKJ Joel 2:28 " And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.

 

There is one other passage we really didn’t look at in any kind of detail.  I just want to allude to it very briefly.   It’s in II Thessalonians 2.  II Thessalonians 2 is one of the great chapters on the Antichrist that we will be getting into in our study of Revelation because we are first introduced to the person we call the Antichrist in the first seal judgment. The rider of the white horse is a depiction of God’s revealing the Antichrist and enabling him to take power.  Then you get into II Thessalonians 2 there is an interesting chronology that’s given. One of the things that occurs is that we read in verse 3:

 

NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day

 

…which is the Day of the Lord.

 

will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,

 

Most English translations translate this word “the falling away.”  The word that is used there “for the falling away” is the Greek word apostosia which is often understood to be apostasy.  That’s why they translate it “falling away”.  The core semantic meaning for apostosia means to depart.  It refers to a departure.  When it’s applied to doctrine it is a departure for truth, i.e. apostasy.  But, it’s used in other examples - for example of a ship departing from port and other places.  So it has been argued by numerous scholars that the more accurate interpretation or translation here should be “Let no one deceive you by any means for that day will not come unless the departure comes first.”

 

See if it’s falling that must come first, then we have a sign of the rapture that there must be a great end times apostasy before the Lord can come back at the rapture.  That would violate the doctrine of immanency.  But we have the departure coming first.  That departure is the departure of the church which is the rapture.  So the departure comes first and then the man of sin is revealed.  So you and I may see someone who will become the Antichrist, but we won’t know it because he won’t be revealed as such until after the departure takes place which is the rapture.  The man of sin which is just another title of the Antichrist is one who opposes and exalts himself above all.  

 

NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:4 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. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?

 6 And now you know what is restraining,

 

Key word – restraining.

 

that he may be revealed in his own time.

 

“That he may be revealed” in talking about the revealing of the Antichrist. 

 

Paul says in verse 7:

 

NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.

 

The one who now restrains is the Holy Spirit.  He is the restrainer of evil.  As long as the Church Age is here (as long as Church Age believers are on the planet), there is the presence of the Holy Spirit who is restraining evil and holding things back until He is taken out of the way.  But once the restrainer is removed (once the Holy Spirit is removed because of the rapture) when the rapture occurs, believers who are here in the tribulation period won’t be indwelt with the Holy Spirit (won’t be baptized by the Holy Spirit) because that is a characteristic of the Church Age.  They’re not going to be in Christ because there is no baptism of the Holy Spirit; there is no filling of the Holy Spirit.  It goes back to an Old Testament type of dynamic in relationship to the Holy Spirit so that Tribulation believers don’t have the Holy Spirit.  That is why there is this remarkable transformation that will take place at the end of the Tribulation when Jesus returns and the Holy Spirit is poured out on Israel.  That’s part why they have such a sudden realization of what they have done.  They will receive the Holy Spirit and He will make these things very clear to them instantaneously.  So in the New Covenant promises future indwelling of the Holy Spirit…it’s not part of the spiritual life of the Tribulation.  It will be part of the spiritual life of the millennium and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in the Millennial Kingdom are going to be greater than they are in the spiritual life of the Church Age believer.

 

  1. We saw that the covenant includes a promise that Israel will obey God and have a right attitude toward Him forever.  All Israel will be saved.  Now some people raise (I think a legitimate question) saying, “Well, what about their volition?”  Well, I can’t answer that.  But, I can make it clear that again and again and again and again and again as we’ve seen in Scripture that God says that He’s going to implant this new life and implant an irreversible obedience among Israelites.  So all Israel will be saved.  That is part of his teaching in the Millennial Kingdom.
  2. (I only have 18 points so we’re almost there.)  The New Covenant includes a rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and a rebuilt Temple.  Now the third temple will be the Tribulation Temple and that is an apostate temple.  The first temple is the Solomonic Temple which we are studying about in our study of I Kings with the dedication of the Solomonic Temple.  The second temple is the post-exilic temple.  It really has two stages, but it is all referred to as the Second Temple period.   It is initially rebuilt by Zerubbabel.  This is described in the book of Ezra and it’s also dealt with to some degree in the book of Haggai.  (Yeah, I think it’s Haggai.  It is dealt with there.)  It is the rebuilding of that second Temple.  It is very modest during that period of time until Herod comes along and decides that he wants to build and redo the temple and make it greater than the temple under Solomon.  That was the temple that was still under construction during Jesus ministry and it wasn’t completed until (I think) in the mid 40’s.  I’m not sure of the exact date, but it’s around 45 to 50 AD.  So the New Covenant will include a rebuilding of the city and the fourth temple which is the Millennial Temple.    
  3. When the New Covenant is fulfilled, Israel will not only be in the land as a regenerate people with a new temple; but will also receive the full blessings of the Davidic Covenant.  David (We saw.) would rule over them as their prince forever.  So that pulls it altogether.  All of that summarizes the New Covenant, all the teachings in the Old Testament that this is very, very Jewish in its orientation.  There is nothing, not one thing in Hebrews 8 to indicate that it is anything other than this particular Jewish covenant.  It is that New Covenant which comes into effect that the sacrifice that establishes it.  It doesn’t go into effect until Jesus comes back.  But, the sacrifice that establishes it is that work of Christ on the cross.  This is what becomes clear in the statements of Jesus in the Upper Room in Luke 22:20 when he says in the Passover meal as He is redefining the elements:

NKJ Luke 22:20 Likewise He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.

 

All you can get from that verse is that His death on the cross is establishing, is laying the foundation you might say, for His new covenant – for the new covenant that is in His blood

 

I Corinthians 11:25 is when Paul’s explanation of this to the Corinthians.  He quotes from the Luke passage.  He says:

 

NKJ 1 Corinthians 11:25 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."

 

So those are two of the references in the New Testament to the New Covenant.

 

Now in Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24 – those are the parallel synoptic gospel passages for the Lord’s Table.  The statement is recorded in a little bit different form.  In those two accounts the statement is recorded.

 

NKJ Matthew 26:28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

 

Now remember I pointed out on Sunday morning that sometimes in the reading of the gospels in parallel passages, you will read and it looks like a discrepancy.  Did He say, “This is My blood which is given for you?” Did He say, “This cup is the new covenant of my blood.” Or did He say, “This is my blood of the new covenant.”?  Which did He say? Well, he could have said both.  See, Jesus didn’t say everything in these quick little sentences.  You see the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and you see the same sermon given in Luke, but He is giving it on the plain.  There are differences.  It’s just like you have heard me give the Doctrine of Eternal Security let’s say in 8 or 10 different series.  Every time you hear it, it may be 90% the same and 10% different.  Jesus did the same thing.  He didn’t just teach one thing one time.  He taught one thing many times, many places.  So the writers of Scripture would draw from perhaps different times when He taught it.  So these aren’t contradictions, they are - sometimes Jesus said 5 sentences.  When He is quoted by one author they quote two of the sentences and then the other author quotes another two sentences.  Jesus used a lot of repetition which any good teacher would do.  So in the Matthew passage and the Mark passage the emphasis is placed on the soteriological aspects of the covenant.   This is in the structure of the sentence.

 

NKJ Matthew 26:28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

 

…emphasizing the soteriological aspect necessary for the forgiveness of sins where as in the Luke 22 passage and the I Corinthians 11 passage there is an emphasis on the eschatological or the prophetic part of it.  Remember, before this Jesus says:

 

NKJ Matthew 26:29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."

 

So He is saying that as He drinks cup the next time He drinks wine (drinks the cup) with His disciples it will be when the kingdom is established.  So there is that prophetic aspect to it that causes us…not only the Matthew passages cause us to look back to the cross when the covenant is established, the Luke quotation and Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 11 force us to think in terms of a future fulfillment of that new covenant. 

 

The same thing happened with the Exodus.  The Exodus event was a memorial to God’s deliverance in the past in 1446 BC. But at the same time the elements – the Passover lamb, the unleavened bread those elements looked forward to and were types of the future Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.   So there is a past and a future element to the Passover and a past and a future element to the New Covenant.  So the New Covenant was understood there to be a future fulfillment.

 

Now the next passage that people go to that seems to be the one that everybody has trouble with is II Corinthians 3:6.  So why don’t you just turn with me to II Corinthians 3 and we’ll pick up the context.  (We wouldn’t want to be guilty of taking the text out of the context and being left with a con job.)  Again Paul in II Corinthians has to deal with this attack on his personal credentials and his apostolic ministry that he is a true and genuine apostle.  He says:

 

NKJ 2 Corinthians 3:1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?

 

I remind you I talked about this several weeks ago when I looked at II Corinthians 12 and the thorn of the flesh that there you have the use of the word boasting about…I don’t know 12, 13, or 14 times.  It is heavy usage in those two chapters because Paul is finally going to give some credentials. 

 

But the reason he is pressured into that is because these Judaizers (these false teachers) are following him around and they say, “Look at all we’ve done.  We’ve had all these miracles and we’ve had all these signs and wonders and that establishes us.  We’ve done this and we’ve done that so you need to follow us.  What has Paul done?  He doesn’t have any letters of commendation.  Where did he go to seminary?  Where is his resume?”  That is essentially what they’re asking.  Paul never focused on what he had done or what he had accomplished because he made the focus Jesus Christ and the cross.  So that is what he is referring to here. 

 

He says, “I don’t need to commend myself or my ministry.  That’s not the focal point.”  He says, “If you want validation look at the ministry, the effect of my ministry in your life.”   

 

NKJ 2 Corinthians 3:2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;

3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

 4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God.

 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.

 

So he talks about the fact that he is a minister of the New Covenant. Then he goes on to talk about this in these subsequent verses.  But the point that he is making is that as an apostle what he is doing is applying to those who become believers in this age, the gospel that comes from the sacrifice that is made on the cross.  That sacrifice is what is the basis for the New Covenant.  The New Covenant is established and enacted with Israel.  By virtue of that covenant though, there is blessing by association to Gentiles and to all the world.  That is what God had promised to Abraham - that all the world would be blessed through him.  So that blessing comes through Christ who is the other party of the New Covenant and we as Church Age believers are in Him and by virtue of our position in Him and in relationship to Him we partake of certain New Covenant blessings.  That’s exactly what the writer of Hebrews does. 

 

So let’s turn as we get ready to get back into our study of Hebrews 8 proper, let’s go back and connect this very quickly.  In the first part of Hebrews 8, the writer of Hebrews (We don’t know who it was; it wasn’t Paul.) now this is the main point of the things that we are saying. 

 

NKJ Hebrews 8:1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

 

He has made the pointing in chapter 7 that when there is a change in priesthood, there is a change in covenant.  The covenant is the legal structure that establishes the spiritual life aspects of a particular dispensation.  So what the writer has been arguing is that the priesthood related to the old covenant was related to a physical qualification - being genetically related to Aaron and being a Levitical priest.  But, that priesthood was limited in time because the old covenant was limited in time.  And there had to be a new covenant that would establish a new priesthood (a Melchizedekean based high priesthood.)  That is the basis for Jesus Christ’s high priestly ministry.  So He is a high priest based on the New Covenant and we as Church Age believers have a priesthood.  Our believer priesthood is related to Jesus Christ’s high priesthood.  So that’s how we connect to the New Covenant; not because there’s a New Covenant with the church, but because the Church Age believers have a unique position in Christ.  In Him Paul says in Ephesians 1:3:

 

NKJ Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

 

So this is connected not to a direct covenant with us, but in terms of our position being in Christ.  Then back in Hebrews 8:6 we read:

 

NKJ Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

 

This brings up for his thinking the fact that New Covenant is what’s in effect and leads him to quote from Jeremiah 31.  His whole point is simply to show that New Covenant implies that the old covenant was temporary.  Now we looked at verse 8 and verse 7 says: 

 

NKJ Hebrews 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless,

 

It wasn’t. 

 

then no place would have been sought for a second.

 

That begins the quote at the beginning of verse 8.  This is the quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34.  If you look in your Bible, in my Bible the quotations from the Old Testament are in italics.  So Jeremiah 31:31-34 is quoted verbatim word-for-word all the way down through verse 12.  We’ve already covered all of that in our study of Jeremiah 31:31.    

 

So the writer of Hebrews quotes the whole - all four verses from the Old Testament. Then he makes his point.  Notice what he does in verse 13.  He says:

 

NKJ Hebrews 8:13 In that He says, "A new covenant,"

 

He doesn’t exegete anything else in the passage.  He says:

 

He has made the first obsolete.

 

That’s all he’s saying.  He’s not saying that anything else in that passage applies.  He’s saying, “The only thing I want you to pay attention to is that he calls it a new covenant.”  The terminology “new” means that the covenant it replaces was never intended to be permanent. 

 

Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

 

…the whole Levitical priesthood the whole temple ministry all of that what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.  When is it going to vanish away?  When the Temple is destroyed in 70 AD which is just a short time from when this is written.  This is written in the early 60’s probably.  So that pulls all this together on the New Covenant and this establishes our foundation from the Old Testament to understand why he is going to go into the things he is going to go into in chapter 9. 

 

The first thing he is going to start with is dealing with the tabernacle.  So we will be taking the next several months to go back through Exodus, Leviticus dealing with the tabernacle, dealing with the sacrifices, the offerings, all of those things to understand that so we can at least appreciate what it is that the writer of Hebrews is saying to these former Levitical priests who are now believers and the implication of those things.  So that concludes our diversion into the New Covenant in preparation for our exposition and development of Hebrews 9.

 

So let’s bow our heads in closing prayer.