Category: New Covenant

A Heart Transplant for Israel #11

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

Israel’s religious leaders, representative of the nation, wrongly believed that all that was required of them was to be Abraham’s biological children (that is, physically circumcised). They ignored that they had to be “born again” (see John 3:1-8). In addition to the physical birth that God gave Israel when He rescued them from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 4:22; 1 Kings 8:53; Hosea 11:1), they were to have a spiritual birth, salvation from the bondage of sin (see John 3:1-8; John 8:33-59).

Moses, in his final sermon to Israel, said: “If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee: and the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (Deuteronomy 30:4-6).

God’s Word meant nothing to most Jews because they did not have a circumcision of the heart (they were still dead in their sins, headed for eternal hellfire). If they were to be used of God, they had to have the faith, righteousness, and spiritual circumcision their father Abraham had.

Just as the Prophet Jeremiah later reminded Israel that God’s wrath was coming—the Babylonians would take them out of the Promised Land for at least 70 years—Moses said God (Jesus Christ at His Second Coming) would regather Israel, bring her back into her land, spiritually circumcise her, and make her a kingdom of priests, a nation He could finally use forever and ever in the earth. Today’s Scripture will thus be fulfilled….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #10

Monday, March 31, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

God instituted physical circumcision with Abraham to show him that his posterity—the nation Israel that would come through his son Isaac, grandson Jacob, and 12 great-grandsons (Israel’s 12 tribes)—would not come about due to Abraham’s (fallible) human performance, but JEHOVAH’S divine power. In every way, Israel would be God’s nation, God’s creation; contrariwise, the (uncircumcised) Gentiles were under Satan’s control (Ephesians 2:1-12).

Once physical circumcision was incorporated into the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 12:3), its underlying spiritual truth (spiritual circumcision) was overlooked. Israel worshipped physical circumcision instead of remembering what really mattered—the spiritual circumcision it symbolized. Jews bragged about their physical circumcision (today’s equivalent is, “Look, we joined the church, confessed our sins, gave a tithe, got water baptized…!”). The Scriptures say that while this generated “the praise of men,” the circumcision that God ultimately looked for in a Jew was regeneration, a cutting off of the Adamic nature, dead to sin and able to be used of JEHOVAH (Romans 2:28,29).

The Prophet Jeremiah, rebuking Israel for her apostasy and warning her of God’s impending chastisement (the Babylonian invasion and captivity just a few decades away), preached: “For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem” (4:3,4). Moses urged Israel, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked [rebellious toward God’s Word]” (Deuteronomy 10:16).

Israel had their physical foreskins removed, but they still had a heart problem—they had not submitted to God’s righteousness and were rebelling against God’s will for them (sin; Jeremiah 17:9). They were still attached to their sin nature, and until they confessed (admitted) their wickedness, God could not give them the heart transplant they so desperately needed….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #9

Sunday, March 30, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

In the prophetic program, God deals with a Jew on a two-fold basis—personal and national. For example, God wanted every individual Jew to be a priest (Isaiah 61:6; Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10) so that the entire nation Israel would be a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:5,6; 1 Peter 2:5,9). In Jesus Christ’s earthly kingdom (yet future), Israel is to become God’s chief nation in the earth, a holy nation, the agency whom God will use to reach pagan Gentiles with His salvation (Zechariah 8:20-23; Matthew 28:19,20; Acts 1:8; et al.). However, Israel cannot lead others to salvation unless she herself is saved from Satan and her own sins.

Recall that when God promised childless Abraham a son (and a nation, Israel; Genesis 12:1-3), and did not bring it to pass until many years later, Abraham grew impatient. After waiting for a decade and still no child from God, Abraham listened to his wife and fathered a son, Ishmael, through her handmaid (Genesis 16:1-6). Twelve years later, God appeared to Abraham and instituted his physical circumcision (Genesis chapter 17). A year later, God gave Abraham, aged 100 and unable to father children, a son, Isaac, through his wife Sarah (Genesis chapter 21).

Galatians says that Ishmael was “born after the flesh” (4:23,29)—Abraham’s performance—while it says that Isaac was born “by promise, born after the Spirit” (4:23,29)—God the Holy Ghost’s performance. If God could ever use a nation born of Abraham, it could never come by human performance (Abraham’s sons were sinners, Adam’s sons)—that nation’s creation would have to be solely God’s working. Physical circumcision was God teaching Abraham and his seed through Isaac that they were dead to the flesh, sin (their performance), and the very reason they existed as a nation was because of what He did for them, not because of what they did for Him….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #8

Saturday, March 29, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

Israel wrongly believed they had automatic righteousness because they had JEHOVAH’S laws. They called Gentiles “sinners” and they overlooked their own shortcomings. In fact, the Scriptures say that the Gentiles, who did not have God’s laws, lived up to at least some of those standards; Israel, who had God’s laws, behaved just as badly or worse (Romans 2:1-27)! This ungodly behavior of Israel made Gentiles especially opposed to Israel’s God.

The Apostle Paul elaborated that Israel’s physical circumcision did not matter eternally unless it had an underlying spiritual (inward) circumcision. God wanted Israel to be physically and spiritually circumcised. “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter [the Law]; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Romans 2:28,29). Israel’s outward circumcision was actually the symbol of the spiritual circumcision God would accomplish for them!

“For the Jews require a sign” (1 Corinthians 1:22a). Remember, physical circumcision was “the sign” of the Abrahamic Covenant; it was “a seal of the righteousness of the faith which [Abraham] had being uncircumcised” (Romans 4:11). Physical circumcision reminded Israel of the faith they were to have in God’s Word, the faith that their father Abraham had. That faith Abraham had caused God to declare him righteous, cut off from Adam’s fallen nature, spiritually circumcised (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3).

Hence, physical circumcision indicated that Israel was God’s people (to be used for His glory). However, He could not use them (as sinners) until He also gave them a spiritual circumcision, a “circumcision of the heart” (Romans 2:29). Today’s Scripture shows how the Old Testament prophets foretold that God purposed to severe Israel from their Adamic sin nature….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #7

Friday, March 28, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

Every Jew and every Gentile have the same sin problem—they are all children of Adam (Romans 5:12). God gave the Mosaic Law to the nation Israel, not to the Gentiles, but the Law equally condemned both classes as “fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin” (verse 9).

“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law [the nation Israel]: that every mouth [Jew and Gentile] may be stopped, and all the world [Jew and Gentile] may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (verses 19,20).

Throughout the Old Testament, the Four Gospels, and Acts, the nation Israel, except her believing remnant, failed to understand their sinfulness before God. Paul wrote from experience, having been in the same spiritually darkened mentality and vain religion prior to Acts chapter 9: “For they [Israel] being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:3).

That old sin nature manifested itself in the lives of Jews and Gentiles, but the Jews were under the impression that they were less sinful than the Gentiles because they had God’s Word, the Mosaic Law, and the Gentiles did not (Romans 2:17-27). Paul reminded Israel, “For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.” The Jews were just as sinful as Gentiles, and the Gentiles mocked God as they witnessed Israel’s sins!

Paul will proceed to explain how individual Jews will receive heart transplants from God….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #5

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh”(Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

Recall the Holy Spirit’s words to Israel as He spoke them through the Prophet Stephen in Acts 7:51-53: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.”

These specific words certainly caught Israel’s attention. “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on [Stephen] with their teeth” (verse 54). Israel’s religious leaders were greatly angered: “How dare Stephen liken us to Gentiles [‘stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears’] and how dare he call us ‘betrayers and murderers!’” They became so berserk they began chewing on Stephen! His next few words (verses 55,56), even more “offensive,” caused them to cry out, close their ears, run upon him, throw him out of Jerusalem, and stone him to death (verses 57-60)!

As Stephen stated before he died at their hands, throughout the Old Testament, Israel repeatedly broke God’s laws. Through His (their) prophets, God warned them of coming judgment. Nevertheless, Israel’s fathers persecuted—imprisoned and/or murdered—JEHOVAH’S prophets because they hated His Word the prophets spoke. Here in Acts chapter 7, Israel has not only betrayed and murdered Jesus their Messiah (God the Son), their unbelief has culminated to rejecting God the Holy Ghost and murdering His spokesman Stephen (cf. Matthew 12:31,32).

Let us proceed to discover how Stephen’s final comments (quoted above) enlighten us as to the meaning of Israel’s physical circumcision, and how it explains the necessity of Israel’s heart transplant….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #3

Monday, March 24, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

When JEHOVAH in human flesh, Jesus Christ, came to earth, many Gentile empires had already conquered and oppressed Israel. Most Jews were scattered worldwide. The few Jews who lived in Palestine were under the oppressive, brutal, overtaxing Roman government—their Davidic kingdom had been destroyed many centuries earlier. Their corrupt religious leaders lied to them and cheated them out of God’s Word (sound familiar?!). Centuries of continuous rejection of God’s Word (the “Old Testament” Scriptures) and centuries of pagan religion had finally taken their toll on God’s earthly people, but Israel’s greatest sin was yet to come.

Israel’s spiritual state reached such an extremely low point that the Jews demanded that Jesus Christ—their long-promised Messiah who had come to rescue them from sin, Satan, and the Gentiles—suffer an excruciating death on a cruel Roman cross. Despite her promise to do what God said many centuries earlier, Israel demonstrated that she did not want to be God’s earthly nation, His vessel to reach the Gentiles with His salvation.

On behalf of the nation, Israel’s leadership confessed, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). The Jews said to Roman governor Pontius Pilate, “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matthew 27:25). Israel did not think twice about Jesus’ execution: they were tired of hearing His authoritative sermons and seeing His righteousness. Sin had hardened their hearts against God, and they would not be dissuaded: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross [thick, callous], and their ears are dull of hearing…” (Matthew 13:10-17).

Yea, God’s beloved nation, Israel, had a heart problem, and He alone could save them. They took His life—actually, He laid down His life (John 10:17,18)—to make a generous blood donation, for it was the only way to make Israel’s heart transplant possible….

A Heart Transplant for Israel #1

Saturday, March 22, 2014

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26 KJV).

The Great Physician must perform this surgery if His beloved patient is to live!

Physical circumcision first appears in Scripture in Genesis 17:10-14: “[10] This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. [11] And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. [12] And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. [13] He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. [14] And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.”

This is a further development of the Abrahamic Covenant first given in Genesis 12:1-3, God’s promise to Abraham, the father of the nation Israel. Until this point in human history, God had not instructed mankind to physically circumcise male babies.

Note that Genesis 17:11 teaches that physical circumcision was “a token of the covenant betwixt [God] and [Israel],” the outward sign of God’s promise to Abraham—“the Jews require a sign” (1 Corinthians 1:22a). Thus, the Abrahamic Covenant is also called “the covenant of circumcision” (Acts 7:8). When a Jew saw his physical circumcision, it reminded him of God’s covenant with his father Abraham and himself. God rejected any uncircumcised men living in the midst of Israel: physical circumcision was a serious matter, but why? What was so special about Abraham and his seed (that is, his descendants), and how does physical circumcision explain today’s Scripture?

Let us search the Scriptures….

A Holy Nation #12

Friday, January 31, 2014

“For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45 KJV).

Today’s Scripture summarizes a book most burdensome to many.

Rather than futilely attempting to obey legalistic Bible passages (such as today’s Scripture), we rest in God’s grace. Israel could no more become God’s people in her own strength, than we can in ours. “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The Old Covenant was harsh, but the New Covenant will save Israel via God’s grace. Christ’s shed blood, which will instate the New Covenant at His Second Coming (Acts 3:19), will cleanse Israel’s sins and make her righteous before God (Jesus’ shed blood can be our means for salvation unto eternal life, although apart from any covenants).

JEHOVAH was the laughingstock of the nations when they saw “His” people Israel living just as bad—if not worse—than they did (Romans 2:17-24). Yet, the Gentiles will again see an amazing sight in Israel. Messiah Jesus will return to the nation that so hated Him, betrayed Him, and even crucified Him, He will purge it of unbelievers, and He will ratify that New Covenant with His own blood that they shed, pay off the Old Covenant sin debt, save Israel’s believing remnant, and make it His holy nation (Hebrews 10:1-39).

Isaiah 64:6,9 quote Israel’s believing remnant’s submission to JEHOVAH’S righteousness: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away… O LORD… Behold, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.” Isaiah 60:1-3 is Israel’s kingdom hope: “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

Rest assured, JEHOVAH will make Israel a “holy nation.” 🙂

A Holy Nation #11

Thursday, January 30, 2014

“For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45 KJV).

Today’s Scripture summarizes a book most burdensome to many.

When resurrected and ascended Jesus Christ returns to earth (His Second Coming), to Israel, the people who killed Him 2,000 years ago, He will forgive them and make them a “holy nation,” a nation they could never be in their own strength (today’s Scripture).

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Hebrews 8:13 affirms, “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”

We read of Israel’s future in 1 Peter 2:9,10: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.”

Israel will then be a “holy nation,” not because of her obedience, but only because of JEHOVAH’S grace….