Category: New Covenant

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 #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 #2

Sunday, March 23, 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!

Nearly 500 years after the Abrahamic Covenant was given, JEHOVAH God delivered the nation Israel from Egyptian slavery. He gave them a series of tests in the wilderness: Exodus 15:25 says, “he proved them.” God miraculously converted bitter water into potable water for “murmuring” (grumbling/ungrateful) Israel (Exodus 15:22-26). A month later, in Exodus chapter 16, Israel complained that they had no food to eat: they were ungrateful and they again “murmured” against God. Nevertheless, as Exodus 16:11-36 says, God provided Israel with manna (bread) and quail (meat)—they wound up eating that manna for 40 years! Israel even disobeyed God’s instructions when collecting the manna. In Exodus chapter 17, Israel again complained against God that they had no water to drink. Again, God faithfully and miraculously provided water for Israel (verses 1-7). He even gave them a miraculous military victory when the Amalekites fought them for that water (verses 8-16)!

When the LORD through Moses told Israel they would have to keep His commandments to be His nation, Israel replied, “All that the LORD hath spoken, we will do” (Exodus 19:8). After Moses received the Law and came down Mount Sinai to deliver it to Israel, he was angered to see Israel dancing naked around an idol, the golden calf. Israel had not even heard God’s commandments, and yet they had already broken them! They forsook JEHOVAH, their deliverer and caregiver, and preferred to worship a stupid, lifeless idol.

As the centuries passed, Israel fell into greater and greater sins. From Moses to Malachi, a period of about 1,100 years, Israel waxed worse and worse. Her kings and people grew increasingly corrupt and apostate. Consequently, she lost her economy, her monarchy, her God-given religion (Temple, priesthood, animal sacrifices, et cetera), her real estate, her blessings from God, her God’s presence, everything.

The Great Physician diagnosed Israel’s condition—she needed a new heart….

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….

The Great Things The Lord Jesus Hath Done #7

Saturday, October 12, 2013

“And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel” (Mark 5:20 KJV).

Who is this man, and what “great things” hath the Lord Jesus done for him?

The crowd rushes to see the rumors are true—the savage is now sane, sitting at Jesus’s feet, submissive to His will and Word! They are astonished at such a transformation: “And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts” (Mark 5:15-17; cf. Luke 8:35-37).

“And when he [Jesus] was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee” (Mark 5:18,19; cf. Luke 8:37-39).

Now healed, the Gadarene symbolizes redeemed and restored Israel. When she accepts and trusts her Messiah-King Jesus at His Second Coming, He will bring her kingdom and deliver her from Satan and sin. Just as with the Gadarene, He will remove the evil spirits from the land (Zechariah 13:2). Jesus Christ will have compassion on Israel, just like with the Gadarene, and restore her unto Himself (Zechariah 12:10; Zechariah 13:8,9).

Israel will have a “sound mind,” just like the Gadarene, for once the New Covenant is instituted, God will put His laws in her mind (Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 8:10). She will be forgiven and clothed with God’s righteousness (Isaiah 1:18; Acts 3:19; Hebrews 10:17; 1 Peter 2:9,10). Israel will submit to God’s will. Her transformation will be just as amazing as the Gadarene’s.

And so, just like the Gadarene, Israel will go into her kingdom, liberated to proclaim to the Gentiles “the great things the Lord hath done for [her]!” 🙂

The King, the Donkey, and the Horse #6

Monday, July 29, 2013

“…[T]he sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:11 KJV).

The King appeared once, and He shall return….

Peter, writing to Israel’s believing remnant enduring the (future) seven-year Tribulation, consoles them during that time of great trouble and testing. He reminds them of the “appearing of Jesus Christ” (verse 7)—Christ’s Second Coming to conclude that Tribulation.

The Apostle Peter continues (today’s Scripture with its context): “[Jesus Christ] Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow” (1 Peter 1:8-11).

Isaiah the prophet wrote 700 B.C.: “And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the LORD. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever. 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” (Isaiah 59:20–60:3).

Believing Israel is to be patient during that awful Tribulation! Her Messiah is coming and they are to be mindful of that glorious coming kingdom He is bringing. They will be saved, to also participate in His glory….

Israel, Stand Still! #12

Saturday, July 20, 2013

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10 KJV).

Israel must stand still and do nothing in order to see her God work mightily on her behalf!

Quoting Psalm 40:7,8, Hebrews 10:9-12 says: “Then said he [Jesus Christ], Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first [covenant], that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;”

God will use Jesus Christ’s shed blood offered 2,000 years ago to ratify the New Covenant at Christ’s Second Coming (just as the Old Covenant was instituted with animals’ blood in Exodus chapter 24). Quoting Isaiah 59:20,21, the Apostle Paul penned: “And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:26,27; cf. Jeremiah 31:31-34; Acts 3:19; Hebrews 8:8-13; Hebrews 10:14-25).

Recall what Moses told Israel at the Red Sea: “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day:…. The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace” (Exodus 14:13,14).

As in Egypt, Israel cannot save herself: she is enslaved to sin and Satan, as she was captive in Egypt. As in Egypt, God sends a Deliverer for Israel: Moses led them from physical captivity and Jesus Christ will lead them from spiritual captivity. This time, they will enter the Promised Land, fully forgiven and free forever (the context of today’s Scripture)—not because of their works, but because of Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork at Calvary.

The whole world will see redeemed Israel glorified in her earthly kingdom, and JEHOVAH will be exalted forever!

~FINIS!~ 🙂

Israel, Hope in the LORD

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

“Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities” (Psalm 130:7,8 KJV).

Today’s Scripture is a great hope of the nation Israel….

In Psalm 130, a believing Jew urges Israel to remember her faithful God, Almighty JEHOVAH: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

Israel, from her earliest days, was repeatedly unfaithful to JEHOVAH. He alone provided for her every need, but she ignored Him and praised and worshipped the pagan idols of the Gentiles. Even today, JEHOVAH offers to the whole world salvation from hell through Jesus Christ, but the vast majority ignores it. However, the psalmist, who represents the believing remnant within Israel, has not forgotten the faithfulness of JEHOVAH. Yes, Israel has been a horrible nation, but God’s grace and forgiveness can still overcome her wickedness—she simply needs to wait on Him to provide a solution to her sin problem (at the time of Psalm 130, Jesus Christ has not died yet).

In Jeremiah 31:31-34 (cf. Hebrews 8:8-13; Hebrews 10:15-17), God promises Israel the New Covenant via Christ’s shed blood: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” When Jesus Christ returns (His Second Coming), He will inaugurate this New Covenant, and “all [believing] Israel shall be saved… when [He] will take away their sins” (Romans 11:26,27; cf. Acts 3:19-21). As today’s Scripture indicates, Israel just needs to hope in the LORD and His Word.

We have recently uploaded to YouTube part 1 of 3 home Bible study videos that introduce dispensational Bible study, and specifically Pauline dispensationalism. It can be watched here.