Category: Devotional Grist

Mt. 21:18 Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away. 20 And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither away so soon?” 21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

On Monday of the first day of Holy Week we have the event of Jesus withering of the fig tree. Matthew places this cursing and withering as simultaneous events. Jesus curses and the tree immediately withers. The context of the fruitless fig tree reveals that the fig tree is serving as a illustration and metaphor for the fruitless ritual of the Temple and the fruitless life of God’s covenant people, Israel. Jesus comes to the Temple and expects to find fruit and instead finds no nourishment for the people. Jesus may have anticipated early fruit on the Fig tree and finding none uses the tree as a illustration to reinforce the cleansing of the Temple.

The idea of a fruitless fig embodying barren Israel was not a completely novel idea. We find this kind of language being used in Jeremiah 8:14 and Micah 7:1. It may very well be the case that Jesus’ action is consistent w/ a framework of understanding that would have been familiar to the Jews.

The idea of the owner coming to find the expected fruit and being disappointed with barrenness or refusal, whether of Temple, or Tree, is articulated a third time in Matthew 21:33f w/ the Parable of the wicked vine-dressers. Here the landowner expects fruit from his vineyard but after the repeated sending of his representatives to collect what is to be expected, finally the landowner resolves to come in judgment upon those who will not yield up the fruit that is rightfully his.

The repeated message in Temple Cleansing, Fig Tree Cursing, and Vine-dresser’ Comeuppance is that eventually judgment falls upon those who are covenantally unfaithful and who participate in a defiant, consistent, and ongoing disobedience. In history that judgment that was promised and prefigured in all of these events came to pass w/ the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

We are reminded in all of this that when salvation comes it means both deliverance and condemnation at the same time. Deliverance for those who have been about the Master’s business but condemnation for those who have been lived w/ self at the center neglecting to yield up to God what He rightly expects and has so abundantly provided for.

There is one thing we want to explore here in conclusion and that is Jesus pronouncement in Matthew 21, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.”

Now, remember in these words Jesus is referring to National Israel. I would submit that Jesus words mean that Israel as a National entity is eschatologically irrelevant. Certainly, Jews as individual Jews have, do and will continue to be converted but these words of Jesus suggest that God is finished with Israel as a National entity. No fruit will grow on them ever again.

If people would pause and think about the implications of that last paragraph they might have to re-think their whole theology.

Hebrews 8:10 makes it abundantly clear that the Old Testament case law applies in the New and Better covenant.

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds[b] I will remember no more.”13 In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

While it is true that 7:12 teaches the explicit change in the law,

11 Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? 12 For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. 13 For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar.

one must ask what exactly the explicit change is given that 8:10 clearly teaches that the OT law remains valid since it is that law which is to be written on the hearts and etched in the minds of the New Covenant people.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

I would contend that given the explicit statement that the new and better covenant includes the OT law put in minds and written in hearts the explicit change that 7:12 is referring to is the explicit change that comes with the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. Such an interpretation does justice to Hebrews since the danger that the author of Hebrews is dealing with is the danger of the Jews, to whom he is writing, going back to the Old Covenant ceremonial system. The danger in Hebrews is not the danger of the recipients of the letter applying the OT moral and case law. That is not what the book of Hebrews is about. In Hebrews the danger is that people are inching towards going back to the ceremonial shadows. And so the writer to the Hebrews tells them that the Levitical Priesthood which officiates those ceremonies and the ceremonial law is past. That is the explicit change in the law that is being spoken of. Indeed the context demands that reading in vs. 10-11.

The context of 7:10-11 is the ceremonial law and the Levitical Priesthood — not the moral or civil law as those aspects of the law will be now written on their hearts and put in their minds of those of us in the New Covenant.

Indeed, to appeal to 7:10-11 as proof that the Old Testament law is done away with actually proves to much for such a sweeping change would have to apply to the Moral law as well so that, if we were to be consistent, would have to say that the Moral law (the Ten Commandments) no longer apply. I know of no Reformed theologians who have ever suggested such a thing.

So the new and better covenant that is promised in Hebrews chapter 8 is a new and better covenant because it is the fulfillment of all that the old and worst covenant anticipated. The old covenant is set aside in the sense that when the reality comes the shadows are no longer present but in as much it is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant it brings to the fore all that the Old Covenant promised. The thing to keep in mind is that they are not two antithetical covenants but a covenant of promise and covenant of fulfillment. Try to think of the relationship between the two covenants like the relationship between a engagement promise and a wedding promise. When the wedding promise comes the engagement promise is fulfilled and set aside and only inasmuch as it is taken up into the new and better wedding promise. The two promises though distinct are clearly related and even though the former engagement promise is put off it is putt off by being incorporated into the wedding promise which it anticipated.

The coming destruction of the reprobate will serve the glory of God just as the catastrophic destruction of Stalin’s communism or Hitler’s Nazism glorified the rule of justice. America looked forward to the destruction of Nazism, Japanese Imperialism, and Soviet Communism and longed for the day when the enemies of justice would be destroyed. Yet when a Christian expresses a longing for the day when the enemies of God’s glory will be destroyed they are stared at as if they were growing horns out of their heads. Sure, Christ lovers desire that the Christ haters would surrender just as our grandparents desired the surrender of the Axis powers. However in both cases, where there is a refusal to surrender there is a eager anticipation and longing for the utter defeat of those who stand in the way to God’s justice triumphing.

It is a good thing when rebels against God’s order, destroyers of God’s people, and creators of cultures of death are put down. Would that they would learn that it is God’s kindness that is giving them time to repent. Would that they would thus repent and so be destroyed by conversion and not continue in their unholy defiance of the Lord Christ which will lead to their destruction by judgment. But if they will continue to plot in vain against Christ and if they will continue defy God, then I look forward to their destruction and I will rejoice when it arrives just as my grandparents looked forward to the destruction of the Axis power and rejoiced when the Axis were finally defeated.

None of this is said w/o understanding that I deserve to perish w/ the Christ-haters. None of this is said as if I do not yet have wickedness in me that has needs of being conquered. However, due to God’s strange grace and furious mercy He has put me in Christ and as such I have gone from God’s enemy to God’s friend. As God’s friend I can’t help but desire that all who oppose His majesty, soil His splendor, and mock His Holiness to be utterly conquered. As God’s friend I can’t help but desire that all those who belittle His grace, rage against His law, and profane His transcendence be consumed by God’s glory.

With all that is within me I would that God’s enemies sue for peace by fleeing to Christ but if they will not and if they will continue to kick against the goads of God’s long-suffering patience and unrequited love then I look forward to rejoicing in their utter destruction.

We are continuing to look at this matter of the harmony of the Scriptures in terms of the Old and New Covenant. We remind ourselves that as we come to the New Testament we are coming to the final development of the covenant of grace that has been unfolding in the Old Testament administration by administration of the one covenant of Grace.

This continued fulfillment and extension of the Promises that are constitutive of the covenant of grace that we find in the Old Testament is called by theologians “the progress of redemption,” or “salvation history.” This history recorded in Scriptures is real history but it is also a unique history inasmuch as that history is uniquely concerned with what redemption is, looks like, and means.

the Old Covenant is so concerned with Israel and the life of the Nation of Israel because the tribes of Israel is where God gives us this unique salvation history. This is so true that we can say that Israel’s unique experience as God’s chosen people to be the container which God would incrementally and increasingly fill with the meaning of redemption is unmatched by the history of any other people. This unique experience of Israel whereby they receive the law, the covenant(s), and the promise(s) is important to the flowering of redemption that comes in and through Jesus Christ in the New Testament the way that exposition, conflict, and rising action in a story or novel, are important to climax, falling action, and resolution of that novel. This is important to say because so many in the Church in our country today want to believe that they can understand the story of redemption’s climax (New Testament) w/o understanding its exposition, conflict, and rising action in the Old Testament. And as we have said before by peeling off the climax of salvation history from its exposition, conflict, and rising action in the Old Covenant the consequences is that the climax is reinterpreted (usually in a humanistic direction) in order for it to remain consistent with the previous story line that is now retold with a completely different narrative line then Gods. The result is then that we have a different story and so a different salvation history then the story that God tells in Scripture.

All of this explains why we must understand what happens in all of Scripture as being God’s salvation history, thus being one story.

Now, in this story, Israel’s experience is unique as is clearly set before us in the passage read this morning (Deuteronomy 4:32-40). No other people as a people were called and raised up by God to be the players in the progress of redemption. No other people were known by Yahweh and were to know Yahweh the way the people of Israel were known and did know. They are unique. This does not mean that God was absent in the histories of other people but his presence in the histories of other peoples is not a presence that is unfolding His story of salvation. Only in Israel did God work within the terms of the covenant of grace as that was initiated and sustained by His covenantal relationship with them.

The passage in Deuteronomy 4:32f communicates that the history of Israel as being absolutely sui generis in all of space and time.

32 “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him. 36 Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. 37 And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power, 38 driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. 39 Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40 You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

In this passage some of the peculiar elements of God’s relation to Israel that comprise integral parts of Salvation history are heard. Here we find the ideas of election, redemption, covenant, and inheritance to name but a few. We even find in the emboldened passage above that the uniqueness of Israel’s national experience points to the uniqueness of Yahweh Himself as God.

As such it is easy to see why Christians would contend that the revelation of God and His method of redemption are bound up with the history of tiny Israel. God told the history of salvation in the unfolding of the history of Israel. This is something that is not true for any other nation.

However, this peculiarity of election for Israel that provides the meaning of redemption — and which causes so much resentment among other peoples and gods — was not a peculiarity that was to insular. Their unique calling and function in the world was to facilitate God’s promises to the nations. Israel’s role was to be Priest to the nations — doing what a Priest does by representing the nations before God.

6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Israel was to be the means by which the saving knowledge of God would be brought to the nations. Israel was to be the nation leaven that leavened the whole world. In order to fulfill that assignment Israel’s national life was to be Holy (separated) unto God, exemplified by their taking seriously God’s Law.

For I have known him (Abraham), in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

And because of this reality the Deuteronomy text in vs. 39-40 can give us the moral necessity that is built upon the theological reality that God is God alone.

So in this salvation history Israel’s one of a kind position was one that spoke of missionary duty as much as it spoke of privilege. If Israel failed in its missionary duty and moral high calling then it’s special status became festooned with heavier judgments then the other nations. (To whom much is given, much is required.)

The book of Amos reveals this truism.

Amos recounts the blessings and privileges of Israel as God’s salvation history people but this recounting of blessings and privileges is used by God through Amos to indict them for their societal injustice and cultural corruption. A people who had the privilege that Israel had, by walking crosswise to those privilege would be inflicted w/ even greater penalty (Amos 2:6-16, 3:2).

2 “ You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

So God calls upon Amos to bring covenant lawsuit against Israel and the verdict is that Israel would be severely chastised and the land left deserted. And in the face of possible protest that God would never do such a thing to His special people God says through Amos,

7 “ Are you not like the people of Ethiopia to Me,
O children of Israel?” says the LORD.

“ Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
The Philistines from Caphtor,
And the Syrians from Kir?

Now keep in mind that God is not saying here that Israel’s history is not unique. The point seems more to be that if Israel will violate the covenant then Israel’s uniqueness is forfeited and they become not substantially different then the other nations. The point here is not that the other nations are like Israel in terms of God’s salvation history but that Israel has become like the other nations as seen by their covenantal degradation. The point here is not that God has worked in the other nations redemptively the way He worked w/ Israel but rather that Israel has become altogether corrupt like the other nations.

What Amos says in 3:1-2 reveals the unchanging uniqueness of Israel,

1 Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying:
2 “ You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.”

Note here that it is precisely because of God’s unique relationship w/ Israel that they will be punished because of their iniquities.

All this to say that the uniqueness of Israel, as the telling of salvation history is clearly part of the teachings of the OT. God is indeed sovereign over all the nations as Amos clearly teaches but He is intimately sovereign over the affairs of Israel. However, keep in mind that this intimate sovereignty of God over Israel was always w/ the purpose of calling the nations. Israel unique position existed only to be a vessel to accomplish God’s intent to call all the nations to Himself.

Now … in light of all of this when we consider Jesus in the New Testament he is presented to us as the Messiah — Jesus the Christ. And this Messiah was individually what Israel was to have been corporately. As Israel was to be for the calling of the nations, so Jesus, the Messiah is for the gathering of the Nation. Where Israel failed in its calling the Messiah succeeds. The Messiah was the success of all that Israel had been a failure at in God’s setting them apart. The Messiah is God’s self-revelation for the work of the redeeming of the nations. Because Christ is all that God called Israel to be, like Israel Christ is absolutely unique and it is still the case that should the nations desire to come to God they must, like the nations in the OT were to come through Israel to God, come through the one that has been uniquely set apart to be the revelation and redemption of God. This explains why the synoptic Gospels are so given to a kind of recapitualation story of Israel when they tell the story of Jesus Christ.

As God’s true Israel, Christ is the successful High Priest to the nations that Israel never was. This explains the Christian faith’s insistence, to this day, that Jesus is the only way to the Father.

So, in this OT history God concentrates the uniqueness of Israel’s salvation history into one man and from this Messiah God opens the way to the universal offer of salvation to the nations. Israel’s salvation history was unique because God has a universal design for them. Jesus embodies the unique salvation history of Israel and achieves God’s universal goal that through His faithful Son all the nations of the earth would be blessed. He is, indeed, the savior of the world.

And so, because we have all this history of redemption and because we find its climax in Christ we command all men everywhere to repent so as to taste and see that the Lord is Good.

Promise Involves Ongoing Levels of Fulfillment

When the Scriptures deal with God’s Promises we see the fulfillment of those Promises to be dynamic and not static. Whereas in a prediction the fulfillment of the prediction either comes true or doesn’t come true w/ God’s covenant promises you have fulfillment that come true but often in a way different than anticipated when looking at the original Promise.

Ill. – Promise of Engagement / Fulfillment of Engagement promise leading to Wedding Promises leading to fulfillment of Wedding Promises.

The Promise made my two 20 year old in getting engaged are fulfilled on their Wedding day but those promises are fulfilled by the act of other Promises exchanged on the Wedding day so that the original engagement promises are extended and intensified. In turn those wedding day Promises are fulfilled over the course of a married life in a myriad of ways — ways that are dictated by the ebb and flow of the relationship. 65 years later could either of the two young people who originally made promises of engagement have had any idea how that original engagement promise would have ended up being fully fulfilled?

God’s Promises in the Old Covenant are like this except God’s fulfilled promises cover millennium and not mere decades. They are Promises made and Promises kept but they are made and kept in ways that might not have been expected when the Promise was originally made. There is a great deal of this keeping of promises that results in extending and intensifying the original promise.

Ill. – Father Promising 5 year old son all the books in his magnificent library when he turns 18 but between 5 and 18 the Kindle is invented and so at 18 the Father gives the son a Kindle w/ all his library books downloaded instead of the library itself. Has the Father kept the Promise? Would the Son accuse the Father of going back on the promise?

This is the way much of the OT Promises work. God’s relationship w/ Israel was founded on the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12. But even in the OT itself the Promise God made to Abraham is fulfilled in unanticipated ways only to see the promise extended and intensified so that it is fulfilled over and over again in unexpected ways.

For example in one sense God’s promise to Abraham of “seed” is fulfilled with the Birth of Isaac. But of course we all know that the Promise once fulfilled was extended and intensified. A major theme of Genesis is how from one man the posterity of Abraham grows to a community of 70 people — a number that communicates that God is building His own Nation and People to rival the 70 nations mentioned in the Table of Nations. (Gen. 10-11)

Yet the promise fulfillment doesn’t stop there. In Ex 1:7 suddenly we see a people who are ‘exceedingly numerous.’ God’s Promise fulfillment to Abraham to have a seed continues past the OT as we see Jesus as being the singular seed that God had in mind when He made the promise of seed to Abraham. (Gal. 3:16, 19)

Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,”[i]who is Christ.

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

But even when the original Promise is fully fulfilled in an ultimate sense there are ripple fulfillments to the original promise that wash up on the shores of history. God’s promise to Abraham is also fulfilled in God’s bringing in of believing Gentiles into the covenant so that Father Abraham really does have many sons…. ‘I am one of them, and so are you …”

Here we see a pattern that we find throughout Scripture when it comes to God’s covenant Promises. God fulfills promises in ways that we might not expect (like the Father w/ a Kindle instead of a Library) and then extending and intensifying that promise so that it is fulfilled many times over in more and more glorious fashions.

Consider Abraham again and God’s Promise to make his name great.

Over and over again we find this Promise fulfilled, extended and intensified. When Abraham becomes wealthy in the land his name becomes great as God promised to Abraham in Genesis 12, but God is not finished yet. Abraham’s people go into the Exodus and eventually are brought into bondage. Their name is hardly great and yet God leads them out and once again He fulfills the promise to give Abraham a great name. This promise fulfillment ebbs and flows. As Israel is disobedient their name is brought low. As they are obedient God lifts them up and gives them a great name again. However, we all know that the ultimate fulfillment of this original promise to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ. Christ is the one who is given such a great name that at his name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. However, once again, there are ripple effects to the ultimate fulfillment of giving Abraham a great name. Now, God conspires to give His Church a great name that His Church might glorify Him.

We could do the same with God’s promise to Abraham of the Land in Genesis 12. Once Israel occupies the land through Joshua God fulfills his promise and yet that promise finds its ultimate promise fulfilled in the Lord Christ who was the great Son of Abraham with the greatest of great names who has occupied for His people the Heavenly Canaan land. However, from the that full fulfillment of the original promise there ripples other fulfillments out from that fulfillment. Today God’s people are told they will inherit not just a piece of real estate in the Middle East but the whole earth (Mt. 5:5).

The repeated extending and intensifying of the original promise prepares us for the expectation that the final fulfillment will not be in terms of the literal details of the original promise like the Kindle analogy.

And here we have rubbed up against the problem of much “literal” readings hermeneutics employed by dispensationalists and others. There are those who don’t understand the idea of extending and intensifying of the promise and so they are still looking for the whole library when the Kindle is staring them clearly in the face.

The clearest example of this is the idea that National Israel still has a future as God’s uniquely covenant people. The promises to Israel were fulfilled completely in the Church. The Church is the Kindle and yet many people still read the Scriptures looking for the whole library that is in their minds National Israel to make some kind of comeback.

However, the Church upon reflecting on God’s Promises in light of Jesus resurrection came to understand as Paul put it, ‘that all the Promises of God are ‘Yes’ and Amen in Christ Jesus.’ The Church, following Scripture has understood that the Old covenant promises only make sense in light of how they have been extended, intensified and fulfilled in Christ. He was the singular seed of Abraham. He was the seed promised to David.

12 “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his Father, and he shall be My son.

The Lord Jesus is the one in whom all nations of the earth would be blessed. To be in Christ was to be a child of Abraham and therefore to share in the inheritance of God’s people. He is the Passover lamb protecting God’s people from the wrath of God. His death and resurrection has achieved the ultimate Exodus and so is our Moses leading us out of the bondage of our sin and the tyranny of the Devil. Returning to Christ is the ultimate return from Babylonian Exile. In him the Church has been given the inheritance of both the whole earth and the Heavenly Promised Land as fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to give him a land. (This is why we aren’t consumed w/ what happens in the Middle East.)
Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. The sacrificial death and risen life of the Lord Jesus has fulfilled and surpassed all that was signified in the Tabernacle, the sacrifices and the priesthood. He was the temple not made with hands, indeed He was Mt. Zion itself – the one where the focus of the name and presence of God rests.

So what we see in all this is that Promises made by God in the Old Covenant are of such a nature that by the time they are fulfilled the fulfillment looks different then the way the original hearers of the Promises might have anticipated. The promises were made in terms of the way the original recipients could understand but the fulfillment as it comes ultimately in Christ is at a different level of reality, though a level of reality that still legitimately corresponds to the original promise.

Throughout the centuries all of this has been misunderstood from time to time.

Ill. – Book of Hebrews

Ill – Dispensationalists who look for a rebuilt temple, reconstitution of the Israel Priesthood and sacrificial system or a battle between biblically identified enemies or a revival of the throne of David.

All of this is to seriously misconstrue the Christian faith and if pursued intently enough it is to pursue a different religion.