Category: Sermons

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it [b]robbery to be equal with God, 7 but [c]made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

1. A Plea For Loving Others. (Philippians 2:1-2)

2. A Principle For Loving Others. (Philippians 2:3,4)

3. A Pattern For Loving Others. (Philippians 2:5-11)

In Christian theology we speak of both the humiliation of Christ and then the exaltation of Christ. During the Holy Week of Lent season, which Palm Sunday kicks off we find Christ going through the valley of His most extreme humiliation. This great Christological passage in Philippians 2 traces out that extreme humiliation.

Of course we are mindful that Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the humiliation. It is true that the crowds are jubilant with praise upon Christ entering but that Jesus sees this not as exaltation but as humiliation is recorded in Luke’s Gospel 19,

41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, 42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

Scripture records Jesus weeping only three times. Once @ Lazarus Tomb (John 11), once here, and once in Gethsemane (Hebrews 5:7-9). Each time in connection to death. First, Lazarus’s death, then here over the prospects of Jerusalem’s death, and over His own death in Hebrews.

So, it is easy to read the Palm Sunday passage and not see the beginning pangs of this week of Humiliation. However, Christ is experiencing profound sadness and the humiliation he suffers from here on out just continues to intensify.

The text this morning talks about Christ humbling himself but the Greek word in this text is ἐταπείνωσεν  (etapanosin – hard a and o) and communicates a humbling that moves into humiliating.

To make or bring low, humble, humiliate; pass: To be humbled. From tapeinos; to depress; figuratively, to humiliate.

I bring this out because too often in our Christian world we often mean by the word “humble” the idea of somebody willing to forego applause, or somebody who is willing and even happy to take the lower position or perform tasks that are not noticed. And that is all well and good but during this descent into humiliation that begins on Palm Sunday our Lord Christ is moving beyond humble to genuinely humiliating.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here because the Cross becomes the apex of the humiliation ritual that our Lord Christ undertakes in order to meet the just demands for the trespassing of God’s just standard.

There is ever increasing degrees of humiliation in this passage.

The first movement of humility here mentioned is the incarnation.

Paul’s statement that Christ was “in the form of God” are words that would have been understood at his time as saying with stark explicitness the deity of Jesus Christ. The phraseology in Greek that St. Paul uses was the linguistic coin of his day. The phraseology was first popularized by Aristotelian philosophy and as such, it was the most natural way of expressing the divinity of Jesus Christ.

The word “Form” as in “being in the form of God” is the equivalent to our saying “Christ Jesus having the specific character of God. In the Greek thought of that time “Form” was that body of qualities which distinguished Christ from all other spiritual beings. It is a way of directly saying that “the incarnate Christ was God.” If Jesus Christ was not in the form of God He would not be God, not having those characterizing qualities which make God God.

Note Humiliation in passage
Note Exaltation in passage

Talk about Kenosis

emptied
ἐκένωσεν (ekenōsen)

Verb – Aorist Indicative Active – 3rd Person Singular
Strong’s 2758: (a) I empty, (b) I deprive of content, make unreal. From kenos; to make empty, i.e. to abase, neutralize, falsify

Some versions translate “made himself of no reputation.” Other’s translate “emptied himself.” Some versions render this “he made himself nothing.” I prefer the “he made of Himself no reputation.”

Often this passage will be made to say too much as if this emptying means that Jesus Christ surrendered His divine nature. This, of course, would be a mistake. The emptying of Himself here points more to the abasement of Himself then the deletion of His divine qualities.

All illustrations fail when we come to these kinds of truths but I often think of Mark Twain’s “The Prince & The Pauper” with this passage. If you remember Tom Canty and Prince Edward looking like doubles switch themselves. Prince Edward takes on the Pauper’s Tom Canty’s life. He remains Prince Edward with all of his dignity as King but no one recognizes Him and no one pays him deference save one soldier returning from war but that only in order to humor the now King Edward. In the story the Prince, quite w/o realizing what he was doing emptied himself. Christ, quite realizing what He was doing emptied or abased Himself. He still retained His Kingship but very few recognized him. His glory does periodically break out but on the whole, in His person, his glory is banked and He is not recognized for who He is and all this so that He might honor the Father.

The important thing to note for our purposes this morning is that when Christ empties himself we should not read that as Christ loses his Divine nature. It is perhaps better to think rather than Christ losing His divine nature he instead adds a human nature to His one person.

But of course, you do see the humiliation here, don’t you?

That’s the journey of our Lord Christ’s humiliation was not merely low, but lowest. A humiliation that moves from cradle to cross only intensifying with the passage of time.

This “making of Himself no reputation” is repeated in every ancient orthodox creed and confession?

Why? Because this humiliation matters. It’s what makes redemption real. Why insist on all this humiliation of the Messiah? Well, first and most important it was what the OT Scriptures taught to expect. (Isaiah 53)

Secondly, the alternatives don’t provide a redemption where there is a substitute who pays the penalty for sin. All the early cults tried to avoid this humiliation;

Docetism said Jesus just “appeared” to suffer — a divine hologram playing at humanity.

Gnosticism couldn’t imagine God wearing flesh — it saw the physical world as flawed and unworthy.

Arianism claimed Jesus wasn’t fully God, just a next-level creation.

But without the humiliation of Christ beginning in the incarnation and reaching its apex during Holy Week and Good Friday, we remain dead in our trespasses and sin. The wages of sin being death, there had to be a God-Man who would die as humiliated and cursed on a tree.

And so when we consider the Lenten season, we are reminded once again that it is not primarily about us. Yes, we rightly remind ourselves of the need for ongoing repentance. Yes, we rightly remind ourselves of the reality of our suffering with Christ. Yes, we deny ourselves during this season, but all of this is really second tier. Lent screams at us the suffering and humiliation of Christ. A suffering and humiliation that begins with the incarnation moves on to the Cross, and ends in the grave.

Now we pivot to talk more about the next level of humiliation the Philippians passage speaks of and that is the Cross. Our Lord Christ in His Humiliation, the Holy Spirit says, became obedient to death … even the death on the Cross.

Doubtless there are exceptions but by and large must moderns are not familiar with just exactly the humiliation that was found in anybody being crucified.

“In 1986, The American Medical Association published an article titled “The Physical Death of Jesus Christ”. It details the entire process of Jesus’ trial to His death on the cross. In Luke 22, before Jesus is arrested, it is written that He was in great distress & sweating blood. Although rare, it is recognized as Hematidrosis, caused by high amounts of stress. One can literally sweat blood.

At the time, the crucifixion was considered the worst death for the worst of criminals. But this is not all Jesus faced. The Lord Christ endured whipping so severe that it tore the flesh from His body. He was beaten so horrific that His face was torn & His beard ripped. A crown of thorns, 2-3 inches long cut deeply into His scalp. The crown was not like a sweat brow that somebody might wear playing sports. The Crown was an oval shaped head gear that was comprised of 8 inch thorns that were literally sharp as nails. This crown was doubtless then pulled securely over our Master’s brow.

If there is any doubt that this was all intended as humiliation we are reminded that they mocked him now at this point saying, “Hail King of the Jews.”

What is happening here is the kind of thing that happens when a point is being made to all who gaze upon this. It is a strong and convincing point. Avoid this at all cost.

The leather whip used to flog Him had tiny iron balls & sharp bones. The balls caused internal injuries while the sharp bones ripped open His flesh. His skeletal muscles, veins, & bowels we’re exposed, causing major blood loss. Most men do not survive this kind of torture. After Jesus was severely flogged, He was forced to carry His own cross while people mocked & spat on Him.

The cross beam he carried appx. 650 yards weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 80 pounds. You can imagine how torturous that would be for someone is Christ’s condition.

All this explains why Paul can write… “He became obedient to death … even the death on the cross.” This was not just any death.

Now, keep in mind that all of this inhuman torture is the physical incarnation of what sin deserves. In other words … in all this humiliation we are being taught what God’s just penalty against sin begins to look like.

Well, crucifixion was a process meant to instill excruciating pain, creating a slow & agonizing death. Nails as long as 8 inches were driven into Jesus’ wrists & feet. The Roman soldiers knew the tendon in the wrists would tear & break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support Himself to breathe. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the courage. Jesus endured this reality for 3 hours!

The Gospel of John writes that after Jesus’ death, a Roman soldier pierced His side with a spear & blood & water came out. Scientists explain that from hypovolemic shock, the rapid heartrate causes fluid to gather in the sack around the lungs & heart. The gathering of fluid in the membrane around the heart is called Pericardial effusion & the lungs, Pleural effusion.

To the world, Christianity is as foolish as it can get. They believe it’s for the weak. But when you are confronted by the reality of the cross, it’s clearly not a pretty sight. It is brutal & horrific. This is the weight Jesus carried. The weight of the sins of the world, all so that we can live. God’s wrath is fully satisfied in Jesus. This is what it took. Repent & believe! Jesus is “God among us” in the flesh. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus loves you so much, He went through this spiritual and physical punishment for your sins and mine. Jesus is Lord, Almighty God, Everlasting Father.”

THE DEPTH OF CHRIST’S DESCENT into humiliation. This was Humiliation With Purpose Jesus didn’t come to impress. He came to empty Himself. Philippians 2 says it plainly: “Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped… He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross.”

So, we have considered the humiliation of Christ and I would have you remember that when we speak of Christ’s humiliation we generally speak of it in three movements…. Incarnation to Cross to grave. Next week we will speak of Christ’s exaltation which also has three movements. From Resurrection to Ascension to Session. This is how Theologians often think of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation.

We should end by noting that this was all purposeful. This humiliation first was for the Father that the Father could not be charged with injustice and untruthfulness. The Father had promised throughout the Scripture that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. From the beasts slain to cover Adam and Eve, to Passover Lamb wherein the blood is sprinkled on the Mantle of the doorway, to the OT sacrificial system with its oceans of blood and its rivers of sprinkling, everywhere Scripture declared in archetype form that there must come one who should do what the blood of bulls and beasts could never do but could only point to … and that is the taking away of sin.

And then after the Cross is about honoring and vouchsafing the name of the Father, the Cross is about the Triune God’s love for His people. Because Christ paid this price of humiliation we ourselves will never experience this kind of eternal humiliation. Because of Christ’s humiliation we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of Christ’s humiliation we can know that we know that we have eternal life because all that come to the Father by Christ, the Father will in no wise cast out.

So, as hard as this humiliation is to consider, we Christians understand that without it we would be just as miserable as those who currently seek to live their lives bearing their own sins.

Praise God for Lent and the reminder it is of Christ in our place.

Here we are a few days into Lent. Of course the practice of Lent and even the use of the Church Calendar among Protestants is considered verboten in many quarters. Some might even style the habit of paying attention to the Church Calendar as apostasy.

However, a significant reason as to why I’ve become at least tender to the thought of the Church calendar is that by its use of ordering time in a Christian direction it shapes us as Christians. Instead of being shaped by Int’l Women’s Day, or Black History Month, or May Day we are shaped by Advent, Epiphany, Lenten, and Resurrection. If Christians have dominion over their Calendar as a habit, it is much easier to believe that they will practice dominion over other areas of life as a habit.

Another reason to be sympathetic to the Church Calendar is that as a people we are shaped by our customs and rituals. Customs become habit forming and as habits customs and rituals shape us. This is true both positively and negatively.

Negatively the custom of course language makes for a reinforcement of a course people.

Positively the custom of praying before meals works to make us a God-conscious people.

Meaning of Lent 

Lent is characterized as a time of especial humility, meekness, and repentance in the Christian’s life. It was to be a time where the Christian identified with the Cross of Christ just as the Easter season was to be a time where the Christian identifies with the Resurrection and triumph of Christ. It became part of the texture of the Church giving a motif to the Christian calendar of humility followed by triumph.

However, over time Lent became burdened with showmanship. People became proud of their performances of humility and repentance.

Another danger in the Lenten season is that there crept into the Church a way of thinking that somehow self-denial and ritual performance was a means of earning favor with God in the sense that man was adding a something needed that wasn’t already present in Christ’s work. This reminds protestants that if we participate in Lent that to enter Lent properly we needs be convinced that there is nothing about Lent that is improving our right standing before God in Christ.

Of course, anything can become abused in the hands of fallen man. And all because a habit is abused doesn’t mean that it is inherently wrong. Scripture clearly calls for  repentance and self-denial and inasmuch as lent has typically been a time emphasizing repentance and self-denial we shouldn’t dismiss that aspect of it out of hand.

We want to spend this sermon talking about repentance and then firmly connecting repentance to the Cross of Jesus Christ. We want to suggest that as Protestants we too can celebrate Lent but in a decidedly different way then as part of the Romish sacrament of Penance, which is part of their merit theology.

As we look at Scripture we discover that the beginning of Jesus ministry demands a call of repentance.

^{Matthew 4:17} From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And then after the resurrection our Lord connects His crucifixion with repentance and forgiveness of sins;

^{Luke 24:45} Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

Then on the day of Pentecost Peter calls for people to “repent,” and connects that need in light of the crucified Lord and Messiah.

^{Acts 2:36} “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” ³⁷ When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” ³⁸ Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. 

The Greek word for repent is metanoeō and it means to change one’s mind.

F. F. Bruce puts it simply when he wrote that repentance “involves a turning with contrition from sin to God.”

The great presupposition of repentance is the Cross work of Jesus Christ. There on the Cross, the sinner spies for first time not only the magnitude of His sin but also the cure for His sin.

It is a glimpse of and a beginning understanding of the Cross work of our Lord Christ which drives repentance, both of the initial variety that is connected to faith and conversion but also of the life long variety that is to be characteristic of all Christians. In just a bit we will connect the Cross more tightly to repentance.

We remember, after all, that repentance is not a one off reality but is to be characteristic of the whole Christians life. Luther put it memorably when he said in his 95 thesis;

“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”

So repentance is the way of entering into the  redeemed life and repentance is clearly integrally connected with the Cross work of our benevolent master, Jesus.

In light of that let us speak a wee bit about different kinds or repentance;

I.) Natural Repentance

Apart from the Cross work of Jesus Christ repentance is just so many promises to be a better sinner. It is what might be styled as a natural repentance. Fallen man has the capacity to see that something he has done has had consequences that he wished were not present. As such there is a certain repentance — which is really merely regret — that he experiences.

We saw natural repentance recently in the Olympics when the chap who won the Bronze medal in some event publicly apologized on International Television to his girlfriend he had lost due to his recent infidelity. He regretted his actions and so there was a certain horizontal natural repentance.

II.) Legal Repentance

Another wrong kind of repentance is the kind of repentance that thinks that in virtue of the presence of repentance a forgiveness is earned or merited.  We see this kind of repentance in history with traveling flagellants. They would go from city to city beating themselves with whips across their backs. In doing so they believed that their self-injury as repentance was please to God.

J. C. Ryle wrote about this repentance;

This kind of repentance, is a repentance that the Puritans styled a “legal repentance.” Legal Repentance viewed repentance as a work that could be traded up for grace so that what needed to be said is that we are saved by our repentance. Instead of understanding that it is God’s grace, as found in the Cross of Christ, that gives repentance the thought is that it is repentance that energizes the Cross work of Christ. It is the mistake of thinking that our repentance doesn’t need to be imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ in order to be accepted. It fails to realize that even our best repentance needs to be repented over. It includes the note of regret – perhaps even the remorse that personal sin exposes one to eternal punishment but there is no change that repentance always bespeaks. This legal repentance believes that this regret or remorse alone will in some measure by itself atone for disobedience against God’s Holy standard.

This legal repentance is exemplified in the person caught in their crime/sin. Sorry that they were caught but seeking to escape consequences via remorse.

This legal repentance is a theme that we find in Western Literature, whether in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” or Dostovesky’s “Crime and Punishment,” or more recently in the “Catcher in the Rye.”

Dostoevsky, for example, has his character Raskolnikov confessing his crime to Sonia, the merciful, suffering prostitute whose life became intertwined with his own, yet Raskolnikov continues to struggle with genuine repentance often rationalizing his actions.

In Scripture we find this kind of false repentance in the remorse of Esau. Scripture teaches;

^{Hebrews 12:17} For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

We see this “Legal Repentance” in the suicide of Judas.

^{Mt. 27:3} Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, ⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”

III.) Biblical (Evangelical) Repentance

Biblical (or Evangelical) Repentance is anchored in the Cross. The Spirit opens the eyes of the awakened sinner to see the truth about God’s character and His holy, just, and good Law that he has repeatedly violated. In the Cross the sinner sees the Holiness of God against his own depravity and sin and seeing God’s holiness the awakened sinner begins to see His danger since he is convinced that “the soul that sins shall surely die.” The awakened sinner begins to sees how filled with the rot of love of self he is filled with and seeing that he cries out to God that God may deliver Him from his body of death.

At the same time the Holy Spirit awakened sinner sees the mercy of God inasmuch as he sees that God is pouring out His just wrath against his own sin upon the second person of the Trinity on the Cross, who added to Himself a human nature, so that the Spirit awakened sinner was not required to pay for His own sins. In seeing the mercy of God he discovers the deep love of the Son for His people. The Spirit awakened sinner, in looking at the cross receives repentance as a consequence of that repentance and faith being graciously won for him by Christ on the cross in his place. The  Spirit awakened sinner repents but he understands that his repentance, like his faith, are gifts of God won for Him by the finished work of our magnificent savior on the cross. The Spirit awakened sinner understands that his faith and repentance are further expression of God’s great grace and favor towards him and are not mechanisms that earn God’s favor.

We see this kind of Repentance was at the heart of Paul’s preaching in the book of Acts. In his farewell to the Ephesian Elders Paul can say;

“I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21).

This is in harmony with the Scripture we looked at earlier;

^{Luke 24:45} Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 

Here we see the intimate connection between repentance and the Cross work of Jesus the Christ. Because the Messiah has suffered and risen from the dead there can be proclaimed the command to repent.

Now, just a few words on the consequences of repentance and trusting the finished work of Jesus Christ.

1.) Biblical Repentance delivers us from seeking to find another means by which our guilt can be taken away. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating that those outside of Christ who know not the forgiveness that faith and repentance bring as looking to Jesus Christ for relief, are forever seeking to fob off their sin, guilt, and misery someplace else. They have no Messiah to take away their sin and so they either carry that sin themselves and so become self destructive or else they seek to cast their sin, guilt, and misery on others around them — often on those who love them the most. They do not own their sin and so they seek to place it on everyone else. Only by doing so can they live with the sin, guilt and misery they can’t escape.

2.) Connected with this is the idea that Biblical repentance provides sanity for the Biblical Christian. Sin that isn’t forgiven because of the Cross work of Jesus Christ that issues forth in faith and repentance leads to mentally unstable people. Sin drives people insane. We tend not to see this insanity because we become accustomed to it, but those who refuse to roll their sin upon Christ are people who are or will become mentally unstable. Those outside of Christ who refuse to repent will eventually, by the weight of all that sin, guilt, and misery they are carrying become tetched. The Cross of Christ takes away sin, guilt, and misery as well as how all that sin, guilt, and misery expresses itself.

Now, the potential consequence of a sermon like this is that people will be frightened that they have the wrong kind of repentance. I have found that folks who have that instinct to be fearful that they have the wrong kind of repentance … a non God pleasing repentance — are the people who have been graciously given Biblical repentance. The hardened sinner does not examine himself on this matter. They who are wheat as among the tares is satisfied with just looking like the wheat.

But if it is the case that we find ourselves convinced that we are too often a practitioner of natural or legal repentance and not evangelical repentance the answer is to look to Christ who receives all sinners. The answer to a lack of Biblical repentance is to look outside of ourselves to Christ who is our repentance before the Father. The prayer is that we would always be impressed with Christ for us and not with our own repentance that needs repenting over.

During this lenten season may we be a repentant people because of how the Lord Christ has, in His cross work set us free.

Acts 2:42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

I Cor. 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

In these passages we see the controlling dynamic of worship. In that early Church we read of how the Church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.” That phrase reminds us that the Word preached was central to worship. The Apostle reinforces that in I Cor. Where he writes about his assignment to preach the Gospel. In the Acts passage the other central dynamic of worship is contained in the phrase “breaking of bread,” which many scholars believe is a reference to communion.

The two of these together – The Word preached & the Sacraments administered have long been considered and called, among the Reformed as the “Means of grace.” So, as Reformed folks we affirm the fact that there exist two (some say three) means of Grace. These are Word and Sacrament, with some also insisting that prayer is a means of grace. By the phrase “means of grace” what we mean is that we hold to the conviction that God convinces us of His favor, and grows us in the faith (sanctification) by way of His gathering us to attend on the Word preached and the sacraments received. We also recognize that there is only one place where these means of God’s grace are to be found and that is in God’s church. Hungry Christians — Christians who desire to be showered with grace therefore gather on the Lord’s Day where the Word is proclaimed by those set aside and ordained to the end of being God’s spokesman to speak grace and administer the sacraments and to pray.

Thus far we have only said what our Heidelberg Catechism teaches in LD 38. We are taught:

That, especially on the day of rest,
I diligently attend the church of God2
to hear God’s Word,3
to use the sacraments,4
to call publicly upon the LORD,5
and to give Christian offerings for the poor.6

I submit to you that one reason that the importance of attending Worship is that we are no longer convinced that it is in Christian Worship alone where we find God’s favor conveyed to us in a unique and promised way in the Word preached and the sacrament administered.

So, as we have said one reality that we find as we gather week by week is the means of grace — that is the Word proclaimed. In older language it was the goal of the minister to “preach Christ into his people.” This was the passion of the clergy. To help God’s people by putting Christ on display. To provide to God’s people solace, encouragement, and steel via the preaching of the Word. To not let them leave without reminding them of God’s favor in Christ and God’s standard established by Christ. To bless them with God’s blessing so they might be better able to navigate the rough waters of life.

Alas, the Word preached as fallen on hard times as we have increasingly become a people who are controlled by the image, unlike our forefathers who were word oriented. Because we have been mesmerized by moving images coming at us with rapidity we seldom have the patience to follow the careful argumentation that used to be characteristic of the pulpit — a careful argumentation that required the listener to follow points, sub-points, and sub sub points of a sermon that resulted in a thorough understanding of subjects preached on. In such a way the means of grace that was the Word proclaimed formed and shaped generations. The Word proclaimed … this preaching Christ into God’s people resulted in the health of individuals, families, churches, and social orders. This preaching Christ into God’s people yielded the byproduct of wholeness and holiness into a culture. Christian cultures started with the Preaching of God’s Word. A people convinced of God’s favor were set free to live to the glory of God in all their living and it all started with the means of grace God appointed for worship.

Today our preaching, exceptions notwithstanding, is more image oriented than it is word oriented. More sensational, and so more shallow and considerably briefer — attention spans being what they are.

The result of all this is a Christian who is malnourished and comparatively stunted in growth compared to previous generations.

Yet here we are and the cure for this decline is the Means of grace. The cure is the Word rightly proclaimed and the sacraments properly administered as taught in Acts 2 and elsewhere through Scripture.

We have emphasized thus far the Word preached but the Sacraments administered were also the means of grace. The Fathers here used to say that in the Sacraments we don’t get a better Christ but we may well get Christ better. Preachers fail… stumble in preaching the word … but in the Table and the Font there Christ is revealed in such a way that is more difficult for the preacher to confound. When we come to the table we are reminded that Christ is our sufficiency… that Christ is our answer to God’s previous just wrath that justly was upon us. When we come to the table we are remind that God is for us for the sake of our benevolent champion Elder Brother, Jesus Christ. How can we not find ourselves lost in wonder, love, and praise when we are reminded both in Baptism and the Eucharist that despite the truth we see about ourselves – sinners that we are – still we are received in the beloved Christ and being received we don’t have to be burdened with the silly attempt to work off our sins by some kind of penance system dictated to us by a tyrant church?

Historically, when the Reformed church talked and wrote about Word and Sacrament – the means of Grace – and the relationship between the two our theologians would teach us that the Sacrament, being a symbol, depended upon the Word for explanation. So, the Word preached was given pride of place because in order to understand what the drama of the Sacraments were teaching we needed the Word to provide the context of the drama that is the Sacraments.

So, historically, the Reformed adjudicated that the proclamation of the Word to be absolutely essential to Worship, while the administration of the Sacraments was reflexively essential. The Word that is the whole counsel of God from justification to sanctification can stand alone, while the Sacraments lean upon the Word and their meaning from it. Our Father’s styled the Eucharist as; as “visible sermon.”

So, both Word and Sacrament are together means of grace.

That brings us to the issue of frequency of the Eucharist. Clearly, if the Word Preached is absolutely essential then you’d expect that you would need to hear it preached every time God gathers us for worship. However, if the Sacraments are only reflexively essential than the argument might be made that they are not necessary week in and out. And this is the way that some argue, and while we might not insist that the frequency of the table is not a hill to die on, we still have some observations here.

First, we would say that if one is convinced that the Sacraments rightly administered is a Means of Grace then why would one not want to have the opportunity to avail themselves of that Means of Grace God has set aside in order to shower His people with His blessings of favor? Why would we with neglect a frequent pursuit of the Eucharist where God promises to meet with His people.

We have to understand that when we come to the table that what we do here is not first and foremost our performative act. When we come to the Table we understand that before it is about our faith act in reception it is about what God is doing. As in the Word preached where God is the one speaking so in the Sacraments God is the one feeding us with life eternal. If it was only about our doing … our remembrance then perhaps attending the Lord’s table once quarterly or once a year would be acceptable. However, keep in mind what our Catechism teaches us about the Supper. We are taught that the effect of the Eucharist is;

to be united more and more to his sacred body through the Holy Spirit, who lives both in Christ and in us.2

The HC cites John 6 here,

55 For My flesh is [a]food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.

This passage indicates that the Catechists saw that the Eucharist as more than a mere memorial and teaches the Calvin doctrine of receptionism. This understanding of the Sacrament taught that the bread and wine do not change physically, thus distinguishing it from a RC or Lutheran understanding. However, at the same time we confess that in the bread and wine Christ is spiritually present so that when we eat in faith as given to us by the Holy Spirit’s power we to partake in the body and blood of Christ. The emphasis is that the body of Christ is spiritually present to the believer during the Eucharist. This understanding distinguished the Eucharist from a Zwinglian (Baptist) bare memorial understanding as if all that happens in the table is between our ears. In this understanding the Eucharist is a visible sign that is more than a sign since the sign has the reality in the sign.

All of this begins to explain why the Heidelberg Catechism continues on in LD 28;

So… to enlarge on what we said a few minutes ago, we quote from Scottish Reformer Robert Bruce;

Therefore I say, we get no other thing in the Sacrament than we get in the Word. Content yourself with this. But if this is so, the Sacrament is not superfluous.

Robert Bruce
The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper

So, we have wandered somewhat from where this section started. We started with the issue of frequency of the Table, and where we have traveled in the last few minutes I trust you’ll see why some would choose, like John Knox did do, to want the Table whenever the Word was preached. Calvin himself, though he didn’t exactly get his wish in Geneva, desired to have the table in every worship service.

Now, let us round off by considering a possible objection that is commonly heard when increasing the frequency of taking the table. Often the objection is this;

“If you have the table too often it will become common… routine, and cease to be special or precious.”

Well, first we would say here that if this line of reasoning was true we would think the same thing about commonly and routinely coming for worship. We might well say the same of the Sermon. If we took this logic into marriage husbands might reason …”Well, I don’t want to kiss my wife too often lest it becomes routine or common.”

Still, we admit that the human heart, being what it is, could well begin to treat the Eucharist as routine and common. However, if that happens might the problem not be the frequency of the sacrament but rather a frequency of undisciplined minds as well as the failure of the pulpit in the Word being proclaimed?

We want to round off by saying again, that we are not going to think ourselves superior to others who don’t take the table weekly. We understand that the Scriptures are not unmistakably clear on the issue of frequency. Good men disagree on this subject. We also might well conclude after a period of weekly communion that for whatever reason weekly communion isn’t working.

Let us though end with a passage that many have considered one which strongly points in the direction of weekly Eucharist;

Acts 20:7 – On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them intending to depart on the next day and prolonged his speech until midnight.

If the phrase “break bread” here is a reference to the Eucharist then this passage would prove the issue. However, while that phrase might well refer to the Lord’s Supper it might also refer to a common meal shared by that fellowship.

12 Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

As we continue to consider Genesis 12:1-3, what is called the Abrahamic Covenant, we want to review where we were at last week.

We said that last week there are three promises here

1.) Promise to be a Great Nation
2.) Promise of a Particular Land
3.) Promise of Blessings upon the Nations

We will later see in Genesis 15 that these promises are irrevocable. There in Gen. 15 we find a covenant cutting ceremony. Normally, in Ancient East culture when important agreements are made the parties entering into the covenant would bind their agreement by cutting beasts in half and walking together between the beasts half. This was to communicate the idea of; “May it be done unto me what has been done to these beasts should I break this agreement we have made.” However, when God makes covenant w/ Abraham God takes the penalty of covenant breaking on Himself alone as God puts Abraham to sleep and walks Himself alone through the halves of the cut beasts (Gen. 15:17). This communicates that these promises of God are dependent upon the eternal character of God alone. These promises will come to pass because God is faithful to His promises.

#1 Last week we considered that God did keep His promises to Abraham. Abraham did become a great nation. Abraham was given a particular Land. Abraham would become a blessing upon the nations. We also learned last week that this promise had a telescopic effect. God’s covenant promise to Abraham expanded further and were clarified a given more definition with covenant Promises given to Moses, given to David.

However, we also said that consistent with NT Revelation we learned that these covenant promises were only ever penultimately to Israel. We see that later these covenant promises find their ultimate and final fulfillment in Jesus Christ and His Church.

We said last week that the promise of a Great Nation was ultimately fulfilled in Christ and His Church. We looked at Galatians 3 where Paul is writing to both Jew and Gentile believers. There Paul says;

26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. … 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Elsewhere in the NT we learn consistent with the promise to Abraham that his descendants will be as the stars in the sky and the sand on the beach that there was in heaven a number so great that no man could number (Rev. 7:9). The promise to Abraham to be a Great Nation was only about Israel penultimately. Ultimately it was about Christ and the Church.

#2 Last week we talked about the Land and again said that the land promise was only penultimately about Israel. Israel did inherit a particular land but that wasn’t what the promise was about. Ultimately, the promise is about Christ and the Church inheriting the Earth. We saw from Scripture how it was always God’s plan that the nations are Christ’s inheritance (Psalm 2)

The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

Now combine this with Christ’s promise that the Meek (that is God’s people) shall inherit the earth and it is clear that the promise to Abraham about land was ultimately about Christ and the Church.

So, together we learned that all these promises to Abraham are about Jesus the Christ. He is the fulfillment … the ultimate destination of all these promises. This is said explicitly in Gal. 3:16

 16 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,” who is Christ. 

This was way by review and reinforcement. The rest of the time today we want to spend looking at the promise to Abraham 12:3 that;

3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

We have only to look at Scripture to see that curse part certainly had a penultimate fulfillment. Egypt cursed Israel and Egypt was cursed. The book of Esther likewise is a book where we see that those who cursed Israel were cursed. Likewise in the book of Daniel we see those who cursed Daniel ended up being tossed to the Lions. Likewise in the NT we see Christ promising that those who cursed Him would be judged – a promise kept with His judgment coming in AD 70.

“They will demolish you-you and the children within your walls-and they will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.” (Luke 19:44)

And their response eventually was, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” (Mt. 27:25).
So, the cursing part is clear – penultimately, those who cursed Israel were cursed. And ultimately the cursing is clear … those who cursed Jesus were cursed and continue to be cursed.

The Blessing part “I will bless those who bless you,” was a singular failure of Israel. God called Israel to be a light to the nations and instead of Israel being a light to the nations …a blessing to those who blessed them Israel did not walk as a light to the nations. Instead they became insular and insisted that they were alone special because God had chosen them.

God had conferred on Israel as a whole people the role of being a priesthood people in the midst of the nations. As the people of God, they as a whole had the historical task of bringing the knowledge of God to the nations, and so being a blessing to the nations.

“The Abrahamic task of being a blessing to the nations also put them in the role of the priests in the midst of the nations.” Christopher Wright (The Mission of God)

Israel was not a blessing to the nations because it was too busy claiming exclusivity for themselves. The one large exception to this is the book of Jonah and Jonah has to be coerced into be a blessing to the Ninevites.

But remember … God’s covenant with Abraham was irrevocable. God’s promise to bless the Nations would be fulfilled. And that promise is fulfilled through the promised Christ. Jesus is God’s blessing on the nations through Israel. Because of Christ it is true that all the nations are blessed. The global blessing promised in Gen. 12:3 comes to pass as Christ brings the Gentiles in to the new and better covenant – new and better because all that was promised as been fulfilled.

Now we need to pause here before pushing on and understand that because in blessing Christ we are blessed it is no longer the case that we are required to bless Israel. There is no blessing of God that remains on Nations if they bless Israel. And no cursings of God that remain on Nations if they curse Israel. I bring this out because, as I noted last week we are trying to go back to the old covenant shadows in saying that we have to bless Israel.

In 1967 there was an updated version of the C. I. Scofield Dispie Bible released. One of its most significant updates was a note on Genesis 12:1-4 where the Holocaust (TM) was introduced into the notes. The new note clarified that God’s promise to Abraham- “I will curse those who curse you” – it read as such;

“A warning literally fulfilled in the history of Israel’s persecutions. It has invariably literally fulfilled in the history of Israel’s persecutions. It has invariably fared ill with the people who have persecuted the Bagel – well with those who have protected him. For a people who commit the sin of Antisemitism brings inevitable judgment.”

Mega church pastor Rev. John Hagee, on this point, as gone so far as to blame American decline on our insufficient support for Israel and he uses this Gen. 12 passage to sustain his claim. America is declining because we haven’t blessed Israel enough.

Also, this brushed up against the Judeo-Christianity issue. We only have that hyphenated monster because we think that somehow pagan Israel and its religion has to be married to the Christian faith. Hardly a more abominable phrase exists than this one that is born of the need to bless current Israel.

Pivoting, we remember the passages teaches that God will bless those who bless Christ and so
we might well ask, how can we bless Christ today that we might continue to be blessed and the answer to that is found in walking in obedience out of gratitude for being included in the covenant. If we want the continued blessings of Christ we become champions for His cause… and we seek to find the blessing of God in being persecuted for His name’s sake. We understand that with God as our Father all things come in to our lives, by the Father’s hand as a blessing of God who loves us for the sake of Jesus Christ.

On this issue of the intent of God to bless the nations we find it everywhere spoken of in the NT. The message of the NT is that which was once mystery is now made known… and that mystery now exposed is that God intends to call all the nations into the Abrahamic covenant fulfilled in Christ.

As the resurrected King the last words Jesus gives His disciples

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Mt. 28:19) The Church is now God’s means to bless the nations.

The Book of Acts is the story of God blessing the nations. Paul’s Missionary journeys and intent at the end of his life to go to Spain bespeaks God’s ongoing intent to bless the nations.

The Apostle Paul, in Romans 15:9-12 , cites several Old Testament passages to affirm that the Gentiles’ acknowledgment of God was always part of the divine plan: “Therefore I will praise You among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to Your name.” Paul sees his mission to the Gentiles as a fulfillment of these ancient promises to Abraham.

The book of Revelation teaches that God’s intent to bless the nations through the SEED of Abraham comes to full expression. Over the centuries Christ collects His Church so that in Revelation 7 we see the fulfillment of Isaiah 2. In Isaiah 2 it is promised that the nations will stream to the mountain of the Lord

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow to it.
3 Many people shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And in Revelation 7 we see that streaming taking place

“After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'”

And then in Rev. 21 and 22 we see the Nations flowing in to the new Jerusalem. We read that
24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

Now remember what we said at the beginning. The promises of God are irrevocable and inevitable. God promised to make a great Nation out of Abraham and when we get to the end of the singular Bible Narrative we see that God made a great Nation out of the one to whom the promise was ultimately given … to Christ. God has kept His promise that Abraham’s seed was as the stars of the sky and the sand on the sea shore. We are Abraham’s inheritance, not some retro-fitted Israel.

And we have been caught up in this kept promise. God, who is rich in mercy made a promise to Abraham that was fulfilled in Christ and the Church. It is believers in Christ who are true children of Abraham (Romans 4:16-17), and not physical Israel. As Zechariah noted in his prophecy of the coming of Christ “God hath remembered His promise to Abraham” thus showing the continuity of the one promise from Abraham to Christ and then from Christ to His people.

Look … it is why we teach the children to sing.. “Father Abraham had many sons… many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So lets all praise the Lord.” The seed of Abraham is Christ and His Church and no other seed counts in terms of God’s covenant promises.

Now, what does this teach us about our God

1.) God is faithful to His promises. He did not forget His promises to Abraham and He will not forget His promises to us.

2.) God was so faithful to His promise that He who was very God of very God took upon Himself the covenant curses of Gen. 15 in our place for our failures in keeping covenant. The covenant was cut. God alone passed through the covenant parts. God takes the promised punishment for the covenant not being kept. Just as He walked through the covenant pieces Himself so He bore the penalty of our breaking of the covenant and that on the Cross. God makes promises alone and God keeps promises alone. We are the beneficiaries of God’s incredible covenant keeping character.

3.) This in turn drives in us the ability to trust God…. to trust Him when it is beyond our capacity to trust. God will be true to His promises to be with us always … He will be true to His promises to never leave us or forsake us … He is true to His promises to ever live to intercede for us at the right hand of the father … He is true to His promises to bless us and our generations. And God will be true at the time when we must trust Him the most … the time of our death. God can be trusted. God’s nature is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

4.) All of this teaches us that that the foundation of our trust is Redemption by Faith.

Romans 4:3 notes that Abram

“believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

This teaches us again that believers receive the promise of Abraham as fulfilled in Christ through faith alone in the God-Man alone. We enter into the covenant by being covered in the imputed righteousness of Christ alone as Christ alone is the one who kept the requirements of God’s covenantal law and who paid the covenantal penalty for our breaking of the covenantal law. We are in covenant with God because we are in Christ our covenant keeper.

But not only are we blessed we continue to be a blessing. As parents we seek to be a blessing to our seed that they too may be sons of Abraham. As Christ’s people we seek to be a blessing to those who don’t know Christ or know Him in a strange way by being Heralds and champions of His cause. To our enemies we seek to be a blessing by praying that God would open their eyes to God’s wrath that they might flee to Christ alone for safety and redemption.

This irrevocable blessing of God continues today through Christ as Christ continues to build His church so that when He returns He finds that the nations of the world have become the nations of God and His Christ.

12 Now the Lord had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

As we consider this passage this morning we want to note that this passage is one of the peaks of the Old Covenant. Here in chapter 12 there is a turning to a new theme from what has gone on previously. In the past few weeks you have been with me as I have tried to teach the children that the Bible can be read in terms of macro themes as Creation, Fall, Redemption and Glorification. In Gen. 12, the acorn promise of Redemption in Gen. 3:15 begins to be fleshed out. There in Gen. 3:15 we learned that the seed of the woman, being wounded by the Serpent, would eventually crush the head of the serpent.

After that glimmer of hope though the first 11 chapters of Genesis for the most part, following the Creation account and the Fall brings to light the horrid consequences of the fall and sin. However, when we arrive at Gen. 12 w/ God’s promises to Abram there is a turn to a focus on what Redemption, blessing and reconciliation w/ God will look like. At Gen. 12 there is growth in the acorn of redemption that was first stated in Gen. 3:15. We learn here that God intends to bless His people through the progeny descending from Abraham. We learn that Redemption and reconciliation and blessing is going to be related to the offspring of Abraham.

So, as we launch into this we would say that this call of Abram here, rightly interpreted per the witness of Scripture, is a sneak preview for the unfolding of Redemption. Here we find the beginning of the story of how God intends to bring salvation to all the tribes and nations of the earth through God’s keeping of these promises to Abram. The parameters of this promise to Abraham will be further expanded with subsequent covenants with Moses, and David but those subsequent covenants are always rooted in these promises to Abraham and God’s promise to raise up a Redeemer to crush the serpent’s head. All of these promises are then fulfilled with the coming of Jesus Christ to whom they all ultimately refer.

The elements of Abraham’s call are reaffirmed to Abraham (12:7; 15:5–21; 17:4–8; 18:18–19; 22:17–18), to Isaac (26:24), to Jacob (28:13–15; 35:11–12; 46:3), to Judah (49:8–12), to Moses (Exod. 3:6–8; Deut. 34:4), and to the ten tribes of Israel (Deut 33). They are reaffirmed by Joseph (Gen. 50:24), by Peter to the Jews (Acts 3:25), and by Paul to the Gentiles (Gal. 3:8).

In this promise to Abram we find four promises that we will look at briefly. We will consider how God kept His promises penultimately … and then how those promises were ultimately focused on Christ and how they are kept in Christ. Then we will seek to spend a little bit of time noting how badly this Scripture has been mauled by modern Evangelicals.

Very well then … in this promise of Redemption we see four promises. As we go into this remember the context. Gen. 11 is the tower of Babel where men are seeking to make a name for themselves Independent of God. In Gen. 12:2 God promises to make Abram’s name great as a means of making God’s own name great. As a macro consideration this is the great anti-thesis we find in Scripture. Fallen men apart from God are forever seeking to make their name great while God’s people are blessed with a great name as they pursue the greatness of God’s name.

As we get into the text we see here that God makes four promises. God promises to

1.) Bless Abram Himself
2.) To give Abram a Land 12:1 made explicit in vs. 7

7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your seed I will give this land.”

3.) To give Abram offspring – 12:2 (I will make you a great nation)
4.) Bless nations through Abram 12:3 (In you all the nations of the world will be blessed.)

As we said a few seconds ago, these promises are reiterated to Abraham’s descendants in the Pentateuch.

Now as we consider the fulfillment of these penultimately we note that

1.) God did indeed bless Abram. The man was given a son in old age who in turn had two sons who in turn had many many sons. Abram was the head of a large household and was considerably wealthy. God did make the name of Abram great via the triumph of his later Son King David. Abram died in peace seeing God’s blessing upon him.

2.) As to the land promise Abram was given the land of Canaan. In vs. 7 we see Abram in Canaan building an Altar

And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. (7)

The building of altars is not insignificant. That altar was a means of claiming the land. It was the equivalent of an explorer planting his nation’s flag on newly discovered soil and claiming it for one’s people. In the building of that Alter Abram was claiming the land as his.

3.) Abram promised offspring was emphasized in Gen. 15, a few chapters later;

And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

And of course as we read the record of the old covenant we do see that Abraham’s seed was prolific. God kept his promise.

4.) Now as to the promise to be a blessing to all the families of the earth, well, that comes to pass but only eventually.

Now, keep in mind that we said at the outset that there were two fulfillments here. There is a penultimate fulfillment that we have just considered but there is also a ultimate fulfillment that we are about to consider. But before we consider the ultimate fulfillment let us say here we live in a time and have for some decades now where many if not most Christians consider the penultimate fulfillment as the ultimate fulfillment. They misread the text in Gen. 12 errantly because they have been convinced that Gen. 12 does not have an ultimate fulfillment that makes the previous penultimate fulfillment obsolete.

In this regard much of the church in America reminds us of the problem that the writer to the book of the Hebrews was dealing with. There in the book of Hebrews the writer is dealing w/ people who want to go back to the old covenant, leaving Christ who was the fulfillment of the old covenant. Over and over again the writer to the Hebrews reminds them that Christ has fulfilled the Old covenant and so provided a new and better covenant.

The fact that people want to live in terms of the old covenant is seen in our time by the fact that people want to see Israel – The descendants of Abraham – as still being the nation that we Gentiles are required to bless. People want to understand Genesis 12 as if it is still operative in its old covenant penultimate sense.

This errant reading of Gen. 12 was put on display recently when being interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Sen. Ted Cruz said, seeking to clarify his reasoning for his support of Israel;

“The reason for supporting Israel is twofold. No. 1, as a Christian, growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, ‘Those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.’ And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things…  “So that’s in the Bible. As a Christian I believe that.”

This kind of errant understanding is prolific among the Church today. Indeed, I would hazard to say it is the majority reading of Scripture today. But this reading of Scripture like this was never done in all of Church history until the rise of a heretical teaching beginning in the mid 1800s or so that went by the name “Dispensationalism.”

To see how the errant reading of Scripture has taken hold take an informal poll among your own Christian friends. Ask them if, according to Scripture, it is important to support modern Israel. Don’t argue with them. Just listen to their answer and then change the subject on to something else.

We are contending here that Genesis 12 has now to be understood in light of its ultimate meaning and to read it according to its penultimate meaning is to go back to the shadows of the old covenant. The great witness of Scripture and of most of the Church through the centuries until the mid to late 1800s is that these temporal fulfillments found in the OT expansion of Israel were not the ultimate teleos or end or goal of the promise in Gen. 12. In other words, as we are going to learn, the ultimate goal of the promises of Gen. 12 was not the rise of the nation State of Israel, or the continuation of the nation State Israel. The ultimate teleos or end or goal of Genesis 12, as we are going to see from Scripture was the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and by extension the building up of His church.

As we turn to the new covenant so as to rightly interpret the old covenant we see that these promises in Genesis 12 were always located in Christ and by extension His Church.

As we turn to the NT we see that the promise to Abram to have a land we find in Gen. 12 was never ultimately about Canaan but pointed to something more that is provided in Christ. As we consider the land promise we are reminded that the land promise indicated that God was not going to abandon his plan to establish His concrete Kingdom on earth. God had a land in Eden that was violated and so the land was given up when our first parents fell. God had a land in Canaan but with the disobedience of Israel God vomited them out of the land.

Paul tells us in Romans that this land promise is still in play;

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world was not given through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. Romans 4:13

God still has a Kingdom though and that Kingdom and the land of that Kingdom is answered in Christ who says, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” The earth is now God’s Kingdom. Yes, there remain rebels in His Kingdom but God’s people shall inherit the land in due time. We find this articulated subtly again in Ephesians 6 where the promise from the 10 commandments that honoring Father and Mother will mean living long in the King’s land that He is giving them is now applied to New Covenant children in the context of obeying their parents. The promise of land is now unto the meek who shall inherit the earth. The earth is God’s land and God’s people as the King’s subjects are promised to inherit the earth. So the promise to Abraham is not limited to Old Covenant terms. The middle East is not a land that belongs to Jews by divine right. The Jews violated that covenant and God via the Romans Vespasian and Titus cast them out of the land. The middle East and the whole earth belongs to God’s people… To Christians. The promised land to Abraham finds its ultimate fulfillment in God’s people inheriting the earth under the authority of King Jesus.

To read the promise to Abraham that the modern Jews, if you can genetically find any, still have a divine right to the land, per Gen. 12, is to warp the meaning of Scripture. It is to set Scripture on its head so that the New and better covenant no longer exists.

So, that is the land promise. We have the promise that we shall inherit the earth, and we know that in glorification we will move on to that eternal city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:10).

II.) Seed

We move on to the next promise that was penultimately fulfilled for Abram but which always had a grander fulfillment in view. That promise is the promise of offspring. God tells Abram that He is going to make of him a great nation.

In Genesis 22:18, after Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac, God reaffirms His promise of future seed;

“And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:18)

The penultimate fulfillment of God keeping His promise is seen in the growth of the Hebrew people. Abraham has one son… that one son (Isaac) has two sons (Jacob & Esau) and Jacob has 12 sons and eventually the Hebrews become so many that the Egyptians are worried about the Hebrews would become too powerful and become an internal threat to them resulting in Pharaoh enslaving them and they continue to grow as a people from their forward.

However, that is not the ultimate fulfillment of the promise to Abraham that he will be made into a great nation. The ultimate fulfillment of this promise to Abraham of having a seed we are later taught by Scripture is the Lord Jesus Christ;

“The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, ‘and to seeds,’ meaning many, but ‘and to your seed,’ meaning One, who is Christ.” (Galatians 3:16)

The ultimate fulfillment then of this Gen. 12 promise to Abraham of future seed is Jesus Christ and His people with Him, which we learn a few vs. earlier in Galatians;

7 Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.” 9 So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.

29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Now what impact does this have on us in 2025. Well, if Christ and His people are the ultimate fulfillment of the promised seed to Abraham then by necessity that means Jews who still embrace their false religion should be in no way referred to as “the chosen people.” Talmudic Jews or secular Jews are not God’s chosen people any more or any less than unbelieving people group. In point of fact it really is blasphemy to own a theology which speaks of unbelieving Jews as if they remain God’s chosen people. God’s chosen people …. His seed … are those who are of faith who are blessed with believing Abraham. This is so true that we can rightly say today that God’s promise to Abraham to make a great nation finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Church where God draws people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to create a redeemed nation of nations.

The Scripture thus requires us to abominate any theology that teaches that God loves Talmudists or secular Bagels any more or less than He loves Hindus, Mooselimbs, or Satanists. The Scripture thus requires us to abominate any theology that teaches that God loves ethnic Bagels (if you can find any) any more or less than He loves ethnic Mongolians, Intuits, Venezuelans, or Hutus. It is Christ and His people whom are God’s chosen. It is Jesus Christ and His Church that are beloved of God.

We dishonor Christ when we own a theology that prioritizes Bagels simply because they are Bagels (if indeed they genetically are).

If the Church is ever to return to health it must give up this line of thinking that somehow it is incumbent upon us to bless those who hate Christ.

The mind of Christ will plead with all men – unbelieving Bagels or Gentiles — Han Chinese or Ethnic Bagels, to understand their peril before a Just God and to repent before it is too late. This is the greatest love can give to unbelieving Jews. This is the greatest blessing I can bless upon Jews.

Conclusion

Promise and fulfillment.

The Old Covenant is a book of promises that will often find penultimate fulfillments that await ultimate fulfillments that reveal Jesus the Christ and His Church. Once that ultimate fulfillment has come the penultimate fulfillment slips away.

Now, however, this once standard way of reading the Scripture – a way of reading the Scripture that is required by the Scriptures – is now derisively labeled by some as “replacement theology,” where the accusation is that we who read the Scriptures, Scripturally on this subject are guilty of the crime of replacing God’s intention towards nation-state Israel with God’s intention towards Jesus Christ and His Church.

The irony here is that those who accuse Biblical Christians of replacement theology are the ones guilty of what they accuse us of doing. Those who bring this charge against us are guilty of replacing the substance of the covenant Promise (Christ and His Church) with the shadows. They are replacing the ultimate with the proximate.