Imperishable Inheritance

It amazes me how Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism con­tin­ues to be such a wide­spread evan­gel­i­cal force despite the fact that the same error that is made by Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists today were made and repu­di­ated by the Apos­tles! In fact I dare say that we see in Acts and into the epis­tles the Apos­tles chang­ing from Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists to Covenant The­olo­gians! I under­stand that is an osten­ta­tious claim so pro­vide me the oppor­tu­nity to substantiate.

Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists tra­di­tion­ally believe that God’s main plan in his­tory revolves around Israel as descen­dants of Jacob in con­trast to the redeemed post rev­e­la­tion of the Mes­siah (the “Church”). Covenant The­olo­gians typ­i­cally see God’s main work­ing in his­tory to revolve around His elect of all ages at what­ever stage of redemp­tion. God’s main pro­vi­sion of redemp­tion is spir­i­tual and not earthly in Covenant The­ol­ogy. That is why the phys­i­cal Exodus is a typ­i­fi­ca­tion of the one who would free us from the ulti­mate, spir­i­tual Exodus (Mat 2:15). I believe that some flavor of Covenant The­ol­ogy, with its empha­sis on God’s pri­or­ity of redeem­ing His elect, has many advan­tages over any flavor of Dispensationalism.

The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel

It is impor­tant to note that Jesus did come to first serve the ethnic Jews as they were the recip­i­ents of the covenants, promises, etc. (Rom 9:1-5, 15:8). In the first com­mis­sion­ing of the dis­ci­ples He sends them to the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Mat 10:5-6). He also talks to the Syrophoeni­cian woman equat­ing the Gen­tiles to ‘dogs’ (Mat 15:21-28), but all of this was to confer promises made to Old Tes­ta­ment Israel. Paul and Barn­abas boldly pro­claim that, “It was nec­es­sary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repu­di­ate it and judge your­selves unwor­thy of eter­nal life, behold, we are turn­ing to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46).

I agree that the Jews did reject the king­dom Christ offered and He then went to Gen­tiles, but I dis­agree (as Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism teaches) that Christ offered an earthly king­dom and as a result of their dis­obe­di­ence He went to Gen­tiles as a “punishment” in a par­en­thet­i­cal fash­ion. I also dis­agree, as taught in Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism, that this time of “parenthetical salvation” will be lifted in the mil­len­nium were Jesus will actu­ally set up the earthly king­dom they rejected. Christ offered a spir­i­tual king­dom, rejected by most Jews, but was accepted by some Jews and many Gen­tiles (Abraham’s spir­i­tual seed/the elect). There will be no re-​establishment of an earthly king­dom in the mil­len­nium, because the king­dom offered and deliv­ered was spir­i­tual and not phys­i­cal which is elab­o­rated on exten­sively in the book of Hebrews. Jesus even pro­claims that the temple will be destroyed as a result of their fail­ure to rec­og­nize Him as the Mes­siah (Mark 13:12) destroy­ing the thought that the Mes­siah would ever restore the temple; Jesus Him­self was the true Temple (John 1:14), and in His absence the Spirit of God makes us the hous­ing place of God’s pres­ence (1 Cor 3:16; Eph 2:22). In para­bles such as the wed­ding feast (Mat 22:2-14) and the para­ble of the vine­yard (Mat 21:33-44) Jesus teaches about how a dis­obe­di­ent people who reject the Mes­siah will for­feit promised bless­ings which are then given to New Covenant believers.

It should be noted that the teach­ing that God will remain faith­ful to ethnic Israel could be deduced from Romans 11 by seeing a mass-​scale con­ver­sion near the end of the age, but I think it is more accu­rate to look at Romans 11 through the lens of remem­ber­ing that God will con­tinue to save any rem­nant left through­out his­tory (Rom 11:26). I cer­tainly can’t read Romans 11:25-26 into the mil­len­nium (I don’t believe it will be a lit­eral mil­len­nium anyway).

From Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists to Covenant Theologians

The view of God’s spe­cial favor towards ethnic Israel is what per­vaded the Jews of Jesus times, and His own dis­ci­ples were vic­tims of this ide­ol­ogy. It’s not some­thing we can blame them for though. If we as well had only the Old Tes­ta­ment writ­ings then there is surely a sub­stan­tia­tive reason to believe that the role of the Mes­siah would be a con­quer­ing one that would free of Roman oppres­sion and restore Israel to full pos­ses­sion of the land of Canaan. Although, we can look back at the Old Tes­ta­ment Scrip­tures through the New Tes­ta­ment lens and this allows us to avoid some of the same the­o­log­i­cal mis­takes the Apos­tles made early on (and we also employ the redemptive-​historical hermeneu­tic in this prac­tice). This is why the people of Jesus time wanted to make Jesus a lit­eral king (Joh 6:15), but Jesus tells Pilate (who heard of this pre­vail­ing the­ol­ogy) that His king­dom was not of this world or else His fol­low­ers wouldn’t have handed Him over to be cru­ci­fied (Joh 18:36). The king­dom of God inau­gu­rated but not com­pleted was not an idea easily under­stood by the Apos­tles early on dubbed a “mystery” (Rom 11:25; Eph 1:9; Col 1:26-27). We can lit­er­ally see the devel­op­ment of their under­stand­ing in the New Tes­ta­ment. Even through all the teach­ings and object lessons His Apos­tles still ask Him before His ascen­sion: ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restor­ing the king­dom to Israel?’ (Acts 1:6); Jesus gives a stern answer that it is not some­thing that they are to be wor­ried about but that their role was to be mis­si­o­log­i­cal to the remotest parts of the earth (Acts 1:7-8).

Acts pro­vides us a lens to see how the under­stand­ing of the Apos­tles begins to change. At Pen­te­cost, Peter declares that Jesus was the promised Davidic King cur­rently reign­ing over His King­dom (Acts 2:25-31). Peter then encoun­ters Cor­nelius, a Gen­tile, and Peter and the rest of the Jews in Jerusalem were amazed that a Gen­tile had received the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 11:17-18). Paul, the Jew of Jew, Torah Defender, and Chris­t­ian per­se­cu­tor was con­verted for the sole pur­pose of going to the Gen­tiles (Acts 9:15). Paul in effect becomes a link in the teach­ings of the Old Tes­ta­ment to the teach­ing of the New which he him­self gives.

The Impor­tance of Pauline Theology

While Paul gives the great­est sys­tem­atic treat­ment of the rela­tion of Jews and Gen­tiles under the New Covenant, other Apos­tles con­tribute as well. Most pro­foundly is Peter’s claim that the New Covenant age, in replace­ment fash­ion, have become God’s “chosen race,” “holy priesthood,” “holy nation,” and “possession” (1 Pet 2:9) which was promised to the Israelites if they kept the Mosaic Covenant (Exo 19:6). John also pro­claims that the Mes­siah came to save the whole world and not just the sins of the Jews (1 Joh 2:2). But the most impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions are pro­vided by Paul.

Paul was the first to “get it” in terms of the fact that God’s covenant of promise to Abra­ham was now being extended to Gen­tiles; most likely, a lot of his train­ing and under­stand­ing came from his time at Anti­och which was the first real place that Jews and Gen­tiles con­vened together (Acts 11:26). This Paul would be the one would rebuke sev­eral apos­tles for sep­a­rat­ing them­selves from Gen­tiles and falling into hypocrisy (Gal 2). Clearly Paul’s part in God’s plan of rev­e­la­tion is of much impor­tance for us to under­stand the unity and rela­tion of the Bible. One of the great­est ques­tions on Paul’s mind was answer­ing: “Can a Gen­tile be in covenant with God and not be a Jew guided by the Mosaic Law?”

Paul boldly pro­claims that there is “neither Jew nor Greek…for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28) thereby forc­ing his read­ers to rec­og­nize that in the Mes­siah we no longer have an ethnic alle­giance but only an alle­giance to Christ. Christ came and tore down the divid­ing wall, which was the Mosaic Covenant, between Jew and Gen­tile (Eph 2:11-22). Jew and Gen­tile alike, in Christ, are heirs to the Abra­hamic Promise (Gal 3:29) and in Christ we are a member of the new Israel (Eph 2:13; Gal 6:16).

Paul deals with those who were boast­ing in their cir­cum­ci­sion by stat­ing in sev­eral places that cir­cum­ci­sion avails to noth­ing, because right­eous­ness has always come only through faith (Rom 4:1-13) and never through the Law (Rom 10:3-5; Gal 3:21). He equates being a “true Jew” with a cir­cum­ci­sion of the heart or regen­er­a­tion (Rom 2:23-29; Deut 30:6), and those in Christ are the “true circumcision” (Phi 3:3).

The Dichotomy of Old/New Covenant

In 2 Cor 3, Heb 8, and Gal 4 there are two covenants con­trasted. Under­stand­ing the use of these two covenants and how the writ­ers of the New Tes­ta­ment viewed the Mosaic econ­omy. Paul said that the Mosaic econ­omy was a “ministry of death” (2 Cor 3:7), and that min­istry has been replaced by a better ministry/covenant (2 Cor 3:14). As men­tioned, Paul in Gala­tians 3 talks about how the Mosaic econ­omy was only meant to lead us to Christ, but now that He is revealed the “tutor” has passed (3:24-26). Paul gives an alle­gor­i­cal mean­ing to the covenants as applied to Abraham’s wives Sarah and Hagar. Hagar stood for the Mosaic Covenant which was not the source of the promise but only bondage (Gal 4:24). To revert back to the Mosaic econ­omy is ludi­crous in the teach­ings and writ­ings of Paul!

The mes­sage of the New over the Old Covenant is rid­dled through­out Hebrews. The author applies the promised New Covenant of Jer 31:31-34 to the cur­rent age (Heb 8:6-12), and he fin­ishes the expo­si­tion with: “When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obso­lete. But what­ever is becom­ing obso­lete and grow­ing old is ready to disappear” (Heb 8:13). Jesus is the medi­a­tor for this newer, better covenant (Heb 9:15, 12:24).

The Promises to Abra­ham Ful­filled and the Heav­enly Zion

It becomes appar­ent that God views His covenant faith­ful­ness tied to the Abra­hamic Covenant and not the Mosaic, because the Abra­hamic was uncon­di­tional while the Mosaic did not have the same status. This is true, because Israel broke the Mosaic Covenant (Jer 31:32). The promise to Abra­ham, which is defined by Abraham’s spir­i­tual seed and a seed in which all the nations will be blessed (Gen 22:18; Gal 3:16) becomes the focus of God’s work in redemp­tive his­tory and not a dis­tinc­tion based on ethnic iden­tity. The inclu­sion of Gen­tiles into covenant with God was never a “plan b” or par­en­thet­i­cal work­ing in God’s redemp­tive plan, because He knew He would jus­tify Gen­tiles when He rat­i­fied the Abra­hamic Covenant (Gal 3:8-9). One of the rea­sons Christ came is so that Gen­tiles can be included in the Abra­hamic Covenant (Gal 3:13-14).

In Romans 9-11, he is deal­ing with the fact that those who the promises were made to are reject­ing their very promised Mes­siah. Paul pro­claims boldly that descend­ing from Jacob has no guar­an­tee when he says that “not all Israel descended from Israel” (Rom 9:6). He cites Isaac as being the source of promise and spir­i­tual bless­ing even though he had a brother whose father was also Abra­ham (9:7). Descen­dance accord­ing to flesh is of no value because “the chil­dren of the promise are regarded as descendants” (9:8). He also talks about how God shows His mercy on both Jew and Gen­tile thereby jus­ti­fy­ing His work in elec­tion as uncon­di­tional (Rom 9:22-24). But God does show His covenant faith­ful­ness to the rem­nant prov­ing that God did indeed save some that descended from Jacob (Rom 9:27, 11:1, 26).

This great nation promised to Abra­ham finds its ful­fill­ment in the escha­ton which is the heav­enly Jerusalem (Rev 21:2), and the heav­enly Jerusalem is the one that the great prophets of old were look­ing for­ward to (Heb 11:13-16). At this time every tribe, tongue, and lan­guage is around the throne of the lamb (Rev 5:9, 7:9) which is the Church Uni­ver­sal. This is why we as Chris­tians must take seri­ously God’s desire to have some­one from every people group wor­ship­ping the lamb and send our­selves to those who have no access of the good news (Hab 2:14; Mal 1:11; Mat 24:14, 28:19; Rom 15:20).

Con­clu­sion

We, as Chris­tians today, need to be swift to avoid the same the­o­log­i­cal errors that took so long to repu­di­ate in the early his­tory of the New Covenant age. We must take strong stances against Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism and its sister the­ol­ogy and polit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy Chris­t­ian Zion­ism. We must “desire a better coun­try, that is, a heav­enly one” (Heb 11:16) where the worthy Lamb makes all things new (Rev 21:5).