NoCovButGrace

[0:00] Alright, we are going to continue just a little bit with what we have been following, this theme about no covenant but grace, and that is a difficult concept for a number of people to buy into.

[0:18] I know it was for me when I first heard about it, because I think we kind of automatically assume that there are two testaments or two covenants in the Bible. One is principally for the Jew and the other is for the Christian.

[0:31] One we call the Old Testament, the other we call the New, but it isn't nearly as simple as that. And once we understand and really get a handle on this tremendous dichotomy that is found throughout Scripture, the dichotomy between the Jew and the Gentile, this is the way that Scripture generally breaks down everything.

[0:53] Well, there is one exception to that. And Paul referred to that, I think, in 1 Corinthians, I'm not sure what chapter it is, but it's verse 31, whatever the chapter is.

[1:06] He said, giving none offense to the Jew, to the Gentile, or to the Church of God. So there are three different kind of categories. One is the Jew, that is a direct descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who comprise two-tenths of one percent of the world's population, which is a very, very tiny amount.

[1:26] And then there is the Gentile, which is everybody else. And then there is the Church of God, which is comprised of believing Jews and believing Gentiles.

[1:37] That's the third category. And the Scriptures recognize these. So what we have been trying to do is demonstrate that for this present day, we are not living in what is referred to as New Testament times.

[1:54] Because the Old Testament, we have already seen completed, when Christ died on that cross, He put an end to the law and to the Old Testament, and He provided the basis, He laid the foundation for the establishment of the new.

[2:11] But the new covenant, which is very specifically promised, Jeremiah 31, 31, to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, that will be a new covenant.

[2:26] The days are coming, Jeremiah says, that the Lord will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. That means they were divided at the time Jeremiah said that, into the northern and southern kingdom, but they're going to be reunited, and God is going to establish a new covenant with them.

[2:47] And Jeremiah goes on to say, not like the covenant which they broke. And that, of course, was the old covenant, the Mosaic law, which they fractured repeatedly.

[3:00] The point I want to make, and it's very, very important, is that even though Christ provided the basis for the establishment of that new covenant, which is what He meant when He said, the night He was betrayed, holding that common cup, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

[3:23] As often as you eat of this bread, drink of this cup, you do show forth the Lord's death until He comes. That provided the basis for establishing that new covenant.

[3:36] But, covenant, to be effective, has to be enacted between two parties. They are the covenanters. And the one party is Christ.

[3:50] He provided the basis for the new covenant. The other party is exactly who Jeremiah said. The new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

[4:04] That has never been done. The house of Israel and the house of Judah, they're not interested in this new covenant. They have not believed Jesus to be their Messiah.

[4:16] They rejected Him. They contributed to His death. And Israel, right now, by God, is placed on hold. They are set aside, Romans 9, 10, and 11, in judicial unbelief because of their rejection.

[4:35] And what God has done is bring in something entirely new. Something that was never before thought of or even imagined.

[4:46] And Ephesians 3, which we looked at quite some time ago, reminds us that Paul is saying that this mystery was hid in God and was never before made known to the sons of men.

[5:02] Nobody had a clue until Paul came along. God saved him on the Damascus road, appointed him, the apostle, to the Gentiles and gave him a brand new message.

[5:20] And it was the message of grace. This is a message that existed way back in Noah's time. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

[5:33] And no one has ever been saved apart from the grace of God. But Paul is going to put an emphasis on grace, the likes of which the world has never seen.

[5:46] And, he's going to take a lot of flack for it. In fact, nothing, nothing so irritates and bothers the ego of men more than the concept of grace.

[6:04] grace. Because grace means there is nothing, not one blessed thing that you can do to make yourself acceptable to God.

[6:15] It is all of grace. You simply, in a non-meritorious way, you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior from your sins and God saves you by His grace.

[6:26] No law keeping, no effort, no anything on your part. And the natural inclination of the human being is you don't like that because you don't have any bragging rights.

[6:39] None whatever. And Paul made it quite clear when he said, I am what I am by the grace of God. And he had difficulty believing and adjusting to the idea that I who am the less than the least of all apostles is this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

[7:04] And he paid dearly for doing that. So, this Jew-Gentile thing is enormous because the grace of God makes salvation available to the Jew and to the Gentile making no distinction between them.

[7:24] Or as Paul says in Romans 3, for there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And everyone who comes to God comes on the basis of grace through the finished work of Jesus Christ.

[7:37] So then, that new covenant that Christ died to initiate has never been accepted, received, or signed off on by the nation of Israel.

[7:50] They are instead set aside. And this whole new thing has come in to take the place of it so that we in this body of Christ, we are neither Old Testament or New Testament.

[8:05] The Old was done away and Hebrews is going to make that very clear when we get into it. And the New has never been enacted even though the basis for it was laid in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

[8:20] So, the second party, the party of the second part, has never signed on to that new covenant. And the time is coming when they will, but so far they haven't.

[8:32] So, where are we now? We're in this interim period. And, fellas, when you open the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and I've reminded you of this before, almost all of our Bibles, and mine is no exception, has on the front of the Feast, even before you get to Matthew 1.1, it talks about the New Testament.

[8:53] And, the printers put that there. The Spirit of God didn't put it there. It's not part of the inspiration. What, what the frontispiece, the frontispiece on your Bible in the Old and the New that labels it the Old Testament and in the New that labels it the New Testament, that is no more inspired of God than are the marginal notes and the references and the chapter headings and all the rest, none of which is inspired.

[9:21] The only thing that God the Spirit inspired is the text, the actual words that were communicated by inspiration to the various human writers. So, all else is man-made, page numbers and everything else.

[9:35] Someone said, you mean the concordance in the back isn't inspired? No, and neither are the maps, only the text. But you'd be surprised how many people overlook that.

[9:47] So, what I'm saying is, when you come into the New Testament, what is commonly called the New Testament, I prefer to call it nothing more than a continuation of the Old Testament with a 400-year gap.

[10:04] And, fellas, it is no coincidence that the last book of what we call the Old Testament is Malachi. And Malachi talks about, in chapter 3 and 4, his last chapters, he talks about the arrival of John the Baptizer and the Messiah.

[10:26] And that's the last thing that Malachi says, and then you open Matthew, and voila! Who's there? Jesus the Messiah and John the Baptist.

[10:38] 400 years later. This is really significant. So, what I'm saying is, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and part of Acts is a continuation of the Old Covenant, and the Jews were still living under the law, even though the law was now defunct.

[11:05] This is a really, really important point. The law is now defunct. This means the Jews were no longer even obligated to keep the law, because that law was done away.

[11:19] And insofar as the Ten Commandments are concerned, when you look into the dispensation of the grace of God that is communicated in Paul's letters, you will find all ten, no you won't, you'll find all nine of the Ten Commandments referred to and insisted upon in the writings of Paul, and the only one that's missing is the Sabbath.

[11:46] And the reason the Sabbath is missing is because that's part of the Mosaic law, and that's part has been done away with. So, keep in mind when you get in to the what we call the New Testament, what is still in force and functional, even though it was defunct in the death of Christ, that doesn't happen until the end.

[12:15] Because Christ didn't die until the end of the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Up until then, you've got the whole history of his earthly ministry.

[12:26] It is at the end, when the crucifixion takes place, that's when the law is done away, that's when the veil in the temple was rent. So, up until that time, the four Gospels really belonged to the Old Testament.

[12:44] Now, this is, in a lot of circles, I'm sure this is just flat-out heresy, but I'm satisfied I'm on the solid ground as I can possibly be.

[12:55] Let me ask you this question. Under what program did Jesus function and operate for those three years that he was here?

[13:08] Jewish. Jewish. The law of Moses. You better believe it. He made it quite clear. He did not come to destroy the law. He came to fulfill the law.

[13:20] No one ever kept the law of Moses like Jesus Christ kept it. In fact, he's the only one who ever actually did. and he rightly accused the others of fracturing the law.

[13:35] And indeed they did. And we dealt just a little bit with the Sermon on the Mount, which many people think is our guidelines and we're supposed to be living by the Sermon on the Mount today.

[13:48] That is complete nonsense. that was given by the Lord to show the Jew what the spirit and intent of the law really was.

[14:00] And all they were interested in was keeping the letter of the law, nitpicking details, and ignoring the weightier matters of the law. And Christ showed them what keeping the Mosaic law was really all about.

[14:15] And the law was never given to save anyone. it was given to show us our shortcomings for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now when you come into the book of Acts, we're going to go, I'm not going to stop in chapter 10 even though that's a very critical chapter.

[14:34] Saul of Tarsus is converted in chapter 9, and chapter 10 we have this monumental event where this Roman army officer who is as pagan and as non-Jewish as you can get, had obviously come to the conviction that the God of Israel was the true God.

[15:01] And when you read Acts 10 about Cornelius, he was devout, he gave alms to the Jewish temple, to the synagogue, and he supported Jewish causes and so on, which is extremely unusual for a Roman to do, because Romans were polytheistic, worshipped many gods, they were pagans, and all the rest of it.

[15:22] But this guy was different. And obviously he had been praying for more light, and an angel appeared to Cornelius and said, Cornelius, your prayer has been heard.

[15:36] And I don't know what his prayer could have been other than looking for more light and more information. And this angel says, here's what you are to do. You are to send men to Joppa.

[15:49] And when they get to Joppa, they are to look up a man by the name of Peter. And he is lodging with Simon. Simon runs a hide-tanning business.

[16:01] And he's right on the coast, right on the Mediterranean coast. And you find this man, Peter, and you have your men bring him back, and he will tell you what you need to know. And, fellas, this is monumental.

[16:15] This is when the sheep was let down from heaven, wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts, creeping things, etc. Peter saw this in a vision, and he was told, rise, Peter, kill, and eat.

[16:27] It was lunchtime, and Peter was hungry. And he said, why, there's unclean animals in this vision. I couldn't have any to do it. And we discover that these weren't animals at all. These animals that were unclean represented human beings.

[16:43] They represented Jews and Gentiles. And God was using that vision with all of these different animals. When I say unclean animals, I mean an animal that was unclean for the Jewish diet and unclean for sacrifice.

[17:00] And he looked at these animals in this vision and saw them all together. And what God was saying is, these represent human beings, and I am going to bring Jew and Gentile together.

[17:16] And that's why he wanted him to go to Cornelius, who was this Roman army officer. And Peter says, no, I'm not going. The guy's a Gentile.

[17:26] I'm not going there. And God repeated this three times with his sheet let down. And Peter says, okay, I don't understand what this is all about. I'm going to go, but I'm not going to like it.

[17:36] And when he got to Cornelius' house, he walks in, and Cornelius is there, and he's got a room full of people there.

[17:48] And they're all a bunch of pagans. And Peter looks around, and he's really uncomfortable, and he's saying to himself, what's a nice Jewish boy doing in a place like this?

[17:59] And he even says, you know, you know how it is unlawful for a man that is a Jew to keep company with Gentiles.

[18:12] And yet, here I am, and I don't know why I'm here, and I saw this sheet let down from heaven, and God told me three times, and I don't know what this is all about, and I'm mighty uncomfortable.

[18:24] What's going on here? And Cornelius told Peter his story, and Peter says, well, these are Gentiles.

[18:35] God doesn't have any interest in Gentiles, does he? Yes, he did. And Peter, unbeknownst to himself, is using, for the first time, he's using a key that Jesus gave him in Matthew 16, when he said, and I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

[19:03] Peter is using that key in a very strategic place, and he is inviting a non-Jew in to this relationship.

[19:14] Absolutely unheard of. Now, that's Acts 10, we won't go there, but I want you to come quickly, if you will, to chapter 11, and please remember, that we are about 8 to 10 years after the crucifixion of Christ.

[19:32] I mean, almost a whole decade. The book of Acts comprises three decades, there's 30 years involved in the book of Acts, and we just have a smidgen of what took place during that time.

[19:46] But here in Acts chapter 11, Peter is explaining what happened when he went to Cornelius, and then in chapter 11, and let's just jump in if we may with verse 15, okay, Acts 11, 15.

[20:11] Peter is speaking, Peter's been called on the carpet by his Jewish brethren to explain himself for going to these non-Jews. And Peter says, I began to speak in verse 15, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, that is this group to whom he was speaking, just as he did upon us at the beginning.

[20:30] And what's he talking about? He's referencing the day of Pentecost. And the day of Pentecost was an exclusively Jewish thing. It was a Jewish feast held in the Jewish temple, and no one but Jews were even allowed there.

[20:45] So these were all Jews. And he says, just like it was at the beginning, and I remember the word of the Lord, how he used to say, John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

[20:57] If God gave to them, that is, to the crowd at Cornelius' house that Peter addressed, if God therefore gave to them the same gift as he gave to us, also, after believing in the Lord Jesus, Peter says, who was I that I could stand in God's way?

[21:19] What did you expect me to do? You expect me to tell God, you can't do that. And Peter is just bowled over by this. And so are these brethren who are Jews.

[21:32] They don't understand it either. And verse 18, it says, and when they heard this, they quieted down. That means they were railing on Peter.

[21:45] They were reading him out. And when Peter explained all of this, they just, the opposition died out. And they're sitting there thinking, well, well, what does this mean?

[21:59] This is unheard of. And the text says, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also?

[22:18] What's that mean? Also. It means in addition to the Jew. Also, the repentance that leads to life? No.

[22:31] It can't be. That's not possible. But they'd come to grips with it, and they saw at least in this one situation where God had broken the mold.

[22:45] He'd tipped over the trace. And this is new stuff. And listen, this is years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

[22:58] During which time, the entire clientele that belonged to God were Jews. And read on.

[23:09] So then, verse 19, those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose in connection with Stephen, that's back in chapter 7 of Acts, when Stephen was stoned, it says they made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch.

[23:29] Look at the next verse, the rest of that verse. Speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone.

[23:43] Why? That's what they were used to. They were steeped in that. They knew about the Cornelius thing, and the Spirit of God coming down on them, and they apparently accepted that.

[23:58] But it's almost as if they considered that an isolated one-time event. And it wasn't. It was a door opening to a whole new class of people, and that new class of people is everybody else.

[24:15] That's the Gentiles. This new thing that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 2 has to do with the middle wall of partition being broken down, and God hath made twain.

[24:32] What's the twain? Jew and Gentile. He has made twain into one new man. That is the spiritual body of Christ that is made up of Jews and Gentiles, bond and free, male and female, all on the same level.

[24:55] This thing hit like a thunderbolt. and it was roundly rejected by the Jewish community. They did not see the validity of this at all.

[25:09] And Paul did everything that he could to make his fellow brethren understand because he knew exactly where they were coming from.

[25:20] Because that's where he was coming from when he headed out for Damascus to round up those Jews that had fled. This is breakthrough stuff.

[25:31] It has been for me and I cannot tell you how much this has enabled scriptures to come together, make sense, fit in a way that they never did before.

[25:44] This explains things like when he called the twelve, don't go to the Gentiles.

[25:54] dunk, dunk, confine yourself to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This explains what Jesus was talking about when the woman came to him and said, have mercy on me, my daughter is ill, and you can hear.

[26:09] And Jesus said, it's not appropriate for me to take food that is intended for the children and give it to the dogs. He's saying, I've got a message for the Jewish people, and I can't spend it on non-Jewish people.

[26:25] And she said, I understand what you're saying, Lord, but don't even the dogs get the crumbs that fall from the table.

[26:36] And you know something? Jesus was really moved with compassion, and he had to admire, he had to admire the mother's heart, and her going to back for her child.

[26:53] And Jesus said, I have not found such great faith, no, not in Israel. And he healed the woman's daughter. And he clearly made an exception. So we've got this dichotomy that has to be understood if we're going to really get a handle on the Bible.

[27:11] And that is the distinction between the Jew and the Gentile. How it was the very dramatic key point of all of the old covenant.

[27:25] Remember, the law of Moses was never given to the world, it was never given to the Babylonians, it was never given to the Egyptians, it was never given to the Assyrians, it was given to the nation of Israel, and them exclusively, including the whole sacrificial system and everything that went with it.

[27:46] It was tailor-made for them, and he was conditioning them to be the spearhead nation that would produce the Messiah, who would indeed one day bring about the kingdom of heaven, come to earth.

[28:00] And it's just a marvelous, marvelous picture. So, this is truth that I did not come into appreciation of until several years after I had been a believer.

[28:11] And boy, when I did, I'm telling you, you talk about a shot in the arm. I mean, this just made so many things make sense and fall into place that I had so many empty cubby holes in my mind that I couldn't figure out what to put in them.

[28:31] And this solved that. And I'm not saying, I'm certainly not saying, now I've got it all together. No, no, no, don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that at all.

[28:42] I'm simply saying, now I've got a handle and an appreciation that I never had before and didn't know was possible. And I just want everybody to know and appreciate it like I do.

[28:55] Because it has been liberating for me and enlightening to a tremendous extent. Any comments or questions? Dana? The Jews are the chosen people. And for a Jewish person to convert to Christianity, they have to fight their pride and say we're not chosen.

[29:13] We're one of the ones. Yeah, well, yes and no. Let me put it this way. The Jew is still the chosen people. They have not lost that status. They are still the chosen people.

[29:24] But for a Jew to become acceptable to God, he has to come the same way the Gentile does. He has to put his faith and trust in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior from sin.

[29:37] And when a Jew does that, and I've talked to a number of Jews who have made that step, and we call it converting. They don't call it that. They don't call it that.

[29:48] And they are right and we are wrong. They have not converted. They have completed. And when we get into Hebrews, there are astounding things that await us.

[30:02] Because Christianity, now hear me well because I know this isn't going to set well maybe with some of you because you may just reject this out of hand. I understand. I understand.

[30:13] But I'm satisfied that I'm on solid ground. And that is biblical Christianity in reality is nothing more than a completed Judaism that takes Judaism all the way.

[30:31] And the all the way includes the embracing of their Messiah. Jews today who do not see Jesus as their Messiah remain chosen people but outside their Messiah.

[30:51] They are lost outside their Messiah just like Gentiles are lost outside of Christ. And when they come to faith in Christ they become completed Jews.

[31:01] and it's a dramatic thing and I've talked to a number of Jewish people who have of course made that made that and this is precisely the way they feel.

[31:13] So it's wonderful. Dan? When the Messiah comes to the Jews well do they think it's just for the Jews only and the dogs won't be a part of that?

[31:25] Is this their exclusive Messiah? Well the Jews today the Jewish people today are all over the map on this. I mean there is so much division in the Jewish people and the chiefest division is between what's referred to as the Reformed and the Orthodox.

[31:44] The Reformed Jews greatly outnumber the Orthodox. The Orthodox comprise about 10% of the Jewish people. The vast majority of them are Reformed.

[31:58] We have Bethel Synagogue here out on North Limestone Street. This is a Jewish synagogue. And they are Reformed. And another word for Reformed Jew is more liberal Jew.

[32:13] They're liberal in their theology. You heard a quote a little while ago by Bernie what's his name? Sanders. Yeah. And he's Jewish and he made that statement you know.

[32:26] We have this thing called the Ten Commandments or what was it? He said the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. And we have this golden rule and we call it God.

[32:41] Well that's bilge water. That's nonsense. But that is an example of liberal reform Judaism.

[32:53] And that's precisely where they are coming from. The doctor that delivered our first baby boy. My son Tim. Dr. Fish Bain. He's with the Lord now. He's a Jewish man.

[33:05] Great guy and a great doctor. And we had a discussion one time while Barbara was in labor. And we were talking about theology and I was attempting to witness to him. And he said I know where you're going.

[33:17] Goiim is the word that Jewish people use for Gentiles. I know where you're going. And he said and we Jews we believe in God too.

[33:28] And I said well I'm sure you probably do. And he said but we do not believe in a personal God. Well what does that mean?

[33:42] God is a thing an idea an object and you know something else that that kind of propagated that and and reinforced that was Star Wars.

[33:57] And you know what Star Wars proposed? The force. Remember? Wasn't a God. Wasn't a personal. It was the force. That's the impersonal God of Star Wars.

[34:11] And that's where a lot of people are today. So they do not see that at all. And well a breakfast is here. You go right ahead and eat. But is there another comment or question?

[34:22] Anyone? Feel free. Frank? A lot of this is confusing. But there's a triune God here.

[34:36] Jews worship God but they don't worship the second part. Yeah. They reject the concept of the Trinity.

[34:49] condemn what I'm looking at my people and not God's. Yeah. How can you condemn a person who worship me but not worship me?

[35:02] In other words, to get to heaven, you've got to accept Jesus who is part of the value of God in who the Jews have already accepted.

[35:13] it's hard for me to comprehend all this. I mean, if I'm sitting here and I have worshipped God my entire life but I have not worshipped Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I'm not sure that when I die, I'm not going to go to heaven.

[35:43] Okay. I appreciate that and I'm sure there are probably some others that share that same concern. Anybody else want to express something about that? Do you want to tackle this next week?

[35:56] The triune Godhead and the part that each has to play and the fact that there are three persons subsisting in one being, there is but one God subsisting in three persons, not three gods.

[36:12] And this, by the way, is the way that Muslims often see Christianity as being worshipping three gods. But do you want to pursue this next week?

[36:25] Anybody? Yeah. Okay. Okay. We'll do that. And bring your best brain and leave the other in the home and we'll see what we can come up with.

[36:37] Okay. Thank you guys and enjoy your breakfast.