LESSON 11 OF 24 OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D. Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois The following lecture has been produced for the Christian University GlobalNet and is copyrighted by Christian University GlobalNet, Grand Rapids, Michigan. All audio rights are reserved worldwide. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Christian University GlobalNet. The lecturer holds exclusive publication rights to all of the intellectual material in the lecture. Richard E. Averbeck, Ph.D.: Notes: Now let s return to the umbrella chart on the redemptive covenant program of God. We ve walked through the rationale for the umbrellas and the transformation of the covenants as they come on through into the new covenant because of the coming of Christ and the Holy Spirit of Pentecost. We ve also walked through the historical dates for the different covenants and the basic principles of the covenants the Abrahamic covenant at the family level; [the] Mosaic covenant at the national level, since the family has grown into the nation; and the Davidic covenant that came before the family that has grown into a nation. And then they all come through in various ways that we will talk about into the new covenant world of the New Testament. Now we want to, at this point, turn and talk about both promise and obligation in each one of these covenants. We ve already emphasized, with regard to the Abrahamic covenant, Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 and the promise that God has given, the permanent promise even when He passed through the parts of the animals in Genesis 15. God has made an absolute commitment to Abraham. But along with that there are obligations of the covenant that Abraham is responsible to fulfill. For example, in Genesis 17:1: Now when Abram was 99 years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him I am God almighty; walk before Me and be blameless. And that s stated in terms of I will establish my covenant between Me and you. So there s an obligation that comes with the covenant relationship between Abraham and God. There s an absolute commitment, a sound promise, and along with that there s the call to fulfill faithful obligations. This continues in this chapter, and later on when we come down to the circumcision in verse 17:9. God said further to Abraham: Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 1 of 14
Notes: descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant, which you shall keep between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male after you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. So this is a sign of the Abrahamic covenant and a covenant in itself, a covenant commitment, a bond between God and Abraham and his descendants. And every male among you who is 8-days-old shall be circumcised. So here is another obligation. So Abraham has permanent promise but also ongoing obligation in his covenant relationship with God. So this is not a matter of conditional versus unconditional, but really a combination of promise and obligation in the way God is doing relationship with Abraham. Now this continues in the Mosaic Covenant. If we turn to Exodus 19, we come to the introduction to the Mosaic covenant in Exodus 19. And we ll talk more about this later, but if you look at the passage there, you have this permanent promise that s given in the context of verse 19:5. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine. Now here we do have a conditional statement, if, then: if you obey My voice, and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. So we have a conditional statement. Now, of course, [in] the keeping of the covenant and the commandments associated with this covenant, not very many people have a hard time understanding that there are a lot of obligations in the Mosaic covenant. We have all the laws that are given, the Ten Commandments, the Book of the Covenant, all the ritual regulations, and so on. So the obligation side of the Mosaic covenant is very clear to all of us. But there s also promise given to those who are in this covenant as we ve seen here. It s important to look at the end of this covenant statement in Leviticus 26 where we have the curses and blessings of the covenant as they are given at Sinai. There s a whole set of regulations between Exodus 19 through Leviticus 26, and then we have these curses and blessings. And in the context here, they re going to be blessed, of course, if they keep the covenant obligations that God has given them in the law, but they re also going to be cursed if they break those violations. And He s even anticipating that they are going to break these commandments, and the result is going to be that they re going to be taken into exile. Now we need, also, to go to Leviticus 26, because this is really the end of the covenant as it s given at Sinai we start in Exodus 19 Leviticus 26 gives the curses and blessings of the covenant. Now with regard to the curses, what we have is a statement that they had been commanded to give the land its sabbaths, and that meant that every 7 years they were supposed to let the land lie fallow, not plant it, and so on so the land would also have its sabbath Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 2 of 14
Notes: rest just like the people every week on the sabbath would have their rest. Now the problem was that He knew that they were going to rebel and that He we was going to take them into exile to chastise them for violating His covenant. And while they re in exile, the land is going to have its sabbaths that they had not been giving it previously, so He s looking forward to the time of exile really even from the beginning of the giving of the covenant here at Sinai. Now let s turn and look at Leviticus 26:40-42: If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their forefathers [and the idea here is when they re in exile], in their unfaithfulness which they committed against Me, and also in their acting with hostility against Me I also was acting with hostility against them, to bring them into the land of their enemies [the exile] or if their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled in exile so that they then make amends for their iniquity, then [while they re in exile] I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. So He s going to remember, even while they re in exile, that He s made a commitment to the patriarchs, the fathers the patriarchs of this nation of Israel. Verse 26:43: For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them, as we introduced this before. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes. Now we make an interesting shift right here into 26:44: Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them. So taking them into exile was not a matter of rejecting them, it was chastising them like a father chastises his child to drive him back to doing the right things. Nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them by breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God (Leviticus 26:44). So even though they re in exile because they have broken the covenant, God is still committed to the covenant. He will not break the covenant. But then 26:45: But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the site of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord. Now that covenant in verse 45 is the Mosaic covenant at Sinai. It s the covenant that He made with the ancestors of the people who are in exile, whom He brought out of the land of Egypt in the site of all the nations. The only covenant that can refer to is the Mosaic Sinaic Covenant starting in Exodus 19. So from the perspective of the covenant commitment that God has made, the Mosaic covenant is just as permanent as the Abrahamic Covenant. And how could it be any different? If He s committed to the patriarchs to bless their seed, then He has to keep on committing Himself Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 3 of 14
Notes: to the seed of those patriarchs as He has in the Mosaic Covenant. They ve grown into a nation; now He stays committed to that nation and so on. This is really important to understand that God is truly committed to His people of Israel. And this is the foundation really, or one of the foundations early in the Old Testament really, for what we call pre-millennialism, which is associated with a future for Israel. God simply will not give up on His people in Israel. And that even goes for when they re in exile or when He s chastising them in one way or another. The same thing is true then for the Mosaic covenant as for the Abrahamic covenant. There is permanent promise in the Mosaic covenant as well as ongoing obligation, and they need both. It s the way God does relationship with fallen people. He commits permanently and then He calls them to faithfulness to the relationship. He remains faithful no matter what, but He works on them to produce faithfulness in them, and He does this even in us in our new covenant relationship with Him. We have permanent promise from Him in our relationship with Him, but He keeps on working to transform us more into the image of Christ. The Davidic covenant is really the same way. Now II Samuel 7 is really the classical statement of the Davidic covenant. The term covenant isn t actually used here, but you ll see earlier in the notes when I just go through passages that there are lots of passages in the Psalms and other places where this commitment to David is talked about in terms of covenant a dynastic covenant with David. In II Samuel 7, of course, David wants to build a house for the Lord, since they ve settled in the land and he wants to build Him a wonderful house. David already has a palace; he wants to build a palace for the Lord you might say a temple. But the Lord says, You re not going to build a house for Me. I m going to build a house for you. He uses the same word for building up David s house his dynasty. And so we come then, later in the passage, where he talks about David is not going to be able to build a temple, because he s responsible for establishing the nation. He s a man of war, and temple-building is for times of peace. So in II Samuel 7:12-14: When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne for his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. So there s this permanent promise, but then there s this commitment to chastise any one of the sons beginning with Solomon if they do not follow the Lord. So He s going to correct them, but then, in II Samuel 7:15: Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 4 of 14
Notes: But my loving kindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house in your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever. In accordance with all these words and all these visions, so Nathan spoke to David. So there s this permanent commitment. No matter what happens, God stays committed to the Davidic line. Ultimately, of course, this comes to its full effect in Jesus, the ultimate Son, descendant of David, who is the ultimate King of all the universe, the world, and mankind. Now therefore we have this permanent promise, but we also realize from other passages that there s this ongoing obligation, and David understood this. It s clear from his statement on his deathbed to Solomon that he thought of this in terms of permanent ongoing obligations as well. So in I Kings 2:1-3: As David s time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, I am going the way of all the Earth. Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man. Keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in his ways to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is written in the Law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn. Now even back in Deuteronomy 17, where the institution of kingship is anticipated, it says at the end of that chapter that the Davidic king, or the king that is going to be chosen, when he comes to the throne is to sit down under the supervision of the Levitical priest and actually write his own copy of the law under their supervision. The point is the Davidic king is to rule under the rulership of the Mosaic covenant. So we have the Davidic covenant under the umbrella of the Mosaic covenant, which is under the umbrella of the Abrahamic covenant, because it was assumed all along that the people of the nation and the king would have Abrahamic faith. This is the way it always was supposed to be. God has really always wanted the same thing from everyone, and that is true faith true faith commitment to the Lord. In I Kings 2, we get David articulating the importance of Solomon as king keeping the Law. And then he goes on in 2:4, Do this so that the Lord may carry out His promise which He spoke concerning me saying, If your sons are careful of their way to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. Notice, here, we have a conditional statement within the Davidic covenant. This is one of the reasons why I have a hard time with making the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants unconditional. It s because there are conditions sometimes stated within them. If your sons are careful, then you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel. So there s a conditional Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 5 of 14
Notes: statement here. The point being not that the promise is conditional, but that with the permanent promise comes ongoing obligation to rule the nation of Israel according to the Law. That s part of the obligation of kingship. So there s permanent promise as well as ongoing obligation. We can see the same thing in the new covenant in the New Testament. Now we ll say more about this covenant in Jeremiah 31 later, but let s turn to Jeremiah 31 first and just introduce it a bit. In Jeremiah 31:31 and following we read this: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord [there s another one of the metaphors; God as husband for Israel], but this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. See, He s looking forward to this time when He s going to make this covenant. Of course, this is the covenant that s established by Jesus on the cross. He declares, the Lord, I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God and they shall be My people (Jeremiah 31:33). So in the new covenant, the Law is not left behind. It s actually written on the heart. And I will be their God and they will be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more (Jeremiah 31:34). It s not going to be necessary in this new covenant to teach someone else who s in the covenant community to know the Lord, because if they re truly in the community they will already know the Lord. The Law is written on the heart in this particular covenant. That means by definition a person is a believer. Another way of saying this is everyone who is in this covenant will have Abrahamic faith. Now as we walk on through this passage, we notice certain patterns. It is: the Law is written on tablets of stone previously; now written on the heart. Everybody in this covenant knows the Lord. One of the problems the prophets had was that the covenant people of the Mosaic Israelite people in the Old Testament not all of them knew the Lord even though they were in that covenant. They could be part of the covenant people. The nature of the new covenant is that cannot be the case. You re not part of the new covenant people in the first place unless you know the Lord. Now in the new covenant, then, we have both permanent promise and ongoing Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 6 of 14
Notes: obligation. We believe that when the Lord brings someone to Himself, He is permanently saved. He knows the Lord and he can have rest for his soul as we have here in Matthew 11:28-30. There is rest for your soul. So it s based purely upon grace, and we receive it purely through faith. And that s the rest, that s the promise. We have that commitment from God. But along with the promise comes the obligation, the ongoing obligation in Matthew 11, and it even talks about a yolk that we bare. Now it s easy and light, but it s there. And, for example, in Ephesians 2:8-10, For by grace are you saved through faith. Not of works lest any man should boast. Verse 10 goes on and says, We re created in Christ Jesus to do the works that we re called to. The point is that there is, again, in the new covenant, the combination of permanent promise and ongoing obligation. And God works in me and you as one who knows Him to make it so that we re more faithful to Him. That s the way God does relationship with us. Both promise yielding peace and obligation yielding purpose are built into the very nature of God s redemptive program. One makes no sense and will not work without the other. God s covenants are based upon this principle. Our rest, in fact, depends upon the combination of the two. We don t rest if we don t have peace with God, but we don t rest unless we have an ongoing faithfulness to Him as well. We re built to live in faithfulness to Him. That s what we were mandated to do back in the garden in the first place, and that continues to be God s desire and God s work with us post-fall. Now that brings us, then, to the Old Testament covenant promise and the New Testament covenant fulfillment approach to this whole thing. Now consider what we re going to say here as all being under the covenant umbrella of the New Covenant. The New Covenant has been enacted by Christ through His death on the cross. There is also another level of fulfillment yet to come when the natural branches of ethnic Israel will be grafted back into the kingdom through faith in Christ. Romans 11 talks about this specifically. We want to walk through that passage a little bit in Romans 11, because it s important for the discussion overall. Back in Romans 9 the apostle Paul is very distressed about the fact that the people of Israel have not turned to the Lord in a full way. Now there s a remnant of Jewish people in the church; he s one of them. But he makes it very clear that this is a real disaster in his own life. He could wish, he says in Romans 9:3, that he himself were accursed from Christ for the sake of his brethren. And these brethren are the Israelites (verse 4), to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the Father s, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 7 of 14
Notes: Even Jesus came through the Jewish line. Now it s not that God s Word has failed, he says, because the ones who really know the Lord in part of real Israel were always those who had Abrahamic faith anyway. And he goes on and talks about that. He goes through a discussion, then, of salvation has always been by faith, not by the works of the law. And that goes on through the rest of chapter 9 and into chapter 10 to chapter 11. Then in 11:1, he says this: I say then God has not rejected His people has He? May it never be. And basically that s an expression mē genoito, [which] means that s really a crazy idea. For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah how he pleads with God against Israel. Lord they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life. And the Lord responds, I have kept for Myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to bow. In the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God s gracious choice. Now this tells us that as far as the apostle Paul is concerned, God is not done with ethnic Israel. There s a remnant in the church even now. He s looking forward however to the time when there will be a fuller restoration of the people of Israel, the Israelites, to the Kingdom of God through their faith in Jesus Christ. Now further in the chapter, he s been talking about the Gentiles as opposed to the Jews, and he picks it up in this way in Romans 11:17: But as some of the branches [the natural branches he s talking about there the Jews] were broken off, and you [the Gentiles] being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them the rich fruit of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches [the original branches, the Jews]. So the Gentiles are not to be arrogant toward the Jews. But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. We need to respect this Jewish foundation. You will say then, Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. Quite right! They were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceded, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, But to you, God s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off (Romans 11:19-22). Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 8 of 14
Notes: The Gentiles can be cut off just as easily as Jews by lack of faith. And they also, if they do not continue in there unbelief, will be grafted back in, the Jewish people. For God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? The most natural thing in the world is for a Jewish person to receive Jesus as their Messiah. He is their Messiah from the start. He is Jewish. He came to the Jews first. But now onto the gentiles. And Paul is an apostle to the gentiles, who is Jewish and is truly troubled by what has happened to the Jews through a lack of belief in their Messiah. Romans 11:25: For I do not want you brethren to be uninformed of this mystery so that you will not be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening... remember there s a partial hardening that has happened to Israel until a fullness of the Gentiles has come in. There s a remnant of the Jews in the church as he s already mentioned earlier in the chapter. And then in verse 11:26: And so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written; The deliver will come from Zion, [and so on] and take away their sins. Verse 28: From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, because they re enemies of the gospel, but from the standpoint of God s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. In other words, there s still this commitment to the fathers. The covenant cannot, will not, be broken. It s in God s very nature to stay permanently committed once He makes a commitment. Verse 11:29: For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. They cannot be revoked. So there s this ongoing commitment. And Paul is not talking about the remnant of the Jews in the church right now. He s talking about the future restoration of them by faith back in as a large ethnic group into faith in Christ and therefore into the church. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut off all the disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. And that s what He s going to be doing in the future to Israel as well. The point is there s this ongoing commitment to Israel. Now in the notes, then, we move on and talk specifically about certain points about how these different covenants in the Old Testament, then come on through into the New Testament. And what we ve just read in Romans 9 11, we see a lot of ongoing affect of these things that God has done. But think, for example, Christ is the ultimate seed of Abraham. We can see this in Galatians 3:16. And all who are members of the new covenant are all necessary children of Abraham by faith. Jesus talks about this in John 8; [so does] Paul in Romans and Galatians. They have Abrahamic Faith. So anyone who believes in the God of Abraham has Abrahamic Faith. Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 9 of 14
Notes: The motif of circumcision is also used in this regard. There s a current fulfillment of it in terms of circumcision of the heart according to Romans 2:27-28. He s talking about how circumcision really does not matter because all Jew and Gentile are under God s curse because we re sinners whether we re circumcised or not. Then in verse 27 of Romans chapter 2: And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you without having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the law. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; And his praise is not from men, but from God. This is already anticipated and actually an expression that s used as we go back even to Leviticus 26. You remember we read this passage; and we have, in verse 41, talking about how He was acting in hostility against them because of their rebellion against Him. And then He says, Or if they re uncircumcised heart becomes humbled so that they make amends for their iniquity. So He s talking about, here, an uncircumcised heart. In Deuteronomy 10, Moses uses this expression of circumcision of the heart to describe what it means to be faithful for the Lord. He says, So circumcise your heart and stiffen your neck no longer. And an uncircumcised heart would be a rebellious heart, and a stiff neck is one that cannot be turned. We see it also in Deuteronomy 30. This is a pattern that we have in the Bible. It s not new in the New Testament. In 30:6, Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. Jeremiah picks up on this same expression in chapter 4 and in chapter 6 and then in chapter 9. In chapter 4 he puts it this way: For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, Break up your fellow ground and do not sow among the thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds (Jeremiah 4:3-4). Let s look then at Jeremiah 9. This is a fascinating passage. It has all sorts of important ideas in it. I ll start with 9:23: Thus says the Lord, Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 10 of 14
Notes: and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things, declares the Lord. Verse 9:25-26: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, that I will punish all who are circumcised and yet uncircumcised Egypt and Judah, and Edom and the sons of Ammon, and Moab. All those inhabiting the desert who clip the hair on there temples; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised of heart. This is an important expression that comes at a pivotal point, then, used by the apostle Paul in Romans 2, and he s building on this Old Testament legal and prophetic material to help us understand how these principals of the Abrahamic covenant continue to come on through into the new covenant Abrahamic faith, being children of Abraham; and circumcison of the heart, which was what they were concerned about already back in the Law. The Mosaic covenant also comes through. We ve already looked at the passage in Jeremiah where it talks about having the Law written on the heart. To have the Law written on the heart means to live it from the heart. We ll come back and talk about that more, but for example, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus quotes from the Law, and He talks about, The Law says you shall not murder. He goes on and says, It s not only that you shall not murder, but you also must not hate, because hate would lead to murder. So therefore don t hate and you won t murder. The point is that you live the Law from the heart. Same thing with adultery and various other things in that chapter. Now this, coming through of the Mosaic Law, really applies to all aspects of the Law, whether we used the expression civil, moral, or ceremonial Law, there are a whole set of discussions that we ll be having later on this application of law in the Christian life and in the church, so we ll come back to more of that later. But my understanding is that the Law does come through, but it comes through in a way that s transformed in the light of the new kind of community that we are in the church. We re not a nation like Israel was, it comes through in ways that correspond to having the Law written on the heart. Also, through the sacrifice of Himself, Jesus fulfilled all the requirements for our atonement and therefore acceptance by God through grace. In fact, much of our understanding of the significance of Jesus death on the cross is based upon our understanding of the Old Testament sacrificial system. For example, in some ways Jesus is our peace-offering sacrifice. He died as the new covenant ratification sacrifice like in Exodus 24 when they sacrificed peace offerings. He is a peace offering. We are able to partake of Him, and therefore we have covenant relationship with God in the new Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 11 of 14
Notes: covenant. Sometimes He s referred to as the Passover Lamb. In I Corinthians 5, that particular kind of expression is used. Sometimes Christ is viewed as a sin offering. We have different terminology. As a sin offering, He makes atonement on our behalf. He s the redemption ransom that is given on our behalf. This is all part of Christ, and it s based upon the Old Testament Law that we can understand what Christ has done for us. So the Old Testament law comes on into the New Testament in application to Christ, but also in application if we re going to live like Christ. Therefore we live in such a way that fulfills the Law as it would be written on the heart. We ll come back and say a lot more about that later. The Davidic covenant is fulfilled in the new covenant as well. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He s the ultimate Davidic King and the church is His kingdom. For example, in the Gospel of Matthew, Christ is coming as our Davidic King. He s pronounced to be the King to Herod, and, of course, Herod doesn t like that. He actually proclaims the gospel of the kingdom throughout the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 5 7, in the Sermon on the Mount, what we really have is Him as the King of the kingdom of heaven promulgating a law that corresponds to the nature of this kingdom of heaven. And the church is His kingdom today. We even have these kinds of expressions that are used. For example, in Colossians 1 there s this particular passage where it says, For He rescued us, in verse 13, from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved son. So the church can be viewed as a kingdom on earth, but a different kind of kingdom than the other kingdoms of the earth. At the appropriate time, Jesus will bring His kingship to full and obvious manifestation on this earth. That s what Romans 11 is talking about and Revelation 19 20 in talking about the coming kingdom. Now that brings us, then, to going back and picking up where we left off and beginning now with the book of Exodus through Numbers and the wilderness wanderings. This is a foundation that we ve talked about in terms of the covenants that lays a background for understanding really what we re going to do in the rest of the Bible. In a sense, we ve now really talked about the rest of the Bible in a summary sort of way in terms of the covenant concept or the figure of speech of covenant in understanding what God is doing through the rest of the Bible. Now the book of Exodus, then, picks up after the book of Genesis, and we have this set of connections back to Genesis expressed in the early chapters. So, for example, in Exodus 1:1-5, we have the various tribal fathers mentioned. We have Reuben and Simeon and Levi and so on. And so that connects us back to the blessings and so on back in Genesis 49. We have the Joseph story being referred back to in [Exodus] verse 1:6: Joseph died and all his brothers and all that generation. We have the anticipation of the Exodus actually in Genesis 15:13-14. Also the patriarchal promises, and I have a whole Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 12 of 14
Notes: list of the expression of them here in the notes: they re stated to Abraham and then restated to Isaac and then restated to Jacob. So there s this continuity of the promise with regard to the seed, the land, and the blessing through the seed of Abraham to all the nations of the earth. Moses was writing Genesis, of course, in light of the fact that the Israelites already knew the law, and Genesis then naturally leads on into the book of Exodus. You can recall this basis of Genesis by looking at passages one of which we ve already seen previously. Exodus 2:23-25: Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died and the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and God saw the sons of Israel and God took notice at them. Now we could spend time that we re not going to take here to walk through these various passages and all the mentions of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the fathers and so on and the significance of them in understanding the relationship between the background of the nation and the actual history of the nation as now it s going to begin to develop here in the book of Exodus. Now there are a few difficulties in dating the Exodus. I have a reference there to John Walton s Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament. On page 99 there s a good summary of the various systems of thought with regards to the dating of Exodus in terms of the exodus from Egypt. Within evangelical circles there are various approaches yielding really three positions of the chronology of these early periods: the patriarchs, the Egyptian sojourn and Exodus, and then the conquest and settlement. The question really has to do with who was the Pharaoh that did not know Joseph in Exodus 1 where it says (verse 8) Now a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. They were down in Egypt for a while, they had grown into a large number of people, and it was not until that point that they actually became enslaved in Egypt. Now the Early Exodus Long Sojourn View really suggests that the Exodus is around 1446 BC and that they were in Egypt 430 years according to the Hebrew text of Exodus 12:40, where it says, Now the times of the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. That would suggest that they were there that many years in Egypt. But in the Septuagint the Greek translation of the Old Testament we have that very verse reading, and sojourning of the children of Israel while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan was 430 years. So the 430 years would include the time that they were in Canaan, which was 215 years according to certain verses where we can calculate the numbers. So therefore you could have an earlier Exodus, but a shorter sojourn in Egypt only half of the 430 years. And then there would be the Late Exodus View. Some have argued that the Exodus didn t take place until the 13th century around 1266 BC. Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 13 of 14
Notes: Part of the reason for that is because that s when Raamses II was ruling Egypt, and we have in Exodus 1:11, so they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor, and they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom, and Raameses. So there are different views on this. For now I take the first view, the early Exodus, around 1446 and 430 years in Egypt. Now we ll come back and we ll begin walking through the chronology and so on in Exodus through Numbers in the next lecture. This course is a part of the curriculum offered through Christian University GlobalNet (CUGN). To learn more, visit us at www.cugn.org. All material in the preceding lecture is protected by registered international copyright and may not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of Christian University Globalnet. Transcript - OT511 Old Testament Theology 1 14 of 14