Featured Covenant Theology

If the great commission was to apply to all believers and not to the restored Israel, why does Paul say that Jesus did not send him to baptize?

1Co 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.

 

Mark 14:24-25 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament (diathēkē), which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.

The blood of Jesus was poured out for the new covenant with Israel. Israel still failed to receive her King. The new covenant has not yet been fully realized, because it depends on the restoration of Israel (not the political entity).

Hebrews 8:6-11 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant (diathēkē), which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

I see a covenant made with Noah and the earth and all living things regarding a flood.

I see a covenant made with Abraham regarding the nation of Israel.

I see Jeremiah speaking of a new covenant that will be made with Israel.

I do not see an agreement (covenant) with a gentile church.

A declaration of error may make for a satisfactory riposte, but seldom offers constructive instruction. I see the truth of the Ephesians verses you cite as proof of my contention. Gentiles were to benefit from being joined with Jews in Christ.

I contend that the failure of Israel resulted in a "plan B" that still brought blessings to the gentiles, but fell short of what could have and will happen.

Romans 11:15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

I see the Christian church all to frequently loosing sight of the fact that we are grafted in and our condition is one similar to a poor relation being allowed to eat from the same table as the real family.

Romans 11:17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

 

Unless you're speaking of Biblical Christianity.

What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God.

There are elect Jews and reprobate Jews just like there are elect Gentiles and reprobate Gentiles.

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.

 

I understand what you are saying. I am saying that Paul declares that Jesus did not send him to baptize.

1. He did baptize a few.
2. He accepted the practice of baptism.
3. However, he said he was not sent to baptize.

The great commission specifically includes baptism.

Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

I never said it was. I see a possibility that after something like the rapture a time when the current nation of Israel rejoices at the arrival of the anti-Christ (who may also be called the 12th Iman). He will be received as the Messiah and only a remnant will flee when the abomination of desolation is erected in the rebuilt temple. I see these faithful few being supernaturally protected by God for 3 1/2 years (maybe in the presently deserted kingdom of Edom). When Christ returns to rule on earth, I see this remnant becoming the new nation of Israel. A nation will be born in a day and they will be faithful to all that has been promised and will be fulfilled. Israel will not only receive her King, but receive Him joyfully.

When gentiles started to become Christian and started to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it was not enough to provoke the Jews to jealousy. Ever since the destruction of the temple there has been a continual stream of people coming to Christ and being made Christian. Even some Jews have been part of the stream.

Gentile Christians were guided by the Holy Spirit but lacked the instruction that was to accompany the ministry of the nation of Israel. Like Christians today, those in the early church started to turn away from the Spirit and organize themselves in a hierarchical system greatly influenced by Greek philosophies and the Greek system of the academy.

Christian life was turned into a system of rules and rituals and the truth of God's word was turned into cryptic and arcane mysteries that only the specially trained and adept could master.

Even the reformation was unable to break the grip of attempting to run Christianity as a system.

While many today in Christian circles may not directly support the ideas of the Dominionists and Reconstructionists, by declaring the various churches today as victorious and the best thing since sliced bread amounts to almost the same thing.

If are are to walk in truth, we need to consider that our churches are largely failures. We have elevated programs, events, classes, rituals, lectures, and activities instead of building the deeper relationships by which we can grow into the full image of Christ. We often seek to prevent error (sometimes with the best of intentions) but we fail to realize that we are rather called to correct error. Prevention is the application of coercive and restricting force. We are not priests called to control the mob, we are called to become like Jesus.

The church is not Israel 2.0. Both the church and the Old Testament Israelites will have to hang our heads in shame for allowing ourselves to be distracted by the flesh and frustrate the work of God in the world. However, God will accomplish his work regardless of how distracted we become.

 

And the elect Jews are saved the same way as the elect Gentiles until Jesus Christ returns to cast Satan into the lake of fire, to resurrect all the dead, and to sit at the Great White Throne Judgment.

 

This is the new covenant with all believers in Jesus Christ, not Israel!

I would first say that the Church is not the "Gentile" Church. The initial members, several thousand strong, were Jews.

Then you need to read Hebrews 9.

Hebrews 9:11-17, 23-28, NASB
11. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;
12. and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
13. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,
14. how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
15. And for this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
16. For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it.
17. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is never in force while the one who made it lives.

23. Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24. For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;
25. nor was it that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood not his own.
26. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
27. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
28. so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

The letter, called Hebrews, is written to the Church, not Israel! It is obvious that the new covenant for which Jesus Christ died is the covenant of Hebrews 8 and Jeremiah 31 and is the covenant with all the true believers.

 

You are not alone on this observation Brother. This is a basic point that I have brought up many times here. As baptists we are supposed to get our theology from the Bible. Search as I might, I cannot find the reformed covenants of grace, works and redemption in the Bible but I do see the your above mentioned covenants clear as day. How Jehovah could be crystal clear in His covenants to Abraham and obscure with respect to the reformed "covenants" granted to the church is a mystery to me.

The only solution to the problem is to acknowledge that there is a tendency within the reformed movement to view the OT as basically a rough guide with respect to theological instruction. The term nation which we understand to be a geopolitical institution in the OT is just that but it selectivly makes a transformation into a spiritual entity in the NT to suit the whims of the covenant crowd.

 

Those reformed covenants are implied/inferred from, based pon he creeds/Confessions...

Woukld say that paul seems to make a case more NOT that the Church replaced/supplanted isreal, but the the Church was grafted into and became a aprt of Isreal, as the spiritual jews would make up the true isreal of God, with us grdafted in and part of that!

 

Thank you thomas15 for your words of encouragement.

Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Matthew 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

I see a promise of a new covenant with Israel.

I see a new covenant ratified by Jesus symbolically at the last supper and with His blood a few hours later.

I see gentiles able to come into salvation.

I do not see gentiles or Jews receiving the full promise of this covenant, yet;

Jeremiah 31:33-34 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

I do not see a "covenant" with what we call the church. I see Christians who are part of the body of Christ and who have received the forgiveness of sins. I can see a future restoration of Israel and the covenant finalized after this restoration. However, for those of us that are now Christian, we will be with Christ (so we shall ever be with the Lord) and as such will not be recipients of this completed covenant.

Paul talks about an interruption caused by "blindness" that happens to Israel. This is called a mystery and is to last until the full number of gentiles come in. After which Jesus comes and Israel is redeemed and their covenant restored and completed.

Romans 11:25-27 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

The failure of Israel to receive her King and the fulfillment of the new covenant did not hinder gentiles from receiving salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

Ephesians 3:4-6 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

The danger in appropriating a covenantal perspective for the gentile church (those who "come in" during the blindness of Israel) is that we risk becoming "wise in our own conceits". We are partakers in the promise in Christ by the gospel. I think we exceed the Bible if we take a view of ourselves that we have replaced Israel or by becoming "spiritual" Jews we have assumed their covenant and promises.

Isaiah 2:2-4 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

I have not seen the mountain of the Lord's house established above all the hills.

I have not seen all nations flowing to it.

I have not seen an end to war.

Revelation 16:18-20 And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.

It may be that the mountains will be leveled such that the one in Jerusalem is the highest.

Gentiles do celebrate the Lord's supper where the declaration of the ratification of the new covenant is remembered. Instead of thinking that this covenant now applies to us, we should instead look forward to the day it will be fulfilled, the remnant of Israel is restored, and goes out of Zion with the law and the word to all nations.

 

Even the NT speaks of physical genealogies back to Abraham and the NT does not specifically teach that the Church becomes a Nation in the geopolitical sense. But the OT and NT does teach a geopolitical Kingdom with Christ ruling. So we need to look at the church as we know it and answer the question is the church the kingdom promised to the sons of Abraham? Then go through the Bible and make a list of all the details of the Kingdom and see if the church meets those requirements, which it will not.

If we rely on the OT to give us details of the Savior so as to evaluate the claims of Jesus to be the Savior, then it would be hard to argue that the same book is vague with respect to promises made to the actual seed of the Patriarchs.

 

You might have a point but if not for passages like Romans Ch 11 which speak about being grafted in and then being subject to being grafted out which if you ask me is very possible given the sad state of the church today. The fact that this is mentioned means it is a real possibility and if it were to happen, what then Mr. Utterly false?

Not sure what you mean by tribalism because the Bible doesn't guarantee salvation to any individual because of their ancestory however there are those promises right there in the Bible that were made to the seed of Abraham through Jacob through Isaac which I'm not ready to place in the trash can. I'm only taking the words of the Bible seriously.

 

the nation of Isreal was promised to have a boundary far larger in the land of promise than she ever had even during david/Solomon, and to have all nations come up to Jerusalem to worship their God and His King!

Has the church ever fulfilled that?

 

same paul also said" has His people Isreal fallen complete away? God forbid!"

the hardening was from god for sake of the gentiles to be able to get saved by grace, but God has NOT totally rejected his people of the promise, as Gods callings and giftings are irrovacable!