THE
KEY TO THE BIBLE, INSTRUCTOR - 5th SESSION
GET ACQUAINTED – Ask the other
half of the group to relate the story of their conversion or tell about
their family/church background.
What insights did you bring to share?
THE COVENANTS
·
A
covenant describes a relationship in
terms of obligations, consequences, and guarantees - much the same as a
contract. Its provisions were divinely
imposed and were therefore nonnegotiable and unchangeable. Human covenants were very common in Old
Testament times and therefore were an easily understood concept through which
God revealed His plans. The connection
between Christ and the covenants is seen in both the O.T. and N.T. Isaiah, speaking of the coming Messiah says
in Isa.49:8, "I
will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people."
In Malachi 3:1, God says, "and
the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple [quoted in Mt.11:10], and the messenger of the covenant in
whom you delight, behold He is coming…"
In Zechariah's prophecy concerning
the Messiah (Lk.1:72-73), His coming
is "to show the mercy promised to our fathers; and to remember his
holy covenant; the oath that He swore to our father Abraham."
Christ is at the heart of all the covenants because redemption is the unifying
theme of the Bible.
CHRIST IN THE COVENANTS
The Covenants
are progressive in that what they reveal is not separate and
unrelated. The truth becomes clearer as
details are added. The story of creation
and the fall established the need for a Savior.
We are going to trace the revelation of that Savior through the
covenants, following a key word - seed.
Then from our vantage point of the N.T., we will see how Christ was
foreshadowed and foretold in the covenants and surrounding prophecies.
·
Description of the Seed: The offspring that would be the Messiah-Savior
·
Identity of the Seed:
Adam
Gen.2:16-17. The word covenant
is not used, but some elements are there so we will treat God’s relationship to
Adam and Eve as such.
Hosea 6:7 "But like Adam, they [Ephraim and Judah]
transgressed the covenant [Mosaic]; there they
dealt faithlessly with me." [Controversial - doesn’t necessarily confirm there was a
covenant with Adam or mankind.]
1. Who are the 2 parties?
God and man
2. What are the conditions
or duties? Don't eat of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil
3. What is the guarantee
or consequence?
Eat
and you die: Obedience meant life continued in the Garden, disobedience meant
death
History: After the Fall, God pronounced a
curse on Satan, and immediately we see the grace of God entering to defeat
Satan and save men. He's going to
“reverse” the curse.
Gen.3:15 "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your
offspring (seed) and her offspring (seed); he shall bruise your head, and you
shall bruise his heel."
1. Who are the two
opposing groups? Seed of the woman
and the seed of Satan
2. What is the
significance of the seed being "of a woman"?
Gal.4:4 "in the fullness of time God sent his Son, made of a
woman" - virgin birth
3. What is the
significance of referring to her offspring as "he" a man
4. The word "bruise"
literally carries the idea of crushing, so who will
win this battle and reverse the curse?
A man, the offspring of the woman
Clue #1 - a man
History: Mankind's degeneration into sin was so great, and God so
grieved, that He issued His just sentence of death on the world (Gen 6:6), "I will blot out
man whom I've created". It looks like Satan
is winning. But God had a prophecy to
fulfill - the seed of the woman was going to crush Satan. So in His grace, God singled out Noah and his
immediate family to rescue and continue the human race.
Noah
Gen.9:8 - With whom did God make this
covenant? Noah and his seed
Gen.9:11 - What was the promise? He would preserve the earth and man
Gen.9:26-27 - What indicates that the
prophecy of God's original intention to reverse the curse would be fulfilled
through Shem? Noah's blessing is put upon Shem. [ESV - not NIV]
"May God enlarge Japheth and let Him (God) dwell in the
tents of Shem and let
Clue #2 - a Semite (descendent
of Shem) God/man
History: Humanity multiplied and once again, so did its open and
united rebellion against God. Gen.11:4 says they were going to "make a name for themselves"
by building a city and a tower - declaring their own power, sovereignty, and
glory. Every time Satan thinks he's
gotten the upper hand, God steps in. He
broke up their project by confusing their language, scattering them over the
earth. Immediately following the account
of this dispersion (Gen.11), the
genealogy of Shem is given, showing that God has not lost track of him and his
descendents - the line through whom salvation would come. So enters his offspring, Abram. Though mankind’s defiance was great, God had
vowed never again to destroy “every living creature” (Gen.8:21-22). So He made
another new beginning by calling a man out - to live unto Him in the
world. “The line of disaster and of the
‘curse,’ from Adam, through Cain, through the Food to Babel, begins to be
reversed when God calls Abraham and says, ‘in
you shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’” The New Testament and
the People of God by N.T. Wright
Abraham [see Children of Abraham http://pop.eradman.com/]
Gen.12:2-3, 7; 17:4-8 - What
are the promises?
1. land: Dt.12:9
- "you have not yet come to the rest and
to the inheritance that the LORD your God is giving you". Heb.3:7-4:9
- "For we who have believed enter that rest." The land is a type of our life in Christ [see Reformation Study Bible note on Gen.13:15].
2. a seed:
"Seed" is an ambiguous word, a collective singular noun that can be
singular or plural in meaning. Who are the three "referents" of the seed?
a. physical seed - Jn.8:31-33 the Jewish
people
b. Ultimate Seed - Gal.3:16 "Now the promises were made
to Abraham and his offspring [KJV - seed]. "It does not
say 'and to offsprings', referring to
many, but referring to one…who is Christ."
c. Spiritual seed - Gal.3:29 " If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heir
according to promise."
3. source of universal blessing:
Gal.3:8 "And
the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations
be blessed'."
Clue #3 - line of Abraham
History: There is a narrowing of the promise given to Abram in
Gen.12. As He grew older yet remained
childless, Abram was perplexed as to who would be his heir. God told him it would be his own child, not
his servant Eliezer (Gen.15:2-4). Later, as Sarai remained barren, Abram took her slave as a wife and
she bore Ishmael (Gen.16:1-4). But God renewed this covenant with Abraham's
son Isaac (Gen.26:3-4) later born to
Sarah (Gen.17:19; 21:1-7) - not Ishmael,
and with Isaac's son Jacob (Gen.28:13-15;
35:9-12; 48:3-4) - not Esau his brother.
God renamed each of those in the covenant line except Isaac (who was named by God before birth) to indicate that
they had become His.
Clue #4 - line of Isaac
Clue #5 - line of Jacob
History: Jacob, as he blesses his sons on his deathbed, prophesies
that a Messianic kingly line would come through his son Judah (Gen.49:10; see also Ruth 4:11-12)
Clue #6 - tribe of
History: It would be almost 1000 years before that came to pass in
King David. After David's reign in
David
2 Sam.7:12-13 - How would God build a house
for David? "I will raise up your
offspring after you…and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom
forever." That house was a dynasty
that would bring in the Ideal Messianic King.
God would raise up a Seed and give him a kingdom. {The parallel
passage clearly refers to Christ, “I will be to Him a father, and He shall be
to Me a son. I
will not take My steadfast love from Him…but will
confirm Him in My house and in My kingdom forever…” (1
Chron.17:13-14)}
Who/what
is the house that this Seed built? Heb.3:5-6
"now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the
things that were to be spoken later (shadow), but Christ is faithful over God's
house as a son. And we are His house…" 1 Pt.2:5 -
"you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual
house…"
The rest of 2 Sam.7 it is apparent that David
realized this was a really big deal, he says in v.19, "This is instruction (or
revelation) for mankind!" [NIV doesn't work here]
It has the
same elements as the Abrahamic Cov.:
land, seed, and universal blessing {Rom.15:8-12}.
Clue #7 - family of David
Mt.1:1 begins "The book of the genealogy of
Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham" i.e. the fulfillment of those
covenant promises, by the Ultimate Seed.
·
Work of the Seed
History: We skipped over the enslavement of the Hebrew people by the
Pharaoh of Egypt as God had predicted (Gen.15:13-14),
their deliverance, and the Covenant with nation of
Covenant with
What
was the role of the Law?
Rom.5:20 "the law came to increase the
trespass" i.e. to show the inability to meet a standard, and
therefore increase the awareness of the need of a Savior
Gal.3:24 "the law was our guardian until
Christ came." See chap.4 of RPCD – Chapters http://pop.eradman.com/
New Covenant
History: The New Covenant came to light in the prophecies of Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel during
Heb. 8:6 - Who inaugurated the New
Covenant? Christ. The identity of the
Seed is no longer in question. He made
the covenant in person. Through His
death and resurrection He has crushed Satan's head and redeemed man from the curse.
Heb.13:20
How is the New Covenant
described? "the eternal covenant" - it is the final covenant
- the fulfillment of all the other covenants.
·
Covenant
"Flags" -
There are two flags to watch for when you are reading the O.T. When you see them, say, "Covenant"
1. the word: "hesed"- the
Hebrew word used to describe the absolute loyal love of God toward those who
received his covenant promises. It's translated: mercy, kindness, loving
kindness, or in the ESV steadfast love, Ps.136
2. the phrase: "I will be their God, and they will be my
people" We will trace this through
the Bible in the next lesson.
The
response to truth should be worship: Read Zechariah's prophecy in Luke 1:68f. [Hymn "Come Thou Long-Expected
Jesus."]
·
The condition for participation in the covenants has always been by
faith.
The saints of
the O.T. trusted in God by believing in His words of promise. They were saved by faith in a promised
Savior.
Heb.11:13 - "These all died, not having received what was promised,
but having seen it and greeted it afar…"
Heb.11:26 - "Moses considered abuse suffered for the sake of Christ
greater wealth than the treasures of
John 8:56 - Jesus said: "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would
see My day; he saw it and was glad."
{Compare
the wording of Jer.11:3 "Cursed
be the man that obeys not the words of the covenant," and 2 Thess.1:8-9 "…inflicting
vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of
our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the
punishment of eternal destruction…"
Heb.4 - disobedience/unbelief
used interchangeably}
What struck you in
this lesson?
The
day of the Lord [see Correlating The Kingdom with The Church & with the Age http://pop.eradman.com/] refers to the final
expression of the New Covenant.
Further study
This study is taken in
the main from Beginning at Moses by Michael Barrett
See also God's Covenants (part 1), MP3 by Fred Malone http://www.gracesermons.com/hisbygrace/Homepage.html
Reflect
and comment on the following summations. A summation is a conclusion rather than a
synopsis of the preceding argument.
Rom.11:36 "all things are of Him [God] and through Him and to
Him." Note the context. God has shown mercy toward all who are in
disobedience. It is a doxology to God's
sovereignty.
1 Cor.15:20-28 "Christ is risen from the dead…then the
end comes when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father…when all things are
made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put
all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
·
Redemption is the beginning of the summation of history. It is not
complete "till the
Father has put all enemies under the Son's feet" (1 Cor.15:25), and since "death is
the last enemy" (v.26),
Christ's work is not done until death is destroyed. In His messianic work, the Son subjects
Himself to the will of the Father "when He delivers the kingdom to God the
Father" (v.24), once His
absolute rule is universally acknowledged.
With the completion of redemption and judgment, all things ruptured by
the fall of man will be resolved.
There'll be nothing left hanging or unaccounted for. No loose ends will remain. "The kingdom of the world has become the
kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and
ever." Rev.11:15-19