|
"For if he (Jesus) were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law; who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle..." Hebrews 8:4, 5
I recently read an article from a minister who is very much involved in Messianic Christianity. In this article I quote: "The scriptures teach us that the Jewish people have been given a double portion-a double blessing-as well as being repaid double for their sins[see Isaiah 40:2].The Gentiles, by grace, have also been given a portion. So, when the two come together in unity this truly does create a threefold cord! This act of unity and covenant union makes us much stronger than we could ever have been standing on our own. When the first covenant is united with the second covenant, there is a completion that is found lacking if the two are separated from one another."
I am simply amazed how folks can so misrepresent the truth of the gospel by trying to make the New Covenant better by unifying it with the Old. In fact, in one article I read it tried to explain that Judaism was the "pre-dispensational apostolic church." The very thought that by our failing to embrace Judaism as part of a covenant unity is going to somehow leave us lacking in being complete as a Christian is a gross misinterpretation of the revelation of redemption. Until we come to understand the changes that have occurred within this dispensation, which we now know is called an administration of the Spirit, we will certainly miss out on much of the supernatural, especially if our thinking that the teachings of the Church are not complete without incorporating Jewish thought into our faith. As much as I truly respect the history we have of all that God did with his people in the Old covenant, I fail to see the significance of embracing my so called "Hebraic roots" in order to become a completed Christian.
Paul clearly taught, in his writings, that God deals with three classes of people: the Jews, the Gentiles, and the church of God (1 Cor. 10:32). While the church is made up of Jew and Gentile, there is no indication that she remains Jewish or that when a Gentile comes to Christ that somehow that makes them a "completed Jew." The message of the new covenant has produced a new race, one that has no distinction to any ethnic origin. That is why Paul emphasized that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond or free, Barbarian or Scythian, circumcision or uncircumcision, male or female, but that we are all one in Christ Jesus. This is explained by the very fact that we are called new creatures. That means we are a new species that never existed before. Paul wrote to the church of Corinth and said, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new" (2 cor. 5:17). We read this many times, and fail to include the preceding verse: "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more" (v. 16). A person's old nature or even their ethnic origin really has no significance in the new creation. That's why our identity should simply be: "We are of God" (1 John 4:4). Literally, that should read, "We come forth out of God." That should satisfy all of my need to know my true origin!
According to the book of Hebrews, the old covenant is called a "shadow of good things to come" or a "shadow of heavenly things" (Heb. 8:5, 10:1). Where did we ever come up with the idea that going back and living under the shadow was to produce in us a better Christianity when Christ himself came to give us light? The new covenant has brought us into a spiritual dimension of life that has changed several important aspects to how we are to view everything. First of all, we have a new language. The language of our faith is that we are in Christ. We look back at the cross in a past tense position as a point of reference to our redemption. I do not have to go back any further than there to be complete. Secondly, I have a new relationship with my heavenly Father. Jesus said, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). Hebrews chapter one says, "God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son..." (Heb. 1:1, 2). My relationship with my Father now provides for me a message that comes through the Holy Spirit, which is to bring me into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, not the law or things contained in the law. Who we are "in Christ" is the message of the gospel. In other words, "I am in him because I am of him!" And thirdly, this new covenant provides me with a position of power. In Christ Jesus, I have been given authority in his name to execute the will of God on this earth. My restored dominion goes back to the Garden of Eden with God's original plan for man and not to a provisional plan founded upon Mount Sinai.
In comparing the life of the Spirit to that of the flesh, Paul said, "For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all" (Gal. 4:25, 26). So what is this power we have been given? It is the power of the new creation that lifts us up to a spiritual realm apart from all that is flesh. This is how we are to live and this is what we must embrace. We are called to a new order, not an old order redefined!
|
