God's Great Plan and Purpose for Israel - Unalterable

So last week, I used the analogy that understanding the Bible is like trying to get every piece of luggage in the trunk. And if you've packed a family for a trip like we're on at the moment, you know what that's like. And the Christians in the early church that had come out of Judaism thought, many of them, that they had the Old Testament scriptures all fit together nicely. They had their theological system. And then Paul came along with this new revelation about the church.

For us, unless our understanding of God's revelation in the Old Testament is correct, then we won't have room in our thinking for a correct doctrine of the Church. And the way that God is working with the church is radically different from his plan and program for Israel. And so now that Paul has explained the fundamental doctrines of the church in 6, 7, and 8, he needs to show how this fits perfectly together with everything else revealed in scripture. So every time that Paul presented this new revelation about the church, there was a risk that he'd be misinterpreted as saying that God was done with the nation of Israel, because here's this radically different thing that God is doing. It's so different from Israel, maybe God has completely altered or changed his program for Israel. And that was a misrepresentation that Paul had to head off before it got started.

Because to say that God was done with the nation of Israel would be equivalent to saying that the Word of God had failed. And you'll notice that verse 6 of chapter 9 is very clear that the Word of God has not failed in any way. God is not done with the nation of Israel. Now, I notice all my points are gonna come up page by page. My individual points don't come up that way, but that's okay. Just point number one, God's not done with the nation of Israel.

And neither was there anything wrong with God's plan for Israel. The fact that Israel had rejected their Messiah, which they had, could not change God's eternal plan and promises to them. And that, therefore, the title of today's message. An unalterable plan. But Paul has to clear up some misconceptions in order for us to see clearly that God has not altered his plan for Israel.

So last week we studied verses 1 through 3 and we saw Paul's intense emotional pain over Israel's rejection of the Messiah. And we said that Paul's sorrow is born out of the love of Christ in him. It's not something that he worked up. This was the life of Christ in Paul.

And the application that I made last week had to do with love towards the unsaved in general. And that's a fine application. We know that God loves Every person, not just the Jews, he desires that everyone would be saved. And because we have the life of Christ in us, we share in Christ's love for the lost. We don't need to try to work it up in the flesh. And I think that's an important application, but...

Though we can learn something about evangelism in verses 1-3, we want to be clear that Paul is not dealing with all unsaved people here. Paul is dealing specifically with the unbelieving nation of Israel. And he's concerned for their national salvation. That's what Paul means by the expression, for the sake of, in verse 3. If we flip ahead to Romans 10, verse 1, Paul describes there his heart's desire this way. He says, brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. And so that's what Paul is beginning to refer to in the first verses of chapter 9. But Paul is not praying for the individual salvation or justification of Jewish unbelievers. Paul is praying for the national salvation of Israel. So what do I mean by the national salvation of Israel? That's an important question. And we won't understand what Paul is saying in these chapters if we don't answer it correctly.

If we can see the distinction between the Christian salvation, and Israel's national salvation, or maybe I should say that a little differently. If we can see the distinction between justification, salvation, and Israel's national salvation, no, no, I had that the way I wanted it in my notes, okay. If we can see the difference, well, this will make sense in a moment. If we can see the distinction between the Christian's salvation and Israel's national salvation, then I think we'll overcome a really large interpretive barrier. We need to look at three different clarifications here. Just look at them one at a time, okay? We need to see these three clarifications before we can discuss what Israel's national salvation is. So point number one. And this is what I was thinking I was getting to there.

No one ever receives salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ, which results in a righteous standing before God. So when I use the phrase national salvation for Israel, we have to be clear that no Israelite will ever participate in that national salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ. That's foundational. That's fundamental. We can't forget that point. And we have to be clear that faith in Christ is a prerequisite for any Jew to be included in Israel's national salvation.

Think about what Jesus said to Nicodemus when he came to him that night in John chapter three. He said, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Keep in mind this is before the church began well before the church began and Jesus is talking to Nicodemus an unsaved Jew about being born again and And when Nicodemus questions Jesus about what it means to be born again Jesus makes it very clear that the new birth is through belief in Jesus as the Savior and And the new birth is the same thing that Paul calls or describes with the word justification, to be declared righteous by God. So nobody receives salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ resulting in justification or a righteous standing.

Point number two, we need to talk about Paul's use of the word salvation versus righteousness. Now, Paul consistently uses the word saved or salvation in a very distinct way from the words righteous, righteousness, and justified. Which, by the way, what does justified mean? To be declared righteous, right? So those three words belong together. Righteous, righteousness, justified all belong to the same group. And when we get sloppy with these words, we get confused.

But Paul uses them quite carefully. Paul consistently uses the words from the righteousness word group, dikayo, to describe the reality of gaining a righteous standing before God. That's how Paul uses those words. When Paul uses the words from the salvation word group, Sozo or Soteria he's always speaking of deliverance from some bondage or state of corruption For the one who is already justified and that's that's actually a clear pattern in Romans flip back to Romans 821 if you're if you're in Romans 9 already just flip back to 821 Okay.

And what does he say there? That the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. That's a salvation theme. And that's what Paul talks about. And that's really important when Paul starts saying that his desire, his heart's desire for Israel is for Israel's salvation. Okay, so let me kind of say this one more time in one sentence here.

To summarize Paul's teaching, justification righteousness is always on the basis of faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And salvation is something that God does for those who are justified. So righteousness comes first and is the basis for salvation or deliverance. When you hear the word salvation, if you think deliverance, it'll help you clarify things a little bit.

And look at the way that Paul states this in Romans 5 verse 9. Remember that here Paul is introducing the Christian's salvation. Earlier I mentioned the Christian's salvation versus Israel's national salvation. The Christian's salvation is introduced in Romans 5 verse 9 where he says, much more than having now been justified, aorist tense, by his blood, we shall be saved, future tense, from the wrath of God through him. So we need to understand a little bit the way Paul uses salvation versus righteousness. Righteousness being new birth through faith in Jesus Christ, salvation being something else.

And our third distinction is the two distinct salvations in Romans. And that's key to understanding Israel's national salvation. Paul teaches these two distinct salvations. So this is where we get back to that. Salvation for Christians. There's a distinct salvation for Christians as well as a distinct salvation for the justified Jews in the future.

And this is where we have to be very clear about what salvation is and not confuse it with justification. There's only one way of justification. So when I speak of two salvations, don't confuse that with thinking that there are two different ways of salvation. That's how we confuse that in our modern. There's only one way of justification. There are not two different ways of justification.

But, salvation for the church is described by Paul in Romans 5.12 through the end of chapter 8.

What does that salvation look like? Salvation for the Christian involves being delivered, remember that's our synonym for salvation, being delivered from the power of sin through our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Our salvation is a present tense reality for us. So we were justified through faith in Jesus Christ. We are now saved from the dominion of sin, the power of sin right now. That is the Christian, the believer, the church member, the church individual, the member of the body of Christ, the salvation that we have right now. Now salvation for Israel, in contrast, is a promised future salvation on a national scale. And just to put it into those terms, it makes it clear that it's quite different. Okay? Then your salvation. So behind everything we study today, we must have the underlying understanding that Israel has not yet received her promised salvation. And that's why Paul can desire Israel's future salvation.

So what do we mean by national salvation for Israel? Going back to Jesus' words to Nicodemus, what is it that Nicodemus would not see unless he was born again? Unless you were born again, you shall not see the kingdom, okay, the kingdom. Israel's national salvation has to do with the messianic kingdom.

In fact, we could say that the promised kingdom is national salvation for Israel. Now that we've separated salvation from the idea of justification, and keeping in mind that salvation means deliverance from the bondage and corruption of sin, then we can begin to see that the promised messianic kingdom is indeed salvation for Israel, or deliverance for Israel. The promised kingdom is the way in which God will deliver believing Israel from the corruption and bondage of sin. At the end of the tribulation, when Christ returns to establish the kingdom, every Jew who accepted Christ during the tribulation will be ushered in into the kingdom, along with resurrected Old Testament saints. This is the salvation that Jews have been longing for for thousands of years. This is the salvation that Jesus offered to Israel when he presented them with the gospel of the kingdom. And this is the salvation that Israel unwittingly rejected when they rejected Jesus as their king. So this understanding of Israel's salvation is going to underlie everything that we study today.

But first, we've got to bulldoze a major heresy that exists almost universally in the church today. Sadly, the biblical doctrine of the Kingdom of God has been butchered by theologians throughout church history. So we'll briefly summarize that history.

You probably have heard the name St. Augustine or St. Augustine, however you want to say it. 354 to 430 AD, so relatively early in church history. And Augustine wrote a book called The City of God, which heavily influences theology to this very day. If you know, if you have any Reformed Calvinist friends, they love to quote Augustine, right? Interestingly, the Catholic Church also holds Augustine in very high regard. You'll see why. In his book, The City of God, Augustine reinterpreted Israel's promised kingdom as something that is being fulfilled right now in the church. Sound familiar?

That error requires interpreting the kingdom in a way radically different from what is clearly laid out in scripture, what was literally foretold has been interpreted allegorically to apply it to the church. And so tragically, the church, by and large, has made a deadly departure from Paul's doctrine of our heavenly position and made the church a political and social kingdom on the earth. And today, the term kingdom is used almost universally within most churches, as if it applied to the church. And thanks to the constant stream of popular Christianity, it's easy to get confused on this issue.

But we have to straighten out our thinking if we're going to understand what Paul is saying about Israel's salvation. So as we move forward this morning, keep in mind that Israel's national salvation is accomplished and fulfilled through the future messianic kingdom. And everything that we look at this morning is connected to the issue of Israel's promised earthly kingdom.

So, with all that fore view here, let's get into verses four and five. So if you don't have your Bible open to chapter 9 of Romans, head there and just follow along together. We're just going to take this apart phrase by phrase this morning. We've got the phrase there in verse 4, beginning in the middle of a sentence, who are Israelites.

And of course, that just continues our sentence from last week, where Paul's talking about his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh. And we said that Paul is still able to identify himself with the Jewish people in terms of his physical descent, even though he now holds a heavenly citizenship in heaven. But Paul defines his kinsmen very clearly here as Israelites. And this is key because Paul's about to tell us the things that belong to his kinsmen.

And that's kind of like knowing whose name is on the deed to your property. Is that important to you? It might be if a dispute comes up. You want to be very clear who owns your property. Paul is very clear here who owns these possessions, these things that belong to these people. So he's defined them very clearly. So what exactly are the Israelites? And like I said last week, I had a friend once tell me that the church is Israel. And that's the confusion that exists. So we want to stay far away from that.

The name Israelite, of course, comes from Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. So we could say that this reference is simply to every person who descended from Jacob. Not just Abraham, you've got to be a descendant of Jacob to be an Israelite. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember, because Ishmael is not an Israelite. Esau is not an Israelite. So you have to be a descendant of Israel. But, see this is where you guys got to have your Bibles open, sorry. In verse six, this is the reason why I also have my notes on paper.

In verse 6 Paul writes, for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. So that puts an interpretive limitation on our definition here, okay? Because we just said that Israel is a reference to those who physically descended from Israel. But then he turns around in verse 6 and says, for they are not all Israel. And those aren't our verses for this week, but we've got to touch on that if we want to know that we're making the right interpretation.

So some have taken 9-6 to say that being a true Israelite doesn't have anything to do with physical descent, but only with faith. And that's one way that they try to, you know, fudge things to try to get the church into Israel's covenants. But that's not what Paul is saying, and that's not consistent with scripture.

Paul is saying that physical birth is not the only prerequisite to receiving the salvation promised to Israel. Does that make sense? Physical birth is a prerequisite. If you're going to be an Israelite and if you're going to receive the salvation that Israel receives, you must be an Israelite. But that alone is not enough. Physical birth is the beginning. But to enter into Israel's national salvation, a physical Jew must also put their faith in Jesus Christ.

OK? We're going to try to clarify this a little as we go along, because we don't want to get confused and think that a Jew who puts their faith in Jesus Christ right now doesn't belong to the church, because they do. Paul was a member of the body of Christ. Paul was a Christian. And so until the church is complete and removed at the rapture, Any Jew who puts their faith in Jesus Christ becomes a member of the church, okay? But in terms of Israel's national salvation, any believing Jew outside of the church period of history is promised salvation to them. So hopefully that makes sense. Physical birth is a prerequisite, but faith is also for the Jew. So, all right, it looks like we're all. Oh, that looks good. Yeah, that's exactly right. All right. So next slide.

To whom belongs? So now that Paul has defined who we're talking about, he begins to outline the unique privileges and promises which have been offered to Israel by God. And he lists five different things. I've broken this up a little differently than some, because if you look at this list, you're kind of, OK, but then what about to whom are the fathers and Christ? But these, I think, are the five things that are the belongings of Israel, or the possessions of Israel, in this text.

So we have the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, and the temple service. Each of these things is preceded by the definite article, which is why I put them up there with our English the. Not just adoption, but the adoption. Not just glory, but the glory. That means that Paul has very specific things in mind, not generalities. He has a specific adoption, a specific glory, and so forth. in mind. So each of these is something specific that God has offered to Israel.

And we'll see that while each of them has had a sort of a historic preview, you might say, none of them has been ultimately fulfilled to Israel. And we'll find that as we go along as well, that the church has no part in any one of these things. So as we go, we're going to see the contrast. Now, if you've got the handout as we go forward here, you're going to have pretty much what's on the slides in sort of a chart format. So in the left column we've got Israel, and in the right column we've got the church, and we're going to sort of contrast those for the sake of our own application this morning. Keep in mind that Paul doesn't really say anything about the church here. What we know about the church and how it relates to these things we're drawing from elsewhere in scripture.

But I want to just do that so we have some clarity. Contrast gives a lot of clarity and understanding. It's good to know what something is, but it's very good to know what something is not. That increases our understanding of something many, many times. So let's look at the adoption as sons.

Now it's all going to come up on the screen, so you can use this to look at later. I kind of wanted you to have it so you could, because we're going to kind of go through quickly here. Don't get lost in all the words. We're just going to kind of talk about what I've put in this chart.

So the word translated adoption as sons is actually one Greek word. It simply means adoption as a son or placement as a son. We could say to Israel belongs the placement as a son. In fact, to translate in the singular would be better, or I think, as Jim had it, just the adoption, the adoption. Because when we get the plural in there, we start to think of individual adoption on an individual basis, but that's not what Paul has in mind. This is not referring to the adoption of individual Jews, plural, but the adoption of the nation Israel, singular. So Paul's referring to the Roman practice, of course, of adoption, which is different than we have it today in North America. But in the Roman culture, when a son had reached maturity, he may or may not have been adopted by his father. Adoption was what gave a son a position or a standing in the family.

And we need to understand that Israel is the only nation referred to as the Son of God. Sorry, I know it's almost the 4th of July and we'd like to think America is the, but Israel is the only nation that has ever been referred to as the Son of God. Exodus 4.22, then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. Hosea 11 verse 1 when Israel was a youth. I loved him and out of Egypt. I called my son So Israel was born as a son when the Lord delivered them out of Egypt Okay So remember, we're looking nationally. Israel had a national birth when the Lord called them out of Egypt.

And that means that as a nation, they have a special relationship with God, and God has promised them a position an adopted position in the family, a standing among the nations of the earth, but they have not yet received the fulfillment of that. Does that make sense? They're born, they were born when they were taken out of Israel, but they've got this promised standing from God. And they haven't received that yet because of a condition that God puts on them receiving that.

Deuteronomy 28 verse one, now it shall be If you diligently obey the Lord, the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. So there's a standing that Israel will receive as a nation, but they have not received that yet. Israel's position will always be earthly, and national. Israel's God-given position is to be the head of all earthly nations, but that's not the case today because of that condition. They haven't the condition of obeying diligently all his commands.

They will only receive this position as head of all the nations if They diligently obey the Lord God and are careful to do all his commands. So Israel's placement as the head of all nations is future and it's conditional. It's conditioned on obedience to God's covenant law.

So let's contrast that with church because we just learned about our adoption in Romans 8, right? There's a big difference between Israel's national adoption and ours. Our position is not national but personal. in Christ. Our adoption is on the basis of our union with Christ.

We share with Jesus in His position. So because of that, our position is heavenly, not earthly. Because Jesus' position is in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named. So our position is actually higher than Israel's promised position to be the head of all the nations. Our position is with Christ Jesus in the heavenlies, the highest place in the universe.

So as well, our position is a present reality. It's not something future. It is real, right this moment, it's as real right this moment as it ever will be. That's why we can count on our position right now. Our position has no conditions to be met on our part. It's based entirely on who Jesus Christ is and what He has done.

So just to contrast our adoption a little bit. Let's look at the glory. So again, with this issue of the glory, we could ask, well, doesn't the Church have glory as well? And we do. 2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all with unveiled face, beholding as an emir the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into this same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit. So again, there's a similarity.

But this glory, which Paul is talking about here, the glory that belongs to Israel, is different. What Paul is referring to is what we sometimes call the Shekinah glory of God, which was visibly manifest to the nation of Israel. Exodus 40, verses 34 through 38, says, Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And jumping down to verse 38, for throughout all their journeys, the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and there was fire in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel. So this glory was something that was visible to every Israelite. The Shekinah glory of God represented his personal presence with the nation of Israel.

And you can see that a little bit in Exodus 33, if you want to study that out, how God speaks of being present with Israel and going up with them into the promised land and so forth. And at one point he says, well, no, I'm not going to go with you. And Moses is like, oh, yes, you are. We can't go without you. And so God says, yeah, I'll go with you. But God was present with them in a sense that Canada doesn't have, America doesn't have, and there was a visible thing that went along with it, a visible glory that went along with it.

And Ezekiel actually tells us that at the time of the exile to Babylon, he witnessed the glory of God departing from Jerusalem. And so it's important to note that when Paul wrote these words in Romans, there was no visible Shekinah glory in Israel. But Ezekiel also prophesied about the return of the visible glory of God to a future temple. So again, we see that the fulfillment of the glory, this particular glory, has been promised to Israel in the future millennial temple. Okay, so there's still a promise element of this. The Shekinah glory, which represents the presence of God with the nation Israel among them.

Okay, so let's look at the covenants here. We couldn't fit it all on the left, so that kind of just belongs on the left there. The covenants with Israel will be a really significant focus for us this morning. And that's because all of God's workings with Israel are on the basis of His covenants with them. We'll just talk about the important aspects of the biblical covenants here. This could be a massive study otherwise. But we have to understand that God's covenants with Israel are the backbone of all scripture interpretation.

We need to learn to think of the word covenant less religiously and more in terms of what the word actually means. A covenant is a contract. You may have seen that on certain contracts you signed. You covenant something. That's really what the word is. The two words covenant and contract are really synonyms, and yet when we think covenant, if you grew up in the church, we tend to float off into religious, mushy thinking. When we think contract, we get a lot more concrete in our thinking.

So a biblical covenant is a contract between God and his creatures. And they are always initiated by God. They lay out specific terms and conditions which cannot be changed. So I'm gonna put up here five biblical covenants that are clearly laid out in scripture between God and his creatures. Sorry, I got four up there. I've got five in my nose. The first one is God's covenant between himself and actually all living creatures, that he'll never flood the earth again. And if you want a picture of what a covenant is, go look at that in Genesis 9.

But Paul's not referring to that one because that doesn't have anything specifically to do with Israel. Israel wasn't in existence then. But there are for sure four other biblical covenants that are related to God's plan for Israel. And they are the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant.

So we're going to touch on those this morning. Now technically, the Davidic Covenant is made with David and his descendants. But the results of the Davidic Covenant are for Israel. So let's deal briefly with those. The Abrahamic Covenant, the Davidic, and the New Covenant are all what we would call unconditional covenants, which means the things promised in them are guaranteed by God with no conditions placed on Israel whatsoever.

God will do these things. The Abrahamic Covenant promised unconditional blessing to Israel in the Promised Land forever. Okay, this really is the kingdom promise in its most basic form. That God promised them a physical real estate. And he promised them an earthly ruler, a human ruler, the seed of Abraham. and blessing as well. So the Davidic covenant, which came later, unconditionally guaranteed that a son of David would be the eternal king in that promised earthly kingdom.

But the Mosaic covenant, and we're going to deal with the third unconditional covenant after the Mosaic, just to keep the logic straight here. But the Mosaic covenant is different. The Mosaic covenant is a conditional covenant, which means that it's an if-then covenant. If Israel would obey the law of Moses, they would be blessed in the land. If they disobeyed, they would be cursed and exiled out of the land. So the Mosaic Law, the Law of Moses, is really the terms and conditions of the Mosaic Covenant. So there's a tension there that you should feel between the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant and the conditional Mosaic Covenant. How can God guarantee blessing in the promised land and at the same time say that unless Israel will obey the law, they're going to be cursed and kicked out of the land?

And that, of course, is where the new covenant comes in. The new covenant is the last and final unconditional covenant, and it resolves that tension by guaranteeing the conditions under which Israel will be able to keep the law. So God promises in the new covenant that one day, He will give Israel a new heart. He'll write the law on their heart and he'll indwell them with his Holy Spirit so that they will be able to obey the law perfectly. So the new covenant provides the conditions to fulfill Israel's national salvation. Israel's national salvation depends on the fulfillment of the new covenant.

And so let's just briefly contrast that with the church. Because, try as you may, you will never biblically get the church into God's covenants with Israel. There are a few proof verses that may be used by some who try to do that, but none of them hold up to careful exegesis. The church is not a covenant people. Israel has a covenant program with God, the church does not. And that understanding of the covenants will play throughout the rest of our study this morning. So that's very brief, but if you can keep those four kind of held in relation like that mentally, it'll really help your understanding.

That the Abrahamic covenant set forth unconditional promises. The Mosaic covenant seemed to put conditions on what was unconditional. And the New Covenant shows how God will give Israel the ability to meet those conditions, notice it's by grace, right? Grace has a place in God's working with Israel, okay? So the giving of the law. The law of Moses is actually drawn out here, like we said, it's actually involved in the Mosaic Covenant, but Paul draws it out as an additional point. It was given to Israel on Mount Sinai by God himself.

There's no other nation that's ever received anything like it. And God says that in Deuteronomy 4 verse 8, he says, or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today? Rhetorical question, nobody. Nobody has a law code like the nation of Israel.

Theirs was given to them by God. And it's important to realize that the law was never designed as a way to achieve righteousness. Instead, it was given to Israel as the conditions or terms of the Mosaic Covenant. If Israel would keep the law, then they would be blessed in the kingdom. And Israel thought they could do it.

We can't be hard on them. We all think we can do it, too, at some point in our lives, right? We think we can, you know, you give me a list of good deeds and I'll do it, right? And Exodus 24-7. They say all that the Lord has spoken we will do and we will be obedient but but God knew God knew from the beginning that Israel could not keep the law and and we see in different portions where God Indicates that you are going to fail and you will be cursed and and I Deuteronomy 30 verse 1 says so it shall be when all these things have come upon you the blessing and the curse which I have set before you so God knew that Israel would fail to the law. And in fact, that's part of the reason why God gave Israel the law, to teach them their own inability, to teach them their inability to arrive at His standard, at His kind of righteousness. So as we just said a minute ago, the bringing in of the new covenant is the only way that Israel will ever be able to perfectly obey the law. But the new covenant will only be put into effect at the beginning of the kingdom.

So, now let's compare that to the church. Since the church is not party to any of Israel's covenants, and the 613 laws of Moses are the terms of a covenant made with Israel, then the law of Moses has no application to the church. It is not the terms of anything to us, okay? Instead, we operate under a principle of total grace, which means that our blessings are unconditional, okay? We never had a law placed on us in the church. And the temple service. Another one of the unique privileges which belongs to Israel is the temple service.

Now the word temple is actually supplied by the translators there, but what Paul's talking about is the ritual sacrificial system which has to be carefully followed by the priest. Go read Leviticus, okay, and you'll get you'll see the religious sacrificial system that was precise and exact.

And I was just reading it last night, and it was life or death to do these things correctly. And what was so special about the sacrificial system is that it gave them, Israel, special access to come near to God that no other nation had. But like we said, it was serious business. If it wasn't done right, it was lights out. And even when Israel had been, what they had been given was really only a shadow, a dim reflection of the real thing, which Hebrews tells us in chapters 8 and 10. And those verses on the screen there. And I was thinking about this, and I kind of thought the following analogy might be helpful.

Think about what it takes to put a man on the moon, right? We've got thousands of people involved in that endeavor and countless hours of training and procedure and protocol, and everything has to be executed perfectly. If one thing goes wrong, it's life or death type of a thing, right?

But if everything goes just right, then a man can walk on the moon, but only for a little while, right? He can't stay there. And even then, he has to be fully covered in a protective suit. He can't just peel that thing off and, you know, go for a jog. And that's sort of what it was like for Israel to come into God's presence, right? Everything had to be meticulously carried out. And even then, only a select few and only for short periods of time. And to extend that analogy, think about walking on the moon, how great a length man goes to do that, and for what? To walk around on a giant dirt mirror.

The moon is a reflection of the real thing, the sun, right? So similarly, what Israel was given was only a shadow, only a reflection of the real tabernacle in heaven. It was a very special privilege that no other nation had, far beyond what any other nation had. But as magnificent as that privilege was, what we have in the church infinitely surpasses that, okay? If they were on the moon, we're on the sun.

Without a spacesuit, we're in Christ, right? So in Christ, we've been brought into the very presence of God, not a reflection of it in the heavenly places. And as a believer, that's where you stand right this moment in the presence of God. That's your position at the right hand of God.

So we could camp out on the church's position, but that's not our focus here, it's Israel. So before we leave that point, we should point out that Israel today does not have a temple or a priesthood. in part because right now the church is in existence. God is working with the church. Any Israelite who comes to faith in Christ today is placed into the body of Christ and goes right into the presence of God the Father, like each one of you here.

And there's no need for a reflection or a shadow, that temple, tabernacle, sacrificial system. But there will be a future temple and a future priestly service in the millennium. For the first thousand years of the eternal kingdom there is a temple and there will be a priestly service. And so once again we see that the temple service is wrapped up in Israel's national salvation in the kingdom. and the promises.

So the next unique privilege of the nation Israel is the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, I didn't count them, so I went on the safe side and said thousands, but, or hundreds, sorry, of promises contained in the Old Testament scripture detailing how God would bless them in the promised land.

All of the promises to Israel rest on God's first covenant with Abraham. They're all related back to the fundamental covenant promise to give Israel a land, a seed, and a blessing. So, like we said, a physical piece of real estate. The descendant of Abraham, and later through the Davidic covenant, David as well, who would be the the king of Israel, and blessings for Israel which would flow out and bless the whole world through them.

So none of these covenant promises have been fulfilled yet. And the best we can say is that Israel has been given a foretaste of them in the past. And if God does not fulfill these promises exactly as foretold, then he's a liar. And what Reformed theology has done to God's promises to Israel is really inexcusable to say that the promises are fulfilled allegorically to the church and not to Israel is a dangerous, horrific misinterpretation of scripture. Because if that's the way God keeps his promises by distorting them and playing word games with them, then we can never trust him. We can never trust that kind of God. God stakes his character on whether or not he keeps his promises. He will fulfill these things exactly as foretold, but not to the church, to Israel.

And now we move into verse five, and the grammatical pattern is interrupted here, and that's why I included those five things as the possessions or belongings of Israel. I kept the chart going here on this point just to be able to show some contrast.

But Paul stops listing the unique possessions of Israel and turns to the unique descent of Israel. And a straightforward reading would be, of whom the fathers, and out of whom the Christ. whose are the fathers makes sense to us. But Israel is made up exclusively of those who descend from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And each of the five things that we just covered are offered only to the physical descendants of Israel.

But like we said earlier, the only way that any Israelite will ever receive these blessings is through entrance into the kingdom. which can only be gained through faith in Jesus Christ. Go back to the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. He wanted entrance into the kingdom where he would receive all of these things. And Jesus said, you will only have it through new birth, which comes through faith in me as the Messiah.

So, So the fathers are uniquely Israels, okay? I should be careful. We don't have any people of Jewish descent in our church back home, but I was, I guess I was wondering if there's anyone, you know, I always say none of us are descended from Israel. I don't know that, so I gotta be careful.

And from whom is the Christ, according to the flesh, who is over all God blessed forever. Amen. We just want to take that as one big chunk. We could break it up into little bits, but I think we'd lose the thrust of what Paul is saying. Paul's very careful with that statement.

He points out that Jesus is both a human descendant of Israel, and at the same time, perfect deity. We dealt last week with that expression, according to the flesh, and we said that it only refers to physical descent, not sin nature, because here it's applied to Christ.

And so Jesus is a descendant of Jacob, Israel, according to the flesh. And that's a clear reference to Jesus' humanity. In his humanity, he's a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is necessary in order to fulfill the seed promise given to Abraham and the promised son given to David. He has to be a descendant of David, a descendant of Jacob.

But Jesus must also, equally important, be God himself in order to fulfill the Old Testament promises. And so we have those words, who is over all, God bless forever, amen. Or you could translate that, who is God over all. Blessed forever, amen. And this is a clear statement of the deity of Christ. Jesus is the one who is over all. He is God, who is forever blessed.

And only because he is God, can he possibly bring to Israel their promised salvation. Okay, if he was just a man, he would be totally incapable of that. But because he is God, God and man, he can do that. When Jesus walked on the earth, he showed the Jews sign after sign that proved his divine ability to bring the kingdom conditions to the earth. That's what Jesus' miracles were all about, showing Israel that I have the credentials, I am the promised king, the promised savior of Israel, and I can bring about all these things, all these promises, the fulfillment of all these covenants, I can do that.

And yet they rejected him. Israel's only hope of salvation rests in Jesus Christ, in both his deity and his humanity. And only Jesus, the God-man, can bring about Israel's promised salvation in the kingdom. And so though they rejected him, they will accept him one day.

And so let's just string this all together in closing. We've said that Israel's national salvation is defined by the covenant program which God instituted with them. And if we don't understand that, then when we get to Romans 11, 26, down the road here, and Paul says, and so all Israel will be saved, we're going to be terribly confused what we're talking about. What Paul is talking about there is the fact that there will come a day when all of Israel's promises are finally fulfilled to them. That is salvation for Israel. And that can only happen when Jesus Christ is seated on the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem in the land of Israel.

Jesus is the key to everything we've studied this morning. None of it comes to pass apart from him. It's great to study the covenants and the structures of them and how they work and what's promised and we can get into eschatology and how that's all gonna work, but Jesus is the key to all of that. So long as Israel is in rejection of Jesus, everything is on hold.

All of that waits until they accept him. But the Bible is very clear that it's only after the church is raptured. And Israel finds herself in the tribulation that her eyes will finally be opened and the Jewish people in mass will receive Jesus Christ as their savior. When Jesus returns to the earth, he'll be welcomed by a generation of Israelites who accept him with open arms as their savior, messiah, and king. And finally, Jesus' deep longing to, as he said, gather Israel as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. That deep longing will be fulfilled. And Paul's deep longing for the salvation of Israel will be fulfilled.

And brothers and sisters, we get a front row seat to that event. We are the bride of Christ, and we will be the ones returning with Christ to rule and reign with Him. And with our own eyes, we will see God's great plan and purpose for Israel fulfilled. That's how we relate to all of this here. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great plan and purpose for Israel.

Lord, we thank you that you will carry it out exactly as foretold. We thank you, Lord, that these things are not directly applied to us, because what you have done for us is infinitely greater. Our citizenship is not on the earth, but in the heavens. Our position is not on the earth, but in Christ Jesus in the heavenly places, above every power and principality. And so, Lord, we pray that as we study and learn here about the fact and the ways in which you will fulfill your word, you will carry it out, and you will vindicate your character as a promise-keeping and trustworthy God. As we study all of that, that we would not lose focus here on on Jesus Christ, your Son, who is the answer to all of it. He is the key to everything here, and our unique privilege and position in Him. We just thank you for all of these things. In Jesus' name, Amen.