Getting the Gospel Right

When I was a teenager, I was struck by the anathema in Galatians 1:6–9,

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed (Galatians 1:8, NASB). 

What struck me then was the question, "so what is the Gospel?" If getting it wrong is worthy of anathema, I should be very careful to know what it is, right?

And it took me not long at all to realize that all the adults I knew had an answer, but basically none of them had a verse. So, for example, my Sunday School teachers had taught me that John 3:16 is "the Gospel in a nutshell." Well, John 3:16 is absolutely the Word of God. But when Scripture says "the Gospel," is it referring to John 3:16? What does the Scripture say?

As far as I have been able to tell, Scripture tells us what the Gospel is exactly once.  There are two passages laying out "the Gospel" explicitly:  1 Corinthians 15:1–8 defines "the gospel which I preached to you" (cf. Galatians 1:8),  and Revelation 14:6 gives us the "everlasting gospel."  The "everlasting gospel" is worth considering, but for now let's just focus on "the gospel which I preached to you":

Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, ² by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

³ For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; ⁷ then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; ⁸ and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:1–11, NASB).

This is the only time that Paul explicitly tells us what "the gospel" is. We would do well to commit to these verses to memory.  

Let's make the assumption that "the gospel which I preached to you" in 1 Corinthians 15:1 is the same thing as "[the gospel] we have preached to you" in Galatians 1:8. I think it's warranted in the text.

There is absolutely no question that the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly is counted righteous (Romans 4:5)... but the Scripture doesn't label that "the gospel." (Although to be fair, this is close to "the everlasting gospel" in Revelation 14:6, which we'll need to discuss another time.)

There is absolutely no question that the one who hears Christ's words and believes on Him who sent Him [Christ] has eternal life (John 5:24)... but the Scripture doesn't label that "the Gospel."

There is absolutely no question that the one who believes on Jesus Christ shall be saved (Acts 16:31)... but the Scripture doesn't label that "the Gospel."

What Scripture calls "the Gospel" is that Christ has died for Our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas and the Twelve. That's it, that's the only time the epistles say, "this is the gospel."

I don't bring this up to be contentious. I bring this up, because when I look to see how the Word of God defines the Gospel, I don't find "Four Spiritual Laws" or "The Romans Road" or even John 3:16. What I find is four propositions about the death, burial, resurrection, and witnesses of Christ.

Let's be quick to say that God loves to forgive (Micah 7:18–19). There can be no doubt that someone who believes God is justified freely. There can be no doubt that many, many people have heard a not-quite-right Gospel, and God has justified them freely when they believe. Not because they got the Gospel right, but because they believed on Him who justifies the ungodly. Remember, God justifies the one who does not work, but believes (Romans 4:5), and every one of us – if we are honest – finds our belief is mixed up in all sorts of unbelief (Mark 9:24). No one who comes to Christ will be turned away (John 6:37), even if they later realize they could have come "better."

In other words, the Gospel isn't some sort of arcane test we need to pass in order to get to Christ. God forgives freely with the slightest provocation. Galatians 1:6–9 isn't a rule to exclude hearers from forgiveness, it's a condemnation against those who preach something else as Gospel. 

I've asked this before, but I think it's worth asking again. Have we heard "gospel messages" that miss out on those four things? Have we heard "gospel messages" that don't talk about Christ being seen by Cephas and the Twelve?  Have we heard "gospel messages" that don't mention that Christ was buried?  Have we heard "gospel messages" that don't mention the Resurrection? I have heard all of those things.

These so-called Gospel messages reveal our hearts, perhaps more completely than we want to admit.

Paul preached the Gospel as something to be believed. We prefer to preach a Gospel that's something to do. The Gospel that Paul preached, that the Corinthians received, that they believed, by which they were saved – that Gospel has no call to action. That Gospel is the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It's not some proscribed action we give to sinners so they can be saved.

None of us wants to admit the central fact of Romans 4:1–5. God justifies the one who does not work, but believes. We just can't quite accept that, and so we add subtle "to-do" items to what Scripture calls the Gospel. 

"Here's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, repeat this prayer after me."  That's literally adding something to the Gospel.

We just can't resist adding something for the sinner to do.

It reveals, too, that we're not seeing everything through the lens of "Christ and Him crucified."  If we were seeing everything through that lens, it wouldn't be hard for us to give the Gospel Paul gave and stop there. It's because we see "Christ and Him crucified" as not enough that we keep trying to add something to that.

I'm not saying that God doesn't command all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30–31). Of course He does! But we sure have an easy time folding all sorts of things into that word "repent." And I can't help but notice that our friends who stress repentance seem to lose "Christ and Him crucified" in the process. Somehow the focus becomes "repent" and "Christ and Him crucified" seems to slip off to the side, away from center stage.

Maybe repentance is something to talk about another time. It deserves its own post.

But the point I'm trying to make is that our life as Christians is supposed to be all about Christ. And when we give a "Gospel" that is more about the sinner than about Christ, then we reveal that we're not determined to see everything through the lens of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

And maybe this is the biggest single problem we have. We manage to find so many things to put at the center, where Christ should be, and then we act surprised that our lives aren't Christ-centered. Well... what did we think would happen? Jesus Christ and Him crucified, that's the center we should have.

And make no mistake, I'm at least as guilty of this as anyone else. I'm not accusing all those sinners out there, I'm saying "we" because I mean "we."

 

 

 

 

Lens

I was sitting in meeting, ruminating on 1 Corinthians 11:26. Rodger mentioned this a year or so ago, pointing out that when we announce the Lord's death, we're not merely announcing that He died, but all that His death entails.

So there I was, thinking about 1 Corinthians 11:26, and thinking about 1 Corinthians 2:1–2. Many years ago, someone mentioned to me that when Paul said he knew "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2), the context makes it clear he didn't mean he didn't think or talk about anything else. After all, this is the epistle that discusses church order, and marriage, and lawsuits, and a whole host of other issues. So he's not saying he's ignorant of anything but the Crucifixion. 

It seems to me that Paul was saying that the Lord Jesus Christ and His crucifixion were the lens through which he saw everything. So when he addresses church order, marriage, lawsuits, and so forth, he addresses them in through the lens that Jesus Christ was crucified.

I've heard people (especially Francis Schaeffer) talk about "a Christian worldview." Well, this might be Paul's version of a Christian worldview. Jesus Christ and Him crucified was the central fact of Paul's life, and everything he saw was in relation to this central fact.

I'm not doing a great job viewing everything through the lens of "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

If I were looking through that lens, I might not be terribly surprised at the terrible news on my phone every day. What else should I expect from a world that killed the Son of God?

If I were looking through that lens, I'd be a lot less angry about injustices I see around me. Surely the people who have and do reject Christ Jesus as Lord can't be expected to live any better than they do.

If I were looking through that lens, I might have a deeper appreciation for the beauty and majesty of the creation around me: it's a reflection of the One whose heart is unimaginably good. It's a testimony to the eternal power and God-ness of its creator (Romans 1:20).

If I were looking through that lens, I wouldn't be knowing anyone after the flesh, because I'd recognize that Christ's death ended the moral history of Adam, and His resurrection started something entirely new (1 Corinthians 15:45–49; 2 Corinthians 5:16).

So in the spirit of confessing our faults to one another, I will stop here and say that I've gotten distracted and had my eyes pulled away from the lens I ought to have been using. I've been far too likely to look at the world through a moral – but not necessarily Christ-centered – lens. I ought to have been seeing everything through the lens of "nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

That is, after all, the Christian worldview.

Christianity

We've talked before about 1 Corinthians 15:1–5, that gives us the gospel as four propositions centered on the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we've mentioned that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection mark out the path for us: we are dead with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. And just as He was seen by Cephas and the Twelve, we also will be seen with Him some day.

What I've tried to say over and over – but perhaps haven't said very well at all – is that Christianity differs from what came before in that it involves death, burial, and resurrection. The Old Testament saints were justified by grace through faith, just like we are (Romans 4:1–8). I have no doubt they were born of God, just like we are. But they weren't crucified with Christ, buried with Him, and raised with Him. That's our place, it wasn't theirs.

In a very real way, the Christian life is uniquely the life of death, burial, and resurrection.

I said at some point that the Christian life begins with baptism. It's not so much that baptism stands at the gateway to the Christian life (although I think it does), it's that where the Old Testament saints end and we begin, is at the truth of baptism: that we are identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

Someone who believes but hasn't yet been baptized is justified by grace through faith in exactly the way that Abraham and David were, but he hasn't yet come to the point where Christianity starts – at least not consciously. Notice I'm not arguing whether God sees him as dead, buried, and raised with Christ. My point isn't what God sees, but what we see. An unbaptized believer is effectively an Old Testament saint.

Those of us who have been baptized are in an entirely different position, at least outwardly speaking. We are now in the place of those who have died with Christ (Romans 6:3).

In my experience, evangelical teaching on baptism is so weak it's effectively error. In my experience, when evangelicals talk about baptism, they're speaking in terms of obedience, not in terms of identity. So the statements of Romans 6 – baptism means we've died with Christ, been buried with Him, and shall have been raised with Him – are transformed into commands: baptism means we must live an entirely new sort of life, as though we had died with Christ, etc. I'm dismayed almost every time I hear evangelical teaching on baptism.

But it is true that our awareness of our identity in Christ has a tendency to fade over time. When we first realize we have died with Him, our shock turns to relief as we realize that we are now freed from that terrible sin that lives within us. We are relieved when we realize that God sees us as no longer being that old man that we were, and we are now free to agree with God, and count it as true ourselves. "I'm no longer that terrible old man, I'm no longer the slave of sin!" and suddenly we find ourselves free.

Because death is where slaves are free of their masters (Job 3:13–19).

But over time that realization fades, and we start to live again as though we're alive in this world. The memory of those first few moments of miraculous freedom fades, and we start to live and act as though we hadn't died with Him.

What's the solution? I'll blatantly rip a verse from its context and say, "remember therefore from whence thou art fallen" (Revelation 2:5). We're awfully quick to forget what it was like to be a slave to sin, and we can find ourselves drifting back that way all too easily. Like Israel, we start to think things weren't all that bad when we were eating leeks and onions back there... 

One thing about baptism, it doesn't give us a path back to the pre-baptism life.  You can't undo death.

In a very real sense, Colossians 3 picks up where Romans 6 leaves off. Romans 6 teaches that we have died with Christ, and that's something we have to reckon (count as true). Colossians 3 starts with that assumption, then goes on to say that, having died with Christ, we now have to "put to death" our "members on the earth." Colossians 3 gives a list of those members on the earth, but I'm not convinced it's a complete list. Be that as it may, it's striking that the command to mortify (put to death) our members on the earth is given to those who have already died with Christ.

Here's another place where evangelicals have gotten it wrong, in my experience. We have a tendency to put Colossians 3:5ff. before Colossians 3:1–4. In other words, we tend to see our having died with Christ as a result of our mortifying. But that's the opposite of what the text says. It says because we have died with Christ, we ought to mortify. In other words, our mortifying is a result of our already having died.

I've mentioned in the past that we can't skip Romans 6 on our way to Romans 12. We keep trying to throw people into Romans 12:1–2 who haven't yet learned Romans 6, and it just doesn't work. It can't work. Romans 12:1-2 is for those who have already learned Romans 6. In the same way, Colossians 3:5ff. is for those who have already learned Colossians 3:1–4.

Notice the progression of our relationship with death. When we first hear the gospel, the death of Christ means that Christ has died so I don't have to. That's a really basic, but really profound gospel. But then we learn that when Christ died, I died too. That's not something that's true in our experience, we are to believe it based on the word of God: we reckon (count on) it to be true. But now we come to Colossians 3:5ff., and death gets a little more real to us: now we begin to feel it. Now it cuts a little, and we might feel some of its sting. It cuts into those passions and lusts and sins that we enjoy. It starts to cost us something.

But we're not done yet. There is a third death for the believer, it's "death works in us" in 2 Corinthians 4:10–12. Notice this isn't something that's to be accepted on faith like death in Romans 6. And it's not something where we have some sort of control like the mortifying in Colossians 3:5ff. No, this cuts us very deeply, and we feel it, and we don't have any real control over it. This is death up close, personal, painful, and interfering. This is death as God's instrument to reveal the life of Jesus in our mortal flesh. This is, if you like, how God gets us out of the way so that people see Christ instead.

I've been reminded of this because I've been reading in Joshua. It seems to me that the Romans 6 death is connected with crossing the Red Sea (see 1 Corinthians 10:1–5, where the Red Sea represents baptism). And the children of Israel, we are told, crossed on dry ground (Exodus 14:21–22).

The children of Israel crossed the Jordan the same way (Joshua 3:14–17), but notice that the priests had to step into the water before it parted. So we can reasonably say that although the vast majority of the nation crossed over without getting wet, it seems like at least the priests got a little wet.

But once the children of Israel got to Gilgal, then the idea of the cutting off of the flesh got real. This wasn't like walking on dry ground through the Red Sea, it wasn't even like walking over the Jordan and the priests' feet getting wet. This was full-on death. It was circumcision with stone knives (Joshua 5:2). This was very, very painful. In fact, it was debilitating pain, so that they had to wait in Gilgal until those who'd been circumcised recovered (Joshua 5:8–9). 

That's what the 2 Corinthians 4:10–12 death is like. It's not something we need to reckon as true, because it's painfully true in our own experience.

We've talked about all this before. It's nothing new. But sometimes we need to be reminded of these things.

 

7k

Romans 11:2–5 makes an argument from the story of Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel (1 Kings 19:1–18). Elijah had hid in a cave after killing the prophets of Baal, and had even asked God to kill him, believing himself to be the last believer in Israel (1 Kings 19:4–10). God corrected him, informing him there were seven thousand left who "had not bent the knee to Baal."

Romans 11:2–5 takes that story and uses it to demonstrate that God has not "cast off" Israel. It may look like it: the Church is (at least for now) predominantly Gentile (Romans 9:30–31). Things look bleak for Israel, and Paul is asking, has God replaced Israel? The answer, of course, is no. There is a day coming when all Israel shall be saved (Romans 11:25–26), but for now, God proves His intention of saving the entire nation by saving a  "remnant according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5). They're sort of like a deposit, a show of good faith.

Elijah is convinced he is the one last man standing, so to speak. But God's response is, "I know more than you: I know 7,000 times more believers than you do." And there is an application we can make from this story to ourselves.

We, like Elijah, have a tendency to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We look around, see ruin and decay, and think, "well, I guess it's down to me now." But that's foolishness. The Lord knows those who are His (2 Timothy 2:19). It's a pretty safe bet to say, as many faithful believers as we know, the Lord knows 7,000 times more.

I was thinking about this in connection with the seven churches in Asia (Revelation 2–3). In the message to each church, there is the promise to the one who overcomes. Do we not think there is an overcomer in every church? If we're honest, we don't. Not really. But even Thyatira has overcomers. Even Laodicea has overcomers.

It's striking that the overcomer in Laodicea isn't commanded to move to Philadelphia, or that the overcomer in Laodicea isn't told to move to Smyrna. As far as I can tell, the overcomer in Thyatira is called to overcome in Thyatira. The overcomer in Laodicea is called to overcome in Laodicea.

I know people who believe that the Roman Catholic Church isn't a church, while simultaneously saying that "the church in Thyatira" is Roman Catholicism. That strikes me as odd... you can't have it both ways. I'm not interested in Roman Catholicism because I don't see any point to working for what God offers for free (Romans 4:5). I'm certainly not claiming that the Roman Catholic Church faithfully preaches the gospel. But if I admit there is a resemblance to the church of Thyatira, I have to admit also that the Lord has overcomers there. And it's not surprising that He knows far more than 7,000 there, even though I do not.

Here's a thought: maybe I don't know who the overcomers in the Roman Catholic Church are, because they're too busy overcoming to pay any attention to me. It's worth thinking about. 

I can't in good conscience be part of the ELCA either, but I'm sure the Lord has 7,000 there too. There are overcomers even in Laodicea.

It can be frustrating to look at the landscape of Christendom. There are some pretty crazy things out there, and there are lots of things out there that I can't in good conscience be a part of. But I dare not claim to be wiser than the Lord. He knows overcomers in every church. He knows the names of those 7,000, even if I do not.

If I don't know about the 7,000 who haven't bent the knee to Baal, that might not be because they're not there. It might be because I'm like Elijah – so absorbed in myself I'm not letting God be God.

 

The New Covenant and Acts 2

One of my friends mentioned to me the New Covenant in connection with Acts 2, which I thought was a little odd, as I can't find a mention of the New Covenant in Acts 2. He tried to connect them via Joel 2:19–32, which I thought was more odd, because I can't find a mention of the New Covenant in Joel 2. But after some thought, I admit there is something there that's worth considering.

It's a fact that the Lord frequently fulfills a prophecy partially before fulfilling it ultimately. We don't have to look hard to find that sort of thing in Matthew's gospel, for example. A great deal of the statements Matthew makes about prophecy seem to be based on quotes wrested from their context. One reason for that (there are other considerations too) is that God sees ultimate fulfillment in Christ. For example, when Isaiah says, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son, and call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:10–25), our minds go immediately to Christ. And rightly so (Matthew 1:23). But in the context where Isaiah actually spoke that prophecy, he was promising deliverance from Syria to Ahaz. If we read on to the next verses (Isaiah 7:14–16), the promise is that a virgin would conceive, have a son, and before her son would be old enough to develop a discerning palate, God would destroy the kings of Syria. So God promises deliverance in the time it takes a young woman to marry, give birth to her first child, wean him, and he develops a taste for food. That's a really weird way to specify a time-frame, but God does it with a purpose: He is looking forward to ultimate deliverance from the ultimate enemy, and that will come from the Son of God, who would be born of a virgin.

So in Acts 2, the coming of the Holy Spirit is identified by Peter (Acts 2:14–21) as the pouring out in Joel 2:28–32. A lot of Christians read Peter's words here and declare that God has fulfilled the prophecy in Joel 2, it's now in the past. I disagree, because Joel clearly promises things that didn't happen in Acts 2. We have no record that the younger people prophesied while the older people dreamed dreams. As Watchman Nee points out, between the Holy Spirit's coming and Peter's sermon, we know for a fact no one had dreamed dreams, because none of them had been sleeping!  Peter goes on to mention the signs and wonders Joel promised (Joel 2:30–31; Acts 2:19–20), which is odd considering none of these things are recorded in Acts 2, nor anywhere else in Acts.

Peter wasn't claiming that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 was the fulfillment of the prophecies in Joel 2. Peter was claiming that what they saw in Acts 2 was a pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and they should have known a pouring out of the Holy Spirit was coming, because it's foretold in Joel 2. This is subtly different: the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is coming, I have no doubt. Acts 2 wasn't the ultimate fulfillment of that prophecy, but it was a partial fulfillment. Just like the child born in Ahaz's time was a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy, but a bigger fulfillment was coming; so the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy, but a more complete fulfillment is coming.

Notice this same theme is picked up in Romans 11:25–27. What God has done since Christ was rejected (see especially Acts 3:19–26) is build something new on the earth that gives a glimpse into what things would have been, had Israel repented. And Romans tells us, it's with the intention that Israel would see what God has done in the church, and be moved to jealousy. 

And notice, Romans 11:27 mentions the Covenant God will make with Israel "after I take away their sins."

So here's another place the church and the New Covenant meet. Again, I don't believe that the church benefits under the New Covenant, but I absolutely believe that God is using us to demonstrate publicly His grace, so that Israel would be moved to repentance. God is showing how He would treat them, in how He treats us. And part of that promised renewed relationship with Israel is the New Covenant.

I should probably also mention... I don't believe the church is temporary, but I am certain the church is playing roles right now on earth that are temporary. What I mean by that is, our relationship to Christ as Bride isn't going to end, but our place on this earth as the house of God will absolutely come to an end. We will eventually be replaced by Israel in that sense. And that's a good thing! We should look forward to that, because it'll be part of the public vindication of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned before, I don't believe our role as the Body of Christ will last beyond our time here (Christ already has a body in Heaven, our place is to be His Body on earth). I don't believe our role as the habitation of God through the Spirit will last beyond our time here. But we absolutely will be "forever with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

The New Covenant and the Church

I think at this point I've made it clear that I don't believe the Church receives and blessings under the New Covenant. Properly speaking, the Church isn't a party to the New Covenant. The New Covenant has not yet been inaugurated, but when it is inaugurated, it will be made between God and the houses of Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Hebrews 8:8–12). 

But the fact is that the Church isn't entirely separate from the New Covenant for several reasons:

1. we are united to Christ (Ephesians 5:28–33), the Mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:6)
   
2. we have the "blood of the New Covenant" (1 Corinthians 11:23–26)

Whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup, we announce the Lord's death (1 Corinthians 11:26). We have a tendency to think that we eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of what the Lord has done for us, but Scripture tells us otherwise. We eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him (I Corinthians 11:24–25). He is more than "just" the One who died for us. His death was for us, that's true. But it wasn't only for us: there is value in His death for God. There is something in His death for Israel. There is something in His death for us. And while our Calvinist friends might not approve of my saying so: there is something in His death for fallen, unredeemed, unrepentant man too.

But even more than that, we aren't really called to remember His death. We're called to remember Him, and in doing so, we announce His death. We remember the Lord as the eternal God who became Man. We remember that He spoke the universe into existence (Hebrews 1:1–4, Colossians 1:16). We remember that He dwells in light unapproachable, that no man has seen, nor can see (1 Timothy 6:13–16). We remember that He is the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18).

And yes, we remember that He came down here, becoming a Man with the express purpose of giving Himself for us (Hebrews 10:4–10).

But the point is, we don't dissect Christ. We remember Him, and that includes the New Covenant. 

Even more to the point, He gave us the cup, and told us explicitly it's "the new covenant in [His] blood" (1 Corinthians 11:25).

This last point is a problem for people (like me) who take the view that the New Covenant is with Israel and Judah. If the New Covenant isn't ours, why do we have the cup? Why doesn't the Lord say we have "the cup, which is My blood?" Why does He bring up the New Covenant?

To me, this is all about Asenath. The Lord came to His own, and they didn't receive Him (John 1:11). He presented Himself to His own people, and they made it very clear they'd rather have Caesar than their own King (John 19:11–15). So He was crucified by the hands of wicked men (Acts 2:22–23), and when they killed Him, they were clear that He was the King of Israel (Matthew 27:37). And then, after His resurrection, the apostles called them to repent, promising them that He would come back then and there, to set up His kingdom (Acts 3:19–21). But of course they didn't repent.

The timing of the Last Supper is significant: it's before the assembly was formed, before the Holy Spirit came. It's the night He was betrayed (1 Corinthians 11:23). And on that night, He gives the disciples the cup, and tells them it's the New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:19–20). They might not have realized it at the time, but the New Covenant will be made in blood (Hebrews 9:15–22), just as the Old Covenant was (Exodus 24:4–8). And the disciples were to remember that blood until He comes back.

No, I don't believe in transubstantiation. I don't believe the cup really is His blood, or that the bread really is His body. But I do believe that the Lord left a memorial of His blood, and of the New Covenant that will be made in it. And He made it a definite thing: we remember Him in bread and wine until He comes back (1 Corinthians 11:23–26).

So here we are: we announce His death while we wait for Him to come back. And when He comes back, He'll establish the "times of refreshing," inaugurating the New Covenant with Israel and Judah in His own blood. And that blood has been a testimony to His death for this whole time (Hebrews 12:24).

So in a sense, we're keeping the cup in trust for Israel and Judah. When our Lord comes back, He'll be their Lord too. And then we won't have that cup anymore.

But right now we're Asenath: we're the Lord's here while He has been rejected. We remember Him here so that His name won't be forgotten, but will be remembered throughout all generations (Psalm 45:17). And once His own people receive Him, we won't need to be holding that cup for them anymore.

There will be something amazing between the Lord and His people when He comes back for them. Some of that isn't our business, just like our union with Him is none of theirs. But when He does come as their King, He'll write His own copy of the law, just like Moses commanded (Deuteronomy 17:18). He'll write it on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

So no, I don't believe the Church is party to the New Covenant. And I don't believe the Church receives any blessings from it, although I'm sure there are some blessings that we'll both have, not because we share them, but because we need them. But I do believe the assembly is connected to the New Covenant, because it is Christ's New Covenant, and we are connected with Him. And I believe we are connected with the New Covenant, because we hold (even if only symbolically) the blood of that New Covenant, until He comes.

 

Dispensationalism

It's popular to hate on Dispensationalism these days (although I've seen faint glimmers of its coming back into fashion). Some of the criticisms I have seen are valid, most are a bit of a reach, some are entirely outside the realm of reasonable.

In my experience, the term "dispensationalism" generally means the Scofield version, with seven ages that each begin with a covenant and end with a judgment. I'm not a huge fan of that system, although I understand its appeal. Clarence Larkin taught a version with eight ages, rather than seven. I'm sure there are many other versions of Dispensationalism, but the Scofield version seems to be the one people think of first, and the one people are attacking when they claim Dispensationalism is wrong.

Reading Darby cured me of Scofield's brand of Dispensationalism. Scofield does a good job of seeing and calling out discontinuities between the Old and New Testaments (for example), but not such a great job of recognizing continuities. The immediate effect reading Darby had on me was to make me step away from a lot of the Dispensationalist ideas I had grown up believing.

But I digress. 

Dispensationalism seems to me to be particularly strong in its hermeneutic. It's not perfect, but it's based on a remarkably consistent hermeneutic. Dispensationalists tend to view things in context (perhaps to a fault), and are very consistent across passages. I'm frequently surprised by the inconsistent hermeneutic in conversations with Christians from other backgrounds.

One of the more common criticisms of Dispensationalism is that it teaches that man was justified by works under Law in the Old Testament, and is now justified by grace through faith.  That's a common enough criticism that it deserves a detailed answer.

Let's be clear that God has only ever justified fallen men and women by grace through faith. That's the plain teaching of the Epistles. But I admit that I have met some (not all, not most, not even many) dispensationalists who weren't very clear on that. I can't recall ever speaking to a dispensationalist who didn't quickly realize the truth when pressed on the point, but I should be fair and say that I have actually met dispensationalists (not many, but some) who weren't very clear on that. I don't think I've ever heard anyone teach error on that point, and I've certainly never read it anywhere that I can recall.

But there is another "line of truth" to consider: the Epistles teach that the Law was given to reveal man's sinfulness (Romans 3:20, 5:12–21, Galatians 3:19). God was testing the human race. It wasn't to educate God, but to reveal what fallen men and women are.

What God knows (and has always known) is that Adam's descendants aren't merely guilty, but are lost. When Romans 8:7 says the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God and cannot be, it's giving God's verdict of our race. We're not merely guilty, we are also lost.

The testing of our race reaches its climax in the life and death of Jesus Christ. God Himself comes to live as a Man, is hated, persecuted, and murdered. In the rejection of Christ, we have the very worst thing the human race has ever done. There is no sin worse than Deicide.

Is God surprised by the death of His Son? Of course not! It was by the "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" that He was killed (Acts 2:22–23). But that doesn't mean it wasn't the lowest point in human history. That doesn't mean God isn't going to judge the human race for this greatest of all crimes.

So Dispensationalism recognizes not only the individual need for redemption (only by the blood of Christ) and justification (only by grace through faith). It also recognizes God's testing of the human race. This is brought out especially by Darby and other "brethren" writers:

Man was lawless; then, when the law came, there was the transgression of the law; and when the blessed Lord in wondrous love and grace came into the world and went about doing good, they could not stand God's presence ("Our Portion in Christ," Collected Writings, Volume 21, pp. 317–326).

By nature, man was simply lawless (anomos), with a conscience, or the sense of good and evil. But he, being lawless in nature, was expressly put under law. If he had fulfilled it, he was righteous; but the flesh is not subject to it, nor can it be. ("The Pauline Doctrine of the Righteousness of Faith," Collected Writings, Volume 7, pp. 349–386).

Men had been sinners, lawless sinners and law-breaking sinners, before Christ came. His coming brought an additional element of sin. God came into this world in goodness. What did it do to Him?  ("The Law, and the Gospel of the Glory of Christ", Collected Writings, Volume 34, pp. 416–429)

One of the tragedies of Dispensationalism is that it has become characterized by charts and tables, rather than by a deep appreciation of God's ways with our lost race, but I digress. I love charts and tables, by the way. But the real meat isn't in the charts and tables.

It's fair to say dispensationalists believe that God put Israel – as representatives of the entire human race – under Law at Sinai as a test. It was a test He knew they (we) would fail, but it was a real test. And so we believe if they had passed the test (they did not and could not), then they would have been righteous based on their own merit. But that's not at all the same thing as saying they were justified by their works. They were not, as Romans 4:1–8 shows.

So yes, in a way, all dispensationalists believe that if men and women had kept the Law, they would have been righteous before God. But that would mean they were not lost. The Law doesn't prove man's guilt, but his lostness. And the impossibility of lost men and women being subject to the law of God is precisely what the law proved.

We don't believe that God has justified lost men and women any other way than by grace through faith. That is universally true: it was true of Abraham before the Law, and of David under it (Romans 4:1–8). 

Only one Man is just in God's sight on His own merits.