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Replacement or Fulfillment?
1 Plays3 seconds ago
Did the Church replace Israel? Is there still a separate covenant for national Israel? Or, did Christ fulfill the Old Covenant, and usher in a New Covenant through His church for both Jew and Gentile?
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Transcript
00:00:13
Speaker
All right,
Introduction to Replacement Theology
00:00:14
Speaker
Dustin, how you doing? Doing well. How are you? Doing good. We're here on Answering Pilot. That's right. Going talk about replacement theology today. Okay. I don't really call it that, but a lot of folk do.
00:00:25
Speaker
and um And we really want to just explain that.
Fulfillment Theology vs Replacement Theology
00:00:30
Speaker
okay i'd I'd rather call it fulfillment theology um or biblical theology, and I don't mean that disparagingly. But there are a lot of ah you know brothers and sisters in Christ who...
00:00:43
Speaker
refer to um the way they understand the ah the covenants is what we're talking about, the Old Testament, the New Testament, all the covenants in the Old versus the New Covenant, how the Bible's put together. We could say it that way.
00:00:56
Speaker
okay And, um yeah you know, I guess the dispensationalist ah brothers and sisters, I mean, we're all we're all genuinely, you know, love the Lord and trying to figure out what the Bible's all about.
Dispensationalist Perspective on Israel's Promises
00:01:09
Speaker
But they see all the promises that are made to Israel in the Old Testament, they see them, just for simplification, they see them as having an ultimate fulfillment in our future in a literal state of Israel, okay whether it's the current modern state of Israel or some other manifestation of that. And and of course, typically, they would see the ultimately the promises fulfilled when after the seven-year tribulation, during the thousand-year millennial reign of Christ from Jerusalem on the earth, literally, they would see Israel returning to the land and all of those promises fulfilled there. So you've got the land promise, the the rebuilding of the temple, which of course, ah yeah, I'll leave it there. And
00:01:55
Speaker
All of those things. So they kind of see that fulfilled in our future, literally. okay And we would see that a little bit
Christ-Centric View of the Old Testament
00:02:03
Speaker
differently. sure We think that everything in the Old Testament are essentially, the Bible's not about Israel. The Bible is about Christ. It's about the Lord Jesus.
00:02:14
Speaker
And everything in the Old Testament ultimately points to the Lord Jesus Christ. and all of the types and the shadows, which we're going to explain what we mean by that, but all of the types and the shadows, which are throughout the Old Testament, find their fulfillment, as as I just said, in the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:02:32
Speaker
And so we think, just right off the top of the bat, so that folk know what we're talking about, we think that the church... The dispensation to say, well, we're allegorizing or spiritualizing.
00:02:44
Speaker
And I wouldn't say that at all. I would say not that the church... as a spiritual people replaces old covenant Israel or Israel as ah as an ethnic people. God discards Israel because their unfaithfulness and now his promises are fulfilled in the church. I wouldn't say it that way.
00:03:03
Speaker
The way
Spiritual Israel and the Faithful Remnant
00:03:04
Speaker
that we would say it is that the the true Israel has always been a spiritual people. And even under the old covenant, because not everybody in the Old Covenant was saved. I mean, the Old Covenant was an earthly covenant with the nation of Israel. right And essentially it was for earthly blessing or cursing.
00:03:23
Speaker
A people was set apart from the nations of the world, and they were God's chosen people in that sense. But not everybody in the... And by the way, let me back up. So if you if you obey the covenant, you're going to be blessed in physical mint materially.
00:03:37
Speaker
And if you disobey the covenant, then the curses are going to fall on you. But not everybody in the the old covenant Israel was saved. It was only a faithful remnant. And and we see that over and over and over again In fact, the vast majority of the Israelites were were're idolaters and unfaithful. And that's why an entire generation...
00:03:55
Speaker
died in the wilderness. and And, you know, the New Testament apostles refer back to that over and over again. And so we would say that the true Israel of God are those who put their faith in the Lord. And in the Old Testament, they're putting their faith in the promises of God with reverence to the Messiah who was to come.
00:04:13
Speaker
And on this side of the cross, we put our faith in the the Messiah who has come. But the true people of God, as Paul over and over and over and over and over says in the new Testament, are those who have faith, whether Jew or Gentile. So that's just a a segue, ah a weighed in, talk about you know what we're talking about. So we're not going to allegorize or spiritualize. We're going to say that the new covenant community, those who are truly in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, that is is the true Israel of God.
00:04:45
Speaker
And because we're in Christ, we participate in the fulfillment of the promises because all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. In Christ.
Nature of Covenants in the Old Testament
00:04:54
Speaker
so Yeah. I probably said too much. No, you're fine. You're fine. um Yeah, like said, um don't want to maybe break it down too elementary, because I know a lot of our viewers are going to understand where we're coming from. yeah Obviously, when we're talking about covenants, this is an agreement that is struck between God and man, right? And God's the initiator of that covenant. And we see several covenants throughout the Old Testament, right? Yep. um And they were at different times for different reasons, but we do see... ah
00:05:23
Speaker
coming up being carried through with the nation of Israel yep and expressed in different ways throughout history. And it was in one sense to preserve a people, an ethnic people as it were.
00:05:36
Speaker
But as you've already said, it was not necessarily what we would call a salvific covenant. It didn't include earthly protection and earthly blessings for Along with obedience and along with disobedience, there would be those cursings, those punishments, really.
00:05:53
Speaker
And we believe that all of that was true and all that was the case. um But we believe that the purpose of those covenants is to ultimately point to Christ who fulfills all the covenants.
00:06:06
Speaker
And
Covenants Pointing to Christ
00:06:07
Speaker
even as he is having the the last supper with his disciples and he's about to go to the cross yeah and he's breaking bread ah with his disciples, he even says, this is my body and my blood of the new covenant. Mm-hmm.
00:06:24
Speaker
What we believe and what we're going to flesh out is that in Christ, he is the fulfillment of all those covenants because the whole purpose of preserving that race of people and all of that was ultimately to get us to Christ, who then would shed his blood to fulfill the covenant to call a people unto himself out of every tribe, every nation, every tongue.
00:06:50
Speaker
And, you know, it's interesting, you know, we use the term Israel. Well, the name literally means people of God, if I'm not mistaken. And so when we talk about the true Israel, which we will probably use that phrase a couple of times, um,
00:07:05
Speaker
that's what we're referring to is that there was a a earthly nation that was referred to as Israel, but the the true Israel, the true people of God are those who have come to faith in Christ. Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:07:19
Speaker
And um once you see it throughout the the Old Testament and the New, you can't unsee it. And again, that's not to make fun or disparage or say that we're smarter. We're not, um you know, than those who don't agree with us, I mean, they might say the same thing about us, and this is a friendly debate, but um I just think, man, the the Old Testament, when you see how the apostles, in this is a big issue, and we're not going to have time to talk about everything we want to talk about today. of course
Apostolic Interpretation and Progressive Revelation
00:07:56
Speaker
not. So this will be an ongoing conversation. Sure.
00:07:58
Speaker
But one of the things is when you look at how the apostles interpret the Old Testament, they actually interpret it in a specific way, and they do it over and over and over again. And unless you've seen that, then maybe you're not going to understand where we're coming from. But once you see it, like I said, you like i mean, it's like a light bulb, and you begin to see, okay, okay well, now now you know you may have had some kind of commitment to types and shadows, but you didn't really...
00:08:28
Speaker
yeah you know see that that whole purpose that everything points to Christ. i mean Think about Luke. Well, go ahead. You know what I'm going to say? Part of it that we're talking about here is ah this notion of what we call progressive revelation.
00:08:41
Speaker
yeah And that is that God's plan for humanity is revealed throughout Scripture progressively And so in Genesis, God lays out right there in the garden, the his plan of redemption, right? ye Adam and Eve have fallen, and and we have that, what we call the proto-invegelion, and that first promise that a redeemer was going to come and crush the head of the serpent and and all of that.
00:09:08
Speaker
But as history progressed and as God's word was revealed more and more throughout history, we get a bigger and clearer picture of that plan of redemption.
00:09:20
Speaker
And so
Progressive Revelation in Scripture
00:09:22
Speaker
believing in progressive revelation means that we view the Bible indeed as a one unified message. Yeah, that's right. That is progressively laid out more and more.
00:09:33
Speaker
And things become clearer the further along you get. And so when we go back and read Old Testament, we don't read that as an entirely separate book or entirely separate group of books.
00:09:44
Speaker
And then the Old Testament is something different itself, right which would be more of a replacement type of thinking. But what we actually believe is that the New Testament helps us understand everything that was in the Old Testament. As we learn more and more about God and his nature and his kingdom,
00:10:03
Speaker
and his Christ that he has sent, um that helps us to look back and then understand the types and the shadows, as we said in the Old Testament. It's
Understanding Scripture Through Analogy
00:10:13
Speaker
kind of like when you watch movies. you know I like a lot of sci-fi and superhero type movies, and you know a lot of those are in sequence. yeah you know And if you watch them all once and then you learn some things later on in a later movie, right and you're like, oh my goodness, that that calls back to...
00:10:30
Speaker
Back here in the first movie, yeah now this all makes sense. It's it's kind of like that. It's like we we see the ending, makes the beginning make more sense. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, I mean, I want to go back to what you said about progressive revelation, but to your most current statement there, I was thinking earlier in Daniel 7, for example, Jesus coming on the clouds. right And a lot of folks look at that as the second coming, just because of that phrase, coming on the clouds.
00:10:59
Speaker
But when you read the text, he's not he's it's not the second coming. He's going to the Ancient of Days. Right. He's not coming to earth. Right. Actually, he's coming to the Ancient of Days. He's coming to the Father. That's right.
00:11:11
Speaker
And, of course, the Father's seated on the throne. And um really, it's it's his ascension is what it is. Right. Because when he gets there, and again, I'm just going from memory and I'm paraphrasing. Folk can look it up. It's really a powerful passage, but Daniel 7.
00:11:25
Speaker
um All authority is given to him at that point and dominion, and it's essentially that he would be the ruler of all the nations.
00:11:37
Speaker
and see So all this is is in the in the Old Testament. Well, fast forward to Matthew 28, and you get the Great Commission, and what do we see there? This is the Lord Jesus. It's after the resurrection.
00:11:50
Speaker
And he says, all authority. All authority has been given unto me. Yep. Therefore, go and make disciples. Of all the nations. Of all the nations. That's right. and Wow. And it's because now he's and he's been enthroned. He's received the kingdom. And the kingdom is established with the, and in one sense, um it's a whole thing.
00:12:11
Speaker
series of events or one composite event within the first century with the coming of Christ, His birth, His life, His death, His resurrection, His ascension and enthronement pouring out of the Spirit on the church to establish the new covenant community, per se, at Pentecost.
00:12:30
Speaker
And then, of course, the culmination and the closing out of that
Fulfillment of Prophecies and Establishment of Spiritual Kingdom
00:12:34
Speaker
Old Covenant order with the destruction of the temple, which Jesus predicted in AD 70. So there's a sense in which it's one event, but it took 70 years. And so all of that is the establishment of the New Covenant community.
00:12:48
Speaker
I typically do this. i kind of forgot where I was going, but the whole point of that is, you know, Jesus... I was about the establishment of the kingdom. In one sense, it was established at his ascension. In another sense, it was that whole seven-year period. and so But the point being, you can see how To your point, this is the point you're making, the New Testament makes it clear. when When you get the Great Commission and you get Acts 2, Pentecost, and you you get all these things and and and the apostles, oh, now I get Daniel 7, way more than I did if you know if all I had was Daniel 7. Yeah, exactly. You know, if when you get into the New Testament, you have the four Gospels, and that tells us about Christ's coming and His ministry on the earth, and He Himself explaining the kingdom and what He came to do and what He was going to do and and all of these things. He's laying it out for us. He's interpreting Old Testament for us time and time again throughout the Gospels.
00:13:47
Speaker
And then, you know, we see Him die, we see Him resurrected, and then we see Him ascending. But then how does the book of Acts, which really lays out how the rest of the New Testament is going to go, what do we see at the very beginning of Acts 1? We still see this scene of his ascension, right? He's saying, you're going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth.
00:14:08
Speaker
And then we immediately get into Acts 2, which you just referenced, with Pentecost. Yeah. And we see people from all over, from many different nations, from all over the Roman Empire at the time. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:22
Speaker
who happen to be gathered together, and they're hearing the gospel message, and they're getting saved. And so this is kind of, it is that it's that lighting of the keg, yeah yeah as it were, of the explosion of this composite event that we're talking about.
00:14:40
Speaker
Because what we're seeing is a microcosm here. of every tribe, nation, and tongue being gathered together in one spot, hearing the gospel, they're getting saved. Well, guess what? Now they're going to go home and they're going to spread the gospel.
00:14:50
Speaker
And then throughout the rest of the book of Acts, what we see... is Pentecost being exploded out into the rest of the actual known world. Oh, yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
And so, yeah, then that that shows us then, again, when you read that and then you go back and read Daniel 7, you realize this is the fulfillment of what we read yeah back in Daniel 7.
00:15:16
Speaker
And it's starting, like you said, with that there is a single moment where we see it really clearly at Pentecost But then we see it exploding out in in throughout the book of Acts as we see the gospel going forth to all the nations. That's right.
00:15:30
Speaker
and And you're just laying one layer on top of another because, like I said, once you you see it, you can't unsee it and say, oh, yeah, I didn't even think about Acts chapter 1. Well, it's ascension and what you said and the promise of the Spirit and all the rest. So it's right before Pentecost. And then, like you say, OK, well, not just the 3,000, but what happened then?
00:15:47
Speaker
Not just a few chapters later in accordance with Acts 1.8. You'll be my witnesses all over the world. ah the The church was scattered. And it says they went everywhere preaching the gospel. Yeah. So back to the issue of progressive revelation, um which I thought was really good.
00:16:03
Speaker
know, there's a lot going on there and we we can't unpack all of that. Sure. And um but it's a conversation. So we're going around in circles. As we often do. As we often do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're not giving a lecture here. No.
00:16:17
Speaker
And anyway, so we're created in the image of God. And Adam, of course, is ah is a representative of the human race, Adam and Eve. And Adam is is ah is basically a prophet because he's supposed to propagate the truth. He's a priest. He's the go-between between God and man. He's a king because he's ruling the garden. He's taking dominion over the earth, right?
00:16:40
Speaker
Creating the image of God. So he's charged with imaging forth God. He's referred to as God's son. and yeah so... And he's he's been given this task, right, to represent God in the earth, but he fails um like all humans do. and of course, we've got the fall.
00:16:58
Speaker
Well, then, again, like you said, throughout the the covenants, you know you've got that covenant that God made with Adam. and We could talk about that in detail another time. You've got the...
00:17:10
Speaker
would you call it the proto evangelium? Yep. Where the first proclamation of the gospel, you know, Christ is going to come. And so, you know, fast forward, we could go to the days of Noah and, you know, everybody's sitting all the time.
00:17:29
Speaker
Man's heart is desperate. Every inclination of man's heart is only wicked all the time. I think it says anyway, God, you know, he's going to flood the earth. Noah, Noah was, um, you, mankind failed.
00:17:42
Speaker
and And then you have Noah and his family saved. And think about this. There's a sense in which Noah was the head of a new creation. After the flood, everything's destroyed and now you're starting over.
00:17:53
Speaker
So he's a new Adam. Now just think a minute it about this. He's another Adam figure. He's another figure who's the head of... cre Adam's the head of creation.
00:18:04
Speaker
Now Noah's the head of creation. And you want to trace that all the way through the Scriptures. Well, you come to the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. He talks about Jesus being the last Adam.
00:18:16
Speaker
Well, that may that means there are other Adam figures throughout the Scriptures, right? And lo
Adam Figures Leading to Christ
00:18:23
Speaker
and behold... Noah ultimately failed. and What do you get after Noah? I guess you get Abraham. God he gives is the Abrahamic covenant, and he's another...
00:18:33
Speaker
Adam figure, he fails. You know, fast forward, you get to Israel, the nation that that comes from Abraham. They're referred to as the son of God, a son of God. And by the way, Adam, a son of God, Israel, the son of God, and then the true son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:18:51
Speaker
But Abraham failed to a certain degree. that well Then you get David. And again, with this progressive revelation, you get different aspects, right? You get... um yeah You know, the the covenant people of God, Israel, is part—I'm just sort of jumping in the middle.
00:19:08
Speaker
Then you get David as the king, and um you get Moses. We'll go back to Moses, the great prophet. I skipped Moses. I shouldn't skip Moses. He's really great, by the way. But what does Moses say? I think it's Exodus 18. God's going to raise up a prophet um who's essentially unique, and then that's Jesus.
00:19:28
Speaker
So again, all of these things, I'm getting bogged down here, they point to Christ, but it points to the fact that whether Whether you're talking about Adam or Noah or Abraham or Moses or Israel or David, the Davidic throne, Jesus is the true David, okay but King David, every single one of these human figures failed until Lord Jesus. right Yeah, and and that's very important because really, and you know if you think about it, ye if we want to talk about the true nature of the the plan of redemption and the new covenant, the covenant in Christ,
00:20:11
Speaker
Throughout history, as you've just said, all of these human figures with whom God made a covenant failed. They didn't just fail, but there was always a false branch that would come off. So Adam, you know, you had Cain kills Abel. Yeah. and But then you have Seth, who was born after that, and he was considered righteous. And and then you see the righteous line of Seth, and then you see the the wicked line of Cain.
00:20:39
Speaker
and we see the wicked line of cain kind of coming to power and kind of expanding throughout the earth, but we see the righteous line of Seth being preserved. So it wasn't based on family membership because they both were traced back to Adam. And then Noah, born out of that righteous line, but he was considered righteous because of his faith. You know, just like Abraham, as we're told in the New Testament, Abraham was considered righteous because of his faith. yep Noah comes about, the flood happens, and And God preserves this one family. But even again, as you said, Noah failed. Well, Ham failed. Right. Yeah. yeah and And then we see that line branch off again.
00:21:19
Speaker
You know, you you fast forward to to to Moses and you had the Israelites that fell in the wilderness because they didn't follow. Abraham, we see Ishmael, you know, there's always, there's always this, this false branch that cuts off yeah because that's where the human failure comes in. yeah But when we get in, we get to the Davidic kingdom and the kingdom splits yeah and all of that. And, but then when we get to Christ, Christ is fully God, but he's fully human.
00:21:50
Speaker
But he's fully sinless. And so as the fully sinless human, yeah he's the only one that was able to actually fulfill the covenant and secure the promise. yeah And so in that new covenant under Christ, there are no false branches.
00:22:07
Speaker
But there were, as we've talked about before, under the old covenant, there were people that were not saved yeah that were within that old covenant. yeah Because they were still human, they were still sinful, they still failed. yeah But in Christ, when and we receive his righteousness by being a part of that new covenant, now anyone who is in that covenant in Christ, it doesn't fail.
00:22:27
Speaker
Wow, that's good. While you were talking, I was thinking of one thing when you went all the way back to Cain and Abel. That was just the the initial fulfillment of that whole proto-euangelion right there in Genesis 3.15, right? Yeah. What did he say? The the seed of the serpent is he going to be an enmity with the seed of the woman, and of course, seed of the serpent, that's Satan's C, the seed of the woman, Christ, and Satan. and
Christ's Victory and Proto-Evangelium
00:22:57
Speaker
there So there's this battle. and this They're not on equal footing because, wow, what does and what does it say? It says, well, Satan's going to bruise his heel, but Christ is going to crush his head. and so
00:23:07
Speaker
But you see Cain and Abel, it's the battle between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and on down the line, to your point, until we finally get to the seed of the woman, Christ. Right, Christ. christ Yeah. Yeah. And um it looks like he's defeated at the cross, but he's not. That's where he crushed Satan's head. is He had no sin of his own. You said he was sinless. Death couldn't hold him. was raised from the dead. So, man, just the gospel. And and and back to your earlier point.
00:23:31
Speaker
that There's this this one plan from the beginning. So the Bible's not this disjointed thing, and it's not about the Israelites over here and the Gentiles over here. And again, I'm not making fun of those who kind of make a distinction between Israel in and the church or the Jews and the Gentiles, but it's about God's people, God's true people.
00:23:50
Speaker
Certainly, working amongst those those Old Testament Israelites, Jewish... if you you I would call them Jewish. They're not the the same as Jews today, but I'm just saying... we That's a whole other discussion.
00:24:06
Speaker
But I'm just saying, working through through them and the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, born a Jew, if you want to put it that way, but he's the...
00:24:18
Speaker
He's the head of a new humanity comprised of both Jew and Gentile who place their faith, as you said, in Christ. Paul says it over and over and over again in so many different ways, but one of the ways that he says it is those who are of faith are children of Abraham, whether Jew or Gentile. Circumcision is not outward, but circumcision is inward.
00:24:40
Speaker
It's not of the flesh, it's of the heart. And by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified, but by faith. And again, he he says multiple times, it's not just for the Jews, it's for the Jews and the Gentiles. And you see that even in seminal form in the Old Testament. you know Isaiah, the coastlands, await for God's law. right In other words, the nations are waiting for God's word. Law, by the way, means different things in different contexts. It can refer to the Old Covenant law, but it can also refer to the entirety of the Old Testament, the law, or it can refer to the entirety of the word of God. I mean, Psalm 19 says ah ah the law of the Lord is... um
00:25:22
Speaker
What does it say? The law of the Lord is something converting the soul. i forget the little descriptor there because he he he uses a number of them over and over again. But we know the that the law, as the law, doesn't convert the soul. All it does is condemn the soul. It makes us aware of sin and and it kills, Paul says very plainly.
00:25:41
Speaker
But yet you got Psalm 19 saying the law of the Lord converts the soul. Oh, well, that's the word of God. And lo and behold, you get a Romans 1 16 pulses not ashamed of the gospel because of the power of God and salvation for all who believe.
00:25:53
Speaker
First for the Jew, first for the Jew and also the Greek. Yeah. You know, when you see that little phrase in the New Testament once, then you can't unsee it. First for the Jew and also the Greek, which is.
00:26:04
Speaker
Again, it's another little layer on what we're trying to communicate today. We haven't even got to yeah yeah exactly what we wanted to talk about, which is fine. Like I said, this will be a multi- ah multiple session conversation, not necessarily in a row, but over time we can't help but come back to it. But maybe we should, unless you've got something else you want to say in the moment, maybe we should...
00:26:29
Speaker
talk a little bit more about, okay, we've used the term type and yeah I think you used term types and shadows appropriately so. So what do we mean? I mean, we've we've said it. If you've been listening to us, okay, you got an idea, but let's just Let's just talk about it for a minute. I mean, tight, that's a word out of the New Testament. Tupas is the Greek word, but it doesn't mean you know a kind of something in a sense. We can think, well, we've got different kinds of shirts here. I don't know what yours is made of. it i don't know mine's made of i got You're wearing blue jeans. I'm wearing cotton slacks, I guess. I don't know. don't even know you call them slacks, but whatever they are.
00:27:09
Speaker
um You got tennis. No, those aren't tennis shoes, are they? Yeah, they are. Kind of. And I'm wearing, you know, the old deck shoes. But ah these could have been in my c closet since high school, and that would be 40-plus years ago. I don't know. But anyhow, where was I going? Oh, types and shadows. Thank you.
00:27:25
Speaker
So Paul says things like, and by the way, since it's a conversation, we don't have all these scriptures in our head. and We don't have a list of them, but we could, but we don't. But Paul says in Colossians, you know, on the one hand, don't let anyone trouble you regarding festivals, new moons or Sabbath days for these are a shadow, but the substance is Christ. Yeah.
00:27:52
Speaker
So he's saying, Wait a minute. What are festivals, new moons and Sabbaths? Well, festivals would be an annual feast. New moon would be a monthly observance. And Sabbaths, some were, yeah you know, Sabbaths that were, you know, I can't describe it. There were there were different kinds of Sabbaths.
00:28:10
Speaker
but we generally think of the weekly Sabbath. And so just as a side issue, this isn't our purpose today, that we just have a little fun with ah with some of our other brothers in Christ.
00:28:21
Speaker
But when Paul breaks it down like that, annual, monthly, Festival, New Moon, Sabbath. i think it's bringing down annual, monthly, weekly. Okay. So he says, don't let anyone trouble you about these things under the new covenant.
00:28:35
Speaker
Because why? Because they are the shadow. They are the types. But
Types and Shadows in the Old Testament
00:28:39
Speaker
the true, the reality, the substance is Christ himself. So he's the fulfillment. Yeah. And if you think about that imagery, so if it says that that's the shadow and the substance is Christ,
00:28:53
Speaker
So if I were to shine a bright light right in front of you and you were to cast a shadow on the back wall, it's going to take the shape of you, right? Yeah. so if I'm going to understand what that shadow is representing, yeah I'm going to need to know what you look like. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. And so how do we know about Christ?
00:29:18
Speaker
We're described Christ in detail in the New Testament, right? So the more that we understand him through the New Testament, through the Gospels, even throughout the rest of the New Testament as well, as Paul talks about who he was and and what he did and John and all of the writers.
00:29:35
Speaker
As we understand that better, then we can look back at that shadow and understand what the shadow is referring to yeah better. yeah So again, we take our New Testament understanding of the substance to interpret what the shadow is representing yeah in the Old Testament. Yeah, that's right.
00:29:56
Speaker
And I think that, that all Christians kind of know what we're talking about to a certain degree. They may not have put it together. Like if you're dispensational and I'm, I'm not being ugly. I'm just again, brothers and sisters in Christ, but, um,
00:30:12
Speaker
yeah If I say to you, well, you you know the answer. um What I'm saying is, the question I'm about ready to ask, I think any Christian knows the answer too. when When I say, Jesus is the Lamb of God, what do I mean?
00:30:27
Speaker
i mean, the New Testament, although Jesus of the Lamb of God, what what do they mean? Yeah, it's ah it's a reference back to the sacrificial system, right? He is that lamb who was sacrificed as the sin offering. Yes. Right? But he's the he's the he's the unblemished offering. Yeah.
00:30:44
Speaker
And again, that lamb that we read about in the Old Testament is the shadow yes of the substance. Yes. And so I can't just look at your shadow and know what you look like, right? So...
00:30:59
Speaker
Just the lamb in itself, if we just view the lamb as a lamb, then we're we're missing the full understanding here. So that lamb was imperfect, right? Even if it didn't have any visual blemishes on it, you know, it's still just an animal and it's being sacrificed by a sinful man, you know, on behalf of sinful people.
00:31:17
Speaker
And so it doesn't actually take away sin, but... What it is a shadow of is the perfect Lamb of Christ who did die as the sacrifice, who had no sin of his own. Because he had no sin of his own, his own then his righteous blood could be applied to those who were sinful.
00:31:37
Speaker
It had to be that way. Otherwise, the payment wouldn't be accepted. But, yeah, we have to understand what the ending is, like I said earlier, to understand what we see in the beginning. Fully, to understand fully. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. an um but yeah And so that's that's really the point i'm making, that...
00:31:57
Speaker
And when I'm to take it a step further, then, you know, I think, okay, all Christians, well, yeah, I see. Yeah, Jesus is the lamb. It means what you just said. Yeah. Okay. Now that's typology, types and shadows.
00:32:11
Speaker
And what we're saying is the whole Old Testament is about that and pointing to Christ. And once you begin, see, now what I'm going to urge our our brothers and sisters or whoever, I'm not trying to, whatever, but once you you begin to Okay, yes, I know the Lamb of God. I know that refers to the sacrificial lamb.
00:32:31
Speaker
Okay, now I want you to just think. Take that to the next step and and take it to every everything else. I mean, Paul refers to Jesus as our Passover.
00:32:42
Speaker
We don't observe the Passover anymore. Why? Why not? God instituted it. Why do we not? Because Christ has fulfilled it. He has delivered us from the angel of death. Yeah.
00:32:52
Speaker
as it were. yeah um And yeah, again, why why did they have to keep observing the Passover? Because ultimately, it's really just a picture. It's really just a shadow pointing to the ultimate that would one day completely fulfill. yeah And so, I mean, you even look at, and you know, we talked about the lamb.
00:33:12
Speaker
How many different sin offerings were there in the Old Testament? You know, there were lambs, there were bulls, there were doves, yeah you know, all of these things. yeah Christ is, we we all have used the phrase, Christ is the Lamb of God. yeah Christ was the dove. Christ was the bull. He was all of those things. yeah And again, I think even the fact of having so many different types of sacrifices also pointed to the fact that they weren't going to be sufficient. Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker
Right. But in one sacrifice of Christ, yeah he takes away the sins of the world. Yeah, yeah. and And Hebrews says exactly what you said, that the blood of bulls and rams and goats could never take away sin.
00:33:53
Speaker
But Christ, not only the Lamb, but the great high priest... the The Levitical priesthood, and Levites, and then Aaron, ultimately the Aaronic priesthood, all pointed to, because they never took away sin, they had to go into the the temple in the Holy of Holies year after year after year after year, because they're atoning for sin, but but they never took away sin. And the priest had to make recompense for his own sin. yes before yes he could make the sacrifice on behalf of the people. That's right.
00:34:23
Speaker
But Christ did not have any sin of his own that he had to atone for, and so then he could be the priest and the offering at the same time. Gosh. Only God could think of these things, and in history, fulfill them.
00:34:37
Speaker
But that's just the point. So now we're we're all over. Now we're we're piling types on top of types. The high priest, the lamb of God, Paul in 1 Corinthians 5, 9, referring to Jesus as our Passover.
00:34:51
Speaker
I've already alluded to Colossians 2, the Sabbath days. I think Hebrews 4 is very clear. Christ himself is our Sabbath. Maybe in a future conversation, we'll actually pull the Bible out and read it. and oh That would be good. That's a novel idea. That would been be novel, wouldn't it? And see what it really really says. no We're rooting our conversation in the Bible, but that's the point. And again,
00:35:18
Speaker
It's not that Christ as the Lamb of God replaced that Old Testament lamb. He's, as you said it without even realizing it several times, he's the fulfillment. it That Old Testament lamb finds its typological fulfillment in Christ. It's pointing to Christ in the same way. And we haven't even got to this. We're not even going to get to it today. I'm just going to out on a limb and make a bet here.
00:35:43
Speaker
but because we started off talking replacement theology. The church doesn't replace Israel. No. Israel is pointing, pointing, pointing ultimately to who? Christ. christ yeah He's the true Israel, and in him we, Jew and Gentile, and whoever's in him is the true Israel. And that's why Paul in Galatians literally refers to the church as the Israel of God. He's not talking about Jews. He's talking about the church.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah, because really if you think about it, the name Israel was given to a man, Yeah. Originally. Yeah. Right. and And then there was the nation of Israel, but they were called the nation of Israel because they drew their heritage back to Jacob. Sure. Yeah. And so that Israel was all...
00:36:33
Speaker
owing its heritage back to a single person, okay? Christ, as the true Israel of God, we now trace our spiritual heritage to him. So he is that one man. He is that Israel, yeah that singular person, yeah the son of God, the child of God, the the person of God, and we are in him, the people of God. Yeah.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. i was I was thinking as you were talking just a second ago, you know, to go back to previous episode when we were talking about having a big view of Christianity, really and truly that's what we're talking about here too. Yeah.
Jesus' Teaching on the Road to Emmaus
00:37:15
Speaker
Is because, i mean, you know, why why are there, what is it, 39 books in the Old Testament that Is 39 and 27? Yeah. twenty thirty nine yeah yeah why why are there books in the in the old Testament and there's so much there to read If we truly understand the nature of of the way God has revealed himself through his word and Christ himself being the fulfillment of the plan of redemption from the very dawn of time, from before the dawn of time, then what we start to realize is that not only do we want a big view of Christianity, but the gospel is way bigger than we realize.
00:37:54
Speaker
Because, you know like I was saying earlier, Christ represents all of those animals that were sacrificed, not just a lamb, all of those things. All of what we see described about God and about his kingdom and about all of those things in the Old Testament, Christ fulfills all of that.
00:38:13
Speaker
So the gospel, again, is so much bigger than I think we we even grasp sometimes because Christ himself is the fulfillment of of all of it.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah. If that makes sense. No, no, no, he is. I was just thinking when you were saying that about Luke 24, where after Jesus is raised from the dead, he's on the road to Emmaus.
00:38:39
Speaker
These disciples are walking along and they're they're sad because they think, you know, he's dead. And Anyway, long story short, I won't tell the whole story, but yeah you know they don't recognize Jesus at first. He miraculously hides his identity, but then he he starts to talk to them about the Old Testament. And the text literally says that he hermeneutied himself.
00:39:07
Speaker
And her I'm using the word hermeneutied. It's an English word hermeneutics from which... As you well know, it's the art and science of of Bible interpretation, and we get it from the New Testament. So yeah he interpreted himself or expounded himself out of the Old Testament.
00:39:27
Speaker
And if you read the text, that the what he's saying is, you know, from Genesis all the way to Malachi, he starts telling them about how all of it, as you've been saying, finds its fulfillment in him. And they're they're like, did our hearts not burn within us? Listen to this. When he opened the scriptures, can you imagine?
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah. You know, i mean, it's this. And again, because we're still studying. I'm reading my Bible every day trying to see Jesus more, and he continues to open the Scriptures to me. And now you know I'm only scratching the surface in my knowledge, but I'm just simply saying, gosh, what a what an unbelievable dynamic. but But think about the significance of that. Here he is, post-resurrection, on his way ultimately to be enthroned and establish the kingdom, which...
00:40:23
Speaker
Gosh,
Establishment of Jesus' Spiritual Kingdom
00:40:25
Speaker
don't know much time we got. It's okay. Can I run down a road for one minute? Sure, yeah, let's do it. All right, let's go back to Daniel. You know where I'm going now. You know the first part, so Daniel, you got this through a dream, Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and then later on, i don't know if it's Daniel's dream or what, but anyway, you've got it a couple of times.
00:40:43
Speaker
And you've got this this prediction of four major kingdoms, the the current kingdom, the Babylonian Empire, Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire. And in the midst of the days of the Roman Empire, remember the first dream is this this big...
00:41:00
Speaker
statue of of King Nebuchadnezzar, the gold statue. What do you call Colossus. And um you know Daniel goes through and interprets all this.
00:41:10
Speaker
And basically he says these are these are four kingdoms. And in the midst of the days of that fourth kingdom, of the Roman Empire, there's going to be another kingdom established. And he says it's a kingdom made without hands. It's not an earthly kingdom, it's a spiritual kingdom. right And he says that spiritual kingdom is going to smash all of these other kingdoms to pieces.
00:41:31
Speaker
and so lo andbo and And you get the 70 weeks prophecy later in Daniel, i think it's chapter 9 if I'm not mistaken. i don't know. Anyway, again, if we opened our Bibles, we'd know. But so, Basically, you add all that up, it's like 490 years. That's what we're talking about. It's 500 years. Well, guess what?
00:41:49
Speaker
That's what happened from the time the decree went out. I can't remember, Artaxerxes or somebody. And again, we'll check our Bibles. But 490 years, and then Christ comes.
00:42:00
Speaker
And so my point is that Jesus, in his arrival, is fulfilling Daniel in the establishment of the kingdom, the spiritual kingdom that's not made with hands, this kingdom that's going to smash all earthly kingdoms to pieces. And that's what the life, death, resurrection, ascension of Jesus is about. he's Listen, Paul says it in different ways. He sat down at the right hand of God. What does that mean?
00:42:32
Speaker
Well, it's the place of honor and power and authority. Why did he he sit down? his His redemptive work was finished. As he said on the cross. which Yeah. It is yeah finished. It is finished. That's right.
00:42:44
Speaker
And so, he Paul says, ah Jesus thought it not robbery to maintain equality with God, but he humbled himself and he took upon himself the form of a servant and added humanity to himself.
00:42:55
Speaker
And he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him and gave him the name, ah which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, every tongue should confess to the glory of the Father that Jesus Christ is Lord. and Amen.
00:43:13
Speaker
He's been enthroned. That's right. He's established the kingdom. And that's what the whole Bible is about, even when you get out of the book of Revelation. So we're out of time, but... We didn't even get to hardly anything, but I guess we've waded into the surf, which is what we typically do. Yeah. And I love that because I fancy myself a surfer, even though I'm not. So I stay in the... You have the hair for it.
00:43:39
Speaker
You know what? Bless you, my son. No, no, no. I'm kidding. My wife, almost daily. What's wrong with your hair? What's wrong with ah Surfer. It's just a surfer level. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it is. But anyway, old man wannabe, never been a surfer. But I guess all I'm saying is we're in the surf, but we got a good start.
00:44:02
Speaker
Because i don't think, you know, just from this one conversation, if you're if you weren't kind of where we're at beforehand, you you might not be where we're at now. But hopefully you're thinking, wow, love love the Word of God. Yeah, it's definitely about Jesus. So let's build on that, whether it's next time or another time. Yeah. And and again, that speaks to the point we're making, the fact that we can say we've really only waded into the surf. That's because there's so much to take in. yeah and we We could do a Joe Rogan style four hour podcast about this and we would still really only be wading into the surf.
00:44:38
Speaker
of all that it truly means to see Christ as the fulfillment of all of Scripture. yeah And it's, again, like I said earlier, it's so much bigger than even we grasp, even when we've had our eyes open and in more revelation.
00:44:54
Speaker
And again, that's why you said ah more and more were we're going back and reading and and trying to find it in more places because It's everywhere. yeah your Your son likes to call it Jesus flavor. yeah And we see we see more and more of that Jesus flavor throughout the scriptures. And again, as you said, the the Bible is not a book about a people. It's not a book about me. It's not a book about you. It's a book about the King of Kings. Amen.
00:45:20
Speaker
And the world that he created and the kingdom that he has come to establish and that he will rule and reign for all eternity. Yeah, that's right. Well, let's talk about it some more next time on Answering Pilot.
00:45:31
Speaker
The Answering Pilot podcast is a ministry of Randall House Church in Greer, South Carolina. You can learn more at www.randallhousegreer.com slash church. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at at Randall House Church.
00:45:46
Speaker
Don't forget to like and subscribe, and we'll see you next time.