Which Old-Testament Promises to Apply to Me?
00:00:00.000 | We get a lot of questions in the inbox about how to interpret the Old Testament as a Christian
00:00:05.040 | and trying to understand which promises apply to us and which ones don't.
00:00:09.040 | A podcast listener Joe from Boston writes in with this question, "Pastor John, I often struggle to
00:00:15.280 | interpret and apply portions of the Old Testament, specifically the prophetic books, where the word
00:00:19.920 | of God was being spoken to God's people as the nation of Israel. How can we discern if warnings
00:00:26.000 | or promises directed toward Israel are applicable to other nations, the body of Christ and the
00:00:31.360 | global church, or even to ourselves as individuals? What benefit or dangers may there be in carrying
00:00:38.160 | over meaning from Israel to those other modern-day audiences?" 2 Chronicles 7.14 is one specific
00:00:45.760 | example. Pastor John, what would you say to Joe? Let me see if I can simplify some very complex
00:00:53.920 | issues and provide maybe just a two-step process that enables Joe and the rest of us Christians to
00:01:03.360 | appropriate the Old Testament, especially the promises, for our use as Christians in the 21st
00:01:13.600 | century. So here's step number one. 2 Corinthians 1.20 says, "All the promises of God find their
00:01:21.280 | yes in Christ." That is why it is through him that we utter the "Amen" to the glory of God.
00:01:28.640 | Now, I think that means that in union with Christ, the Messiah, Christians become the heirs
00:01:36.720 | of all the promises in the Old Testament. And there are different ways to explain why that is.
00:01:43.600 | And one is to realize that in spiritual union with the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, Christians are
00:01:53.680 | the messianic people, the true Israel, the heirs of everything promised to the true Israel. Here's
00:02:01.680 | the way Paul puts it in Philippians 3.3. He says, "For we are the circumcision." And he's talking
00:02:10.000 | to his Gentile audience there in Philippi. "We are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God,
00:02:18.160 | glory in Christ Jesus, put no confidence in the flesh." And what he means when he says,
00:02:24.880 | "We are the circumcision," he means we Gentiles who are united to the Jewish Messiah, Jesus,
00:02:32.400 | are the true circumcised people, the true Israel of God. And therefore, all the promises made to
00:02:39.040 | the circumcision, the true Israel, belong to us, Jew and Gentile, in Christ Jesus.
00:02:47.120 | Now, parenthesis, this does not exclude a real future for present-day ethnic Israel in God's
00:02:55.920 | purposes, because they will one day profess faith in Messiah Jesus and be grafted back in and become
00:03:03.520 | part of the true Israel along with all other Christians who are part of Jesus Christ. That's
00:03:10.400 | my understanding of Romans 11. So that's step one. Christians may rightly embrace the promises of the
00:03:18.320 | Old Testament made to Israel because in union with Messiah Jesus, we are Israel. We are the true
00:03:26.320 | Israel. Now here's step two. The coming of Jesus, the Messiah, into the world and his atoning work
00:03:32.720 | on the cross and his resurrection and his reign in heaven and his authoritative teaching, like in the
00:03:38.720 | Sermon on the Mount, chapter 5 of Matthew, all of that together alter the way some of the promises
00:03:47.040 | of the teachings and the teachings of the Old Testament are to be inherited and applied. In
00:03:53.440 | other words, when step one says that we are heirs of all the promises, we have to take into account
00:04:01.360 | that those promises may be fulfilled differently today because of the changes that have come into
00:04:09.840 | history through the words and the work of Jesus. For example, in his death for sins, Jesus effectively
00:04:18.320 | replaces the Old Testament priesthood and the Old Testament sacrifices and all of those ceremonial
00:04:26.160 | provisions that surrounded that process of sacrifice. Hebrews 10—it's all over the book of
00:04:32.400 | Hebrews, but here's Hebrews 10, 13 and 14. When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice
00:04:40.000 | for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. By a single offering, he has perfected for all time
00:04:47.360 | those who are being sanctified. That means that some of the promises of the Old Testament are
00:04:53.440 | fulfilled differently now than they were then. For example, Leviticus 5, 16 says, "If anyone
00:05:01.200 | sins, he shall bring an offering, a ram, as an offering, and the priest shall make atonement
00:05:09.440 | for him with the ram of the guilt offering." And here's the promise, "He shall be forgiven." So,
00:05:17.760 | forgiveness is offered through the offering of a ram, and nowadays, now since Jesus,
00:05:26.000 | he has replaced the work of that priest and the offering of that ram. Does that mean that
00:05:33.520 | Leviticus 5, 16 doesn't apply to us? No, it doesn't mean that. We take the teaching of the
00:05:40.800 | New Testament of how Jesus fulfilled the priesthood, how he fulfilled the sacrifice of that ram,
00:05:47.680 | and we make the necessary adjustments, and we enjoy this promise, which now says something like,
00:05:55.920 | "All the more, all the more will we be forgiven for our sins if we embrace the provision,
00:06:02.320 | not of the Old Testament ram and the Old Testament priest, but of the work of Christ
00:06:07.520 | and the sacrifice of the high priest, Jesus, and the offering of his self."
00:06:13.760 | And let me give you one more example, because he asked about it. 2 Chronicles 7, 14,
00:06:18.640 | "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn
00:06:26.400 | from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their
00:06:31.200 | land." Now, how do Christians embrace and apply this today? Well, in view of what Christ has done
00:06:39.600 | in the New Testament, we make at least two changes. First, "my people," if "my people,"
00:06:48.240 | the people are no longer merely the Jewish ethnic people of God, but the
00:06:54.560 | blood-bought people of the Messiah united to him through faith. And secondly, the reference to
00:07:01.680 | "their land," cleanse "their land," heal "their land" does not apply to the land of the church.
00:07:10.000 | How much less the church in America, referring to the land of America, it doesn't refer to America,
00:07:18.560 | because the church bought by the blood of Jesus is a pilgrim people drawn from all the lands,
00:07:26.640 | from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. The church has no homeland except heaven
00:07:33.360 | and eventually the new earth. Therefore, the application we make of this verse is not that
00:07:41.760 | if Christians will repent, God will heal America. We have no such promise in the Bible. Rather,
00:07:49.200 | if Christians repent, turn from their wicked ways, humble themselves, pray to God,
00:07:54.720 | he will do a mighty work in and through the church however he please. And I think Joe takes,
00:08:04.640 | if he takes these two steps and these two illustrations that I've given from Leviticus 5
00:08:12.240 | and 2 Chronicles 7, he will be well on his way of appropriating the Old Testament for good Christian
00:08:20.720 | use. Very good. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of exegetical questions and hard to
00:08:27.760 | interpret passages, on Friday we will return to hear from a listener named Kevin in California.
00:08:33.280 | He wants to know if Jesus' promises in Matthew chapter 6, that if we seek first the kingdom of
00:08:38.880 | God, that food and clothing and drink will always be provided for us, does that mean that Christians
00:08:45.360 | will never go without food or clothing? And if that is true, what about the suffering in the
00:08:49.920 | lives of New Testament Christians? And what about what we see in the news about Middle East Christians
00:08:55.520 | today being run out of their homes by threat of violence by ISIS? That's on Friday. I'm your host,
00:09:02.560 | Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:09:05.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:09:13.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]