The Faith of Abraham and God’s
Covenant People
The biblical concept of election is founded in the sovereignty of God. It is God who has sought a man and a people with whom he could have relationship. As Abraham Joshua Heschel has said, history is not a record of man’s search for God but of God’s search for man. Jesus, himself, confirmed this truth in John 4:23: "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." This fundamental truth helps us to understand that history is linear and covenantal. Salvation history started somewhere (with creation) and ends somewhere (with the Messianic Age), and it is based on God’s sovereign covenantal election of a people to be uniquely his. This kind of special relationship implies a mutual agreement, for which the scriptural term is covenant. So we may state from the outset that God’s chosen people have been and remain those with whom he has established his covenant.
God’s First Covenant With Man
Immediately after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God made this promise in his declaration to the serpent: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Genesis 3:15). Later in Noah’s time, immediately following the flood, God established a covenant with all the earth declaring that he would never destroy the earth again with water (Genesis 9:8-17). Neither of these events, however, represented a covenant with an individual, electing him above all others.
In Bible history, the first time that Yahweh, the Eternal God, entered into a covenant with anyone is found in Genesis 15, where Abraham was chosen because of his implicit faith in God’s Word. Abraham had left his father’s house in Haran of Syria to look for the land to which God had sent him, and when he finally came into the land, he implored the Lord in this manner: "Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit [this land]?" (Genesis 15:8). God required Abraham to make a sacrificial offering, after which he spoke to him in this manner: "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates . . ." (Genesis 15:18). The record continues, declaring that "in the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram."
Abraham, therefore, was the first man with whom God entered into a cov enant, promising a special relationship with him and with his children forever. "The Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him . . . I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God" (Genesis 17:1, 7, 8). The seal of God’s covenant was to be the rite of circumcision.
This agreement between God and Abraham brought about a startling transformation. Abraham, who was a Babylonian by birth and a Syrian by nationality (Genesis 11:31), became the father of another nation, the nation of faith in the Eternal God. As far as God was concerned, Abraham was transformed from a Gentile into a chosen vessel to father a holy nation that would bear his name among the Gentiles.
From the time that Abraham had crossed over the river Euphrates, he had been called a Hebrew from the word eber, meaning to cross over. His leaving the land of Ur of the Chaldees and later departing from his father’s house in Haran of Syria were the acts of faith which prompted God to extend his promise and covenant to Abraham. So, after the making of the covenant, Abraham became more than a Hebrew–he became the father of the faithful.
Just as God had promised Abraham, it was some four hundred years before the benefits of his covenant became reality (Genesis 15:13). Through those ensuing years, Abraham’s progeny through his promised son Isaac were God’s chosen people because of the Abrahamic covenant. The children of Abraham continued to be known as Syrians until after the time of Jacob as Deuteronomy 26:5 declares: "A Syrian ready to perish was my father and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous." Still, the children of Israel were a chosen people within the nation of Syria. While seventy souls entered into the land of Egypt during the time of the famine, at the end of four hundred years, six hundred thousand men, together with women and children, were ready to be delivered from the slavery into which they had been forced.
Israel A Covenant Nation
A profound deliverance was effected by God’s intervention through the hand of his servant Moses. The children of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob passed through the Red Sea and gathered before the great mountain of the Lord called Sinai to make a covenant with God that would make them his holy nation, chosen above all the people of the earth (Deuteronomy 10:15). When this covenant was made, however, it merely amended the covenant that Abraham and Yahweh had made four hundred years before, for it could never replace or abrogate that covenant: "The [Abrahamic] covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none affect" (Galatians 3:17).
Speaking expressly and shockingly to them, God delivered the ten commandments to the Israelites as they stood in fear and awe before Sinai. Both Israel and the entire world heard the proclamation of God’s commandments that day (Exodus 19:18, 19; Psalm 68:8; Hebrews 12:26). Israel, however, responded affirmatively to God’s command, saying, "All that you have said we will do and we will hear." Israel had such faith in God’s Word that they agreed to do his commandments before they understood (heard) them! So, God chose all of Israel as his nation and established his covenant with them; however, the Word of God tells us that at that same time he made further selection and separated a part of Israel to be a special people unto him. "When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion" (Psalms 114:1, 2); "Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved" (Psalms 78:67, 68). The tribe of Judah, then, became a peculiarly chosen people unto God–a nation within a nation, as it were. It was Judah to whom God entrusted his sayings (Romans 3:13). And, it was Judah, more than all of the other tribes of Israel, that was zealous for the law and the Word of God.
The Origin of the Term Jew
As time progressed, particularly following the reigns of David and Solomon, the tribe of Judah, with Benjamin and much of Levi, became even more separated from the rest of Israel in the divided kingdom. The northern tribes followed Jeroboam while Judah, Benjamin, and Levi followed Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. God’s wisdom in choosing Judah above the others is validated in the fact that Judah continued to maintain God’s religious system while the ten tribes entered into idolatry and experienced the first diaspora when God brought the Assyrian armies against them.
It was during this time that the members of the tribe of Judah came to be known as Jews, a contraction of the word Judah (Yehudah). The first scriptural record of this term is found in II Kings 16:6. Initially "Jew" was a term of derision applied by others and not by the bearers of the name (as is also the case with the term Christian). Through succeeding generations, this term came to be synonymous with God’s chosen people, so much so that members of other tribes came to be called Jews also (Acts 19:14; 19:34; 21:39).
From that time, the term Jew came to connote the chosen people of God. Jews as a nationality included the Hebrews who had made a covenant to become God’s chosen people. The term nationality is a particularly apropos description of the Jews. While the more common usage of the term race is sometimes applied to them, in the strictest sense of the meaning of this word, Jews are not a race within themselves.
How Did One Become a Jew?
In the pre-Christian era, there were two ways in which one could become a Jew. First, one’s being born of Hebrew parents automatically made him a Jew through the covenant to Abraham and his lineage. Secondly, provision was made for those who wished to accept the law of God through faith to become fellow citizens with those Jews of fleshly lineage. From the very outset of the exodus, the Lord said, "And when a stranger shall . . . keep the passover of the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land . . ." (Exodus 12:48). Leviticus 19:34 reconfirms this position: "But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself . . ." For those Gentiles who would be included in Israel there were certain initiation requirements, including circumcision, ritual immersion, sacrifice, and learning the Torah.
Is it possible that those Gentiles in the flesh actually became Jews? As far as God was concerned their acceptance of the terms of the covenant between himself and the children of Israel transformed them into Jews just as it had transformed Abraham, the Babylonian/Syrian, into a Jew. Though at first they were called proselytes and were considered second-class citizens by many elitist Jews, those who accepted the covenant of God eventually became recognized as Jews. The exclusivity of the Jews did not obviate the impartiality of God. According to Isaiah 56:3-7 the Gentiles who accept God’s covenant are to have a place in his house better than that of sons and daughters.
Since God has no respect of persons, the thing which made Abraham the chosen of God (in a sense, the first Jew) can make any man a Jew. As Abraham’s selection was totally predicated upon his faith in God, so in both Old and New Testament eras, becoming chosen of God was by faith in God to accept his will and system for that particular era. This faith transformed a Syrian into a Jew, and it has transformed many strangers of various nationalities into Jews.
Such was the case in the days of Esther. We are told that when the Jews were given permission to defend themselves on the day on which Haman planned their genocide, "many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them" (Esther 8:17). Apparently, many of the people of the Persian empire so believed in the protection of the Jews by their God that they were willing to become Jews. Whether their instinct was faith or self-preservation, the simple fact is that the scripture tells us they "became Jews."
Throughout the Old Testament, the Eternal God continued to recognize those who accepted his covenants as being his chosen people or Jews, as they now became known. It was in his divine plan, however, to make the way easier so that all men might become his chosen. In the fullness of time, it was the covenant that he had made with Abraham that prompted the Father to send his Son, made of woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law (Galatians 4:4, 5). Zacharias, the father of John, prophesied: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David . . . to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham" (Luke 1:68, 69, 72, 73).
The Covenant For Jews Only
From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus practiced the covenantal religious system under which he had been born. He staunchly maintained that the Jews alone (including those Gentiles who had fully embraced the covenant of Judaism) were God’s chosen people. He declared that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24) and admonished his apostles not to go in the way of the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5, 6). Jesus well knew that the law of God (Torah) went forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:3). He knew that to the Israelites alone pertained "the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises" (Romans 9:4, 5). It was of the Israelites "as concerning the flesh [that] Christ came" (Romans 9:5). Even when addressing one of these lost sheep of Israel (a Samaritan), the Saviour declared: "We know what we worship: for salvation is of [from] the Jews" (John 4:22).
In his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob, however, Jesus predicted that a time would soon come when a change would take place in the practice of God’s chosen religion, which also implied a change in the manner of God’s choosing his people. He declared that the true worshippers of the Eternal God must begin to worship him in Spirit as well as in truth. Until that time, the people had worshipped Yahweh in a system that had been given by God and was a revelation of divine truth; however, the worshippers had carried out their ritual by an obedience to the commandments that was often lifeless. The time was coming that those who would offer acceptable worship to God would have to do so willingly and with the motivation of the Holy Spirit. The Messiah declared that since God is Spirit, they who worship him must do so in Spirit as well as in the truth which he has given (John 5:24). This is why Paul, himself a Pharisee, declared, ". . .the letter [of the law] killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (II Corinthians 3:6). Mere ritualistic obedience would no longer suffice: the worshippers must worship in Spirit as well as in truth.
Extending the One Covenant for All People
Since the covenants of God until that time had pertained only to the natural children, Jesus could not direct his earthly ministry outside that sphere; however, when the time came for the new covenant to be established to renew and expand the Abrahamic covenant and its Sinai emendation, the Word of God predicted that others besides the fleshly Jews would have access to that covenant. Isaiah had foretold this great event: "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles" (Isaiah 43:6). Simeon, the priest who dedicated the Son of God, reiterated it in Luke 2:32. Jesus claimed it in Luke 4:18.
In John 10:11-16, Jesus set the stage for expanding the covenant to the Gentiles on the basis of spiritual rather than physical fulfillments of God’s Word. He declared, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring . . . and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." The Son of God predicted that there would be a time when there would be one religion for all men, one fold in which all God’s sheep would be gathered together. What had been required of Israel physically would now be required of the Gentiles spiritually (e.g., circumcision).
Prior to the time when the new testament in the blood of Jesus was sealed through the testator’s death (Hebrews 9:15-17), the message of the Messiah had been directed only to the children of the fleshly covenant. After the death and resurrection of the Son of God, however, his commission to his disciples was this: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15); "Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
As the door of salvation was opened to the Gentiles, the immutable principle of accepting God’s covenant remained constant. Psalms 50:5 tells us that only those who have made a covenant with God are qualified to inherit with Christ. The new covenant that Yahweh made with Israel and the rest of the world through the death of his Son was this: "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Hebrews 8:10).
The renewal and expansion of God’s covenant was made available to the entire world, including the Gentiles, and was to be predicated upon only one thing–faith. This was the covenant which God made with the world: "That whosoever believeth upon him should have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Inclusion among God’s chosen people was contingent upon accepting by faith that Messiah Jesus is the everlasting atonement for sin. Just as Abraham was justified by faith, so all the just "shall live by faith" (Romans 5:1).
Confession of faith in the atoning death and glorious resurrection of the Jewish Messiah effected the rebirth and the spiritual circumcision of the heart that Jeremiah had predicted (4:4). The believer’s subsequent baptism in water was an outward demonstration of his death to sin, his burial, and his resurrection to newness of life. It was a fulfillment of Judaism’s requirement that converts to Yahweh’s religion immerse themselves in the mikveh. Those who were baptized became catecumenates and were taught the Word of God in like manner as proselytes to Judaism were taught the Torah. They also participated in the one sacrifice for sin under the New Covenant–Jesus, himself–and they shared in the new sacrificial system of praise, prayer, and worship of God in the Spirit (Hebrews 13:15, 16; Revelation 5:8; 8:3; Philippians 4:18).
While previously God’s covenants had applied to the fleshly lineage and had been sealed with the fleshly sign of circumcision, the Messiah established a spiritual covenant which by a spiritual birth translated the believer into the spiritual Israel, the spiritual Kingdom of God, which functioned alongside natural Israel in God’s election. The principle of becoming chosen of God by making a covenant with him remained constant.
The Abrahamic Covenant of Faith
The great similarity between the covenant of Abraham and that of Christ is immediately noticed. Both were given because of faith, and both promised an inheritance. Paul notes this similarity in Galatians 3. "Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed . . . Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law . . . that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith . . . For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ . . . And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."
The Abrahamic covenant, then, was not abolished in Christ, but rather was extended by him to all men, both Jew and Gentile. All believers in Jesus, Jew and Gentile, become the spiritual children of Abraham by virtue of their faith. This is further explained in Romans 9:6-8: "For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed . . . . that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people: and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God." Abraham has, indeed, become "the father of us all," both Jew and Gentile, all who believe in Yahweh God and the provisions of his Word (Romans 4:13-16).
The Renewed Covenant of the Torah
The covenant of the Torah given at Sinai was a system of praise, worship, and service that came to be called Judaism by the time of the first century C.E. This Judaism was never obviated and superseded by the ministry of Jesus. Since Jesus, himself, confessed that he had not come to destroy the Torah (law) but to complete it (Matthew 5:17), the new covenant was not a totally unexpected religion but a renewal of the first covenant on the basis of a better sacrifice. It was another step in God’s unfolding plan for the ages and the religion that he had given and would perfect.
The first covenant was not bad and the second, good. The first covenant was good (Romans 7:12), and the second was better (Hebrews 7:19-22). The New Covenant amended the old in the same way in which the Old Covenant amended the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant was of grace and faith as Hebrews 11 demonstrates. The New Covenant brought an expansion of the grace and truth which the Old Covenant manifested restrictively. The Old Covenant needed only perfection (completion) and renewal, not abrogation and supersession.
Gentiles Become Spiritual Jews in the New Testament
Ephesians 2:11-13 expands upon the thought of Gentile inclusion: "Wherefore remember, that ye being in times past Gentiles in the flesh . . . were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Those who were formerly nothing more than "Gentiles in the flesh" and aliens from Israel and its covenants, were now translated into the kingdom of God (Colossians 1:18), becoming his chosen people (in effect, becoming Jewish or naturalized citizens of Israel.)
Paul declared that to the apostles alone was revealed this mystery that the Gentiles should be accepted before God on equal terms with the Jews: ". . .[this] mystery . . . in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel" (Ephesians 3:5,6).
The Abrahamic covenant and its more far-reaching implications then were applicable not only to the children of the flesh but also to the children of faith. Circumcision, the fleshly sign in which the Jews according to the flesh had come to trust, was totally secondary to the spiritual faith which Abraham had had when he was chosen of God. "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which be of the law be heirs, faith is made void . . . therefore, it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all" (Romans 4:13-16).
In Romans 2:25-29 the apostle Paul further explained the principle of faith and obedience to God through which the Gentiles could be accepted before God on equal terms with the Jews. "For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? . . . for he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, and in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."
The Children of Faith Counted For Fleshly Children
A Gentile’s having the righteousness of God, then, is counted for circumcision so that he, in effect, becomes Jewish. Since the righteousness of God is solely the person of Jesus Christ (Romans 10:4; I Corinthians 1:30), the Gentile as well as the Jew receives righteousness through faith in Jesus. This faith righteousness is then counted for circumcision of the flesh so that circumcision becomes a spiritual experience rather than a fleshly rite. The Greek word translated "counted for" is logizomat. It is the same word used in Romans 4:3: "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness," and in Romans 9:8: "The children of the promise are counted for the seed." Just as Abraham’s faith was counted for righteousness, so the substitutionary righteousness of Christ in the heart of the uncircumcised believer is counted for circumcision and the reborn child of the promise of God is counted for the fleshly seed.
This is the principle upon which a Gentile by circumcision of the heart (rebirth) can become a spiritual Jew. The spiritual Jew is the spiritual seed of Abraham through faith. What the apostle is saying here is that both fleshly Jews and fleshly Gentiles can become spiritual Jews through the circumcision of the heart. This does not replace the natural Jews in God’s covenantal purposes, for the gifts and callings of God, both natural and spiritual, are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).
Some have suggested that the spiritual seed utterly replaced the natural Jews and that Christianity superseded Judaism. This position is based on an arrogant ignorance of hundreds of prophesies of the Old Testament and the writings of the apostles. Anyone who honestly studies the New Testament in the context of its first century culture, history, and grammar instantly recognizes the continuinty of biblical faith.
Others have suggested that only fleshly Jews who believe upon Christ can become spiritual Jews. Those who propose this argument state that Gentiles who believe upon the Messiah are called spiritual Gentiles, an argument that falls short on two points.
(1) The term spiritual does not always denote spirituality or a higher plane of maturity in the Spirit of God. It is used to reveal something of the spirit, or the intangible, as opposed to something of the flesh, or the tangible. Such is the case in I Corinthians 15:44, where we are told that there is a natural body and a spiritual body; in Ephesians 5:19, where we are admonished to sing spiritual songs; in Ephesians 6:12, where the nature of our warfare is described as being against spiritual wickedness in high places; and in Revelation 11:8, where Jerusalem is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt. While spiritual can be an adjective denoting spirituality, it is also used as a substitute for the prepositional phrase in spirit. Such is the case in Romans 2:29: "He is a Jew which is one in spirit." Paul argues that the ultimate manifestation of Jewishness is in the spiritual Jew.
(2) By the time of the New Testament, the term Jew had become the word which was used to identify God’s chosen people, whether they were of the tribe of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, or whatever. If the Gentiles were "fellowheirs of the same body, and partakers of the promise" and were no more strangers "from the covenants of promise" (Ephesians 2:12), then they must surely could be recognized as "Jewish" or chosen of God.
And, indeed, this was the case, for we find Peter, the apostle to the Jews, making this statement: "To the strangers . . . ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house . . . ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people . . . which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God . . . " (I Peter 1:1; 2:5, 9, 10). This specific quotation of Hosea 1:6, 9 shows us that Gentiles who have experienced the rebirth considered spiritually and prophetically to be "Israelites."
A Natural Inheritance A Provision of the Covenant
By accepting the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness, the Gentiles became a part of God’s holy nation, his chosen people. They became spiritual Jews and children of Abraham. As such, they also became heirs of the world, as God had promised to Abraham (Romans 4:13).
This is the reason that the kingdom of God will be established in the nation of Israel rather than in some other nation of the world. The camp of the saints of the Most High God will be in the Holy City for the thousand years of the kingdom of God upon the earth (Revelation 20:9). The inheritance of the land from the Euphrates unto the river of Egypt is promised to the children of Abraham, both the natural and spiritual Jews, who will reign with the true Isaac, Jesus Christ, for one thousand years over the entire earth from his headquarters in Jerusalem, Israel.
The identification of the spiritual Jews of today is simple. Those who believe upon Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ) are the children of the promise, the seed of Abraham through faith. They have come alongside natural Israel as spiritual partners in the promises and covenants of God.
God’s Chosen Covenant Religion
If there is only one God, then there is only one religion for all mankind, both Jew and Gentile according to the flesh. Paul declares this to be true in Ephesians 4:5: "One Lord, one faith . . . " There is not, as some would have it, a religion for the Jews, called Judaism, and a religion for the Gentiles, called Christianity. And, in the ranks of believers in Jesus, there is not one religion for the Jews, called Messianic Judaism, and another different religion for the Gentiles, called Christianity. Ultimately, there is only one faith or religious system for all men.
It is not necessary for us to persuade the believer that God is an unchanging God. Everyone knows that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Since the Lord is Yahweh who changes not (Malachi 3:6), then we must emphatically assert that if Judaism were ever his chosen system of praise, worship, and service, then in some form it must remain such.
But what effect did the ministry of Messiah Yeshua have on Judaism? The truth is revealed in the nature of the Eternal God as a Perfecter. God simply does not discard what he has done in one era in favor of a totally different thing in another. What he does do is to modify and restructure in order to bring about perfection in the linear development of his plan for the ages. Jeremiah 18:1-6 reveals the nature of the work that the Son of God did in Israel. He took the same lump of clay that God had been molding for centuries and from it re-formed a vessel of honor.
The role of Jesus as a reformer is very specifically applied to the religious system called Judaism in Hebrews 9:8,10: " . . . the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while the first tabernacle was yet standing . . . which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation." Jesus was a reformer, not an innovator. His purpose was to perfect what God had done through centuries of dealing with the Israelites by introducing the new covenant sealed in his own blood. He declared to the Jewish leaders who thought that he had come to introduce some new religion, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).
Through the Messiah, the yoke of Judaism was made easy and the burden light (Matthew 11:28-30), for those parts of Judaism that were rendered superfluous through his becoming the perfect atonement once for all, were nailed to his cross, leaving only the eternal immutable principles of God intact, with a new order for their observance. Whereas the Judaism of the Old Testament had become for many a burdensome, ritual-filled religion, the Judaism of the New Testament became a vibrant, exciting, Spirit-filled way of life. Whereas fleshly Jews had gravitated toward a ritualistic religion, Old Covenant Judaism, spiritual Jews (both Jews and Gentiles who have believed upon Jesus) have a spiritual religion, New Covenant Judaism.
If those who believe on the Son of God are the true seed of Abraham, the spiritual Jews, then it is only fitting that their religious system be the reformed Judaism of the New Testament or new covenant. And so it was: New Testament Christianity was a Judaism among the many Judaisms of that day. And so it must be: today’s over Hellenized, over-Latinized Christianity must reconnect with its Jewish roots, rebuild its Hebrew foundations, and return to its Judaic heritage. In order to realize its fulness, Christianity must be restored to the religion which Jesus and the apostles practiced.
Irrevocable Covenants and Natural Israel
God’s plan to include the Gentiles did not require the exclusion of the Jews. Natural Israel, the Jews according to the flesh, continue in covenantal relationship with God. Romans 11:29 tells us that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. For this reason and for this reason alone, the natural, physical benefits of the covenant that God made with Abraham and his lineage according to the flesh still pertain to the fleshly Jews. Romans 9:29 declares that except the Lord of Sabaoth had left Israel a seed, they would have been as Sodom and Gomorrah; however, Yahweh’s promise was that a remnant would be saved. Indeed, this is the proof of God’s immutability: "For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed" (Malachi 3:6). Because God can never change, his personal commitments to the children of Abraham continue to be fulfilled.
Torah Still a Schoolmaster
In Galatians 3:24, Paul declared that the law (Torah) was a schoolmaster to bring Israel to Messiah. In the Hellenic world, of which Galatia was a part, a schoolmaster (paidagogos) was a family servant whose responsibility was to protect the children, to train them in proper etiquette and deportment, and to accompany them to their teachers. The law, then, was designed by God to be a means of protecting Israel and keeping them from the evils of the Gentile world until they could be brought to Messiah, their teacher.
The purpose of the Torah has never changed. Through the centuries and even to this day it has remained as a guardian of the Jewish people, insuring the continuity of their faith in Yahweh, the only God. It has maintained the Jewish people as a distinct and recognizable entity in the world despite unrelenting attempts by the tyrants of history to effect their genocide. If it ever were a schoolmaster to bring Israel to Messiah, the Torah (law) remains so today and will remain so until the time that Messiah comes to teach Israel all his ways.
A Prophetic Restoration
God’s plan for the Jewish people and the nation of Israel is a three-fold restoration: the land of Israel is to be restored to the people of Israel; the people of Israel are to be restored to the land of Israel; and the people of Israel are to be restored to their God. The Zionist movement that has brought millions of Jewish people back to the land of Israel from the dispersion among the nations and has brought about the reestablishing of the nation of Israel in a part of the land which God promised to Abraham is a direct result of the faith of those Jews in God’s promise to Abraham. Their faith in God’s covenant has brought the fleshly benefits to them even though they have not yet come to faith in the Messiah, the Son of God. Through this means, the land has been restored to the people, and the people have been restored to the land.
The next stage of restoration is for the people of Israel to be restored to God. A large percentage of the Jewish world population is either non-observant, secular, agnostic, or atheistic. A move of God must take place to turn the hearts of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel back to God and to his Word. Then, and only then, can they come to understand that the one from among them who brought Israel’s light to the Gentiles is, indeed, Messiah.
All of God’s Chosen Holy Ones Inherit
The great purpose of God in returning the land of Israel to the people, bringing the Jews again from the diaspora, and turning their hearts again to God is to set the stage for Israel’s national day of salvation (Zechariah 12:10; 13:1; Romans 9:27) and the subsequent coming of Messiah. When this great prophetic event occurs, those who are of the faith of Abraham, God’s chosen people of every generation–both Jew and Gentile–will inherit the earth, just as Jesus promised (Matthew 5:5; 25:34). Yahweh God’s four-thousand-year-old covenant with Abraham will have been made sure to all the seed, both the natural and the spiritual (Romans 4:16), and they will rule and reign with Messiah over all the earth for one thousand years in a kingdom that will continue to reflect the nature of its unchanging God by being patterned after biblical Judaism.
Love, God’s
Eternal Plan
Fulfilled
The first thing that the Holy Scriptures cause us to understand about the nature of man is that he is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Because the desire to love and to be loved is at the heart of the personality of every man, we may, by casual reasoning, assert that love is central to the personality of God. We may assume, then, that a God of love would have created mankind for this express purpose–to love the Creator. While we may assert that God is complete and has no need or lack, we also understand that, as Abraham Joshua Heschel has said, history is not a record of man’s search for God, but of God’s search for man (John 4:23). Mankind was created because God sought relationship with beings who would love him. In order to be genuine, however, love must be freely and voluntarily expressed. For this reason, God created man a free moral agent, with the power to choose between the good and the evil, between loving and serving God and hating and rebelling against him. The direct result of this innate characteristic in man was the bringing of sin and death into the world.
But, did the fall of man obviate God’s plan in creating him? Did God then realize that he had made a mistake and set in motion another plan which he hoped would cause man to love him? Certainly not! God is not as most men, who experience and react. In his infinite wisdom, he plans and then acts. From the time that he created the world, the counsel of the Almighty has been predetermined. He was then aware that man would sin, and he already had devised the plan which would reconcile men to God. First man had to be barred from immortality ((Genesis 3:22), else he would be an eternal sinner without hope of redemption as are the angels who left their first estate (Jude 6). Second, man had to be punished for his sin (Genesis 3:17-19). And, third, a means of reconciliation to God had to be established (Genesis 3:15). From the time of the fall, therefore, we see men offering sacrifices for their sins and seeking the presence of God.
After a time, God’s plan for the ages called for the introduction of a codified law, which would stand forever as an outline of his basic likes and dislikes, his instruction, as the Hebrew word for law (Torah) is more accurately rendered. This law was not designed to cause man to extend voluntary love to the Creator; its purpose was to define sin in exact terms and thereby make it exceedingly sinful (Romans 7:13). The law was set forth to act as a guardian (schoolmaster) to keep the chosen people in check and to maintain a righteous seed through which the ultimate plan of redemption would be expressed (Galatians 3:24). In later times, the law of God came to be known as Judaism (the term which Paul used in Galatians 1:13, 14 to describe his religious faith), God’s chosen system of praise, worship, and service.
But, was the establishment of Judaism another admission of fault with God? Did he devise this system because what he had done before had not worked? Of course not! God cannot fail, nor may his purpose know defeat! For fifteen hundred years Israel lived under the law of Judaism. Many chose the life that Judaism offered to those who would keep its precepts; others chose the death that its curse pronounced on those who would not obey the law (Deuteronomy 30:19). Those who chose life by obeying the commandments were justified by their faith in God’s Word, just as Abraham had been justified by his faith in God’s Word.
Shortly before the time of Jesus, some of the sages of Israel began to emphasize the fact that more than mere ritualistic compliance with God’s religious system was required. Perhaps in reaction to the prophets’ denunciation of their observances of feasts, sabbaths, and fasts, they began to emphasize that service to God had to be based on love for the Creator, not on fear or on ritualism.
The Supreme Example of Love
Finally, in the fullness of time, God manifested what would be the pivotal point of his plan for the ages when he sent forth his Son, his express image, made in the likeness of sinful flesh, subject to the law of Judaism (Hebrews 1:1, 2; Romans 8:3; Galatians 4:4). What greater example of voluntary love could the Creator establish than to permit his only begotten Son to become flesh so as to redeem mankind, which by all rights was totally and irrevocably lost and separated from his holy presence? God did not choose a man to be offered as a sacrifice for sins. he came himself in the person of his Son and offered himself as the sacrifice for us.
But, was God again giving up on another plan which had failed? Was he acknowledging defeat of his law revealed in Judaism and trying something else that he hoped would work? If he were doing so, what would give us any confidence that his new plan would work? Did Judaism represent a failure on God’s part? Of course not! The coming of Jesus Christ to the earth was the most important event in human history; however, it was just another chapter in God’s unfolding plan for the ages, a plan that had been conceived and set in motion before the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8).
What the law of Judaism could not do because of the weakness of the flesh, Jesus Christ accomplished when he lived a sinless life, offered himself as a perfect sacrifice and an eternal atonement for the sins of mankind, and resurrected in an obvious demonstration that eternal life could be had through him. Jesus stands forever as the ultimate expression of the Creator’s love.
A New Motive–Love
Under the time of the law, most men had only one motive for serving and obeying God: the fear of death. While there were those like David who "delighted in the law of God," most of Israel was obedient to the law through fear. For many, if love were obliquely involved, it was expressed from fear. If such is the case, love is not the kind of love that the Creator, himself, expresses. God’s ultimate plan, then, was to empower man to love as he loves, to choose the good and hate the evil because he loves his God.
It is only logical, then, that the perfected plan for man’s redemption should be a religious system based on love. And so it is with the New Testament order of Judaism. Jesus encapsulated the entire legal code of the Old Testament in these two commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. . ." and "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This was in keeping with earlier Jewish prophets and sages who had sought to condense the legal code. Micah 6:8 had said, ". . .what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" The great Hillel had taught that one should not do unto others what was hurtful to himself and declared that the remainder of the law was commentary.
Jesus, then, changed the order of and motive for the observance of Judaism. The order was altered from Old Testament ritual and ceremonialism to New Testament worship in Spirit and in truth. The motive was changed from fear of death to love for the one who delivered from death. The demonstration of God’s love through the sacrifice of his Son and the empowering of the believer with the resident Holy Spirit accomplishes the purpose of God’s creation of mankind. He receives voluntary, spontaneous love from the creature, which he reciprocates bountifully. Man is now able to love as God loves, for "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit which had been with God’s people in the Old Testament now was resident in believers, imparting God’s love to them (John 14:17).
It is interesting that in order to establish a new system for Judaism following the destruction of the temple, rabbinical Judaism used some of the same premises that early Christian leaders had emphasized in their reformation of Judaism. The emphasis was changed from the temple cult to prayer, study, tzedekah (giving, performing good deeds), and the like. As the earliest church had appealed to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the vicarious atonement for sin and the means of salvation, early Jewish sages appealed to the binding of Isaac as a substitutionary sacrifice for all of Israel that was efficacious to all his descendants. Later this emphasis on the vicarious nature of Isaac’s binding was diminished as the church came to teach Jesus’ crucifixion as the fullment of the type of Isaac’s binding. Rabbinic Judaism then became more and more a religion of emphasis on good works, with some thinking that good works balance the scales against bad works so that the judgment of God does not come upon the evil doer.
The New Testament order that Jesus brought to God’s religion, Judaism, accomplished God’s purpose. Through the vicarious atonement of Jesus, believers are restored to God and receive of his Spirit. They love God, keep his commandments, and freely worship him. Love fulfills all of God’s moral code outlined in Judaism.
God’s plan of salvation, enacted from the foundation of the world, will reach its climax when Jesus returns, establishes his kingdom, rules over the world, destroys evil and death, and ushers in the eternal kingdom of the new heaven and the new earth. Then ten thousand times ten thousands of his saints will freely express their love for him in eternal praise and continual fellowship in his presence. Love will have fulfilled God’s eternal purpose in the creation of mankind.
The Secret of Fulfilling the Law
From the very beginning of the New Testament era, the question of the proper relationship of the believer to the law of God outlined in the Hebrew Scriptures has been a subject of heated debate. Within the Christian community, there are two polarized extremities of thought concerning the law of God and its effect upon believers in Jesus Christ. These two diverse viewpoints are termed by each other as legalism (the strict keeping of the law) and antinomianism (standing against the law).
The legalists, as they are called, maintain that the entire law of God remains in force even today. Some of them believe that without obedience to the laws of the Old Testament, one cannot be justified, and some are probably guilty of the Galatianism of which they are accused by the antinomians. They maintain that God’s laws were not changed or repealed by Jesus and that their observance is necessary for our justification. In some circles, Remonstrants or Arminians, who believe that keeping of the law is necessary after one’s rebirth by faith in Jesus Christ, are referred to as legalists.
On the other hand are the antinomians who maintain that the law, including the Ten Commandments, were nailed to the cross of Christ. According to them, works of obedience are totally unnecessary for our justification. Many of this persuasion feel that the Old Testament scriptures are useless in the "grace dispensation" and that Judaism is a worthless exercise in futility, very little different from heathen religions.
The debate of the legalists and the antinomians has raged for centuries. The real problem that perpetuates the irreconcilable differences between these two warring factions of Christianity is the fact that both sides of the argument have truth, both sides quote scripture from the same Bible, and both sides stand unequivocally for their dogma. As is generally the case with polarized issues such as these, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremities. A proper restoration of first century Christianity represents a viable alternative to the two warring factions, a synthesis between the thesis of legalism and the antithesis of antinomianism.
The "Thou Shalt’s" and The "Thou Shalt Not’s"
Generally speaking, the question concerning observance of the law has not involved the "thou shalt not’s" but has centered in the "thou shalt’s." Few would advocate that one should steal, commit murder, bear false witness, or commit adultery. On the other hand, some would recommend that one not remember the Sabbath, observe the festivals, pay the tithe, and the like.
The fact is that God’s law is composed of positive and negative commandments. In the Torah there are 613 commandments (mitzvot). Of these, 365 are negative commandments, the "thou shalt not’s" of the Torah, a number which corresponds to the total days in a year. The remaining 248 commandments are positive "thou shalt’s." John tells us that the transgression of any one of the 613 commandments of the law constitutes sin (I John 3:4). James confirms to us that failure to observe the positive commandments is just as much sin as violating the negative commandments: "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17).
The question is, What should we do? How can we be sure that we fulfill the law in our lives? The answer is simply stated by Jesus, himself, in Matthew 22:37-40: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." These are the two "thou shalt’s" of the New Testament. All of the requirements of the New Testament are summed up in one simple word– love, love for God and love for man. The law, then, is based in love, not in judgment.
The Decalogue was written by the finger of God upon two tablets of stone. The five commandments on one tablet governed one’s conduct toward God and his parents. The five commandments on the other tablet governed one’s relationship with his fellow man. These ten commandments became major categories under which all the remaining commandments of the law functioned.
Love Fulfills The Law
If one truly loved God with all his heart, soul, and mind, he could never break one of the first five of the ten commandments. The motivating factor of complete love for God would cause the believer to make God’s slightest wish his personal command. If one truly loved his neighbor as himself, he could never break one of the remaining five of the ten commandments. This truth is brilliantly set forth by the apostle Paul in Romans 13:8-10: "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." If the law can be summed up and fulfilled in one word, love, then the law was a law of love, not of judgment and cursing, as some have suggested.
Paul repeats this theme in Galatians 5:14: "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Perhaps he was taking his cue from his teacher Gamaliel, a disciple of Hillel the Great, who said concerning the law of God, "Whatever his hurtful to you, do not unto others. The rest [of the law] is commentary." When Paul discussed this theme of love for one’s neighbor, he also delivered some sound advice concerning the nature of the New Testament calling and the believer’s responsibility toward it: "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. . . . walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:13,16).
A Life In The Spirit
The apostle to the Gentiles expanded upon this aspect of fulfilling of the law in Romans 8:2-4: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might he fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Because we have been freed from the law through the body of Christ, we can now fulfill the righteousness of the law by living a life in the Spirit. Our freedom is not a license to violate the commandments but an opportunity to realize the righteousness that they prescribed through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What the law could not do because of the weakness of the flesh, the Holy Spirit accomplishes so that we are now said to establish the law, rather than making it void (Romans 3:31).
This is the meaning of Hebrews 10:16,17: "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." When the Holy Spirit becomes resident in the heart of the believer, the righteousness of the law that was completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ also becomes a part of his being. The righteousness of the law then is no more a bondage to works but a liberty of faith in Jesus Christ.
Love Brings Unconditionally Positive Responses
When one walks in the Spirit and is not mindful of the things of the flesh, he has no problem in loving God and loving his fellow man; therefore, he has no problem in fulfilling the law. Since his spirit is fine tuned to the needs and wishes both of God and of his fellow man, his selfish, lazy human spirit is overwhelmed by the Spirit of God and does what is pleasing to God and beneficial to his fellow man. The motivation is love, not selfishness, for he addresses himself to the commandments of God and to the needs of his neighbor with unconditionally positive responses.
In this kind of relationship with God and man, one has no difficulty in performing the worship that pleases God. One who walks in the Spirit will be attentive to the slightest wish of his Maker. If remembering days and seasons pleases God–and we have his Word that it does–he will volunteer to memorialize those times (Leviticus 23; I Corinthians 5:8). If being submissive to religious government pleases God, he will readily obey those who have rule over him in the Lord (Hebrews 13:17). If tithing and giving offerings please God, he will be anxious to do this work (Malachi 3:10; Matthew 23:23). If ministering to the physical, emotional, or economic needs of his neighbor pleases his neighbor and God, he will be careful to give special attention to those needs (Matthew 25:33-40).
The question of what we should do or should not do in respect to the law of God is simple when we live a life in the Spirit of God. The love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit will build in us an overwhelming passion for pleasing God and helping our fellow man. The question then will not be, "How little (or how much) can I do and not incur God’s wrath?", or "How little (or how much) can I do and still have the respect of my neighbor?", but "Where can I find an opportunity to do more for God and for my neighbor?" We will be consumed with the Jewish concept of tzedekah (righteous good deeds). And, after all, Jesus himself said that the church would enlighten the world and cause them to glorify God with "good works," not just faith (Matthew 5:16).
Finding the Middle Ground
Legalism and antinomianism are both extremities. The truth is in the middle, and this is where New Testament Christianity (or Judaism, if you please) comes into play. Jesus did not come to destroy either the law or the religious system of God that it outlined. He rather put life into that ancient religious form by perfecting it forever with the new covenant. This is the faith or religion of Jesus Christ, the first step of which is our belief in him as our Lord and Savior. If we love him, we will certainly want to keep the ordinances of the New Testament and obey his commandments in all things (John 14:15).
By searching out those things of Judaism which Jesus perpetuated in a new and living way, we can learn what pleases him in our praise, worship, and service today, thereby ascertaining God’s way for ourselves. Biblical Judaism was the faith through which Jesus and the apostles expressed their devotion to God. As we search this ancient faith, we will find more and more that will add depth to our praise, worship, and service of God.
How can we now fulfill the law? Love God, love man, and walk in the Spirit!
The
Indwelling
Holy Spirit
The great infilling of the Holy Spirit that occurred on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, along with the subsequent manifestation of the various gifts and operations of that Spirit in the lives of believers, was merely a concentrated outpouring of something that had been periodically manifested in God’s religious system for more than two thousand years.
The supernatural has always been one of the identifying marks of the religion of Yahweh, the eternal God. Before the first century the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of its power to perform superhuman things through human instrumentality was a characteristic unique to Judaism and the Jewish people.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, we find abundant evidence of the demonstration of supernatural power through human agency. Who could forget the profound miracles worked through Moses causing the Red Sea to part, bringing forth water from a rock, and feeding nearly a million people with manna? Or who does not remember Saul’s speaking in glossolalia when the Spirit of God came upon him as he dwelt among the prophets? Or who does not recall Daniel’s reading the unknown language written in the Babylonian temple by the hand of God? Or who could forget the deliverance of the Hebrew children from the fiery furnace? And, what of Elisha, who made an ax head float, gave the healing word to Naaman, the leper, and raised the Shunammite’s son from the dead? Then there were Samuel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and many others who prophesied the word of the Lord. These natural men, aided by the supernatural Spirit, foreshadowed good gifts that were to come in the New Testament era (Hebrews 10:1). Romans 12:6-8, I Corinthians 12:8-10, and Ephesians 4:11 delineate these gifts that were given bountifully to men following the ascension of Jesus Christ and his assumption of the role of High Priest for all believers (Ephesians 4:8).
Under the old covenant of God’s religion, however, these supernatural events were at best occasional and in most times very rare, for it was difficult for the Almighty to find vessels who were worthy to demonstrate such power. Few men were willing to forsake the riches of Egyptian royalty to live in the desert or to remain fiercely loyal to the law of God in the face of execution or to suffer the rejection and ridicule of their peers and fellow countrymen. It remained for God to provide some better thing for us in the New Testament era (Hebrews 11:39, 40).
The Holy Spirit is Given to Believers
And, so it was that Messiah Jesus, the reformer of Judaism, ushered in the better way through the introduction of a new covenant for God’s ancient religion. Jesus introduced a new birth in which a believer could be born from above with a spiritual birth that made him a new creation. Remission of sins was accomplished through the vicarious atonement provided by his efficacious sacrifice on Calvary.
In a solemn promise to his disciples before his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus made an even greater provision for believers in his word."It is expedient for you that I go away . . . and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth . . . for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you . . . ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me" (John 16:7; 14:16; 16:13; Acts 1:8). The Spirit that had been with the Jewish people before this Pentecost now became resident in the believers.
When Jesus’ promise was fulfilled, interestingly enough, it occurred on one of the major festivals of Judaism, the Feast of Pentecost. "When the day of Pentecost was fully come . . . they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:14).
Once before in recorded history such a profound event had occurred when the 120 priests officiated at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles (II Chronicles 5:12-14). The Holy Spirit so filled the temple with the smoke of his presence that the priests were unable to minister. This time, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled the hearts of 120 believers to such a degree that they appeared to be drunken and spoke in languages with which they were not familiar (Acts 1:15; 2:1-15). On the first Old Testament Pentecost when the law of God was given at Mt. Sinai, 3,000 people died because of their idolatry (Exodus 32:28). On the first New Testament Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to indwell believers on Mt. Zion, 3,000 people were saved when they repented and were baptized (Acts 2:41).
From that day throughout the book of Acts, the supernatural manifestations of the Spirit that had occurred occasionally in Old Testament Judaism became the hallmark of New Testament Judaism. The apostles went everywhere, healing the sick, casting out devils, working miracles, and doing signs and wonders. The Holy Spirit which had been given to the children of Israel by measure was poured out without measure upon the New Testament believers, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
Gentiles Receive The Supernatural Power
A few years later, the gift that had been unique and isolated to the Jewish people was brought to the Gentiles. Peter visited the house of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, at Caesarea by the Sea and explained the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to those Gentiles. "While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word . . . . [and] they heard them speak with tongues" (Acts 10:44, 46). An experience that had been unique to Jews and Judaism was extended to the Gentiles and to the entire world.
After that time Jews and Gentiles alike, by the thousands, received the same experience that the 120 believers had received on the Day of Pentecost. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and through the operation of that Spirit proceeded to accomplish things that were beyond the power of natural man. Peter’s shadow healed people. Paul sent clothes and aprons that he had touched to those who were sick, and they were healed. Agabus predicted the outcome of Paul’s ministry. Philip experienced a physical translation from the Gaza to Azotus. Many other miracles and wonders were done through the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Gifts and Manifestations of the Holy Spirit
The gift of the Holy Spirit brought many other gifts or manifestions into the lives of believers. Paul delineated gifts of these Holy Spirit in I Corinthians 12: "To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will."
These gifts were manifestations of the Spirit that were given for the profit of the body. Through them the entire Church, both Jew and Gentile, received the witness of the supernatural Spirit of God that convinced millions of people to believe on the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. The miraculous witness that had authenticated Yahweh’s religion in the Old Testament was multiplied many times over through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
In Romans 12:6-8, Paul also detailed other gifts of the Holy Spirit: "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy . . . or ministry . . . or teaching . . . or exhortation . . . or giving . . . or administration . . . or mercy." These gifts provided strength to the ongoing operation of the church in its mission and witness and enabled ordinary men and women to accomplish extraordinary tasks in the overspread of the gospel and the administration of the daily life and business of the church.
In Ephesians 4:11-16, the gifts which Jesus as High Priest gave to the church are said to include the ministry gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher (or pastor/teacher). It should be noted that these are not men but gifts which God gives to men to empower them for particular functions within the church. The purpose of these gifts is specific: ". . .for the equipping of the saints for works of ministry to the building up of the body of Christ." Ministry gifts are not ends in themselves, a means of exalting a professional clergy to fulfill all the works of ministry in the church. They are gifts of service designed to equip all believers so that they then can do the works of ministry that will build up the body of Christ. The duration of the church’s empowerment with these gifts is also made clear: ". . .until we all come in the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, unto a complete man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Until such a time as the church comes to the unity of the faith and to complete maturity, all five of these gifts are so essential that the church can never perfectly function without each of them fully operational.
Professionalism and Rationalism Replace Charismata and Faith
As the church denied its Hebraic roots, it more and more replaced faith and the operation of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers with the rationalism of the Greco-Roman world. The development of a professional clergy was an immediate outgrowth of this change of emphasis. The elevation of that professional clergy to a higher state of holiness was a further result of emphasis on rationalism rather than faith and on professionalism rather than charismata. This resulted in the denial of participation first in teaching, then in praise and worship, to the laypersons of the church so that the laity became spectators whose function it was to observe the performance of the clergy. Access to the Word of God was ultimately denied to the laity upon penalty of excommunication and even death. The result was a pitiful, weakened, ignorant, and superstitious populace that could easily be manipulated by political forces and the hierarchy of the church. The clergy–laity gap that continues to weaken the church to this day was the result.
The final and inglorious application of this emphasis on professionalism and rationalism was the development of the concept of sacramentalism in which the sacrament of the church was considered to be efficacious regardless as to the condition of the priest or the communicant. Sacramentalism led to a further diminution of the spiritual stature of the individual and militated further against the possibility of the Holy Spirit’s ministering through individuals by means of his charismata and graces. In this environment of rationalism and professionalism, it was possible for men to know much about God and at the same time not know God. The fruits of the lives of some of the intellectual giants of the times were not those of the Holy Spirit. A clear and important truth is so obvious in this historical tragedy: if the church had not denied its Judaic heritage, it would never have ceased to be charismatic. Belief in and experience of the supernatural were essential to the biblical Judaism through which Jesus and the apostles expressed their devotion to Yahweh, the God of Israel. If this belief had been perpetuated, the church would not have exalted reason over anointing and professionalism over character and charismata.
The descent of the imperial church into the Dark Ages of the tenth and eleventh centuries is testimony to the degradation that is possible in what should be faith communities when cold professionalism and rationalism completely replace faith and the operation of the charismatic in the lives of individual believers. It also produced the environment of such dogma and practices that precipitated the Reformation and the Catholic counter-reformation and their progressively developing emphasis on faith and personal relationship with God rather than the professionalism and rationalism of the past. Men came more and more to seek God for themselves and to find personal relationship with him, often manifest in the ecstatic, decidedly non-rational experiences that were documented in the various revivals that occurred in subsequent ecclesiastical history.
A Twentieth Century Restoration
At the turn of the twentieth century a great spiritual revival was ignited from the embers of the eighteenth century Methodist awakening and the nineteenth century holiness revival in the United States. At this time, believers began to seek what most had thought unobtainable. They began to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and its accompanying gifts that were manifest in the first century church. And, in various locations at about the same time, God began to give these gifts again.
The operations of the Spirit which once had been unique to the Jews, then to the New Testament church, began to be manifest in the twentieth century among mostly humble, semiliterate people. While enthusiasm over the restoration of a New Testament experience brought forth many excesses and abuses, the obvious truth was that something had happened in the twentieth century that could not be explained away. The operation of the Spirit was at work.
A Widespread Outpouring
In more recent times people of various denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the manifestations of the gifts. The numbers have increased rapidly until they now reach into the millions. The largest identifiable segment of Christianity today are those who profess to be Spirit-baptized. Again, enthusiasm over the restoration of a New Testament experience has brought forth excesses and abuses; however, the fact is that thousands of people are receiving the infilling of the Holy Spirit and re witnessing the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit.
The more modern version of the restoration of the Holy Spirit has been termed Charismatic Renewal, which simply means a revival of the gifts of the Spirit. The greater percentage of those who call themselves Pentecostals probably are not even aware of what Pentecost implies; however, through faith and the fervency of their relationship with God, they have laid claim to a unique Jewish experience that today is perpetuating the manifestation of God’s supernatural power.
Charismatic renewal and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whether in classical or neo-Pentecostal terms, is the restoration of the New Testament order and degree of a uniquely Jewish experience in which ordinary men are moved by the Spirit of Yahweh, the God of Israel, to do supernatural things. The gifts of the Spirit were manifest in Judaism, perfected in the New Testament, and are being restored in our day.