On 7/31/06, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
> We'd probably also disagree about the nature of the new covenant in relation
> to the old covenant. Certainly the coming of Christ made it possible for
> everyone to relate to God in a fresh way, fulfilling the old covenant and
> superceding certain aspects of the Mosaic Law. But the basis for how people
> relate to God has always been by grace through faith, as Romans 4 makes
> clear.
Jeremiah tells us that the New Covenant came in part because of
disobedience of Israel to the Old Covenant.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them, "
declares the LORD.
The author of Hebrews says the same thing and notes that there was
nothing deficient in the OT save the Jews disobedience of it:
For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place
would have been sought for another. 8But God found fault with the
people and said: [quotes Jeremiah 31]
How was that covenant broken? John 3 provides one of the answers. Note
that Jesus rebukes Nicodemus for failing to be a teacher of Israel,
thus misrepresenting and misunderstanding Judaism.
"You are Israel's teacher," said Jesus, "and do you not understand
these things?"
What was one of the things that Nicodemus ought to have understood as
a Rabbi that he didn't? The famous verse, John 3:16. This verse is
often used in the Arminian/Calvinist controversy but look here instead
in the context of the ethnocentrism of the Jews. God loved the world
and not merely the Jews. Jesus was always saying shocking statements
and his use of the word world here would have been shocking to
Nicodemus' ears.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that
whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Rich F. is right that Judaism was a tribal, ethnic religion. But this
is in disobedience of not only the New Covenant but the Old also. No
one disputes that the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 applies to both Jews
and Gentiles and in that context listen to what Jeremiah says:
"At that time," declares the LORD, "I will be the God of **all the
clans of Israel**, and they will be my people."
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Received on Tue Aug 1 08:38:48 2006
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