Put This In Your Dispensationalist Pipe And Smoke It.

There is probably no more Israelite-ish book in the Bible than Leviticus. Most Christians admittedly bog down in their “read through the Bible in a year” plans when they hit Leviticus. They wonder if the book has any relevance for New Testament believers. The cause of this sensation is no doubt the lack of clarity most people possess concerning the relationship of Old Testament Israel to the New Testament Church.

To help clarify this, let’s look at Leviticus 26:11-12. “I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.” (ESV)

These verses are at the end of a segment (26:1-13) that contains the blessings of covenant keeping. The covenant in question is the Covenant of Grace. We know that this is so because it contains God’s promise to Abraham from Genesis 17:7-8

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” (ESV)

Many people mistakenly believe that the Law given at Sinai was a return to the Covenant of Works, but this is not true. The Sinai Law was part of the Covenant of Grace. This can be seen from the fact that in Exodus 19, before the Decalogue was given, God re-confirmed with Israel the Covenant of Grace He had made with their forefather Abraham. Not only that, but the prologue to the Decalogue is pure, unadulterated grace. 

One can compare Ezekiel 37:26-28 with the Leviticus 26 passage to see a confirmation that this is a special promise of God relating to the Covenant of Grace.

I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore. (ESV)

Fastforward several centuries to the day of Pentecost and the time immediately after it. Pentecost, whatever else may be said about it, is the beginning of the New Testament Church. It is the point at which the worship of God moves from a physical temple to a spiritual one. I said all that to say this: anything which occurs here can no longer be said to be a part of the Old Testament Israel-centered religion. In a fully New Testament context, Peter confirms that the promise to Abraham relates to the Church (Acts 2:39 cf. Acts 3:25).

Later, speaking to a church comprised largely of ethnic Gentiles, Paul quotes this promise (“I will be your God and you will be My people) in reference to the Church. Indeed Paul acts as if he understood the original promise to be finally fulfilled in the New Testament Church. Here is what he says: What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people. (ESV)

Notice that Paul actually says that the New Testament Church IS the Temple spoken of throughout Scripture.If this weren’t clear enough, two times in Romans 4 (verses 1 and 9-12 - again addressed to Gentiles), Paul refers to Abraham as “our father.” And in verses 9-12, Paul argues conclusively that the promises of the Covenant of Grace were made to Abraham before there were such people as Jews. That the New Testament Church is the fulfillment of God’s covenant to Abraham is even clearer in Galatians, because this is precisely what Paul argues in Galatians 3.The reasoning of Galatians 3:6-9 absolutely demolishes the phony dichotomy between Israel and the Church which Dispensationalism creates. Look back at Leviticus 26:11-12. The covenant promise of God is this: I will be your God and will dwell with you. Ezekiel 37:26-28 reaffirms this promise to Israel. Paul then interprets the promise to “dwell among you” to mean that the Church IS the temple of God and the promise therefore is ultimately for the New Testament Church (2 Cor. 6:16). Romans 4 and Galatians 3 argue conclusively that the New Testament Church is the continuation and fulfillment of the Old Testament church, Israel.

Confirming that we have not read into Scripture something that is not there, the Bible itself ends on this very note. Revelation 21:3 reiterates this promise to the Church:And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (ESV)

The Covenant of Grace is Identical in the Old and New Testaments

1. Immediately after the Fall, God established this covenant (Genesis 3:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8).

2. The Gospel, which is the offer of this covenant, is proclaimed in the Old Testament as well as in the New (Genesis 3:8, 16; Genesis 15:6 {IN the Lord, not just "the Lord."}; James 2:23).

3. The Surety of the Covenant was as equally efficacious in the Old Testament as He is in the New Testament (Hebrews 13:8; Revelation 13:8).

4 Believers in the Old Testament had all the benefits of the Covenant that believers in the New Testament have.

            A. God as Father - Exodus 20:2; Isaiah 40:10; 64:8; Jeremiah 3:4

            B. Forgiveness of sins - Psalm 65:3; 32:5

            C. The spirit of adoption unto children - Romans 8:4; 2 Corinthians 4:13; Psalm 143:10

            D. Peace of conscience with God - Psalm 4:7; 62:1

            E. Childlike communion with God - Psalm 139:18; 73:28

            F. Partaking in sanctification - Psalm 119:97

The "What about this verse" Objections:

1. Old Testament believers didn't 'receive the promises.' - Hebrews 11:13.

Answer: The "promises" refer to the Incarnation. They had the substance of the promises in faith though the things had not yet actually occurred in time.

2. The Law made none perfect - Hebrews 7:19

Answer: The ceremonial laws did indeed lack sufficiency. The repetition of the sacrifices indicate that they knew this. Though the ceremonies were insufficient, they did point to Christ. Colossians 2:13 

3. The way into the holiest place way not yet been manifested. - Hebrews 9:8

Answer: Christ is the way (John 14:6, cf. Hebrews 10:19-20). While Christ had not yet actually paid the ransom the ceremonies were still in effect. This is not the same as saying that prior to Christ's death no one went to heaven. The ceremonies were promises that the substance they typified would come, and God dealt with the people accordingly.

4. Light and life weren't present before Christ - 2 Timothy 1:10

Answer: Before Christ does not mean before His Incarnation. The text refers to the measure of revelation and the revelation to the Gentiles, which prior to the Incarnation only occurred in Israel.

5. Hebrews 11:39-40 and 1 Peter 1:12 seem to indicate that the Old Testament believers did not partake in these benefits.

Answer: The texts refer to the Incarnation. The promises weren't received during these saints' lifetimes and they knew it. They believed in a Christ that would come. They lived by the same faith - only they lived by a faith of anticipation, while we live in a faith of fulfillment. But the object of the faith is and was the same. It is not that the blood of goats and lambs actually atoned for sin. But God acted as if it did because these sacrifices served to tide the people over till the true sacrifice was made. God treated the Old Testament elect as if Christ had actually already come and died for their sins. They offered sheep in faith that the real sacrifice would someday come. From God's side though, Christ is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.

A Brief History of the Medieval Church 7

A most important part of the Reformation was a vernacular translation of the Bible. Luther’s New Testament (1522) was reprinted at Basel with a glossary. In Zurich it was adapted to the Swiss dialect in 1524, and revised and improved in subsequent editions.

The characteristic difference between the two Reformers is in the general theory of the sacraments, and especially the Lord’s Supper. Zwingli regarded the sacraments as signs and seals of a grace already received rather than as means of a grace to be received. Yet both were equally earnest in their devotion to the Scriptures as the Word of God and the supreme rule of faith and practice.

The pioneer of Protestantism in Western Switzerland is William Farel. He was a traveling evangelist, a man of faith and fire, as bold and fearless as Luther. He is called the Elijah of the French Reformation. He had once been a devoted papist, but after he became a Protestant he only saw the prevailing corruptions and abuses of Romanism. He hated the pope as the veritable Antichrist, the mass as idolatry, pictures and relics as heathen idols that must be destroyed like the idols of the Canaanites.  He never used violence himself, except in language. Persecution only motivated him to greater action.

Calvin arrived at Geneva in the summer of 1536 and was urged by Farel to assume the great task of building a new Church on the ruins of the old. He labored for a while as Calvin’s colleague, and with him was banished from Geneva because they demanded submission to a confession of faith and a rigorous discipline. Calvin went to Strasburg. Farel accepted a call as pastor to Neuchâtel in July of 1538, the city where he had labored before. For the remaining twenty-seven years of his life, Farel remained chief pastor at Neuchâtel, and built up the Protestant Church. He died peacefully, Sept. 13, 1565, seventy-six years old.

Farel was aided in his evangelistic efforts chiefly by Viret and Froment, who agreed with his views, but differed from his violent method. Peter Viret, the Reformer of Lausanne, was the only native Swiss among the pioneers of Protestantism in Western Switzerland; all others were fugitive Frenchmen. He shared the labors and trials of Farel and Froment in Geneva. An attempt was made to poison them; he alone ate of the poisoned dish, but recovered, yet with a permanent injury to his health. His chief work was done at Lausanne, where he labored as pastor, teacher and author for twenty-two years.

We now come to the life and work of John Calvin, who labored more than Farel, Viret and Froment. He was the chief founder and consolidator of the Reformed Church of France and French Switzerland. Revolution is followed by reconstruction and consolidation. For this task Calvin was providentially ordained.

Calvin was, first of all, a theologian. He was the ablest exegete among the Reformers, and his commentaries rank among the very best of ancient and modern times. His theology, therefore, is biblical rather than scholastic, and has all the freshness of enthusiastic devotion to the truths of God’s Word. He had a rare power of clear, strong, convincing statement. He built up a body of doctrines which is called after him, and which obtained symbolical authority through some of the leading Reformed Confessions of Faith. Calvinism is one of the great dogmatic systems of the Church. The Calvinistic system is popularly identified with the Augustinian system, and shares its merit as a profound exposition of the Pauline doctrines of sin and grace. Calvin did not grow before the public, like Luther and Melanchthon, who passed through many doctrinal changes and contradictions. He adhered to the religious views of his youth unto the end of his life.  Calvin’s literary output is unsurpassed by any ecclesiastical writer, ancient or modern. It is amazing when we take into consideration the shortness of his life, the frailty of his health, and the multitude of his other labors as a teacher, preacher, church leader and correspondent.

The Reformation was carried to England and Scotland mainly as a result of John Knox. He has often been wrongly accused of being a mere “recording” of Calvin. He thought for himself and when his views differed from others, he did not hesitate to disagree openly – even with Tyndale or Calvin. His courage is unrivaled by any, except perhaps Farel. His power as a preacher is just simply unrivaled. On more than one occasion was the whole course of English history changed as a result of one sermon by John Knox.

His influence continued even into the next century. John Milton’s treatise justifying the putting to death of Charles I, leaned heavily on Knox. In 1683, when Charles II began to show that he was a Roman Catholic, commanded the works of Knox to be burned in public in Oxford. This accompanied a prohibition of the reading of Knox’s works. This was in 1683 – Knox died in 1572!  Knox is behind the whole attitude of the Pilgrim Fathers toward the state. Thomas Carlyle is correct when he claims that Knox is the founder of American Puritanism. The Pilgrims, armed with Knox’s attitude toward the state and Calvin’s theology, headed to North America and built a society based upon these principles.

A Brief History of the Medieval Church 6

On the memorable thirty-first day of October 1517, which has ever since been celebrated in Protestant Germany as the birthday of the Reformation, Martin Luther nailed to the doors of the church at Wittenberg ninety-five Latin Theses on the subject of indulgences and invited a public discussion.  No one accepted the challenge and no discussion took place. But history itself undertook the disputation and defense. The Theses were copied, translated, printed and spread throughout Germany and Europe in a few weeks. The Theses of Luther found a hearty response with liberal scholars and with thousands of plain Christians. On the other hand, the Theses were strongly condemned by the clerical hierarchy and the universities.

The main writers against Luther were Tetzel, Conrad Wimpina and the formidable John Eck who was at first a friend of Luther, but now became his enemy. These men hurt their cause in public estimation by the weakness of their defense. They could produce no arguments for the doctrine and practice of indulgences from the Word of God, or even from the Greek and Latin fathers, and had to resort to extravagant views on the authority of the Pope. They even advocated papal infallibility, even though this was still an open question in the Roman Church, and remained so till the Vatican decree of 1870.

After the debate at Leipzig, Luther lost all hope of a reformation from Rome. Luther was prepared for the bull of excommunication. He then turned the tables against the Pope. The Pope had ordered his books to be burned and they were actually burned in several places. Luther returned fire for fire, curse for curse. On December 10, 1520, at nine in the morning, before a large number of professors and students, he committed the bull of excommunication, together with the papal decretals, the Canon Law and several writings of Eck and Emser, to the flames.

In his final stand for the truth he had preached, he spoke these immortal words, “Unless I am refuted and convicted by testimonies of the Scriptures or by clear arguments (since I believe neither the Pope nor the Councils alone; it being evident that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am conquered by the Holy Scriptures quoted by me, and my conscience is bound in the word of God: I can not and will not recant any thing, since it is unsafe and dangerous to do any thing against the conscience."

Dr. Eck exchanged a few more words with Luther, protesting against his assertion that Councils may err and have erred. "You can not prove it," he said. Luther repeated his assertion, and pledged himself to prove it. Thus pressed and threatened, amidst the excitement and confusion of the audience, he uttered in German, at least in substance, that concluding sentence which has impressed itself most on the memory of men: "Here I stand. [I cannot do otherwise.]  God help me!  Amen."

The Reformation work in Zurich was headed by Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli was elected to the position of chief pastor of the Great Minster, the principal church in Zurich by seventeen votes out of twenty-four, Dec. 10, 1518. He arrived in Zurich on the 27th of the month, and received a hearty welcome. He promised to fulfill his duties faithfully, and to begin with the continuous exposition of the Gospel of Matthew, so as to bring the whole life of Christ before the mind of the people. This was a departure from the custom of following the prescribed Gospel and Epistle lessons, but justified by the example of the ancient Fathers, as Chrysostom and Augustine, who preached on whole books. By his method of preaching on entire books he could give his congregation a more complete idea of the life of Christ and the way of salvation than by confining himself to detached sections.

In July of 1522 Zwingli, with other priests, sent a Latin petition to the bishop, and a German petition to the Swiss Diet, to permit the free preaching of the gospel and the marriage of the clergy as the only remedy against the evils of enforced celibacy. The petition was not granted, but several priests openly disobeyed. Zwingli himself married in 1522, but did not make it public till April 5, 1524 (more than a year before Luther’s marriage, which took place June 13, 1525).

By these preliminary measures public opinion was prepared for the practical application of the new ideas, but the old order of worship had to be abolished before the new order could be introduced. The change was radical. It began at Pentecost and was finished on June 20, 1524. In front of a deputation from the authorities of Church and State, the churches of the city were purged of pictures, relics, crucifixes, altars, candles, and all ornaments, the frescoes effaced, and the walls whitewashed, so that nothing remained but the bare building to be filled by a worshiping congregation. The Swiss Reformers regarded all kinds of worship paid to images and relics as a species of idolatry.

The mass was gone. The preaching of the gospel and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper by the whole congregation took its place. The first celebration of the communion after the Reformed usage was held in the Holy Week of April 1525. 

A Brief History of the Medieval Church 5

The Pre-Reformers

The title, Reformers before the Reformation, has been fittingly given to a group of men of the 14th and 15th centuries who anticipated many of the teachings of Luther and the Protestant Reformers. Each of them stands in solitary prominence: Wickliffe in England, Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in Florence, and Wessel, Goch and Wesel in Northern Germany. They differ, except for the moral reformer Savonarola from the German mystics in that they expressed open disagreement from the Church’s ritual and doctrinal teachings.

John Wickliffe, called the Morning Star of the Reformation was born about 1324 near the village of Wickliffe, Yorkshire, in the diocese of Durham. His own writings give scarcely a clue to the events of his career, and little can be gathered from his immediate contemporaries. Wickliffe occupies a distinguished place as an Oxford scholar, a patriot, a champion of theological and practical reforms and the translator of the Scriptures into English.

Wickliffe’s career as a doctrinal reformer began in 1378. He attacked the theological structure the Schoolmen and the abuses that had crept into the Church. A council condemned 24 articles, ascribed to the Reformer, 10 of which were pronounced heretical, and the remainder to be against the decisions of the Church.

Two years before his death Wickliffe had a stroke that disfigured but did not completely disable him.  He received a citation to appear before the pope. With unabated conviction, he replied to the Pope that of all men he was most under obligation to obey the law of Christ, that Christ was of all men the most poor, and subject to mundane authority. No Christian man has a right to follow Peter, Paul or any of the saints except as they imitated Christ. While saying mass in his church, he was struck again with paralysis and died two or three days later on December 29, 1384.

The dead man was not left in peace. By the decree Wickliffe’s writings were suppressed. The Lateran decree of February 1413, ordered his books to be burned and the Council of Constance formally condemned his memory and ordered his bones exhumed from their resting-place and "cast at a distance from the grave of the church."  The synod declared John Wickliffe a notorious heretic, excommunicated him and condemned his memory as one who died an obstinate heretic."  In 1429, at the summons of Martin IV the decree was carried out by Flemmyng, bishop of Lincoln. Fuller’s words, describing the execution of the decree have carved themselves on the pages of English history. He wrote, "They burnt his bones to ashes and cast them into Swift, a neighboring brook running hardby. Thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed the world over."

Wickliffe’s chief service for his people was his assertion of the supreme authority of the Bible for clergy and laymen alike and his gift to them of the Bible in their own tongue. In his treatise on the value and authority of the Scriptures, with 1000 printed pages, more is said about the Bible as the church’s appointed guidebook than was said by all the medieval theologians together. Wickliffe was the first to give the Bible to his people in their own tongue. His version, which was made from the Latin Vulgate, was the outgrowth of his burning desire to make his English countrymen more religious and more Christian.

Up to the close of the 14th century, a number of laymen in high position at court had favored Wickliffefism. This support was for the most part withdrawn when persecution took an active form.  

In Bohemia the views of Wickliffe they took deeper root than in England and assumed an organized form. The English Reformer was called the fifth evangelist and in its early stages the movement went by the name of Wickliffefism. It was only later that the name Hussitism was substituted for Wickliffefism. Its chief spokesmen were Jan Huss and Jerome of Prague, who died at the stake at Constance for their avowed allegiance to Wickliffe.

In denying the infallibility of the pope and of the Church visible, and in setting aside the power of the priesthood to open and shut the kingdom of heaven, Huss broke with the accepted theory of Western Christendom; he committed the unpardonable sin of the Middle Ages. These fundamental ideas, however, were not original with the Bohemian Reformer. He found them in Wickliffe’s writings.

Public hearings were had regarding Huss and his writings. Whenever a copy of his book on the Church was shown, they shouted, "Burn it."  Whenever Huss attempted to explain his positions, he was met with shouts, "Away with your sophistries. Say, Yes or No."  Huss exclaimed that God and his conscience were on his side.  After seven months of imprisonment Huss was pronounced an ecclesiastical outcast and criminal. He was placed in the middle of the church on a high stool, set there especially for him. The bishop of Lodi preached from Rom. 6:6, "that the body of sin may be destroyed."  The extermination of heretics was represented as one of the works most pleasing to God. The sentence said, "the holy council, having God only before its eye, condemns Jan Huss to have been and to be a true, real and open heretic, the disciple not of Christ but of John Wickliffe, one who in the University of Prague and before the clergy and people declared Wickliffe to be a Catholic and an evangelical doctor." 

A guard of a thousand armed men was at hand. The streets were crowded. As Huss passed by he saw the flames on the public square that were consuming his books. His hands were tied behind his back and his neck was bound to the stake by a chain. The offer of life was renewed if he would recant. He refused saying, "I shall die with joy today in the faith of the gospel which I have preached."  Huss’ clothes and shoes were thrown into the flames. His ashes were gathered up and cast into the Rhine. A year after Huss’ martyrdom, on May 30, 1416, his friend Jerome of Prague was condemned by the council and also suffered at the stake. He shared Huss’ enthusiasm for Wickliffe. Huss’ life was spent in Prague and its vicinity. Jerome traveled in Western Europe and was in Prague only occasionally. Huss left quite a body of writings. Jerome left none.

The Reformation

No period in the history of the Christian Church has a more clear date set for its close than the Middle Ages. In whatever light the Protestant Reformation is regarded there can be no doubt that a new age began with the nailing of the Theses on the church doors in Wittenberg.

The initial issue that started the Reformation was the selling of indulgences. The idea of selling and buying by money the remission of punishment and release from purgatory was acceptable to ignorant and superstitious people. It was revolting however to sound moral feeling. Long before Luther it raised the indignant protest of earnest minds, such as Wickliffe in England, Huss in Bohemia, John von Wesel in Germany, John Wessel in Holland, Thomas Wyttenbach in Switzerland, but without much effect.