In
our
first paper on the subject of the covenant that God made with Abraham,
we read
from Genesis, chapter 17, and heard God give the details of that
covenant.
We read where God told Abraham that He was establishing His
covenant
between Himself and Abraham and his descendants for an everlasting
covenant. He promised to be God to Abraham and to his descendants
and He would give that land of Canaan to them as an everlasting
possession.
It was an everlasting covenant between God and
Abraham and his descendants after him. When we looked closely at that covenant and its promises we
saw where God was really speaking to Abraham and his descendants of all time,
including the Gentile world, not just to him and his earthly descendants.
We will see that more clearly when we look at the covenant requirement of
circumcision.
We looked at the covenant promises but we did
not look at what God told Abraham about His covenant requirement. After
giving Abraham the covenant promises, God told him, “This is My covenant,
which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every
male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the
flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and
you”.
God told him, “thus shall My covenant
be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male
who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut
off from his people; he has broken My covenant” (Verses 10-14).
If the covenant requirement of circumcision
was to be in his flesh for an “everlasting covenant” then it would fit in
with God’s everlasting covenant promise. The covenant promise was an
everlasting one and the covenant requirement of circumcision was also
everlasting.
In our first study we said that if God was
making an everlasting covenant with Abraham and if it included giving that
earthly land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants as an everlasting
possession, then God did not keep His promise to him and to thousands of his
descendants after him. Even though they complied with their covenant
requirement of circumcision, Abraham’s earthly descendants did not receive that
earthly land for more than six hundred years after the promise was made.
By the time that Joshua led
Only a few of the ancient fathers received that earthly land and none of them received it as an everlasting possession. If they met the covenant requirement of circumcision, why did they not receive the covenant promise?
God does not break His promises,
so we may have misunderstood what God was including in His everlasting covenant
with Abraham. We may have also misunderstood what the everlasting
covenant requirement truly is.
In our first lesson we saw how God’s true promise was always the promise for that heavenly land because that is the only everlasting land. We heard the Hebrew writer say that Abraham lived in that earthly land but he was looking for a heavenly city.
He spoke of
Abraham and that land and said, “By faith he lived as an alien in the land of
promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow
heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has
foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews
11:9-10).
It is evident that the promise was for an
everlasting heavenly land, not an earthly land. That being true, what was
the reason for that old covenant promise for an earthly land? Did God
cause that earthly story to happen for our instruction? Was it brought
about as an earthly copy of our spiritual story?
In the old covenant story of Abraham’s earthly
descendants, God sent Moses to lead His people out of slavery in
Moses brought God’s people out of slavery but God was causing things to happen as they did. When God sent Moses to bring that nation out of slavery, He told Moses beforehand that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he would not let them go.
The LORD told Moses, “I will harden
Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the
God brought about those signs and wonders in
We need to look
carefully at that old story because most of the ones that came out of slavery
in
God caused that event to happen when He
hardened Pharaoh’s heart one last time. Pharaoh had already let God’s
people go after the sign of the death of the firstborn but God hardened his
heart again and caused him to change his mind and gather his army and go after
the Israelites.
We asked a question in our first paper.
Why would God harden Pharaoh’s heart and cause the event of the parting of the
sea to come about that destroyed thousands of Egyptians in the sea if His
people had already been allowed to go free?
If God had not hardened Pharaoh’s heart and
caused him to chase after
God’s plan included His causing Pharaoh to
chase after
God spoke to Pharaoh (Through Moses) and told him that He had the power to cut
him off earlier, “But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order
to show you My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth” (Exodus 9:16).
From the Hebrew wording, it appears that God
was telling Pharaoh that He allowed him to remain in order to show His power
"in him", not "to him". Paul confirms that when he
referred to what Moses had written about Pharaoh and said, "For the scripture
says to Pharaoh, "FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY
POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE
EARTH." (Romans 9:17)
Remember, all of God's creation works are being
done through Christ. He was the Word of God and He was the creator from
the beginning (John, chapter 1). We heard Paul tell us that His creation
works included all things in the heavens and on the earth, whether thrones or
dominions or rulers or authorities (Colossians
Christ's creation works include the selection
and installation of all rulers from Adam until the end of time. When Paul
said the scripture says to Pharaoh that He raised him up for the very purpose
of demonstrating His power in Pharaoh and that “MY NAME” might be proclaimed
throughout the whole earth, the Spirit of Christ was speaking to Pharaoh.
The Spirit of Christ raised Pharaoh up and then
He allowed Pharaoh to remain alive until the parting of the sea to show His
power in him and to proclaim His name through all the earth when He destroyed
the Egyptians in the sea. He was bringing about an earthly copy of our
story.
Christ was causing an earthly story to come
about to foretell how He would fulfill His covenant promise to display His
power in the new covenant gospel message of man’s salvation from slavery to
sin. He showed His power in the old story when Moses stretched out his hand
over the sea and the Egyptian army (Their slave masters), were all washed away
in that sea.
We have seen how that was a copy of what takes place in our story. That old story of Israel being saved from slavery and brought through the sea to freedom copies our spiritual story of how Jesus has saved us out of a world of slavery to sin to be brought through the waters of baptism so that our slave masters can be washed away.
We are saved from
slavery to sin if we will believe the gospel message and follow Jesus through
our sea and have our sins washed away.
God's power to save is shown when we see Jesus
stretch out His hands of love on the cross so that we would have a way out of
slavery to sin. He created a pathway through the sea so that we could be
redeemed from the land of slavery.
Did God allow Pharaoh to remain alive in order to show the earthly copy of God's power to save through the gospel message and to proclaim the name of Jesus throughout the world? The good news of the gospel is how Jesus redeemed us from sin with His blood. He did it so that we can be led to of the everlasting land of the kingdom of heaven.
The name of Jesus
Christ is now being proclaimed throughout the earth to tell all nations the
good news of what He has done to redeem us from slavery to sin.
If we will believe the message and follow Him,
He will lead us out of slavery and take us home. In the gospel message He
provides a way for us to pass through the sea and be saved from slavery to sin
when He washes those sins away in the sea.
It appears that our sins are our slave masters
but the scriptures are saying something else. Paul tells us what
happens when we come through those waters in Romans, chapter 6.
Paul wrote, “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3)
After telling us how baptism is the way that we
are brought into Christ and we will have been baptized into His death, Paul
will tell us, “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His
death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our
body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to
sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”
We are set free from slavery to sin when our
old earthly body of sin has been done away with in the sea of baptism.
That body has been our slave master because of fleshly desires. Lust
exists in fleshly bodies and it causes us to desire to live selfish and sinful
lives.
If we are to be set free from slavery to sin,
we must repent of having lived to serve that body of sin and make the decision
to put that old body of sin to death in the waters of our sea so that we can be
raised up to walk in newness of life.
If we obey Him and become united with Him in
the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be in the likeness of His
resurrection. We will have received Jesus by having received His word
and we will have become born again children of God through His resurrection
from the dead.
Our old body of sin will have been washed away
when we follow Jesus through those waters, just as Israel’s slave masters were
left behind in that old sea. If we follow Jesus through the sea with that
intent, our sins will be washed away when that body of sin has been washed
away.
What about God’s covenant requirement of
circumcision of the flesh? God told Abraham that it was an everlasting
covenant requirement. If it was an everlasting requirement then should we
not be circumcised to meet our covenant requirements?
If the true covenant promise was for that
spiritual
If we expect to receive the covenant promise,
we must keep the covenant requirement. God will keep His covenant promise
to those descendants who keep His covenant requirement.
In Acts, chapter 7, Stephen spoke of the
covenant promise and he also spoke of the true covenant requirement. He
had been arrested for preaching Jesus. He had been preaching the gospel
and that includes the promise of salvation and everlasting life in a heavenly
land. Those Jews could only hear him speaking against what Moses had
passed down to them about their Law and their land.
They were concerned about the promise for
their earthly land. They knew that they were the descendants of Abraham
and the covenant promise was to give them that
They were looking for a Messiah who would come
and free them from Roman rule and restore their land. Stephen told them
that they were looking and striving for the wrong land. He told them
about the covenant that God made with Abraham and the covenant promise of that
land and said, “But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground,
and yet, even when he had no child, He promised that HE WOULD GIVE IT TO HIM AS
A POSSESSION, AND TO HIS DESCENDANTS AFTER HIM” (Acts 7:5).
He was telling those Jews that the promise for
an earthly
By resisting God’s message, those Jews were
telling us something about true circumcision. Just before they stoned him
to death, Stephen referred back to their Hebrew fathers and told the Jews
before him, “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears
are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did” (Verse
51).
Their fathers had resisted the Spirit and they
lost their land because they had not been circumcised in heart and ears.
They refused to hear God’s message and accept what the Holy Spirit was
saying.
Fifteen hundred years earlier, Moses told
those Hebrew fathers the same thing as he was giving them his farewell
speech. They had already been given circumcision of the flesh as a
requirement of the Law but he will add their true circumcision requirement just
before they were to enter their
He told them that if they became unfaithful to
God but later repented and returned to the LORD, with all their heart, “the LORD your God will
circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your
God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live” (Deuteronomy
30:6).
If they were to live, they had to have a
circumcised heart, one that would love the LORD with all of their heart and
soul. Remember, loving the LORD with all of our heart and soul and mind
is the greatest commandment. A circumcised heart keeps the greatest
commandment.
Remember what Jesus said about how we are to
show love for God? In our first lesson we heard Jesus say, “If you love Me, you
will keep My commandments” (John
A few verses
later Jesus will say, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who
loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him
and will disclose Myself to him”.
Only those who choose to obey Jesus really love
Him. The Father will love those who choose to love Jesus with obedience to
His word. A person with a circumcised heart obeys the greatest
commandment and loves the LORD GOD with all of their heart and soul. Our
love must be shown by having met God’s everlasting covenant requirement of
circumcision of the heart and it will cause us to obey His command to take up
our cross and follow Him.
If we follow
Him all the way home we will receive the covenant promise.
Of those Hebrews who were saved out of Egyptian
slavery, Joshua and Caleb were the only soldiers in God’s army who were allowed
to enter. If they were the only ones who received the covenant promise
then they were the only ones who met God’s covenant conditions.
Scripture tells us that
Joshua and Caleb were allowed to
enter because, they had followed the LORD fully (Numbers 32:12).
They believed the message of salvation from slavery and the promise to give
them that land and they faithfully followed the LORD through the sea and
continued to follow Him through the wilderness all the way home.
Because they followed the LORD fully, they
would receive their land. They loved the LORD with all of their heart and
soul and they proved their love with obedience to His commandments. Their
hearts had been spiritually circumcised to keep the command to love God with
all of their heart and soul.
Remember, there were others who would also
receive that land. Their little ones who did not know good from evil
would also enter that land and possess it (Deuteronomy
What happened in that old Hebrew story happened for our instruction. That is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10. Remember, he tells us about that old Hebrew salvation story and how their fathers were all under the cloud and they passed through the sea and were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink and it came from the same spiritual rock and that rock was the Christ to come.
He
then tells us how God was not pleased with them and He laid them low in the
wilderness. Paul tells us, “Now these things happened as examples for us”.
Paul connects the events of that story to
events in our story. They were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in
the sea just as we are baptized into Christ by water and by Spirit.
Remember, the Spirit of the LORD was in their cloud. They ate bread from
heaven and drank water from the rock that foretold the Christ to come.
Jesus is the rock that was struck to give us
living water and He is the bread of heaven. They ate and drank in their
wilderness just as we partake of spiritual food and drink in our spiritual
wilderness.
They were not pleasing to God and He laid them
low in the wilderness. Paul said those
things happened to them as examples for us. Paul repeats the message
and says, “Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were
written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (Verses
11-12).
We need to believe Jesus as He instructs us
through the old Hebrew story and confirms it in the New Testament
scriptures. We may have been saved from slavery to sin but we can still
fall.
Paul began chapter 10, with the words, “For I do not want you
to be unaware, brethren” and then he gave us the message of that old Hebrew story
that we just read. Paul was connecting his message in chapter 10, to what
he had said in the chapter 9. He ended that chapter by saying, “Therefore I run in such
a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I
discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to
others, I myself will not be disqualified”.
After telling us how he was fighting to make
sure that he would not be disqualified he then gave us the message of how that
old Hebrew story came about for our instruction and we must take heed lest
we fall. Paul wants us to be aware that we can be disqualified and fall
and not receive that Promised Land.
Remember, God has the power of foreknowledge because He is not limited in time. He is in all time now and He was in all time then. God foreknew Paul and He foreknew that Paul was predestined for eternal glory but Paul did not foreknow what his end would be.
That is why he had to keep fighting and that
is why we must keep fighting. We are all
predestined based on the choices that we will make. God foreknows our choices but we can’t
foreknow.
Paul was fighting to make sure that it would
not happen to him because he knew that he could fall just as they fell.
He is also telling us that it can happen to us just as it happened to that old
Hebrew nation. We must be like Paul and keep fighting if we are to win
the prize.
We must be like Paul and discipline our body to make it our slave. It takes great effort to deny self and overcome that earthly body of sin to make it a slave because that old body is making every effort to reclaim its position as our slave master to bring us back into slavery to sin.
We must follow Jesus through the sea to be saved from
slavery to sin, but our journey will only have just begun; our land lies far
beyond the sea. Remember, that Hebrew nation refused to fight and they
lost the prize.
We need to hear Paul tell us to be careful and not to be drawn back into a life of slavery to sin. He tells us that “we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:12-13).
He is speaking to Christians and He is telling us that
we will fall and die in our wilderness just as they fell and died if we are
living according to the flesh.
Christ caused that old story to come about as an earthly copy of our spiritual story and He made it happen for our instruction. He created an earthly copy just as He taught with Parables while on earth.
When He taught with parables, He used fictional earthly stories. Our definition of a parable says that the created earthly story is fiction. In the case of that Hebrew nation and their salvation, however, Christ created a true story.
Remember, the Father does all of His
creation work through Christ, the Word that became flesh (John, chapter 1).
Christ is the one that put Pharaoh into power and He caused it all to happen as it did.
That old Hebrew salvation story may not be a
parable by our definition of a parable but God is not required to use our
definitions. Regardless, we need to get the message because Jesus caused
millions of lives to come about as they did to give us the earthly copy for our
instruction.
Remember, He is the Potter and we are the clay (Romans,
chapter 9). He makes vessels of honor of those that He foresees having a
circumcised heart to love Him. Those who choose not to love Him will become
vessels of dishonor. He will harden their hearts just as He hardened
Pharaoh's heart.
For those who would choose to love Him, they obeyed
Him and followed Him and they had a good part in that story. For those
who would not choose to love Him, just as happened with Pharaoh, He hardened
their hearts and they became a bad part of His story.
Paul was actually speaking of how the Lord is
doing His work as the potter in the chapter before he spoke of how the Lord is
the potter and we are the clay. Remember,
we read it in our first lesson on the covenant that God made with Abraham.
In Romans, chapter 8, Paul is telling us about
the potter's work when he writes, "And we know that God causes all
things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called
according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to
become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn
among many brethren" (Romans
Paul said that God foreknew those that have
been predestined to become created in the image of Christ. God foreknew
which ones would choose to love Him and He predestined the kind of vessel that
they would become before they were born.
For those who would choose not to love Him,
they became vessels meant for common use or for destruction. We need to
take heed lest we fall because we will fall hard and be broken. Our story
is the real story, not the copy.
With regard to the parables of Jesus, Matthew
tells us that Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables and without a parable He
did not speak to them (Matthew 13:34).
He only spoke to the crowds in parables but He was explaining His
parables privately to His disciples.
We
need to hear Jesus when He speaks in parables but we especially need to hear
Him explain His parables to His disciples.
Their salvation story happened as an earthly
copy of our new covenant story. He
caused it to happen so that we can know what is required of us. We are
the
God gave Abraham circumcision as his covenant
requirement and He told him that He had given him that requirement of
circumcision of the flesh for a sign. He
said, “and it shall be the sign
of the covenant between Me and you.” (Genesis
17:11) The old earthly circumcision
made with hands was only a “sign”, looking forward to our true circumcision of
the flesh.
Paul spoke of the true Jew and their true
circumcision, saying, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is
circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is
one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit,
not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God” (Romans 2:28-29).
That old circumcision was not true
circumcision. It was only an earthly copy (“Sign”). That old story
is telling us what is required for us to receive the true everlasting
land. It will be given to those who meet their covenant requirement of
having a circumcised heart that loves the LORD in a way that follows Him fully
until death. We will all stumble and fall on occasion but we must get up
and go back to following Jesus.
That old circumcision required the removal of a
“token” piece of flesh. True circumcision removes our complete earthly
body of flesh. Paul tells us how that old “sign” relates to our spiritual
circumcision when he writes, “and in Him you were also circumcised with a
circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the
circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you
were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised
Him from the dead”
(Colossians 2:11-12).
A little later Paul tells us, “Therefore if you have
been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not
on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is
hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed,
then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (Colossians
3:1-4)
Paul is telling us how we can receive the
covenant promise of that home in glory by having a circumcised heart, one that
removes the old body of sin that lived for the things of this world. We
must circumcise away that body of sinful flesh.
If we truly believe God’s promise, we will
repent and make the decision to put our old slave master body of sin to death
in the sea of baptism so that we can be raised up with Christ as a born again
child of God. We will have been born
again of water and Spirit and we will have met God’s covenant requirement of
circumcision of the flesh.
Paul says that if we have been raised up with
Christ we are not to continue living for the things of this world but we are to
set our minds on that heavenly land where Christ is seated by the Father. We must not set our minds on the things of
this world because this world is not our home it is our spiritual
wilderness.
We have been saved from slavery to sin and
brought into this spiritual wilderness but, just as most of those earthly
Hebrew soldiers fell in their wilderness and never received their land it can
happen to us. We must keep our eyes on
things above to overcome our wilderness.
Remember, the Lord showed John that new heaven
and new earth and the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven (Revelation,
chapter 21). He told John that he who
overcomes will inherit these things.
If we are to receive the promise we must
overcome this world. Just as those
ancient Hebrews had to overcome the obstacles of their wilderness, we must
overcome this world. Just as Joshua and Caleb had to keep following the
LORD fully, so must we.
We can only overcome by faith. We must believe in His word and know that we are only aliens passing through this world on our way toward the land of promise. We must have the faith of father Abraham to receive the covenant promise.
Remember what the Hebrew writer said about his faith. He lived by faith in that earthly land (In
tents) as if he were an alien there because he was looking for the city whose
architect and builder is God.
Father Abraham never received any part of that
earthly
The covenant promise of an everlasting
We must overcome this world and be faithful
until death because Jesus told the church at
We must persevere to the end because
scripture also tells us, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial;
for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord
has promised to those who love Him” (James
God has promised the crown of life to those who
will persevere and be faithful until death.
It begins when the Spirit circumcises one’s heart to love the LORD with
obedience to His command to repent of having lived for the things of this world
and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
When Peter preached his first gospel sermon
(On the Day of Pentecost), many believed and scripture says, “they were pierced to
the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what
shall we do” (Acts
Peter told them, “Repent, and each of you
be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and
you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. Verse 41 tells us how,
those who had received his word were baptized.
Jesus is the Word, so when they received the
Word, they received Jesus. We must receive the Word and obey the gospel and
pass through the sea if we are to become spiritually circumcised and saved from
our sins but it does not happen unless we have truly repented first.
If we come through our waters and don’t see
(by faith) our old dead body left behind in the water, we might question
whether or not we have truly repented and washed away our slave master in those
waters. If we don’t see our old dead body having been put to death, we
likely did not understand what God has told us about our covenant requirement
or we did not believe the message to start with.
We will not have truly repented and turned to follow Jesus. If we have not made the commitment to die to self and to live for Jesus, all of the water on earth can never wash away our sins. It can only cleanse the old body of flesh.
If
we obey the gospel and
become spiritually circumcised with the removal of our body of sin, we
will
have been saved from slavery but we will not yet have received our
land. We will be like those ancient Hebrews who saw their slave
masters washed away in the sea.
Remember, those Israelites who stood on that
far wilderness shore were a nation of saved believers after they saw what God
had done. Moses says that, “When Isreal saw the great power which the
LORD had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD, and they
believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses” (Exodus
When that Hebrew nation came through the sea and saw what had happened to the Egyptians, they believed in the LORD and they rejoiced and called on the name of the LORD. They sang a song to the LORD and praised Him for destroying the Egyptians in the sea. They sang, “The LORD is a warrior; The LORD is His name” (Exodus 15:2-3).
We must call on His name and praise
Him for what He did to wash our slave masters away. Only by the name of
Jesus Christ can one be saved. The LORD is His name.
They were a nation of saved believers but not
with the kind of faith that would follow the LORD fully through their
wilderness journey. In the same way, we will not receive our land unless
we have a circumcised heart like Joshua and Caleb had; one that believes
in the LORD and follows Him fully.
As Jesus once said, “If anyone wishes to
come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). We
must deny self and follow Jesus as we pass through the waters but we must
continue to deny self and follow Him daily as we journey to that land
above.
If we don’t obey Him, we don’t love Him and it
is only those who have circumcised hearts to love Him that have been given the
promises. We will receive the promises if we obey God’s covenant
requirement for circumcision of our flesh. We must remove that old body
of sin and wash it away in the sea of baptism.
Remember what the LORD told Abraham would happen to those who fail to keep the everlasting covenant requirement. Any male who has not been circumcised in the flesh shall be cut off from his people.
Under our everlasting new covenant, that includes every soldier
in God’s spiritual army, whether male or female. No one else will enter
except those little ones who do not know good from evil.
Johnny Rogers
Revised
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