Where does our spiritual heritage come from?

 

Where does our spiritual heritage come from? If we believe in Jesus, the apostle Paul said we are descendents of Abraham. God promised Abraham that the Saviour of the world would come through his family – Israel. In his gospel John stated that Jesus “…came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him, but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

Moses told the people that “The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today.” God chose Israel out of all the people of the earth to be his treasured possession. He chose them because he loved them and kept the oath that he swore to their ancestors. The covenant was restricted to Israel. The covenant God made with Israel did not annul the covenant he made with Abraham.

God instructed Moses to tell the people “if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” The covenant relationship was based on Israel’s obedience. Israel failed miserably; while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Law the people decided to worship a golden calf. Israel listened to the spies’ fearful report about the land God was giving them and refused to go in – they spent forty years in the wilderness because of that. Israel’s sinfulness continued throughout its history. Even though Israel sinned God continually loved the nation:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. 

Because of Solomon’s sins Israel divided, the northern tribes under Jeroboam son of Nebat (who taught Israel to sin) and the southern tribes under Rehoboam Solomon’s son. Later the northern tribes were destroyed by the Assyrians and captives dispersed among the nations. Judah to the south was no better than the tribes of the north which eventually caused God to allow the Babylonians to destroy the city of Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple. Many captives were taken to Babylon where they remained for seventy years. Cyrus encouraged captives to return to Judea to rebuild the temple. Every tribe of Israel was represented in the large group that returned to Jerusalem. God protected the remnant to keep his promise to Abraham.

The second temple era was significantly different than prior periods. Israel did not have a king, and from Malachi to John the Baptist there were no prophets. For much of that period Israel was in servitude to the Medo-Persian empire, the Greeks, and Romans.

Significantly, Matthew’s gospel starts with “the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” God fulfilled his promise to Abraham.

The final period of Israel began with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus. Jesus ministry on earth was to preach the kingdom of God. Jesus was the sacrifice ending all sacrifices. God suffered rejection by Israel for fifteen hundred years, and would suffer the ultimate rejection hearing religious leaders screaming for Jesus to be crucified.

Jesus warned people of the coming disaster. His parables highlighted the wickedness of religious leaders and prophesied their final downfall. Jesus sadly forecast Israel’s end:

I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. 'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate.

Speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem Jesus said “at that time there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.” There would be no further captivity or return for Israel, it was over. The temple was destroyed completely, the covenant revoked, the law discarded, and sacrifices rendered useless. The nation of Israel, its land, its sacrifices, its exclusiveness were all abandoned. The destruction of the temple and city catastrophically ended God’s relationship with the entire nation of Israel, it ended everything to do with the Law, and everything to do with that covenant.

Paul used an allegory writing to the Galatians: Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. 

Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother … Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac … the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman' … So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman. 

Very importantly Paul concluded, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman:

Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' 

The woman’s concern was the place of worship. Being a Samaritan her sacred place of worship was Mount Gerizim. The Jews worshipped in Jerusalem. Jesus told her that worship is spiritual and that location has nothing to do with worship. “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The new covenant:

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the LORD', for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. 

God said the new covenant would not be like the one he made with Israel. Instead of the law written on stone, God’s law will be in our hearts. In place of the temple with its rituals and partitions we are a temple of God and his Spirit dwells in us.

Consider the contrasting features of the first and second covenants presented in Hebrews:

You have “not” come: To Mount Sinai, A physical mountain burning with fire, a terrifying storm, ear piercing noise, overwhelming darkness, and a warning that even if an animal touches the mountain it is to be killed. That was the scene when God established his covenant with Israel.

But, you “have” come: to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to a vast gathering of angels. You have come to the assembly of the firstborn registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. To Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. – The blood of Abel spoke for justice, and condemnation of the guilty, the blood of Jesus speaks for forgiveness, mercy, and sanctification.

We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe.

The point the author was making is that the Christian community’s relationship with God was not defined by the Sinai covenant but by the Zion/heavenly Jerusalem/new covenant. The writer used mountains as a metaphor: not Mount Sinai, but Mount Zion; not that assembly, but this assembly; not that covenant, but this covenant. The community of believers to whom the letter was addressed was not standing at Sinai, they were standing at Mount Zion. They were participants in the heavenly assembly and the ministry of Jesus, who was the mediator of the new covenant.

Being a disciple of Jesus has nothing to do with Israel, it has nothing to do with the Law of Moses, it has nothing do with the temple in Jerusalem or its sacrifices, and it has nothing to do with the Sinai covenant or with Israel. The first covenant consisted of laws, regulations, rules, sacrifices, and ceremonies. The new covenant has no laws, but grace; the new covenant has no sacrifice other than Jesus on the cross. The old covenant was limited to Israel, the new covenant is not national but personal and universal.

“…some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, 'It is necessary for them (Gentiles) to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.” Peter responded saying “why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” 

James said to the assembly:

“we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God, but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.” 

The period from the death of Jesus to the destruction of the temple was a period of metamorphosis from the physical Israel to the spiritual Israel. Peter correctly told Jews that the only way to be saved was through the grace of the Lord Jesus. During that time Jewish Christians were expected to keep the law. Paul wrote to the Ephesians stating that “Gentiles have become fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Gentiles were not obliged to subject themselves to the requirements of the law Moses, nor were they participants in the Sinai covenant.

Incidents of believers complying with Jewish law in Acts:

· Ongoing temple attendance and prayer (2:46; 3:1; 5:21, 42).

· Participation in feasts/Jewish calendar (2:1; 20:6,16).

· Sabbath-synagogue pattern for believing Jews (Acts 13–19 passages).

· Peter’s lifelong kosher practice (10:14; 11:8).

· Circumcision of Timothy (16:3).

· Jerusalem Jewish believers “zealous for the law” (21:20).

· Paul under a vow with hair-cutting (18:18). Four men under a vow; Paul joining in purification and temple offerings (21:23–26).

· Paul purified in the temple while bringing offerings (24:18).

· Paul’s general claims of not acting against law/customs (21:24; 25:8; 28:17).

Paul stated, “those who believe are the descendants of Abraham,” and “if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.” 

“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.' For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed. For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.'”

The early Christian scriptures were completed before the destruction of the temple. The period ending in 70 CE was the last days of Israel, a time of transition from law to grace, from the Sinai covenant to the covenant at Zion. It was a unique period unlike any before or after – a period of spiritual upheaval and peace, a period in which Satanic forces were at their peak and the Son of God walked with people on earth. The main focus of scriptures at that time was the people at that time. That time was God completing his plan of man’s reconciliation. The law of Moses remained in force until the temple was destroyed. Sacrifices, regulation, and ceremonies all ended with the temple’s destruction. Scriptures are the records of God’s relationship with people through previous periods, and the concluding of his plan of reconciliation. Scriptures do not instruct people after 70 CE on religious behaviour, since the relationship with God after the destruction of the temple is not religious, but a relationship. God called Abraham his friend, God  acknowledges believers as his children; both on the basis of faith.

No regulations or rituals from previous periods apply to God’s children in the new covenant. Making the new covenant relationship with God a religion or denomination is the same as early believers going back to the customary regulations of Judaism and disparaging the sacrifice of Jesus. Church does not save believers nor did the synagogue make Jews. Jews used the synagogue for teaching and support, the church can provide fellowship, encouragement and support for believers.

…by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.