Those of you who took the time to read last week’s blog realized that it was quite lengthy, as we surveyed the Scriptures regarding the Land of Promise. In the process, we asked the question: “Is Israel’s current occupation of the Land a fulfillment of prophecy, or is it simply the gracious hand of God giving the Jewish people the same plot of land that they occupied in the Old Covenant?” The Old Testament prophecies concerning their return to the land required a heart of repentance and faith, something that was lacking in 1948. In fact, it was repentance and faith that characterized the returning exiles in 536 BC under the leadership of Ezra and Zerubbabel. Unless we are looking for a “double fulfillment,” this prophecy has already been fulfilled. Simply put, Israel returned to the land in 536 BC!

At the end of last week’s blog, I asked another question: “Is the acquisition of physical land by Israel really what we should be focusing on?” If you are a follower of Jesus, there has already been a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy, and that prophecy forms the heart of the New Covenant. And it is to that issue that I’d like to turn our attention in this blog.

The Prophet Jeremiah was the only Old Testament prophet to speak of the need for a New Covenant. Here is his prophecy, recorded somewhere around 600 BC:

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jer 31:31-34).

Now let’s fast forward to AD 30 when Jesus sat with His disciples in the upper room on the night in which He was betrayed:

“The is the blood of the New Covenant shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25).

And then writing 35 years later, the writer of Hebrews tells us that the structures of the Old Covenant were about ready to disappear (Heb 8:13), and that happened 5 years later in AD 70 when the temple was burned and the priesthood and sacrifices ceased to exist as the Romans overran the city, putting an official end to the Old Covenant.

Furthermore, the Scriptures tell us that there is a huge difference between the Old and New Covenants. Again, lets look at what the writer of Hebrews has to say:

For the Law, since it is only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, make perfect those who draw near (Heb. 10:1).

Likewise, the Apostle Paul tells us:

Let no one act as your judge in regard to food, or drink, or in respect to a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath day – things which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (Col 2:17).

There it is – Shadow and Substance. That’s the difference between the two covenants. A shadow is cast from a specific object, and it’s the object that is important, not the shadow! So, what are we longing for? Not the shadow, but the substance, which is all wrapped up in Christ. Let’s see how this plays out in the New Testament book of 1 Peter:

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; mercy. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:4-5;9-10).

Check out how the shadow gives way to the substance in this passage: Living stones in the body of Christ, not dead stones in the temple; a spiritual house, not a physical one; a chosen spiritual race, not an ethnic one; a royal priesthood, not one from the tribe of Levi; and those who are called as God’s own possession, that is, God spiritual children, not ethnic children of Israel. Let me clarify this even more:

• The physical nation is now a spiritual nation, one people composed Jew and Gentile forming one body in Christ;
• The physical land is now a spiritual land (just as Abraham was seeking) an eternal land in the Father’s House;
• The physical temple is now a spiritual temple where God dwells in the church and in the lives of His redeemed children;
• The Levitical priesthood is now a spiritual priesthood where believers in Christ exercise their calling of prayer;
• The daily sacrifices are now spiritual sacrifices offered as those “in Christ” serve others in Jesus’ name.

As you can see, there is no reason for us to wish or hope for a return to the Old Covenant shadows, because we are now living in the New Covenant where the substance is upon Christ and His Church.

Not only that, but the writer of Hebrews tells us in the “Heroes of the Faith” chapter:

By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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 (Heb 11:8-10). 

Wow! We find that Abraham was not actually looking for an “everlasting” physical land, but an “everlasting” spiritual land designed and built by God Himself. He was looking for an eternal land with the Father in His House, just as Jesus told His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them.

But that’s not all. Check out how the writer of Hebrews concluded his letter:

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen (Heb. 13:20-21).

The New Covenant is the “eternal covenant,” and we should not expect another covenant to replace it! Thus, I am persuaded that the focus of our theology should not be on ethnic Jews occupying their Old Covenant land, an inheritance which they lost on numerous occasions due to disobedience, but upon both Jews and Gentiles occupying the same eternal “land” in the Father’s House with their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

That’s all for today. I pray that you will have an abundant Thanksgiving filled with all of God’s richest blessings.