Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Is the New Covenant currently in effect? What is the relationship and the distinction between the New Covenant and the Church? Thank you for joining us, friend. This is Grace in Focus. We are a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society, and our website is faithalone.org. At that website, you can find out about our free online seminary, Grace Evangelical Seminary, where you can study theological courses and even earn an MDiv degree. And it’s free if you maintain a 3.0 grade average. The time for application is now, and if accepted, you can join us for our spring semester. Get all the details at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob. Got a question from Lon. He says he’s in a Bible study group with a bunch of GES guys, and so they’ve got a question for you on one of Zane Hodges’ views. So the question is, he says, “You stated that the New Covenant was not in effect today. This seems to be in tension with Hodges’ view as published in the journal a few years ago. The title is Regeneration, a New Covenant Blessing. Could you address Zane’s view and your view?” 

BOB: Yeah. So Lon, great question, and I took a minute to look up New Covenant because we know that New Covenant occurs in Jeremiah 31:31, where God is making a New Covenant with Israel. He’s promising to make a New Covenant with Israel. And we know that that occurs in the New Testament in several places. It turns out it’s nine places. Remember—maybe you can turn to this one. For example, in Matthew 26:28, the Lord is saying that His blood is the blood of the New Covenant. Could you read that? 

SAM: Yep. He says, “For this is My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” 

BOB: Okay. And that’s parallel to Mark 14:14, and that’s parallel to Luke 22:20. And that’s also parallel to 1 Corinthians 11:25, where Paul also quotes that. All four of those are saying that whenever we take the Lord’s Supper, we’re remembering the New Covenant God has made with Israel—not with the Church, with Israel. So we’re remembering that Jesus is coming soon to establish His kingdom in Israel and from Israel. Israel is going to be the world power, not some Gentile nation. And He’s going to rule from Jerusalem. He’s not going to rule from Rome. He’s not going to rule from Moscow or Paris or from Washington, D.C. He’s going to be ruling from Jerusalem. 

And there are several others. In 2 Corinthians 3:6, Paul says, we are “ministers of the New Covenant,” which I understand to mean the ministry that Paul did and the other apostles did, and ultimately, all of us in the Church age do, is in respect to the New Covenant. 

In other words, we’re ministering in light of the New Covenant. We know the Lord is returning soon to establish His kingdom over Israel and the nations. And that the role of the Church—we’re not designed, the Church isn’t designed to be a nation, right? We’re not going to have some nation called Church, or Ecclesia, right? We are designed to rule over the nations, including Israel. Remember that the twelve apostles are going to sit on twelve thrones and rule over the twelve tribes of Israel? Well, the twelve apostles are Church age believers and they’re going to be ruling in Israel. And I assume there will be Jews from the Church age who are going to be ruling in Israel—some. But I would assume that most of us from the Church age are going to rule, if we are faithful. And of course, rulership is only if we endure, 2nd Timothy 2:12. 

But we will likely rule wherever our heart was. So if we, let’s say we’re citizens of Canada and we love Canada, then we’ll be ruling somewhere in Canada. But let’s say if I was a missionary from the United States to Brazil and I spent my whole life in Brazil so that I was much longer in Brazil than I was in the United States, well then most likely I’d rule in Brazil in the life to come. While the Scriptures aren’t clear on that, but the point is we minister in light of the New Covenant, and the other four uses of the New Covenant occur in Hebrews 8:8, 8:13, 19:15 and 12:24. Could you read Hebrews 8:8? 

SAM: Yeah, 8:8 says, “Because finding fault with them, He says, ‘Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.'” 

BOB: Right, “I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” So the New Covenant is not made with the Church, it’s made with Israel. I believe what Hodges was saying, and I haven’t read that article in a while, but I did edit it before we put it up online. And I heard him give the talk at our conference as well. My understanding is that Hodges’ view is that there are blessings of the New Covenant which we experience now, even though the New Covenant has not yet been inaugurated. The New Covenant will be inaugurated when Jesus is inaugurated as King of Israel at the beginning of the Millennium. 

But prior to that, we have all the blessings of the New Covenant—well, not all the blessings, but many of the blessings of the New Covenant. Obviously, one of the blessings of the New Covenant is Jesus ruling and reigning, and we don’t have that yet. We don’t have redeemed Israel, which is one of the blessings of the New Covenant. We don’t have that yet. But we do experience many of the blessings. And what was it that Hodges said? That one of those was regeneration? 

SAM: I think so. 

BOB: And I think he mentioned other blessings of the New Covenant, forgiveness of sins is, I believe, one of the blessings of the New Covenant as well. But the beauty of this is God can give us blessings of something that has not yet been inaugurated. In the same way that Old Testament believers could be born again prior to the shed blood of Christ. Because Romans 3:25 says “He passed over the sins previously committed.” In other words, he was able to apply the blood of Jesus even before the shed blood of Christ. 

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SAM: I’ve heard other people talk about this too. I mean, I’m pretty sure I was even taught this in church growing up. But when you read these verses at the Lord’s Supper, whenever you’re taking communion, verse 28 in Matthew 26:28, I think most Christians, that’s the way they take it. Because you read it, “My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins.” Just reading it there, it sounds like the blood of the New Covenant has taken away my sins. But what you’re saying is that those are two separate things. His blood is of the New Covenant, and his blood is for the remission of sins. 

BOB: Yeah, but the remission of sins only occurs when someone believes. I have an article called the Benefits of Christ’s Blood: Restricted and Unrestricted? Jesus has made everyone savable by His blood. John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” so that we’re now savable. But Matthew 26:28 about the remission of sins, we don’t get the remission of sins until we believe in Christ. Acts 10:43, all the prophets give testimony to the fact that whoever believes in Him receives the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins is a New Covenant blessing, but you don’t get it simply because Jesus died on the cross. You get it because He died in the cross, and then you believe in Him for the gift of eternal life. 

So yeah, when we take the Lord’s Supper or communion, we are anticipating the soon return of Christ. Turn to 1 Corinthians 11, around verse 26, 27, where Paul is talking about the New Covenant. He talks about the New Covenant in 25. He quotes this about the blood of the New Covenant. Read that and then keep reading, 11:25. 

SAM: “In the same manner, He also took the cup after supper saying, ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ ”

BOB: Alright, stop there for a second. The two most neglected words in all of 1 Corinthians, if not all of Scripture, are “after supper.” When people take the Lord’s Supper, we get the wafer, we get the juice. I guess the wafer is supper and the juice is after supper. But in the context of Passover, they had many cups and it would start with bread and they would have breaking of bread, etc. And then at the end, after the whole meal, the Lord took the cup and said, “This is the blood of the New Covenant in My blood.” But keep reading, verses 26 and 7. 

SAM: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.”

BOB: We proclaim His death until He comes. We might think “until He comes” is just for us. But He isn’t coming just for us. He’s coming for us and for Israel. In fact, I think we could argue He’s coming for Israel and for us. Israel is the big reason He’s coming because he is the King of Israel. He is the Messiah for Israel. Now, he’s our Messiah too. We get that blessing. But we need to remember that Israel has been the focus ever since God called Abraham and then repeated the promise to Isaac and to Jacob. So yeah, there are New Covenant blessings, but if we say the New Covenant exists today, then we ultimately get into this already—not yet. You ever heard that? 

SAM: Yeah, we were talking about it the other day and we get some email, some call-in questions about that. 

BOB: So a lot of people say the kingdom is not yet here, but it’s already here. And I go, what do you mean? It’s already here, but it’s not here. That’s a contradiction. The kingdom cannot be here and not here in the same sense at the same time. Now, they mean in a different sense. They mean the kingdom is here spiritually, right? Not physically, but spiritually. But there’s no indication anywhere in the Bible the kingdom is here spiritually. Right now, Satan is the God of this world. Right now, Jesus is not ruling and reigning. 

SAM: Yeah, and that kind of demeans so many other verses that encourage believers to look forward to His return.  If it doesn’t matter if the kingdom is already here, then we don’t need to be awake and watchful and encouraging one another at His coming. 

BOB: Absolutely. Some people actually think that Jesus is going to come at the end of a millennium, not a literal thousand years, but at the end of a kingdom age, things are going to get better and better and better until He returns. They must be looking around going, “I don’t think it’s working right now.” 

I would encourage you to read Zane’s article and think about it, but there’s just not much in the Scriptures about the New Covenant. When you read these nine New Testament passages, they don’t exactly lay out all the details. 

Well, let’s all keep grace in focus. Amen. 

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