Joshua and Judges: The allotment of the land, part 36 - Predestination - Beholding God's glory.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The allotment of the land, part 36 - Predestination - Beholding God's glory.  

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

"Government is nothing more than the combined force of society, or the united power of the multitude, for the peace, order, safety, good and happiness of the people … There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all others, by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors, in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike… The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved… Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable… There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." [John Adams, personal journal 1772]

 

 

2CO 3:1 Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some [false teachers peddling the word], letters of commendation to you or from you?

 

2CO 3:2 You are our letter [letter of commendation], written in our hearts [confirming to Paul and his men the blessing of their ministry], known and read by all men [living letters introduce Christ to all they meet];

 

2CO 3:3 being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.

 

2CO 3:4 And such confidence we have through Christ toward God.

 

2CO 3:5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,

 

2CO 3:6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

 

One of the aspects of life is peace. We find that we have peace when we learn about Christ and who we are in Him. By learning of it we did not gain any more of it. It's just that we now know and believe who we really are and that automatically makes for peace, and that with God, with men, and with ourselves. That is an aspect of the fragrance of Christ, perfect peace. The letter only says "have peace" and without Christ. This is impossible and its failure only brings condemnation and death.

 

The letter is holy and perfect since it is from God, but the letter alone kills.

 

Everything we do in acting upon the will of God and the command of God is done from the position of being in Christ. That is the great difference between living in God's ethics in the OT and the NT.

 

ROM 6:18-19

having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness … For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

 

Freed from sin through the sacrifice of Christ. The believer no longer has to offer animal sacrifices. He is in Christ and now a slave to righteousness and so now he may present (paristemi - present oneself for the purpose of receiving orders, yield) his body and life as a slave of righteousness. He yields his will to the word of God and the Spirit of God within him.

 

ROM 7:6

But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

 

The Spirit within us gives life because He teaches us all the connections between Christ and the fruit that comes from Him. He bears witness of Christ to us.

 

This more developed in verse 17.

 

He now goes on to illustrate the greater glory of Christ above all else, even the Law.

 

2CO 3:7 But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,

 

"ministry of death" - the law brought condemnation, increased sin, and proved beyond doubt that man is spiritually dead.

 

Fallen man could not keep the law and the Levitical offerings revealed his death and need for a Savior. But still the law came from God and so it was holy and perfect. Since it came from God it came with glory. When Moses entered into the presence of God on Sinai to receive the law his face shined.

 

EXO 34:29-30

And it came about when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses' hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.

 

Because the people feared the shining face of Moses he put a veil over his face when he spoke to them. We have assumed that this shining forth from his face slowly faded after leaving the presence of God, but this is not actually stated in Exodus, but Paul reveals to us that it was fading and this is symbolic of the holy law of God.

 

Everything in the law that spoke of the coming Christ would be swept away by Christ and the ethics of the law would be fulfilled in Him.

 

For instance, the whole Passover was swept away and a small ritual of bread and wine was left so that we would remember Him.

 

It is important to note that the ethics of the law were not abolished but fulfilled in Christ. Every ethic of the law is found in the NT, and we now fulfill those ethics in Christ because He did.

 

There was the law given in glory that brought condemnation and that faded away. There was Christ revealed in glory who fulfilled the law and that goes on forever.

 

The thunders on Sinai would cease and these would be replaced by a Savior on a cross on Mt. Zion and a resurrected Savior seated at the right hand of God poised to fill the eternal Zion known as the New Jerusalem.

 

HEB 12:18,22

For you have not come to a mountain that may be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, … But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem

 

2CO 3:7 But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,

 

2CO 3:8 how shall the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?

 

The "much more" argument is made here just like it was in Heb 2. Heb 2 stated that the law came through the agency of angels and then the fulfilled truth and gospel came directly from the Lord and from Him to the apostles and to us, and the argument was made that if the law proved unalterable and every transgression received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

 

The direct contrast to the ministry of death is the ministry of life, but Paul gets more specific and terms it the ministry of the Spirit.

 

Here we truly get to glorification of the believer in time. He is not glorified for his own sake, that would make him God. He is glorified because the Spirit of God within him shares with him the life that is the glory of Christ. It is in essence Christ being glorified within him, but since he is in union with Christ, he is glorified. The ministry of the Spirit in time, in teaching us the truth of the word, leading us and empowering us in that truth, enables us to walk in the glory of Christ, which is His life.

 

The Spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing. This life is the very life that is Christ. It is the full glory of God.

 

Let's look at a scene that took place the day after our Lord fed the 5,000 and we will see the difference between death and life.

 

JOH 6:22 The next day the multitude that stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other small boat there, except one, and that Jesus had not entered with His disciples into the boat, but that His disciples had gone away alone.

 

JOH 6:23 There came other small boats from Tiberias near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks.

 

JOH 6:24 When the multitude therefore saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the small boats, and came to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.

 

JOH 6:25 And when they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, "Rabbi, when did You get here?"