Doctrine of the New Covenant, part 8.

Title: Doctrine of the New Covenant, part 8.  

 

We have broken away from Heb 8 for a time in order to understand the minor of the OT vs. the adult son of the NT church and future Millennium of Israel.

 

Gal 4:1 Now I say, as long as the heir is a child [infant], he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything,

 

Gal 4:2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.

 

Gal 4:3 So also we, while we were children [nepios], were held in bondage under the elemental [foundations of law for Jew and Gentile] things of the world.

 

Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time came [incarnation], God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,

 

"sent forth" - evxaposte,llw [exapostello] = ex + apostle: sent out with a commission as an ambassador.

 

"sent forth" is the same Greek word from which we get "apostle," but with the prefix "ex". It means to be sent with a commission as an ambassador, but with ex it emphasizes that the Son of God was sent out from the ivory palaces of heaven into this crummy world with a grand commission. Yet, not only did He come from heaven with an order to do something, but He became a man, as one of us, and as a Jewish man He submitted to the Mosaic Law as if He were a minor so that He could reveal that only He could keep the Law and in His death He fulfilled it. He submitted Himself as a minor to the very Law that He created and gave to Israel.

 

We are each commanded to be conformed to His image. Are we willing to submit to anything that God calls us to, as He submitted to the Law, so that we may strengthen our witness of the gospel and not hinder its voice to anyone?

 

1Co 6:12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

 

1Co 6:13 Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food; but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body.

 

The body is for the Lord means that it will do the will of the Lord. Though the body had been mastered by the flesh or sin nature before regeneration, it no longer is. It is to be used as an instrument of righteousness.

 

1Co 9:19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more.

 

"I am free" - inner man; only Christ is my Master.

"slave to all" - outer man; in His love I serve all as He did.

 

Don't get cute with this and fool yourself into antinomianism, by claiming that the inner man controls the outer man and so to Christ alone to I serve and all others are on their own… or some such intellectual way of self-justification. Look to Christ,  how He thought and lived as revealed in the gospels and epistles, and see that though He served only the Father, He still made Himself a slave of all.

 

Joh 19:10 Pilate therefore said to Him, "You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?"

 

Joh 19:11 Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me up to you has the greater sin."

 

Jesus makes clear that He is in no wise under Pilate's authority, but He submits to it since it is a part of the Father's plan.

 

1Co 9:19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more.

 

1Co 9:20 And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law, though not being myself under the Law, that I might win those who are under the Law;

 

1Co 9:21 to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those who are without law.

 

1Co 9:22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some.

 

Paul conducted himself in the way that others did at the times when the gospel might be an issue, yet he did so without sin. He did not make an issue about the lives of others by going out of his way to expose it for what it was, which in every case, whether pagan or Jew, with Law or not, without God.

 

1Co 9:23 And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

 

We often read the next section alone, but notice its context is what was just written.

 

1Co 9:24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

 

1Co 9:25 And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

 

1Co 9:26 Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;

 

1Co 9:27 but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.