If you be Christ's, then you are Abraham's Children...

This is the Ninth post from Chapter 8 of Friends With God: God’s Friendship With Israel And The Church, in which we are exploring the similarities and differences between the Old and New Covenants.

Circumcision For Christian Gentiles Is Detrimental

As discussed in the previous posts, the law for those in the Old and in the New Covenants, is essentially the same: it’s based on love of God and love of others.

Even so, something significant had changed, in that circumcision was not required for the gentiles, yet it was a clear edict in Old Covenant law. (Gen 17:12, Exo 12:48)

Some gentiles in Galatia were so enthusiastic (or deceived) that they were willing to be circumcised even though they were in the New Covenant. But Paul warned them that this was not appropriate, but very detrimental:

that if you (gentiles) be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man (gentile) that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law (in the Old Covenant). (If you are circumcised then) Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace. (Gal 5:2-4)

We can’t read this letter written to gentiles in Galatia, as if it were addressed to the Hebrews. When he says if you are circumcised you are fallen from grace, he’s obviously talking about every gentile man that becomes circumcised. Which is why I have added the words gentile in the above quote, as gentiles is whom Paul is addressing.

These gentiles were choosing to be circumcised, when it was not necessary, as gentiles are not part of the Old Covenant. However, being circumcised did not cause Jews to fall from grace. This is clarified by Paul in the very next verse:

For we through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness out of faith. - For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any strength, but (it’s through) faith working through love. (Gal 5:5-6)

In the New Covenant with Jesus Christ, circumcision is immaterial. But in the Old Covenant it’s essential.

If you are a Jew you are born into the Old Covenant, so to be circumcised does not contravene the New Covenant, as it has no meaning in the New Covenant.

If you are a gentile called into the New Covenant, there is no benefit in becoming circumcised, as it actually puts you in a lesser covenant, and thus demonstrates that you don’t understand, and in fact despise, the better covenant with Christ!

Paul also told the Galatians if they have faith in Christ, then they will automatically be considered Abraham’s spiritual children and heirs:

if you be Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Gal 3:26-29)

The gentiles therefore gained nothing by being circumcised, as they already were the children of Abraham, including his heirs, because of their faith in Christ.

The Promise Given To Abraham

What was that promise given to Abraham? As discussed in the first post in this series, Abraham was not a Jew. He was the great grandfather of Judah, who was the father of all the Jews. Abraham is called the father of the faithful, both of the faithful Jew and the faithful gentile:

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know you therefore that they which are of faith (that have faith in God), the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen (non-Israelite gentiles) through faith (in God), preached before (in time past) the gospel (good news) unto Abraham, saying, In you shall all nations (gentiles) be blessed. So then they (gentiles) which be of faith (in God) are blessed with faithful Abraham. (Gal 3:6-9)

The “gospel” here mentioned, which was preached unto Abraham, is the good news that all people can be saved, if they have the same type of faith Abraham had. What was that faith? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

True faith in God is the foundation of both the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. Again, in the letter to the Hebrews, Paul tells them:

For indeed the gospel was preached to us (modern Israel) as well as to them (Israel of old); but the word which they heard did not profit them,
not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
(Hebrews 4:1-2)

What was preached to ancient Israel, Paul is saying, is the same Gospel, the same good news- that if you have faith in God, you can receive the Holy Spirit, which imparts eternal life. (Heb 11:39-40)

The difference is that Israel had Abraham as their example of faith, but we have Christ as well as Abraham as our examples. While the New Covenant actually has better promises, the eventual outcome is the same.

No matter which covenant you are in, if you love God with your whole heart in either Covenant, then you will be given the Holy Spirit during this life, and eternal life in the resurrection.

These two covenants are never, in any way, in competition with each other. One is not more desirable to be in than the other. Those who are born as Jews are called as a group into the Old Covenant. This calling is their birthright.

While they can choose not to love God, or to disobey other laws, they are all called by God through this first covenant. To disobey the calling, effectively negates the purpose of the covenant, as the Pharisees demonstrated. (John 8:39-47)

Those in the New Covenant are individually called by God, be they Jew or gentile. Once you are called by God into the New Covenant, then he will work with you throughout your life, as you continue to grow in understanding, repenting and turning to him with all your heart, mind and soul throughout your life.

Your Children Are Holy To God

As in the Old Covenant, not just the individual Christian, but also his family, is holy to God:

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified (made holy) by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified (made holy) by the husband;
else your children would be unclean, but now they are holy (sanctified). (1Cor 7:14)

How much God is working with the children, or spouse of a Christian, is not spelt out in any detail, yet it seems clear that they have a relationship with God beyond the uncalled of the world.

To therefore let your light shine before your closest relatives, so that they may also glorify God, would seem to be the first and greatest ministry a Christian can offer- be it successful, or not, in bringing them to Christ.

However, we can’t judge if our relatives are considered unholy by God, for he does not easily give up on anyone he has given the opportunity to be in covenant with him. God is even still working with all the descendants of Abraham, even those who are now known as The Lost Ten Tribes, who have been scattered throughout the nations for over 2,500 years! (Jer 30:10-11, Jer 31:31-37)

Opposition From Non-Christian Jews To Paul

From these examples we can see that Paul, the other Apostles, and elders all kept the Old Covenant law. Yet it was Paul who was specifically singled out for persecution by unconverted Jews. They even told lies to the Christian Jews, saying that Paul was teaching that they should not circumcise their own children. (Acts 21:19-21) These unconverted Jews, who came from Asia (presumably Antioch), also caused Paul to be arrested by accusing him of bringing gentiles into the Temple, which he didn’t do. (Acts 21:27-29)

Why would they tell such lies? The answer is simple envy:

But when the Jews saw the multitudes (of gentiles that were listening to Paul), they were filled with envy, and spoke against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. (Acts 13:45)

This happened on many occasions:

But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows (hired thugs) of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar. (Acts 17:5)

Indeed, it was for the same reason of envy that Christ had been persecuted, and delivered to Pilate. (Matt 27:18, Mark 15:10)

Paul was instrumental in converting many gentiles to Christ, which removed them from being under the authoritarian control of the Jewish leaders, who were mostly Pharisees. These gentiles were taught by Paul that it was unnecessary for them to be circumcised in order to worship God.

Unfortunately for the Jews, what Paul taught totally undermined the Jewish exclusivism, and their control of the truth of God in their scriptures, as they saw them.

The scriptures were, after all, transcribed by Jews and were generally available only in Jewish Synagogues. Paul, however, was saying that there was another way to God for non-Jews, other than by becoming a physical convert and coming into the physical nation of Israel through circumcision.

Paul’s teachings consequently undermined the Jewish leaders’ prestige and power over the gentiles. They also lost their absolute power over Jewish converts as well, as Christianity was preaching that Jews didn’t have exclusive knowledge of the truth of God.

Paul Was A Very Good Pharisee!

Prior to Paul’s conversion, he was held in high esteem by the Jews, as he was a leader of those Jews who persecuted Christians. When we first see Paul (who was called Saul at the time), he is a major player in the murder of Stephen, in Acts 7:58. Then a few verses later we see that, subsequent to the stoning of Stephen, Paul was involved in a great persecution of the Christians, which caused them to be dispersed away from Jerusalem.

Yet, not content with this, the unconverted Paul continued his murderous persecution of Christians even to other countries:

But Saul ravaged the church, entering into every house. And dragging men and women, he delivered them up to prison. (Acts 8:1-3)

Such persecution should not have been unexpected, for Christ told the Church:

• If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:20)

• They shall put you out of the synagogues: yes, the time will come, that whosoever kills you will think that he does God a service. (John 16:2-3)

Paul, reflecting on his early life, admits that I persecuted this Way as far as death, binding and delivering both men and women into prisons; (Acts 22:4)

Later, again he admits:

And I punished them often in every synagogue; (where they were meeting with unconverted Jews) I compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly furious against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. (Acts 26:11)

When Paul was going to the city of Damascus to persecute Christians, Jesus appeared to him, and Paul was miraculously converted to follow Christ. (Acts 9:1-25)

The converted Paul was therefore a very well-known and controversial individual, not only to the unconverted Jews, who would see him as a turncoat, but also to converted Jews, who would no doubt have found it very difficult to forgive Paul for his role in killing their family or friends.

It seems that the unconverted Jews told lies about Paul, in order to stir up the converted Jews, so as to create division within the Church, in order to turn some Jews back to Judaism.

For many years unconverted Jews continued to tell lies about Paul, and attempted to kill him. So strong was their determination, that at one stage over forty men bound themselves with an oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they have killed him. (Acts 23:21)

Paul, however, miraculously escaped out of their hands, and one wonders how long it was before they had something to eat or drink?

Not Come To Abolish But To Fulfil

Despite all this persecution by the Jews against him, Paul believed in, and kept the law of the Old Covenant: believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets. (Acts 24:13-14)

Christ also told us that he had not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. (Matt 5:17) Yet, as discussed in Chapter 3, many preachers twist this statement by Jesus, to say that he ‘fulfilled’ the law when he died as a sacrifice for us, and in doing so “kept the law for us”, and we therefore now don’t need to keep the law, as we are a new creature in Christ. (2Cor 5:17)

However, such an understanding of sacrifice in the law is to miss the point entirely, for Christ’s whole life is the exemplar for us, as discussed in this previous post.

Thinking that, as Christ “kept the law for us”, and we therefore now don’t need to keep it, creates the problem of: which parts of the law don’t we need to keep?

Is it ok to murder now? Or commit adultery? Obviously not, for immediately after he said that he had come to fulfil the law, Christ then expanded on the need to not murder or to not commit adultery (Matt 5:20-43)

In doing so Christ made the law more stringent, by saying you should not even hate your brother, or lust after a woman in your heart. Therefore, preachers say, this part of the law is still ‘enforced’.

What about lying? As Christ said in John 8:39-47, he who lies is of their father the devil- so that particular law is also still ‘enforced’.

In this way, preachers try to go through the entire Bible seeing what in the Old Covenant is not mentioned in the New, and then claim that what they can’t see reemphasised by Jesus is therefore not part of the New.

Yet the obvious problem with such a methodology is that there is no clear scriptural summary as to what exactly is supposedly done away with from the Old Covenant, and what is kept in the New. This could very well be because there is not a great deal of difference between these two covenants of love.

Sacrifices Done Away With?

Were sacrifices actually done away with? As we have seen in Acts 21:19-24, the Apostles actually encouraged Paul to make a vow and give offerings at the Temple.

In addition to this, the Apostles were in Jerusalem for many years after Christ ascended to heaven, yet you never find them confronting anyone about Temple worship and sacrifices. (Luke 24:53, Acts 2:46, Acts 3:1-5, Acts 5:42)

If the Apostles had preached against sacrifices, then no doubt they would have been persecuted even more, but they were not scattered during the persecution of the church, but were in the very Temple precinct teaching the Way of Christ. (Acts 8:1)

Yet in saying this, sacrifices were not required of gentile Christians, as they are not in the Old Covenant. And once the Temple was destroyed in 70AD, the Jews could no longer offer sacrifices as they could only be offered at the Temple. (Deut 12:5-28) What the purpose of these sacrifices is for Israel, will be discussed later in this chapter in future posts.

As we have seen in the previous post, Christians also regularly met in synagogues for many years, mixing peacefully with unconverted Jews. If the Jewish converts to Christianity thought that they should not give sacrifices, then they could not have continued meeting together peacefully on a regular basis.

From this we can see that there were minimal practical differences between those Jews who believed in Jesus, and those who didn’t.

What therefore is the difference between these covenants? What did Christ mean when he said: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil? There is no need to wonder, for he tells us in very next verse: For truly I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. (Matt 5:17-18)

As heaven and earth are still here, then we can be confident that nothing has gone from the written law either.

This verse doesn’t say that “Christ fulfilled the law”, for when he contrasted the two words “destroy” and ‘fulfil’ it’s obviously implied that to fulfil is to be read as being the opposite of to destroy. This is what he emphasised, as he continued saying:

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19)

If we teach men the true value of keeping the law, then we will be called great in the Kingdom of God. So, the law, as understood in the Old Covenant, is not done away for those of us in the New Covenant.

The Law Is Of Great Value To Christians, Jews Or Gentiles

Jesus continued to emphasise the importance of the law:

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 5:20)

The scribes and Pharisees kept the letter of the law, but they did not keep the intent of the law with their whole heart, mind and soul. Christ called them hypocrites seven times, saying to them:

you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within you are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. (Matt 23:13-28)

They did not love God, because they were not keeping the spirit of the law, for:

they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. (John 12:43)

God expects people to love him the same way that Abraham did, which is what we will be discussing in the next post in this series.