Tag: church

Melchizedek's Supper: Bread, Wine and a Blessing from the Prefigured Christ

~ fundyreformed ~ 37 Comments

breadwineMelchizedek is a mysterious Old Testament figure. He appears on the stage out of nowhere, it seems. Then he jumps right back into obscurity.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, you can read it in Genesis 14:17-24. Abram and his army of servants and allies, defeated an invading army and rescued the people and possessions of Sodom, his nephew Lot among them. After this surprising victory, Melchizedek appears on the scene with bread, wine and a blessing. After blessing Abram and God, he receives a tenth of all the spoils from Abram’s hand. Then that’s it. He’s gone.

We do know a few other things about him. His name means king of righteousness, and he was the king of Salem (which means peace). He’s also referred to as a priest of God Most High. Ps. 110 speaks of Christ being a “priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” and Hebrews 7 builds on that.

For the purposes of my post, it’s clear that Melchizedek is a type of Christ (see Heb. 7:3). He is a Priest-King, and Jesus is the Prophet-Priest-King. Considering that God knew all along that Melchizedek was a type of Christ, and since God orchestrates all of history, including the events of Genesis 14, I think there is something for us to learn here from Melchizedek’s bringing bread and wine to Abram.

I was reading the 8th portrait of Christ in Bob Beasley’s book 101 Portraits of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures, when I was struck by this simple line, “He [Melchizedek] brings bread and wine, elements we use in the Lord’s Supper.” Melchizedek brought bread and wine, like in the Lord’s Supper. So I thought, what does this teach me about the Lord’s Supper? The answer might seem too simple and obvious but I think it is quite important.

The Lord’s Supper is a blessing that Jesus brings to us. It isn’t just a rite to be observed, but Jesus, comes to us bringing bread and wine. He blesses us through the meal He shares with us. As Melchizedek blessed Abram along with the bread and wine He shared with him, so Christ blesses us as we partake of holy communion.

The supper, after all, is Christ’s idea, His ordinance for His church. He says the elements represent His body and we should remember Him as we eat of it. In previous posts on the Lord’s Supper, I’ve shown how the idea of sharing a meal with God is behind the Lord’s Supper in part. I mentioned before that Wayne Grudem highlights Ex. 24:9-11 and Deut. 14:23-26 as examples of God’s eating with men. Perhaps this story of Melchizedek foreshadows those meals as well.

In the Supper, all the blessings we get come from Christ. Ultimately the bread and wine come from Him as well. This coming Sunday we’ll partake of the Lord’s Supper at my church, and I am eager to receive a blessing from the hand of Christ my Melchizedek. A blessing given through my enjoyment of the joy of wine, and the sustenance of bread. May Jesus be ever more my blessing, my joy, and my life’s sustenance. Amen!

Reformation Day Reading

~ fundyreformed ~ 6 Comments

Happy Reformation Day!

This is the 491st anniversary of Martin Luther’s nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenburg Church. Because of the printing press, this step by Luther was soon the spark that kindled the Reformation fires across much of Europe. And as Dan Phillips points out, if we enjoy the privilege of freely worshipping in a non-Catholic, Christian church of almost any Protestant denomination (or even no denomination), we have Martin Luther to thank. We don’t need to idolize Luther, however. Instead we can be thankful for God’s mercy in providing us with the Reformation and the blessings we still enjoy because of it.

Here is some reading for you this Reformation Day.

America — A Pagan Nation?

~ fundyreformed ~ 24 Comments

In the conclusion to my series on understanding the land promise made to Israel, I made the claim that America is just another secular, pagan nation. I’m not too surprised that someone objected to my claim. The idea that America is a Christian nation is a very common idea, but it is still misguided.

Yes, some godly people were involved in the founding of America. Most of our founders at least acknowledged God. But when they founded the nation, they founded a run-of-the-mill, secular nation. God made no promise in His Word about the founding of our nation. Our nation granted freedom of religion to non-Christian religions. The laws of our nation are secular laws, they do not come out of the pages of Deuteronomy.

But wait, some would say, didn’t our laws derive from Biblical principles? That may be, but they were still secular laws for a secular people. Excommunication from the church is never dished out by the secular state, here.

We may truly be thankful for the Christian, godly influence in the founding of our society. That may have given us advantages and blessings. But it does not constitute our country as uniquely created by God. We have no claims for God’s special favor. Like every other nation of men, we are accountable to obey God’s laws. And God ultimately is responsible for the authority our leaders have (Rom. 13).

Since America is just another secular nation, it should not surprise us when our country follows the whims and desires of fallen man. Christians in the era of pre-Christian Rome had a far worse society to deal with than we have. Roman senators openly kept mistresses and/or homosexual boys, Christianity was directly persecuted, and Bibles were illegal. Yet one will not find the Christians of that era complaining about how bad things were and how hard it was to be a Christian.

Today, however, Christians complain about how bad things are, and they long for the good old days, when America was truly a Christian place. However, America never was a Christian place. Morality apart from Christ is as heinous to God as immorality apart from Christ. A day where everyone saves face and looks good, while still being rebellious to God in their hearts, is not an age I want to return to. And I am at a loss to see how preventing homosexual marriage, and laws of this nature, do anything to “reclaim America for Christ”. The law is powerless to save.

We as Christians need to realize that we will always be in a world that hates us and in an environment that makes it hard for us to live for Christ. Always, until Jesus comes, that is.

And while I’m all for efforts to impact our culture for Christ, focusing on politics and political reforms often diverts us from the cause of the Gospel. It also blurs the distinction of Christianity in the eyes of the world. Rather than being known as those who prize the Gospel and love Christ, we are viewed as those who aim to foist our morality on the general public through whatever means possible.

Christianity is not a political party, nor a social club. American Christians, can’t ignore their global brothers and sisters. God is for America just as much as He is for Pakistan, North Korea, and every other nation where members of Christ’s body live. I’m not against being patriotic, but we must not pretend God is. We are citizens of a heavenly country, and just “passing through” this world, whatever earthly country we may dwell in.

Understanding the Land Promise: Conclusion

~ fundyreformed ~ 10 Comments

Continuing from part 7….

At last, this series is coming to a close. We’ve explored an understanding of the land promise informed by NT Scripture itself. All believers are Abraham’s heirs, and they inherit the promise that he would be heir of the world (Rom. 4:13-16). Gentile believers can expect to “live long in the land” (Eph. 6:3), even as the meek “inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). Just like in Ps. 37, it is only the righteous who inherit the earth and dwell in it forever, not anyone who claims the name of Christ. While Israel did possess the land for a time, and all of God’s promises were proven true (Josh. 21:43-45, 1 Kings 8:56) and fulfilled, the actual experience of Israel in the land fell short of the prophetic expectation. Ultimately the spiritual seed of Abraham will inherit a new heaven and a new earth, and all the believing children of Abraham from all time, will enjoy the eternal kingdom of the new earth in resurrected bodies. The new earth will center on the heavenly Jerusalem, where God’s presence will dwell eternally with His people. The church was God’s temple on earth, and in the eternal state there will be no temple, as we enjoy God’s presence forever. Indeed, even now, we share in the worship of the heavenly company of the redeemed who are in the heavenly Jerusalem, of which old Jerusalem was just a picture.

How this Understanding Matters

At this point, I’d like to emphasize why this matters. Many readers have probably skipped over these posts as irrelevant. “This is just a theological squabble over semantics”, they might say. I contend this understanding, which invariably leads to a reordering of or even a wholesale rejection of dispensationalism, has profound implications. I’d like to discuss four broad categories directly influenced by this understanding of the land.

How You Read the Bible, and the Unity of God’s People

When you really grasp this idea of how the NT Church experiences the land blessing now, and even more so later, you comprehend what Eph. 2, Gal. 3, 1 Pet. 2 and Rom. 4 overwhelmingly proclaim — that the Church in the NT and believing Israel in the OT are together to be understood as God’s people. Sure there are some important differences, but we are unified as one people of God. When reading the NT we constantly are reminded that just like the saints of old had to trust in God by faith, so we do today. They looked forward to Christ’s day and we look back, but we all prize Christ.

This in turn revolutionizes how you read the Bible. You no longer read certain sections as if they don’t apply to you at all. instead you see everything through the lens of faith. You understand how the Israelites’ plight in Judges parallels our plight in our fight for faith today. You also start to see how the NT ties in to the OT in profound ways.

As an example, consider baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is not a totally distinct, new thing in our age. Moses and the Israelites were in a sense baptized in the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10), and the word baptism is used of ritualistic washings in the OT (see the use of the Greek words relating to baptism in Hebrews). Of course the New Testament makes clear that baptism symbolizes cleansing from sin (Acts 22:16), and OT Israel had many ordinances and ceremonies which symbolized the same thing with water. This should help us see that baptism, while definitely illustrating our solidarity with Christ in his death and burial, still most basically symbolizes that Christ has washed us from our sins. Without this full fledged understanding of Scripture’s unity, numerous baptism services totally ignore the most fundamental and basic meaning of the symbol of water baptism.

The Lord’s Supper, likewise connects with the Passover. It was first instituted at an observance of Passover. Indeed, Passover’s true meaning was transformed (or revealed) by the Lord’s Supper. We now have Christ offering his body as the final and ultimate sacrifice. Just as Passover was to be a family and corporate event, which remembered the sorrow of the sacrifice but majored on the joy of being rescued from death, so the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance and should include both sorrow and an emphasis on joy. I am probably going off on a bit of tangent here, but consider how this impacts the understanding of substitutionary atonement. Jesus declared his blood would be offered to establish the new covenant. Hebrews declares blood-shedding is required for a covenant to be in effect. The blood shed at the original Passover, was shed only for a specific group of people, and it was placed over their door posts to mark off God’s people. Similarly, Jesus blood is shed for his people, with whom He establishes his new covenant.

These are just a few examples of how this understanding transforms your reading of and appreciation for the Bible.

How You Think About Modern Israel, Political Activism & Patriotism

Now for this topic, many a dispensationalist will say understanding the land promise as I do will make me anti-Semitic. Well, I’m part German, so I guess they must be right! Just kidding. In no way does this make one anti-Semitic or encourage that.

Now I must admit some Christians historically who have understood how the Church (made up of believing Jew and Gentile alike) ultimately fulfills the land promise and other Abrahamic promises, have been anti-Semitic. But it does not need to follow that the idea makes one anti-Semitic. The NT is emphatic that the only hope for anyone, Jew or Gentile, comes through Christ. And if all Israel will one day be saved, that event will only occur through Christ and all living Jews repenting and embracing Him. And then they will be grafted back into the single tree they were taken out of the very tree in which the believing Gentiles have been grafted in permanently.

The New Testament doesn’t show any Christians as being second-class. There are no racial or class distinctions. Gentile believers are fellow heirs and partakers of the covenant promises — yea even members of the commonwealth of Israel, according to Eph. 2. Gal. 3 declares believers are Abraham’s descendants. So even if there is a millennium prior to the creation of the new world, and that millennium concerns Israel, believing Gentiles will have to be included per the clear teaching of the New Testament.

Now as to modern day Israel, this understanding gives us no reason to prefer the Jewish claim for the land over the Palestinian one. The Church, is not to be allied with a single political party or view, as God’s kingdom advances through the Gospel and not the sword. Israel today almost completely rejects Christ, sadly. Those Jews who are believers are members of the Church, and as such their ultimate inheritance is the new world and heaven, not a physical geographical area in Palestine.

I have seen that those Christians most connected with a dispensationalist understanding of the land promise, are often the most involved in political pursuits and the most apt to “defend” Israel and pledge support for it. Thankfully, many dispensationalists understand we should not have as our main goal the reformation of society through political action (see a wonderful series on this point by Phil Johnson of Pyromaniacs, for instance). But one’s understanding of the land promise directly touches on how likely they will lose the importance of the fact that we are just passing through this world like Abraham, and are looking for an eternal city. Politics in a free society, provides an avenue for kingdom work and a place to be salt and light, but we are not to legislate Christianity or moralism, instead we are to proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

This understanding also shapes our patriotism. While we are thankful for America, we know God’s people are of every nationality and race. We are reminded our country is pagan, as is the whole world. Nations have always been composed of pagan people. Christianity is not a nation but a spiritual kingdom, and we are called to be lights in a dark place. God wants people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Burma, Chile, Venezuela, Israel, and America equally to repent and embrace His kingdom. And God does his work in all those nations according to His sovereign purposes to accomplish His glorious plan.

How You Think About Prophecy & End Times

It goes without saying that this understanding shapes how you approach prophecy. When one prioritizes the NT as the fullest revelation, and interprets the end times through its teachings, rather than elevating Daniel 9 to supreme importance, a different view of end times emerges. Prophecy, as with the land promise, is often pointing to the Gospel age and is fulfilled ultimately through Christ and His people.

I won’t delve into the whole prophetic end times discussion here. But it is obvious that understanding the land promise in this way informs how we interpret prophecy and our thoughts on the end times. I’ll let you work that out for yourself, but I hope we can be a bit less dogmatic and divisive over this, as there are many positions which are true to the clear, unequivocal truths of Christ’s return and rule, and yet differ over the various details of how that fleshes out. Currently, I believe an amillennial understanding best accounts for the whole of Scripture on this subject, but I have great respect for historic premillennialism (post-trib rapture), and postmillenniallism or even moderate preterism. A pre-trib rapture depends on this distinction between Israel and the Church, a distinction I believe the NT clearly denies.

How You Interact with God’s Mission & Think About His Kingdom

Finally, this impacts how we view missions, and God’s kingdom. God’s single mission given to us, His people, is to spread His fame to the ends of the earth. Dispensationalism is often pessimistic, with an emphasis on how bad society is getting and how eventually we need the rapture to get us out of here. But this understanding of the land, while admitting that our ultimate blessings are in the new earth, still allows for optimism. God’s kingdom rule is happening now through the church, and ultimately it will extend over all the earth. Rather than stressing over how much land Israel is currently allotted, we can shift our energies to extending God’s kingdom by preaching the Gospel to all the unreached peoples of the world. So many ministries focus solely on reading the “signs of the times”. Such speculation really distracts from our calling and mission. We are not to be so separate from and scared of the world that we obsess over how bad its getting and get excited when our teacher tells us some current event is making Christ’s return come sooner. Christ could come at any moment. He wants us working in His mission and reaching the lost rather than trying to enact moralistic rules on their behalf. Modern day Israel needs missionaries and prayer. They need to embrace Christ, just as much as the Palestinians, and other people groups do as well.

I’ve rambled on longer than I wanted, but I can’t close without highlighting some resources and recommendations for further study.

Resources for Additional Study

Understanding the Land Promise: Part 6

~ fundyreformed ~ 8 Comments

As is frequently the case, when publishing a series of posts on my blog, I encounter a lot of comments and counterpoints. This can sidetrack me and lead toward my leaving a series unfinished. Of course there are other reasons for my nack for leaving series unfinished…. I do want to interact with some of the comments under my little excursus post, but for now, I feel we need to continue from part 5, and make my position fully clear.  I do not claim perfection and I am open to being convinced otherwise, but for now I’d like to finish out my explanation of my current understanding of the land promise.

As you’ll remember from part 5, I am taking time to answer some objections, and by so doing, to rephrase my position and make it clear. So to review, I’m claiming that Joshua and 1 Kings, with Nehemiah, indicate that the OT understood the Jews to have possessed all the land God promised them at one time. None of God’s promises had failed all came to pass concerning the land, they said. We also showed that the recipients of the land promise specifically were the descendants of Abraham. Yet we should note that the New Testament indicates the Gentiles have been grafted in and are to be viewed as the descendants of Abraham. And very specifically Rom. 4 claims the very promise that Abraham would inherit the land is given to all of his children, Jew and Gentile. This understanding again jives with Eph. 6:1-3 where Gentile Christians are promised long life in the land of promise (cf. Exodus 20).

Obviously these concepts seem at first to fall short. How can Gentile Christians be inheriting the land promised to Israel? How can the land promises have already been fulfilled when there are specific “millennial” promises indicating a future reunification of Israel and possession of the land? We started to explore this by touching on the nature of land. It is integral to the relationship between a god and his people. Namaan brought earth back to his home in Syria because he wanted to serve Jehovah. He falsely thought Jehovah was bound to a local geography. Deuteronomy ties life in the land specifically to the commands and regulations Israel must obey. Abraham himself significantly only built altars within the borders of his promised land. So the idea of land is connected with fellowship and relationship, and as we’ve indicated before, with rest or confidence in God.

We begin to see a full-orbed picture of the land as we look at the idea of conditionality, and as we look at the land in perspective.

The Conditionality of the Land

As has been noted in some of the comments, Israel failed to keep covenant with God. This resulted in their expulsion from the land, and is why the totality of the land has not yet been attained by Israel. This then, makes it obvious the land promise was conditional.

Deuteronomy is the most important book for regulating the Jewish state, and it made much of the land. Obedience was to result in blessing in the land, and disobedience was to incur judgment on the land, and ultimately expulsion from it. As we look closely at the Biblical record in the first  6 books of the Bible, it is clear that while the land was promised and given as a gift to Abraham and his descendants, it nevertheless required them to believe, follow Jehovah, and obey His word in order both to possess the land, and to keep it.

Genesis 12 perhaps most clearly reveals this, as a promise of land is given to Abraham contingent (obviously) on his leaving his homeland and following Jehovah by faith. In Numbers 13 & 14, God refuses to give the land to the rebels who attempt to take it by fleshly, independent force. Let me quote a bit here, now from an article on “Land” in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology (edited by T. Desmond Alexander & Brian Rosner, [IVP: Downers Grove, IL, 2003], pg. 624) written by J. G. Miller:

From the outset [of Deuteronomy], it is clear that only if Israel obeys will they be able to enjoy the fulfillment of the promise to the patriarchs. Only by reversing the failures of the past and faithfully negotiating the challenges of the future will the infant nation enjoy this divine reward (e.g. “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you” [4:1], also 8:1; 11:8, etc.). But the relationship between the fulfilment of promise and obedience extends beyond the successful subjugation of Canaan; this is only a first step towards fulfilment of the promise. Entry into the land and longterm successful occupation are repeatedly linked (see e.g. 6:1-3; 8:1-3; 111:8-9; 12:1); obedience is the condition of both. Enjoyment of life with Yahweh in the land (in fulfilment of the covenant promise) is open-ended and dynamic. To realize it, Israel must continue to obey. This idea of a promised land, which is first to be occupied and then enjoyed by an obedient people, is a powerful incentive to make the right decisions. Deuteronomy treats the concept of the land as a powerful rhetorical device to press home the urgency and importance of the decision facing the nation on the plains of Moab. The land is not simply the reward for obedience; it is part of the motivation to obey.

Before moving on, let’s go back to the promises for Abraham. You may remember I said elsewhere that the promises seem unconditional. I stick by that. They are grand promises but there is a condition. Abraham must be loyal to Jehovah. He must trust him. Of course God works through Jesus ultimately to fulfill all such conditions, and He gives grace enough both to us and Abraham so that we all can “through faith and patience inherit the promises” (Heb. 6:12b).

Gen. 12 starts out with a condition. “Go… and I will make of you a great nation….” (12:1-2). This sets the stage that God’s relationship with Abraham, while sovereignly initiated and full of grace, nevertheless demands obedience from Abraham. We see this again when God adds a sign to his covenant with Abraham in ch. 17. Abraham must circumcise his sons (17:9-14), and he must also “walk before [God], and be blameless” (17:1b). Later, God points out that Abraham’s continued obedience is the reason God will surely keep his promise and establish his covenant with Abraham. In chapter 22 we read, “…because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you…. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

All this conditionality should not make us think Abraham is working for his salvation. God goes out of his way to indicate Abraham’s faith, is the cause of his being counted righteous (15:6). And  God further illustrates how He will enable Abraham to obey so that God can give Abraham the promised blessings: “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” (18:19)

Keeping the Land in Perspective

Hopefully, the previous discussion has caused your spiritual antennae to be raised. There are many similarities between Abraham’s required life of faith, the Israelites duty to keep covenant and thereby enjoy the promised land and it’s rest, and our calling as Christians. We are given a great blessing of fellowship with God and an eternal inheritance, yet we must live a life of faith and endure to the end. We must fight the good fight of faith, and thus lay hold on eternal life (1 Tim. 6:12).

These obvious similarities, coupled with the New Testament’s direct claim that we believers also must enter a state of rest and peace through faith (see Heb. 3-4, and part 4), must make us pause. Earlier in our series, we highlighted how God throughout the Bible has related with his people by means of land. Adam and Eve enjoyed Eden, even as they were called to fill the whole earth. Abraham was given a land, strategically located in the center of the known world, that the Jews might bless the nations. The land was special because God dwelt there, in the Holy City, Jerusalem. He was their God, and Israel was His people. And we know from Revelation 21, that God will dwell with His people once again in a new earth — a place where a Heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, has come down to stay.

Obviously, the land promise is but one aspect of God’s promises to Abraham. And tracing the history of the land, and looking forward to the future new earth, is but one of the major themes of Scripture. Admitting this, doesn’t change our conclusions, however,  but strengthens them. Consider please, that: all the promises of Abraham are fulfilled through Christ, and are shared by Christ’s followers.

We can’t cut up Abraham’s promises and say some apply only to physical Jews, and others to Abraham’s children by faith. We can’t say some are conditional and others aren’t. This is a wholistic covenant. God obligates himself, conditioned on Abraham’s covenant loyalty (which God works to empower and enable). So when we see the New Testament clearly and repeatedly claim that the Gentile believers share in Abraham’s inheritance, that they too are recipients of the promise, and partakers of the covenant, we shouldn’t conclude it is talking about something besides the land. The world God made is a blend of spiritual and physical realities which cannot be separated. We are physio-spiritual beings. We can’t say some of God’s promises to Abraham are strictly physical and others strictly spiritual.

I’ve already shown Rom. 4 to clearly state that the Gentile believers are recipients of Abraham’s promise concerning the land. And I’ve mentioned Gal. 3 which claims that in Jesus singularly, all of Abraham’s promises are truly fulfilled. It seems I keep restating things in this series so I’m going to have to limit myself. Next time, I hope to focus on one NT passage we haven’t touched on, which draws out the typical nature of the land emphatically. Then, in another post  I hope to conclude  by showing the ramifications for understanding the land in this way. I’ll also try to fit in a discussion of the exilic promises concerning the land and how they fit into this. I guess I can’t promise only 2 more posts, but that’s my goal. And again, thanks for all the participation in discussing these things in the comments.