After my conversion about a dozen years ago, I read the Bible voraciously. After graduating from college, I think I typically read carefully about 10-20 chapters a day for a number of years, initially getting up at 4:30 or so in the morning to fit it all in before starting work at 8:00. As a newborn believer, I was reared in what could be called moderate dispensationalism, heavily influenced by John MacArthur (especially, I think, the earlier, less Calvinistic, John MacArthur).
Well, to get to the point, in the course of my regular Bible reading over the first six or seven years or so, I continued bumping up against texts that rocked my world and jarred the inherited system. My wife and I read some verses this morning that were part of the shaping and shifting that began some years ago. I don't think I'll ever get over being stunned by these texts. Here are just a couple from this morning, with brief commentary, from amid the dozens of similar texts strewn across the revelation of God.
Gal. 3:29: "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise." Those who belong to Jesus, and they alone, are the true children of Abraham and inherit God's promises to him. National Israel and Jews detached from Jesus have no portion in this inheritance. Apart from union with Christ, they remain children of the devil, as Christ himself taught, lost and dead in tresspasses and sins.
2 Cor. 1:20: "All the promises of God are Yes in him." In Christ, every Old Covenant promise is yours, O Christian. I love this verse. It opens up a world of joy in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is a treasure trove of promises, and every last one of them is for the Christian, the true Jew of the true circumcision (Rom. 2:28-29; Phil. 3:3). These are not for the ethnic Jew who refuses to believe in God's Messiah--Jesus, Lord of all. The ethnic Jew may have them, of course, and is welcome to them, of course, by receiving Messiah Jesus--but in this way alone!
(By the way, I love MacArthur, even though I disagree with his eschatology and view of national Israel in the plan of God. And the church where I was reared is a strong, healthy, and wonderful Bible-believing, Christ-exalting fellowship. So what is said here is not in any way intended to be demeaning or condescending. Under God's providence, I'm utterly indebted to those folks. I love those saints to the bottom and am not worthy to be numbered among them. I bless God for them.)
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