No. 750
“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?” (Mal. 3:1-5)
When our maker justly sentenced His disobedient children to death six thousand years ago in Eden, He intimated that ultimately the Seed of the woman would bruise the Serpent’s head. This hidden promise was the first indication of the divine mercy which our gracious Creator had purposed in Himself from before the foundation of the world. Ever noble, kind and gracious, our Creator restrained His mercy for the good of His creatures, so that they might learn to appreciate the exceeding sinfulness of sin. They had sinned, thereby forfeiting all claim upon the eternal life He had given them conditionally. It was also for the benefit of the angels that God insisted upon dealing with His creatures from the standpoint of exact justice, allowing them to fully know His justice, as well as His wisdom and power.
As we have demonstrated many times, eternal torment in no way entered into the divine purpose. His sentence upon man, plainly stated, was, “Thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17– marginal reading: “Dying thou shalt die.”) The sentence was not, “Living thou shalt live in torment.” God declared: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” (Ezek. 18:4) His purpose in His dealings with the human race was to exemplify a principle of divine government that will ultimately be made operative everywhere among all His creatures, both on the spirit plane and the earthly plane.
Long centuries later, God spoke prophetically through one of Adam’s posterity: “And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” (Jude 14-15) In other words, He will come to establish righteousness among men. Time passed on, however, and sin still prevailed. The coming of the Great Deliverer was still future.
Next, after first testing his faith and loyalty, God said to Abraham: “In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 28:14; Gen. 12:3) This promised Seed is the same great Deliverer prophesied to bruise the Serpent’s head and to come in great glory with ten thousands of His holy ones. God assured Abraham that this Deliverer would in some way be identified with his posterity, so that He could properly be called the “Seed of Abraham.” This was an unconditional covenant and therefore it required no mediator.
Thereafter, all who were taught of God would know to look for the Messianic blessing through Abraham’s Seed. The Covenant was confirmed with an Oath to Abraham, then later to Isaac, and then later to Jacob. That Covenant Promise became the basis of God’s adoption of the entire nation of Israel – all of Jacob’s children. They were heirs of the Abrahamic Covenant, also called the Oath-Bound Covenant. This great honor from the Almighty God has made some of the Jewish people to appear at times arrogant and proud, but let us not forget that “to err is human, to forgive, divine.” Perhaps if we were in their place our imperfections would be similarly displayed.
THE LAW COVENANT ADDED
Israel’s experiences of tribulation and bondage in Egypt prepared them for God’s great proposition: if they kept the Law they would have life everlasting as a reward. As it is written, “Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.” (Lev. 18:5) Israel greatly rejoiced in this manifestation of divine preference for them above all others of humanity. Unlike the Abrahamic Covenant, the Law Covenant had a mediator, Moses. The sacrifice of bulls and of goats made a typical atonement for them for a year, so that they might enter into this covenant relationship with God, but when they attempted to keep the Law they were disappointed because they failed.
The Law of God is the full measure of a perfect man’s ability; and the Jews, being imperfect like other men, found that they had undertaken an impossibility. During the first year not a single Jew kept the Law perfectly and therefore not a single Jew gained eternal life. Foreknowing this would happen, God provided for a repetition of the Atonement Day every year so that the people might continue striving to attain eternal life. Year after year, century after century, they failed, and discouragement took the place of hope.
The Law Covenant was added to the Abrahamic Covenant – it did not replace it. God used it to teach Israel a great lesson respecting the need for better sacrifices than those of bulls and goats, and also to teach them that there is no other means of justification in His sight. While they received educational blessings under this Covenant, they did not receive the blessing they hoped for – life eternal. Consequently, they were not able to become a national Messiah, a national Seed of Abraham, for the blessing of all the nations.
A NEW COVENANT AND A BETTER MEDIATOR
For a period of time God gave Israel kings, but they also were unable to accomplish the great things hoped for. By God’s design, Israel began to learn of the idea of a personal Messiah, a King of Glory who would use their nation as His instrument for conquering the world, with the result being that every knee would bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God. (Isa. 45:23; Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10) God promised a personal Messiah to be of the lineage of David, a great King, and far superior to the great, wise and rich Solomon. Messiah would be David’s Son and yet at the same time David’s Lord. (Psa. 110:1; Matt. 22:42-44)
Israel’s next lesson was that a change of dispensation must come. Just as Moses had mediated the Law Covenant, in the new dispensation a still better covenant would be mediated by one greater than Moses, an antitypical Moses. This covenant would be more favorable to them and under it they could gain
eternal life. This New Covenant was plainly set before them through Jeremiah’s prophecy:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake . . . But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:31-34)
Moses had spoken of the better mediator: “The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken.” (Deut. 18:15) This statement of Moses combined with the prophecy of Jeremiah helped their faith to increase, giving new significance to the Oath-Bound promise to Abraham that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed.
If a great enough mediator were to come as the promised messenger of God, establishing a better covenant under which Israel could have eternal life, and if He, as the offspring of David, became their King, then indeed Abraham’s Seed, the nation of Israel under that great Mediator-King, would be fully qualified to bless all the families of the earth. The thought of this glory to their nation became a fresh inspiration to the approximately 50,000 Jews of all the tribes of Israel who returned from Babylonian captivity under the edict of Cyrus. (Ezra 2:64-65)
Through the Prophet Ezekiel, the Lord again pointed out that the Law Covenant made at Sinai must give place to a New Covenant. This new and better covenant must come before they could receive the great blessing of restitution. He spoke of the time when He would regather them out of all lands, fulfilling the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He promised to make them a great nation and to use them for the blessing of other nations. He explained why He would do this: “Thus saith the Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went.” (Ezek. 36:22)
He then told them that when He receives them back into His love and favor, He will also humble their pride by restoring the Samaritans and the Sodomites – peoples detested by Israel as inferiors and sinners. God declared that the sins of these peoples were never as serious as the sins committed by Israel. God would again bless Israel, but He would also bless these other peoples in their midst:
“When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate. . . . Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant. Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant. And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.” (Ezek. 16:55-63)
We see that even the Sodomites are to share in restitution, despite being portrayed throughout the Bible as examples of wickedness. As Israel’s “sisters,” Sodom and Samaria represent other nations of the world, but they will be instructed and blessed by becoming “daughters” to Israel. All this will not be done under the Old Law Covenant, but under the New Law Covenant of the future.
“WHO MAY ABIDE THE DAY OF HIS COMING?”
This new and better Covenant is to be mediated through a Mediator more glorious than Moses and a King more glorious than David – the One that Israel began to look for and long for. Is there any wonder they failed to identify Him in the lowly Nazarene who died at Calvary? Nothing but the special assistance of the Holy Spirit would enable anyone to trace the connection between the glorious prophecies and the humble appearance of He who came to fulfill those prophecies. We can see that Jesus in His Second Advent is the great Messiah of Glory, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He absolutely fulfills every requirement of prophecy and Jewish expectations. What a few can now see, most cannot: that He who was pierced is the same One who is to bless Israel and all the families of the earth through Israel.
Our opening text is from another prophecy that speaks of this same great Messiah, the Mediator of the New Covenant, King of kings and Lord of lords. As the Representative of His Father, He is to reign until all enemies are put down and Adam’s race is released from the divine sentence under the New Covenant provisions. The Prophet Malachi announces the Messiah and points out that He is the glorious Mediator and antitypical King they had long awaited. He is to come to the Temple – thus implying that He is to be not only an antitypical Prophet and King, but also an antitypical Priest “after the order of Melchizedek.” (Psa. 110:4)
Despite this joyful proclamation, the Prophet warns that the time of His appearing would be one of trial, one of special testing and proving, in order that the Lord might find the antitypical Priests and Levites to serve in the antitypical Temple. A great refining and cleansing process will be required to make the called, chosen and faithful ready for the Kingdom: “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Mal. 3:2-3)
At that time the consecration of Judah and Jerusalem unto the Lord will be accepted as in olden times. We may understand that this spirit of devotion is now reviving among Jews, particularly among those who are identified with Jerusalem and the Zionist movement. Hitherto this has been a political movement in the interest of Jewish nationalization and a home for exiles. Now, however, the due time has come for a real movement of those who have the faith to draw near to God and to show that faith by helping to forward the restoration of earthly Jerusalem and her interests.
WHY WAS HIS COMING DELAYED?
As the Father’s glorious agent in the great work of creation, the First-begotten of the Father became the great Messenger of the Covenant, the great Prophet, Priest and King of Israel, the great Michael of Daniel’s prophecy. (Dan. 12:1)
But before attaining this great honor, there were requirements He had to complete:
(1) By faith He had to obey the Father’s will and lay aside His Heavenly glory, becoming a perfect man – “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” (Heb. 7:26)
(2) Thus prepared to become the Redeemer, He had to make a full consecration of His earthly interests. It was then the Father’s pleasure to beget Him to the spirit nature on the highest plane when the Holy Spirit of God descended on Him at Jordan. (Matt. 3:16) For three and a half years His sacrifice burned upon the altar and it was indeed better than the sacrifice of bulls and goats. (Heb. 10:4) It was a corresponding price for Adam – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a perfect man’s life for a perfect man’s life.
(3) He had to sacrificially part with His earthly life. When He arose from the dead His personal sacrifice had ended, and His personal perfection as a spirit being was completed. (Heb. 10:1-14; Heb. 13:11-13) He experienced a resurrection change from human nature to spirit nature, like the nature He originally possessed, only higher and more glorious. Thus He was simultaneously both a sacrifice and the spirit-begotten priest who offered that sacrifice.
With these three requirements completed, why did He not at once begin His great work as Prophet, Priest, King and New Covenant Mediator? The reason was this: according to the divine plan there was to be more than one sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. Throughout this Gospel Age this risen, glorified High Priest, Mediator, Prophet and King has been waiting to inaugurate His glorious Kingdom of blessing – waiting for a little handful of saints to be selected from the world, tested and found worthy to be glorified with Him – a “little flock” out of all mankind, selected from both Jews and Gentiles.
While all the merit used in the atonement work is that of Jesus exclusively, He imputed that merit to the Church, making her the possessor of it, placing an embargo on it during the Gospel Age. The completion of the Church’s sacrifice is necessary to release this merit of Jesus before it can be applied on behalf of the world, because the entire merit, free from all embargoes, is necessary to release Adam and the race in him from the death sentence.
With the sacrifice of this Bride class complete, in and under the merit of the great Priest, all arrangement for the blessing of Israel and all nations through Israel will be complete. Thus the revelation of Israel’s great Messenger of the New Covenant is very important not only to Jews, but also to the world of mankind, who must receive their blessings through Israel as Abraham’s seed, by compliance with the same New Law Covenant. For the elect handful of saints drawn, called and gathered during the Gospel Age, the divine promise is that they will then be changed to be like their Master and share His glory.
JUDGMENTS WILL BE OF THE LORD
Notice the further message of the Lord through the Prophet: “And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Mal. 3:5)
Here we see plainly that the Messianic Kingdom means not only glory and honor to those He accepts as servants; it will also require that all be faithful to the principles of truth, purity, and harmony with God. This lesson for Israel will ultimately apply to all nations. Under Israel’s New Covenant, all the families of the earth may become “Israelites indeed” through faithfulness to the great Prophet, Priest, King and Mediator.
(Based on Pastor Russell’s Sermons, pages 208-215.)
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THE ANTITYPE BEGINS WHERE THE TYPE ENDS
Question: Did not the Law Covenant end at the time of our Lord’s death? And if it was a type or a foreshadowing of the New Covenant, would not that be the time for the New Covenant to begin? If the New Covenant will not be operative until the last member of the Church of Christ has suffered with the Head, would not that imply a considerable period of time between the fulfillment of the type and the commencement of the antitype? Have we not been taught that where the type ceases the antitype surely begins?
Answer: Jews are still under the Law Covenant. Many make the mistake of supposing that the Law Covenant ended at the cross. On the contrary, the terms of that Covenant are binding upon every Jew from the day the Covenant was made to the present time. As St. Paul says, “Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?” (Rom. 7:1) Every Jew today is under a death condemnation by virtue of being under the Law, the Law which he cannot keep. There are only two possible ways for him to get free from that bondage:
(1) He will be free when the ending of the Gospel Age institutes the New Covenant blessings to Israel. With the end of this age the great High Priest will antitypically offer the blood of the “Lord’s goat” for the sins of all the people. This will include the sins of Israel. Then the blessed opportunities of the New Covenant will be opened to them, as God promised. (Jer. 31:31; Rom. 11:27-31) Then their eyes will be opened and they will see out of their obscurity and gladly accept the Mediator of the New Covenant and begin at once to share that Covenant’s blessings.
(2) He can get free by dying to the Law Covenant during the Gospel Age. For any Jew to get free from the Law Covenant before the inauguration of the New Covenant in the times of restitution, he must die to the Law. After declaring that the Law has dominion over a man for as long as he lives, St. Paul goes on to say, Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” (Rom. 7:4) This is in full accord with the Apostle’s statement, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 10:4) That is, Christ is the end of the Law to anyone who believes to the extent of becoming a follower of Christ and consecrating his restitution rights in death, becoming a living sacrifice, following the example of his Redeemer. The Gospel Age is the time appointed of the Father as the “acceptable year of the Lord” (Isa. 61:2), the “acceptable time” when God is willing to receive sacrifices, first the sacrifice of Jesus, and, subsequently, the sacrificing of those justified by His blood, His followers, who present their bodies as living sacrifices. (Isa. 49:8; 2 Cor. 6:2; Rom. 12:1) The Jews have had as good an opportunity of thus entering into joint-heirship with Christ, the Spiritual Seed of Abraham, as have the Gentiles. And they could have no better opportunity, because there is no other name and no other manner whereby any could obtain a share in the “high calling” to the divine nature, glory and honor.
FURTHER EVIDENCE
Three Bible proofs provide further evidence that the Law Covenant has not ended:
(1) Paul did not indicate that the Law Covenant had ended. St. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, warning them against coming under the domination of the Law, does not at all intimate that the Law Covenant had passed away or become dead, but the contrary: “For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” (Gal. 5:3) In his Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul points out that the New Covenant was promised and that the very use of the word new signified that the Law Covenant had become old, and hence was “ready to vanish away” and lose its force entirely. (Heb. 8:13) However, he did not say that the Law had already passed away; rather, he plainly taught that those who by faith accepted the Lord Jesus and became dead with Him by baptism into His death were no longer under the Law Covenant. They were instead under the Abrahamic Covenant, also called the Grace Covenant: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. . . . For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom. 8:2; Rom. 6:14; Gal. 5:18)
(2) Christ blotted out the handwriting of ordinances. There is another text on this subject that should be mentioned: “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.” (Col. 2:13-14) This does not signify that the Law Covenant was repealed or ended. It means instead that, for the Jews who had accepted Christ, the demands of all of the Law’s ordinances were fully met for them by the Lord Jesus when He was nailed to the cross.
(3) Hagar and Ishmael lived after Isaac’s birth, illustrating that the Law Covenant did not end at Jesus’ death. The type of Hagar and her son Ishmael is another evidence that the Law Covenant did not cease when Jesus died, and has not yet ceased. The Apostle tells us that Hagar allegorically represented the Law Covenant and Ishmael represented fleshly Israel, the children of that Covenant. At the birth of Isaac, the heir and the son of the Sarah Covenant, God said to Abraham: “Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.” (Gal. 4:30; Gen. 21:10, 12) This signifies that the Law Covenant and its Jewish children were to be outcast from divine favor for a time. If Hagar had died at that time, the teaching of the type would have been that the Law Covenant ceased then to exist. But Hagar continued to live, and so the Law Covenant was continued, and still has power over every Jew as long as he lives. If we trace the type further, we find that subsequently Hagar returned and was subject to Sarah, showing the superiority of the Abrahamic Covenant (also called the Grace Covenant or Sarah Covenant) to the Law Covenant. Ishmael, who represented the Israelites, later received a blessing from Abraham, who represented God.
NEW COVENANT AWAITS THE SACRIFICE OF THE CHURCH
So we see that the Law Covenant did not pass away when our Lord Jesus died, nor when He arose from the dead as the antitype of Isaac. Consequently, the New Covenant was not then ushered in. Nevertheless, when our Lord presented Himself in baptism, saying, “Lo, I come . . . to do thy will, O God” (Heb. 10:7), He set aside the first (the typical) sacrifice that He might establish the second (the antitypical) sacrifice. The three and a half years of His own sacrificial ministry were typified in the killing of the bullock of the Day of Atonement. When He ascended to Heaven, He immediately applied His blood on behalf of the Church for their reconciliation to the Father, so that they might become His joint-sacrificers. He then at once began the secondary part of the Day of Atonement sacrifices – the killing of the Lord’s goat (typifying the Church). The Lord’s goat was taken from the people and its blood was subsequently applied for the people. This sacrificing of the Church has been a progressive work, and all of the sacrifice was not to be accomplished until the last member of the Body has gone into sacrificial death, following in the Redeemer’s footsteps. Thus we see that the setting aside of the type and the establishing of the antitype required a long period.
This Atonement Day feature, while all-important, was by no means the only typical feature of the Law Covenant. Did it not foreshadow the coming out of the High Priest in garments of glory and beauty to bless the people? And is not this feature of the Law still unfulfilled? And can it pass away before this fulfillment? We hold that it cannot, and that the instant of its passing away will be the instant in which the New Covenant will come into force with Israel.
(Reprint 4504, edited for clarity and length.)
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