The Sinaitic Covenant

What Are We to Make of Israel — Steve Gregg

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The Sinaitic Covenant

What Are We to Make of IsraelSteve Gregg

"The Sinaitic Covenant by Steve Gregg explores the divine mandate of the nation of Israel and its connection to the Abrahamic Covenant. Gregg emphasizes that the covenant made with Israel is conditional, unlike the unconditional promises made to Abraham. He highlights the importance of obedience and how Israel's faithfulness determines their role as a kingdom of priests. Gregg also discusses the consequences of disobeying the covenant, including the rise of enemies and being plucked off the land. Ultimately, he argues that the New Covenant through Christ extends to both Jews and Gentiles, fulfilling the purpose of the Sinaitic Covenant and establishing a kingdom of priests."

Transcript

Well, tonight we're continuing our general theme. The series is called What Are We to Make of Israel. God used Moses to deliver the people of Israel out of the bondage in Egypt, and they became a free people.

They were at that time merely a large family. They were the twelve sons of one man, Israel, Jacob. And they were the twelve tribes of Israel, but they weren't a nation.

God took them to Mount Sinai, and there he made another covenant. It's different from, but still connected in a certain way to, and we'll discuss that, the Abrahamic Covenant. Here were the people who were physically descended from Abraham, for the most part, coming out of Egypt.

And God brings them to a place, he says, in Exodus chapter 19, and we need to look there, because this is where the Sinaitic Covenant is first enunciated. In Exodus 19, it says, In the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on the same day they came to the wilderness of Sinai. For they had departed from Rephidim, they had come to the desert of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness.

So Israel camped there before the mountain. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine.

And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. Now note something happened here.

There's an if in verse 5 that says, If you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant. Now this covenant cannot be the Abrahamic Covenant, for the simple reason there was nothing to keep in it. God never really made any demands or gave any instructions with reference to the Abrahamic Covenant.

It was instructions he gave to Abraham, Leave your father and your kindred and your house and come to a land, and I'll do these things for you. Well, Abraham had done that. So there didn't really remain anything else for the children of Abraham to do, to be a part of the covenant.

I mean, there had been no instructions given. So he's talking about a covenant that he is going to give at this point in time. A new one for them.

And you can see that who they are at this point, is who he calls them in verse 3. They are the house, that is the family, the household of Jacob. The children of Israel. Israel and Jacob are the same man, but these people are just a family.

The family of Jacob, the children, the offspring of Israel. Here's a family group that's coming. He says, now I'm going to make you something new.

I'm going to make you a nation. You're going to be a political entity. If you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people.

This is actually choosing them above all other nations for something. And he says, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Now a nation and a kingdom are really political terms.

They were not a political group before. They were a group descended from a single man. But now they were forged into a nation.

And they have been a nation, well they were a nation for a very long time. After that, they were dispersed in AD 70. And now some of them are regathered as a nation right now in their ancestral homeland.

But the national status of Israel is what is determined here. Now we have to remember when we say what are we to make of Israel? How are we using this word Israel? Do we mean the ethnic people of Israel? Are we talking about the Jewish race? Or are we talking about the land that is called Israel? Or are we talking about the political entity that was formed there in 1948? Remember the land that we call Israel was there a long time before 1948. It has been there since the creation of the world.

Sometimes it is called Palestine, sometimes it is called Canaan, sometimes it is called Israel. But that land of Israel was always there. It was not brought into being in 1948.

And the Jewish race was not brought into being in 1948. They were brought into being back in the time of Abraham. But what was established in 1948 was a political phenomenon.

A nation politically defined among other nations. When people talk about the reestablishment of Israel, are they talking about the race, the land, or are they talking about the political entity? If they are talking about the political entity, then they are talking about what we are talking about here. Israel as a political kingdom or nation among the nations.

That is what they are now. And that is what God made them when they came out of Egypt at Mount Sinai. Now, He gave them laws, the Ten Commandments being the most notable of the laws.

He gave them 614 or something like that laws. And these were the laws they had to keep in order to keep the covenant. He said, you have to obey my voice and keep my covenant.

Then you will be my special people. You will be a kingdom of priests. A kingdom means a people governed by a king.

We do not have a lot of those today in the world. Most nations are not what we call kingdoms anymore. They do not have kings or queens anymore.

But in biblical times, every nation, every city state had a king. A king was just almost a generic title for a ruler, but all the countries were ruled by kings. But you see, God said to Israel at this time, you will be a kingdom to me.

And what He meant by that was He would be their king. They would not have an earthly king. They would be the only nation on earth that had Him as their king.

That was their special privilege. They would be a peculiar treasure to Him in that respect. They would be a nation among nations and a kingdom among kingdoms.

But what would make them distinctive is they would be God's kingdom. He would be their king. All the other nations would have other kings, earthly ones.

They had a king in heaven. They had the creator of the universe as their king. That is a true and special privilege that Israel alone had.

But God said they would be a kingdom of priests. What do priests do? Priests mediate between God and other people. That's what a priest is.

A priest is someone who mediates between God and people. But Israel was supposed to be a whole kingdom of priests. That is a kingdom that served a mediatorial role with other people, the nations of the world.

Remember the promise God made to Abraham was that His seed would bless all the families of the earth. All the nations would be blessed through Him. It's very clear what God is doing with Israel now.

He has brought the family of Abraham out of Egypt. He has made them into a political entity. This entity is going to be a means through which this fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise will take place.

Because you as a nation will be a priesthood to the other nations. The blessing that God promised would come through Abraham's seed to all the nations would come through you if you keep my covenant and if you obey my voice. Now notice there is an if there.

This is unlike the Abrahamic covenant. God didn't have any ifs in the Abrahamic covenant. He just said you come out to this land and I'm going to do these things for you.

And He fulfilled it in Christ. There is no conditionality there. There is nothing that they have to do.

Christ was going to come whether the Israelites liked it or not. In fact they didn't like it. Most of them turned against Him when He came.

But He came anyway. But this covenant is different. This He would use them to fulfill this purpose if they did certain things.

That's a very important thing to note. Because He didn't say you will be a chosen nation for all eternity no matter what you do. He did not say you will be my special people and my instrument of blessing to the nations regardless of your behavior.

He made it very clear. The if comes at the very beginning. If you obey my voice, if you keep my covenant, then you will be a kingdom of priests.

You will be a holy nation. The real issue here is when we think of Israel as a nation, as a political entity, we have to ask what legitimacy does it have? I mean I recognize France as a legitimate nation. But do they have a divine sanction to exist? What if they were overrun by Italians? And were annexed and there was no more nation of France? Would we say the cosmic divine purpose has been thwarted? What cosmic divine purpose? We know of no such purpose for France.

And the question is do we know of one for Israel? Well, there is in fact in the passage we just read something about a divine mandate to be a nation. But it's conditional. If we ask does the nation of Israel have a divine sanction today? Did God sanction their nation? We could ask well let's look.

Are they keeping his covenant? Are they obeying his voice? If not, then by God's own words, it's not a divine thing. While Israel might have a legitimacy like other nations have in the side of man, to say that they have a divine mandate to exist, and that God supports them being there unconditionally as some people think, and that all Christians should always stand with Israel, well that would depend on whether they're meeting the conditions for being a nation or not. And whether those conditions are even still possible for them to keep.

That's what we want to look at. Because when we talk about Israel's divine right to the land, and many Christians talk that way, we have to ask well what is that divine right? Well, they say it's because of the Abrahamic covenant. God promised Abram his seed would inherit the land.

But we saw last time that Christ is Abram's seed, and Christ is going to inherit that land and the rest of the world too. Because the whole earth is going to follow Christ. And Israel was simply, the land of Israel was a type and a token of the whole world.

In fact, Paul said that very clearly in Romans 4.13. In Romans 4.13, Paul said the promise to Abram and his seed that they would be heirs of the world was not made through the keeping of the law but through the righteousness of faith. So, Paul interpreted the promise to Abraham and his seed that they would be heirs of the world. The land of Israel, like so many things in the Old Testament, are just types and shadows of the larger picture.

God gave the people of Israel that promised land. He gives Christ that and the rest of the world too. Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

The whole world is his domain. Jesus, when he rose from the dead, said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He is the ruler over everything.

It's all his. So, yes, the land has been given to Abram's seed and the whole world with it. But the question then is, what about in terms of the political nation? Is the land divinely given today to any political nation? And I'm not going to take sides here with Israel or with Israel's enemies.

I don't know that America has been given by God to any group of people. I mean, we've possessed it ever since we took it away from the Native Americans. And I don't know who they took it from before we were here.

And I don't know who may take it from us. We've really enjoyed our tenure here. We're kind of thumbing our nose at God right now.

And there's not much reason to believe that God's going to defend us against our enemies. So, I mean, we've got a lot of enemies out there. So, we don't know.

Maybe this country won't be in our possession a decade or two from now. We don't know. We don't have a divine mandate to own this real estate.

As far as I know, no nation has any such divine mandate to permanently own any real estate. You know, it's interesting because Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar when he reigned over Babylon and all the territories that Babylon conquered. He said, the Lord God has given you all these nations.

Yeah, but he doesn't have any more. The Babylonians don't have any more. The Medes and the Persians conquered them.

And the Greeks conquered them. And then the Romans conquered them. And, I mean, God did give Babylon all those nations briefly.

But I know of no real estate that God has given to anyone permanently. Now, I realize he did give that little strip along the Mediterranean in the Middle East to Israel, the nation, originally. The question is, is it theirs unconditionally, permanently? And if not, then it would seem to be just another piece of real estate that different people can own at different times.

That's where the dispensational view would differ from the view that I believe is correct. And that is that I believe that the land grant to a nation, to any given nation, in this case Israel, was conditional. Why? Because the covenant that he made with them, forming them into a nation, was conditional.

Now, let's make some observations here. The Sinaitic covenant was an addendum to the Abrahamic covenant. It gave them the opportunity, conditionally, if they would keep the conditions, they could be the ones through whom the Abrahamic covenant is realized.

Just as Paul said to us, if we are Christ's, then we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, Israel could have been that. Israel could have been Christ's, they could have embraced Christ, and then they could have been Abraham's seed to whom the promises were fulfilled. That was their option.

God was saying, okay, now, since I made these promises to Abraham, I'm going to give the first shot at this to those people who really are descended from Abraham. But it's not unconditional. If they don't meet the conditions, then he can find someone else to do this with.

Therefore, it's connected to the Abrahamic covenant, but it's not the same. Even if the Israelites did not fulfill the Sinaitic covenant and disqualified themselves, that didn't change the fact that God is going to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant and bring Christ into the world as he did. In fact, Israel did reject Christ.

They did bring him into the world, but they also rejected him, and God brought about the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant through Christ, despite their disobedience. So, although this is an addendum to the Abrahamic covenant, its success and failure does not rise or fall with the success or failure of the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant is unconditional and fulfilled in Christ.

The Sinaitic covenant is that which is conditional and gave Israel the chance to be the ones through whom Abrahamic promises would be fulfilled through them. It established Israel as a nation, as opposed to being a mere family. He said that Israel would be God's special holy nation, a kingdom of priests.

That is a mediatorial role, as Abraham's seed was to be a blessing to all nations, that is to bring salvation to all nations. They could have been the ones to do that if they had received Christ. It was seen as a marriage covenant, and one of the main things about being faithful to this covenant was seen as to not follow any other gods but God.

Now, there were a lot of demands in the Abrahamic covenant, including you should not murder, you should not steal, you should not bear false witness, you should not commit adultery, you should honor your father and your mother, and so forth. There were lots of things they had to do, but one of the main things that defines their faithfulness or unfaithfulness to the covenant is the same thing that defines a woman's faithfulness or unfaithfulness to her husband. When people get married, they make all kinds of promises about how perfect they're going to be to each other, how much they're going to cherish each other and do no wrong to each other, and yet in the real life marriages, people fall short of that in many ways.

You have your bad days, you get grumpy, you speak sharply, whatever. People very seldom, if ever, can live up to all the promises they made and all the obligations that they have owned in entering a marriage, but none of those failures are grounds for divorce. According to Jesus, the only thing that's grounds for divorce is marital unfaithfulness.

A woman could do all kinds of things offensive to her husband. He's got no grounds to break that covenant. If she goes out and sleeps with another man, that's different.

That's unique. And that's how God viewed it with Israel. They broke lots of his laws, all of his laws, but the main one was they should not have any other gods because having other gods was viewed as adultery, as a breach of the covenant.

Now, this is the one thing that Israel seemed addicted to, is other gods. Whenever there were other gods in view, that other nations were worshipping, Israel seemed to be drawn to them like moths to a flame. And as you read the Old Testament history, whether you read the book of Judges, the books of Samuel or Kings, you find that Israel again and again is just lapsing right back into idolatry and offending God, breaking the covenant.

Now, God, interestingly enough, even though they break it, does not immediately disown them. In fact, they broke the covenant before the ink had dried because when Moses was still up on the mountain, they were down worshipping a golden calf in violation of the covenant. And yet God, he said he was going to wipe them out, but Moses interceded for them, and so God did not wipe them out.

But again and again after that, they continued to worship other gods. God sent prophet after prophet saying, listen, if you do not stop this, I am going to have to give you up. And he actually did, briefly.

He gave them a trial divorce, sent them off into Babylon for 70 years, and then gave them another chance, brought them back, just like he said he would in Deuteronomy. Although they did not worship gods of wood and stone after they came back from Babylon, they still drifted to a place where their hearts were so far from God that when Jesus showed up, they killed him. It just shows how their heart had just become estranged from God.

But it is a marital covenant that God made with them. When God said he was going to make a new covenant in Jeremiah 31, he says, I am going to make a new covenant with the house of Israel, not like the old covenant I made, which they broke, even though I was a husband to them, he said. I was a good husband, they just were not a good wife.

They broke the covenant. That is the history that the Bible tells. This is not anti-Semitic.

Jewish prophets wrote that history. This is Israel's own history, written by Israel's own prophets. You need to understand too, and I mention this, that even though this was largely made with people who were descended from Abraham, not all of them were.

This covenant was made with everybody who came out of Egypt. And that was, as the Bible says, a mixed multitude. When it is describing the flight of Israel from Egypt, it says in Exodus 12, 38, it says, a mixed multitude went up with them also.

That is not just the homogenous Israelite race, but other people escaped with them. Why not? Egypt probably had slaves from lots of different nations. And when 3 million Israelite slaves were leaving all at once, it would be easier to say, I am out of here too.

I am going to sneak out with these people. I am going to just blend in with the crowd and move on out. I don't like being a slave here either, though I am not a Jew.

And so a lot of people who weren't Jewish fled with them, and ended up at Mount Sinai with them. And when God made the covenant, He made it with everybody who was there. Those who were descended from Abraham, those who weren't.

It was again the case that God was not choosing people because of who their ancestors were, because of what their bloodline was. God is not a racist. It is very clear the conditions for this covenant are not, if you've got pure Jewish blood, you'll be a kingdom of priests.

No, it's if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you'll be a kingdom of priests. The conditions for being included in this is being obedient to the covenant. And that is all that makes Israel something different than any other nations, if they're obedient to the covenant.

The external sign of compliance in this covenant was Sabbath observance. The sign of the Abrahamic covenant, God said in Genesis 17, was circumcision. Circumcision had to be followed too in this covenant, but it was not the sign of this covenant.

That was the sign of the earlier covenant. The sign of this covenant was Sabbath keeping. And you see that if you look at Exodus chapter 31, verses 16 and 17, God said, therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.

It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. And so the sign of the covenant between him and Israel was to be that they kept the Sabbath. Now they had to be circumcised too, but that was an earlier provision made in Genesis 17, with Abraham and all descended from him.

By the way, when God made that command to Abraham in Genesis 17, he made it very clear, anyone who is not one of your children, anyone who is a servant, maybe who comes to your household, purchased or hired in your household, he said if they want to, they can be circumcised too, and then they become part of this whole thing too. So even under the Abrahamic covenant, it was made clear that a Gentile could be in there. God said that to Abraham.

The same is true of this covenant, because we saw that of course there was a mixed multitude that came out, but there is even a statement that God makes in Exodus 12, 48, where he said, and when a stranger, that means a non-Jewish person, a Gentile, when a stranger sojourns with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised and let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as a native of the land, that is he will be just like a Jew, for no uncircumcised person shall eat it. So if somebody wants to be part of Israel, and they are not biologically descended, it does not matter, let them do the circumcision thing, let them keep the Sabbath, let them keep the Passover, they will be just like a native of the land, no distinction between Jew and Gentile. That is not something that was new with Christ.

That is something that was back in Abraham's day and in Moses' day. God never was a racist, God never determined who was his people based on race issues alone. It was always, do you want to be in the covenant? You are in.

You have to do it, you have to obey it, but you are welcome. No matter who your parents are, no matter who your ancestors are, you do not have to be Jewish. If you want in, you can become part of this covenant, get circumcised and so forth.

Some people think that Jesus did something unique in allowing Gentiles to be saved, where only Jews could be saved. That was never the case. It was never the case that only Jews could be saved.

And by the way, these covenants were not about being saved. They were about being the ones through whom God would bring the blessing to the nations. What would be the earthly people through whom the blessing of the seed of Abraham to the nations would be brought? Individually, they might go to hell.

The Pharisees probably did, Judas certainly did, Caiaphas I'm pretty sure did. These were Jewish people, but they were violators of the covenant. Jewish by blood, but not true children of Abraham according to Jesus, and therefore they weren't saved.

Being a Jew is not what made someone saved, it's covenantal faithfulness. That's what it has always been, and that's what it would still be today actually. But there's a new covenant as we shall see.

Even a Jewish person who broke the covenant would be cut off. Genesis 17, 14, Exodus 12, 19, Exodus 31, 14, Leviticus 18, 29, Romans 11, 22. These are only a few, I could have added a lot more if you look at the concordance for people being cut off from Israel.

These are just some of them, but all of them say the same thing. If you are unfaithful to the covenant, even if you're Jewish, you're out. So if you're faithful to the covenant, it doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile, you're in.

If you're unfaithful to the covenant, it doesn't matter if you're Jew or Gentile, you're out. So what makes you a Jew? What makes you Israel? Being faithful to the covenant and nothing else. That's what it says.

That's what God said to Moses, that's what God said to Abraham. And that's what the New Testament says to us also. Now if the whole nation was disobedient, they would no longer be God's people.

Their status as God's people in the covenant is dependent on their obedience. In Hosea chapter 1 and verse 9, God is speaking to Israel at a time of great rebellion and apostasy against Him. And one of Hosea's children was named to symbolize God's attitude toward Israel.

It says, God said, call his name Lo-Ami, which means not my people. For you are not my people and I will not be your God. Who is he talking to? He's talking to Israel.

He says, you're not my people. You see, Israel aren't God's people just by being descended from Abraham. No one is God's people simply from having certain parents or grandparents or great-grandparents.

It doesn't matter who your ancestors were, it's who you are. It's what your commitments are. It's whether you're faithful or not.

That's the only thing. When he said to Israel in their apostasy, you're not my people. I'm not your God.

But, even though that was the case, even when the whole nation was apostate, and it was from time to time, there was always a remnant that were not apostate. There was always some small number in Israel who were still faithful to God. I think we saw this in our last lecture.

If we didn't, I'm going to look at it briefly real quickly because this is an important point. But in Psalm 50, verse 5, God says, gather my saints together to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. Okay, he's got his people who are in a covenant relationship with him.

But if you look down at verse 16, it says, but to the wicked, God says, by the way, these wicked are not Gentiles. It doesn't say to the Gentiles. We're talking about the wicked Jews.

To the wicked, God says, what right have you to declare my statutes or to take my covenant on your mouth, seeing you hate instruction and cast my words behind you? Now, he's talking about people who are taking his covenant on their mouth. They're claiming to be covenant people. They're Jews.

But they're wicked. They're disobedient. And he says, to the wicked, he says, what right do you have to claim to be my covenant people? You hate what I have to say.

You don't want to obey what I say. You're not my people, but I do have my saints over here who are still in covenant with me. You see, this Psalm notes that Israel is divided into two classes, even throughout the Old Testament history.

There were the wicked who God did not recognize as his people, even though they were in the nation of Israel. They were not his actual people, faithful people. But there was the remnant, and they always were.

Elijah, when he lived in Israel, it was a time when Israel was officially forced by Jezebel to worship Baal, a false god. At one point, he used some hyperbole, and he said, God, I'm the only one left who isn't worshiping Baal. And God said, no, I have 7,000 more that you don't know about who have not bowed the knee to Baal.

Even though the nation was apostate, there were 7,000 more who were not apostate. They were the faithful remnant. And Paul says in Romans chapter 11, even so today, there is a remnant that are faithful to God.

We call them Christians. Because for a Jew to be faithful to God ever since Jesus came, they've got to embrace Jesus. How could you reject the Messiah and still be a faithful Jew, faithful to God? That doesn't make sense.

And Jesus made it very clear. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. It's always been the case that the promises are really fulfilled to a remnant.

But the question was always in the balances. Will Israel be a permanent nation or not? The national identity and continuance depended on its faithfulness to this particular covenant that God made at Mount Sinai. If they kept it, they could perpetually be a special people or at least until the Messiah comes.

Maybe after that too. But if they didn't keep it, well, all bets are off. They're just like anybody else.

Maybe even a little worse because the wife who runs off with another man is never quite the same as all other women in the heart of her ex-husband. She's betrayed him. And Israel rejects God and betrays God.

He still loves and wants them back, but he's been injured by them more than by other nations. We find God showing much more grief over Israel's rebellion than over Moab's rebellion or Ammon's or Egypt's or Babylon's. They were never his people.

But Israel's rejection of God is much more hurtful to him. Now what are the promises associated with the covenant? Israel will be God's treasured people, his kingdom and his priesthood to the world. Exodus 19, 5-6.

This status would guarantee God's special protection from enemies and disaster and special blessings in the realm of fruitfulness and prosperity. Now this is stated a number of times, but two passages more than any others. One in Leviticus and one in Deuteronomy really bring this out.

Leviticus chapter 26 and Deuteronomy chapter 28 are places where God catalogs the blessings and the curses associated with this covenant. If they obey, they'll have the blessings he lifts. If they disobey, they'll have the curses that he lifts.

In Leviticus 26, we can't of course take the time to read all these verses, but you'll see beginning of the first verse, it says, You shall not make idols for yourselves, neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves. This is Moses giving God's words to Israel at the time when they entered the covenant with God. Nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land or bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God.

You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord. If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, and land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

Your threshing shall last till the time of the vintage, and the vintage shall last until the time of sowing. You shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land safely. I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid.

I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight.

Your enemies shall fall by the sword. And he goes on further. We won't read all these verses up through verse 13.

But then in verse 14 he says, But if you do not obey me and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise my statutes, or if your soul abhors my judgments, so that you will not perform all my commandments, but you break my covenant, I also will do this to you. I will even appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever, which shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.

I will set my face against you. You shall be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.

And after all this, if you do not obey me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power. I'll make your heavens like iron.

That means there won't be any rain. And your earth like bronze. That means it'll be hard, and they can't grow seed.

And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its produce, but I shall make the trees of the land yield their fruit. And he goes on and on and on, and he keeps saying, I'm going to punish you more and more and more if you disobey. So God makes it very clear.

It can go really well for you, if you're obedient to this covenant. If you break the covenant, it'll go really, really badly for you. And I'll see to it that it does, he says.

Now, Deuteronomy 28 is even more elaborate. We won't read all the verses there either, but just enough to get a picture of what God said the provisions of this covenant is. In Deuteronomy 28, 1, it says, Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the country.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in.

Blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouse, and all that which you set your hand to. And he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you. And there's more and more down through verse 14.

But in verse 15 he says, But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and all his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city. Cursed shall you be in the country.

Cursed shall your basket and your kneading bowl be. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land and the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in.

And cursed shall be you when you go out. And he goes on and on that way. Actually, a very long time.

Extremely long chapter. And all the way to verse 68, he's still enumerating the curses. The Sinaitic covenant was conditional.

Very conditional. You keep my covenant. You obey my voice.

You'll be special. I'll bless you in every conceivable economic way. Your health will be good.

You won't miscarry your babies. Your enemies will stay away from you. Or if they come, you'll chase them away seven directions.

But, if you disobey my covenant, oh, it's a very different picture than that. Everything will be bad for you. Everything.

And I will curse you in all these ways. Now, we could go off into a tangent about what this tells us about the character of God. But, suffice it to say that God does discipline people in this world.

And, no matter how bad the earthly circumstances are, if people call on the Lord, they can still eternally live in bliss with Him. But the nation of Israel would have national fortunes, either good or bad, depending on how they respond and continue to respond to this covenant. Now, this is also true of the promise about the land.

God promised that they would receive the land of the Canaanites. It even says, as a perpetual possession. And this is where dispensationalism gets the idea that no matter what happens, Israel should have a divine mandate to have the land.

Whoever disputes their claim to the land is just unfortunate. They just got to go, because it's Israel's, no matter what. But you'll find that the promise of the land is just as conditional as everything else in that covenant.

The land is mentioned in connection with the Abrahamic covenant and in connection with the Sinaitic covenant. Sometimes this land promise is treated as if it's a separate covenant altogether. I don't think that's the proper way to see it.

Many people speak of it as the Palestinian covenant. Dispensationalists often refer to it as the Palestinian covenant. What they mean by that is the land of Palestine, what was then called Canaan in the days of Moses and Abraham.

What was called Canaan at the time is what we would call the land of Palestine or Israel today. And it is often said that the Palestinian covenant was that Abraham's seed, and particularly the Jews at Mount Sinai who promised this, that they would have that land forever. That is why they believe that the Jews have every right to not only come back to the land, but to fight off all people, maybe even to drive out all people that aren't friendly to them in it.

There are many people who act as if our support of Israel should be unconditional. No matter how they behave, that they deserve that land, that God gave it to them, it's theirs, we should just say, Amen, we're for Israel, we're for Israel being in the land. Well, we should if the Bible says we should.

But what does the Bible say? God said he would give them the land he promised Abraham, the land of the Canaanites. And he said it would be permanent. However, we need to be careful before we draw conclusions about what permanent means and forever.

Because whether Israel would experience possession of that land was conditional. And that's made very clear. Dispensationalists sometimes say that Israel never has yet received all the promise.

Have you ever heard that claim? God delineated the borders of the land when he spoke to Abraham. He said, I'm going to give your seed, the land from the river Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea and to the river of Egypt. And people say, Israel never controlled all that land to the Euphrates.

So God has never, they say, fulfilled that promise and he must still do so. They feel like a promise that hasn't been fulfilled yet has to be fulfilled yet. Now the question we need to ask is, does the Bible say that they have never had all that land or does it say the opposite? Let's look at three passages.

And then we're going to see what the dispensationalists say about these passages because they disagree with the passages. Joshua 21, verses 43 through 45. This is at the end of Joshua's lifetime.

We get a summary of what has been accomplished in Joshua's day. It says in Joshua 21, 43, So the Lord gave to Israel all the land which he had sworn to give their fathers. They took possession of it and dwelt in it.

The Lord gave them rest all around according to all that he had sworn to their fathers. Not a man of all their enemies stood against them. The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand.

Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass. I don't know how emphatic this can be.

He gave Israel all the land of which he had sworn to give their fathers and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. Sounds like that's the fulfillment of his promise. All the land.

He promised them. Now, John Walvoord is a leading dispensational spokesperson. At one time the Chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary.

And when he's talking about this passage in Joshua, he denies that they have had all the land. And he says this. On the face of it, this would seem to be a plain declaration that they did possess all the land.

This promise, however, has to be limited by subsequent scriptures. According to Judges 121, the Benjamites did not conquer the Jebusites. According to Judges 127, the children of Manasseh did not conquer all of their territory.

In the verses which follow are itemized the areas which Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, and Naphtali did not possess. In other words, the statement of Joshua 21, 43 through 45 must be understood as teaching that God on his part was faithful. But that the children of Israel did not enter into their possession.

Unquote. Now, what do we do with this? There are indeed passages in the book of Judges that tell us of portions of the land that were not conquered. Jerusalem, for example, was not conquered really until the days of David.

It didn't become a Jewish city. It was a Jebusite city until then. And these other areas that these other tribes failed to conquer.

There are cities in the land of Canaan that did not get conquered in the time of Joshua. So, Walvoord is saying, therefore we should understand that when Joshua tells us that all that God promised them they possessed, it wasn't really the case. They didn't really possess it.

It's just saying that God gave it to them, but that they never really took possession of it. Well, that's not what it says. It says they possessed it and dwelt in it.

It doesn't say they never took possession of it. It doesn't just say God gave it to them. It says they possessed it and dwelt in it.

So, how are we to understand these exceptions? Well, I think we understand them as exceptions in this way. Would we say that the European settlers in this country never have really taken possession of the region of North America between Mexico and Canada? Because there are still Indian reservations. There are still self-governing, in many respects, Native Americans who were here before we were.

Therefore, we've really never conquered this land. Well, sadly for the Native Americans, we have conquered them. And they are limited to live where on reservations that we have defined for them.

I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying that the way the language is used, the fact that there would be areas where the Indians, they still possess it, that doesn't mean that the whole territory hasn't been conquered. That there would be pockets and villages and cities of Canaanites that were allowed to exist because they were difficult to conquer initially.

And so they said, okay, we'll let them stay there. But all the surrounding land is controlled by Israel. I mean, Israel is still in control.

Those Jebusites can't come out of the city without Israel surrounding them and being there. I mean, they had to live peaceably among them, apparently. Israel eventually, of course, did rule all those places.

But even in Joshua's day, all those places either fell or were confined by Israel's presence there. The fact is, the passage says they did possess all the land. Now, if there were some portions in the land that we see, they didn't drive out all their enemies.

We'd have to rather say, well, possessing the land apparently doesn't require driving out all the enemies. They should have driven out all the enemies. That was something God told them to do.

They didn't. But they apparently managed to possess land without driving out all the enemies. Because it says they possessed it and dwelt in it.

And those are the very words of the promise. Perhaps we should understand that when God promised that they would inherit the land, that that did not rule out that some Canaanites might still be there. Because what God promised he would do, Joshua says he did.

For some to say, no, they never possessed all the land. Well, by your definition, maybe. But by biblical definitions, they did.

Because that's the language the scripture uses. Now, another important verse about this is in 1 Kings 4, which talks about the reign of Solomon. Solomon, of course, the son of David, was the Jewish king.

And therefore, what he reigned over was reigned over by Israel. It was part of Israel's control. And in 1 Kings 4, verse 21 through 24, it says, So Solomon reigned over all the kingdoms from the river.

And there's no commentary that would disagree that the river means the Euphrates. In fact, if you have a marginal note, it'll say the Euphrates. The reference to the river is always a reference to the Euphrates in the Old Testament.

He ruled over all the kingdoms from the river, Euphrates, to the land of the Philistines. That'd be the Mediterranean coast. As far as the border of Egypt, well, that's the river of Egypt.

These are the very boundaries that God promised Abraham. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life. So here, the Jewish king is ruling over the entire territory that God had listed as the land he's going to give to Israel.

Sounds like fulfillment to me. John Wolverine said, A careful study of this passage in the light of its context, however, will demonstrate that while Solomon ruled over all this area, he did not possess it. Inasmuch as the kings are indicated as continuing their rule, even though they paid tribute and served Solomon, the area was therefore not incorporated in the kingdom of Solomon, but rather came under his sway in the sense that the nations paid tribute and were at peace with Solomon.

If this portion had been incorporated into the kingdom of Solomon, it would not have involved the kings remaining on their thrones and paying tribute to him. So he says. But why is he allowed to define terms in this way? That if there's kings still sitting on their thrones paying tribute to him, he's not really ruling over them.

Really? Then why are they paying tribute to him? I wouldn't pay tribute to somebody if he wasn't ruling over me. They wouldn't pay tribute to Solomon if he wasn't ruling over them. It's just a desperate attempt to try to maintain the dispensational claim that God never gave Israel all that land, but the Israeli kings were ruling over all that land at that time.

They were paying tribute to him. It's like saying that the Romans never really controlled Palestine in Jesus' day because there was King Herod there and King Herod was a king in the region and therefore Caesar didn't really have control over that. No, he certainly did have control over it.

In fact, King Herod ruled because Caesar allowed him to rule. And Palestine paid tribute to Caesar. That's what the nations did to Solomon in Solomon's day.

Paying tribute. That means that they acknowledge he is their ruler. By his mercy he lets them stay alive and maintain their society more or less under the provisions he allows and they pay him for their continuing existence.

That's what tribute is. So, to my mind, to suggest that God did not give them all the land seems to go against the very wording of the passages in the Bible themselves. There's one other passage about this.

That's in Nehemiah. Nehemiah 9 and verse 8. This is a prayer that's being offered. And in that prayer, these priests who are praying, pray these things.

It says in verse 8, To God, you found his heart, that is Abraham's heart, faithful before you. You made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites and the Girgizites, to give it to his descendants. You have performed your words, for you are righteous.

What words? Well, the words they just mentioned. You promised Abraham to give him all this land of the Canaanites and you've done it. You've performed your words.

So, although modern dispensations would say God has never performed all his words in fulfilling the promise to give them the land, the priests in Nehemiah's day believed that God had done so. And they're a lot closer to the situation than any of us are. Joshua said he did.

He gave them all the land that he promised to their ancestors and they possessed it and lived in it. And that even includes control to the river Euphrates at one time. If the dispensations want to say that this isn't the case, they can say it all they want to, but that's what they want to believe.

It's not what the Bible actually says. On this verse in Nehemiah, Walvoord says, This must be understood in the same sense as Joshua, in that indeed God did give them the land, but they never possessed it historically in the Old Testament period. Well, if you say so, you can believe that.

That's not what the Bible says. They did possess it. They did dwell in it.

They did rule over it. God did fulfill his promise. That is not an unfulfilled promise waiting for him to fulfill.

Let me show you something in Deuteronomy 28, which we were looking at earlier about the curses that would come upon them if they're disobedient. There's some interesting, specific things that are said about the land. In Deuteronomy 28, in the portion where he's saying, If you are disobedient to my covenant, these are the things that will happen to you.

Verse 63 says, It shall be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing, and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. So, as God at one time was zealous to plant them in the land and to support them, he said, If you violate my covenant, I will be equally zealous to pluck you up and to destroy you and bring you to nothing and get you off the land. You'll no longer be there on the land.

That's what God said to them there. And also in the same chapter, in verse 21, he says, The Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land which you're going to possess. So here, they're going to possess the land, and he says, If you disobey me, I'm going to have to plague you in such a way that you get consumed completely off the land that you're going to possess.

In Deuteronomy 28, verses 45 and 46, this is a particularly important verse. It's in view of the fact that dispensations often point to the forever aspects. God's given them this land forever and ever.

Well, look at Deuteronomy 28, verses 45 and 46. Moreover, all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you, and they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder and on your descendants forever. Well, there's promises that he'll bless them forever, and they'll be his people forever and have the land forever.

But that's conditional. He says, If you break my covenant, I'll bring all my curses, and they'll be on you and your descendants forever. How can someone simply take the word forever in the places where it promises blessing, which is conditional, and ignore the places where he says that the curses will be on them forever? Now, what we need to understand about this is this is not about Jews as a race.

This is about the nation of Israel that was formed through the Sinaitic covenant. As a nation, they would be blessed or cursed. As individuals, the members of that nation could be blessed even if the nation was cursed.

They could be part of the faithful remnant. The nation could be under God's curse as it was in Elijah's day, but you could be one of those 7,000 who haven't bowed the knee to Baal, and you'll be personally one of God's people, but your nation is going to pot. The curses are national curses, and the blessings national blessings.

You can see that because in chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, at the beginning, he says, It shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you to do, that the Lord will set you high above all the nations. This is a national status. He's saying, I will set you, the nation of Israel, above all the other nations.

The blessings would be the blessing on the nation. The curses, the curses on the nation. When God says, I will drive you out of the land, he means I'll drive your nation out of the land.

When he says, the curses will cling to you forever, and I'll utterly destroy you, he means the nation, I'll destroy the nation, and the nation will be perpetually cursed. But that doesn't mean that Jewish people live necessarily under a special curse. They're just like anybody else.

A Jewish person who rejects Christ is under the same judgment that a Gentile who rejects Christ is under. A Jewish person who receives Christ receives the same salvation that a Gentile who receives Christ. There is no anti-Semitism in God, and there is no Jewish favoritism in God.

Again and again in the New Testament, Paul says, God is not a respecter of persons. And he says it in the context where he's talking about Jews and Gentiles. I want to run through the historical fulfillment of this covenant.

At Sinai, God was betrothed or married to God. God made them a great nation. He gave them the land of Canaan.

He blessed them with prosperity and security when obedient, and with prophetic warnings when they were disobedient. God was committed to them. There were times when they honored God, and he blessed them in all the ways he promised.

He fulfilled his covenant. There were times when they were disobedient to God, and frankly, those were more often than the others. And yet, he was slow to bring permanent judgment.

He would bring some judgment, and this is what we read about happening again and again in the book of Judges. Israel turns from God, begins to worship idols. God brings in a nation that brings them under oppression for a period of years.

They cry out to God, they repent, and God raises up a judge like Gideon or like Ehud or some other judge to drive out the oppressors and give Israel peace again for another 40 years, sometimes 80 years. But then they would drift off again and worship other gods. He'd bring in another nation to oppress them, and the same cycle would go again.

God disciplined them in order to bring them back to repentance because he was still committed to them. These oppressions, even the Babylonian captivity, which was 70 years long, they were simply times when God was disciplining them, hoping to get them to behave again. And in many cases, they did, but it was always short-lived.

Hosea complained that Israel's obedience was like the dew on the grass. Their love for God was like dew of the morning. It's nice and refreshing when it comes, but it evaporates before noon.

It doesn't last very long. That's how Israel's loyalty to God was. And yet he did fulfill his promises.

He gave them the land he promised to give them, and he did all the things he said he would do. Israel was faithless to the marriage and played the harlot in worshiping many gods. God, the betrayed husband, gave them many severe warnings, including a trial divorce, the Babylonian exile, to try to save the marriage.

Israel was very unresponsive to correction, ignoring the prophetic warnings and abusing God's messengers. They killed most of the prophets. They did this so consistently that Jesus once made the ironic statement, it cannot be that any prophet would perish outside Jerusalem.

It cannot be that a prophet would die anywhere else except at the hands of God's own people. It's an ironic statement because there were exceptions, but he's basically saying the Jews are so consistent in their rejection of God's messengers and of their killing the prophets that where else would you expect a prophet to die but at the hands of God's people in Jerusalem, this holy city. That's where prophets go to die.

So it was. They abused his messengers. Finally, God sent his son to issue a final call to Israel to repent.

Only a small remnant responded favorably. Those are the ones we call the disciples, who later were called Christians in Antioch. While the rest of the Jews rejected his claims and some engineered the murder of the Messiah.

I say some because it's not fair to say that all Jews did. Not only was there the remnant that received Christ and became Christian disciples, there were no doubt thousands of Jews in Galilee who weren't the least bit interested in seeing him murdered. I mean, he healed their children from sickness, cast out demons.

I mean, there were many people indebted to him, but they just never committed to him. They just never became disciples. But there were some who were outright threatened by him.

And they were, of course, the Pharisees and the political establishment, the Sanhedrin and so forth. And they engineered his death. Now, the Sinaitic Covenant threatened apostate Israel with ongoing exile, persecution among the nations, and perpetual insecurity and bondage.

We read only part of Deuteronomy 28's warnings of curses that would come upon them. It goes on and on until verse 68. God said, this is going to happen to them if they're disobedient to him.

Because of their rejection of the Messiah, these covenantal threats have been fulfilled in the destruction of the Jewish state and religion in A.D. 70 when the Romans came and destroyed them. Now, there's a number of verses in the New Testament that establish this. When God sent nations against them at the time of the Judges, that was for discipline.

When God sent them into Babylon, that was just for discipline. But this time, it wasn't just discipline. It was the end.

It was all over for them. Matthew 21, a parable of Jesus, which is about the vineyard. The vineyard owner is God.

Israel is the vineyard. And God has left Israel, the vineyard, in charge of leaders who are supposed to bring forth fruit. That fruit was supposed to be righteousness and justice.

God's looking for righteousness and justice in the earth. And Israel was given laws that could have guaranteed them producing righteousness and justice had they been obedient to those laws. And they could have taught them to the nations.

And they could have produced that fruit throughout the world that God was looking for. But it says that God sent messengers at vintage time to get the fruit. And the messengers were beaten up and thrown out of the vineyard.

And some of them were killed. And this represents all the prophets that God sent before Jesus came. Coming to Israel, and their message was, where's the fruit? Where's the justice? Where's the righteousness? Where's this fruit God's looking for? He gave you every advantage to produce this fruit.

And you're producing wild grapes, not good fruit. Where's the righteousness? And so the prophets got themselves beat up and killed. And then in that parable, it says, last of all.

And that's a very important statement that Jesus makes. This is in the 21st chapter of Matthew. He says, last of all, he sent his son.

Now there was a series of prophets before Jesus. A series of messengers. But none of them were the last of all.

But Jesus coming to them was the last of all. They had one more chance to get it right. And this would be the last.

And he said, they'll certainly respect my son. And they said, this is the heir. Let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours.

We'll seize the vineyard for ourselves. So they killed him and threw out of the vineyard. And so Jesus says, so what's the owner of that vineyard going to do to those people? And the answer is, he's going to miserably destroy those wicked men.

And give the vineyard to somebody else who will produce the fruit. And Jesus said, that's right. The kingdom of God is taken from you and given to a nation that will bring forth the fruits of it.

Now notice, what is the kingdom of God? Back when God made the Sinaitic Covenant, he said, if you obey my voice in the Kingdom of God, you'll be my kingdom. God's kingdom. You'll be a kingdom unto me of priests.

But now Jesus says to the Jews, this is it. That's the last straw. The kingdom is taken from you now.

And it's going to be given to someone else. To a nation that will bring forth the fruits of it. Now it's taken from them as a nation.

Their nation is no longer entitled to the promises of the Sinaitic Covenant. It's now going to somebody else. The kingdom.

A nation that will bring forth the fruits of it. It's done. You know, when Jesus came to Jerusalem and saw that fig tree that didn't have any fruit on it, that's a symbol of Israel.

Virtually every commentator agrees. That's a symbol of Israel, the fig tree. They didn't have any fruit.

And Jesus said to the fig tree, no one will ever eat fruit from you again. Remember when Jesus said to the Jews, the kingdom of God is taken from you, given to someone who produced the fruit? Your opportunity to produce the fruit is over. No one will ever eat fruit from you again.

That tree withered up and died. That was Jesus doing a symbolic prophetic action. The fig tree represented Israel.

They should have had fruit. They didn't have fruit. And therefore, he said, well, you've had your chance.

No one's ever going to eat fruit from you ever again. And so, the Sinaitic Covenant came to an end. And what came instead? The New Covenant.

Jesus entered into the New Covenant with the remnant of Israel in the upper room. He handed out a cup and said, this cup is the New Covenant in my blood. You are entering into a new covenant with me here.

Christ made a new covenant to establish that new nation. That was his disciples. It's not a political nation because the people of Jesus Christ are not wedded to any one political state.

But all nations, because Christ is to bring the blessing of salvation to all families of every nation. Therefore, it is not a single nation like Israel was. It's multi-ethnic, international phenomenon called the kingdom of God, which is comprised of all those who embrace Jesus as their king and say, he's the one I'm following.

He's my Lord. If that's you, you're in his kingdom. You're part of that nation.

And Peter refers to us as a holy nation. It's interesting how Peter uses the very language speaking about the church that God used about Israel in the Sinaitic Covenant when he made the covenant with them. If you look at 1 Peter 2, verse 9, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people.

Wow! Those are all the things that the Old Testament said about Israel. Why does Peter say this is true of the church today? The reason is because the faithful remnant of the Jews, the faithful remnant of Israel, who had in fact kept the old covenant, when Jesus came, they were brought into the new covenant with him. Now, where there's a new covenant, it says in Hebrews 8, 13, the old covenant is obsolete.

Very important to note that. Because there are people like John Hagee today, who's not even just dispensationally, he's gone over the edge to what's called dual covenant theology. He believes that there are two legitimate covenants available today.

Gentiles have to come to God through Christ and the new covenant. But he believes Jews can come to God without Christ through the old covenant. He believes God will still honor the old covenant to the Jew.

If they'll finally do what God said that they should do, then they can be saved through the old covenant. But Gentiles, we have to be saved through Christ. Frankly, I can't think of any greater heresy taught by an evangelical pastor in this country than that.

But he certainly is wrong. In Hebrews 8, verse 13, it says, in that he says a new covenant, as Jesus said, there's a new covenant now, he has made the first one obsolete. The Sinaitic covenant is obsolete because it's been replaced by a new covenant.

Now, what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. That is, the writer of Hebrews prior to 70 AD saw it coming. All these trappings of the old covenant, they've been around for 1400 years, they're about ready to disappear.

The Romans are coming. They're going to burn this whole thing to the ground. It's about ready to vanish away, but it's already obsolete.

Because the coming of the new covenant made the old covenant obsolete. There is no Sinaitic covenant today. So, there is no nation on earth, not America, not Israel, not any nation, that is God's chosen nation today, except the church, which is a spiritual nation, spiritual people, a kingdom of priests, the kingdom of God, made up of people from every tribe and people and tongue, who follow one king, Jesus, and that's the nation that brings forth the fruit of the kingdom.

The Jew who wants to become one of God's people has to come in terms of the present covenant, not the old one, because the old one is gone. That's what the Bible says. So, are there Jews who come to God on those terms? Of course.

Of course there are Jews who come to God through Christ. There are Jewish believers in Christ throughout the world. The Jewish remnant, the faithful remnant, still is God's people, but they are God's people in terms of the new covenant.

They have received the Messiah, and they are His people. And so are Gentiles, just like in the Old Testament. Gentiles could be faithful to the covenant.

It's just that there is a new covenant to be faithful to now, with Jesus as the head. A Jew or a Gentile can be in the covenant just like they could under the Sinaitic covenant. It's just a different covenant now.

It says in Revelation 5.10 that God has redeemed people from every kingdom and nation and tongue and made them a kingdom of priests, it says. The same term that was used of Israel in the Sinaitic covenant. You'll be a kingdom unto me of priests, Revelation 5.10. 5.9 and 10.

It says that God has redeemed people from every nation and tongue and people and has made them the kingdom of priests. What about Israel? Well, some of them came in too. There's Jewish believers, there's Arab believers, there's German believers, there's Chinese believers, there's Brazilian believers, English believers, there's believers from every nation.

They are now the new Israel, the new kingdom of God, the new holy nation. When Jesus says, I'm taking the kingdom from you people and giving it to a nation that will bring forth the fruits of it, this is a spiritual nation, the holy nation which Peter says we are.