Ep. 78: What Does Matthew 5 Teach Us About the New Covenant and Progressive Revelation?

What Does Matthew 5 Teach Us About the New Covenant and Progressive Revelation?

In this episode of the Biblical Anarchy Podcast, host Jacob Winograd delves into the complexities of eschatology, New Covenant theology, and progressive revelation. He discusses the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, exploring how church fathers and theologians throughout history have understood these themes. Jacob emphasizes that the promises made in the Old Covenant are not discarded but fulfilled and transformed through Christ in the New Covenant. Key concepts like covenant theology, the land promise, and the gradual unfolding of God’s redemptive work are explored through the lens of various theological traditions, particularly from a Reformed perspective. Jacob also reflects on the relationship between the Old Testament teachings and New Testament revelations, citing the works of theologians such as R.C. Sproul, John Chrysostom, and John Calvin.

Towards the end of the episode, Jacob shifts the focus to current events, addressing the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. He explores the implications of violence and foreign policy in light of Christian teachings, urging Christians to pursue peace and challenge the misuse of power. This episode calls for an active Christian voice in anti-war movements, reminding believers of their duty to hold governments accountable and to champion the Kingdom of God through acts of justice and love.

 

Main Points of Discussion

Timestamp Topic
00:00 The episode begins with an introduction to solo episodes, with Jacob encouraging listeners to check out interviews on LCI platforms for additional content.
03:11 Jacob explores how Christ fulfills Old Testament prophecies, focusing on passages from Genesis and Exodus, and emphasizes the importance of progressive revelation in understanding the New Covenant.
07:24 God’s laws were given within a specific cultural context and offered gradual guidance. Jacob references Matthew 5:17-18, where Jesus declares that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them.
12:13 Covenant theology is discussed, particularly the covenants of works and grace. Jacob explains the significance of the Protoevangelium in Genesis 3 and how Christ’s redemptive work is a continuation of these covenants.
13:38 Christ fulfills covenant theology, showing the continuity between the Old and New Testaments. Jacob cites theologians like R.C. Sproul and early church fathers who emphasize this unity.
18:48 Jesus fulfills the law through His perfect obedience, allowing believers to inherit His righteousness. John Chrysostom’s homilies on Matthew are referenced, highlighting how Christ transgressed none of the law.
21:07 Jacob explains that faith fulfills and elevates the law’s purpose, citing Romans 8:4, where Paul teaches that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit.
24:47 The New Covenant not only fulfills but surpasses the promises of the Old Covenant. Jacob cites John Chrysostom, who teaches that Jesus’ fulfillment expands the understanding of Old Testament laws, elevating them to a spiritual level.
29:45 Jacob discusses how the land of Canaan serves as a symbol of spiritual fulfillment through Christ. He references John Calvin’s commentary on Deuteronomy 30, which interprets the land promise as pointing to the gathering of God’s church from all nations.
33:53 Reflecting on foreign policy, Jacob explains how decades of aggression sow the seeds of retaliatory violence. He references Harry Browne’s critique of U.S. interventions and the concept of blowback.
36:58 Jacob calls on leaders and governments to pursue peace, referencing Romans 12:21, which urges believers to overcome evil with good rather than perpetuating cycles of violence.
38:18 Christians must reclaim their prophetic tradition by advocating for peace and justice. Jacob urges believers to hold governments accountable, following Christ’s teachings of peace and justice.

 

Additional Resources

Jacob Winograd [00:00:31]:
empire. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Biblical Anarchy podcast, a project of the Libertarian Christian Institute and part of the Christians for Liberty Network. I’m your host, Jacob Winograd. I have a lot I wanna talk about today. So I’m gonna try to do something different here. Past several episodes have been deep in the weeds of theology, and I’m gonna continue to do that. We’re gonna kind of continue our journey through eschatology and covenant theology and looking at the various views that theologians and church fathers have held on this. But I’m gonna try to make this a little bit easier to digest.

Jacob Winograd [00:01:15]:
The way that I’m gonna do that is I’m gonna split the episode into 2 parts. The first part is gonna be sort of talking about these subjects in a way that I’m gonna give it a specific framing, and then I’m gonna take a break from that second part of the episode towards the end and talk about some current events. Because I haven’t done a episode on current events here in a while, and so I wanna talk about that a little bit as well. So I might keep that structure going for a little bit going forward, and guys can if you can give me some feedback on that. I know maybe it’s a little hard to listen to just straight theology over and over again, and I’ve not always done that here. But I don’t know. We’re experimenting here in on the Biblical Anarchy podcast. And I still do conversations and interviews.

Jacob Winograd [00:02:01]:
I used to do more of those. But if you like the the interviews and and things like that, go make sure you are subscribed to the LCI green room feed, and I’ll make sure I have, links to that in the show notes or episode description. And, of course, make sure you’re subscribed on YouTube as well because that’s where the majority of that stuff is gonna go. But in terms of my episodes, they are gonna be more solo going forward and occasionally playing clips from those interviews. But if you like the interviews, go subscribe to those other platforms. And, of course, before we dive into things, make sure you give this video a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven’t already, and let’s dive into today’s episode. So we’re continuing on eschatology today. And we finished up in last week’s episode sort of a long sojourn through the old testament and looking at what prophets, what the mosaic law, what the original promises made in even, like, Genesis and Exodus before the establishment of the nation of Israel.

Jacob Winograd [00:03:11]:
And we looked at how this all pointed to Christ and how these different prophecies of the new covenant and the messianic era were foreshadowed and then sort of continued to culminate and be more explicitly spoken of and then how Christ fulfilled all these different prophecies and, teachings about what the new covenant era would bring, and how this relates to eschatology and the different views amillennial, premillennial, postmillennial, and different hermeneutics, credorism, futurism, literalism, fulfillment hermeneutics. And I wanted to start off today by talking about an idea which maybe you’ve heard of before, maybe you haven’t, but the idea of progressive revelation. And I think I’ve talked about this in passing, but I wanted to just give it a little bit more time here. And I would I wanted to be speaking again from the reformed perspective, but I I always try to make the case that the things I’m talking about aren’t exclusive to just one Christian tradition or or theological persuasion. And I think I’ve done that in past episodes sort of showing how these views have been held by both modern theologians and reformed scholars, but even early church fathers that even if they weren’t explicitly stating the, like, word for word, the same things that I’m saying or someone like Sproul or Calvin is saying, that you can find sort of the seeds in very similar sentiments even if they’re not exactly formulated the same way in a lot of the early church fathers. And this actually is a feature and and not a bug. In reformed theology, the idea of progressive re or revelation refers to the concept that god has revealed himself, his will, and his plan of redemption in a gradual unfolding manner. And this has been seen throughout history, throughout the entire scriptures.

Jacob Winograd [00:05:13]:
You could say the last, I don’t know, 4 episodes or so that we’ve gone through the old testament. I’ve I’ve kind of been implicitly demonstrating the concept of progressive revelation and how all things were sort of foreshadowed and and and sort of the revelation of what was to come continued to increase until Christ came. But this process is not even done in the Old Testament because the New Testament continues to progress this revelation as well. And then we, as the church, although nothing is added to scripture, our understanding of these things have been refined and improved upon through the guidance of the Holy Spirit is what I would say throughout church history. But this process is not a change in god. I wanna be clear. It’s not, you know, when you hear the word progressive, that can maybe invoke a certain connotation. But rather, this is not progressive in the terms of the idea that god is changing because god’s nature and and purpose does not change.

Jacob Winograd [00:06:18]:
But there is a progressive unfolding of his plan, a progressive unveiling of his redemptive work, and the truths which he wants to communicate to us. This came up actually recently in a a livestream interview I did with my friend, Hodie Johns. Now Hodie is not in my theological camp at all, but we were having a conversation about how we talk about the the relationship between the old and the new covenant. And a passage that came up, which is a good example, is the teaching on divorce and how there was a lot of allowance for divorce and maybe a little bit misuse of scripture involved in that. The scripture was still somewhat open ended in terms of what grounds a man could seek a divorce from his wife on. And then Jesus later then says that, well, actually, like, I gave that to you out of the wickedness of your own heart, but this isn’t actually what I want, and here’s what I feel about marriage. Now was God changing his mind? Was Jesus, like, correcting something that was wrong? Well, no. It was like, well, you weren’t ready yet.

Jacob Winograd [00:07:24]:
Like, you know, we’ve been preparing you. Jesus has been, and the father has been through the law, you know, working to reconcile a people and to to to select the people chosen for him and to redeem them. But and this is not just true for divorce, but there’s many laws in the old testament that exist that you might go, why didn’t god ban slavery, and why didn’t god have more modern conceptions of justice in terms of, like, the civil enforcements and whatnot? And he’s like, well, and and what most apologists and even scholars will admit is that, well, this wouldn’t have actually reached the people that god was speaking to in the, in the old covenant. That the the Hebrews that were rescued from Egypt and then brought into the land of Canaan, you know, they they came from a certain cultural context. And there were certain things that not only were they not going to live up to if god impressed certain laws upon them, but we see that even the laws that he gave them, which to us seem like, you know, not quite up to snuff, they didn’t live up to those laws perfectly at all. And so the idea is that God establishes certain truths in the old covenant, and then Jesus comes in in many places such as the the sermon on the mount. He’s explaining the purpose of those laws and saying that, like, well, you know, it’s kinda like learning to crawl before you walk and learning to walk before you run. It’s not like the crawling was wrong, but you’re not supposed to crawl forever.

Jacob Winograd [00:08:52]:
And Jesus is saying, I want you to know I want you to have a a greater purchase of the truth that I have for you. And in the Old Testament, glimpses of that are shown through the law, but then we we can see the whole picture through Christ and what’s unveiled in the new covenant. So, again, I guess, like, the 3 the aspects of this would be, 1, a gradual unfolding that the seeds of a lot of the things that we believe today about the new covenant, about Christ, about morality, that they find their original source in the Old Testament and then are brought to a fuller understanding in the New Testament, and and we continue to unpack and and through the guidance of the holy spirit, understand these truths more throughout the church age. Christ centered fulfillment, I’ve talked about this a lot and seeing Christ as sort of the fulfillment of all things. And I should have the passage up in front of me. I forget the chapter and verse where this even says that Jesus is the amen. That is I can’t find the exact chapter and verse here. They’re they’re bringing up a revelation passage that says that Jesus identifies Revelation 314, as the I amen.

Jacob Winograd [00:10:11]:
Give me a second here. So I if I can know the wording, it’s like, it is in Jesus that all the promises bind their amen. There we go. 2nd Corinthians. I’d like to type it out word for word. I I’m not always good at remembering, like, the specific chapter book and verse, but 2nd Corinthians 120. Now, like, it’s coming back to me. For all the promises of God find their yes or their amen in him, and that is why through him, we utter our amen to god for his glory.

Jacob Winograd [00:10:46]:
So this is a very scriptural idea. Covenantal structure, I’ve talked a lot about covenant theology, and I I did I don’t know if I ever made that an episodic episode. I did talk a lot about covenant theology in a live stream I did where I was critiquing some arguments that were made in a debate I did a while back with Andrew Wilson. And it’s probably something I’ll have to do in the future is do a deeper dive on covenant theology. Although, feel like some people have done it better than me, so maybe I’ll just cite their work. Redeemed Zoomer has a really good video on reformed well, he has a series on reformed theology, and one of them is covenant theology. And I think he does a really great job doing that. I might just link that in the show notes.

Jacob Winograd [00:11:27]:
I don’t know if there’s any point to me reinventing the wheel. I don’t know if I could do a a summary better than him, but I can even bring up here, for those of you who are watching on the video, a really good depiction he has of what covenant theology is, which yeah. I know I’ve talked about this on the show before and and given it a alright. So we’re gonna pull this up here. Like like, it shouldn’t be completely unfamiliar, but sometimes, you know, a picture is worth a 1,000 words. So I’m gonna share my screen here. Alright. So all the covenants in the bible are building blocks of the overarching covenant of grace, which runs parallel to the covenant of works and the covenant of redemption.

Jacob Winograd [00:12:13]:
The covenant of works is sort of like what’s established that, like, you know, by by sin, by the fall in the garden that, like, we we we are separated by god by our sin, and that only through obedience to his law can we be right with God, but all fall short of this. And so no one fulfills the covenant of works, but rather what has always existed. And this is not just in the new covenant, but that the new covenant in Christ is a continuation of this idea of the covenant of grace, which starts with the promise of salvation in Adam. That’s in Genesis 3 where it says that the there’ll be enmity between the serpent and the offspring of of Eve and that the offspring will crush the serpent’s head and the serpent’s serpent will bruise his heel. And this is sort of called the the protoevangelium or sort of like the first, foretelling of the redemption the redemptive work that Christ will do on the cross. And then you see Noah, and that’s the establishment of common grace with the flood and the rainbow. Abraham is, you know, then where we have the first, you know, the Abrahamic covenant and the establishment of a covenant people. And then those covenant people are given a law and a specific mosaic covenant.

Jacob Winograd [00:13:38]:
And then David is given a, you know, keys to the the kingdom of Israel, so to speak, but that that is even foreshadowed to a greater kingdom which we see in Christ, and Christ is the fulfillment of all of these things. So when I talk about fulfillment theology, that’s kind of a another title for covenant theology. Keep this picture in your head. I think that’ll help you understand what I’m talking about. And that this is part of the I’m gonna stop sharing my screen here. This is actually what we’re talking about when we’re talking about progressive theology is the idea that there’s a covenantal structure to this and that each covenant built upon the previous one progressively revealing God’s redemptive purposes. And that there’s, like, actually a a lot of continuity between the old and the new testament. And, again, that’s one of the stark differences between the view that I would hold and those who have a dispensational view that while reformed, and I would say the even historic Christian view, even among historical premillennialists is to see a lot more continuity between the old and the new testament that dispensationalists see a lot of discontinuity.

Jacob Winograd [00:14:50]:
So in summary, I would say reformed understanding of progressive revelation sees the Bible as a unified narrative. God gradually reveals his nature and covenantal promises and ultimately establishes the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of of redemption and and new life in him. That these other covenants are sort of like building blocks or stepping stones that get us to that point and will help us to understand and contextualize that revealed truth. So that will then transition me to what I wanna talk about today. So now we’re gonna be effort spending so much time in the old testament. For previous episode, we’re gonna be shifting our focus to the new testament. And I wanna kinda make a point here toward 2 points. 1, I wanna make a point that what is taught in the old testament lines up with what’s taught at the new testament.

Jacob Winograd [00:15:45]:
And I wanna make a point that speaks to the millennial kingdom and the amillennial sort of fulfillment and partial predatorist view of this. But I also want to establish that the things I’m talking about, again, are held in agreement by church fathers and more modern contemporary or reformed theologians and that these understandings have been refined under time until this is, like, an extension of the idea of progressive revelation and to establish the idea that even, like, the reformed view isn’t some, like, invention of something new, but rather it’s you could say it’s almost harkening back to something old. So let’s dive into the teachings of the New Testament here. We’re gonna start in Matthew 5 and verses 17 through 18. Do not think I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is finished. So this is from the Sermon on the Mount, or or shortly after, I think, and he’s addressing his disciples and and the crowds.

Jacob Winograd [00:16:58]:
And, again, these verses would emphasize the continuity, right, between old and new and a fulfillment of the law and the prophets in Jesus’ work and ministry. And chapter 5 is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and, outlines the values and the ethics of the kingdom of heaven, and then verses 17 through 18 highlight Jesus’ role in fulfilling the old testament law and prophets. And this is so it’s underscoring the validity of God’s word and and Jesus is connecting himself to to that. RC Sproul, so it’s a more modern contemporary theologian from the reformed perspective. In one of his sermons on Matthew 5, Sproul says this, quote, so Jesus said, don’t think for a minute that I’ve come to demolish the law. I haven’t come to set it aside, but I have come to fulfill it. Now some people look at that and say, wow. What does he mean by to fulfill it? Well, certainly, Jesus fulfills the function of the law by obeying it at every point, and he also fulfills the teaching of the prophets by embodying all the future predictions that they made.

Jacob Winograd [00:18:08]:
And so this hearkens back to, again, the covenant theology idea that I I showed that depiction of from Redeemed Zoomer where it says that Jesus obeys he fulfills the function of the law by obeying at every point. Remember, they had that covenant of works. Well, Jesus fulfills the covenant of works. He’s the only one to do so. And it’s because of that that he is the one who can then establish the, you know, the the new covenant, which is the ultimate culmination of the covenant of grace. Now I wanna go now to a early church father. So I’ve given you a modern theologian. Now we’re gonna go back to John Chrysostom.

Jacob Winograd [00:18:48]:
In his homilies on Matthew, Chrysostom explains it this way, quote, the law he fulfilled, not in one way only, but in a second and third also. In one way, by transgressing none of the precepts of the law, for that he did fulfill it all, hear what he says to John, for thus, it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness. Now that’s a little wordy, but what he means there is kinda what Sproul just said that in this sort of one way that Jesus fulfills the law is that he doesn’t transgress any of the law and in that he fulfills this. And we are able to then be because we’re born again in Christ, we are able to be inheritors of the righteousness that Christ has. So we can’t fulfill the covenant of works, at least not directly, but it’s as if we do because we are covered by Christ and his righteousness, the which and he through that, he’s able to, fulfill the covenant of works. And to the Jews also, he said, which of you convinces me of sin? So he’s citing John 8 there. And to his disciples again, the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in me. And that’s a reference to John 14.

Jacob Winograd [00:20:08]:
And the prophet too from the first had said that he did no sin, and that’s harkening back to Isaiah 53. Continuing here with Chrysostom, this then was one sense in which he fulfilled it. Another, that he did the same through us also for this is the marvel that he not only himself fulfilled it, but he granted this to us likewise. So kinda continuing the same point there, but I kinda jumped the gun continuing, which Paul also declared, said, saying Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes, at Romans 10. And he also that he judged sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk after the flesh, to Romans 8. And, again, do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish the law. That’s Romans 3.

Jacob Winograd [00:21:07]:
For since the law was laboring at this to make man righteous, but had not power, he came and brought in the way of righteousness by faith and so established that which the law desired. And what the law could not by letters, this he accomplished by faith. And it’s on this account, he says, I am not come to destroy the law. Continuing with this is all Chrysostom, but if anyone will inquire accurately, he will also find another, a third sense in which this has been done. Of what sort is it then? In the sense of that future code of laws for which he was about to deliver them, for his sayings were no repeal of the former, but a drawing out and filling up of them. Thus, not to kill is not annulled by the saying, be not angry, but rather is filled up and put in greater security and so of all the others. And so this is a point I’ve made often about the Sermon on the Mount, which is that he’s not at all abolishing any of the old testament laws that he’s bringing up here, but he’s filling them up. He’s saying, it’s not good enough to just obey a letter of this law, but you need to understand the heart of it, and you need to be internally transformed and have this law written on your heart, not just have it be something you wear and adhere to in an external sense.

Jacob Winograd [00:22:29]:
Chrysostom adds this when he gets when his homily gets to verse 20 for Matthew 5. For I say unto you, unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall, in no case, enter into the kingdom of heaven. So that’s verse 20 that comes immediately after what the verses we we were reading from. I know Chrysostom writes this on that. So that from all considerations, it is clear that not from any badness in itself does it, the law, fail to bring us in, but because it is now the season of higher precepts. And if it be more imperfect than the new, neither does this imply it to be evil since upon this principle, the new law itself will be in the very same case. Because in truth, our knowledge of this when compared with that which is to come is a sort of partial and imperfect thing and is done away on the coming of that other. For when he says he that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

Jacob Winograd [00:23:35]:
1st Corinthians 1310, even as, it befell the old law through the new. Yet we are not to blame the new law for this, though this also gives place on our attaining unto the kingdom. For then, says he, that which is in part shall be done away, but for all this, we call it great. And since then this is all Chrysostom still. Since then both the rewards thereof are greater and the power given by the spirit more abundant. In reason, it requires our graces to be greater also. For it is no longer a land that flows with milk and honey, nor a comfortable old age, nor many children, nor grain and wine and flocks and herds, but heaven and the good things of heaven and adoption and brotherhood in the only begotten and to partake of the inheritance and to be glorified and to reign with him and those unnumbered rewards. And as to our having received more abundant help, here, Paul, when he says, there is therefore no condemnation now to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

Jacob Winograd [00:24:47]:
For the law of the spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin and death. Again, going back to Romans 8. John Chrysostom is emphasizing that right the righteousness required by Christ exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, introducing a stricter or more perfect form of the law. And he also discusses how then consequentially, logically, it follows that the rewards and the power in the new covenant surpasses those of the old, indicating that the new covenant does not discard the promises of the old, but rather fulfills them with greater spiritual blessings, and he explicitly connects us to the land. It is no longer a land, he says, but heaven and the good things in the heavens and the adoption and the brotherhood with the only begotten and to partake of the inheritance and to be glorified and to reign with him and those unnumbered rewards. So Chrysostom is saying this and this would go against the, you know, pre millennials, post millennials, and dispensationalists because it’s like, you know what? We can get so focused on the fleshly inheritances and and fleshly promises, and it’s not, Chrysostom was saying, it’s not doing away with the old to say that those are no longer what we get, but we get something greater than that, something that has been you know, these promises have been filled up and and superseded and and, sort of shifted to greater promises. I I’ve made comparisons before. Like, if I promise to give you a $100 and then I give you a new car, right, like, if I if I if I promise to, I don’t know, like like, help you do some work in your yard.

Jacob Winograd [00:26:31]:
Right? And I say, like, I’m gonna work for 1 hour, and then I work for 12 hours to do the whole job myself actually and do other things you didn’t ask me to do. It’s like we don’t break because so many people wanna take this and and call this replacement theology. Right? Like, you know, when god broke his promise, he didn’t fulfill it, and it’s not good enough to break a promise and make a new one. But it’s like god’s but by Chrysostom’s words here, not replacing, not doing away with, but rather the old promises were imperfect. They were partial. They were a shadow, and they have been filled up, perfected, and made greater in what Christ has done. And now our inheritance and the promises that are we are to be the on the receiving end of are he describes as unnumbered rewards. And that then they the promise of the old covenant are fulfilled with greater spiritual blessings, and this includes the land.

Jacob Winograd [00:27:35]:
Now to go back to not quite modern, but in the middle, not perfectly, but John Calvin. Now this isn’t from this is from old testament commentary. This is from his commentary on Deuteronomy, but he’s making a similar point. And so this is all tying together again. He addresses the in this commentary, the spiritual significance of the land promise, making a similar argument to Chrysostom. Here’s a excerpt from his commentary, quote, the land which god promised to give their fathers for which they had been expelled by their own fault and into which they were to be again restored by the free favor of god, this should also be referred to the kingdom of Christ in which we are all gathered together from the east and the west and that this restoration would not be confined to one people only, but that God himself would gather to himself his church from all parts of the world. So we see here that Calvin interprets the restoration to the land, which is talked about in Deuteronomy 30, saying this is in verse 4. If any of thine be driven out into the utmost parts of heaven, from then to the lord thy god gather thee, and from then he will fetch thee.

Jacob Winograd [00:28:43]:
And the lord thy god I don’t know I don’t know why I had this in the King James. I think it’s because this is what Calvin was reading from. And the lord thy god will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and he will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers. So Calvin’s interpreting this as the gathering of god’s church from and so the the restoration of the land points to the gathering of god’s church from all nations into the kingdom of Christ. And he emphasizes that the promise is ultimately spiritual, fulfilled in the inclusion of all believers. And since the the Jews, their dispersion into unknown countries, might have altogether annihilated their hope of restoration. Moses anticipates this doubt and teaches them that although they might be driven out driven out to the utmost regions of the earth, the infinite power of god sufficed to gather them from thence. As it is said in Psalms 1472, the lord doth build up Jerusalem, and he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.

Jacob Winograd [00:29:45]:
With this intent, the adverb from thence is twice repeated, lest they should imagine that the distance of place would be any impediment to the fulfillment of what god has promised. We have seen elsewhere that it is not without reason that their dwelling in the land of Canaan was magnified as a peculiar blessing because it behooved that until the time of Christ’s coming, the hope of eternal inheritance should be cherished by, in their minds by an earthly invisible symbol. So that was all Calvin again. And the, so Calvin’s acknowledging the, the physical land of Canaan was a symbol, and it served as a symbol for a greater spiritual reality. And he connects the old testament promise of land to the anticipation of the internal inheritance found in Christ, suggesting that the physical land was a temporary symbol pointing to a more profound spiritual fulfillment. And so we have church fathers and theologians from early, late, and in the middle, contemporary, and and past who are all demonstrating all these things I’ve talked about. Progressive revelation, the fulfillment of the old covenant in Christ and how this extends to the land and how our understanding should be not of these fulfillments always being not that they won’t have any like, I’m I’m not saying I’m a full. I’m not saying, like, you you don’t wanna be a gnostic and say the flesh is evil and that there’s no physical aspect to the new covenant or the the eschaton or the the ultimate culmination of God’s kingdom, but it’s not gonna be physical or literal or fleshly in the way that maps onto or mirrors what came before because that pointed to something greater.

Jacob Winograd [00:31:38]:
And so I think that’s a good place to end on that section. I also just wanted to quickly talk about you know, we passed 911 already. I didn’t talk about it much. And there’s recently been some some escalations of war in the Middle East with Israel and the war on Lebanon being an extension of this response to, Hamas in Gaza after October 7th last year, and we’re coming up on that as well. And, I mean, huge death tolls. I got this off antiwar.com. It was a series of massive air strikes on the routes, southern suburbs, and that was on Friday, which would have been the 27th. I’m recording this on 29th.

Jacob Winograd [00:32:24]:
And, yeah, I think the casualties were in the 100, at least in the in the last week sorry. In in in Lebanon, over several 100 people have been killed, including at least 50 children. 550 deaths reported on Monday alone, and then more attacks came at the end of the week. The death counts in Gaza continue to be, you know, catastrophically high. Listen. We’ve talked about this before. There’s there’s nothing redeemable about the actions of Hamas. Just like there’s nothing redeemable about the actions of Bin Laden.

Jacob Winograd [00:32:57]:
But we do have to understand that actions have consequences. And that when we sow we we sort of sow the seeds of terrorism when America or Israel or other western nations, when we decide to respond to problems or to advance our own interests through means which treat the people of these, you know, other areas of the world as sort of, like, just just fodder, just just disposable. I wanna read from when will we learn by Harry Brown. He wrote this on September 12, 2001. The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy, but they shouldn’t be a surprise. It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth. That during any war, truth is forsaken for propaganda, but sanity was a prior casualty. It was the loss of sanity that led to war in the first place.

Jacob Winograd [00:33:53]:
Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer for the sins of the guilty. When will we learn that we can’t allow our politicians to bully the world without someone eventually bullying back? And he talks about then how president Bush authorized continuing bombing of innocent people in Iraq, and then Clinton continue he’s president Bush senior, and then Clinton continued this as well in in Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. There was the invasion of Iraq and Panama. Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded Grenada. And we can think about even then about what Bush junior did, what Obama did in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Do we think, he said, do we think the people who lost their families and friends and and property and all that destruction would love America for what happened? When will we learn that violence always begets violence? And there’s so much more to there’s a little bit more of this article.

Jacob Winograd [00:34:56]:
I’m not gonna read the whole thing. I’ll have a link to it in the description. You guys should go read it if you haven’t ever. But the but that’s this is the lesson of blowback, and this is also the lesson of Romans 12 that we should not overcome evil with evil, but rather overcome evil with good. I’m not a pacifist. I do believe in the just use of force in self defense, but that should be targeted at the individuals who perpetuated the violence themselves. When we just justify our responses and the deaths of all these, you know, 100 and thousands of innocent civilians and children in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere throughout the last several decades called collateral damage, the price of war, war is hell, war is ugly. As Harry Brown mentioned, as Ron Paul had mentioned, as so many people have tried to point out, you can’t just continue to blow up people’s families and friends and expect no consequence for that.

Jacob Winograd [00:35:54]:
Paul Buchanan talked about this years ago and, you know, back when there was bombings in Gaza in in the, early 2000 and said, you are creating the terrorists of of that that will attack you in in 15 years, and it was downright prophetic that, you know, when you’re raised in a, you know, second, 3rd world world environment, not allowed to leave, and all you can remember growing up is that you lost your mother. You lost your father. You lost your children. You lost your uncle. You lost your neighbor to to drone strikes and and and soldiers and bombs and war and constant occupation, we are creating the conditions for people to be radicalized. Because you know what? You or me in those same position, we would likely be radicalized as well. And that’s the lesson of history. This extends far beyond the conflict in the Middle East, and it is a lesson for us Christians to contemplate, which is that while I’m not a pacifist, we do need to understand that force is not often a great solution to our problems, and that force needs to be measured when it is used.

Jacob Winograd [00:36:58]:
And that we need to be holding governments and holding people, leaders of the world, holding militaries to be in the pursuit of peace, to be pursuing peace and in all possible avenues, exhausting all possible efforts before resorting to violence and making sure the response when it is necessary to use force is measured and calculated and precise. Otherwise, we will continue to find ourselves in a cycle of violence, and there will be 100 of 1,000 and 1,000,000 killed in the in already have been killed and continue to be killed in the years to come. And that’ll be done in the name of America, a western nation, which people identify, for better or worse, as a Christian nation. And so these bombs being dropped on these men, women, and children are being connected to our lord and savior Jesus Christ. And that is well, there’s a lot of words I could use to use to describe it, but it is something that that should grieve us. It is taking the Lord’s name in vain that when he says, let the little children come onto me. When he says, that which you’ve done for the least of these, you’ve done onto me. Well, what we’re doing to the least of these and the children that Jesus says to let them come to him is that we’re blowing them to bits, and it’s time to stop.

Jacob Winograd [00:38:18]:
It is time for Christians to to start remembering the prophetic tradition that we inherit to to hold governments and leaders and the kingdoms of this world to account to the one true king, to the lord god, and to say that you cannot just perpetuate injustice and violence without end. And we need to be calling for peace. We should be at the front of these antiwar movement calling for peace because we worship the prince of peace who is going to bring priest peace to the nations. And that is what our hope is, and it’s far off, but we also know that the kingdom of God is now as well and that we should be doing what we can to proclaim that reality and to work to make that reality more possible. Not a physical kingdom reigning on earth, but that it’d be a reign of peace, a reign of justice, a reign of love, and understanding of the grace that we are all living under and that would inspire us to live more righteous as Jesus exhorted us to do on the Sermon of the Mount. So that’s all I have for you guys today. Hopefully, you enjoy this normal sized episode, not bloated hour long episodes, but we’ll continue on to some more new covenant stuff. In the next episode, let me know how you like this format, breaking things up a little bit, and subscribe.

Jacob Winograd [00:39:35]:
Like this if you haven’t already, and that’s it. Live at peace. Live for Christ. Take care.

 

LCI uses automated transcripts from various sources. If you see a significant error, please let us know. 

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