A New Commentary on the Book of Revelation by Dr William Dumbrell

On 21 June 2011 Redeemer Baptist Press held a book launch at historic Castle Hill House in Castle Hill, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, for Dr William J. Dumbrell’s latest commentary Revelation: Visions for Today: A New Covenant Commentary.

In launching his book, Dr Dumbrell spoke about the importance of seeing the bigger picture of the Bible, and the place of the book of Revelation in helping us in this task. Pursuing the basic message of the Bible is a task that Dr Dumbrell has actively been working on since the 1970s.

According to Dumbrell, we need to read the whole of the Bible before reading the parts. The Bible proclaims an ultimate destination for the human race, and tells us how to get there. The Bible traces a movement from Eden in the garden to Eden restored in the new Jerusalem. The various parts of the Bible, therefore, need to be read and understood in the light of this basic biblical-theological trajectory. In particular, the New Testament needs to be read with the Old Testament in mind, hence Dr Dumbrell’s desire to write commenaries on the New Testament despite his renown as a scholar of the Old.

“Evil, conquered by the cross, will finally be eliminated from human experience. New covenant believers will therefore experience the divine purpose and provision of life in a new Eden” (William J. Dumbrell, Revelation: Visions for Today: A New Covenant Commentary).

The Universal Rule of Christ according to Psalm 2

The British Empire at its height commanded 20% of the world’s land surface and over a quarter of the world’s population. They used to say: “The sun will never set on the British Empire.” But historically with the fall of Singapore the British Empire started to unravel. This retreat of Britain from its colonies in Asia was completed in 1997 when Hong Kong was handed back to China.

The truth is that superpowers come and go. With the fall of the Soviet Empire, America is now the undisputed world superpower, but the question is: For how long?

I’m no prophet, but it seems like China is on its way to becoming the next world superpower. It’ll be interesting to see (provided the world doesn’t end in the meantime) who China sides with: with the West, or with the Muslim world whose oil is so important to China’s future development?

But whoever is the superpower of tomorrow, there’s one thing for certain: they won’t be a superpower forever.

King Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of Babylon, which was the superpower of the Ancient Near East back in the sixth century B.C., is recorded in the Bible at the height of his reign walking on the roof of the royal palace in Babylon, proud of his achievements. Looking down upon the vista of his kingdom below, he said: “Isn’t this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” (Dan 4:30). But while these words were in the king’s mouth, a voice from heaven announced to him that he would shortly be driven out from human society to live in the fields like a wild animal, eating grass, “until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Dan 4:31–32).

Nebuchadnezzar eventually learnt his lesson, and came to acknowledge that God’s “dominion is an everlasting dominion, and [that] his kingdom [alone] endures [forever]” (Dan 4:34); but sadly not everyone is willing to submit to this truth.

In Ps 2:1–3 David reflects upon the empty rebellion of the world against God. He begins in v. 1 by asking a question: “Why do the nations throng tumultuously and the peoples devise empty schemes?” The nations are like a thronging crowd or raging mob, raising their fists in the air against God. But why do they do this? Is it possible to successfully oppose the Creator of this universe? It doesn’t make sense. It’s a futile act.

And yet “the kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers sit close together, against Yahweh and his anointed.” The nations are led in this rebellion by their rulers (Ps 2:2). Their rulers sit closely together to take counsel and to devise their plans. They are united in their opposition against God and his anointed one, the Messiah, which translated into Greek is the Christos, the Christ. And their plan is to rebel against God’s authority.

In Ps 2:3 the content of their plan can be seen: “Let’s tear apart their bonds, and cast their ropes from us.” Their obligations of submission and service to God are pictured as bonds to be broken, as ropes to be cast off.

If God is the Creator of the world, and if Jesus Christ is God’s chosen King, then it is simply the height of arrogance to think that we can escape the rule of God.

And yet the nations and their rulers still seek to rebel against God. Back in May 2011 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program Foreign Correspondent presented a story on the persecution of religion in China. The story is called True Believers, and is well worth watching. The larger part of the story focuses on the rapid growth of Christianity in China, and some of the attempts of the Chinese government to hinder the growth of underground churches.

But whether it be state sponsored opposition like in China, outright prohibition like in Saudi Arabia, or the scoffing ridicule of atheistic progressives in the West, truth be told, thinking you can successfully rebel against God is totally ridiculous.

Psalm 2:4–6 records God’s response to such opposition: “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord mocks them. Then he will speak to them in his anger and dismay them in his fury: ‘But I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain.’”

God’s attitude to those who oppose him is basically to laugh at their puny efforts. Imagine what an elephant might think on learning that the bunch of ants in front of him was planning to capture and destroy him. An elephant scared of ants? Not likely.

Any such efforts on the part of human beings are but “empty schemes” as Ps 2:1 indicates. Seriously, you reckon you can take on God and win? Don’t you realize that God is the one who created this universe? He only has to open his mouth, and whatever he wills happens. To take on God is pure stupidity. Whoever opposes God will definitely lose.

But laughing at the puny efforts of humans to rebel against him isn’t the totality of God’s response. In Ps 2:5, David prophesies that one day God will act against those who oppose him. One day God will speak clearly, and reveal his anger. On that day God’s wrath against the rebellious will be evident for all to see; and, according to Ps 2:6, God will point to the rule of Christ in Zion, which is Jerusalem, as proof of his sovereignty.

Think about it: the world’s opposition to God and his Messiah reached its climax at the cross when God’s Messiah, Jesus, was brutally killed. The rulers of the Jews at the time, symbolizing the attitude of the nations to God, scoffed at the man hanging on the cross. If you’re the Son of God, come down off the cross! You saved others; can’t you save yourself? Come down, and we’ll believe you! The Roman soldiers also mocked him. But these mocking voices were not the last word. You think you can rebel against me? You think you can destroy the Messiah? Well then, you’ve got another think coming! Witness the resurrection of my Messiah! Witness his ascension into heaven! Witness his enthronement at my right hand on the throne of Messiah! Witness the expansion of his rule throughout the world!

According to Ps 2, the installation of the Messiah as King at the right hand of the Father in heaven is the key event in God’s response to human rebellion. It was only after great opposition that he came to the throne; but having ascended the throne of highest power in the heights of heaven, there is no power or authority on earth that will be able to oppose him. As the Son of Man prophecy in Dan 7 makes clear: “behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan 7:13–14).

In Ps 2:7–9, David recalls the decree, the abiding law, that God has made concerning the Messiah: “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give the nations as your inheritance and the ends of the earth as your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; like a potter’s vessel you will smash them.”

Psalm 2:7 links God’s installation of his King in Zion with God’s proclamation of the sonship of the Messiah. Jesus’ ascension and enthronement in heaven marks the commencement of his rule in Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem. Jesus’ ascension and enthronement in heaven is proof that he is the only begotten Son of the Father. As the Apostle Peter in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 observed, the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit on the church is proof that Jesus has been “exalted at the right hand of God,” and that Jesus has been made “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:33, 36). Jesus, the Son of Man is Christ, the Son of God. Jesus is God’s chosen King, and the fulfillment of the ancient Chinese ideal of Shèngmíng Tiãnzĭ (圣明天子), the enlightened Son of Heaven, the perfect ruler who brings peace and harmony throughout his kingdom.

Ascended on high, Jesus the Messiah has become the Son of God in power; and enthroned as the risen Lord in heaven, Jesus has the right, according to God’s plan, to ask God the Father to give him the nations of the world as his inheritance, the ends of the earth as his possession. This is why you have various languages represented when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church at Pentecost. This is why we have Jews, Samaritans, Greeks, and Romans responding to the gospel in the book of Acts. The book of Acts records the beginning of the Messiah’s work to take control over the nations, the commencement of the messianic work of bringing Planet Earth back in submission to the rightful rule of God.

According to Ps 2:9, the Messiah will exercise strong rule over the nations. Any nation that opposes the rule of Messiah will be broken with a rod of iron, and smashed like a piece of pottery.

All in all, Ps 2:7–9 describe the universal rule of Christ; and this is the political reality that is currently being worked out in human history. The big political issue of the world today isn’t the politics of East versus West, or the politics of climate change. The biggest political issue of the world today is responding appropriately to the new political reality that stems from the fact of the enthronement of Jesus as King over the whole of the Planet Earth after his ascension into heaven.

Now if it is true that Jesus is the King of the world, how should we respond? David spells this out in vv. 10–12 of this psalm.

According to Ps 2:10 the rulers of the world are to be wise and to be warned. The truth that Jesus is Lord has implications for the leaders of every nation on earth. It applies as equally to Prime Minister of England as to the President of the United States, and even the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Wisdom here involves sniffing the political wind, understanding who is the ascendant political power in the world today, and submitting oneself to this political power in genuine service. The rulers of the earth need to stop rebelling against the rule of God that God is exercising through Jesus.

And if this applies to the leaders of the world, it also applies to ordinary individuals. God wants all human beings to be wise. He wants us to understand the truth, and to repent of our feeble attempts at rebellion. If it is true that Jesus is the Christ, the King of the world, and that anyone who stubbornly opposes him will be crushed, then the wise response is obvious.

In fact, David spells out the proper response in Ps 2:11–12: “Serve Yahweh in fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way; for his anger burns quickly. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

God is strong and powerful. He is mighty and majestic. Realistically acknowledging the power and authority of God is to fear him. This fear leads us to submission and to service. And this is David’s strong recommendation in v. 11: “Serve Yahweh in fear”! Because God is the powerful Creator of everything, we need to submit to him, and serve him. God inspires fear in all who know him, but at the same time serving him is a wonderful privilege. Think about it: you are being invited to come before the King of creation to enter into his service. There is no higher calling! Pursuing this privilege, serving the one true God, is a joyful occupation; but one that we dare not take lightly. It is mingled with fear and trembling. God fills us with joy, but at the same time he is awesome and scary!

In Ps 2:12 David links this submission to God with submission to the Messiah. Serving God means kissing the Son. But what does it mean to kiss the Son? The kissing in view here is an act of obeisance. It’s like bowing down before the king. To kiss the Son is to acknowledge the superiority of the Son of God. It is an act of submission and a pledge of obedience to God’s chosen regent on earth.

And this is significance of Ps 2 for the world today. God calls upon everyone throughout the world to serve him by submitting to his Son, the Messiah.

In a nutshell, submission to Christ is what Christianity is all about. The central truth of Christianity is the confession that Jesus is Lord (Rom 10:9). God has decreed with a decree that cannot be altered that the world must submit to the Son of God, the anointed one, the Messiah. We cannot submit to God without submitting to the Son of God. We cannot experience true blessing without turning to Jesus as a our place of refuge and safety. As the author of Hebrews says in Heb 5:9: Jesus is “the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.”

So the question for every person alive today is: Have you kissed the Son of God yet? Have you come in submission to Jesus Christ? Have you confessed that Jesus is Lord, and are you submitting today to his rule over your life?

Every single person on this planet has need of such submission, for this is the only pathway to blessing. David reminds us in Ps 2:12 that if we don’t submit to the Messiah, then we will be destroyed when God’s anger burns forth. God is slow to anger, but if we push him too far “his wrath is quickly kindled.”

In the light of the primary political reality of our world, the gospel message is a call for every single person living on Planet Earth today to confess that Jesus is Lord.

The truth is that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is King over the nations. This is a fact seen in the multi-ethnic nature of the church throughout the world. The Christian church is made up of people of different cultural backgrounds who are united under the one rule of Jesus the King. As the Apostle Paul has said: “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). From as far afield as the cathedral villages of Europe, the bustling cities of Asia, the great plains of Africa, and the sunburnt outback of Australia, there are people in every country on the face of our earth who know this truth: that Jesus is Lord. They have seen the new political paradigm, and understood that submission to Christ is the wise way forward and the key to blessing.

As Christian brothers and sisters in China and other countries know, at times confessing that Jesus is Lord is not an easy thing to do. But this is how things were even back in the beginning. To go around saying that Jesus is Lord was for the early Christians a potentially dangerous and subversive act, because it clashed with the political reality of that day, where Caesar, the Roman emperor, was ordinarily acknowledged as κύριος, i.e., as Lord. Many Christians suffered in those early days because Caesar did not like the fact that the Christians acknowledged someone apart from him as κύριος. How ironic that in the space of less than 300 years, the Roman emperor himself would come to acknowledge that Jesus indeed is Lord.

And surely history has proven Emperor Constantine right. Wherever you go on this planet, there are people who have come in obedience and submission, acknowledging that Jesus is the King.

What king in world history has had more subjects than King Jesus? What king in world history has been acknowledged as king by people of every country on this planet? History itself proves that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is the King of kings and Lord of lords. To swim against the tide of history is useless. The wise thing to do is to submit to Jesus as Lord and to serve him forever.

Jesus Our Swimming Instructor

The dark bottle-green liquid pierced by the occasional shaft of sunlight. As a child I stood near the ferry terminals at the quay looking down into the watery green unknown. The image haunts me still.

How many of us have looked down into deep water, and thought, “I wonder what's down there”? It really is the dark unknown, the green liquid covering like a blanket an unknown world full of strange creatures and mottled light.

As a child nothing frightened me more than the thought of falling alone into this green unknown. The thought of everything below me. Below could see me, but I couldn’t see below!

And even though I’m grown up now, the thought of floating alone in the harbor still frightens me. The thought of my legs dangling below, with who knows how many fathoms down to the murky bottom.

If only it were just a thought and not reality!

Ever since our first parents believed the lie, and followed the serpent out into the green unknown, we’ve all been dreaming, just like shipwrecked men who satisfy their stomachs by dreaming of succulent dishes. We imagine that we’re really back on land, and that the water surrounding us is just a momentary unpleasantry akin to rain from a passing cloud.

Some cloud! A cloud that has overshadowed the false dream of human existence for thousands of years, since virtually the beginning.

But I’ve had enough of that dream that humanity can forge a better destiny for itself apart from its Creator. The dream’s had it. It’s as false an idea as a mouthful of gravel making a satisfying meal.

My legs are dangling below, and I know it. I know it, and I hate it. I know that I’m not the master of my own destiny that secular humanism says I am. This world and all its problems are too big for me, like the dark mass of the harbor below. And I want out. I want to walk on land, and not just dream about it.

Yet to think that there was one man who left his haven on the shore to plunge into the darkness of the deep to come to us and save us. He came to comfort us in the midst of the dark green unknown of life in a confusing world, and to teach us how to swim and how to reach God’s haven. Yet that we might understand more of what he has done for us, how he sacrificed his life to the deep that we might have safe passage to the shore. That we might see all the more that apart from him our bones are doomed to feed the creatures of the dark bottle-green liquid, to see that apart from a commitment to his way of life we have no hope whatsoever, our dreams simply delusions.

Friends, in this life it’s either sink or swim, and swimming is much to be preferred over sinking. Listen to words of your swim instructor. Listen to the words of Jesus. Follow his instructions, and swim with all of your might. For a time the green fathoms of hurt and confusion and sin and despair will still surround you; but you’ll be heading in the right direction, with Jesus to guide and encourage you, until you reach the safety of the eternal shore. And then finally we will be able … to rest.

Salvation in Jesus: A Summary of the Christian Gospel

God is the Supreme Being in all of reality. He is eternal and all-powerful. He created everything in the universe, including us human beings. The first human beings originally lived in a holy garden in the presence of God, but they were responsible to obey God’s commandments in order to continue in the blessing of life until the fullness of eternal life came upon them.

But the first human beings rebelled against God, and fell into sin. God, who is holy and pure, expelled sinful humanity from his presence. The consequence of this is that the human race lost the blessing of life, and must now live in a chaotic and dangerous world that is under God’s curse.

But God, because of his love for the world that he has made, had a plan to restore the blessing of life to the world and to save sinful humanity. According to this plan, just over 2,000 years ago God himself entered into the world in the person of the Lord Jesus. While in the world, the Lord Jesus taught the truth and accomplished salvation, rescuing humanity from sin and eternal death. Jesus accomplished this salvation by sacrificing his sinless life through his death on the cross, in order to pay for our sins. On the third day after his death, the Lord Jesus came back to life from the dead, and appeared to his disciples during forty days, after which he ascended into heaven. Thanks to his ascension into heaven, humanity, with Jesus as our leader, is finally able to return into the presence of God and to experience the blessing of eternal life.

In the light of what God has done through Jesus, God now calls upon every person to receive salvation by submitting to the lordship of Jesus. Those who submit to Jesus receive the gift of God’s Holy Spirit, who enables them to experience the blessing of eternal life.

God has appointed a day when the Lord Jesus will return to earth in order to judge every person. Those among Jesus’ disciples who have been faithful will then enter into the fullness of the blessing of eternal life, whereas those disciples who have been unfaithful to Jesus, along with everyone else who has been in rebellion against God, will experience eternal punishment in hell.

In order to avoid eternal punishment, we need to receive salvation by submitting to the lordship of Jesus. Submitting to Jesus’ lordship can be summarized as involving three things: faith, repentance, and baptism.

(1) Faith is accepting the truth about Jesus in God’s plan of salvation as revealed in God’s word, the Bible (as summarized above).

(2) Repentance is acknowledging our sins before God, and endeavoring in his strength to abandon our sinful way of life, in order to live in a way that pleases God through obedience to his commandments.

(3) Baptism is the Christian rite of initiation. Through baptism, a person confesses one’s belief that Jesus is the King of the universe, and receives the salvation that Jesus has come to give. Through baptism, a person officially becomes a disciple of the Lord Jesus and a member of the Christian church. Baptism is ordinarily performed by a designated leader in the Christian community. After confessing one’s faith in Jesus as Lord, the person being baptized is immersed in water, or has water poured or sprinkled over one’s head, as a symbol of cleansing from sin, of the reception of the Holy Spirit, and new life.

Having submitted to Jesus as Lord through faith, repentance, and baptism, all Christians need to live as faithful disciples of Jesus. This involves persevering in faith and repentance until the end of one’s life. On the day of judgment those who have lived as faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus will receive their eternal resurrection bodies, and experience the fullness of life in the presence of God forever.

Tsedaqah Righteousness in Amos

There are three instances of צדקה in Amos, and two instances of the adjective צדיק, but no instances of צדק as a noun or verb. In all three instances of צדקה, the noun is paired with משפט (justice). For Amos, it seems that צדקה is used primarily to denote judicial righteousness, or else active righteousness that has judicial justice at its core.

The first instance of צדקה in Amos is found in Amos 5:7. This verse is has some textual and exegetical difficulties. Taking the Masoretic Text as is—ההפכים ללענה משפט וצדקה לארץ הניחו—the verse seems to translate as “you who turn justice into wormwood, and set righteousness to the earth.”

Amos 5:1–17 is the third of three discourses in the middle of the book of Amos. These discourses can be delineated thanks to the recurrent expression “hear this word” in Amos 3:1; 4:1; 5:1. The third discourse can be further divided into a lament over the coming military defeat of Israel (5:1–3) and a call to repentance (5:4–17). The seek me and live refrain in 5:4, 6, 14 recalls the life language of Moses in Deuteronomy (e.g., Deut 30:19–20), but occurs here as a call to repentance. Israel was to seek Yahweh, but not at the illegitimate centres of worship at Bethel or Gilgal, or even at the shrine in Beersheba in Judah (5:5). In this context, 5:7 seems to function basically as a vocative expression of indictment. The call in 5:10–12, 15 to “establish justice at the gate” and to stop oppressing the poor suggests that the content of v. 7 is characterizing wealthy Israelite society as abusing the legal system, turning it into an instrument of bitter oppression over the poor and needy. If this is so, then the parallel of צדקה with משפט in v. 7 suggests that צדקה here particularly denotes judicial righteousness rather than the more general idea of active righteousness. Yet judicial righteousness cannot be totally divorced from active righteousness. Judicial righteousness is an expression of active righteousness in a judicial context, as well as being that which defends and fosters active righteousness within society.

This interpretation of the Masoretic Text makes good sense, but it should be noted that the LXX translation of Amos 5:7 is rather different: “the Lord is he who makes justice on high, and he has established righteousness in the earth.” The LXX takes κύριος as the subject of the clauses in the verse, and looks to have read ללענה as למעלה (εἰς ὕψος). In the end, I reckon that the use of ללענה in combination with צדקה in Amos 6:12 (see below) supports the Masoretic Text rather than the LXX at his point.

The next occurrence of צדקה in Amos occurs in the woe oracle (5:18–27) that follows the third discourse (i.e., 5:1–17). The coming day of Yahweh would be a time of judgment against those who do evil, meaning that the day of the Yahweh would actually be a day of “darkness … and gloom” for Israel (5:18, 20). The reason for this was because God was not pleased with Israel’s cultic worship (5:21–23). Why? Because their worship (apart from being exercised at various illegal shrines around the country) was hypocritical. This is evident from the content of 5:24 when Yahweh calls upon Israel to “let justice roll like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” The practice of worshiping Yahweh without a genuine righteousness expressed in their way of life was to make a mockery of the cult and the relationship with Yahweh that was maintained through it. It is probably best to take צדקה here in the more general sense of active righteousness, although in the wider context—i.e., given the relative proximity of 5:24 to 5:7, and the use of ויגל (and let it roll) in 5:24 that harks back to the word play with הגלגל (Gilgal) and גלה יגלה (it will surely go into exile)—a denotation of judicial righteousness, or at least to see judicial righteousness as the primary focus of צדקה here, is also a strong possibility.

The final instance of צדקה in Amos occurs in Amos 6:12. The wording of the clauses that pair משפט and צדקה is quite similar to the reference from Amos 5:7: “Will horses run on a cliff, or will someone plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.” This verse occurs within an oath oracle (Amos 6:8–14) which speaks of the certainty of judgment upon the strongholds of Israel and “the pride of Jacob” (v. 8), which is most likely a reference to the city of Samaria. The similarity between this verse and Amos 5:7 suggests that צדקה as judicial righteousness is probably in focus, but once again the more general sense of active righteousness is not impossible.

Overall, how delimited צדקה is in these three instances in Amos is completely dependent on the context, and weighing up the context is often a משפט of probabilities.

Understanding the Old and New Covenants in Biblical Covenant Theology

A biblical theology that is truly biblical must necessarily deal with the biblical concept of covenant. This means that a biblical theology that is truly biblical will necessarily be a kind of covenant theology. This is necessarily so because of the way in which God has used covenants to structure his relationship with Israel and indeed all of humanity.

When thinking of covenant theology, a question arises concerning the legitimacy of the system of theology involving the covenant of works and the covenant of grace that is taught in the Westminster Confession. My opinion is that the distinction between a covenant of works in the garden of Eden and a postlapsarian covenant of grace that is taught in the Westminster Confession is helpful provided it is understood and applied in a manner consistent with the biblical description of God’s prelapsarian and postlapsarian dealings with humanity. For example, it is not correct to assume that the human obligation of obedience (i.e., works) in the garden means that there was no such thing as non-redemptive grace in the garden. Furthermore, given that the Old Testament establishes the framework of the covenant theology of the Bible, any covenant theology that is truly biblical must be consistent with the Old Testament teaching on the covenants as revealed in various key texts such as the book of Deuteronomy.

If by a covenant of works we understand that there could be no blessing in the garden of Eden without perfect obedience to the word of God, then the term covenant of works can be a helpful concept. And if by the covenant of grace we understand that blessing in the postlapsarian world is conditional upon a positive but imperfect response to the word of God in the context of atoning grace (what the Westminster Confession calls faith), then this can also be a helpful term.

But there is more to the covenant theology of the Bible than just a distinction between a so-called covenant of works and a covenant of grace. As the advocates of new covenant theology assert, it should be recognized that the primary covenantal distinction in the Bible and in Paul is not the distinction between the so-called covenant of works and the covenant of grace, but the distinction between the old covenant in Moses and the new covenant in Christ. Yet the advocates of new covenant theology are also mistaken when they deny that the old covenant was a covenant of grace.

The old covenant versus new covenant distinction that is present in the Bible is ultimately a distinction between different administrations of God’s singular gracious dealings with his people. The old covenant is a covenant of grace because the offer of the forgiveness of sins in Christ was proleptically communicated to the righteous within Israel through the Mosaic sacrificial system. Because atonement was offered to Israel as part of the Mosaic sacrificial system, the old covenant must be distinguished from the Adamic administration under which there was no system of atonement but only the punishment of death in the case of sin. It is important to recognize, therefore, that the personal covenantal obligation of the people of Israel was not perfect obedience. Although it is true that no one can live in the presence of God without moral perfection, the grace of the old covenant is seen in the fact that this need for moral perfection was not required of the nation or of the individual members of the covenant per se, but graciously provided by God through the sacrificial system, which functioned as a means by which the perfect righteousness of Christ could be imputed proleptically to the old covenant saints.

But even though the old covenant was a covenant of grace, it is important to understand that God laid down a condition for the people of Israel that to benefit from the grace offered as part of the covenant the people were required to exhibit faith on both a national and an individual level, where faith is understood to mean a holistic commitment to the whole word of God as revealed through Moses and the prophets. Furthermore, it is necessary to understand that, because God’s old covenant revelation is characteristically described in the Old Testament as law, the proper holistic response of faith is frequently spoken of in the Old Testament (as it has been in orthodox Judaism throughout the centuries) as doing the law. This means that the old covenant is described in the Bible as being a gracious covenant that requires the works of covenant obedience (i.e., holistic covenant faith) on the part of Israel. In the context of the grace of atonement offered through the Mosaic sacrificial system, these works of covenant obedience consisted of a persevering commitment to the covenant with God and its stipulations. In other words, the old covenant was a conditional covenant of grace. The condition of the Mosaic covenant was faith; but this faith was understood in holistic terms, and primarily expressed using the language of hearing and doing, i.e., covenant obedience.

Despite the fact that the old covenant was a covenant of grace, it is also important to understand that the conditional nature of the old covenant meant that Israel’s lack of commitment to the Mosaic covenant on a national level resulted in the old covenant becoming a covenant of condemnation, with the law of Moses functioning primarily as a “law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). Even those who had kept faith with God under the old covenant were caught up in the condemnation of the nation as a whole. They were unable to experience eschatological justification and the fullness of covenant blessing because of the covenant rebellion of the majority. In this way, the old covenant ironically but providentially proved to be a replication of the so-called (Adamic) covenant of works, even though it was a covenant of grace. Hence, Paul’s teaching that “the law [of Moses] was added to increase the trespass [of Adam]” (Rom 5:20), and that “by the works of the law all flesh will not be justified” (Rom 3:20). That is to say, because of Israel’s failure as a nation in keeping covenant faith with God (i.e, because of their failure to keep the law of Moses), the old covenant was unable to bring eschatological justification and the fullness of salvation and blessing to humanity.

But this failure of the old covenant to achieve the fullness of covenant blessing for humanity was part of God’s plan. The so-called pedagogical function of the law is properly to be found in the idea that the failure of Israel under the law of Moses highlights the need for the new covenant in Christ as the solution to the problem of human sin that is described in the Old Testament. There was grace present in the old covenant, but a greater work of God’s grace was necessary for the fullness of salvation to be achieved. This new work of grace through the new covenant in Christ was clearly prophesied in the Old Testament, where it is taught that God would establish a new covenant by sending Christ, his suffering but Spirit-filled Servant, to make atonement for God’s people, and to break the power of sin on the cross, who thereupon would pour out the Holy Spirit to effect the circumcision of the hearts of not only the people of Israel but Gentiles as well, so that many people of many nations might be brought to faith in Christ, and experience the grace of forgiveness from God, so that God’s promise of the blessing of the nations in Abraham might be fulfilled.

Because Old Testament prophecy speaks of the new covenant as effecting the proper response that was required of Israel but lacking under the old covenant, and because the new covenant is portrayed as being the fulfillment of the old covenant, the new covenant in Christ exhibits the same covenant dynamics as the old covenant. Thus, the condition for benefiting from the grace of God offered in Christ likewise is faith, but in the new covenant age this is to be understood as a holistic commitment to the whole new word of God as revealed through Christ and his apostles. This contrasts with the holistic commitment to God’s word in the law of Moses under the old covenant. In the transition from the old covenant to the new, there is, therefore, a change in the mediators and content of covenant law; but this is not to be understood as if Moses and Christ are opposed to each other. Old covenant law commanded that when the Messiah appeared, Israel and the nations must submit to his authority and obey his word (Deut 18:15, 19; Ps 2:10–12). With the coming of the new covenant in Christ, therefore, the old covenant has been superseded. Indeed, the old covenant has now become more comprehensively a covenant of condemnation than what it proved to be for old covenant Israel previously, because maintaining a primary allegiance to Moses even though the Messiah has come is to deny the lordship of Christ and constitutes rebellion against God. Hence, Paul’s teaching that justification is by faith in Christ and no longer by the works of the Mosaic law (Rom 10:5–6).

The new covenant, therefore, like the old covenant, is a conditional covenant of grace; but the new covenant will succeed where the old covenant failed precisely because Christ will work through the power of the Holy Spirit to ensure that the new covenant community (as a whole) will fulfill the covenant condition of holistic faith. Those individuals who exhibit the right response of faith under the new covenant experience the grace of justification in the present, and will (on condition on perseverance in faith) be justified by God on the day of judgment, and thereby qualified to live eternally in God’s holy presence, experiencing the fullness of salvation and covenant blessing forever more.

Tsedeq Righteousness in Ezekiel

In a previous post (see “Tsedeq Righteousness in the Pentateuch”) we observed that the Hebrew noun צדק can denote what is right in a judicial context and also in business dealings. The noun צדק occurs four times in the book of Ezekiel, and it confirms the situation regarding צדק observed in the Pentateuch while adding a new sense to the word that is important in the Prophets and the Writings.

The first instance of צדק in Ezekiel occurs in Ezek 3:20 in the context of Ezekiel’s call to be a watchman over the house of Israel: “When a righteous man turns from his righteousness (מצדקו), and does iniquity, and I set a stumbling block before him, he shall die.” Turning from one’s צדק is linked here with doing עול (iniquity). Furthermore, as a result of such apostasy, “his righteous deeds (צדקתיו) which he has done shall not be remembered.” In this verse, therefore, צדק seems to denote right behavior.

In Ezek 45:10 צדק occurs three times in the one verse. In the context of the eschatological vision of Ezek 40–48 God says: “You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath.” The content of this verse is very similar to Lev 19:36: “You shall have just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin.” The effect of this is to portray the eschatological age as being one characterized by צדק. Weights and measures, and business transactions in general, will (in the age to come) reflect צדק, the quality of that which is right or correct.

Tsedaqah Righteousness in the Former Prophets

The noun צדק does not occur in the Former Prophets, but the related term צדקה occurs twelve times in this section of the Old Testament canon. Previously (see “Tsedaqah Righteousness in Genesis” and “Tsedaqah Righteousness in Deuteronomy”) we have noted that צדקה can be used to denote right behavior (active righteousness), the legal status of being in the right that flows from right behavior (stative righteousness), or the judicial act of establishing what is right (judicial righteousness or justice).

In 2 Sam 8:15 David is described in ideal terms as being a king who “does justice and righteousness for all his people.” The king also functioned as the highest judge in the land, and was required to execute justice by pronouncing legal judgments that accord with God’s standards of what is right. This verse links righteousness (צדקה) very closely with justice (משפט). By coming to correct legal decisions, David did צדקה in the sense that his judicial pronouncements defended and established what was morally and legally correct for those who sought justice from his court.

צדקה also occurs on the lips of Saul’s grandson, Mephibosheth. When David returned to Jerusalem after the rebellion of Absalom had ended, Mephibosheth went to see David, and was questioned by David as to why he had not accompanied him when he had left Jerusalem while fleeing from Absalom. In response, Mephibosheth explained how his servant Ziba had told lies about him to David, but he was prepared for David to deal with his case however David saw fit: “my lord the king is as an angel of God, so do what is good in your eyes. For all my father’s house were nothing but dead men before my lord the king, yet you have set your servant among those who eat at your own table. What right (צדקה) therefore do I have to cry out again to the king?” (2 Sam 19:27–28). Mephibosheth’s צדקה at this point is his right to call for the execution of צדקה for himself personally on the basis that צדקה was lacking in his regard (on account of the injustice of Ziba’s slander). Having received mercy previously from the hands of David, Mephibosheth felt that he was in no position to demand צדקה from David this time around.

צדקה as active righteousness occurs in 1 Kgs 3:6. Here Solomon speaks in prayer to God concerning his father, David, who is described by Solomon as being someone who walked before Yahweh “in truth (אמת) and in righteousness (צדקה) and in the uprightness of heart (ישרת לבב).” An upright heart is a morally good heart; and the heart being the integrating center of the human psyche in biblical anthropology, a right heart naturally results in right behavior. Such צדקה is אמת in the sense of being that which accords with the accepted standard of behavior, i.e., behavior that actualizes what a person has obligated oneself to do. For David, his צדקה was his covenant faithfulness to God. As a member of Israel in covenant with God, David’s walking in righteousness consisted of him living in a manner consistent with the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant.

צדקה also occurs on the lips of the Queen of Sheba. The queen on her visit to Israel acknowledged that “Yahweh … made [Solomon] king in order to do justice and righteousness” (1 Kgs 10:9). The meaning of צדקה in this verse is simlar to 2 Sam 8:15 where משפט and צדקה are paired. One of the key functions of the king in Israel was to establish judicial righteousness in his personal legal decisions and throughout the nation as a whole.

The Reconstruction of the Pronunciation of the Divine Name Yahweh

The scholarly consensus is that the divine name יהוה was originally pronounced as Yahweh. But what evidence is there to support the pronunciation of יהוה as Yahweh?

God’s self-indentification in Exod 3:14 as אהיה אשר אהיה strongly suggests that the divine name יהוה is related to the Hebrew verb היה (be), the older form of which had vav (i.e., waw) rather than yod as the second root letter, i.e., הוה. The third person masculine singular form of היה is יִהְיֶה. This suggests that יהוה may originally have had a pointing something like יִהְוֶה, which is a word of two syllables.

Taking יִהְוֶה as the starting point, there is quite a deal of evidence in the Hebrew Bible that the first syllable of יהוה should be similar to יָהּ. Overall there are three broad pieces of evidence for this.

Firstly, יָהּ occurs as the name for God in the Hebrew Bible in poetry, especially in the psalms (see Exod 15:2; 17:16; Isa 12:2; 26:4; 38:11; Ps 68:5, 19; 77:12; 89:9; 94:7, 12; 102:19; 115:18; 118:5, 14, 17–19; 122:4; 130:3; 135:4; 150:6. Hebrew poetry is known to be more conservative in terms of vocabulary, i.e., older lexical items tend to be preserved in poetry compared to prose. It should also be noted that the mappiq (or dot) in the ה indicates that the ה is taken to be a consonant rather than simply as a vowel letter.

Secondly the name יָהּ is preserved in the set phrase haleluyah (Ps 104:35; 105:45; 106:1, 48; 111:1; 112:1; 113:1; 115:17–18; 116:19; 117:2; 135:1, 3, 21; 146:1, 10; 147:1, 20; 148:1, 14; 149:1, 9; 150:1, 6). Appropriately the final word in the Psalter is הַלְלוּ–יָהּ. This set phrase is simply a masculine plural Piel imperative form of the verb הלל which takes the poetic name of God יָהּ as a direct object.

Thirdly, the name יָהּ is preserved in the names of individuals such as Elijah (אֵלִיָּ֫הוּ), Uzziah (עֻזִיָּה), Josiah (יֹאשִׁיָּ֫הוּ), Jeremiah (יִרְמְיָ֫הוּ), Zechariah (זְכַרְיָה), etc.

Thus, there is strong evidence that the first syllable of the divine name יהוה should sound like יָהּ. Modifying our starting point with this information gives the form יַהְוֶה, i.e., Yahweh. The qámets of יָהּ has reduced to pátakh in יַהְוֶה because the first syallable is closed and unstressed.

The main linguistic argument against the reconstruction יַהְוֶה is is that the instances of יָהּ cited above all occur either as an independent syllable or as a final syllable, and not as a first syllable. The only attested form of יָהּ that occurs as a prefix form is actually יְהוֹ, which has been preserved in names such as Joshua (יְהוֹשֻׁעַ), Jehoshaphat (יְהוֹשָׁפָט) and Jehoiakim (יְהוֹיָקִים). But standing against this is the transliteration of יהוה into Greek by Epiphanius (c. 315–403) and Theodoret (c. 393–c. 457) as ’Ιαβέ. If this transliteration is accurate, then Yahweh stands as being the most probable original pronunciation of the word יהוה.

The Mispronunciation of Yahweh as Jehovah

The claim was made in a previous post (see “The Meaning of the Name Yahweh or Jehovah”) that Jehovah is the incorrect pronunciation of the Hebrew word יהוה, which the scholarly consensus reckons should be pronounced as Yahweh (see “The Reconstruction of the Pronunciation of the Divine Name Yahweh”).

The word Jehovah, despite its presence traditionally in many English translations of the Bible, is actually a nonsense word from the perspective of the Hebrew language. There is no such word as Jehovah in Hebrew. Jehovah is in reality a nonsense word because it is made up of the consonants of one word and the vowels of another.

The confusion stems from the Jewish tradition of qere and ketiv. The Aramaic word ketiv (written as כְּתִיב in Aramaic) denotes the uncorrected consonants of a problematic word that appears in the Masoretic text. כְּתִיב means it is written. The Aramiac word qere (written as קְרֵי in Aramaic) denotes the correct reading according to Masoretic manuscript tradition. קְרֵי means to be read. The qere is indicated in later Hebrew manuscripts and Hebrew Bibles by the sign ק in the margin. The consonants of the qere are written above the ק. They are to be viewed from the Masoretic perspective as constituting the consonants of the correct reading. The vowels of the qere are not written in the margin; but importantly are written in the body of the text together with the ketiv.

A good example of the way in which the qere and ketiv works is Lev 9:22. This verse has the form יָדַו in the body of the verse, and the qere form ידיו in the margin. The ketiv Thus, the qere is signaling that a yod has dropped out of the text during transmission. The qere together with the vowels written in the text gives the more regular form יָדַיו.

However, not all of the qere are written in the margin of the text. A large number of the more frequent instances of qere are treated as assumed knowledge. These qere are called perpetual qere.

And this brings us back to the divine name יהוה and the word Jehovah, because the most famous example of a perpetual qere is the divine name יהוה. As all Jews familiar with the Hebrew Bible know, the perpetual qere of יהוה is the word אֲדֹנָי (pronounced adonai), which means Lord or Master. The Masoretes, following Jewish practice, considered the divine name יהוה too sacred to pronounce safely, so they substituted אֲדֹנָי for יהוה when reading this word in the Scriptures.

Unaware of the existence of qere and ketiv in the Masoretic tradition, early translators of the Hebrew Bible read the ketiv of יהוה and the vowels of its qere as going together to form one word. When the consonants of יהוה (y + h + w + h) are combined with the vowels of אֲדֹנָי (shewa + khólem + qámets, which sounds like: e + o + a) , the word יְ | הֹ | וָה (yehowah) is the result. The name Jehovah, therefore, is simply the transliteration into Latin of the word that results from the confusion of the ketiv with the vowels of the qere of the divine name יהוה. The name Jehovah is not a real Hebrew word, and Jehovah is not an accurate pronunciation of the divine name יהוה.

The Immanuel Theme of the Bible Viewed through the Prism of Ezekiel 37:15–28

One of the amazing things about Christianity is the idea that God created human beings to be his friends. Think about it: the Creator of this universe wants to be friends with you! That’s pretty amazing. We know that friendship is one of God’s intentions in creating the world, because of the final picture painted in the Bible in Rev 21–22, where God’s final goal for creation involves the eternal union of heaven and earth. The city of God, the new Jerusalem, will descend from heaven to be established on earth. As God says in Rev 21:3: “Behold, the dwelling of God is with humanity. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.” This is the all-important Immanuel theme of the Bible. The word Immanuel or Emmanuel is a Hebrew expression that means God with us. The idea of God being with his people is the Immanuel theme of Scripture.

We are told in Rev 21:4 that as a result of God being with his people, “[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” It’s a wonderful picture of harmony and peace.

But look at the world around you. What do you see? Do you see a world of unity and peace, a world where there is no more crying or death or pain? No, the world that we currently know is obviously not like that. There is so much pain, so many tears, so much death. Instead of peace and harmony, we see war and chaos. Instead of unity, we see disunity and hatred.

In the last few years, we’ve seen disunity at many levels throughout the world. Disunity between fundamentalist Islam and the West. Disunity between Israeli and Palestinian. In many nations there has been disunity in politics, and in the West there is a growing cleavage between people with conservative social values and those who are more progressive when it comes to social attitudes.

Our world is clearly characterized by disunity, and Christians are not immune to this. Within our churches, there’s not only division between denominations, but sadly even disunity within individual churches, when individual Christians are not able to live peaceably with one another. Within families, sadly there is often disunity too. Disunity between parent and child, disunity between husband and wife, disunity between brothers and sisters. If you’ve ever had a bad relationship or a falling out with someone, then you know how unhappy disunity can make you feel.

Disunity has been a human problem for many thousands of years … in fact, ever since Adam and Eve when Adam blamed Eve for making him eat the forbidden fruit. God’s people, Israel, were also not immune from the problem of disunity. In the year 930 B.C., the united kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon became divided into the kingdoms of Judah in the south and Israel in the north. The twelve tribes of Israel were now two tribes against ten.

Why did such a split occur? You might recall how after the death of King Solomon, his son, Rehoboam, took the advice of his young friends rather than the advice of the elders, and spoke harshly to the northern tribes when they were looking for some relief from the burden of labor that Solomon had exacted from them. You want relief? Well, I’ll have you know, my pinky is fatter than my father’s thighs! Rehoboam was going to make them work even harder. As a result of his foolish reply, the northern tribes rebelled and invited Jeroboam to be their king, and this was the beginning of the split between the northern and southern tribes of Israel.

We might be tempted to conclude on the basis of this that the split happened as a result of Rehoboam’s foolishness. It is true that Rehoboam’s foolishness was a cause, but it was not the ultimate cause. Rehoboam’s foolishness was actually a fulfillment of God’s word of judgment upon Solomon for leading Israel into idolatry. The ultimate cause of disunity and division in Israel stemmed from sin against God.

Disunity and division is never nice. When you argue with your husband or wife, or with your kids, when there’s conflict between friends, we all feel horrible. Certainly the division and conflict that we see coming out of many parts of the world whenever we turn on the telly also makes us feel sick, particularly when we see shocking injuries and death as the result of war. Sometimes the state of the world leads us to the point of despair.

It’s normal to feel horrible in the face of such a disunited and divided world. But the disunity and division that we see around us, in our world, in society, even in our churches, ought not make us despair totally. For the good news is that God is committed to bringing unity out of disunity, and harmony out of division.

Ezekiel 37:15–28 is just one example of a passage of Scripture that gives us a wonderful assurance that disunity and division will not endure forever in God’s plan for the world. The word of the Lord came to Ezekiel, and called him to take two sticks; on one, he was to write Judah and on the other the word Joseph (Ezek 37:15–16). The name Joseph here represents the northern kingdom of Israel, as Joseph was the father of Ephraim, the largest of the tribes of the northern kingdom. After taking hold of these two sticks, Ezekiel was to place them together to become one stick, and then to hold this united stick in his hand (Ezek 37:17).

This action was an action of prophetic force. The two sticks joined as one in Ezekiel’s hand was prophetic of the reunion of Judah and Israel in God’s hand in the outworking of history. It is to be noted that the sticks were not just placed together, but that they were to be held together so as to become one stick (Ezek 37:19). As Ezekiel held this unified stick in his hand, God was making a statement: not only would the divisions within God’s people be healed, but the disunity and distance that existed between God and his disobedient people would also be overcome.

As noted above, the division between Judah and Israel was ultimately caused by sin. Division among the people of God is always symptomatic of a prior division between God and human beings somewhere. When Cain was unhappy with God, what happened? He killed his brother Abel. Likewise the disunity in the world today fundamentally stems from the disunity that exists between humanity and God.

For God’s people of old, disunity and division was quite obvious. Not only was there division between the kingdom in the north and the kingdom in the south, but as God’s people continued to sin against God without any real repentance, it came to the point in time when God’s patience had run out. God had put up with Israel for over 800 years: from the time of the exodus rescue out of Egypt to the time of the defeat and exile of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah at the hands of the Assyrian and Babylonian armies respectively.

The exile of God’s people from the promised land was a reversal of the exodus. Israel had originally been saved by God from slavery in Egypt with the purpose that they would go and live in God’s presence, serving him in the Holy Land; but now like Adam in the garden of Eden, because of disobedience, Israel had lost the right to live in God’s presence. The exile of Israel and Judah to lands over a thousand km away from the promised land is indicative of the division that existed in their relationship with God. They were now distant from God in more ways than one: not only distant physically from Jerusalem, which was the place where God specially revealed his presence in the temple; but they were distant from God spiritually as well.

But distance and division is not what God longs for. Thankfully God’s plan for his people and for the world as a whole is for disunity and division to be rectified. This is Ezekiel’s message in Ezek 37:15–28. The joining of two sticks, one representing Judah, the other Israel, symbolizes the reunion of God’s people under the rightful and eternal rule of the Davidic King. Ezekiel 37:21–23 records a series of divine promises:

“Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. They shall not defile themselves any more with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

This is a promise by God that he would bring his wayward people back. God planned to cleanse his people of their sins, and they would dwell obediently and permanently in the Holy Land as the people of God. God would make “an everlasting covenant” of peace with them, and bless them, and dwell among them, with his sanctuary and presence in their midst … forever more.
God’s promises continue in Ezek37:24–27:

“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land, and multiply them, and set my sanctuary in their midst forever more. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Do you see what God is promising here? There would be one king, one shepherd over the people of God. This shepherd king would led the people of God in the way of obedience as part of an eternal covenant of peace, and the truth of Immanuel would be realized.

When we realize that this is a prophecy of what God would achieve through Jesus, surely we must marvel at the way in which God has been working towards the fulfillment of his plan of Immanuel. And even more so to think that we who are living in the world today have seen the fulfillment of this prophecy in the Lord Jesus. The New Testament tells us that Jesus is the promised Davidic King, the one who has come to bring about not only unity between God’s people, but also unity between God’s people and God himself! In Christ Jesus, the division between us and God has been overcome, and unity restored; and this is why there is unity between God’s people in Christ, whether they be Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. The unity that our world longs for, this is what God is bringing about through Jesus, the suffering Spirit-filled Servant Shepherd King.

The restoration of unity between God and humanity is expressed particularly clearly in the expression they will be my people, and I will be their God. This expression can be found twice in Ezek 37, once in v. 23, and once in v. 27. This expression, or slight variations on it, occurs some fifteen times in the Bible, and five times in Ezekiel. So it is apparent that the Immanuel theme is quite an important idea in the book of Ezekiel relatively speaking.

And when it comes to Immanuel, we ought to note that the expression is God with us and not us with God. The stress in the Bible is on God coming to be with us, not on us going to be with him. The Lord Jesus came down into our world in order to take us up with him into the very presence of God, and this involves Jesus coming again to bring about the full unification of heaven and earth. The picture in Rev 21–22 is heaven coming down to Earth in order that our world might become “heaven on earth.” The way the Bible puts it, God actually created Planet Earth to be the palace or temple where he would come to dwell with his people eternally.

Often as Christians, we tend to think that when we die, we go to be with God in heaven and … that’s about all there is to it. After we die, we exist as disembodied souls in heaven forever more. Well, it’s true that upon death, the souls of Christians go to be with God in heaven; but from the Bible’s point of view, going as souls to be with God in heaven is not the end of the story. For just as Jesus died and was raised from the dead, so too believers will be raised from the dead, and our souls will be joined to our resurrection bodies to live together in bodily form with all of God’s people ultimately not in heaven up there but in heaven down here.

Viewed in the light of the wider purposes of God, it is also possible to say that bringing heaven to earth is actually the main reason why Jesus came in the flesh. It is true that Jesus had to became a man in order that he might die for us so that we might be saved from our sins, but this important reason is not the only reason why Jesus became a human being. The fact is that Jesus’ incarnation was an important part of God’s plan from the very beginning, because, even apart from the problem of human sinfulness, God has always had the intention of living with his people in his dwelling place on earth.

This brings us to one of the other amazing truths of Christianity, which is that, in creating a physical world, God had the intention that one day he would come to dwell in this physical world in a physical way in the person of the Lord Jesus, our Immanuel. The physical presence of God in human form is what the Bible calls the image of God. God’s ultimate plan for this world is for his dwelling place to be established on earth, for Christ, the visible image of invisible God (Col 1:15), to return to dwell in our midst forever more in a renewed world.

The siginificance of this for the human race is that, through Jesus, God is with us. Through Jesus, the Immanuel plan of God has been fulfilled. This means that, through Jesus, disunity and division has been overcome. Sure, the world around us is still racked with conflict and discord, but the fundamental change from disunity to unity has taken place through the Lord Jesus, through his death and resurrection. Jesus has extinguished the chaos and disorder of death through the restorative power of his resurrection. As a result, in God’s plan, the world as we see it today is not the world as it will be.

Even though we still do not yet see a world of perfect peace and harmony, we need to remember that the goal of unity and harmony that God has for his world has in principle been achieved with Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven, and God has promised that the fullness of Immanuel will be achieved at the second coming of Christ, when God will return to be with his people forever more.

The truth of Immanuel means that, one day, the followers of Jesus will experience life in a world where disunity and division will be no more, a world in which there is no more pain, no more crying, no more sickness, no more death. I hope you’ll agree that, if you are a Christian, this is something amazing to look forward to.

David Livingstone, the famous Scottish missionary and explorer who served the Lord among what were usually hostile tribes in southern Africa in the mid-nineteenth century once wrote about what sustained him through all the difficulties that he had had to face. “Would you like me to tell you what supported me through all the years of exile among a people whose language I could not understand, and whose attitude to me was always uncertain and often hostile? It was this: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” On these words I staked everything, and they never failed.” David Livingstone staked everything upon the truth of Immanuel, and it never failed him.

So, whatever your situation in the world, whatever the suffering, whatever the pain, whatever the confusion, whatever the disappointment, if you are a follower of Jesus, you need not despair! Because God is with you! The truth is that, in Christ, the Immanuel, God is with us! He is with his people now through the power of his Holy Spirit, yet we look forward to the day when we shall see him face to face, when he will be physically present with his people forever more in a world where disunity and division and disease and death no longer exist.

In Christ, God is with us!

The Concept of Resurrection in the Old Testament with Special Reference to Ezekiel 37:1–14

Is there such a thing as life after death? Scientific atheism, which is growing in popularity in the West these days, says no; but those who believe that death is the end of a person’s existence are in the minority, historically speaking. Apart from some of the ancient Greeks, most people have believed in some kind of life after death.

But what about the orthodox Hebrews of the historical period of the Old Testament? What did they believe about life after death? Some people think that the Old Testament does not say much about life after death. There are also scholars who say that the concept of resurrection was only a new development relatively later on in the history of the Old Testament, and that resurrection was an idea that was borrowed from other ancient Near Eastern cultures, quite possibly from the Zoroastrian religion of the Persians.

Now it is true that the teaching about life after death in the Old Testament is not systematically developed, but the number of passages in the Old Testament that give voice to a hope and trust in God for deliverance from death is by no means small. The Old Testament saints believed that upon death the soul of the deceased went down to a place called Sheol which is often translated in our English Bibles as the pit or the grave, or in Chinese as 阴间 (yīnjiān), the dark place.

The orthodox ancient Hebrews believed in Sheol. They believed that there was a place that the soul of the dead person went to after the death of the body. But existence in Sheol should not really be described as life after death. As far as the Old Testament is concerned, although the souls of the dead had a kind of existence in Sheol, this existence after death was not life!

Existence in Sheol was not considered to be life for a number of reasons: because there is no praise of God in Sheol (Ps 6:5); and because it is a dark and dreary place, distant from God (Ps 88:10–12). As such, Sheol was not considered to be an abode fitting for the righteous, but is properly the appointed destination for the wicked and foolish (Ps 9:17; 49:13–15).

But the hope that the Old Testament believers had was that Yahweh was the one who controlled the movement of souls in and out of Sheol. Like an air traffic-controller who determines which plane comes into the airspace around an airport, which planes come in to land and which planes take off, God is viewed in the Old Testament as being the person who determines not only who goes down into Sheol, but also who gets to get out of that dark and dreary abode.

God has the power to preserve a person’s life by keeping them from descending into Sheol; but as we know, death is one of the few certain things in life. This means that God’s usual practice is to allow people (one day) to descend into Sheol. But the firm hope of the Old Testament saints was that although we might die, God is able to raise or redeem people up from Sheol with the purpose that those so redeemed might, as Ps 116:9 says, “walk before Yahweh in the land of the living.”

There are many psalms where the psalmist trusts in God to deliver him from death. In Ps 49:15, the psalmist says full of confidence: “God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol.” In Ps 27:13, the psalmist says: “I believe that I shall see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living!” And Ps 37:29 says that “the righteous will be preserved for ever” and “will possess the land and dwell in it for ever.”

In other words, the Old Testament hope for life after death was the hope of life lived out in the presence of God in the Holy Land. The Old Testament saints had the hope of experiencing life in the land of the living, which involved being in God’s presence forever more. The Old Testament saints believed that God had promised that those who walk in his way would, after death, come to live life in the world again such that their relationship with God might continue.

But how could this idea of experiencing life in the land after death be fulfilled, if not by way of resurrection? The Old Testament belief in the restoration of the soul of the righteous dead to life in the land of the living clearly implies resurrection. As it says in Ps 30:3: “O Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.” Being saved up out of the grave is basically the language of resurrection.

This concept of life through resurrection is something that is clearly seen in Ezek 37:1–14. Here the prophet Ezekiel is given a vision concerning the restoration of Israel, and the interesting thing about it is that it is pictured in terms of a large-scale resurrection.

At the commencement of the vision, Israel is pictured as many dry bones lying scattered across the ground in a valley (Ezek 37:1–2). Then God asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel wasn’t sure, but he knew that God knew (Ezek 37:3). Then God commanded Ezekiel to prophesy. God said that, as the bones heard the word of God, they would be moved by the Spirit and arranged in place, then joined by sinews, and covered with flesh, and then covered with skin (Ezek 37:4–6).

So Ezekiel did as he was commanded. He pronounced God’s word over the dry, lifeless bones; and as he prophesied, “there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone” (Ezek 37:7). The sinews, flesh, and skin linked and wrapped the bones into human form; but strangely the bodies were not alive (Ezek 37:8). God called upon Ezekiel to prophesy again, to summon the Spirit to give life to the bodies (Ezek 37:9). So once again Ezekiel did as he was commanded, and the Spirit obeyed the call. The Spirit gave breath to the bodies, and “they came alive and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army” (Ezek 37:10).

Ezekiel 37:1–14 is a vision of the resurrection power of the word of God. God can make dead bones live! And the purpose of this vision? From Ezek 37:11 it is clear that God gave this vision to Ezekiel in order to encourage the people of Israel who had come to despair of life because they were experiencing God’s judgment upon the covenant rebellion of Israel. They had lost hope, but their situation wasn’t truly hopeless. What about the life-giving power of the word of God, the very same word that created this universe back in the beginning? The life-giving of the word and Spirit of God means that Israel could have hope for the future. Specifically, this vision was also a promise, a promise that God would raise them from their graves and restore them back to life back in their own land:

“Behold, I will open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am Yahweh, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am Yahweh; I have spoken, and I will do it” (Ezek 37:12–14).

All of us are getting on in life … some of us perhaps more than others. We human beings all usually hope that death will be some time in coming, but the truth is that we never know when or how death will come upon us. Whether we like or not, waiting at the end of life for all of us is a dreadful reality … death. Naturally no one likes the thought of having to die. The English philosopher, Francis Bacon, once said, “Men fear death as children fear to go into the dark.”

Stepping out into the dark unknown is scary; but as we face death, as we look into the dark abyss, Christians need not be like those who, as the Apostle Paul said, “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). Christians are not like Theocritus, the Greek poet of the third century B.C. who said: “There is hope for those who are alive, but those who have died are without hope.” Being without hope is not true for the Christian. In the face of death, Christians have the hope of life. And this isn’t just wishful thinking, a kind of denial of reality. This hope is based on the reality of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and on the reality of the life-giving power of the Creator of this universe.

Jesus through his own resurrection has broken the hold of the power of death over God’s creation. Furthermore, the Lord Jesus has said that “the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). It is because of the power of the word of Almighty God that one day the bona fide members of Christ’s church, like Israel, will be restored to life in the land of the living.

The famous preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones once described the early Christians who often faced the prospect of a horrible death in periods of severe persecution, as being able to “face death with a smile.” Obviously they were not necessarily literally smiling when they died, but they did die with hope in their hearts. They died knowing that not only would they go upon death to be in God’s presence spiritually, but more importantly that (at Christ’s return to earth) God would act to raise them from the dead, and to restore them to life in the land of the living, where they would live in God’s presence and experience blessing forever more. That is the only way in which the early Christians could face death with a smile.

But what about us? As you face the awful reality of death, and your own death in particular, do you have hope for life after death in your heart? I hope you do. Christians can have a sure hope like no other people have, a hope that is backed up by the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.

The fact of the matter is that God has promised life to those who follow Jesus Christ, and life he will give to such people. God will definitely act to restore his people to life in the land of the living. He did that for Jesus, and he will do it also for us who believe. Believers may have to wait a while until they experience the fullness of this life, but in God’s good timing one day they will experience resurrection and eternal blessing in the presence of God in a renewed world. The God who brought life out of nothing back in the beginning is the God who brought life out of death in the resurrection of Jesus, and the God who will bring life out of death at the end of time when Jesus returns to judge all people.

Just as Ezekiel’s prophecy gave hope to the downhearted people of Israel, so too the word of God gives hope to people today. The gospel, at the heart of which stands the resurrection of Christ, is a prophetic promise that what God did for Jesus, so too he will do for those who are followers of Jesus. So whatever happens to you in the future, if you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus, you can face all things, even death, with the hope of eternal life in your heart. The resurrection of Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament hope of deliverance from Sheol and eternal life in the land of the living.

The Meaning of the Name Yahweh or Jehovah

Yahweh is the most probable reconstruction of the divine name יהוה (see “The Reconstruction of the Pronunciation of the Divine Name Yahweh”). This name (pronounced incorrectly as Jehovah—see “The Mispronunciation of Yahweh as Jehovah”) is considered by Jews to be the supreme name of God, so sacred that they dare not pronounce it. Instead of speaking the name יהוה they substitute the name Adonai, which means Lord or Master. The Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, followed this tradition, and translated יהוה as κύριος, which means lord. From this Jewish usage has come the tradition followed in most English translations of the Bible where יהוה is translated as LORD or the LORD (i.e, the three letters o r d in LORD are written in small capitals).

The tradition of avoiding the pronunciation of God’s name is understandable—the sin of blasphemy is a serious sin—but at the same time there numerous psalms which actually call upon God’s people to bless or praise the name of Yahweh (e.g., Ps 113:1–3; 116:4, 13, 17; 129:8; 135:1; 148:1, 5, 13). Furthermore, by avoiding the name, the meaning of the name Yahweh is masked, and an opportunity to understand an important aspect of the character of God is potentially lost.

So what does the name Yahweh mean? The word יהוה is associated in Exod 3:14 with the Hebrew expression אהיה אשׁר אהיה, which means I am who I am or I will be who I will be. אהיה (ehyeh) is simply the first person singular form of the Hebrew imperfect verb היה (hayah), the Hebrew verb to be. The third person masculine singular imperfect form of היה is יהיה (yihyeh), which in turn looks and sounds like it is related to the divine name Yahweh. It seems, therefore, that the expression אהיה אשׁר אהיה is a word play on the divine name. This suggests in turn that the name Yahweh originally meant he is. Yahweh is not so much the great I Am but the great He Is.

But in what sense is Yahweh the great He Is? Some have suggested that the name Yahweh communicates the eternal existence of God. While it is true theologically that Yahweh is an eternal being, this is not the best explanation of the sense of the name Yahweh.

The expression I will be with you in Exod 3:12 preempts the expression I am who I am in Exod 3:14. This suggests that the meaning of the name Yahweh is (in part) connected with the idea of God being present with his people.

But there is more to the meaning of the name Yahweh than simply the idea of God’s presence with his people. In Exod 6:2 God says to Moses that he “appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty; but by [his] name Yahweh [he] did not make myself known to them.” Some people have suggested in the light of this that the patriarchs did not know God by the the name Yahweh. But this contradicts Gen 4:26 where it says “at [the time of Seth] people began to call upon the name of Yahweh.” Genesis 4:26 suggests that very early on in human history the name Yahweh was known by human beings, and used in the worship of God. We also have the name Yahweh used on the lips of Noah (Gen 9:26), Abraham (Gen 12:8; 14:22; 15:2, 8; 21:33; 22:14); Sarah (Gen 16:2, 5); the angel of Yahweh (Gen 16:11); and other angels (19:13). We also have Yahweh identifying himself as Yahweh to Abraham (Gen 15:7), or using the name to refer to himself (Gen 18:14; 22:16). So, if the biblical text is accepted as being an accurate record of historical reality at these points, then clearly the patriarchs knew and employed the divine name Yahweh.

According to Exod 6:2–8, the significance of this name would be revealed through the events of the exodus. God spoke to Moses and said to him:

“I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty; but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am Yahweh your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am Yahweh” (Exod 6:2–8).

The idea that God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai (rather than Yahweh) is derived from the language used at various points in Genesis. God appeared to Abraham in Gen 17:1, and identified himself as El Shaddai. In Gen 28:3 Isaac blesses Jacob by the name El Shaddai. Jacob had wanted to know God’s name (Gen 32:29); but God appeared to him shortly thereafter, identifying himself to Jacob as El Shaddai, and changing Jacob’s name to Israel (Gen 35:9–11; see also Gen 48:3).

The name El Shaddai communicates something of the destructive potential of God and his power, but Yahweh was going to reveal a different aspect of his character through what he was about to do for the people of Israel who were at that time being oppressed by the Egyptians. But how would the events of the exodus reveal the significance of the name Yahweh?

It is true that God’s power would be revealed through the events of the exodus (see Exod 9:16; 14:31), but God’s word to Moses in Exod 6:2–8 emphasizes how God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt was going to be in fulfillment of the promises of the covenant that God had entered into with Abraham, Isaaac, and Jacob previously. Yahweh would keep his word. He had promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that he would deliver their descendants from oppression, and take them to the promised land. This was what Yahweh was about to fulfill.

In this way, the exodus deliverance was going to show that God keeps his promises, and this lies at the heart of the meaning of the name Yahweh. God is I am who I am in the sense of I will do as I have promised. In the exodus, therefore, Yahweh displays the meaning of his name, the Ever-Faithful God, the God who keeps his promises.

Yahweh = He Is (Faithful)

What is the New Covenant? The Concept of the Covenant of Peace in Ezekiel 34

Disoriented, distressed, and perhaps even depressed. Exiled to Babylon, Ezekiel and his countrymen would have been wondering: How did this happen to us? What’s gone wrong? Why have we lost our land? Why have we been exiled?

When things go wrong, when tragedy strikes, it’s natural to ask the question why. But often when we ask that question, sadly there isn’t a clear or satisfactory answer. Like when a child is born with some kind of defect, or when people lose their lives in accidents. The scientists or the police can often explain how, but the question of why still remains. Why? Sometimes we don’t know why. But for Israel, the situation was different. For them, the why of their situation was very clear … because God wanted it to be clear. God sent prophets to the people to clearly point out why. And the answer that the Old Testament prophets gave was crystal clear. Israel was in exile because Israel hadn’t been living in accordance with her obligations under the covenant.

Ezekiel 34 explores an important aspect of this covenant failure. Israel is pictured in this chapter as a flock of sheep. Her leaders are pictured as shepherds. Shepherds are supposed to look after the sheep, but that is not how the majority of the leaders of Israel had acted. Instead of taking care of the sheep, the leaders of Israel had been using the sheep for their own benefit. Instead of feeding the sheep, they had been feeding off them.

In Ezek 34:3–5 God indicts the shepherds of Israel:

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they becme food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.

That is, except for God. The kings of Israel might have led the people astray; but if an important part of the failure of Israel could be linked to ungodly shepherds, then the solution was for God himself to be Israel’s shepherd. This solution is found in Ezek 34:11–15 where God says:

I, I myself will search for my sheep, and I will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered … And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel … I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep.

Here we have God promising that he personally would come to take over the role of leadership in Israel. And this is connected in Ezek 34:23 with God establishing over Israel “one shepherd, [his] servant David,” who would feed the sheep, and be their shepherd.

In the light of Ezek 34:23 it is clear that when Jesus came proclaiming himself as the Good Shepherd, he wasn’t just picturing himself as a shepherd because he liked sheep, or because he thought that it was a good metaphor. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd” because he wanted his opponents and the Jewish people to understand that he was the fulfillment of Ezek 34. He was the shepherd king, of the line of King David, who has come to bring God’s people back.

And it is significant that this time of God himself coming to seek and to save his lost sheep is connected in Ezek 34:25 with the idea of “a covenant of peace.”

Covenant is a concept that is very important for an understanding of our relationship with God, and for understanding the overall message of the Bible; but sadly the idea of covenant isn’t heard very often in churches today. In fact, the word covenant isn’t used much at all in the whole of the English language these days, except perhaps in the fields of law and theology. But when we read the Bible and want to understand God’s plan for the world, we have to deal with the term covenant. The word occurs some 301 times in the ESV translation. The Hebrew word for covenant (ברית) occurs 286 times in the Old Testament. So if you’re reading the Bible, you’re bound to encounter the idea of covenant.

But what is a covenant? The history of this word in English goes back to the Old French word convenant which means coming together. In biblical usage, a covenant is basically an arrangement between two parties wherein one or both of the parties solemnly bind themselves to act in a certain way within a relationship. The word translated as covenant in our Bibles can also be translated as treaty, alliance, pact, or compact. In the ancient world covenants were often legally-binding, written agreements that spelled out the privileges and obligations of each party in the relationship. And usually, as part of such an agreement, the parties committed themselves to faithfully keep their obligations to each other by placing themselves under the threat of a penalty, in the form of an oath or curse, and this would often be symbolized by the slaughter and cutting up of a sacrificial animal.

And this is exactly the kind of relationship that Israel had with God. God and Israel had entered into an agreement with each other about the nature of their relationship at Mount Sinai, after God had rescued Israel out of slavery in Egypt. God and Israel entered into a covenant with each other. The ceremony that took place at that time is recorded in Exod 24. This covenant was renewed on the plains of Moab before Israel entered the promised land after the forty years wandering in the wilderness. This renewal and expansion of the covenant on the plains of Moab is recorded in the book of Deuteronomy.

This covenant, which the New Testament calls the old covenant (2 Cor 3:14), was a legally-binding written agreement between God and Israel in which God promised to bless Israel on condition of Israel’s obedience and to punish her on condition of disobedience. Moses makes this clear in the book of Deuteronomy. At the conclusion of the final sermon that he ever preached, Moses called out to the people:

Look, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God that I am commanding you today, by loving Yahweh your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish (Deut 30:15–18).

The book of Deuteronomy testifies that obedience would lead to life and blessing, but disobedience would lead to the fulfilment of the curses of exile and death. If Israel kept God’s commandments, that is, if they were committed to following God’s word in their life, then they would experience the blessing of being God’s people living in the Holy Land.

Now some Christians think that it was impossible for Israel to keep this covenant with God, but this is to forget how God provided a means for the forgiveness of sin as part of the covenant itself. The different animal sacrifices that could be offered at the temple (the burnt offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering) all had atonement or reconciliation as a significant part of their function. The old covenant made provision for the forgiveness of sin. It was a covenant of grace. But despite this, the old covenant still proved to be a catastrophic failure on a national level. Because of Israel’s lack of commitment to God and his way, being led astray (as we see in Ezek 34) by ungodly leaders, the curses of the covenant came down upon Israel, the climax of which was exile to a foreign land. Because Israel was not holy as God is holy, they lost the privilege of living in the Holy Land.

The consequences were tragic. Famine, death, destruction, exile. Yet, in the midst of this awful tragedy, God never gave up on his people. In a quite wonderful way, at the lowest ebb of Israel’s relationship with God, God continued to send prophets to his people to announce a period in the future when Israel would be restored to life in a perfect and permanent relationship of obedience to God. God would not abandon his people to the punishment they deserved. He would come to bring them back. This time of restoration of the old covenant relationship between God and Israel is what the Old Testament calls the new covenant.

The phrase new covenant only occurs once in the Old Testament, in Jer 31:31; but both Ezekiel and Isaiah speak of the new covenant three times as a covenant of peace (Isa 54:10; Ezek 34:25; 37:26). Even more popular than covenant of peace is the phrase everlasting covenant, which occurs six times altogether as a reference to the new covenant (see Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60; 37:26).

It is difficult to understand God’s purposes for the world without understanding the concept of covenant, and perhaps the best illustration for us today about what a covenant is all about is the concept of marriage.

Marriage is a covenant, and God’s relationship with Israel is like a marriage. The wedding ceremony took place at Mount Sinai. There both parties promised to love each other exclusively. Sadly, however, from when the honeymoon was not yet even finished and for over 600 years onwards, the marriage between God and Israel was on the rocks. Like many bad marriages, it ended up in separation, when the northern kingdom of Israel was exiled by the Assyrians, and then over 100 years later when the southern kingdom of Judah was defeated by the Babylonians. But in the midst of this period of separation, God kept sending letters to his sweetheart, Israel, saying that he wanted her back. Indeed, he promised that he would arrange things so that Israel would come back. The problem that led to the breakdown of the marriage was Israel’s unwillingness to obey God, but God promised that he would act to make Israel willing to obey him, so that in the end Israel would experience wonderful blessing in a restored relationship with God.

This new stage in the marriage, this time of blessing and peace within the relationship, is what the Bible calls the new covenant. And this is why the New Testament is called the New Testament, where testament is just an alternate word for covenant. The New Testament is simply the collection of books and letters that proclaims and explains the arrival of the new covenant. The New Testament is the historical record of the beginning of this wonderful, new stage in God’s marriage not just with Israel, but with all the nations of the world.

The new covenant is the fulfillment of God’s positive purposes for his creation. This is indicated in Ezek 34:25–31, where various positive consequences of the new covenant are delineated. The result of the covenant of peace is security, prosperity, blessing, and intimacy with God:

I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am Yahweh, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid. And I will provide for them renowned plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. And they shall know that I am Yahweh their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares Lord Yahweh. And you are my sheep, human sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares Lord Yahweh.

When you think about it, the Bible, with this movement from the old covenant to the new covenant, is telling us that the history of the world is basically one big, fantastic love story! It’s a story that moves from love rejected to love rekindled. And the exciting thing for Christians is that we, like Israel, are in this covenant relationship with God. We are part of this love story!

The New Testament teaches that Christians are in a covenant relationship with God; but we relate to God no longer on the basis of the old covenant, but on the basis of the new covenant. There has been a change from the old relationship characterized by unfaithfulness and disobedience on the part of Israel to a new relationship where the church has the power of Christ’s new life working in us to lead us back to God and to love him. Jesus is the one who has made the difference. He’s the one who’s saved the marriage, so that God’s original promise of blessing might be fulfilled. The overarching purpose of what God is doing in the world is breathtaking in its scope. It is something for which we ought always to thank God.

But, at the same time, understanding the concept of covenant can also help us better understand, not only the place of Jesus in God’s plan, but also the nature of our relationship with God, and what God desires to see in us. Think about it. If the church is like the wife in the divine marriage covenant, then what is our role in this relationship? What is required of us, and how are we to live? Well, like a wife loves her husband (or at least is supposed to), the job of each individual Christian is to love God, to be faithful to him, and (like women used to pledge as part of their marriage vows in earlier times) to be obedient.

Jesus picks up this idea in John 15 when he said to his disciples: “as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love ... These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:9–11).

At the heart of the new covenant for the believer is the constant discipline of striving to love Jesus and to live in obedience to him. As we love God, we experience more of his love for us, and we have joy in our hearts. But the key on our part, as always, is faithfully following the Lord Jesus and his way of life in the context of the grace of the cross.

This is a key part of what the new covenant is all about: God’s people loving and obeying God as he has revealed himself to the world in the person of Jesus, and the resultant benefit of experiencing great blessing in intimate relationship with God. Jesus is the one who has saved the marriage. He died on the cross to atone for our rebellion, and through his resurrection he has brought new life into this relationship. But to benefit from this, we need to be participating in the new covenant in a positive way. If you’re not a follower of Jesus yet, you need to become one. And if you’re a follower already, you need to keep on following. Christians need to be committed to the covenant with God, and to find joy in being faith-full rather than faith-less, in being covenant keepers rather than covenant breakers. This is our responsibility and privilege within the new covenant of peace and blessing that Jesus died to achieve. Christians, honor Jesus’ death on your behalf by honoring him as your Shepherd King. This is what Jesus has come to achieve.