Jerusalem Blade
Puritan Board Professor
These four paragraphs below are excerpted from a new portion of the booklet, A Poet Arises In Israel, in which I deal with the continuance of the specific curses of Deuteronomy 28:15ff.—the judicial sentence—on the (continuing) violators of that covenant. Does anyone think I am wrong to so assert these curses have not been rescinded? Also, in the fourth paragraph, do I adequately handle the basis for all the world—Jew and Gentile—standing guilty in their sin before the holy God? Thanks for any comments and critiques!
I have heard it said, “Ethnic Jewry is no longer under the covenant curses articulated by Moses, since the Old Covenant is abrogated altogether”—this from a Messianic teacher, for it is understood that the curses of the Mosaic Covenant were annulled through the blood of the New Covenant, the Brit Chadashah (cf. Jeremiah 31:31ff.)—And I reply, Abrogated for whom? And in what respect? Is it not abrogated strictly for those who come to Messiah, “the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15 NASB), those who have come to the Mediator of that covenant—who is also its High Priest—may receive the New Covenant’s promise of pardon and eternal life? For these and these only it is abrogated. The death required by the violated Mosaic covenant was offered by Messiah—an infinitely precious ransom for the transgressors of it—but those apart from Him have no such redemption, and are still under the specific curses of that covenant.
Can it be thought that the broken-covenant obligations were rescinded by Messiah for those who reject His substitutionary offering for their covenant violations? Those curses levied against transgressing Jews, who also refuse the redemption of Messiah, these were not and are not rescinded. The Levitical system of law, sacrifice, and worship—all that ceremonial typology—was abrogated by the “better covenant” and its infinitely more precious blood, but those of us who spurned both the words of the Prophet who brought redemption (Deut 18:18, 19; Acts 3:22, 23) and the precious blood which covered the sins under that old covenant, these have no relief from the penalties pronounced against them.
We Jews, to whom pertained the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, had received greater light than the nations prior to Messiah’s coming, and that law and that covenant mediated by Moses still binds us—ratified as it was in blood, and blood is required for its breaking . . . that is what a covenant oath is, an oath of life and death. Hence the unspeakable value of the death of Messiah for us, whose blood covers those covenant-breakers who come to Him for mercy, but those who spurn Him are still liable for that broken blood oath.
Indeed, all humankind stands indicted and guilty in their sin before the holy God, as all have transgressed His law—whether that written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, or that of His word written in the psalms and prophets, “the Old Testament in its entirety [being] permeated with the requirements and judgments which are summed up in the ten commandments” (Murray, Romans, p 106). All humankind is under the curse of God for the moral law broken, but we Jews are under the more specific law sealed by blood oath mediated by Moses, and which those who apostatize from the prophetic faith of Israel either delusionally cling to, thinking they have remission of sin without blood, or simply ignore. These realities must be brought out in the open so that my people after the flesh understand our status vis-à-vis God, which is different than the status of Gentiles. We Jews have a different history due to the Mosaic woes we have lived and suffered under many, many centuries—though we are all perishing equally along with the unbelieving Gentiles—and we need to understand from whence we have fallen in order to return. Now that return—since the age of Moses has passed (after all, the temple and its accoutrements, the Aaronic and Levitical genealogical records, etc., all long gone)—needs to be made precisely clear and perfectly laid out so that Yeshua Ha’Mashiach, Jesus of Nazareth, is seen to be the new and eternal High Priest after the order of Melchisedek, the Prophet, and the Everlasting King: the Saviour of the Jews in this time when the breath of the dragon draws near, bloodlust in its eyes, and his chant the same as Islam’s, “First Saturday, then Sunday!”
I have heard it said, “Ethnic Jewry is no longer under the covenant curses articulated by Moses, since the Old Covenant is abrogated altogether”—this from a Messianic teacher, for it is understood that the curses of the Mosaic Covenant were annulled through the blood of the New Covenant, the Brit Chadashah (cf. Jeremiah 31:31ff.)—And I reply, Abrogated for whom? And in what respect? Is it not abrogated strictly for those who come to Messiah, “the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15 NASB), those who have come to the Mediator of that covenant—who is also its High Priest—may receive the New Covenant’s promise of pardon and eternal life? For these and these only it is abrogated. The death required by the violated Mosaic covenant was offered by Messiah—an infinitely precious ransom for the transgressors of it—but those apart from Him have no such redemption, and are still under the specific curses of that covenant.
Can it be thought that the broken-covenant obligations were rescinded by Messiah for those who reject His substitutionary offering for their covenant violations? Those curses levied against transgressing Jews, who also refuse the redemption of Messiah, these were not and are not rescinded. The Levitical system of law, sacrifice, and worship—all that ceremonial typology—was abrogated by the “better covenant” and its infinitely more precious blood, but those of us who spurned both the words of the Prophet who brought redemption (Deut 18:18, 19; Acts 3:22, 23) and the precious blood which covered the sins under that old covenant, these have no relief from the penalties pronounced against them.
We Jews, to whom pertained the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, had received greater light than the nations prior to Messiah’s coming, and that law and that covenant mediated by Moses still binds us—ratified as it was in blood, and blood is required for its breaking . . . that is what a covenant oath is, an oath of life and death. Hence the unspeakable value of the death of Messiah for us, whose blood covers those covenant-breakers who come to Him for mercy, but those who spurn Him are still liable for that broken blood oath.
Indeed, all humankind stands indicted and guilty in their sin before the holy God, as all have transgressed His law—whether that written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, or that of His word written in the psalms and prophets, “the Old Testament in its entirety [being] permeated with the requirements and judgments which are summed up in the ten commandments” (Murray, Romans, p 106). All humankind is under the curse of God for the moral law broken, but we Jews are under the more specific law sealed by blood oath mediated by Moses, and which those who apostatize from the prophetic faith of Israel either delusionally cling to, thinking they have remission of sin without blood, or simply ignore. These realities must be brought out in the open so that my people after the flesh understand our status vis-à-vis God, which is different than the status of Gentiles. We Jews have a different history due to the Mosaic woes we have lived and suffered under many, many centuries—though we are all perishing equally along with the unbelieving Gentiles—and we need to understand from whence we have fallen in order to return. Now that return—since the age of Moses has passed (after all, the temple and its accoutrements, the Aaronic and Levitical genealogical records, etc., all long gone)—needs to be made precisely clear and perfectly laid out so that Yeshua Ha’Mashiach, Jesus of Nazareth, is seen to be the new and eternal High Priest after the order of Melchisedek, the Prophet, and the Everlasting King: the Saviour of the Jews in this time when the breath of the dragon draws near, bloodlust in its eyes, and his chant the same as Islam’s, “First Saturday, then Sunday!”