The “Remnant” And What It Says About “Second Temple Judaism” (Conclusion) Jesus Christ Is The Key Truth is, it was, is, and always will be about Jesus Christ, for without faith in Him, whether it be during the Patriarchal, Mosaical, or Christian dispensations, there could have been no occasion for a faithful remnant. For without Jesus of Nazareth, the One who is the “her Seed” of Genesis 3:15, there would be no eventual binding of Satan, no hope of a reversal of the terrible consequences unleashed on the world as the result of man’s sin, no hope of redemption, no hope of the resurrection of the dead, no hope of heaven, no hope of life everlasting in the presence of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, no hope without Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, absolutely no hope at all! Let us, then, praise God-the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer, the one in whom we live, move and have our very being, the one from whom all blessings flow-for the hope we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. From the very beginning it was about Jesus, a Jew who would be brought up in the nondescript, “can anything good come from there?” little village of Nazareth, who due to certain circumstances would be birthed in a small “blip on the map” called Bethlehem by a woman who was, no less, a virgin who had been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit (Isa. 7:14). This unique son of Jewish descent was also the Son of God. He would be named Immanuel, or “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). Although the name Immanuel never seemed to stick, it was nevertheless as wonderfully descriptive of who He was as His more popular name, Jesus, which meant “Savior,” signifying that He would be the Savior of His people, Israel (Matt. 1:22). This Israel would not be national Israel per se, but that subset of Jews (the remnant) within the nation of Israel who were heart-circumcised, and not just circumcised in their flesh. This story-(His-story)-had its beginning before the Beginning, for as Peter tells us in speaking of Christ, “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Pet. 1:20). Thus, it was there, in “eternity past” (as we finite creatures struggle with ways to describe the indescribable [cf. Rom. 11:33]), that “He [the Father] chose us in Him [Jesus of Nazareth] before the foundation of the world, that we [both Jews and Gentiles, “a remnant according to the election of grace”] should be holy and without blame before Him in love” (Eph. 1:4). This great, gracious, and glorious Scheme of Redemption whereby sinners are saved by grace through faith is a “gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). That this was the plan, and Jesus of Nazareth the Man, is seen in the words of Luke recorded in Acts 4:1-12. “(1) Now as they [Peter and John] spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, (2) being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. (3) And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. (4) However, many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. (5) And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, (6) as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. (7) And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?’ [Make sure you go back to 3:11ff. to understand the context of this question.] (8) Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: (9) If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, (10) let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. (11) This is the “stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.” (12) Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Peter was not confining His remarks to only the NT era, as many wrongly suppose, for the God of the then, now, and not yet had already determined before He ever created the world that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, was going to be the only source of salvation for sinners, all of which was manifested for us in time and space via the precious blood of Immanuel, God incarnate, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). Notice in the above quote from Acts 4:1-12 how Peter refers in verse 11 to the stone rejected by the “builders,” a recurring theme that was first mentioned in Psalms 118:22-23, a clear messianic reference that Jesus had used earlier (Matt. 21:42) and which Peter uses again 1 Peter 2:4-6. By rejecting the Messiah, the “Coming One” (Matt 11:13), the “Lamb of God” who would take away the sins of the whole world (Jn 1:29,36), Jews, “the builders” (i.e., national Israel, those elected to service) demonstrated they were not “a remnant according to the election of grace.” That this dual-aspect of national Israel was not just something restricted to what had happened during the “fullness of time” of the Lord’s first advent, but was something that had separated remnant (spiritual) Israel from national (physical) Israel throughout the nation’s history, is something that is appreciated from a remnant-attentive reading of the OT Scriptures. Yes, I am suggesting an interpretive grid, but not one that reads into the Scriptures something that is not there. God forbid! On the contrary, I am recommending an interpretive grid that may help us see something we may have thought insignificant. Try it. If the remnant leitmotif isn’t there and isn’t significant, then discard it. On the other hand, you may be surprised by the exegetical value you discover by doing so. For example, re-read the parables of our Lord in Mark 4 and especially notice, from the viewpoint of what we’ve learned about the remnant, verses 10-12 and 33-34. Can you see “a remnant according to the election of grace” (“To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God”) and “the rest” (“but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them’”)? Most enlightening, don’t you think? And does it not shine light on Stephen’s charge to his fellow Jews in Acts 7:51-53, which says: “(51) You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. (52) Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, (53) who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” Stephen’s charge is, it is sad to say, the story of ethnic, national Israel, but not the true Israel of God, the faithful remnant, that thin scarlet line, that blood-bought line, of people down through the ages who were, and continue to be, redeemed by grace through faith in the precious blood of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.[1] Conclusion The remnant theme found throughout the Scriptures simply flies in the face of Sanders’ take on covenantal nomism that argues that most of the Jews who made up second-temple Judaism, especially those who lived in the first-century A.D., were actually in a right, and therefore saved, covenantal relationship with God, and Romans 9:19-33 is a powerful demonstration of it: “(19) You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?’ (20) But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ (21) Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? (22) What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, (23) and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, (24) even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (25) As He says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved.’ (26) ‘And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” there they shall be called sons of the living God.’ (27) Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved. (28) For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.’ (29) And as Isaiah said before: ‘Unless the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made like Gomorrah.’ (30) What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; (31) but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. (32) Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. (33) As it is written: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’” _________ Note [1] Concerning that long blood-bought line throughout history (the “scarlet thread,” as some call it), think in terms of “original grace,” that grace that was necessary the moment sin entered the world, a grace dependent upon an event that would take place in the space-time continuum of God’s creation just outside the walled city of Jerusalem some two millennia ago. Think of the image of a man, a Jewish man, suspended between heaven and earth, who was, in the mind of God, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, Immanuel, Jesus of Nazareth, the long-awaited Messiah, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Think of the blood that flowed from His battered and abused body on that pivotal day in our history and its effect on the sins of mankind not just today in the new creation of the Christian era, but for the sins that had also been committed previously (cf. Rom. 3:21-26, esp. v. 25b).
Posted on: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 19:18:55 +0000