New Covenant

picking up from last time, but Luke 24, Jesus on the way to Emmaus, right, as he speaks to those two downcast disciples, and he lays out from Moses and the prophets, and then later on, as he's with his disciples, it speaks about the Psalms, right? That's a threefold division of the Old Testament. The law, the prophets, and the writings, the Psalms reflect the writings. He shows how all of it, is leading you to Him, right? How the Christ had to suffer and die and be raised under His glory, right? And I think the best way to see how that's the case is not by finding hidden meaning in certain verses and saying, oh, there's Jesus. It's the entire storyline, right? It's the entire storyline through the covenants that are saying God will provide a redeemer, right? This Redeemer now is given definition, right? And through the covenants, more and more understanding is now coming. And that's how you see how he must suffer and die and so on, right? So that's how the covenants are functioning and how redemptive history is moving. So on your page one, under introduction review, just sort of picks up some of the things that we've previously said. But then you come to point C, which is where we left off with the Davidic covenant. And I just simply said, I do think the Davidic covenant, as you work from Adam to the king, to David, the Davidic king really is another Adam. He is to bring rule over, even the language of son. Son is very closely tied to image language. Further proof of that is Luke chapter 3. Luke chapter 3 is the genealogy of Jesus, right? So Matthew's genealogy starts with Abraham. Luke's genealogy starts, well, it goes all the way back to Adam, right? And Adam, Luke 3, 38, Adam is called, at the very, very end, he's called the son of God, right? So here's sonship, right? Sonship language isn't just dealing with males, it's dealing with image, right? Likeness, rule, right? It's endemic, right? So that the Davidic king as the son is true image, right? He is true Adam in that sense, right? He's also picks up Israel. Israel functions in that way as well as the son of God corporately, but now you have it tied to an individual. So the Davidic covenant, everything is moving to the king. And in some sense, the Old Testament is doing that, right? We've already highlighted that, right? So out of Genesis 17.6, out of you will come kings, he says to Abraham. 49, Genesis 49, Judah. The anticipation of Deuteronomy 17. When you go into the land, you'll ask for a king. Here's what the king's supposed to look like. And then just think of how judges works, right? The book of Judges, there's that refrain that shows up over and over again, right? The judges are sort of like kings, but they're not really kings. I mean, they're rulers. But what's the problem of the judges in Israel is that the people do what's right in their own eyes because there's no king, right? There's no king. You need a king, right? You need someone to rule over you. And in fact, how's the book of Ruth functioning? Now, Ruth makes a great hallmark, romance. But the point of Ruth, right, is a number of things. One is a Gentile woman is now coming into Israel, which is grace, right? It's Abrahamic, right? Already happening in the Old Testament. But also what's at the end of Ruth? David's genealogy, right? So you read Judges, Ruth, everything is setting you up for David, David, David. And of course, the Saul-David contrast is huge in Samuel. David is the man after God's own heart. And David's son will build the temple and all the temple imagery, which is so crucial with Solomon. Yet, yet, this is where we left off, right? All of the kings fail. All of them disobey. So I have here Isaiah 11. If you go to Isaiah 11, Isaiah 11 already presents the Davidic kings. This is pretty common in the Old Testament. The Davidic kings are like a tree that has been cut off and all that you have is a stump. If all you have is a stump, the mighty tree of the kingship is cut off, so all you have is a stump means that they've totally been cut off. But then you have in the prophets, Out of a stump will come offspring, right? So you have in Isaiah 11, a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. Roots of branch will bear fruit. This is part of the prophets, right? So the prophets will say, even though the kings have all been cut off, the nation has been cut off, they've been taken to exile. That's why exile was so crucial. Exile was a violation of the covenant. They were booted out of the land, just like Adam was booted out of Eden. They eventually get back, but even when they get back, there's no change in these people, right? Read Malachi, they're still robbing God, right? They still have hard hearts. And this is where the prophets will come in and look to a new covenant, look to a greater king and so on, right? So what we want to do here is I say three steps here before, two steps before we get to Galatians 3 and 4, but first simply look at the new covenant promise in the Old Testament context, right? So the new covenant is already anticipated as something that's coming, its future. And then the New Testament will announce it's now here in Christ and its application to the church. And then Galatians 3 and 4 then allows us to then look at how this whole redemptive history, now Paul's arguing against the Judaizer. So first in terms of the prophets, this is number two. I said before in terms of placing Now why the prophets, right? So sometimes the history books, Samuel, Kings are called former prophets. And the reason they're called that is probably because the prophets wrote them, right? But they're the history books. So when I'm using the word prophets, I'm using it in terms of what we call the major prophets and the minor prophets, right? All of those prophets write, right? Post David. So all of them, in fact, the history books probably are written late as well, right? They're reflecting back on the history of Israel, right? But all of the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, they all come after David, right? They're all building off of the entire revelation that leads you to the Davidic covenant, right? That's important to see, right? Now, you can divide up the prophets in terms of, well, did they write to the... They write to the north, do they write to the south? Do they write before the exile, in the exile, after the exile? So there's ways of dividing them up. But all of them are building off of the unfolding of the covenants to David. That is crucial, right? And as the prophets write, this is the bottom of your page one, overall message. First, the message is to the nation, you broke the covenant. So this is the application of Deuteronomy 27 and following. That's the curses of the covenant. If you violate the covenant, you're cut off. So that's what they say. Why, Israel, are you in exile? Israel's thinking, God, abandon us. And God says, no, you abandon me. You are under judgment. You are under exile. You're under the curse, the curse of the covenant. Yet within the prophets, there's hope, right? And that's the future. And the hope centers on, right? It goes all the way back to Genesis 3.15, but just simply gets developed more, right? The hope is God will save you. The Lord will save and the Lord will do it alone. But the Lord will do it alone through the King. Those things are just totally interwoven, right? Sets you up for New Testament, understanding of Christ, right? Who is Jesus? Well, he's the provision of the King, but he's also the Lord. He's both. So here you have the Lord who saves through the King. So I give you some examples of this, Isaiah 40 through 48. If you just turn to Isaiah 40, right? We won't spend too much time on this, but Isaiah 40, right? We often read, comfort, comfort, my people. Isaiah 40 verse one says, your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Well, this comfort, comfort, is in a context in Isaiah. And the context is chapter 38 and 39. 38 and 39, at the end of 39, this is when God says to Hezekiah, because he has opened up his whole kingdom to the Babylonians, and God says to him in Isaiah 39, verse seven or six, nothing will be left. Your descendants will be flesh and blood. It'll be taken away. There'll be eunuchs in Babylon, right? This is the anticipation of the Babylonian exile. That's still future. But what's being said here is the Davidic house is going to be destroyed. That is parallel to God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Because if God commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, if he's dead, there's no hope. If the Davidic king is cut off, God's promises have failed. So what is going to happen? That's why comfort, comfort comes. All of these chapters, 40 through 48, are the majestic presentation of God, but they're all centered in God will keep his promise. He, even though he destroys the Davidic house, will raise up a David. That's why they're all messianic. That's why out of this comes Isaiah 53 and the servant of the Lord and so on and so on and so on. So here we have the message of the prophets is the Lord himself will keep his promise. The Lord himself will save. Salvation is of the Lord, right? You see this at Ezekiel 34. Go to Ezekiel 34. This is a very, very important passage that combines the Lord will save you, but he'll do so through the provision of a king. So Ezekiel 34, this is the backdrop to Jesus' teaching in John 10 on the servant of the good shepherd. So Israel, the Lord is the shepherd of Israel. Leaders in Israel are shepherds. But all of the leaders, prophets, priests, and kings, are all disastrous. So this is why in Ezekiel 34, verse 1 and following, Ezekiel is commanded, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. That's the leadership. prophesy and say to them, I'm going to destroy you. That's basically what he's going to do, right? You've failed. You've not led my people. You even have that reference in verse 6, my sheep wandered all over the mountains. They were scattered over the whole earth. No one searched for them. That's picked up in the Gospels, right? Jesus looks at them and says, they're all like sheep without a shepherd, right? Israel is scattered. God is going to bring judgment. And then you read in verse 7, 7 through 20, two or something like that, you look at all the eyes. I will save you. I will bring judgment. I will rescue. I will do this. God is going to come and save his people. And then he says in verse 22, I will save my flock. They will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. And then verse 23, I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David. Well, David's long dead. So who is this David? This is the Davidic king, right? This is the prophets. This is the prophets who are looking forward to the king. I'm going to put over my shepherd David. He will tend them. He will be their shepherd. I, the Lord, will be their God. My servant David will be a prince. Now notice how totally woven together is the Lord and the king, inseparable, right? You see this in the Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7. I will be a father. He will be my son." Now, in the fullest extent of this becomes ultimately Trinitarian because the son who is the human king is not just merely a human son, he's also the eternal son. And the Lord, right, the father of the son, right, I mean, that now speaks of eternal relationships that show themselves in time in terms of the son and his humanity and so on and so on. I mean, these are all how you get the Trinitarian formulation. unpacked through the covenants and so on. So the message of the prophets will say, the Lord will save through the King. Remember Isaiah 9, Christmastime, you know, handles Messiah and so on, right? So the King who is given, Isaiah 9, 6, and 7, will have titles of deity. Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father. Father there is not a reference to God the Father. It's a reference to the Lord as Father of Israel. Those are all titles of deity. Yet, what does he do? He sits on David's throne. So now you have a human who, in the prophets, looks a lot like God. Now, it's only resolved in terms of the New Testament, in terms of Christ, right? But together, the Lord and the King, the Lord and the King. That's why in Psalm 2, the Lord is anointed, the Lord is anointed, the Father, Son, right? That's who is going to bring salvation He goes all the way back to Genesis 3.15. So I give you that on page one, the top of page two type of thing. This becomes all of the seedbed to Messiah, Christ, the identification of who this Christ is to the Lord, deity, humanity. I mean, it all becomes clear in the New Testament, but it's there already in the Old Testament, right? This is all part of the new covenant anticipation and hope. Now, as you look at the New Covenant promise, it gets tied in with the coming of the King, right? The coming of Lord and Messiah. All of the prophets, so this is under page two, number C, the New Covenant promise anticipation in its Old Testament copy. All the prophets speak of the New Covenant. They speak of it in different ways, right? Jeremiah uses the term actually New Covenant. So that's the most famous because that gets picked up in Hebrews chapter eight in the New Testament. Corinthians 3 and other places. You also have them speak about a covenant of peace, an everlasting covenant, right? So in, for instance, Ezekiel 34, we spoke about how he's going to put over them the servant David, but in verse 25 it says, I will cut a covenant of peace. That's a new covenant, right? So all the prophets speak of the coming of the new covenant. And as the prophets look forward, so this is the diagram I gave you on your sheet there. This is a way of schematizing now as they look forward to the future. This is this Old Testament redemptive historical timeline. The Old Testament perspective is that history is linear. It starts with creation, and then moves to the fall, and you have God's promises, and you have the unfolding of the covenants. But as the prophets look to the future, they divide history into, these are just profound terms, but simply what's presently here, the present age, and the future. The last days, the age to come. So all the prophets are like, in the last days, in the future age. So there's going to come a dividing point in history where now the future will come. God will keep his promise. God will rescue his people and so on, right? So we'll call that up here the age to come, right? Simply because it's future. The one who will bring the age to come is the Lord plus the king, right? So the Lord will come through the king. When the Lord and the king come, then the new age arrives. And this age, I like to characterize it as a kind of package, right? And I give you some of that package in some of the description there, right? Is what will this future age look like? Well, when the Lord and the King come, this age will bring about a new creation, Isaiah 65, a new world, right? It'll bring about a new covenant. It'll bring about the rule of God that will defeat all of his enemies, right? The kingdom. It will bring about, and what's uniquely here, it'll bring about the Spirit. The Spirit is so, so important, right? Now, when you think of the Spirit of God, right, that's traced out all the way through the Old Testament, right? So the Spirit of God is there at creation, but we don't No, exactly, that's the third person of the Godhead, right? You need the whole Bible to get that. But God's Spirit is there at creation, hovering over. God's Spirit breathes into Adam. You have the Spirit of God given to leadership in the Old Testament, right? That's the idea of Messiah, anointing, right? Prophets have the Spirit, and priests have the Spirit, and kings have the Spirit, and even craftsmen have the Spirit, right? So the Spirit comes upon people in a certain way. Numbers 11 is really important here. Numbers 11 is the case where Moses is leading Israel and he needs help. So 70 elders are called to help him. And what happens to those people? They are given the spirit and they prophesy. That's evidence that God has empowered them, right? And then, interestingly enough, Moses says, I wish that all of God's people had the spirit like this, which tells you they all didn't. Not all of them were empowered like those 70 elders. But the prophets tell you that in the future, this is Joel 2, that's going to happen. So this is part of the prophetic anticipation. Joel 2 says, in the future days, this is what gets quoted in Acts 2 at Pentecost. In the future days, God is gonna pour out his spirit on all people, all flesh. Now the all flesh there doesn't mean everybody in the entire universe. It means all in the covenant. This is a covenant context. Under the old covenant, you had leadership, You had some that were empowered by the Spirit and not others. Think of Saul. Saul even had the Spirit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he was regenerate. It just means he was empowered by the Spirit and the Spirit was taken away from him. Some did have the Spirit regeneration, but not all. But there's coming a day when all will have the Spirit and then it gets tied to as well. All will be transformed internally as well. All will have circumcision of heart. So this is part of the prophetic Anticipation, and I mentioned the Spirit because this looms large in Galatians 3 and 4. In fact, it looms large in the book of Acts, doesn't it? What signals to Peter that the new age has come in Acts 2? And that's primarily Jewish. Acts 2 is all about the Jewish people, right? Well, they received the Spirit. But what's the proof that the Gentiles now are part of the people of God? It's Cornelius, right? Cornelius in Acts 10. And what does Cornelius receive that Peter says, my goodness, even the Gentiles have received this, right? It's the Spirit, right? Because the Spirit is bound up with the new covenant. Now, again, it's not to say there's no regeneration in the Old Testament. or the Spirit didn't empower certain people, but what's anticipated is that there's going to be a whole new community that's internally born of the Spirit, or internally circumcised of heart, and empowered by the Spirit. That doesn't mean that all of us who have the Spirit in the New Covenant, right, the Church, every single believer, right, every single person is regenerate, or should be regenerate, and all of us are gifted by the Spirit. That doesn't mean you have the same gift. But it means that we are empowered by the Spirit. That's the application of this to us. But this is part of the Old or the New Covenant promise, right? So I give you some of that. So this new age, right? This new age will bring all of this to pass. Now, the New Testament will modify this timeline slightly, right? The New Testament will modify the timeline in the sense of what we call an overlap of the ages. It's the same timeline, But I don't think in the Old Testament there was a clear distinction between the first coming of Messiah and the second coming. That is more in the New Testament, right? Think of John the Baptist. John the Baptist struggles with this. John the Baptist is the forerunner. He's put in jail. He sends his disciples to Jesus and says, are you the one? And Jesus has to say to him, I'm the one. Hang on, John. Because I think John is thinking, this, right, package. He's expecting the Messiah to come and turf out the Romans, to bring all of God's saving purposes and so on, and what's he doing in jail? But the New Testament speaks of the first coming and the second coming. Age to come, right, has now, what we say, arrived in the first coming. This package is all here now, in principle, but it will be ultimately consummated in the end, right? So we live between the tension of the first coming, second coming was sometimes known as the in principle here, the already and the not yet, right? But in principle, right? The spirit has been poured out, but he's only the first fruits. There's more to come. In principle, the new creation is here in Christ and the people of God are the new creation, but we await the consummation, right? In principle, the kingdom is here, but we still pray your kingdom come. In principle, right, all of these things are here. Judgment is now here, in some sense, in our justification. But there will be a public judgment in the end, and so on, right? So this is how the New Testament is applying these things. But the expectation of the new covenant, and I give you a list here, right? The Lord and the King, a new Exodus, a new temple, a new Jerusalem, salvation, judgment, the outpouring of the Spirit. So from the Old Testament perspective, everything was looking forward to the coming of the King, and the New Covenant, and once that King and New Covenant come, the previous covenants, right, have reached their fulfillment. Fulfillment in the Bible is a prophetic understanding. Fulfillment means it looks forward to that which is to come, and when that which comes, comes, it is now fulfilled, right? It is now done, right? So the sacrificial system is now fulfilled. It's now done. The whole priestly system is done, right? The King has now come. The Davidic promises are now realized in Christ, and so on, and so on, and so on, right? So this is how this is built. Now, I mentioned Jeremiah 31. You can just flip over there. This is probably the most famous New Covenant passage, because it's quoted, you know, it's the longest quotation in the New Testament, in Hebrews chapter eight, and then also referred to in 10, and so on. But here is in Jeremiah, it's just one passage. You have to put all of the prophets together, right? So this is just one text, but it's an important text because it speaks in verse 31, Jeremiah 31. It says, the time is coming. So that's the future. That's the age to come. It's not here yet, but it's future. I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel, the house of Judah. Now, clearly in the New Testament, this gets applied to the church. That's a whole argument of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism still wants to say this new covenant is still future to Israel. I don't think that works. But here you have, I'll make a covenant with the house of Israel, house of Judah. How is it given to the house of Israel, to the church in the New Testament? Because Jesus is true Israel. Jesus fulfills all the promises as the Davidic king of Israel. He is that which summarizes it all on himself. But he's going to make a house of Israel, house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers, in clear reference to the Mosaic. when I took them out of Egypt. This is a covenant I'll make with them in the house of Israel. He says, I'll put my law on their minds and write it on their hearts. Now that's picked up in Ezekiel and other places. This would be circumcision of heart language, right? This would be transformation. I'm going to, unlike Israel that has believers and unbelievers within it, I'm gonna give them new hearts, right? Ezekiel 36, I'll take out a heart of stone, put a heart of flesh. And what's being spoken of here is the scope of the community, right? Some of, you know, there were Old Testament saints. But now the entire people will have new hearts, right? No longer will a man teach his neighbor a man, or a man his brother saying, know the Lord. Now that know the Lord is a prophetic theme. So in the Old Testament, right, if you know the Lord, you go to the prophet. Know the Lord, hear the word of the prophet. But already in Joel 2 and other places, right, we all become prophets. Now that doesn't mean all the charismatic issues of gifts All of the prophets here is you know God, right? You know Him so that you're able to say to one another, I know the Lord, you know the Lord. We're all part of a regenerate community and so on. I mean, that's what I think it's anticipating. And it speaks then of the least of the greatest, which is another way of Joel too. Young, old, men, women, the whole community is born of the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. That's the anticipation that is spoken of here. And at the heart of it is verse 34. will forgive their sins. Now, did God forgive sins in the Old Covenant? Yeah, sort of. This is going to be crucial in the Judaizers. The Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, provided forgiveness to a point. But of course, the very fact that it was done every day, sacrifices, the Day of Atonement was done every year, This is what Hebrews picks up, right? The very repetitious nature of the sacrifices of the Old Testament, which is where forgiveness took place, right? You went to the priest, you had your sacrifice, you were at atonement and so on. The very fact that it was done over and over and over again, they obeyed the covenant, but they were also supposed to learn something about the covenant. The covenant was pointing to something greater, right? That's the point, and of course, that's what the new covenant is saying. I will remember their sins no more. That remember their sins no more is not amnesia. Hebrews picks it up very clearly. To remember their sins no more means there's an end to sin. There is a forgiveness that is so total that I remember it no more. Now, think of the old covenant. God remembered it daily, yearly. over and over and over and over again, but this is the anticipation of a full justification. God is gonna say, it's done, you're forgiven, you're justified. Now, you have to say to yourself, how does that happen? Under the old covenant, it all came through the sacrificial system, but in the new covenant, of course, you put a number of other things together, it's gonna come through a better priest. Psalm 110. It's going to come through a servant of the Lord, Isaiah 53. I mean, that's how eventually it all gets woven in. There's going to come a Redeemer that God provides, that in His life, death, resurrection, and so on, provides such justification. It's done. He makes it complete. That's where all this is going. Now, did the Old Covenant itself anticipate this? Well, in some sense, in its whole typological structures, it anticipated it. But it never by itself gave it. All it did could point to it, right? This is what Romans 3.21 is about. If you go to Romans 3.21, this is a very, very important passage that sets you up for the coming of Christ and His atoning work, right? And it's all centered on a contrast between old and new, right? So Romans 3.21 is in the context where there's three chapters of Gentiles and Jews alike are all under sin. There's no difference. All have sinned. All have fallen short. All means Jew, Gentile. That's the entire human race. All are under sin. But, but, but, right? And this is now a but now, which is tied to history. But now God has done something. What's he done? He's sent his son, right? His son has brought a new covenant. But now, A righteousness of God is made known. The gospel displays the very righteousness of God. God saving faithfulness to put people in the right. I think that's the idea here, right? But notice it comes apart from the law. And Paul, when he uses the word law, mostly, not always, but mostly it's referring to the old covenant. So when it says here, but now a righteousness of God comes apart from the Mosaic Covenant. That's really how it should go. The Mosaic Covenant never gives you the righteousness of God. You can offer your sacrifice over and over and over and over and over and over again, and you'll never be righteous. But the law and the prophets witness to it. You gotta keep both those together. In Galatians 3 and 4, Paul's gonna pick up The first, in some sense, really emphasize that. If you think the old covenant could save you, you're dreaming. It was never intended to save you. All it did was bring a curse. But it pointed to something greater. In fact, it pointed to the promise. It pointed to the promise that was long given. It pointed to ultimately the coming of a new covenant, the dawning of a redeemer who would, in the promise of the new covenant, bring the permanent forgiveness of sins. So, you know, Romans 8 now, if anyone's in Christ, right? Now, now, not just future, now, there's no condemnation. That means permanently your sins are forgiven. So this is how the Old Testament is looking forward, right? And even in Romans 3, 21 and following, you look there, the very, very important passage that says, why did Christ have to die? Well, ultimately, because God in his patience, this is verse 25 and 26, God in his patience let sins beforehand go unpunished. It's true of Abraham too, right? Abraham is declared just, but you could ask legitimately the question in the Old Testament, on what basis? Well, his faith, yeah, but he's supposed to obey. There is really no ground, right? God is forgiving him, he is justified. Old Testament saints were justified, but only in terms of what was to come. That's why they had the promise ultimately centered in Christ. So this is the Old Testament presentation of the promise of the new covenant. Now, the New Testament ultimately says this is fulfilled. So this is point three, right? Everything in the New Testament, we're not gonna develop this, because you can turn to now Galatians three and four, but in the New Testament, right, everything now says the King has come. And He's also the Lord. So He is the eternal Son who takes on our sonship, our humanity. He is the eternal Son to the Father, so that the Father-Son relationship now just, you know, just blooms in the sense of now this isn't just a human son, divine son in relation to the Father, Father, Son, Spirit, the triune God who is now bringing about our salvation in and through the Redeemer, right? So he is the fulfillment of the new covenant. He inaugurates it, right? So on the night he's betrayed, he takes the bread and the cup, which is picking up the Passover. He's the Passover. He's the fulfillment of it. The Lord's Supper is not the fulfillment of the Passover. He's the Passover, right? And he says, this is the blood of the new covenant. Even in Matthew 1, when the angel announces Jesus's name, right? You shall call him Jesus. What will he do? He will save his people from their sins. That's an illusion of Jeremiah 31, right? Here's the one who's bringing the new covenant. I mean, you don't have to have the word new covenant everywhere. I mean, the whole concept is everywhere, right? So he's the one who brings the forgiveness of sins. He's the one who brings the new covenant in his blood. He's the one who ratifies that. And of course, the benefit of that then comes to the church, right? So in Christ, who is true Israel, who is last Adam, he's both. He now establishes a church that fulfills the Abrahamic promise. Every tribe, nation, people, time, and so on, right? So that's how eventually that is brought into the New Testament. Now, this is where we now move to Galatians 3 and 4, right? So Galatians 3 and 4, turn there. We're not going to look at, we're going to look at just Galatians 3 and then all the way through really 4, 7 or so, right? Then you have Hagar. That'll be enough, right? But Galatians 3 and 4, right? What, first of all, is these are occasional letters. Paul is addressing a specific problem, right? And it's the problem of the Judaizers. And this is everywhere in the New Testament, right? There was a huge struggle. Jewish believers, right? Jewish people who now came to believe in Messiah, believe in Christ, right? So these aren't Jewish unbelievers, right? The Judaizers are Jewish believers. But everything of their life is governed by the Mosaic law. It's a pretty struggle to say, what do I do with that now? Even Peter, think of when he's getting his vision of clean and unclean animals, right? And it eventually gets applied to Cornelius, right? God says to him, take and eat the unclean. And he goes, what? How can I? That's forbidden. Right? Everything has governed their life under that Mosaic law. And the Judaizers then come along. Right? So they're believers in Christ. But they then have no problem, right, bringing Gentiles in. Right? So sometimes people today will create the Jew-Gentile problem along racial lines. That's really not correct. Right? The Jewish Judaizers had no problem with the Gentiles coming in. They just simply said, You've got to come under the Mosaic law. I mean, it's God's law, right? What are you going to do, ignore God's law? So you need to become one with us, right? So you need to be circumcised. You need to obey the food laws. You need to do all, I mean, that's basically what's going on. So you're welcome, but you need to come under the Mosaic law, right? And this is what is being addressed, right? And so now this is creating havoc in the churches. So the Gentiles are coming to faith, They're saying, to be truly brought to faith, you must obey the law. You must obey the Mosaic Covenant. You must come under it, and so on and all. And it shows up primarily in circumcision. But it also shows up in the food laws, too. So even in the Book of Romans, strong and weak issues aren't so much over drinking, dancing, and smoking or something. We've sort of made it those things. Really, it's over clean and unclean, and the foods, and so on, tied to the old covenant. Paul is addressing the Judaizers, and the Judaizers are working with an assumption. And the assumption is the Mosaic Covenant is God's law, which it is, and it is eternal. And what do I mean by eternal? It lasts for all people, all places, all times. That's why the Gentile must come under it, right? If they don't come under it, ultimately, they're violating the covenant. They're violating God's law. So that covenant is clearly in their mind not temporary. It's not functioning in God's plan to be part of that plan that leads you to Christ so that now that Christ comes, all of that has now been brought to fulfillment. You're no longer under it. They're not viewing it that way. They're viewing the covenant. It's almost as if they've taken the Mosaic law out of God's plan, sort of elevated it, and they've just now plopped it down all places, all people, all times, exactly the same way as that it functioned in the Old Testament. And this is what the Apostle Paul's gonna say. He's gonna say, what are you doing? You have no clue how that Old Covenant's functioning, right? Yeah, it's God's law, but if you understood the Old Covenant properly in its place in redemptive history, it was pointing to the New Covenant. It was leading you to the fulfillment of the promises in Christ. In fact, the old covenant, if you really understood it properly, the reason God gave it was not to save you, it was to condemn you. It pointed to something greater. Now that the greater has come, you don't go back under it. It's like going back to the shadows of the old. It's going back to that which was part of a previous era that no longer is applied directly to you, right? We still have to wrestle with, well, how is it indirectly applied or so on. But as a covenant, it's finished, it's done, it's fulfilled. So this is what he is going to argue in terms of ultimate salvation. Now, the context of it is he's going to set it in terms of Galatians 3, 15 and 16, a kind of justification by works versus grace. And the reason it's set in terms of works is because the old covenant, demanded obedience, as in some sense all of them do. But it demanded obedience, and in that old covenant, if you are to apply that covenant as a covenant to you, you must obey it all. And if you obey it all, then how is there forgiveness within it, right? Now you could say, what about the sacrificial system? Well, I've already set you up for that, right? Sacrificial system points to something more, but by itself, You can sacrifice till you're blue in the face, but it will never save you. And God has been teaching this through all of redemptive history, yet if you are gonna now take that covenant as a whole package and plop it down on people, then you need to obey all of it, but all of it brought death, right? All of it pointed to something more, all of it. And that's the kind of argument that he is making. So Paul's response ultimately is a failure to understand the place of the Mosaic Covenant in God's plan. They have taken it out of God's plan and just simply applied it to everyone without saying, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to read it in context. You've got to read the Mosaic Covenant in terms of what precedes it, what comes after it. You can't just take it and just sort of say, now it applies to you without seeing how it fits. in terms of God's overall plan. And that's what Paul is eventually saying. So in God's plan, the Mosaic Covenant was never intended ultimately to save you. It pointed to what was to save you. But it ultimately was never intended to save. And that's what the Judaizer is missing. So putting people back under it is to fundamentally misunderstand it, right? And it's ultimately then to put themselves under the very curse of it, right? Because it brings with it a curse. As he begins to lay this out, look at verses 1 to 5. Now, the major argument he makes is found in verse 15 and following in terms of its placement in the covenants. But already in verses 1 to 5, he's assuming the whole teaching of the prophets in terms of the new covenant. And how is that? Well, he says here in verse 1, O foolish Galatians, Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like you to learn just one thing from you. I want to learn one thing from you. And this question here assumes all of the prophetic teaching about the new covenant. Did you receive the spirit? Remember I said, You can't understand the role of the Spirit without sort of tracing across redemptive history. Yes, the Spirit is operative in creation and so on, but uniquely the Spirit is bound up with the coming of the new covenant. The pouring out of the Spirit on all of the covenant people, the empowering of the Spirit, all of these passages of Ezekiel 36 and Joel 2 and so on. He says, did you receive the Spirit? Another way of saying, did you receive the Spirit is another way of saying, did you receive the new covenant? Did you receive the Spirit by observing the Mosaic Law? Hardly. The giving of the Spirit is bound up with the coming of Christ. It's bound up with the coming of the New Covenant. You didn't receive the Spirit by observing the Law or by believing what you heard. Are you so foolish after beginning with the Spirit? That's another way of saying, after beginning with the New Covenant. After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing? It was really for nothing. Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believe what is heard? Now, picking up believing is picking up eventually the promise. A promise that he'll tie back to Abraham, but that goes through the whole Bible. What has been the promise of God? God will provide a Redeemer who will bring a new covenant, who will bring the Spirit. So they started well, They believed Christ. They received the Spirit. Think of, again, this is Acts 2 and this is Acts 10. How did Peter receive the Spirit in the Jewish people? By believing in Christ. How did the Gentiles receive the Spirit? By believing in Christ, right? They entered the new covenant. They did not receive the Spirit under the new covenant terms by going back to the old covenant. They believed in Christ. They believed the promises and so on, right? So he's already anticipating here You received all the benefits of the new covenant by believing in Christ, not by putting yourself under the old covenant, right? Now, he begins to flesh this out even more, right? So in verse six, he then goes back to Abraham, and he does this in Romans four, and then James will quote this as well, right? So this is a crucial text we already mentioned in Genesis 15, six. Consider Abraham. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So he goes back to Father Abraham. How was Abraham declared righteous? He believed in the promises of God. Now, I've already set you up for what was that promise all about? Ultimately, the promise is about Christ. So he believed in God's provision. He believed that a seed would be given. He believed that's how he was declared just. And Paul doesn't develop this here, but he developed it in Romans 4. Abraham was declared just before circumcision. And he will now say Abraham was declared just, later on he'll say, before Moses ever showed up. Moses didn't show up until 400 years later. So already justification, God is justifying sinners on the basis of faith in the promises of God long before any Mosaic law ever shows up. And even in Abraham's life, even before he's ever circumcised. Now those become crucial, right? The Judaizers want to say circumcision is necessary for you to be under the covenant, right? It's trying to put you under the old covenant. He's saying, you don't have a clue. You don't have a clue in Abraham's life. You don't have a clue in terms of where the Mosaic Covenant is placed and so on. Abraham was declared just by faith long before ever Moses showed up. And then he says in verse seven, understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. Now he's picking up this idea that the true offspring of Abraham are believers. Abraham has many children. and many sons, we have a children's song, right? Abraham has many sons, and we dance around, right? He's got Ishmael, and he's got sons of Gethsemane, but the true offspring of Abraham ultimately are those who believe in the promise. Those become the spiritual seed, right? That becomes tied to Jew-Gentile, and so on. So he says, the scriptures foresaw, it's another way of God predicting ahead of time. The scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham, and what's he quote here? Genesis 12, right? So we said, in the Abrahamic covenant, what's the purpose of Abraham? Through Abraham, ultimately Christ comes to benefit the nations. And so Abraham, in his being declared just, right? In the promise of God that ultimately benefits the nations, God was saying all along, right? The only way for Abraham to be just, the only way for anyone to be just, is by believing in the provision of God in Christ. That's the only way that anyone will be just, and that's what he's picking up here, right? So those, verse 9, who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith, right? So he's appealing, but it's very, very important to see that Abraham, in believing the promise, a promise that will affect the entire nation, it's a promise centered in Christ, right? And ultimately, as you work through the Old Testament, the promise centered in Christ is the promise of the new covenant, right? It's the promise of what now comes there in terms of the prophets. And then he goes on in verse 10 to then just simply speak about the Mosaic Law. Now, I don't think this is all he could say. And he'll develop a bit more later in the chapter, right? The Mosaic Law, I mean, in Romans 7, he says it's God-given, it's gracious, it's, you know, a number of things, right? But he's really focusing on the main point of the Mosaic Law in the plan of God, right? So it does carry the promise, right? I mean, through Israel, blessing will come to the world through the Davidic Kings. So there's the promise that continues throughout. Yet the main point of the Mosaic Covenant was to use Israel as an example, a kind of nether atom, to show, even in a greater way, human sin, human need, human You can't save yourself. Your heart is wicked. God is going to have to provide someone to pay for your sin, to bring the new covenant, and so on. So that's why he picks up in verse 10, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written. Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. That comes out of Deuteronomy 27. That's very important to see. What he's doing is picking up the main point, If you violate, so he's really picking up this idea, God demands from each one of us, particularly Israel, but all of us, perfect obedience. If you don't perfectly obey, the wages of sin is death. And this happens now in Israel's experience. Cursed is those who do not follow obedience of the law. Now, it's also interesting, right, he could say more, but in Deuteronomy 27 through 30, there's also hope there too, isn't there? He doesn't pick that up because that's not the main point. But even in Deuteronomy 27 to 30, as he says, curse it is the law on you, he also says, God will circumcise your hearts. So that's why I say the law covenant, first and foremost, brought death to Israel, but it was also pointing forward. It was looking to the coming of something greater, right? A greater circumcision of heart, a greater new covenant, greater all these kind of things, but he's picking up here that ultimately it brings with a curse. And then he says in verse 11, clearly no one is justified before God by the law, by the law there meaning the Mosaic covenant, right? And what he's picking up here is absolutizing it. The Judaizer has absolutized it, right? They've taken this as eternal. Well, if you want to put yourself under that as eternal and not see it as pointing to something greater, then if you just take it as the covenant, doesn't have anything within it that can bring you life. Even that sacrificial system will bring you life, right? Eventually, right, it will simply bring that of a curse. So the law is not based on faith, on contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. It is written, curse is everyone who's hung in a tree. So he's quoting from Deuteronomy, right? So the best example of a curse is ultimately putting somebody on a tree, right? And so Christ is the one So here's a contrast, right? Now again, it's not saying that the old covenant had no gracious elements and so on. He's picking up the main point of it. And the main point of it, we try to emphasize as well, even Israel under that covenant, as it brought a curse upon them, they should have realized this will never save us. That's what the prophets are saying. You can, again, offer your sacrifices, but there needs to be a permanent forgiveness. There needs to be a better priest. atonement and so on and so on and so on, right? So the Judaizer wanting to put themselves under it is simply misunderstanding that that covenant was never intended to ultimately save. It was pointing forward. Christ is the one who obeys it. Christ is the one who have first perfect obedience. He is the one who bears the curse. He is the one who pays for sin. Think of Romans 3 again, right? Under the old covenant, God had to overlook their sin. But that can't go on forever, right? There has to ultimately be the full payment of it, right? So verse 14, he redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles, right? So Israel brings forth Messiah, but it brings a curse. Ultimately, there must come a new covenant that will bring the promise to all nations, right? And that's the Abrahamic promise. And that's why in verse 15, he begins to now, so he sort of set things up, right? You want to make the Old Covenant, you know, almost eternal. But no, you didn't receive the Spirit by the Old Covenant. That's the New Covenant. Abraham wasn't justified by the Old Covenant. He was justified in the promise of God and in faith, and that was the blessing to the Gentiles and so on. The Old Covenant is going to play its role in redemptive history, but it's never playing a role to ultimately save you. It's ultimately to lead you to salvation. It's ultimately to point forward. And now that's what he picks up in verse 15 and following, right? So here's where he's now talking about the relationships of the covenants, primarily Abrahamic, Mosaic, I think there's an allusion to Davidic, and ultimately new, Christ is the one who brings the new. So he's sketching out what we've looked at already. So he says, brothers, verse 15, let me take an example, right? So he's trying to show that Christ has redeemed us from the law, from the Mosaic covenant, thus bringing the Abrahamic promise, right? So he says, let us take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that's been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. So he's now appealing to the Abrahamic Covenant, right? So Genesis 12, Genesis 15, I mean all the Abrahamic Covenant. The promises were made to Abraham and his seed. The scriptures does not say, and to seeds, plural, meaning many people, but to your seed, meaning one person who is Christ. Now, it took a while to develop that, but I mean, in the end, that seed promise, Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman promise is put in what we call a collective. It's a collective sort of singular. So there's the idea that there's a singular seed out of a collective, right? The same thing is found in the Abrahamic, right? So the seed can show itself in Isaac, Jacob, priests, kings, and so on, right? Yet ultimately, it culminates in a singular, right? Of course, that singular, it gets picked up in the Davidic covenant. It's the Davidic king who's the singular, and so on. So his point here is that the promise to Abraham is ultimately just not to seeds all these many people, but it's Christological. The promise of a seed for Abraham first and foremost reaches its fulfillment in the singular seed, Christ, who now brings the promises to everyone, right, which is the promise of the Abrahamic covenant. And then he says, what I mean is this, and this is where he's now introducing context. The Mosaic Covenant must be read in terms of what preceded it. The law, and now you have a historical term, introduced 430 years later. That's tied to history, isn't it? What came first in God's plan? Well, the promise, creation and the promise, through Noah, through Abraham. When did the Mosaic Law show up? 400 years later. That's a long time later, right? So you can't now appeal to the later and overturn the earlier. It's building on, right? It's developing. It's unfolding, right? You just don't say, well, let's just forget everything earlier, right? It's unpacking it for you. So the law introduced 430 years later does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. Now, he's appealing primarily to the Abrahamic promise, but you could take it all the way back to Genesis 3.15 as well. What did God promise from the very beginning once sin introduced into the world? I'll provide a Redeemer. I myself will provide a Redeemer through Abraham and so on. So when the law is introduced, it doesn't overturn that promise. That's the entire promise that's running through the entire Bible. Ultimately, the faith, even Abraham's faith, is in the promise, it's in the coming of Christ, it's in the dawning of eventually what the prophets will say is the new covenant. It's long before all that's already established, long before the Mosaic covenant is introduced. So he says in verse 18, if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise and so on. So he's speaking of the priority of God's promise all the way from Genesis 3.15 through Abraham So that raises the question, any Jewish person who says, okay, if that's the case, then what on earth is the law for? I mean, the Judaizer has made the law everything. Paul is now relativizing it. He's saying, no, think of the promise, that's what's first. So what then is the point of the covenant at all then? Why did God even bother with it, right? And of course, That's the question he raises, right? So you know you're on the right track here, right? Verse 19, what was the purpose of the law? Again, if you think of it as a Judaizer, if everything is bound up with the Mosaic law, but now Paul has just relativized it in light of the promise, then why did God give it in the first place? Now, again, I don't think Paul's saying all the reasons he gave it. I mean, you'd have to put everything of the New Testament together but he's focusing on the main reason, right? And the main reason is to show you how awful you are, right? Is to show you your sin, right? You're so dull that I gave you good law and because of your hearts, it just simply brought more sin, which shows you, which is what the prophets say, God's gonna have to circumcise your heart. God's gonna have to provide something more. God's gonna have to save you because you can't save yourself. And that's an important message, right? The human race can't do anything to save itself. We have too many times do we trust false messiahs in the human race. Good luck. Don't trust any of them. The only one you trust is what God has provided in Christ, right? So he says here, what was the purpose of the law? It was added. So that's the notion of history. Because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come. Now that seed, of course, is Christ. All the way from Genesis 3-15 through Abraham, God has always been saying, I'm sending my son, I'm sending my son, I'm sending my son. So the law covenant is introduced for a whole variety of reasons, but the primary reasons is to prepare you for Christ, is to lead you to Christ, is to you know, hold the nation together so that Christ can come out of them, but ultimately to show you your need, to show you your sin, right? So it was added because of transgressions until the seed to whom the promise referred had come, and the law was put into effect by angels, a mediator, and so on. That gets picked up by angelic mediation. Hebrews picks that up as well. And then in verse 21 it says, is the law, referring to the Mosaic Covenant, opposed to the promises of God? So is it just simply that we say, we got promise, we got law, and they're just in conflict with one another? No, that's not God's plan. God's plan is always to bring forth Christ. The law is not opposed to it, but its purpose is to reveal sin to lead you to Christ, to lead you to the promise, right? So he says, the law therefore, is it opposed to the promises? No. For if the law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come from the law. But the scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin. How does the scripture teach us? How does God teach us that we're all under sin? Well, you've got Adam. You've got our individual conscience and so on. But you also have a great demonstration of it in Israel. Israel is the microcosm of the world. What happens to them is true of all of us. So it says here, it's been forth the law have been given that can impart life, and righteous would certainly have come by the law, but the scripture declares the whole world is a prisoner of sin, right? That's Romans 3.23, all of sin, all of falsehood. So that what was promised, Genesis 3.15, Genesis 12, and so on, being given through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, that's another way of saying before Christ came. Before the new covenant came. We were held prisoners by the law. Now, did the law have gracious elements to it? Did it point beyond itself? Yeah, sure. But the law by in and of itself would never bring a promise, right? It would never bring righteousness. It would never bring salvation. So we were held in prisoners by the law, locked up until faith is revealed. Faith here is another way of saying Christ is revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, right? It was a tutor, it was a guide, it was to point beyond itself, that we might be justified by faith, right? Justification by faith was long before the law was ever given, Genesis 15. Now the faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law, right? So Paul's saying that the law was added, part of God's plan to lead us to Christ, but it was added for the reason of ultimately giving way to the dawning of the new covenant, right? The promise of Abraham. So the Judaizer problem was that they assumed that the law covenant was eternal. Everyone must, and Paul says that's not how the Bible reads. You've got to start with creation and you've got to start with the fall and you've got to start with Genesis 3.15 and you've got to go to Noah and Abraham and you have to realize that Abraham is the one who brings through the seed, through the promise of Christ, the blessing to the world, and he is declared just by believing that promise. He's not declared just by obedience to the law, he's declared just by believing God, God's provision, right? Yet, he is introduced for circumcision, that's important, but it points forward. The law covenant comes that governs that nation of Israel, it keeps them together, it keeps them separate from the world, it keeps them so that Christ will come, but its primary purpose was first and foremost to bring sin and to show its hideous nature. And within that very old covenant and the Davidic promise and so on, it pointed to the need for a greater covenant and so on. So Old Testament Israel should have, if they are properly understanding the Old Testament over time, and there was a few of them, you see them in the New Testament, Anna, Simeon, and so on, they should have always been saying, we're looking to the coming of Messiah. We're looking to the coming of Christ. We're looking to the promises of God. were looking beyond, even though where they were to function their lives under that covenant temporarily, they were to look beyond it to the coming of Christ. And now that Christ has come, we receive the Spirit, we receive the new covenant by faith in Him. And so that's why he then says in verse 26, you are all, meaning all there means you Gentile, right? You're all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, right? You're all sons of God. How are you all? brought into covenant relationship because the promise of Abraham has now come. Because Christ Jesus, I mean, even there's a sense of Christ, Davidic, Messiah, this anointed one, this king has come for all of you were baptized into Messiah, have been clothed with Messiah, with Christ. Therefore, there's neither Jew nor Greek. So all of those covenantal distinctions that were temporarily there to bring you to Christ are now done. Slave or free, male or female. It's not saying there's no males and females. What it's saying is ultimately, right, in Christ we have all the same standing. We have all the same ground. The Abrahamic promise is now being realized. And that's the universal focus, right? That universal focus was there in Adam. And it's now brought back in Christ so that every person, tribe, nation, people, tongue, not universalism, people from all that with faith in Christ are now part on the same ground, right? For you're all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed. You're heirs according to the promise, right? And even the inheritance language, right, gets tied up in the Old Testament with the nation of Israel, with the land. But even that, right, you'd have to then see that the land was only a microcosm of the world, right? So that eventually the promise we inherit in Christ, the world, the new creation, and so on. And then he says in verse one of chapter four, what I'm saying, as long as the heir is a child, he is no longer a slave, although he owns the whole estate, he's subject to guardians, trustees until the time set by the father. So he views Israel now as under guardianship, right? For a period of time, they're under that, and even views them as slaves, right? Because ultimately the old covenant by itself couldn't bring the righteousness of God, they're under sin, right? They're in bondage, right? So he says, so also when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world, but when the time had fully come, so there's in God's plan, the coming of the new covenant, when that had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, notice there's a kind of allusion, I think, to the seed of the woman, born of a woman, born under the law, so he came under that law, to redeem those under the law. So what did he do? He obeyed the law. He kept its covenant obligations in order to pay for our sin, to provide obedience for us. He's the only obedient one. So that he redeemed us so that we might receive the full rights of sons, right? So we're restored to adoption, but we're restored to what we are as image bearers, right? We're restored to what we are as made to be human. Because you are sons, God sent, of course, now here's the spirit. This is New Covenant, right? He started there in chapter 3, verse 1 to 5. But because you're the sons, God sent the spirit of a son into your hearts. The spirit of calls out Abba Father, so you are no longer a slave, but a son. Since you are a son, God has made you also an heir, right? So here is his argument against the Judaizers. Their main problem is that they fail to understand the role of the Mosaic law in the plan of God. They took it out of context. They imposed it then, and they, in some sense, they're not fully understanding their own sin. I mean, they're understanding, I mean, if you want to just go back under all the structures of the old covenant, it can't save you. I mean, they're adding Christ to it, but they're adding Christ to something that was pointing beyond itself, right? And so he says, no, no, no, no. You must not demand of the Gentiles that they be circumcised. This was the Jerusalem Council. Because in many ways, by doing that, you are going back to the curse of the old. You are going back to what was given to show you your sin. You're not going back to ultimately what it pointed forward to, which is Christ himself, right? So there's something of his argument, and then he develops it even further. But he's saying, right, as you come into the New Testament, right, the Book of Acts, the Jerusalem Council, right? They had to say a Christian is neither Jew or Gentile in that sense. They are in Christ. They are no longer under, they don't lose their ethnicity, but they're no longer under that old. They are now brought into all that the covenants have been looking forward to is Christ, the new covenant. To be a Christian, to be the church, is to be a new covenant people of God. So that as we apply the entire Bible, the old and new, it's all done through the fulfillment that comes in Christ. So that we're not under the previous covenants as covenants, but we're under them as scripture. We have to see how they are fulfilled, how they are brought, what they're teaching, what they're instructing, and so on, so that we then say, this is how we ought to live as the people of God. So Galatians 3 and 4. Paul in arguing against the Judaizers is picking up a whole argument from the entire story line of the Bible. Now, he's not saying everything. He's not picking up Adam. I mean, that could be assumed. He's not developing every point. He's focusing on the key points of difference with the Judaizer, yet he's unfolding the covenants. He's coming out in terms of certain structure and so on and fulfillment in Christ. All of God's plans are leading into him. Don't go backwards, right? And that's the same argument the author of Hebrews makes as well, right? The lesser of the old era drove you to Christ. Don't go back to the lesser. Find your salvation in him. All right, so. I didn't do anything. All right, questions that you want to pick up from that? So we went and laid some of the groundwork, even sort of more than even Paul covers, I think, there, but that is his argument against the Judaizers tied to the overall structures of the covenants, right? What question did you want to ask? Yes? So if you say the biggest difference between the old covenant and the older covenant can only cover sin, where the new covenant took them away, as it says in Colossians 2.14, the great ordinance and handwritings were removed. So the sin wasn't just covered, it was taken away. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to even say it's stronger than that, right? I mean, it covered it, but if Christ had never come, it wouldn't have covered it. I mean, in the sense of, it's only bringing temporary kind of forgiveness or a leaving of the problem, but if, so it's unthinkable thought, but if Christ had never come, nothing would have been covered. No animal can represent you. It's useless. Now, is it useless in the sense of God's plan? No. He's teaching you something by that. But again, no animal can offer a sacrifice for you. You can do all you can offer. This is where paganism goes, right? I mean, you can offer anything you want. It's not going to atone for your sins. It's hopeless. The God of the universe is holy, just, righteous, You have no standing before Him other than what comes in Christ, right? So, in the Old Testament, it's giving a kind of covering because God delays. He delays. He delays, right? He passes over the sins. He says, okay, on the Day of Atonement, your sins are forgiven until then you walk away from Day of Atonement and say, oh no, I just sinned again, right? So there's really, part of that is just His patience and His forbearance. But in the end, you see, this is the argument of the Apostle Paul, right, is that if you go back under that Old Covenant and you sort of treat it as an end in itself, you're doomed. It was never intended to be treated as an end in itself. That's their misunderstanding. It was part of a plan, but what's governing anything of that Old Covenant is the promise, is the promise, is the promise, is the promise, right? So a true Jew under the Old Covenant would have carried out their sacrifices But if they were truly understanding, they should have said, this has to look something more. This has to look something more, right? So that sense. So yes, I understand what you're saying with covering, but even then, it's not enough, right? And that's the point that runs through the entire Bible, right? Even these figures, Isaac and Moses. Moses can't save you, and Isaac can't save you. God, they may point to the one who saves you. So Moses is a kind of, forte or points to Christ, but Moses himself, think of Moses.