Part One When we examine the clear New Covenant passage in Jeremiah 31:31ff, we see that verses 31 and 32 name Israel and Judah as parties. We see also that it concerns the future (“the days are coming”), and that the NC will supersede in some way the Sinai Covenant. It is crucial to ask what the main promise of this covenant is, which is not difficult to ascertain. The New Covenant in the chapter concerns an internal or spiritual …
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I have been thinking for a while that it might be a good idea to write about the New Covenant. Although there seems to be little confusion about it in the minds of Jeremiah, Paul, or the author of Hebrews, it has become something of a bugbear among Dispensationalists. In this series I want to interact a little with their issues, but I also want to provide my understanding of the New Covenant, which, as it happens, adds one more …
Part Four The Times of the Coming King[1] The last three chapters of the book of Zechariah document circumstances surrounding the advent of the coming Ruler, the Messiah. The oracle opens with a battle against Jerusalem (Zech. 12:1-9). The text indicates that Jerusalem and its rulers will be used as a means of judgment against the surrounding nations (Zech. 12:9). Not that Jerusalem gets off scott free. But this scene emphasizes the Lord’s role in defending His people. …
Part Three The Prophet as Actor and Two Covenants In various parts of the Old Testament some of the prophets were ordered to act out a scenario as a pictorial revelation to onlookers. In 1 Kings 20:35f. a prophet asked a man to strike him so that he could act the part of a careless guard who had lost his prisoner in order to make his tale a parable of the king’s release of the Syrian Ben-Hadad. Isaiah was …
Review of New Creation Eschatology and the Land: A Survey of Contemporary Perspectives, by Steven L. James, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2017, xvii + 164 pages, hdbk. This book provides an informative introduction and critique of the recent trend among scholars to stress earth-centeredness of the eschatological passages of Scripture rather than heaven-focused scenarios. The trend is most noticeable among amillennialists, especially since the publication in 1979 of Anthony Hoekema’s The Bible and the Future. That book called upon believers …
Part Two The Ominous Visions of Chapter Five There is without any doubt an eeriness about the two visions of Zechariah 5. The flying scroll he sees first (Zech. 5:1-4) is thirty feet long (which is somewhat out of the ordinary), and fifteen feet wide (which definitely is).[1] Unger comments, Since these measurements are the exact size of the tabernacle in the wilderness, as may be computed from the boards used to build it (Exod. 26:15-25), the indication is …
Part One The Branch Builds Yahweh’s Temple But the scene changes when three visitors from Babylon leave a gift of silver and gold (Zech. 6:9-10).[1] From these precious materials he is told to make a crown, and then do an odd thing with it; place it on the head of Joshua the high priest (Zech. 6:11).[2] Then he is to utter certain words, words which cannot pertain to Joshua himself, but of which he plays a symbolic part in illustrating. …
Zechariah was active from 520 to about 480 B.C. He is mentioned along with Haggai in Ezra 5:1 and 6:14. His post-exilic book is remarkable for its imagery[1] and for its sustained messianism. This has caused some interpreters to despair at an interpretation, especially of its first and last thirds.[2] His use of covenant terminology is confined to two enigmatic passages (Zech. 9:11; 11:10). There are covenant intimations in the book (e.g. Zech. 6:15). But it is apparent that in …
Part Four A Literal Reading The structure of Ezekiel reaches its crescendo in the theme of the returning Glory to the Temple in Ezekiel 43:1-7.[1] This return must be linked with the abandonment of Solomon’s Temple by the Glory-cloud in chapter 11. There is a narrative-theological arc extending from Ezekiel 8 and 11 over to Ezekiel 43. This arc from a literal temple to what is often taken to be a spiritual temple at the end of the book, …
Part Three Gog and Magog Against Israel There has been a lot of debate about Ezekiel 38 and 39. Those who think they ought to be read symbolically appeal to the apocalyptic character of the descriptions.[1] But it appears sometimes that appeals to certain genres are a little too convenient; the word being placed over the text like a kind of detour sign in the middle of a road, preventing people from drawing the “wrong” conclusion. Other expositors find little …
