T
HE
BLOOD AND THE SPIRIT
Miles
J. Stanford
There are a number of scriptural reasons why Israel’s New Covenant
“blessings” do not apply to the heavenly Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
THE BLOOD -- First, it is claimed by nearly all that the Church benefits from the
Blood of Israel’s New Covenant in the forgiveness of sins. But it is just
the other way around. Israel will benefit in her iniquities forgiven and her
sins remembered no more (Jer. 31:34) from “the Blood of the Everlasting
Covenant”: (Heb. 13:20)—the Church’s New Covenant.
The heavenly Bride, hidden in the heart of the glorified Bridegroom,
requires nothing from earthly Israel and her coming kingdom. The Church’s
citizenship and position are heavenly—all the way into the Holiest! “Having
therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest by the Blood of
Jesus” (Heb. 10:19). Israel, in all her coming earthly glory, will never be
the recipient of anything like that!
The Church was chosen in Him (not under the King’s reign) before the
foundation of the world in eternity past. “With the precious Blood of
Christ… who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but
was manifest in these last times for you” (1 Pet. 1:19, 20). “Who hath saved
us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began” (2 Tim. 1:9).
Granted that Israel’s sins are to be forgiven by the same Blood that was
shed for the Church on the Cross, but that is where any semblance between
the two ceases. The Church is already made “nigh” at the right hand of the
Father. “But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were far off are made near by
the Blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).
“And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come [including the millennial
kingdom age] He might show [to the angels, redeemed Israel, and the redeemed
Gentile nations] the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward
us
through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6, 7).
Israel, standing before the King and His beloved Bride in all the glory
of David’s earthly millennial throne, will never attain unto the unique
blessing of the Church.
THE HOLY SPIRIT -- In general, Dispensationalists also claim that Israel’s New Covenant
indwelling of the Spirit is a “spiritual” blessing of which the Church
partakes. But Israel’s indwelling will be for the purpose of writing the
theocratic law upon their hearts and enabling them to walk in His kingdom
ordinances. “After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their
inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” “And I will put My Spirit
within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep Mine
ordinances, and do them” (Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 36:27).
The primary ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian is
to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus, never the works of the law. The
believer has died to the law, and is alive unto God in Christ Jesus. “For
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law
of sin and death.” “We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even
as by the Spirit of the Lord” (Rom. 8:2; 2 Cor. 3:18).
When we, as His Bride, are co-reigning with Him over Israel and her
glorious Millennial Kingdom, we will be like Him, including our redeemed and
glorified bodies made like unto His glorious body (Phil. 3:21). To look to
Israel’s future, earthly, law-governed New Covenant for “blessings” for the
Bride who has everything in Him—how could that be?
Dr. Newell knew without question that the Church has no need of any part
of Israel’s New Covenant:
“This Eternal Covenant of Hebrews 13:20 was not between creatures, but
between ‘the God of peace’ and ‘the Lord Jesus,’ and the condition was
obedience unto death of Christ to the Father; its ground, the shed Blood of
the Son, and its issue, an ‘eternal covenant.’
“This is the great fundamental transaction between the Father and the
Son; no creatures are seen; but oh! believers become—apart from
works—blessed beneficiaries! So that God can go on and establish [in the
millennial future] the second, or ‘new’ covenant with Israel, who ‘continued
not’ in the Mosaic or ‘first,’ now ‘old’ covenant.
“The ‘new covenant’ yet to be made with Israel and Judah at our Lord’s
return to earth and that nation, is all of grace—God’s operation instead of
their response (Jer. 31:34; Ezek. 37:12–14, 21, 23, 25–28). Therefore, the
‘new covenant’ which the Hebrew believers to whom Paul was writing had had
explained to them, was not yet in effect, nor will be until Christ’s return
to earth. At that time it will apply to ‘the house of Israel and the house
of Judah,’ as God says, in the land of Palestine, with the peculiar earthly
blessings described in Scripture.
“But there is yet an eternal covenant, detailed in Hebrews 13:20, 21, in
which and according to which Paul knows that all Christians may be made
‘perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ’ [not through the law
written in the heart, as with future Israel].
“This is the Eternal Covenant of which the Lord Jesus is said to be the
Mediator, and which is celebrated in the Lord’s Supper, in view of His death
on our behalf, by those benefited forever thereby” (Hebrews, Verse by Verse,
pp. 258, 460-463).