The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - How God Destroyed Judaism In AD 70

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00:00:26.780 The entire context of the book of Hebrews is that the Old Covenant is about to come to its final

00:00:32.200 cataclysmic end. Now, for us today, this has massive implications. There is no Old Covenant

00:00:39.600 remaining. There is no priesthood for the Old Covenant people. There is no temple for them to 0.92

00:00:46.360 draw near to. There is no sacrifice for them to perform. That covenant has come to an end,

00:00:53.080 and the only way to have access to the promises that God made is by joining the true Israel,

00:01:00.700 Jesus Christ. Because Christ lives and reigns forever as king and high priest, because he is

00:01:08.820 high priest of the heavenly temple that can never be destroyed, the old covenant is never coming

00:01:15.680 back. There is now only the new covenant and the new creation.

00:01:23.080 All right, so I'm excited.

00:01:46.120 Welcome back to another episode.

00:01:47.740 I'm excited about this because, did you ever watch the Kenan and Kel Goodberger where he's like reading, Kel is reading like, he's like, I know some of these words.

00:02:00.120 So here's the beauty of Hebrews.

00:02:03.320 Full disclosure, I've read the whole Bible multiple times, but Hebrews I've preached through.

00:02:08.060 It's one of the books that I spent just about a year going through Hebrews, and it was recent too.

00:02:15.580 Okay, so it's right here.

00:02:16.760 Yeah, and so it was just everything, you know, in this cold open that we just read, a portion of your book that you're publishing.

00:02:24.060 It's cool because it's just like, man, that was, it wasn't just one sermon.

00:02:28.180 It was like every text.

00:02:29.860 Almost every text of Hebrews was, a lot of it was the superiority of Christ to the angels, superiority of Christ to Moses, superiority of Christ to the temple, all these.

00:02:40.920 But then there was also this constant sense of finality

00:02:45.360 and this impending doom and all that remains is fire.

00:02:52.060 And it's not just speaking of the fires of hell. 0.95

00:02:54.080 It's not just, if you go back to Judaism 0.83

00:02:55.960 and to the temple sacrifices,

00:02:57.920 the animal priestly sacrificial system,

00:03:00.100 then you're rejecting Christ and not having faith in him.

00:03:03.400 And therefore you won't be regenerate

00:03:04.780 and you won't be saved

00:03:05.580 and nothing awaits you except for the fire of hell. 0.99

00:03:08.400 No, it's if you go back to Judaism, 0.97

00:03:10.100 that means geographically, you're going back to Jerusalem. And guess what? Not just in the 0.78

00:03:14.600 eternal sense, are you in danger of hell's fire? But in the temporal sense, the whole city is

00:03:20.560 literally about to be on fire. And so the theme of Hebrews is this constant, not just the superiority 0.50

00:03:27.500 of Christ, it's like this two-pronged argument. Pick Christ, choose Christ, because one, he's 0.59

00:03:35.280 better. He's superior. Also, this other option is about to disappear. And not just disappear, 0.57

00:03:40.860 it's about to go up in flames. Yeah. And you're going to go with it.

00:03:43.400 And you're going to go with it. Yeah. I think it's helpful to,

00:03:47.220 right, as you approach the book of Hebrews, right, if you out there watching this and listening to

00:03:52.060 this are thinking, maybe I'll read this book of the Bible. The very first thing you should have

00:03:58.080 in the back of your head is that the author of the book, I think it was Paul. I think so too.

00:04:02.620 But the author of Hebrews, writer of Hebrews, right, he's writing to a people that are very tempted to return to this place.

00:04:11.740 Right.

00:04:12.100 And there is a big giant. 0.98

00:04:12.880 And these are Christians. 0.98

00:04:13.960 Yeah.

00:04:14.360 Yeah, these are Christians that.

00:04:14.880 He's writing to Hebraic Christians, Jews who are Christians, who have converted, but they're tempted to hedge their bets.

00:04:20.280 They're facing this pressure.

00:04:21.460 Right.

00:04:21.720 Because you can imagine, I mean, that is now.

00:04:23.560 Why can't we have Christ plus a little bit of.

00:04:26.100 I mean, even today, we've talked about this in other episodes, but like Jewish people that come to Christ, right, they face enormous social pressure from their families and from their friends and from everyone that they've known in their life to reject that. 0.72

00:04:41.080 And that's part of the reason, I'd like to pick your brain on this.

00:04:44.040 I know that you're not, you know, an expert and, you know, completely well-versed on the topic, but it's never sat well with me, the category, the label of Messianic Jew.

00:04:54.740 So, the label that I prefer, and I'd like to hear your thought, is for a Jew who converts

00:05:00.540 to Christianity and puts faith in Jesus, Christian. 0.72

00:05:02.940 Yeah, I think that's a pretty good term. 0.54

00:05:05.260 Yeah, I just, no, no, no, I'm not a Messianic Jew.

00:05:08.340 Because it implies, you know, what we talked about in the Ephesians episode. 0.71

00:05:10.800 It implies that I'm hedging my bets.

00:05:12.600 There's still a little bit of, no, no, no, I'm just a Christian.

00:05:15.620 Yeah, that terminology, I think, is a species of the Galatians heresy. 0.96

00:05:19.660 I think it is. 0.89

00:05:20.380 Yeah.

00:05:20.640 And I think it's actually... 0.95

00:05:22.240 You're saying, I'm a Christian that's nearer to Jesus than the Gentiles. 1.00

00:05:25.140 Right, exactly.

00:05:26.040 I'm a super Christian.

00:05:27.120 I've got the best of both worlds.

00:05:29.500 No, no, there is no best of both worlds because the first world has gone away.

00:05:34.740 It's not here anymore.

00:05:35.880 God destroyed it.

00:05:37.940 He destroyed that world.

00:05:38.780 So there is no best of, but there's only the best of Christian world, of Christ, the best of Christ. 0.64

00:05:44.300 And so I feel like Messianic Jew, and I'm not saying everybody means this intentionally.

00:05:48.260 No, I don't think so either. 0.99

00:05:49.180 In a very sinister way. 0.92

00:05:50.580 But I would, in the same way, I'd like to see, you know, the oxymoron of Judeo-Christianity. 0.82

00:05:56.420 I'd like to see that term disappear, right?

00:06:00.020 It's not a good term.

00:06:01.400 I'd like to see that disappear. 0.70

00:06:02.780 I'd also like to see Messianic Jew disappear because I think that it may not be by design. 1.00

00:06:09.060 Well, it probably is by design. 1.00

00:06:10.340 Maybe, maybe not.

00:06:10.800 But it may not be intentional by those who, you know, every individual who applies it.

00:06:16.380 But an individual Messianic Jew may not mean it.

00:06:19.080 what I'm about to say by holding to that label. But I think that in some capacity, whether

00:06:25.800 intentional or not, it does convey the very thing that Paul, and I believe it was Paul who wrote

00:06:31.480 Hebrews, is warning against to the Hebrews. He's saying, no, no, no, don't go back. Don't go back. 0.58

00:06:37.820 And if you want Christ, here's the condition. He's free and without price, right? But

00:06:47.000 But the cost of, one of my friends actually said this, great friend, been friends for almost 20

00:06:53.800 years. I remember one time he said, you know, the cost of going north is that you don't get to go

00:06:59.200 south. Simple as that. Well, Jesus is free, right? It's by free grace through faith in Christ alone.

00:07:05.900 The gospel is free. You can have Christ for free without price. All who want the living water,

00:07:10.640 come to me and drink, you know, milk without price, water without price. But the cost,

00:07:16.740 there is a cost to discipleship. The cost of Jesus is, the cost is everything else.

00:07:23.580 If you want Christ, that's fine, but you don't get to hedge your bets. You have to bet the house,

00:07:30.140 the whole farm on Christ. And yet, I think that these Hebraic Christians were hedging their bets. 1.00

00:07:38.280 So they were denying, not that Christ was even God, but the sufficiency of Christ. 0.96

00:07:43.440 And I think the Messianic Jew at some level, whether consciously or subconsciously, it's hedging bets.

00:07:48.660 And I think that even within evangelicals, this still carving out some kind of space for a special category for Israel, Zionism, is hedging bets.

00:08:02.260 It keeps the bet hedging alive by doing that, right?

00:08:06.200 And, yeah, I think when we approach this book, right, you need to think of it as Paul or whomever wrote Hebrews is writing to these Christians who are tempted to return to the Old Covenant, right? 0.64

00:08:22.080 He's writing to people that are going to go back to this city, Jerusalem, and there's this big, giant nuclear bomb, right, with a clock that's ticking. 0.51

00:08:29.380 And he's saying, don't go back there.

00:08:30.920 Don't go back to that.

00:08:32.060 You're going to be destroyed with them.

00:08:34.180 Don't do that. 0.87

00:08:35.160 That's nuts.

00:08:35.760 This is insane.

00:08:36.340 Why would you want to do that?

00:08:37.740 And yeah, it's a twofold argument.

00:08:39.280 It's, that's going away and this is superior anyway.

00:08:43.780 Right.

00:08:44.220 And so, right, I mean, the verse that seals the deal, right, it's just one verse, right, is Hebrews 8.13, right, where he says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.

00:08:58.520 But still not completely obsolete, right?

00:09:00.360 There's still some hangover.

00:09:01.280 And what is becoming obsolete is growing old and growing old is ready to vanish away.

00:09:10.920 Entirely.

00:09:11.680 And here's the beauty of it.

00:09:12.720 So this is an apostolic epistle written to Christians, but in this case, Hebrew Christians 0.73

00:09:19.280 who had an immense amount of pressure to hedge their bets and come back and, okay, fine. 0.79

00:09:26.360 you believe Jesus is the Messiah, but you still need to be in the synagogue. You still need to

00:09:32.840 do your hand washings and sacrifices and rituals and all these kinds of things. And so Hebraic 0.74

00:09:39.600 Christians who have an immense pressure that's on them. But one of the things that you have to

00:09:46.720 keep in mind that helps so much, if you want to interpret the Bible faithfully, this was one

00:09:51.900 little thing that just a little phrase that's been so helpful for me all these years is all

00:09:56.840 scripture is for us, but not all scripture is to us. Meaning that every single biblical text

00:10:05.220 has an immediate context, an immediate audience, right? And so now all scripture is God-breathed

00:10:13.440 and useful for all time, all peoples in all times. So all scripture is for us, of course,

00:10:19.400 But it's not all directly in the immediate sense to us.

00:10:23.520 And to know how it's for us, you have to know who it's to and for what purpose.

00:10:28.360 Right.

00:10:28.660 So, what was the context to the immediate audience that would have been reading this letter?

00:10:35.520 Well, part of what you need to understand is who's the audience, right?

00:10:39.320 It's Christians, but Hebraic Christians, Hebrews, but then second in Jerusalem, right?

00:10:45.880 So who are they? 0.90

00:10:46.700 Where are they in Jerusalem or nearby or attempted to go back to Jerusalem?

00:10:50.820 And then lastly, who?

00:10:54.200 Who is it?

00:10:55.680 And where are they?

00:10:57.900 But then another one would be who, where, and when.

00:11:01.820 And that's why I think that the dating of the writing of the book of Hebrews,

00:11:06.720 really all New Testament books of the Bible,

00:11:08.680 but especially the book of Hebrews is so vitally important

00:11:11.580 because what he says, what the apostle says under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,

00:11:15.680 this is God's word, what he says is that this old covenant is already obsolete. So it's already

00:11:23.260 done. But then it almost sounds contradictory because it's like, it's obsolete. And what is

00:11:29.020 obsolete is about to vanish away. It hasn't yet. So essentially, and so what does that mean? It

00:11:36.940 means that this was written at some point, now I think probably really close to 80, 70, I think

00:11:41.480 like AD 65 or something like that,

00:11:43.840 you know, in the 60s at some point.

00:11:45.920 Yeah, 64, man.

00:11:46.460 Yeah, something like that.

00:11:47.980 But the big picture is it was written,

00:11:50.620 what we should know is it was written

00:11:52.500 after the life, death, burial, resurrection,

00:11:56.620 and ascension of Christ and Pentecost,

00:11:59.100 outpouring the Spirit.

00:12:00.120 So definitely after that,

00:12:01.920 and definitely before AD 70,

00:12:04.900 because the vanishing,

00:12:06.340 and this is key in the exegesis,

00:12:09.000 it's already, he's saying the old covenant

00:12:10.440 it's already obsolete, meaning what? Christ's earthly ministry is already finished. So, it's

00:12:15.640 after Christ's earthly ministry is finished. That's why the Old Covenant is obsolete. But

00:12:20.340 there's also this sense of, but there's still a little bit of hangover. It's obsolete, but there's

00:12:24.980 still a little bit of residue that's about to completely vanish away, which means what?

00:12:32.700 There's still something that's about to happen, the complete vanishing. That means it's pre-AD 70.

00:12:38.260 the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem. And so that is key. And the reason

00:12:45.600 why it's key is for us, again, remembering all scriptures for us, but not all directly in the

00:12:51.040 immediate sense to us. Why does that matter? Well, because the vanishing away being future tense,

00:12:58.580 this hasn't happened yet, but it's going to, the complete vanishing, it means that it was future

00:13:03.280 for the immediate audience.

00:13:05.340 It is no longer future 2,000 years later for us.

00:13:10.000 Not only is the Old Covenant obsolete

00:13:11.860 because Christ's earthly ministry is finished, 0.96

00:13:14.040 but also the Old Covenant,

00:13:15.900 any of its hangover residue

00:13:17.480 has also completely vanished away

00:13:20.360 because it's 2024.

00:13:23.360 Spoiler, it's done.

00:13:25.960 Thousands of years passed.

00:13:27.480 There's nothing left.

00:13:28.480 Yeah, and within the same vein

00:13:30.160 of the question of for us, right?

00:13:33.960 It's written for us, but who's it to?

00:13:35.700 What is the immediate context?

00:13:37.460 All right, at the beginning of Hebrews,

00:13:39.180 I remember reading this and studying it

00:13:42.140 when I was like 20, 21 years old, you know, a long time ago.

00:13:47.100 And reading the first two chapters

00:13:49.200 and being kind of confused by it, right?

00:13:52.140 Because the first two chapters of Hebrews

00:13:53.680 is all about how Christ is superior to the angels.

00:13:57.320 And I remember thinking that, I'm like,

00:13:59.160 why is this even in the Bible?

00:13:59.860 Of course he's superior to the angels.

00:14:01.300 He's God.

00:14:02.220 Why does it matter?

00:14:03.080 Yeah, why?

00:14:03.920 Like, there's only so much Bible here

00:14:05.680 and you're spending two chapters of the Bible

00:14:08.820 explaining how Jesus is superior to the angels.

00:14:10.920 Why does that argument even need to be made?

00:14:13.000 Right.

00:14:13.680 But if you understand, right,

00:14:15.920 who's it to and why, right?

00:14:18.320 It's to these people that are there.

00:14:20.880 Like, you have the old covenant,

00:14:21.960 it's still standing

00:14:22.660 and the new covenant has come.

00:14:23.760 There's this little bit of overlap

00:14:25.060 and the New Testament is written

00:14:26.640 in that little bit of overlap.

00:14:28.080 What is the feature of the Old Covenant?

00:14:31.680 And we've talked about this in other episodes.

00:14:33.280 The feature of the Old Covenant is-

00:14:35.820 Mediated by-

00:14:36.860 By angels.

00:14:37.780 Angels.

00:14:38.380 And the Old Covenant world is dominated by the heavenly host.

00:14:42.760 Right.

00:14:42.940 By the prince of the power of the air and all the demons.

00:14:45.560 By fallen angels.

00:14:46.160 Yeah.

00:14:46.700 The original creation, right, has Adam holding that office.

00:14:52.480 Adam is the sub-regent under God.

00:14:54.520 He's the one that has given reign and dominion over the entire earth, but he loses it.

00:15:00.220 He loses it, and who's it picked up by?

00:15:02.160 On the eighth day.

00:15:03.460 Didn't last very long.

00:15:04.760 I think so, yeah.

00:15:06.680 Who takes over?

00:15:08.540 Well, Satan and the heavenly host.

00:15:10.480 This administration in the Old Covenant is angels and demons and the heavenly host. 0.72

00:15:14.800 Adam took that rule.

00:15:15.520 He forfeited it, gave it to Satan by his sin. 0.78

00:15:18.520 Or the lesser Elohim, if you want to use Heiser language. 0.99

00:15:21.340 And that's true. 1.00

00:15:21.980 I think Heiser is right about that.

00:15:23.280 He's wrong on Calvinism, but he's right about that.

00:15:27.040 And he's certainly, I think, a wonderful Christian man.

00:15:29.540 And it's a tragedy, his death.

00:15:32.340 But we'll get to see him in heaven.

00:15:33.740 But yeah, I think he's right about that.

00:15:35.580 And so Adam had rule.

00:15:37.400 He forfeited it, gave it to Satan.

00:15:38.800 That becomes this new administration, the angelic administration.

00:15:42.360 Because it was supposed to be, and here's the big thing.

00:15:44.620 It was supposed to be a human, an administration run by a man.

00:15:50.660 And so Adam had it.

00:15:52.920 he lost it, then it was forfeited to angels, in this case, fallen angels, Elohim, lowercase g,

00:15:58.280 gods. But then the second Adam, who is a man, the God-man, he comes and takes it back. And now

00:16:05.520 there is a man seated in heaven, administrating this new covenant.

00:16:10.880 Yeah. And so right at the get-go of Hebrews, it starts out, long ago at many times in many ways,

00:16:16.660 God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, right, the last days, not the end of the world, but the end of that world, the old covenant, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things, right?

00:16:31.320 When is he appointed heir of all things?

00:16:33.020 At the ascension.

00:16:34.080 Right.

00:16:34.500 Right.

00:16:37.120 Through whom also he created the world.

00:16:40.380 He's the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

00:16:46.660 After making purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, right?

00:16:53.260 At the ascension, he sits down at the right hand of God, having become as much superior to angels

00:17:01.660 as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs, right?

00:17:06.880 For to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I've begotten you.

00:17:10.860 Or again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son.

00:17:15.160 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all God's angels worship him.

00:17:21.640 But of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire.

00:17:26.480 But of the sun, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

00:17:29.620 The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

00:17:32.440 You've loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

00:17:34.240 Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

00:17:38.680 And you, Lord, lay the foundation of the earth in the beginning.

00:17:42.780 And the heavens are the work of your hands.

00:17:44.060 They will perish, but you remain.

00:17:46.220 They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe.

00:17:48.820 You will roll them up like a garment.

00:17:51.140 They will be changed, but you are the same and your years will have no end.

00:17:56.220 Right?

00:17:56.460 So, right.

00:17:57.320 What's happening to the old creation, the old covenant, right?

00:18:00.580 That right there in Hebrews 1, it's being rolled up like a garment and Jesus is the one that is doing it and it's happening in the ascension.

00:18:10.160 Right.

00:18:10.360 Right.

00:18:10.860 And still further, right?

00:18:12.320 and to which of the angels, as he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies

00:18:20.220 a footstool for your feet. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve

00:18:26.020 for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? And so therefore, we must pay

00:18:32.700 much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away. For since the message declared by

00:18:38.520 angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just

00:18:43.020 retribution. How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation, right? So, right there

00:18:49.000 is a contrast between the old covenant and the new, right? The old covenant, Mosaic law, right,

00:18:54.400 is the word that is declared by the angels, and that received a just retribution in the old 0.59

00:19:00.160 covenant. Yeah, if you broke the old covenant, you were in trouble. Right, the word declared by

00:19:04.060 angels and by the prophets and so forth in the old covenant, there was judgment there, and they

00:19:10.060 knew all about that, right? They knew the old covenant scriptures, but now he's spoken by his

00:19:15.080 son in the last days at the very end. If we neglect this, we are done, right? So, it was

00:19:23.440 declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore

00:19:28.900 witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed

00:19:32.940 according to his will.

00:19:35.320 For it was not to angels

00:19:37.320 that God subjected the world to come

00:19:40.420 of which we are speaking.

00:19:42.600 It has been testified somewhere,

00:19:43.960 what is man that you're mindful of him

00:19:45.340 or the son of man that you care for him?

00:19:47.400 You made him for a little while

00:19:49.100 lower than the angels.

00:19:51.320 You've crowned him with glory and honor,

00:19:52.800 putting everything in subjection under his feet.

00:19:55.680 So what happens?

00:19:56.960 Jesus comes into the old creation world,

00:19:59.600 into the elementary principles of the world.

00:20:02.200 and he's now, right, lower than the angels, right?

00:20:05.660 Man is lower than the angels in the old creation world.

00:20:08.120 But what happens, right?

00:20:09.780 He's crowned with glory and honor

00:20:11.820 and everything is subject under his feet, right?

00:20:17.360 That's what's happening in the transition

00:20:19.460 from the old creation to the new creation, right?

00:20:21.940 That is what is happening.

00:20:23.600 That whole system, that whole paradigm of, right,

00:20:29.200 World, land, sanctuary is being torn up, right?

00:20:33.220 We've talked about this when we talked about Ephesians, right?

00:20:36.580 The people who are near and the people who are far off, right?

00:20:40.800 Are brought together in one, into the sanctuary in Christ.

00:20:44.380 And those distinctions, that whole world that's being torn up,

00:20:47.160 it's being deconstructed and built up into a new world, right?

00:20:51.740 A new world, a new order. 0.82

00:20:53.020 and it's governed now in its finality by a man,

00:20:58.260 the God, man, Jesus Christ.

00:21:00.320 Amen.

00:21:01.260 And so if we say that that old covenant world,

00:21:07.400 that's still around in the same way,

00:21:09.640 what are we saying?

00:21:10.340 Well, it's angels that are dominating this world.

00:21:14.220 So it's Satan that's dominating this world.

00:21:15.880 Christ is not actually seated at the right hand of the Father

00:21:18.660 and all things are not in subjection.

00:21:20.540 That Christ has not subjected the principalities to public shame and held them in contempt.

00:21:26.980 You see this in history, right?

00:21:29.200 I talk about this a lot with folks, right?

00:21:33.060 And do you know what brought about the worst persecution by the Romans of the church, right?

00:21:42.120 Right before Constantine, right? 0.59

00:21:43.700 Under Diocletian. 0.87

00:21:45.040 Well, Diocletian wants to go to battle. 0.83

00:21:49.700 And, right, well, if you want to go to battle and you're a pagan Rome, right, you need to talk to the gods. 0.87

00:21:56.060 You need to talk to the gods and you go to the oracles or you have, you do divination with looking, having your priests look at the entrails. 0.87

00:22:03.800 And this was like, it's like a magic eight ball, right?

00:22:07.100 And every time they'd sacrifice a bull,

00:22:10.940 they'd look at the entrails

00:22:12.120 and it would say, ask again later.

00:22:14.940 It'd say nothing.

00:22:15.980 They'd be like, can't see anything.

00:22:17.760 Gods are silent.

00:22:18.840 We'll do another one,

00:22:19.960 another one and another one and another one.

00:22:21.960 The gods are not talking to us anymore.

00:22:24.360 Gods are not talking to us.

00:22:25.560 And he rightly concludes, 1.00

00:22:29.320 it's because of the Christians. 1.00

00:22:31.000 It's because there's all of these Christians around now 1.00

00:22:32.920 and they've made the gods angry 1.00

00:22:34.900 and we need to destroy them. 0.99

00:22:36.120 We need to drive them out. 0.98

00:22:37.820 Well, then, you know, the worst persecution in the church happens.

00:22:40.260 And then what happens after that, right?

00:22:43.440 Constantine, there's civil war.

00:22:45.960 Constantine's at war with Diocletian and the other leaders of Rome in the civil war.

00:22:51.820 And before the big climactic battle, right, what does he see?

00:22:55.360 He sees a sign in the heavens.

00:22:57.860 And it says, by this sign, conquer.

00:23:00.940 It's a giant burning cross in the sky. 0.98

00:23:04.560 And from that point onward, Rome was Christian. 0.99

00:23:09.500 Right. 0.89

00:23:10.020 Right.

00:23:10.400 You see this also in like third world countries, right?

00:23:15.180 You see this in Africa.

00:23:16.780 There is a great series of novels.

00:23:19.440 I had to read them in college.

00:23:20.380 My wife had to read them in college.

00:23:22.580 And they're by a Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, who was a Christian.

00:23:29.000 So ironically, they're like, oh, you got to, we're going to have all these kids read like this dignified African author because we want diversity.

00:23:38.140 It was all DEI kind of stuff in college.

00:23:41.100 Little did they know or care, I guess, but this guy's a Christian.

00:23:45.240 He's a Christian.

00:23:45.820 He's describing Africa where the Christian missionaries would come and they'd say, all right, you can set up your church, your clinic, or whatever you're doing.

00:23:58.020 over there in that space over there. And they wouldn't tell them, right, that's where all the

00:24:02.780 demons are, right? That's where all the evil spirits are. And the evil spirits are going to

00:24:07.200 torment them. And what happens? They're surprised. Nothing, right? Nothing happens to them at all,

00:24:16.380 right? And in fact, right, they're greatly blessed despite the evil spirits and the witch doctors 0.99

00:24:23.640 all over the place, all the stuff, 1.00

00:24:27.060 all their divination, all the things they were doing,

00:24:29.160 all their incantations, those stop working too.

00:24:32.120 The old ways die off.

00:24:35.000 And the only thing that works is faith in Christ.

00:24:38.500 That's what happens when the new covenant,

00:24:41.840 the new world in Christ invades the old covenant world,

00:24:47.400 the last remnants of this old covenant world.

00:24:50.420 The demons, the demon gods that they've been under,

00:24:53.640 for millennia, lose their power completely. 0.93

00:24:58.960 And so, going back to Hebrews, that's what's at play here.

00:25:03.280 Christ is reigning.

00:25:04.920 He's superior over the angels.

00:25:06.240 The strong man is bound.

00:25:07.840 And all of his minions, when his name is named, they get defeated.

00:25:12.480 They get beaten because Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. 0.98

00:25:16.000 Before that, I mean, you would have these monstrous pagan emperors. 1.00

00:25:21.060 I mean, think of like just south of here. 1.00

00:25:23.020 Like, think of the Aztec Empire, right? 0.95

00:25:25.980 I mean, a totally satanic society. 0.98

00:25:28.540 Yeah, human sacrifices.

00:25:29.780 Yeah, they're constantly discovering, you know, thousands of mass graves of bodies in these temples that are constructed out of tens of thousands of human skulls and skulls of children.

00:25:41.060 And you think, well, that stuff is gone now. 1.00

00:25:44.260 Spanish came, right?

00:25:45.460 The conquistadors came, and just a few of them came.

00:25:49.140 Cortes comes and, you know, destroys the Aztec empire.

00:25:53.620 And, you know, Mexico is, it's rough. 1.00

00:25:56.100 The criminal gangs, right, the narco terrorists, they worship demons. 0.99

00:26:00.800 They still do.

00:26:02.060 But they will never have that same power that they did.

00:26:06.300 And the same is true all over the place, right?

00:26:10.240 And when people talk about, well, I think we're reverting to paganism, like paganism is going to make a return.

00:26:16.720 And there are, you know, some aspects of that, people doing these things.

00:26:19.960 There's lots of occult things and witchcraft now, today, like there haven't been in the past.

00:26:25.300 And I think, yeah, well, why is that? 0.98

00:26:27.320 It's because the gospel and Christian faithfulness have receded. 0.89

00:26:30.720 Right. 1.00

00:26:31.300 They have.

00:26:32.320 And, right, what is the answer to that?

00:26:34.340 It's the church growing and preaching more faithfully and expanding and the kingdom growing and putting all of that down.

00:26:41.980 But it doesn't mean that Satan is loosed now and he's deceiving all of the nations all at once, like he once did in the Old Covenant.

00:26:49.720 Not to the same degree, not even close.

00:26:52.140 But you do have still demonic activity.

00:26:54.680 You still do have degrees of deception.

00:26:58.600 And I think of what Christ himself said in terms of that when a demon is cast out, the person, the house is swept clean and put into order.

00:27:08.960 and the demon then goes into waterless places, arid places.

00:27:15.120 But eventually, we'll come back if the house is swept clean

00:27:18.680 and put in order, but it's not filled.

00:27:22.980 Our house is empty.

00:27:24.420 Right, I think of Christendom.

00:27:25.700 Christendom went to the four corners of the earth

00:27:28.840 and pushed out the demons

00:27:30.060 because that old covenant world had ended

00:27:33.200 that really had the strong man and the power, the foothold.

00:27:37.680 But there were still lingering demons.

00:27:39.480 Christendom goes for the Christian gospel, expels them, pushes them out. 0.95

00:27:43.500 And then these places are Christianized. 0.98

00:27:45.640 The house is not only swept clean and put into order, but Christ comes and resides there.

00:27:51.060 But then if these places choose to apostatize and then later rebel against Christ,

00:27:56.200 as the West is currently doing, then you have a house that is clean and swept and put into order.

00:28:02.520 But the demons come back.

00:28:03.920 in the end of the parable that Jesus tells is not only does the demon come back, but it comes back

00:28:08.340 with seven other friends worse than itself. And so when I think of places that are right now,

00:28:12.880 I really believe under a real impending threat of demonic activity and demonic oppression 0.89

00:28:24.340 and a return of paganism, not as strong as the old world, like Assyria or Babylon, 0.62

00:28:29.920 on, but as strong as could be in the new world since Christ has come, which is still not nothing.

00:28:35.380 And I think of those places that are most under threat of that happening. I think of the West

00:28:41.460 and its apostasy, places like France and England and Spain. And I think of these United States,

00:28:48.520 America, I think of places that have rejected Christ. But one other place that I think of

00:28:53.740 is Israel. 0.99

00:28:55.520 Israel is a prime real estate for demons. 0.97

00:29:00.560 Well, and I think you look at the sociological state 1.00

00:29:04.300 of Israel, like Tel Aviv has the largest gay pride parade

00:29:07.840 in the world. 0.89

00:29:09.460 They're very, very pro-abortion.

00:29:11.420 They're more than they are here in the United States.

00:29:13.480 I think a lot of evangelical Christians

00:29:14.800 are completely unaware of how left-wing

00:29:19.140 and secular Israel actually is.

00:29:21.460 It's like, all right, imagine San Francisco, but it's an entire country.

00:29:26.180 Yes.

00:29:26.840 Right? 0.85

00:29:27.140 That's what Israel is.

00:29:29.000 And it makes sense because there are very few churches there. 0.98

00:29:33.380 There are very few Christians there. 0.95

00:29:34.600 There isn't an obvious Christian culture that is restraining the evil in this place. 0.99

00:29:40.620 All they have is religious Judaism and even that is a minority there. 0.99

00:29:47.100 They don't have Christ. 0.99

00:29:49.400 Right. And so, of course, it would be bad. Yeah. Of course, it would be. Right. And yeah, I think the power of the ancient world and paganism in the ancient world, it's interesting because those places were powerful and orderly.

00:30:08.400 You have these pagan empires that would have tremendous stability, and they have it because of the Girardian function that paganism serves.

00:30:20.140 You have this constant scapegoat mechanism which provides stability to a people, and the Christian era is different because we have the scapegoat, the true and final one that is paid for all sin. 0.63

00:30:33.260 And the city, instead of a city like Cain, building on the blood of Abel, or a city like Rome, built on the blood of Remus, we have a city built on the blood of Christ. 0.58

00:30:46.380 And the stability aspect of it, it's not the same.

00:30:49.400 It's not this fixed, stable thing where it's very powerful and very strong, right?

00:30:54.340 It often seems very, very weak.

00:30:56.560 But, right, what does Christ do?

00:30:59.260 He gives Christian society strength and power and stability through families and through living in accord with the way that God made the world. 0.60

00:31:10.240 And yeah, Israel doesn't have that at all. 0.71

00:31:14.840 And so, going further into Hebrews, we went along the rabbit trail on this, but the rabbit trail, of course, is always the point. 0.93

00:31:22.860 Yeah, that's the point.

00:31:23.480 So, you know, going through Hebrews, right, the writer of this, he's talking about this salvation and he's showing that in the Old Covenant, it's deficient, right?

00:31:35.300 You have the system of sacrifice, you have priests, but you don't have a high priest that can complete the system of sacrifice because Christ is sinless.

00:31:46.640 He's the high priest that offers himself.

00:31:48.980 And then, right, he sits down and he's completed his high priestly service.

00:31:53.280 You have a greater and better priest, right?

00:31:55.580 Not in the order of Aaron, but in an order that precedes Aaron in Melchizedek, right?

00:32:01.280 He's from this order.

00:32:04.020 And so it is a, right, in every way, continually, he's saying, this is a better covenant.

00:32:10.060 This is better.

00:32:10.720 There are better promises, right?

00:32:12.480 It's from the blood of Christ rather than the blood of bulls and goats that he mediates this.

00:32:19.580 and why would you, right?

00:32:22.480 Why would you go back, right?

00:32:24.380 Why would you go back to this at all?

00:32:25.960 Even there's a better temple, right?

00:32:27.860 You have this earthly holy place, right?

00:32:29.760 Something made with human hands, 0.61

00:32:31.180 but we have a temple that's not made by human hands.

00:32:35.860 It's made by the spirit that's in the heavenly places

00:32:37.760 and represented on earth in the people of God, right?

00:32:41.660 And so in every way, in every way,

00:32:44.380 the new covenant is-

00:32:46.720 Better mediator.

00:32:47.640 Is better.

00:32:48.160 Better temple, yeah.

00:32:49.580 It's better in so many different ways.

00:32:53.020 But one way is, I remember as I was preaching through Hebrews,

00:32:56.860 is it does not have a geographic center.

00:33:01.340 One way that Christ is better and this Christian living temple is better, 0.63

00:33:07.800 this new covenant is better,

00:33:10.040 is that it is not restrained to one geographic locale.

00:33:15.880 And the reason why that's better is because there's now entrance and access to all the peoples of the earth.

00:33:25.000 You don't have to make a great pilgrimage once a year as Gentiles would, you know, to come and worship in Jerusalem or Jews far away.

00:33:34.880 But now Christ is here and Christ has made himself, offered himself, made himself available to all peoples. 0.83

00:33:44.700 And not once a year at great cost to them, but every week on the Lord's Day at great cost to himself.

00:33:52.880 And every day of the week, of course, in the personal Christian practices of personal piety and scripture reading and fasting and prayer.

00:34:00.880 And just the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, which exudes the ministry of the resurrected Christ.

00:34:07.560 All those things are always.

00:34:08.800 But in a unique sense, this weekly heavenly Jerusalem that we enter into on the Lord's Day, the Christian Sabbath.

00:34:17.800 So instead of, you know, potentially 5,000 mile trek once a year, it's, you know, a five mile trek once a week.

00:34:27.760 Yeah.

00:34:28.300 Yeah.

00:34:29.080 And God's presence, right?

00:34:31.800 Where is the Holy of Holies where God's presence dwells?

00:34:34.620 Wherever two or three.

00:34:35.580 It's where his people are anywhere in the world. 0.99

00:34:38.800 Where is Jerusalem? 0.98

00:34:40.540 Where is the temple?

00:34:42.460 It is where God's people are all over the planet.

00:34:45.900 That's why it's better and superior.

00:34:48.700 So we don't have to worry about who has possession of the holy land.

00:34:55.080 Well, Christians do because the holy land is wherever Christians are.

00:34:58.400 Right. 0.86

00:34:59.260 Right.

00:34:59.760 Amen.

00:35:00.720 Any final thoughts on the Hebrews text?

00:35:03.720 Well, we could talk about it for about five more hours.

00:35:05.900 Well, for sure.

00:35:06.560 without opening the can of like,

00:35:09.700 well, I'm just going to quickly exegete

00:35:11.200 seven more chapters.

00:35:12.380 Let's not do that.

00:35:13.600 But any more final thoughts on,

00:35:16.180 I don't know, just the text that you read?

00:35:17.920 Well, yeah, I think it, again,

00:35:21.640 is extremely clear

00:35:23.280 that the old covenant is coming to an end.

00:35:26.500 It's done.

00:35:26.760 It's just the point of the entire book.

00:35:28.040 It's already obsolete at the timing

00:35:30.000 of Paul's writing

00:35:31.080 and soon to completely vanish away.

00:35:35.060 Completely go away.

00:35:35.740 Yeah.

00:35:35.920 And so, right, it's hard.

00:35:39.060 I try to get myself into the headspace of someone who thinks, yeah, there still is some remnant or aspect of the old covenant left, right, for this category of people over here, thousands of years later, right, holding that position and then reading this.

00:35:54.920 Right.

00:35:55.000 That's really hard to read this and think, right, all he's doing, the entire book is trashing the old covenant and saying how this is so much better and saying it's going to go away soon.

00:36:09.660 How would I come away after reading this thinking, oh, that's still a thing though?

00:36:16.140 And even when you read, I mean, it gives you great confidence.

00:36:19.840 And this view, I think, actually opens up the Bible, the entire Bible, way more for Christians.

00:36:27.320 When you read Hebrews 11, and it goes to the history of the patriarchs and the men of the Old Covenant and says that we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, of those Old Covenant saints.

00:36:41.820 you go back and you read through that and you realize, wait, that's our history. That isn't a

00:36:49.500 history of a particular special people, right? We are the special people. That's our history,

00:36:55.220 right? I am spiritually descended from David and from Samson and from Abraham and from Jacob,

00:37:04.220 right? Those are our fathers, right? We are grafted into this covenant. That's our history,

00:37:09.040 This is our book.

00:37:10.920 This isn't the book of somebody else.

00:37:12.440 That's right.

00:37:12.980 This is the book of God's people.

00:37:14.080 And you read in Hebrews 11.

00:37:15.080 This is the Christian history.

00:37:16.380 This is us.

00:37:17.220 This is our thing.

00:37:19.460 And then you go back and you read the entire Old Testament and you're like, oh, this is actually about my people.

00:37:27.180 Right.

00:37:27.620 My people are them.

00:37:29.540 That's right.

00:37:30.420 It's a major paradigm shift.

00:37:32.280 Exactly what Jesus said, you know, like I think of John 8,

00:37:36.740 Gospel of John chapter 8, where, you know, they pick up stones to stone him.

00:37:41.140 They're angry, you know, because he says, well, you know,

00:37:45.800 you're not children of God, you're not children of Abraham. 0.99

00:37:47.820 You know, you do have a daddy, you're not a complete bastard. 1.00

00:37:50.220 Your dad is the devil. 1.00

00:37:50.780 You're not bastards. 1.00

00:37:51.820 I'm not saying you're fatherless. 1.00

00:37:53.020 I'm just saying that your daddy is the devil. 0.96

00:37:55.920 Jesus being charitable as always.

00:37:58.660 And so, but in that, you know, Jesus speaks of Abraham and it's kind of like this debate of history.

00:38:06.060 Like whose history is it?

00:38:07.120 He says, you're claiming that Abraham, you know, he's your lineage.

00:38:10.980 He's your ancestor.

00:38:12.220 He's your father.

00:38:13.100 He said, but here's the deal.

00:38:14.480 He's not.

00:38:15.440 He's not your father.

00:38:16.580 And this is why.

00:38:17.820 Not because I've swabbed the inside of your cheeks and done a DNA test.

00:38:22.840 You know, it's not because of that.

00:38:23.960 No, it's because children always bear a striking resemblance to their fathers and you bear no 0.61

00:38:31.520 resemblance to Abraham. Here's what Abraham looked like. Abraham, through the eyes of faith,

00:38:37.380 in a prophetic sense, he looked forward to my day and saw it with gladness. Abraham saw me

00:38:45.520 and loved me. And you don't. Here I am and you hate me. And so who are the true seeds of Abraham?

00:38:52.680 Who can claim Abraham as his father?

00:38:56.080 Father of Abraham had many sons.

00:38:58.840 I am one of them, and so are you.

00:39:01.800 That's true.

00:39:03.360 It is true.

00:39:04.040 That's a good gospel song right there.

00:39:07.840 Absolutely.

00:39:08.460 That's our history.

00:39:09.480 Yeah, it's ours.

00:39:11.020 Do not say that Abraham is your father. 0.98

00:39:13.740 Your father is Satan.

00:39:15.260 God is able from these stones to make silver with Abraham.

00:39:16.820 From these stones to raise up sons of Abraham.

00:39:18.660 Who are the stones?

00:39:19.540 We are.

00:39:20.280 Yeah.

00:39:20.780 We're the stones.

00:39:21.680 We're the sons of Abraham that have been made out of stones into his son because, and it's entirely only via faith, that we have the faith of Abraham.

00:39:34.520 So this book is for us, right?

00:39:37.740 It's to these particular people in the first century, but it is for us to give us confidence, right?

00:39:42.940 To draw near boldly to the throne of grace.

00:39:46.300 That's right.

00:39:46.720 The book of Hebrews, it was to a particular group, but it's for us today.

00:39:51.680 that we might have confidence to come to the throne of grace

00:39:54.720 and that we might not be dispensationalists.

00:40:00.220 Well, thank you guys for tuning in.

00:40:02.000 God bless you.

00:40:02.640 We've hoped that this episode and the other episodes are a blessing

00:40:05.900 and we will catch you next time.

The NXR Podcast - March 08, 2025

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - How God Destroyed Judaism In AD 70

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