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Examining the Parallels of Unbelief between the Covenants

 

The parallel characteristics of unbelief between the Old and New Covenant Ages are very striking. Most remarkable is the way in which the Gentile "believers" of the New Covenant Age, despite their professions of faith in Christ, have deliberately or ignorantly mimicked their unbelieving Jewish counterparts under the Old Covenant.

 

Except for the theological differences brought into being through the apostles, the identical patterns of unbelief that marked the Old Covenant Era have also marked the New Covenant Era--the same behaviors and the same typologies--on both the individual and corporate levels.  There is not a single pattern of Old Covenant unbelief under Israel that has not been evident among the churches of the New Covenant. Let's look at the most obvious ones.

 

As the Jews repeatedly stooped to worship idols, either outright or in conjunction with worshipping Jehovah, so have the New Testament Christians. Christians have often either abandoned the Lord altogether to return to the gods of their ancestors, or they have mingled the worship of Christ with the religions of their original cultures (called "syncretism"), a practice particularly prominent among Roman Catholic converts of the third world.

 

As throughout their generations the Jews went through repeating cycles of unbelief and revival, so have the Christians throughout theirs. An unusually prominent parallel is the major religious rift that developed in both the histories of Israel and of the church. In the Old Testament, Israel divided into two religious kingdoms that maintained representation right down to the time of Christ. The south maintained a comparatively orthodox faith according to the Law while the north developed its own idolatrous brand of Jewish faith, eventually to become the people known as the Samaritans.

 

Likewise, the church age has seen an identical rift between two main parties: those of the more biblical New Testament faith known as Protestants and Evangelicals, and those of a distinctly humanly-crafted idolatrous version known as Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

 

Among the orthodox, as the Jews developed innumerable traditions centered on manmade religious practices and humanly appointed calendar days, so have the Christians throughout the Church Age. Christian observances of Sunday as "the Sabbath" and of Christmas, Easter and so many other innumerable "saint" days and "feast" days all mimic the unbelief of Ancient Israel, as do all the "Christian cultural" rules and regulations ("Thou shalt not buy gas on Sunday...Thou shalt not drink any alcoholic beverage," etc.) instituted among Fundamentalists and others by which Christian spirituality is defined. (More on this below.)

 

Meanwhile, the same spectrum of religious parties that came to exist in Israel's history up through the time of Christ also developed in the Church Age and exists to this time as we approach the second coming. The Jews had an unbelieving religious spectrum of far rightists (zealots and Essenes), rightests (Pharisees), leftists (Saducees) and far leftists (Herodians). Today the unbelieving party-spirited church also has far rightists (Christian militias and Christian cultist groups), rightists (Fundamentalists and Evangelicals), leftists (liberals) and far leftists (modernists and Christian communists).

 

Very interesting is that just as the Jews in their various parties created institutional worship and scholastic structures, so have the Church Age gentile Christians. The Jews built their synagogues and rabbinic schools. The gentile Christians have built their church buildings and seminaries.

 

The Jewish rabbinic system had three recognized degrees of higher learning ("rab," "rabbi," and "rabboni"). These transferred to the gentile religious system in the three degrees: "Bachelor," "Masters," "Doctor." (Note that rabbi, the second Hebrew level meaning master corresponds exactly to the title of our second degree level also called "Masters.") Such titles of religious learning were specifically forbidden by the Lord among his followers and earned his rebuke. (Today, Mt 23 would be restated to indict those who desire to be called "Dr." and who love the "platform seats on the conference stage and the speakers tables at the conference banquets.")

 

Above all, as the Jews formed the strength of their unbelief on their natural heritage and political dynasties, so have the Christians--even though Jesus explicitly said that His Kingdom is NOT of this world! Beginning with the fourth century marriage of the Church in Rome to the Roman Empire (creating the Roman Catholic system and the Holy Roman Empire), Church Age Christians have repeatedly wed their faith to their native cultures and governments. The Reformers all did this, creating a patchwork of church-states throughout Europe, including the Pilgrims and Puritans of America.

 

The nation of the United States itself is one that by the Christian cultural fabric underlying  its very existence has in this Church Age come to embody the unbelieving Gentile version of national "Israel"--replete with its own internal religious subdivision between the "orthodox" South (Bible Belt) and its "Samaritan-like" (predominantly secularized Roman Catholic) North.

 

Among the "orthodox" of the Fundamentalist and Evangelicals (including the Spirit-filled American church) this comparison is more than typology. It is intentional belief that America is indeed the Church Age "Israel," having all the same covenantal rights in God as did Old Covenant Israel, which all believers are duty bound to revere, preserve and defend. Among these parties, idolatry of the founding American heritage and its forefathers (interestingly centered on an actual statue called "Liberty") is as prominent and fundamental to "the faith" as Old Israel's reverence for its "kingdom" roots in Abraham and Moses. Parties as diverse as the Mosaic Reconstructionists, the British-Israelists, and the masses of non-thinking Religious-Rightists (including the prophetic movement) all elevate America as the quintessential "Christian Nation."        

 

Today, the unbelief of the gentile heritage-worshipping Christian Americanists has combined with the revived Old Covenant heritage worship among the Zionist Messianic Jews of modern Israel to form a wedding that bridges the two ages of unbelief into one.

 

It's important to note that at the heart of all these patterns of unbelief is our relationship to the concept of "the Law." Paul specifically says that the mystery of the Gospel is in that Christ abolished in His own flesh the enmity, "which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances." This abolition occurred not just in regard to the religious ordinances contained in the Law of Moses, but regarding all concept of religious law. All enmity dividing the body of Christ and obstructing the manifestation of the one new man is according to Paul rooted in the keeping of religious ordinances, Mosaic or otherwise.

 

Yet despite this all-encompassing abolition of religious Law behind the gospel mystery, gentile believers throughout the Church Age from major denominations to isolated cults have either imitated the religious ordinances of the Mosaic Law or else created their own codes of religious law in Mosaic fashion! (Keep in mind that todays amalgamationist Messianic-Gentile vision of the "one new man" is premised on the keeping of, not abolishing relationship to, Mosaic religious ordinance--exactly contrary to Paul's description of the same.)

 

Part 12





Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

05/06



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