“For all the promises of God in him are ‘Yes,’ and in him ‘Amen,’….” ~2 Corinthians 1:20
“To be continued.” This is one of the most frustrating phrases ever to be used on screen. The author immerses you in the story, takes you to the point of anxiously desiring resolution, and then leaves you hanging, waiting for all the questions to be answered in the next installment … maybe. From a marketing perspective, it is brilliant because an audience is assured for the next episode (if the story is good enough). From a viewer’s perspective, the tension is unpleasant. (And this is why we now have streaming services and “binge-watching.”)
At the end of the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Chronicles in the Hebrew order), God put a big “to be continued.” The Jews are sent back to the land to rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem. God’s people are in prominent places in the empire (such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Esther, and Mordecai). These were golden years in some sense.
The next scene in the story of Scripture opens up about four hundred years later with the Roman Empire in control. God was working between those times, taking down the Persian Empire, raising up the Greek Empire, taking down the Greek Empire, and raising up the Roman Empire. He revealed all this to Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 2). There is a big gap between chapters, but the story hasn’t ended.
The climatic final covenantal chapter begins recounting the conception and birth of Jesus, the one in whom all of God’s covenant promises find their “Yes” and “Amen.”
God’s blessing of the original man and woman to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth and subduing it (Gen 1:28), never ceased to be God’s plan for establishing his kingdom on earth. After the fall, God promised a seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head and establish this kingdom (Gen 3:15). This seed mission was handed down through Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob’s twelve sons (Israel), and then devolved upon Israel’s king, David’s son (2 Sam 7:14). Jesus is the son of David (Mt 1:1), the king of Israel, Israel in the flesh, and the son of God. He is the seed of the woman born under the Law (Gal 4:4-5) who fulfills the seed’s mission and, therefore, the mission of Israel.
Fulfilling the mission of Israel is the fulfillment of the Law’s purpose, for Israel was “the Law people.” The Law created a people and place to deal with the sin of the world. Jesus became that place. As Israel in the flesh, he is the true Israel. The story of Israel continues to this day in Christ Jesus. All those united to Christ are the Israel of God (Gal 6:16). Circumcision is no longer the mark of God’s seed people. It was a sign of the death that was needed to bring humanity dead in sins–ripped in two, Jew and Gentile–back into one family in the body of Christ (cf. Eph 2:11ff.). Insisting on circumcision, rebuilding the Temple, and trying to restart Temple worship is to say that Christ Jesus didn’t accomplish his mission; it is trying to live in the penultimate chapter when God has moved to the final chapter.
There is no longer a need for a Temple in Jerusalem because Jesus is God’s new Temple, the place where heaven and earth intersect, where we draw near to God and have our sins forgiven. The Temple of his body was destroyed and raised up after three days (Jn 2:19). Now, the church is his body, the Temple (1 Cor 3:16), and a place where Jew and Gentile without distinction draw near to God.
The Temple is not confined to one geographical city so that all the nations must make pilgrimages to visit. The Temple is spread over the whole earth because the land promised to Abraham–the world (Rom 4:13)–has been claimed and is ruled over by the Lord Jesus Christ. He has all authority in heaven and on earth (Mt 28:18).
In Jesus, all the threads of the story are woven together to bring the story to its proper conclusion. Though this chapter continues to be written through the life of the church, it is the final chapter of God’s covenant story.
