Fulfilled in Him

The promises of God find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. “In him,” they find their “yea” and “amen.” The things that were once “hidden” are revealed in the life, words, death, resurrection, and exaltation of the Son of God. He is the one through whom all the shadows and types of the Hebrew Bible become real. All the “mysteries” of God are unveiled for all men to see in the Nazarene, especially in his Death and Resurrection.

The nation of Israel has not been “replaced” by the New Covenant people of God. Instead, the original promise to Abraham to bless “all the nations” has come true as Jews and Gentiles are united in Jesus to form one new people, “one new man”- (Romans 16:25, Galatians 2:28, 2 Corinthians 1:19-2:0, Ephesians 2:11-22).

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Jesus is the promised Messiah who came to fulfill “all the Law and the Prophets.” He is the true Tabernacle in whom the unveiled glory of God resides. “Grace instead of grace” arrived in the “word made flesh.” The Law came through Moses. However, “grace and truth came to be in Jesus.”

He is the true Temple, the place where the presence of God is found rather than any building “made with hands,” whether in Jerusalem or anywhere else. The time has come for the true worshippers to worship God “in the Spirit and truth.” The old limitations of holy space and time no longer apply - (John 1:14-18, 2:19-21, 4:20-24).

Likewise, the annual feasts of Israel find their significance in the Son of God. He is the true “living bread from heaven” that imparts life, not the manna God gave to Israel in the wilderness - (John 6:50-51, 7:37-39).

BLESSING OF ABRAHAM

In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul explained that Jesus came to “redeem us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse in our behalf.” This was so “the blessing of Abraham should come to the nations.”

The covenant promises were to Abraham and his “seed,” and that “seed” is Jesus of Nazareth. The original covenant always envisioned the inclusion of the nations. This has been achieved through the Death and Resurrection of Jesus - (Galatians 3:13).

The Law of Moses served as a “custodian” UNTIL the time of fulfillment when the “seed” came. The time of “custodianship” has ceased. Jesus, the true “seed” of Abraham, is the “end of the Law for righteousness to all who believe” - (Galatians 3:19-25, Romans 10:4).

The Law was an interim stage between promise and fulfillment. The Son came in the “fullness of time” to redeem those under the Law. Therefore, for those “in Christ,” there no longer can be “Jew or Greek, bond or free, male and female.”

The social and ethnic distinctions inherent in the Law have no place in the Church of Jesus Christ. All who have “put on Christ” become one in him and “Abraham’s children, and according to promise, heirs” - (Galatians 3:26-29, 4:4-7, Colossians 3:11).

To again observe “days, months, seasons and years” as required by the Torah amounts to submission to the “weak and beggarly elemental spirits” that previously tyrannized us. If we do so, we exchange the Spirit of God and the liberty he bestows for the death-dealing letter of the Law with its curse on all men who do not do all that it requires - (2 Corinthians 3:6-7, Galatians 3:10, 4:8-10, 5:1-3).

God has spoken with great finality, “Upon the last of the days in His Son.” The earlier words through the prophets were true but preparatory and partial. He has spoken fully only in Jesus, especially when he “achieved the purification of sins” – (Hebrews 1:1).

His High Priesthood surpasses the Levitical priesthood. His sacrificial death achieved what no repeated animal sacrifice could ever do. Jesus is the “guarantor of a better covenant, one legislated on better promises” and his endless resurrection life.

If the first covenant had been “faultless,” there would have been no need for another. This vastly superior covenant has rendered the old one obsolete, including its sacrifices, calendrical observations, and other rituals - (Hebrews 8:4-10:18).

The old system constituted “glimpses and shadows of the heavenly realities,” mere patterns of the real and permanent originals. “Let no one, therefore, be disqualifying you in eating and in drinking, or in respect of a feast, new moon and Sabbaths, which were SHADOWS OF THE COMING THINGS, but the substance is of the Christ” - (Colossians 2:9-17, Hebrews 8:1-7, 9:9-10, 9:23-24).

In Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles receive their “introduction in one Spirit to the Father,” therefore, no longer are they “strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God.” God has dismantled the earlier “wall of partition” that separated Jews and Gentiles so that “the two he might create in himself into ONE NEW MAN” - (Ephesians 2:14-22).

The Church is composed of Jews and Gentiles who are “resident aliens” and “sojourners” on Earth, a people without a national homeland that possess the incorruptible inheritance of salvation and the promise of resurrection.

The Apostle Peter strung together several labels that originally applied to Israel but now are inherited by the Church:

• “But now, in Christ Jesus, you are the living stones being built up into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices well-pleasing to God, through Jesus Christ… You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a peculiar treasure,” a people that “at one time were a no-people but now are the people of God” - (1 Peter 2:4-10, Exodus 19:5-6).

Thus, the theme of fulfillment in Jesus is found throughout the New Testament. In HIM, “all the promises of God are Yea and Amen!” God defeated Sin, Satan, and Death on the Cross. The “mystery of God” that was hidden in past ages has been revealed in His Son, and especially in the proclamation of “Christ crucified” - (Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 2:1-9, 2 Corinthians 1:19-20).

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