Today, if you've been following along, you'll feel this sense of anticipation that we've made our way through the Old Testament. We've made our way through all the different characters and figures and major covenants. And now, finally, we've come to what I've titled this lesson, Christ's Fulfillment of the Old Covenant. So this covenant is the new covenant that we've referred to often. It's the covenant of grace that some Baptists have historically referred to, that Christ's coming issued in this new covenant. It was finally consummated, finally fully revealed, that the mystery that was once hidden for the ages has now been revealed in Christ's work. It's a similar pattern to the question that John the Baptist asked. So when he was nearing the end of his life, when he was in jail, he sent word to Christ and asked, are you the expected one? So that's a good way, if you followed along, maybe you feel this tension or you understand this saying of Christ being the only expected person. So it's clear that the Jews, even those who didn't believe in the New Testament, that they expected a Messiah to come. They saw the promises of God given throughout the ages that they thought, one day this Messiah figure will come, this covenant keeper will come. He'll be one with certain characteristics, certain patterns. It seems like the Jews expected for a king to come with the immediate reign, with a large army in power and in might, and that's not what we see. We're recording this around Christmas time, and so we're all familiar with the image of a baby lying in a manger. There was no place for him in an inn. As the stories go, he was out in the cold. He was on the road when he was born. It's not an ideal situation. He wasn't born in a palace of gold. He wasn't born with great authority physically on the earth. But Christ, we understand to be that expected person, the expected one. That if you remember all the way back from Genesis 3.15, that seed that we've looked for throughout all the covenants, the seed of the woman who would come to crush the head of the serpent. As Matthew 1.21 says, Christ has come to save the people from their sins. That he's the descendant of Abraham, he was a Jew by birth. He's a descendant of David that in Matthew we have the genealogy of Christ laid out from Abraham all the way down through to Christ's birth. that I would like to read a portion of Matthew 1 to sort of describe how Mary and Joseph understood this baby being born to them. So Matthew chapter 1, the second half of verse 20 I'll read. The angel appeared to him in a dream to Joseph, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son. They shall call his name Emmanuel, which translated means God with us. So finally we have this one who's expected, this one who has come. It's God with the people, God with us. So one pattern that we've talked about as a way of analyzing the covenants and what exactly is taking place, we've talked about God sharing dominion. So we saw all the way back in Genesis that God gave to Adam and Eve, here's this land, here's this creation, cultivate it, care for it, have dominion over it. We saw that in other covenants as well of God promising land to people, to Abraham, to Moses, to bringing people in through Joshua, saying, here's this land that I want to give you. We saw in the prophets this future promise of land, of you're going to have this place with no foreign rulers. So a way of summarizing is that God gives responsibility to his people with whom he makes the covenant with. So he says, okay, I'm going to give you this responsibility, and here's this part of the creation that I created to share with you. Part of that responsibility also includes certain roles that are given. We haven't touched on this very much, but maybe you've seen it and you just don't realize it, that a common way of summarizing the roles of Old Testament figures, and especially of Christ, is with three titles. It's with the prophet, the priest, and the king. So we understand the prophet in the Old Testament and in the New, and God's Word to be somebody who speaks God's Word to God's people. So he's like a channel of sorts. He's an avenue for God to speak to his people. He's a prophet. We have the office of priest, where if we were to go to read Leviticus, this would be clear. This is the person who makes sacrifices, that there are many rules and regulations, there are details about how to approach God's presence, how to approach sacrifices, that he offers those sacrifices to appease God's wrath, to take this into the people and to lay them on an animal or a scapegoat or a lamb, even the lamb of God. As the rule of king, you're probably familiar with this one, that kings rule and reign. They have authority. They are over people. So prophet, priest, and king, that's what we can see in just a moment in the life of Christ. So turn to Hebrews chapter 1. And if you're not familiar with Hebrews, it's this beautiful book of how Christ is superior in every way. So it painstakingly goes through these details of the Old Testament of the Jewish understanding of Christ and saying, no, he's better than angels, even though he came to earth for a while. He's better than Moses, better than Abraham, better than on and on and on. In every single way, every single conceivable form, Christ is greater. He's the better mediator. And this role of mediator is the context in which people have understood Christ's offices. So mediator, we've defined before as being one who stands between God and man. So Christ, the man standing between God, his God, and the people, He is that mediator, mediatorial role. And in his office as mediator, in his role as God's mediator sent to us, he fulfills these offices of prophet and of priest and of king. Listen to Hebrews 1, 1 through 4. See if you can catch that. It says, God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, In these last days he has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he made the world. And Christ is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. When Christ had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as he has inherited a more excellent name than they." So within those four verses, it's very clear. We see in the opening verse, Christ as prophet, that God has spoken to us through his son. You might ask, why do we need that role of Christ? It's because of our ignorance of God and what He requires of us as His creation. So God, by His grace, gives us this special revelation that He's spoken to us in the Logos, in, as John 1 says, the Word made flesh, that God has spoken finitively, finally, through Christ by sending Him We have the office of priest also laid out towards the end of those four verses of Christ is he. made purification for sin. So it's describing an event after Christ made purification for sin. So you ask yourself, why do we need that office of Christ? Why does he have to fulfill our priest, being our priest? It's because we were alienated from God, that there's this gap that the fall created, that each one of our sins create, that God is on one side, so to speak, and he is holy and right and pure. And Christ is on the middle. He's that bridge between us of us, a sinful and rotten, corrupt humanity. If you remember the picture of the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were cast out when they sinned, there was the knowledge of the tree of good and evil. There was that way to God of life with God and God's place under God's terms. But standing between that special relationship with God and Adam and Eve because of sin, A flaming cherub stood guarding the way. So that way was cut off for all of Adam's descendants. Everyone who came after him, it was no more until Christ opened up that way, but not just back to a garden and the earth where we could do certain things, but it's a better life with God in the new heavens and new earth to come. Finally, Christ as King says that he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, that our inability to return to God created this need for God to rescue us, that Christ the King came with authority, and that in Matthew 28, we see Christ given all authority in power in heaven and on earth, that Christ isn't just that King in the line of David. He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of lords. He is the ultimate one. He is God himself. Let me read a couple more sections from Hebrews so we can see more fully this picture of Christ, of His work, of what He came down willingly to do, to accomplish. So if you have Hebrews open still, I'll read Hebrews 2, verse 9, and then jump down to verse 14. So verse 9 says, but we do see him who is made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God, Christ, Jesus, might taste death for everyone. Verse 14, therefore since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, that's Christ, also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly he does not give help to angels, but he gives help to the descendants of Abraham." Verse 17, Therefore, he had to be made like his brothers in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. So we have Christ clearly coming down voluntarily being humiliated. He came forth like we are in flesh and in blood yet without sin because of the nature of his birth. He suffered humiliation that him being God and glory in heaven that he came down and took on human form. that it says by Christ's death, by his offer as being a propitiation to God, a substitute for the suffering that was due to us because of our sin, Christ earned for himself a crown of life. And that crown of life he shares with those who are in him, those who have faith in him. He tasted death for all. So even though we still die, there's this reality in which Christ has died for us. That death no longer has a sting because it's not final. That we die just to go see this Christ face to face. that the writer of Hebrews mentions that death and slavery to sin, it was rendered powerless. So that's a clear representation of this idea of the seed coming to crush the head of the serpent. That throughout the Old Testament, every single covenant head that we've spoken about, every single person who came who God contracted a covenant with, all of their righteous acts of obedience combined could not do what Christ did for us. We see that an end to the corruption of sin in an ongoing manner, that from the days of Noah when we read about how the earth was full of evil and of wickedness, how every thought of the heart was evil continually, how God regretted making mankind, that that rule and reign has been put to an end because of what Christ has done. Because he has defeated the power of death, he's defeated that slavery of sin. That there is an age to come in which Satan and his minions, the demons, will no longer rule, they'll no longer reign, they'll no longer go out tempting and causing people to sin. That will be put to an end once and for all because of Christ. We see also that it's done for the descendants of Abraham, that there's this understanding of God's work with Israel, that Israel is brought in and the nations are grafted in and it's a work for all people everywhere. that there's a reality in which we could look at angels and think, wow, maybe if one came down, we might want to worship it just because it's so otherworldly, so glorious, so magnificent in nature, that usually in the Old Testament, when an angel would appear, that people knew a big event was going to happen or they were going to die. But the writer of Hebrews is clear that Christ is better than the angels. His name that he inherited is better, that they worship him. He doesn't worship the angels. It's almost as if this work that God has done for humans is his creation. Puritan writers used to talk about how this is the salvation on which the angels long to look, that they know God in a relationship unbroken by sin, and that we know God in a relationship broken by sin. But the fact that we both know God, we know God in a particular way as the one who has come to save us, as Redeemer, as Mediator, as Christ, that there's that way in which the angels never have knowledge of that, that God in His grace has done that for us. This is the mystery that was pre-told, that was pre-figured, that was shut up in the Old Testament, now made manifest. We have chapter three, verses one through six. This will be our last section, very briefly. So it says, therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, and then it describes him, the apostle and the high priest of our confession. He was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all his house. For Christ has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses by just so much more as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later. But Christ was faithful as a son over his house, whose house we are if we hold fast to our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. So it's describing the difference in Moses, the mediator, so to speak, and Christ, the mediator, of Christ's ministry as the apostle, as one sent from God, as the high priest that you remember the prophecy, the promises gave to Abraham where he said, I will make from your line a kingdom of priests. We are a kingdom of priests made holy, set apart to God, and that we have a great high priest, Christ himself, who lives to make intercession for us. that were brought into his house, not as slaves, not as just outsiders looking in, not outside of the courts, but brought into the center of the throne room, so to speak, as his sons and daughters. that if we consider Christ in relation to Adam, that Christ is this second Adam, that he promises not to go back to an old way of an old garden just with renewed principles, but a new Eden, a new earth, a new heavens and earth that he will do away with this one and bring in a greater one. that Noah was named for his fulfillment of causing the people to rest from their labor, that Noah couldn't provide that, that God worked through him and used him, but ultimately and finally, that rest from labor comes from Christ, that our rest as believers is in Christ himself and his finished work. That Abraham, there was a promise to bless the nations through him. That fully and finally now Christ has opened this way up, not just to a Jewish nation, but to all the Gentiles everywhere. That Moses had the promised land that he was working, striving towards, and he wasn't able to enter. But Christ has the land, has the new heavens and new earth fully and finally promised to us in the age to come. That Moses asked to see God face to face. He said, show me your glory even if I die. But that in Christ we can see God's glory revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. That Moses was unable to see God as God walked by and showed him his glory. But we have greater access, we have greater knowledge because of what Christ has done. That David, there's this prophecy, this fulfillment of David's throne being established forever. That Christ is that one who came from the stump of Jesse. He's that new life that came, that God raised up. That he is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. That even over the great King David, Christ is king. So Christ is all of these things. So this new covenant, many have called a covenant of consummation or a covenant of finality, that when you think about Christ and the new covenant, the things that you associate it with are all things, that there's Christ as our conqueror, Christ as our champion, Christ doing all of this of his own accord, empowered by the Spirit, led by God, doing this as Christ the man. that Christ is the one who has done it all, that everything finds its end and fulfillment in Him, that we see the Father's supreme delight in His Son and sending Him and raising Him up from the dead and sitting Him at His right hand, that giving Him all authority and power. And as people who we know this one true God that our hearts are drawn out of us not to love ourselves, not just to love others, but to love ultimately, supremely this Christ, to learn to treasure him just as God does. So Christ doesn't do all these things. He doesn't do all this work. He doesn't go to the cross and die just to earn some benefit for himself. but he brings us in that the covenant of redemption where Christ said, okay, I'll go and do this mission with your spirit. Father, I'll go and accomplish this. He doesn't just do it for himself to gain more glory or benefit or blessing for himself, but he brings his children with us. The book of John in chapters 10 and 17, Christ talks about his mission and the Father giving him a people, Christ working and laboring as the chief shepherd for his sheep, that the blessings that Christ has, the fullness, the righteousness, the perfect life that he lived, it's all shared with us. It's all shown to us. It's all given to us. Every blessing that is offered by the gospel is offered through Christ and what he's done. At the beginning of this Hebrews chapter 3, we saw this phrase, these two words. It says, consider Jesus. And so I said in previous lessons that if we go through this whole series and we end with this sort of, well, that's good, you know, but I think a different system is better. Or that's good, you know, but, you know, you were wrong here and you misspoke there and these certain passages don't really fit together. If we approach this whole thing with the critical spirit of trying to argue about certain details, then we miss the point. Then the detriment is not on me, but it's on you all if you don't see and consider this Christ of the covenants as we have laid them out so carefully in the last several lessons. that there's this calling, there's this opportunity, there's this one clear message from all the scriptures, from Adam all the way until the last chapter of Revelation. And the message is, consider Jesus, that He does not have, you know, ending this life and on to the next as a promise. He doesn't have that you're not going to go through suffering or trial or difficulty or hardship. He doesn't promise health and wealth. He doesn't promise all these different things, reasons why you might come to Him. He promises something far better. He promises for you to come to Him, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and He will give you rest. That you're striving to enter into God's rest through your own works, He says clearly that it will not work, it will not go well with you. But if you will take by faith this work that Christ has done for yourself and enter into His rest, Do not harden your heart, do not stiffen your neck, but come to him and say, you have truly done it all. Christ will give you that ultimate and final rest. That the longer I go on, the more pastors I know, the more missionaries I know through heart cry, the more godly men and women I know that are around me. There is no perfect disciple. There is no perfect person. There is no one wise, no one worthy of looking at, no one strong. But really, what all of us have, what we must cling to, is the person and work of Christ, who is our perfect Savior. So that concludes it for today's lesson. So we went through Christ's work and his offices of prophet and priest and king as mediator, how he's better than every other person that's gone before him, how he has the better covenant. We'll go on in the final lesson to talk about the benefits or the blessings of the New Covenant. So for those who are in Christ, what difference does Christ's death and work make for us? What is offered to us here and now? What do we have to look forward to? And if you have questions, again, please comment down below or on our website. You can send a contact form and we'll answer them in the 12th episode. So thank you for watching and God bless.