Observing the Lord's Table

The following is from our Good Friday Service:

The Lord’s Table

There is a connection between the OC Passover and the NC Lord’s Table.  The Passover was an animal sacrifice that looked forward to the time when it would no longer be needed; it was a prophecy that looked forward to its fulfillment.  That fulfillment was Christ, the Lamb of God being slain for us.  As the OT believer ate it in faith they looked forward to the time in which the true Lamb would be slain for the forgiveness of their sins.  The Passover also looked back at their deliverance from Egypt, but the danger for the Jew was to not realize that it primarily looked forward to true deliverance from sin.

As Christ prepares to fulfill that type, he institutes a new observance that causes us to look backward but also look at the present and to look forward as well.  Like the Passover it anticipates a time in which it will no longer be needed.  There are two basic truths that each NT account mentions. 

First of all, they all tell us that the bread and the cup are symbols of his body and blood that were given for the remission of sins.  In the original each one says consistently that the body was given and the blood was poured out.  This is tied to how our sins are forgiven by his death and that this is the essence of the NC.  And so the first thing the observance of this table does is to connect us to the past, to the day in which a suitable substitute was lifted up and took our place.  He is the reason we are at peace with God because he took away the guilt of our sin.  This is why Jesus said to do this in remembrance of me.   We remember his death, we do not re-crucify him, and we thank God that he died once for all time for the sins of his people.  Heb 10:12  But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, Heb 10:14  For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Secondly, we don’t just remember but we eat the symbols.  We acknowledge that Christ hasn’t just done something in the past but indwells us now and gives us life and light and joy and peace.  He satisfies us with good things now and he has united us to his body and we share communion with God’s people now.  We are growing in our knowledge and fellowship of him.  He indwells us with his Spirit and has sealed us until the day of his return.  Perhaps it is this last thing that we are to especially consider at the present.  We have been united to his death so that it is a present reality and assurance to us.

Thirdly, this allows us to look forward to the day when we shall no longer observe a rite that reminds and anticipates because we will be safe in the eternal presence of God and in complete and unbroken fellowship with him.  Sin will no longer cause us to forget and ignore our Savior but we will enjoy him perfectly. 

In each of the gospel accounts Jesus makes it a point to say that he will not drink of the fruit of the vine until he does so in the kingdom of God.  A lot could be said about this but I think Paul sums it up in his account where he says, 1Co 11:26  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.  Once he comes we won’t have to have this observance because we will be enjoying the fullness of the kingdom. 

Bread and wine in the Bible also speak of our needs being met and the fullness of joy.  Christ was saying that he is going away but when he comes back we will once again sit down with him and enjoy true fulfillment and true joy in the day in which all our enemies have been destroyed. 

So this table unites our past and our present and our future.  Because it is a celebration of Christ and he is our perfect salvation, our abundant life now and our glorious hope that awaits.  Let us use it as time of worship; to thank him for being a perfect savior and to commit our present life to him and to be faithful until the day that he comes back for us to receive him unto himself.

A Test of Saving Faith

2Co 13:5  Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 2Co 13:6  I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.

In Church we have spent a couple of weeks speaking on how we can examine ourselves to make sure we are of the Faith.  While our salvation is as sure as the righteousness of Christ because it is based on his work, not ours; yet the Bible constantly tells Christians that taking it for granted can be an eternal mistake.  So we are told to make our calling and election sure.  Briefly, I think this is done primarily in making sure there is fruit in your life that gives evidence of a regenerated heart and I believe the way this is seen is two-fold.  Both of these fruits for the most part involve an inward look at the heart before an outward look at one’s life. 

Firstly, only I can see my heart and only I know if I am trusting solely on the finished work of Christ on the cross.  Obviously many false professors have walked an aisle and made a public profession of Christ.  So the only way for anyone to know if it was real or not is to first be honest with yourself.  True, saving faith looks to no other righteousness than that of the Lord Jesus Christ.  If you are holding on to some work or some religious system, some earthly priest, etc. in addition to Christ then you are not a biblical believer in Christ.

A second test also involves the heart before looking at the life.  It is to determine whether you love Christ more than any other thing or person.  Salvation isn’t just an act of faith, it is the Holy Spirit giving you a new nature not only so you can trust in Christ but also so that you might have light and life and submit to Christ as Lord.  Again, only I know if I love Christ and want to glorify him in everything I do.  It is obvious that the churches are full of people who have outwardly “accepted” Christ Jesus but inwardly they still put their wants above his.  This is not bringing forth “fruit meet for repentance”. 

If we seem to pass these two tests then they will be evidenced by a lifestyle that obeys the Lord.  There will be a constant and genuine sorrow over sin which leads to repentance and an effort to put exposed sin out of our lives.  There will be humility as we recognize Christ as our only wisdom and righteousness.  There will be contentment in all situations because we trust the Lord to keep his word when he says, “All things work together for the good of those that love him”.  It isn’t that these things will be constant and perfect but we live according to our heart’s love and desires.  If we are by nature lovers of Christ, we can’t live lives that looks like lovers of sin.

Let me close by listing some things that we must be very wary of when examining ourselves and even others.  Such things as praying, walking an aisle, an emotional experience, being baptized, attending church, leading an outwardly moral life, knowing facts about Jesus and even conviction over doing sinful things is not necessarily evidence of a regenerate heart. 

You might think that I just contradicted myself but there is a problem with these things.  Any lost person can do each one.  They don’t require genuine faith and a transformed heart.  If we see ourselves doing them we haven’t really proven anything and this is why we have to look first at the heart and the motive for why we do what we do.  It might be better to say that they only help us examine ourselves in that only their absence proves anything.  Their presence doesn’t prove saving faith but their absence would definitely be a warning sign.  

If a lost person doesn’t do any of this, then we are not surprised.  But if a professing Christian isn’t doing them then they are suspect at best.  Some of them like walking an aisle aren’t going to be the experience of all true saints but my point is that people that love the Lord will look like it outwardly.  And so the absence of holiness and obedience is a failing mark on the test of whether one has been touched by the grace of God.

Will All Israel Be Saved?

Rom 11:25  Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Rom 11:26  And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob".

Much of the trouble Christians have had in biblical interpretation has come because they don’t take the time to study the context of a given verse or passage.  If you study cults and those who have gone into serious error you will always find a clear example of this.  Acts 2:38 is an example in which the Church of Christ have set their flag on its hill to live or die claiming it proves baptism is necessary for salvation, Act 2:38  And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The problem, of course, is that the rest of the Bible just won’t allow it.

In the passage above from Romans 11 we have a similar problem it seems to me.  This one isn’t nearly as dangerous but nevertheless it has been used to further the cause of dispensationalism and confusion.  The phrase, “and in this way all Israel will be saved” has been taken to promote a future time in which ethnic Jews will enter into the fulfillment of prophecies as of yet unseen.  The Puritans and many others see this passage as pointing to a time in which the Jewish nation will experience revival before the Lord comes back.  I certainly would welcome that, of course, but I think there are a couple of reasons why that is problematic.

1. First of all, verse 26 is the culmination of his argument that he started in chapter 9, Rom 9:6  But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.  Paul has spent the first eight chapters destroying everything that the Jews were trusting in for salvation; e.i. their favored status and the Law.  He has shown that they are as guilty before God as the Gentiles.  And so chapters 9-11 is Paul pointing out that God’s eternal, saving decrees were never pointed at any one ethnic group but God has always been free to save whom he will.

He makes this point immediately in Rom 9:7  and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named."  Rom 9:8  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.  Just because someone was born a Jew never meant they were going to be saved, merely that they were part of the OT covenant God made with the Jews.

Paul makes this point several times in the NT; Rom 2:28  For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. Rom 2:29  But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.  Gal 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  Gal 3:29  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

So when Paul brings his point home in 11:26, he is not saying that all Jews will be saved but that all elect Israelites would be saved because the true Israel has always been those chosen from eternity.

2. I think another point to be made that is often ignored is that whatever else verse 26 says, it clearly says that all Israel will be saved.  And the problem we have, if this is to apply to all ethnic Jews, is that this can never be fulfilled.  Millions of Jews have died without Christ from Abraham on right up until this present age.  If this points to a future revival and even if there is a time in which all Jews living will be saved, all Israel will not be saved.  How can saving a small number of Jews living at the time of Christ’s return have any bearing on all Israel being saved?

Instead, if Paul is showing in 9-11 that all the elect will be saved and this includes both Gentile and ethnic Israel, then in that way all the elect Israelites will be saved and God has, in fact, kept his promises which were only to save the elect through faith by grace.  So in this way all Israel who were elect from eternity will be saved along with all the Gentiles who were elected as well.  The way Paul is speaking of is to save the elect through the work of the cross of Christ which is being worked out in a partial hardening of the Jews as he brings in Gentiles as well.  It is a partial hardening as God is saving both Jew and Gentile alike.

Gal 5:6  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

Col 3:11  Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Eph 2:11  Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands--

Eph 2:12  remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Eph 2:13  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Eph 2:14  For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility Eph 2:15  by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, Eph 2:16  and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 

Notice Eph. 2:15 above.  If Gentile and Jew have been made one new man in Christ then it seems that any theological position that keeps them separate has missed the point and deemphasizes the gospel.

True Love Has Feet

Jas 2:14  What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? Jas 2:15  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, Jas 2:16  and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? Jas 2:17  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Jas 2:18  But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

1Jn 4:10  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1Jn 4:20  If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

The above verses are well known teachings on Christian love.  James doesn’t use the word love, instead he uses faith but it is obvious he is teaching that genuine faith is proven by love.  We use the word love so often that it is easy for Christians to use it without thinking through what true love is.  When we do this we can assume we love but can fall into the trap of not thinking of love by its biblical definition.  So we assume that since I like someone and care about them and like being around them and pray for them that I am exercising Christian love toward them when, in fact, I am not loving them very well at all.

What the above verses remind us of is that love is shown by actions not so much by feelings.  Perhaps another way to say it is that love ministers to its objects.  Yes, love cares for the good of others but it also puts feet to it by a willingness to do something to meet their needs.  Love is willing to be inconvenience and to sacrifice of itself so that our love can be expressed to the ones we say we love. 

If we are not careful, we can examine ourselves and assume we pass the test of love because when we think of our church family, for instance, we like their fellowship and we care enough about them to pray for them if they happen to let us know of a prayer request. So we smugly cross off love from our checklist of Christian virtues to work on and thank God that we aren’t as bad as we could be.

But the problem is that we have lowered the definition of love so low that we can easily step over it.  When I see church members willing to spend a couple of hours with each other on Sunday but have nothing to do with the people they “love” until the next Sunday then I wonder if we are really being honest with ourselves.  Is caring enough to pray for someone really a demonstration of Christian love?  Is it not a little like standing on the shore while a “loved one” is drowning and praying for their deliverance instead of jumping in and getting wet and doing what needs to be done?  We care for each other as long as you don’t come over to my house and don’t invite me over to yours.  We are willing to pray for whatever needs they have but not get our feet dirty by getting involved with them and being close enough to them so that you can actually do something beyond mentioning them in passing while you pray for all of your wants and needs.

We don’t want to get to know them to the point that we might have to offer some advice or rebuke and we certainly don’t want them to see our weaknesses and offer to help us.  We reduce love to warm feelings but we don’t do what James tells us to do in the above verses.  We don’t want to get close enough to someone so that they might actually show up on our door step and ask us to be inconvenienced for their sake.  I don’t think that is biblical love and I wonder if sometimes we are fooling ourselves because we are unwilling to examine ourselves in the light of God’s Word instead of our watered down version of it.

Before we dismiss this as applying to the church down the street let’s remind ourselves of Rev 3:1  "And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: 'The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. "'I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Rev 3:2  Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Rev 3:3  Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

Every church has a reputation of following the Bible and of being alive, even the ones that don’t believe it anymore; people just assume it.  Vs. 2 says that their problem is incomplete works.  Perhaps they talked about how much they loved and prayed for people but they never got around to actually proving it; it was an incomplete work in the sight of God. 

1 John 4:10 above shows how God demonstrated his love by subjecting himself to crucifixion for those he claimed to love.  He practiced what he preached, his actions matched his words, to use some clichés, and if we are going to honestly examine whether we love, we are going to have to see some actual ministry to the needs of others.  Not just you physical family but your brothers and sisters in Christ; those that you can help.  We have to become vulnerable, open, humble, willing to get dirty and inconvenienced for the sake of Christ.  If we are unwilling we have no right to claim to love as Christ as loved us.

Saving Faith

Jas 2:17  So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

Jas 2:18  But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 

Jas 2:19  You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder! 

Jas 2:20  Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 

Jas 2:21  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

The following is an excerpt from last week's sermon:

We need to understand how this faith which is saving faith is different from the natural faith that all men have.  There is a natural faith and a most unnatural faith.  It is impossible for us to lead normal lives without faith.  We trust people will keep our appointments, travel (you trust the pilot), buying a ticket shows you believe they will schedule it when they say, etc.  Phobias are a result of not trusting people or things to do what they are supposed to do.  There are so many phobias today because so few people know a sovereign God.  Think about it, if you are afraid of leaving your house, will you be willing to die for Christ?  Do you not fear some physical danger more than you fear and love God and want to serve him?  But as we think about this natural faith it is clearly built on experience is it not? 

As we see people stepping off a plane, we are convinced that the pilot and airplane will do what it promises.  I see other long-term workers going about their jobs so I believe that I will get a paycheck at the end of the week if I get hired there.  Faith is the most natural thing in the world and if we will believe men it is the most natural thing that we would believe God who cannot lie and can do all he promises. 

But there is a big difference; natural faith is based on experience, saving faith is not.  In human terms saving faith is quite unreasonable for it calls us to do what our experience has taught us cannot work.  It calls us to quit trusting in all that this life has taught us to trust in and work for.  Saving faith is not unreasonable of course, but it is not going to come naturally.  It comes as God reveals himself to us spiritually.  Not by doing physical acts to convince us or Israel would have believed.  It comes as we see by faith in the Word a sovereign God who created and sustains all things and thus is able to do all that he says.  Then it becomes the most rational thing in the world to believe on him.  Of course, this happens only after he has broken our rebellion through regeneration.

I hope that this is the God you know for if it is then I know you will follow him.  There is another who tries to get us to follow him and he uses experience to call us.  He says, "God helps those that help themselves, your duty is to provide for yourself in this life anyway you can".  Or he might be saying to you, “God will never do anything to you that hurts, he is too merciful for that”, and so you are unprepared for real life.  He might tell you the Bible is a nice book but somewhat out of step with the times and cannot be taken literally.  

It is deceivingly like Jesus’ words, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest".  One kind of faith is based on what we see with our eyes; the other is concerned with things as they really are.  Saving faith then is a gift from God.  Not that he imparts the ability to believe to us but reveals to us what in the flesh we cannot see; the glory of God.  Naturally we have faith it is just directed at everything but God.  You cannot believe in what you don’t understand.  All hear, but few trust in who they hear about.  So when God gives us the ability to believe, it is to cause us to stop trusting in things that can’t help and trust in the One who alone can save.

This is why we preach a sovereign God.  How can faith grow unless we grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?  Abram’s life is not pie in the sky theology; it is a faithful account of saving faith.  It begins and grows according to how big our God is in our hearts.

The Promises to Abraham, Part 2

Gal 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:29  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

Col 3:11  Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Genesis is the book of beginnings; it tells us where the material universe originates and most importantly where mankind originates.  In giving us human history it records some genealogies of Adam’s descendants but then something happens at the end of chapter 11.  From that point on the only genealogies we read of are those that came from Seth’s descendants.  It takes us to Abram and then from there the genealogies are only about Abram’s descendants.  The Gentile population is only mentioned as it relates to the Jews. 

And then once we get to the ultimate Jew, Jesus, all genealogies stop and the focus changes from the Jewish people back to the general population both Jew and Gentile.  The verses above speak of this change so that we see that the focus is not who came from Abraham or who did not but now what matters is who is in Christ. 

I think of lot of Christians have been fooled somewhat by the focus on the Jews in the OT.  It seems their theology sprang up long before they got to the NT.  They tend to forget that the point of Jewish history is not because God’s plan for the world revolved around having some sort of eternal relationship with the Jewish nation but the point of his relationship with the Jews was in order to bring about the incarnation of the Son so that he could have an eternal relationship with sinners. 

I think it is significant that not only are there no genealogies after the Lord did his redemptive work, but the Temple and all the genealogical records were destroyed as if God was saying that all that is of no consequence any more.  The old relationship he had with Israel is over because it was only temporary in order to bring about that one Jew who can take away that which separates us from the love of God.   

What all men need, both Jew and Gentile is not an arid rock over in the Middle East and certainly not a temple to make animal sacrifices on any more.  The only thing any of us need is to get right with God and live in his presence forever. 

Now I said most of this in the previous blog article but I wanted to add this: A lot of Christians don’t think the OT is particularly important and if they study it at all it is primarily to get some moral principle out of it to live by.  But it is actually a study of the Christian’s history.  It is a study of how God worked out his plan to glorify himself by redeeming a people from sin.  When we study the history of the Jews we are studying our own history and it has eternal consequences.  If this is true then we shouldn’t find it dry and remote to our lives today because everything we are and do is rooted in it. 

Today many people spend a lot of time and money trying to find their roots.  They want to understand where they came from, how they connect to the past and how that makes them who they are today.  I guess I don’t have a big problem with that as long as they realize how little any of that matters.  Unfortunately a lot of people think who they are related to in the not too distant past matters far too much.

Look, we are all related; we all came from Adam which means we all are ruined sinners.  That alone explains why we think the thoughts we do and why we act the way we act.  You don’t have a temper problem because you are Irish or have red hair; you have a temper problem because you are a human being.  And what ethnic group you belong to should not have near as much influence on your life style as whether you belong to Christ’s family or not.  Notice in Colossians above where he mentions barbarian and Scythian, slave or freeman.  Paul says that none of that is particularly important because if we are in Christ we are not who we once were and we are not headed where our kinsmen in the flesh are headed.  And certainly our lifestyle has much more to do with what we read in the Bible then what land your parents came from.

The OT explains who you are and how it was going to be fixed in the coming Messiah.  And you don’t have to pay a website online to find it out.  God had several men write it down for us so we can study it whenever we want.  Making distinctions between Jews and Gentiles causes us to lose focus on what we all have in common.  Paul points this out in the verses above.  He is telling us how to read the Bible.  Don’t read it as if the Jews have some kind of future and the NT church has a different one.  Read it as all men are one in sin and that the promise made to Abraham was not really about the Jews it was about Christ who would save us from our sins.  

Notice that the word for promise is singular.  The many promises of Gen. 12 had a lot to do with the nation of Israel but they were only to bring about the one promise which was Christ.  The OT isn’t about the Jews and the NT about the Church.  The Bible is about Christ and all those who are in him, not in Abraham.  

To Whom Were the Promises to Abraham Made?

Gal 3:8  And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "In you shall all the nations be blessed."  Gal 3:14  so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Gal 3:19  Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made…  Gal 3:28  There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:29  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

One of the great debates in the church is Israel’s relationship to God and the church after the cross.  You have two basic positions I guess.  One side believes the promises made to Israel haven’t been fulfilled and so will be in the future.  The other position is that all the promises made to Israel were fulfilled either in the OT times and ultimately in Christ and so now the Jews are no different than the Gentiles and are under the same covenant as the Gentiles which is the New Covenant.  All men are under the bondage of sin and must be saved the same way and the only thing that awaits any of us is the eternal state. 

An example of the first group, and there are many variations, is John Hagee.  The following quote was taken off his website some years ago.  “I believe that every Jewish person who lives in the light of the Torah, which is the word of God, has a relationship with God and will come to redemption. As Christians, we must recognize the critical importance of the Jewish people in God’s plan for us all. We must, in direct fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy, help bring God’s people home to Israel. We invite you to help us continue to raise funds to build a beautiful new dormitory that will house many more children who will be raised in their Jewish traditions according to the Torah. “  Some even join Judaism to be on the winning side when Christ comes back.

Now not all Dispensationalists believe that the Jews don’t need the gospel but this thinking is a result of not realizing that the covenants made with Israel were part of the redemptive plan to bring in the Messiah and are only “eternal” in relation to Christ.  The Jews were never supposed to be some sort of eternal special people above the rest of mankind. 

The above passages in Galatians are just a few that could be used to bear this out.  Notice in vss. 8 and 14 that Paul explains to us that when God made his covenant with Abraham he was preaching the gospel which is that all the nations will be blessed in his coming offspring.  In vs. 16 he says that ultimately this wasn’t about the many offsprings of Abraham in the flesh but one Offspring, Jesus, Gal 3:16  Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. 

It seems to have escaped the attention of many as it did many Jews in Jesus’ day that being descended from Abraham did not necessarily mean anything.  It bought some advantages as Paul speaks about in Rom. 9, but to miss Christ means the judgment of God for the Jew just as a Gentile.  Paul also addresses this in Gal 3:24  So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. Gal 3:25  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.  Hebrews says as much in Heb 8:13  In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.  .  The physical fulfillment was how God would provide the “Offspring”.  Once he came, Israel’s purpose and the Old Covenant were served and now there is no Jew or Gentile.

There is another point in Gal. 3 to consider also.  In vs. 16 “promises” is plural as he includes some specific promises made to Israel that were needed so they could become a nation and provide a place for the Messiah and his work; these were temporary.    Through Moses, Joshua, and David.  Jos 23:14  "And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.  1Ki 8:56  "Blessed be the LORD who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses his servant.  All these physical blessings were received in the OT.

But in vs. 17 we see a change from plural to singular, Gal 3:17  This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void.  It is pointing to the “big” one, the Big Promise.  The big one was Christ in which the nations shall be blessed.  All the other promises were given to bring about the “big one”.  So Galatians helps keep before us the purpose of this Abrahamic covenant and not get sidetracked by the means to the covenant which was through the Jews.  Hagee has gotten sidetracked into heresy.

With this in mind, everything that happens from Gen. 12 on must have Christ in view in order for it to make any sense.  If Israel is an end in itself then grace takes a back seat to the works of the flesh.  The whole history of Israel concerns and illustrates Christ and was never meant to be anything more than that.  They have no more meaning outside of Christ than any other people.  The highest meaning you can give to an OT passage is as it concerns Christ.  Paul says as much above when he says there is no more Jew or Gentile but all are heirs of Abraham’s promise by faith.

If we read through Galatians 3 with this in mind the passage flows very logically and makes perfect sense in relation to the cross of Christ.  God’s relationship with Israel was temporary in order that the Offspring or Seed (KJV) might be born under the law and become our “blessing” of life.  The gospel was being preached to Abraham as Galatians says, not Israel being established as God’s all time chosen people with no relation to the cross of Christ.  And so I ask you, do you rejoice in Christ today or someone else?  Union to him is all you need in this life to overcome this world.  There is safety in Christ, not Judaism or the Ten Commandments.  He is the winning side, not being Jewish.  Will we exalt Christ alone or the flesh as well?  This truth will affect how you watch the news!  You won’t be upset that the Israelis gave back some of the land that is supposedly given to them by God; who cares!  We look for a new heavens and new earth.  If my big inheritance was that rock we call Palestine, then I don’t have much to look forward to! 

What we need is salvation from sin, not being relocated to Palestine.  Even Abraham knew that Canaan wasn’t what God was talking about.  Heb 11:8  By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Heb 11:9  By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. Heb 11:10  For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.  Let’s not make the Bible complicated when the NT clears it up for us.  Jesus is Abraham’s offspring and no one else is unless they are united to Christ; born form above.