The Seed and the Stalk

Gary continues his discussion with Kim Burgess on 1 Corinthians 15.

One cannot say that it was all done at the cross or that it was all done at the ascension, or all done at Pentecost, and that is it, and then we move on. No, it was not. The covenantal consummation of this accomplishment of redemption was still being expected by the saints, post-AD 30, as they all were looking to the events that we now know to be those of AD 70 with the fall of Jerusalem and its Old Covenant temple. This is why we looked in the previous episode at Acts 23:6, 26:6-8, and 28:20 where Paul summed up this waiting for the realization of “the hope of Israel.” He was still waiting for these promises to Israel to be fully consummated in this New Covenant order. This consummation was quite “near” or “at hand” in Paul’s day, but it was still in front of him, even though the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the session/enthronement of Christ and Pentecost were all now behind him.

What we are talking about here, then, is what the theologians rightly refer to as “the already and the not yet.” Of course, as we have seen, the Dispensationalists will continue today to look at this “hope of Israel” as still some yet-future event. But the New Testament, most emphatically, was not talking about a single generation of Jews in our future that would include the construction of another physical temple in Jerusalem. The New Testament nowhere mentions such a scenario. Jesus absolutely had the first-century Apostolic era in mind, as did Paul and the other New Testament writers, such as the author of Hebrews, when it came to this eschatological consummation of the accomplishment of redemption in Israel…

People have been taught to think that Biblical eschatology is set in the context of, and so is defined solely by, generic world history, that is, by the so-called “the end of time” or the end of world history. It is not. Paul and the epistle to the Hebrews made this very clear. The specific history, the specific kairos time (the divinely appointed special time) that the New Testament and we are talking about is OT Israel’s history. It is Israel’s special history redemption that ran from Abraham (promise) to Christ (fulfillment). THIS is the defining historical context for all that we are describing.

The Hope of Israel and the Nations

The Hope of Israel and the Nations deals with the text of Scripture, letting the Bible interpret itself. Kim Burgess has spent more than 40 years studying this topic. The newness of the material in the New Testament takes all the promises found in the Old Testament regarding Israel and shows their New Covenant fulfillment and application. Some of it has been developed in bits and pieces. This is the first time that all the pieces have been put together into a coherent whole.

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Gary continues his discussion with Kim Burgess on 1 Corinthians 15. In this episode, Kim walks through the Apostle Paul’s “seed analogy” and some of the Greek behind the terms he uses. Paul uses wheat, but Kim changes it to corn to make the point clear: what goes in the ground (what is sown) is not what comes out of the ground (what is raised). The final result is much more glorious than how it began.

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