What Job Teaches Us About the God of the Old Testament

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. So what does the book of Job teach us about the God of the Old Testament?

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Hey guys, just learned, I guess it takes like a year or so for these things to process, but Evangelical Council of Publishers... evangelical Christian Publishers Association, that's it. ECPA does annual rewards for top books in different categories, and I was blessed to see that mine was among the five or six nominated for best Bible reference books of the year, so really blessed to see that and of course worked hard on it and really sought to honor the Lord and serve all of you with it. But as my newest book, Has God Failed You?, is about to be released May 11th, I thought it would be good to talk about Job and the God of the Old Testament because a lot of people struggle with the God of the Old Testament. And in church history, there was often a separation that was made, beginning with Marcion, the second century, that separated the God of the Old Testament from the God of the New Testament.

Of course, you cannot do that. The God of the Old Testament is the Father of Jesus, the Messiah, and the New Testament is built in the foundation of the Old. To think that you can separate the God of the Bible into two different beings as if one is malevolent and the other benevolent, no, not a chance, not a chance. And then sometimes people struggle with the book of Job and God in the book of Job.

So I wanted to focus on that. If you have not yet pre-ordered my book, Has God Failed You?, if you'd like to get first edition, you can do this on our website, AskDrBrown.org. If you'd like to get first edition so it's numbered, the first few hundred that we send out are numbered and then I sign them personally and whoever it's to to you or to someone you're giving it to your name and then a key scripture, I think of a verse that would be apropos for the book and then sign that.

So it's my joy. We pray over the books as we send them out. So if you'd like to pre-order one, you can do that on our website, AskDrBrown.org.

If you want to get multiple copies and have me sign them to multiple people, that's commonly done as well because this book may be just what a family member or friend needs. They're struggling in their faith. They've fallen away in their faith. They may even be hostile but still open to think, to consider and I just spoke to a producer for a Christian TV show that is going to be recording with me on this next week, God willing, and the producer said what he really appreciated was that we take the objection seriously. We take the question seriously. We take the issue seriously and there's a whole chapter in Has God Failed You that is titled What Would Job Say? What Would Job Say? And specifically, what does God tell us, what does Job tell us about the God of the Old Testament? Now, you might say, well, the book of Job shows God to be very capricious. He's making bets with the devil at the cost of Job's life, all of his health, possessions and most importantly his 10 children die in the midst of this kind of cosmic chess game here and who's going to win and what kind of God is that? One might read it like that but to read it like that is to miss the entire point of it, to miss why it's in the canon of scripture and to miss the revelation of God that comes through this extraordinary book. Here's what's really interesting. Yes, for sure, as Hasatan, the adversary, later just known as Satan, as the adversary comes also has a nuanced Hasatan, the accuser, as he comes before God with the sons of God, the angelic beings and God says to him, where have you been?

The adversary's answer is very curt. It could even seem a little snide, like it's just going back forth all over the earth, yep. What could be implied in it is, I like what I see. People are wicked, people don't worship God, people are more consumed with themselves, they make idols, they worship other gods.

I like what I see, yeah. In other words, a slap in God's face. God then says to Job, to the adversary, have you considered my servant Job? There's nobody like him on the earth. He's righteous, he's God-fearing, turns away from evil.

Nobody like him on the earth. Now, why does God draw Job to Satan's attention? Well, Job was exceptional.

He was an exceptional human being and the way the picture is painted, he would have lived around the time of the patriarchs most likely, so pre-Israelite, not an Israelite himself, but it's written to Israelites that scriptures are weaved in throughout the entire biblical text of Job. Later scriptures are weaved in as part of the narrative, part of the dialogue. But why does God draw Job to Satan's attention?

Because there's a larger purpose. There's something that God is going to do through this. He will reveal his nature.

He will also reveal Satan's nature and he will reveal his ultimate goodness and grace and wisdom and also give us insight as to why terrible things happen even to Godly righteous people in this world. Satan's reply is to challenge God and say, oh yeah, sure he fears you, sure he loves you, right? You bless him, you put a hedge of protection around him, you know, who would love you for that? You know, he's just serving you for the benefits. He's just serving you for the good things. He's not serving you because you're good and because you're God and because he loves you.

He's serving you because it's beneficial to him. That's the way the devil thinks. Satan challenges him, take away everything he has, he'll curse you to your face. So God's response is, okay, you can take what he has, but you can't touch his life. You can't touch him. And Satan goes out.

What does he do? He destroys. Satan is the destroyer of the innocent. You say, yeah, God set the whole thing up. I understand that, but this is not the nature of God to destroy the innocent. It is not the nature of God to wipe out children and a family and a God-fearing family. That's not the nature of God to do that.

That's the nature of Satan. God is a righteous judge. God brings retribution and he doesn't have to apologize for that.

When our soldiers take out ISIS terrorists, they don't have to apologize for that. That's a good thing. Retribution is a good thing. When a serial rapist and killer is caught and put in prison, that's a good thing.

And many would say when they're executed, it's a good thing. In any case, God does not just go around destroying innocent people. That's the work of Satan. And when we come to round two, God asks Satan the same question, gets the same answer and says, what about Job? You're moving me to destroy him even without cause.

So God's speaking, conveying things to us in terms that we can understand as human beings. You're moving me to destroy him without cause. This is not God's heart or desire, but God is going to let this happen because something great will come out of it, because something that will benefit humanity, terrible losses suffered by this righteous man, Job, will benefit millions, even billions of people in the years ahead. So God allows Satan to attack him. What does Satan do?

He strikes Job with this loathsome skin condition. So he's just agony and itching and scratching himself with broken pieces of pottery, must have just been absolutely torturous. If Satan was given access and that's what he did, it must have been absolute torture. But notice, notice, this is not the nature of God, this is the nature of Satan. The nature of God is to restore Job at the end of the book and to bless the rest of his life.

That's the nature of God. The friends wrongly accused Job, well, you must have sinned and this is why this happened, which was not the case. As one commentator pointed out, Job was not suffering because he sinned, he sinned because he was suffering. He ended up speaking wrongly about God because he was suffering. The friends were wrong to judge Job, but Job was wrong to judge God and accuse God of being some kind of reckless tyrant, some monster that just went about destroying the righteous along with the wicked, which is not the nature of God. But Job knew that somehow there must be justice in God's universe and that somehow that this God who seemed to be God attacking him was the God who was going to set things right because in God's universe there had to be justice. So on the one hand he was attacking God, on the other hand he was looking to God and confessing God. And some have said he ran from God to God. And then when God reveals himself and rebukes Job, he lays out the majesty and the meticulous detail and beauty and wonder of his creation, even to the point of sending rain on a desolate land where no one lives to water the plants.

A God who makes everything from the ostrich to the horse to behemoth and leviathan, which likely were earthly creatures which symbolized some type of power of chaos. And all of these, even these monstrous, even evil forces, are under God's mastery. And you know, when he asks some questions, yeah, it's to put him in his place, but it's also to get him thinking rightly about God. In other words, he doesn't just come in and bully him and scream, I'm God, how dare you! You know, he's saying, okay Job, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth and when I hung the earth on nothing and all the angels shouted for joy, sung for joy, where were you when that was happening?

But it's not just, where were you, but look at that picture, look at that picture. And can you tell me, you know, the mountain goats and these animals rarely see it, you know, when do they, when do the females give birth and how does that happen and the horse is courage and it is wide-ranging, it is beautiful, and it paints a picture of a God who's not just glorious and powerful, but a God of incredible wisdom, the same God who put the DNA in human beings and made us to thrive and live, this majestic God, this God who ultimately sets things right and who takes what Satan means for evil and turns it for good and then brings us into a personal relationship with him. And just as the seraphim and Isaiah 6 cry out, kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, hanah tzvalot l'chorot kodoh, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts and the whole earth with his glory, just as they cry out to seeing him, Job encountering God, seeing God in that sense, doesn't need to have his questions answered, is going to worship God just the same, sick or not, bereaved or not, and out of that, God reveals himself in a beautiful tapestry of wisdom and majesty and power.

That's the God of the Old Testament, that's the God of Job, he's a God worthy of worship adoration. We'll be right back, 866-34-TRUTH. Beautiful melodies, then the Psalms, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep welcome to thoroughly Jewish Thursday, 866-348-7884.

Any Jewish related question you have, so whether it's something about Hebrew Scriptures, whether it's something about Judaism, whether it's Jewish background to the New Testament, Messianic prophecy, anything like that whatsoever, 866-348-7884. All right, back to our friend Manny from Brooklyn. How you been doing? Thanks, Dr. Ran. Good. All good with you? Yep.

Great. Well, where are we going in our conversation today? Well, I think we're probably going to continue on Isaiah 53, I mean, I did want to make a small comment to that last conversation, somebody tried to end off asking me if it's possible that Isaiah 49 and 50 is talking about the Messiah in the future. A small point on that, it's not just that it's possible, I think you're trying to prove Christianity from this verse, you know, from this chapter, you would have to prove, you know, you'd have to make more of a probability statement than I'm saying on 49 and 50, that it's talking about the Messiah rather than the prophet, wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, all right, okay, so let's, here's why, now I was just asking you if you could see the possibility, in other words, to me, I'm not just saying there's a possibility, but here's the problem. Number one, a lot of what is spoken about this individual parallels Isaiah 42, which is widely recognized as a Messianic prophecy, you know, even in rabbinic literature and Targum as you know, so there's a lot of parallel between the mission in Isaiah 42 and the mission of the servant in Isaiah 49, and then if you're asking, okay, if this was the prophet speaking, how is it fulfilled? So let me just read Isaiah 49 starting in verse 5 and you can go from there, okay? And now the Lord says, He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and gather Israel to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has been my strength. He says, it is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob, and to bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the nations, that my salvation when reached to the ends of the earth, this is what the Lord says to the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, to the servant of rulers, kings will see you and stand up, princes will see and bow down, because the Lord who is faithful to the Holy One of Israel has chosen you.

So to be a vehicle of God to bring salvation to the ends of the earth, be a light to the Gentiles and the one who restores Israel, and kings and rulers bound down to them, that sounds a whole lot more like the Messiah to me than just any prophet in Israel that ever lived. Well, I mean, bowing down to them, I mean, that I would say is probably, when it talks about second persons, probably referring to the nation as a whole. But it says, to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation. So it's an individual who was despised and abhorred by the nation, and said, individual, kings will bow down to that individual. Yeah, but I mean, as you know, the servant Jacob, even when he's talking about the entire nation, also is in the singular many times.

So, as you know, issue with that, I mean... But who's the one who was... But hang on.

Who's the one who was despised and abhorred by the nation? Kings will see you and stand up. Yeah.

Princess will see him by then. So it's my interpretation that the nation of Israel as a whole spoken in the singular. But who's the...

Okay, hang on. To him who was despised and abhorred by the nation, namely the nation of Israel, how is the nation of Israel the one who was despised and abhorred by the nation of Israel? No. We're going to say he was despised by the nation of Israel. By the nation. Verse 7. Verse 7. Would you like me to read it in Hebrew to you?

No, it's good, it is. Yeah, the nation there is the nation of Israel. No one argues that.

G-d, Israel, Kedosho, right, so the redeemer of Israel, et cetera. Yes, he was despised by the nation. Right. Despised by the nation.

Yeah. Let me tell you, goi, exactly, to the one despised by the nation. Not nations. Okay, I mean, yeah, it doesn't say nations, but does that really necessarily mean it has to mean the nation of Israel, can't it mean any nation?

Well, the problem is it's contextually no, because the nations are plural, that's goyim. We just have that a few verses early. In other words, the point I'm making is it's very natural to read this about the Messiah, because he's going to regather Israel. Isn't that one of the roles of the Messiah, to regather Israel and to be a light to the nations? So why are you taking a messianic role and just giving it to the prophet?

That's what I don't follow. Now, one reason why I say this is the prophet is first of all, a lot of, really starting from verse 1, it seems like whoever's talking here is talking about a conversation he had with G-d, so I wouldn't say a lot of it is a prophecy, especially until G-d starts talking like, thus says the Lord, and therefore it seems like this person is born already, because we have past tense, you know, that, you know, G-d called me from the womb. And I don't think you could say, you know, you have past, present tense, if it's not a prophecy. It doesn't seem to me a prophecy, up until where you have G-d saying, kalimah asham, you know, words like that, like, thus says the Lord, and therefore you'd have to say that this individual is born already. But there are several ways of reading that. Number one, the prophet could be speaking, but speaking on behalf of the Messiah. Another is, it's just a conversation in the Spirit for the future. I mean, a lot of prophecy, you know, there's prophecy that's put in the past tense all the time, where it's some of the future events. But my argument is, my argument is that it's not a prophecy. Verse 1 to, like, probably to verse 7 seems to me a statement by the servant, telling the island, you know, that this is a conversation I had with G-d. Oh, okay. But here, how is it fulfilled? So this is Isaiah, you're saying, correct?

Isaiah, or whoever the prophet was who wrote it, some, you know, think of Deutscher Isaiah. Okay, fine, fine. Whatever. Got it.

All right. But it's someone from back then. It's someone from 2,500, 2,700 years back, right?

Mm-hmm. Okay, so that one was supposed to regather the tribes of Israel. That one was supposed to take G-d's message to the world, be a light to the nations of the world, and then if you keep reading naturally, it would be the one that others are going to bow down to. But let's even leave that aside. How did the prophet do that?

When did this happen? When did he become a light to the...He did publish a best-selling book that the nations liked to read, didn't he? Well, you're just telling him about a few prophecies, a few lines of prophecies in the Bible. Yeah, and the Bible was a pretty big light to the nations, I would say. The Bible is, but not that prophet alone. I mean, that's the thing. No, not that prophet alone. But okay.

It's exclusive. I mean, it's a conversation with one man. And he brought all of Israel back to G-d.

When did that happen? Well, it didn't yet happen, but as we spoke last time, there's no time limit, and the book is published, and I think this book probably will bring Israel back to G-d. But isn't that what the Messiah does? That's one of the roles... That's what the Messiah does. Yeah, the Messiah does do that, but everyone's really supposed to bring back Israel to G-d. Every Jew is supposed to bring back Israel to G-d. Every prophet's supposed to.

It's a job for all of us. The Messiah just does the best of it, and he's the leader. Okay, but this guy sounds like he's the leader. He's the Messiah.

He's going to do it. Why do you need the Messiah if this guy's already going to do it all? Why do you need the nation if this guy's going to do it all either? The nation needs... You need a Messiah, you need a nation, and you need everyone. The nation needs the Messiah, otherwise you wouldn't have the Messiah.

You wouldn't be sending a Redeemer. The Messiah is the one who sets the captives free. Do you not realize how you are now trying to rationalize everything away from a very natural reading of the text, and especially knowing how the Spirit speaks, that he could speak through someone today about something 500 years from now?

And that this person... But he wouldn't do it in first person if it's not a prophecy. And I argue that verse 1 to verse 7 is not a prophecy, it's a conversation.

But it's a conversation with prophecy in it. And the Messiah, here, the Messiah fulfills Scripture. Isaiah only goes so far, Moses only goes so far, Isaiah only goes so far. The Messiah takes these words on himself and brings them to fulfillment. The same with Isaiah 61.1, Ruach ha-dun alahim alayi, yadmashach ha-dun atil vaser anavim. So the Spirit of the Lord God's on me because he's anointed me to preach good news to the meek, to the poor. So Jesus takes that on himself in Luke 4 and says, this day the Scripture is fulfilled.

That's what we understand. It could have originally been spoken by a prophet, but that prophet doesn't fulfill it. The Messiah fulfills all of these things, these different strands of Scripture. He brings them to fulfillment.

Why does that seem... I mean, as a Jew, and I'm not even saying this is Midrash, but as a Jew reading Scripture and even the idea that there's 70 faces of the Torah and all of that, what I'm saying is hardly like a stretch. It's hardly reading something into the text that would be foreign to a Jewish person to say, yeah, the prophet may have spoken it, but who takes these words on himself and brings it to fulfillment? The Messiah, because he's the one that does all this.

Go ahead. My question is, if the prophet spoke this in the name of someone else, why didn't he say it in second person? I find it strange that he says it in first person.

Well, no, no, because in other words, he has a certain experience in God. Just like Psalm 2 is spoken over a king, you are my son, today I've given you birth, and if you read Ibn Ezra and some of the other commentaries, what do they say? It's about David and about the Messiah. The same with Numbers 24. It's about David and about the Messiah.

So the same here. It's about the prophet and the Messiah. And I agree with you the first half, the second half I guess we don't, but if we do have time to move on a bit, it's your objection. All right, tell you what, tell you what, let's do this, let's do this. We got a break, we'll come back and we'll start, we'll take a few more minutes here. As always, I'd like to talk to our Orthodox Jewish friend Manny in Brooklyn, and we've got some room on the phone, so if you're looking to call in, 866-34-TRUTH, we've got some phone lines open, touch a man a bit more, then we'll go to Rudy and we'll move on from there. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday on The Line of Fire, 866-34-TRUTH.

Michael Brown, delighted to be with you. If you're looking for updates on the Israeli elections, there's nothing major that shifted that I'm aware of that's going to go in one definitive direction or another, which is not good news for Prime Minister Netanyahu, but we shall see how things go, and God knows ultimately what is best for Israel, so we continue to pray for God's best for the nation, for everyone living there, and for God's eternal purposes. Two quick announcements, less than 45 minutes from now, so right around 4.15 Eastern Time, we will be back up on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-R Brown. By the way, if you don't subscribe, make sure you click on the subscribe button when you're there so that you'll be alerted anytime we're putting out a new video or live broadcast, anything like that.

But we'll be back for our weekly exclusive Q&A chat, okay? So that will be at Ask Dr. Brown on YouTube, 4.15 Eastern Time. The other thing is, today we released yet another video in our series Exposing and Demolishing the Misinformation on the Counter-Missionary Videos of Rabbi Tovias Singer. This one deals with the question, just charity atone from the Book of Daniel, very interesting verse that Tovias Singer opens up and we set the record straight.

So that's on our YouTube channel, Ask Dr. Brown, A-S-K-D-R Brown. We've released a few so far. We've got a few more completed, a few more we'll be working on. We plan to put a lot out because there's a lot of error that needs to be corrected, needs to be refuted. All right, 866-34-TRUTH.

We'll just go back to our friend Manny in Brooklyn, so we'll be quicker on this. But go ahead, let's focus on one more specific point. So your objection to Isaiah 53 being talking about Israel, you say a lot because it wasn't fulfilled in the nation. It didn't bring healing to the world they're suffering and, you know, I'm sure your audience is familiar with your objections, but the Radaq seems to kind of in a way agree with you, saying that a lot of this can't be fulfilled by Israel, but he says that because this is stated in the names of the nations, you know, that these statements don't have to be true. From verse 1 to verse 9, it's just the kings of nations trying to figure out why Israel suffered, and it doesn't have to be true. All right, so here's the question. Would you say, number one, that that is a minority view in rabbinic interpretation? Very likely.

Okay, yeah, quite sure that it is. Why would you be grasping at such a straw? And the whole theology of Israel's suffering, or the suffering of the righteous remnant that Judaism is held to, and the other interpreters trying to make sense out of this, and that this is somehow inspired that the kings of the earth will be saying these things, and we have the end of the 52nd chapter that these same kings are going to be astonished, and it's as if what they're saying is true.

Do you not see that you're grasping at straws there? Not totally, because I think you would agree that a lot of the verses in Isaiah 53 from 1 to 9 could refer to Israel, you know. You could say a lot of it is an exaggeration, and stuff like that, but you know, the basic frame line could be, you know, besides for the theological issues, but yeah, that Israel suffered. Yeah, pretty true, and the nations all went their own way, pretty true. There are many righteous people in Israel. And hang on, so do you believe that God put the iniquity of all the righteous nations on Israel?

No, I don't think so. Okay, so they were wrong on that, that's a biggie. They said that... That is a biggie, yeah. Right, they said... They're big theologians, they're kings and... All right, so why put the words of these second-rate guys in Scripture? It's not like... Okay, so then, hey, maybe Isaiah got a lot of things wrong, too, you know?

Who knows? Maybe a lot of the Bible... Hey, yeah, but he's still a human being, he's still a human being. If he thought this stuff was good enough to put in, he's got some bad judgment. You question the whole thing? I think it's a difference between a prophet and between quoting kings and politicians. But where did he get the words from, did he make them up? He didn't actually hear them, but where did he get them from?

His imagination? He got them from God, of course, he got them from God, but he's supposed to be quoting people who are not experts on this. We're going to go into the simple reading, where if you want to go deep into, you know, why would... But this is... ...the Bible and... Actually, everything they say is wrong, because the whole thing is, we thought Israel was suffering for its own sins, which God says was the case.

Now we realize Israel was suffering for our sins, and even though, as a result of Israel being on our land, where we completely wiped out and decimated it like Assyria and Babylon and these others, we're actually now going to say, well, we actually were healed through that. I mean, honestly, Matty, and again, I mean no insult. I got to go to... I got it. I got it, but... To another caller here. To desperate straws like this, I mean, you got to step back and ask... And this just...

It's cumulative. It's one argument after another, after another, after another, after another, after another, after another, that you got to come up with these really stretched things to make it work. You ought to step back and say, hey, maybe there's some cumulative evidence. I want to encourage you to do what I've done for years, which is to read the text as if I'm completely wrong, and the other position is right, and really think about it and try to see it through those eyes. Try to see the messianic prophecies through my eyes, and just ask God to give you the courage to follow truth, if you don't mind praying that. I think that seems to be the kind of person you want to be, follow the truth. All right, God willing, we'll continue to talk, but think about what I'm saying. Seriously. And you know I mean no insult in anything I'm saying. 866-344-TRUTH.

Let's go to Rudy in Dallas, Texas. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey there, Dr. Michael Brown, it's a pleasure to finally speak to you.

Well, thank you. I wanted to reach out to ask about a verse in—oh, let me pull it up, one moment. Yes, it's Hebrews 8-13, where it says, by calling this a new covenant, referring to Jesus, he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. And this was right before, of course, the Jews declared Simon Bar-Kob-Ka the messiah.

They began to massacre Christians in that time period, and of course the Roman Empire came in, the Roman Emperor, Adrian, and just backed the temple in retaliation, and they looted all of the treasure, they destroyed it completely. So how does one reconcile—maybe your message, I'm on the other side of many in this regard—continuing to pursue a Jewishness while understanding that there was at least a verse in Scripture which states that the old covenant will become obsolete when the temple was destroyed? Yeah, it's because it's the new covenant that we follow, for that very reason. God puts His Torah in our hearts. The new covenant is different than the old in terms of the Sinai covenant with its punishments and things like that, but in terms of the reality, it's the same God, same ethical standards.

Where does it say the calendar changes? We see prophecies about the future kingdom and the nations are streaming to Jerusalem. Messiah comes back to Jerusalem. The nations come streaming to Jerusalem to learn the God of Israel. They go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. They observe the Sabbath. These are all prophecies about the Millennial Kingdom in books like Isaiah and Zechariah, and the new covenant itself is Jewishly grounded.

What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 5, Messiah, our Passover, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed for us. So there's a new relationship, a new covenant, but we might as well say, well, why don't we go out and murder and commit adultery if we're not under the Sinai covenant? Because the ethical standards of the Sinai covenant are reiterated in the new covenant, but now we're empowered to keep them. And who does God make the new covenant with? With the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And by the way, it was not the whole nation that followed Bar Kokhba as Messiah, but there was a large-scale revolt, and it wasn't large-scale massacring of Christians. Bar Kokhba was not at war with gentile Christians. The issue came when messianic Jews would not follow him as Messiah, and they were killed by Bar Kokhba.

The sacking of the temple, that happens under Titus in the year 70, Hadrian further banishes Jews from Jerusalem, that's kind of like the adding insult to injury. But why do you think, sir, that Jesus is coming back to Jerusalem and that the nations of the world will come streaming to Jerusalem to learn from the God of Israel if those roots are still not there in the new and better covenant? Well, at least from my understanding, and I'm open to learning, Jesus, he is the king of Israel, right, he's the Messiah, he's the promised king. When the Jews rejected Christ, and so long as they continue to reject Jesus, they are part of a now obsolete covenant, a Jew who does not... Oh, no, no, no, no, the covenant, no, no, here's what you're missing, yeah, let me help you here. What does it say in Romans, the 11th chapter, about the Jewish people rejecting the Messiah? Verse 28, as Paul's writing to Gentile believers, even though they are now enemies of the gospel for your sake, right, so their rejection of the Messiah has brought the gospel to the nations, they are still loved on account of what?

The fathers, because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable, that's Romans 11, 28, 29. What's written in Romans 15, 8, that the Messiah confirms the promises to the patriarchs? It's written in Galatians 3, 17, that the law, that's the Sinai Covenant, which comes 430 years after the promise, so the land promise and the promise to bless Abraham and his descendants, that cannot annul the promise. So Israel's chosenness is not based on the Sinai Covenant, that's a covenant that God made for a season with the chosen people.

They were chosen through the patriarchs, and that remains. That's why God kept his word, scattering the Jewish people around the world, and bringing them back to the land, as he said he would in Ezekiel 36, even in unbelief, he would bring them back to the land, and of course that's what's happened. So Jews need Jesus... So what does Hebrews 13 mean when it says that the old covenant with the Jews, it's referring specifically to the Jews, with the Jews, is over, obsolete, and will soon disappear? Yeah, exactly, the Sinai Covenant is over, the Temple has been destroyed, that was all part of the Sinai Covenant, and God made a new and better covenant with whom?

Look at Jeremiah 31-34, with the house of Israel and the house of Jacob. The new covenant is made with the Jewish people. So those who are in Jesus, Yeshua, are enjoying the benefits of the new covenant.

Those who are not are still chosen by God because of God's love for the patriarchs. So they remain chosen, they need Jesus to be saved, they remain chosen, they're not enjoying the benefits of the new covenant, but the new covenant was made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and through them brought to the entire world. So the Sinai Covenant Temple, that's ended.

The new and better covenant that starts with Israel, that remains. It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks, friends, for joining us on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. It's really important to distinguish between the Sinai Covenant and the new covenant. That does not mean that promises that God gives through the prophets to Israel are now voided because the Sinai Covenant has been replaced by the new and better covenant. And what does it say in Jeremiah 31? God says, I'll put my Torah in your hearts. So his teaching, his laws, Septuagint says, laws, Torah, I'll put them in your hearts. It's not abolishing the teaching and the truth, it's the changing of the covenant. You're not under the covenant with the blessings and the curses and so on. Even if you want to say a Jewish person is living as if they're still under it, fine, God's invitation is to enjoy the new and better covenant through the Messiah. But there are many promises in the prophets where God says, I'll regather you in my mercy. That's unconditional. That's not conditioned on a specific act by Israel.

That's conditioned by God's promise. All right, I appreciate the question from Rudy, 866-34-TRUTH, let's go to Antonio in St. Louis, Missouri. You are on the line of fire.

Hey, how's it going, Dr. Brown, thanks for having me on. You bet. So, I had a question. So I was looking at Acts 15, 29, and it talks about abstaining from blood and stuff like that. Is there like ancient Jewish maybe culture or practices about how to cook meats, whether you know how like in America we have well-done or medium well or rare, you know that question? There were, what developed over a period of time, and there have been very, very strict laws for centuries, are laws about sacrificing, excuse me, about ritual slaughter, how you slaughtered the animal and how you drained the blood. And depending on the level of kashrut, of kosher law to this day, will be the level of rabbinic checking. In other words, the most orthodox have the most stringent requirements about the exact way that the animal is killed and the type of knife that's used and the humanitarian aspects of it, and then the blood being drained thoroughly, et cetera. So that's what developed.

Traditional Jews would say that God gave that at Mount Sinai. I strongly differ with that, but over a period of time, these laws of slaughter would develop. So that was the thing, not how the meat was cooked. That wasn't the issue, at least nothing that I'm aware of ever being a major issue, but rather how the blood was drained. And that became something that became codified more and more law.

So certainly, some of this would have existed in Jesus' day, we just don't know what level of detail at that time. So it was the draining of the blood that was the issue, not the temperature to which it was cooked. Okay, thank you so much. You are very welcome. 866-34-TRUTH.

There's a whole time of the tractate really focusing on the issues of ritual slaughter. Let's go to Courtney in Birmingham, Alabama. Welcome to the line of fire. Hi, thank you for taking my call.

Sure. I'll be as brief as possible. I'm an aspiring apologist, and I have a pretty unique perspective on Isaiah 7 that I'd like to shoot your way.

Now, I know I won't be able to go over it in extensive detail, but I'll briefly say this. I absolutely do think that it's exclusively about Yeshua the Messiah, however, I wonder I often get these questions, especially when it comes down to Tovia Singer, that how does the New Testament have the authority to just kind of cherry pick a verse out of it, quote, Civil War type of context and say, hey, this is about Jesus 700 years from now. So the answer to that that I would give, and I'd like to know what you think about this, is that the fear that they have, it says in the passage that they're going to invade and make the son of Tabeel king over them. Well, that would make sense if they knew that Judah was given the promise found in Genesis 49, 10, which says that the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the law between his beat until Shiloh comes, which we know to be a messianic passage. And again, you referenced earlier Numbers 24, 17, which is messianic as well, and then Psalms 61 through 7, which also identifies the Messiah as the banner. And so what if, and this is my perspective, what if this passage is exclusively about Yeshua, no one else, because of the very fact that it would comfort whoever is king over Judah, that no matter what happens, the Messiah will come in 700 years. And the passage that Genesis 49, 10 is talking about will never be thwarted.

Right, so having wrestled with this passage many, many years and read it hundreds of times and thought it through and read everything I could get on it, I appreciate the effort, but here's where I would differ. There is an immediacy of the prophecy, and even the Hebrew grammar would indicate something of immediacy, which would point to something taking place in Isaiah's day and something more distant. But more than that, just the idea of seeking to put the son of Tav-el on the throne, you don't need to have a full-blown understanding of Messiah for that to happen. It's just they're going to try to get rid of the Davidic dynasty.

This is a dynasty, and they're trying to destroy the dynasty, and as far as King Achaz is thinking, they're just trying to get me off the throne. So the idea that he, in a long-sighted way, is recognizing that this is a direct attack on the Messianic line, but the Messianic line will be preserved and the Messiah will come. To me, that's reading too much into it. And it's not a matter of New Testament writers cherry-picking. It's a matter of them, one, being inspired by the Spirit. Two, you would assume that this is some of what Yeshua taught them after the resurrection and opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, probably taught some before as well. And then thirdly, Matthew is clearly looking at Isaiah 7-11. This is what he has in mind. We see he quotes from the end of the 8th beginning of the 9th chapter.

We see he alludes to 11-1 elsewhere. This is in these opening chapters, in the first four chapters of Matthew. So that to me is the key, that he's looking at a larger complex and seeing a promise to the house of David that something may have happened but not the fullness of it, and he understands the Messiah comes to fulfill what is written. So he... Right. Go ahead.

I'm sorry, just a quick follow-up. You know, I would say that I agree with you as a New Testament believer, but if you're talking to someone like Tovia Singer or Manny, in order to justify, in my understanding, in order to justify the New Testament having the authority of saying, all of this is historical here, here, and here, this verse is about Yeshua the Messiah. And in order for it to do that, there has to be some sort of messianic connection that would otherwise go back to the divinic dynasty, the line which is found in Genesis, and again, Numbers, and then Psalms, and multiple places in the Psalms, and then Samuel, and so on. Yeah, but the divinic dynasty, right.

But here's the point. Number one, not every citation of a prophecy is of the same import. In other words, when Matthew talks about Rachel weeping for her children, well, he's just hearing something in the spirit, as Jeremiah did, because Jeremiah's context is they're going to return. Tell her to stop weeping.

They're going to return. So this is not like a proof of the Messiah. This is just a kind of putting, adorning the bride and jewels.

This is just a homiletical interpretation for beauty and expression. But in point of fact, any promise that was given to the divinic dynasty that didn't reach its fulfillment finds its fulfillment in the Messiah. That's the working principle. And that's what gives the New Testament writers the authority to do this. Plus, Jesus did come and die and rise.

That's the thing I remember. Right, so this now gives him authority to help us understand what's been written in advance. Hey, listen, we could chat more about this, I'm sure, in the future. But there's an immediacy even to before this happens, this, this, this, and the verses that follow that we can't deny.

All right, let's go to Chad in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, I appreciate you. You've been a strong influence to me and my family. Well, thank you.

I've been listening to you for a while, and we really appreciate everything. So, the question is, I'm not an expert in this area by any means, but I've just come across this and never saw this before, but Dr. Michael Heiser kind of went into talking about how the creation story reflects Israel's ancient cosmology about the cosmos, about how the deep was just deep waters, and then it's on the pillar, the earth is on pillar, and it's like a circular disc, the flat land with the dome and the firmament and whatnot. And traditionally, my view of inerrancy is that, you know, taking everything as fact and going from that point of view, like Wayne Grudem's, but he's proposing something where it's more a matter of what is the theological messaging, like, hey, you know what I'm saying? So Dr. Heiser and I, we have similar academic backgrounds in our PhDs being in Semitic languages from secular universities, and I concluded decades ago, meditating on Genesis 1 and thinking of ancient and recent cosmologies, so ancient and recent creation stories, it became very clear to me that the purpose of Genesis 1 is theological, that it's not about science.

And remember, if it was giving accurate science, that every generation until a few generations ago would have rejected that it's unscientific is wrong because their science was different. The whole purpose is to show that Yahweh is the one true God, that he's the one who brings light out of darkness and order out of chaos and sets things up in an orderly way. There's a book I'm reading now, and I gotta run, so let me give you this, okay? It's by Ben Stanhope, S-T-A-N-H-O-P-E, Stanhope, Ben Stanhope. It's got an aggressive title, Misinterpreting Genesis, How the Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Near Eastern Context of the Bibles.

Just check for Ben Stanhope, I ordered it on Amazon, I got the e-book. But it's fascinating when he goes through the ancient Near Eastern cosmologies and then lays out Genesis 1 with its orderly account of sevens and how this fits and the whole point of it, what God's saying through it, is it's a theological statement. I concluded that decades ago, just meditating on the scripture, saying, why is this here?

What's God seeking to speak through us? I don't think the scientific argument is the issue or why it's there. I don't think the scientific argument is the issue or why it's there. I don't think the scientific argument is the issue or why it's there.