HEBREWS: FROM FLAWED TO FLAWLESS FULFILLED! By Tony Denton
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(A New Commentary on Hebrews from a Full-Preterist Perspective)
We've all read or heard the term "dispensation." But what exactly is a dispensation? Is it simply an age, a mere span of time from point A to point B on the timeline of man's history? Not at all, for as James Strong said in his Exhaustive Concordance, a dispensation is an "administration … especially a religious economy"; in other words, it's an interval of time identified by means of a certain system of law or governmental administration. I'm also sure we've all read or heard people refer to the Mosaic Dispensation and the Christian Dispensation. With that in mind, consider the following:
The eminent Joseph Thayer in his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament wrote that just…
As the Jews distinguished the time before the Messiah and the time after the advent of the Messiah, so most of the N.T. writers distinguish this age ([e.g.] Mt. 13:22)—the time before the … advent of Christ …, —and the future age ([e.g.]
Mk. 10:30), i.e. the age after the return of Christ in majesty, the period of the consummate establishment of the divine kingdom and all is blessings"
(p. 19, § 3).
Likewise, G. B. Caird in his The Language and Imagery of the Bible wrote:
One characteristic form of Jewish eschatology is the belief in two ages: the present evil age will give place to the coming age of justice and peace, so that the end of the one is the beginning of the other; and in many, if not all, forms of this belief the coming age was conceived as a new and ideal epoch of [or within, TED] world history" (p. 244, ¶ 2).
Since, as Thayer noted, Jesus went along with His fellow Israelites concerning their "this age" (e.g.
Mat. 13:40) and their subsequent "age to come" (e.g.
Luke 18:30), certainly we shouldn't have a problem accepting this principle!
Keeping in mind that Jesus employed this ideology in His teachings, it shouldn't be difficult to understand and concede that one of the most important issues related to an accurate interpretation of biblical (true Jewish) eschatology was that the arrival of the Messiah would bring about the fulfillment of all things, thereby consummating the old world of Israel, while bringing into existence the new world of Israel (cf.
Mat. 5:17-18 &
Luke 21:20). Here are some results of this old-to-new scenario:
1. The first and flawed Adam is gone, while the last and flawless Adam—Christ—if here.
2. The false and flawed Israel is gone, while the true and flawless Israel is here.
3. The flawed body of Moses is gone, while the flawless body of Christ is here.
4. The old and flawed covenant is gone, while the new and flawless covenant is here. So…
5. The provisional and flawed priesthood of Aaron is gone, while the perpetual and flawless priesthood of Christ is here.
In other words, besides fulfilling all of the plainly stated prophecies, the Messiah would also bring into reality all of the numerous types and shadows of the Law, namely those unreal things pictured in people, places, and practices. As John wrote, "While the Law was given through Moses, grace and reality are ours through Jesus" (Moffatt's version of
John 1:17).
Surely even God didn't expect that all these changes would occur overnight. So let's momentarily revisit the term "dispensation." For years now I've considered
Ephesians 1:10 as the single/greatest summation of biblical eschatology in Scripture: slightly paraphrasing the NKJV, it says, "in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, God would gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on Earth." As I touched on at the outset, when an age is called a "dispensation," it means that it was a period of time administrated by a distinctive law and/or government. So Paul was indicating here in Ephesians that there was a specific span of time (what believers in fulfilled eschatology call "the millennium") when God would (and did) govern, i.e. orchestrate events, in such a way so as to transition His people from the Old Covenant mode of existence into the New Covenant mode of existence. And that, my friends, is what this splendid piece of literature commonly called Hebrews is all about—the essential journey from flawed to flawless, from unfulfilled to fulfilled, all of it penned to encourage the remnant to remain faithful through her trying time, for hardly ever is there such a thing as an easy transition.
All these themes and more are detailed in a book called Hebrews: From Flawed to Flawless Fulfilled!, a recently published commentary on the treatise to the Hebrews. The following features make this concise 333-page volume unique:
1. It approaches this eminent letter purely from a first-generation, Jewish-
Christian perspective, meaning that nearly all modern application of its
teachings is left to the reader to make once the original meaning is clear, for
a passage can never mean what it never meant anyway.
2. Although it's a commentary in the classic sense that each verse is remarked
upon in course, each of the 37 studies focuses on a paragraph which may
be adapted to a 35-minute talk or group studies. And…
3. It was written with the hope that its style will make it enjoyable as a book for leisurely reading as well as for research.
For more information about this book (such as how to take a peek at pages in it and how to save at least $5 on purchasing), simply go to ASiteForTheLord.com/id19.html.
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