My friends, I feel this impulse in my heart to do a deep dive through the entire New Testament and to hang out in Matthew a whole bunch because I love that book. Wasn't it fun yesterday? It's wonderful. It's the bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's my favorite book of the Bible. Jesus is so clarifying. He just puts to rest all the debate, all the questions. There's so much of it anyway. And it was just fun being back in the Shire yesterday, so to speak, metaphorically. But I'm not gonna do that. We're working on Galatians. We're going back to Galatians. The objective for the last few episodes and today is simply to get a quick overview of the Bible to make sure that we're seeing it with our own eyes, we're hearing it with our own ears, that the plan was always for God to raise up a special family, a chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, the Hebrews, the Israelites, the Jews. But the plan was always, and God makes this very clear when he makes his promises to Abraham clear back at the beginning, the plan was always for the nations to be blessed through that relationship between God and his chosen people, for the nations to be blessed through the descendants of Abraham. And we went through the whole timeline of the Old Testament together, painstakingly over whatever it was, three days or so. And what we found was that, wow, the Old Testament story is very dynamic. Huge things happen, gigantic geopolitical stuff, wars, rumors of wars, all kinds of stuff. Yet the plan never wavers, no matter what's going on in the larger world, God's going to redeem. This is how he's going to redeem. This is who he's going to use to do it. Get ready for it. Get on the same page. Then yesterday, as I mentioned a minute ago, we went to the book of Matthew. We hang out with Jesus and the early going of the book of Matthew, and we see that right from the get-go, he's talking about being the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. And then that is modeled. As soon as his speech is done on that very topic, he runs into an unclean person, a leper. He touches him and he heals him. And he runs into another unclean person, a Gentile, a Roman occupier. And further, Jesus marvels at his faith and heals the man's servant from a distance. And after that, you turn it over even one more page in my Bible, and we start to see this division taking shape. Some people are picking up what Jesus is putting down. He's making sense to them. They see how he is the fulfillment and the completion of the Old Testament. They're even starting to suspect that maybe he's going to be the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh, the one who was promised to David, who would reign on David's throne forever. Now people are hesitant to say it out loud, but you can see they're starting to wonder, is this the guy? Well, there's people from within Judaism at this point, early in the shire phase of Jesus' ministry, who are like, nah, he's from demons. And the bunch of Pharisees say it's by the Prince of Dons that he drives out demons, that's in Matthew 9, 34. And as best as we can tell, these Pharisees could see perfectly well. They had 20-20 vision, probably. But right next to that story is a story of some guys who couldn't see at all. They were just flat blind. But still, they could tell, even without eyesight, exactly who Jesus was. They call out to Jesus, Have mercy on us, son of David. Then it says when Jesus had gone indoors, the blind men came to Jesus and he asked them, Do you believe that I'm able to do this? Yes, Lord, they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, According to your faith, will it be done for you? And their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, see that no one knows about this. But they went out and told everybody anyway. That paraphrases mine on that last bit. So from very early in the story of the New Testament, we can see this division happening. Some people see Jesus for who he is, and they're like, yeah, that's the Christ, it's the Messiah, that's God in the flesh, the Son of God, the one who's gonna reign on David's throne forever, and he is the completion of everything that happened in the Old Testament, all the promises of the Old Testament. It's all in him. My eyes have finally seen what I needed to see. I can now die in peace. They're so excited about this. But then you have other people who are reading the same Old Testament, but they just live in a different world, and they cannot see it. And they're gonna fight with Jesus at every turn about upholding every little detail of the law as they imagine it ought to be upheld. And Jesus keeps pointing them back to a righteousness that is bigger than that, a righteousness that is true and that goes to the level of the heart. Some people have eyes to see it, other people don't have eyes to see it. And wildly, as we thumb through the book of Matthew, we run into a Canaanite lady, I mean, an ancient enemy of the Jewish people up north. Jesus runs into her and he goes through what I think is kind of a rhetorical exercise to point out the fallacies of the Pharisees' view of outsiders like this. But in the end, he heals her daughter, and much like the centurion Gentile earlier, praises her for having great faith. In a lot of ways, it really kind of mirrors the conversation with the centurion we talked about yesterday coming off of the Sermon on the Mount. And there are other little hints and nods and things that I so badly want to talk about. I promise you only one day, and then we're back to the heart of Galatians chapter three. But I'll just draw your attention to Matthew chapter 25, where we get this whole very famous account of the judgment of the Gentiles. Matthew 25, 31, it says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him. Now, as you've seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears, when we're saying the nations, we're not talking about the Jews, we're talking about everybody else. They're all going to be pulled in, and he's going to judge all of them. Then the king will say to those on his right, after he sorts the sheep to his right and the goats to his left, he'll say, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, take your inheritance of the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. Well, that would have been shocking for people on the Pharisee side of the equation to hear. Well, when did the nations wait a minute, they didn't do the law, they didn't sign up for the stuff, they didn't become Jewish. Why are they getting a share in the inheritance? Why are they getting this stuff? In a lot of ways, it's kind of like what the older brother of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is complaining about. Then the king goes on, for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I need clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Then the righteous will answer, and remember, these are the righteous from the nations. Lord, when do we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you? And the king will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. And obviously that has echoes of the famous parable of the good Samaritan. And Samaritan, they're like the least favorite group of ethnic outsiders for the Jewish people at this time. But what did that guy get right on the road? He saw somebody in need and he met the need. He demonstrated the values of the kingdom, whether he fully understood what he was demonstrating or not. And then shortly after that, Jesus gets arrested and he goes to the cross and all of that plays out. But dang, like one of the last things that Jesus says is a free man before he gets arrested and executed is that he has the nations in view, and that the plan that was revealed to Abraham is absolutely still on, even though the Son of God is about to be executed by his own people, with the help of the Roman Gentiles as well, in fairness. Really, nobody gets to claim singular ownership of the decision to kill Jesus. It was God's plan. He ordained it. Jesus went willingly and could have not gone if he wanted to, in the same way that there's redemption for all the nations, so guilt for the execution of Jesus lays at the feet of all of the nations as well. Luke chapter 24, verse 47. No, I did not know this off the top of my head. Yes, I thought about this conversation before I sat down to record it. There's an important little verse right here that I think it fits into what we're talking about with the continuity of the plan through the New Testament, through the life and teachings of Jesus. This is Jesus talking. This is what is written the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Well, the sequel to the book of Luke is Acts, and Jesus says that right at the end of the book of Luke, and you know probably what verse I'm going to if you've been paying attention. Over the course of this season, the theme verse, the plot-defining verse of the entire book of Acts happens right at the beginning, where Jesus is still on screen. There's a little Venn diagram shaded area between Luke and Acts. Jesus said to them, he's talking to the disciples, it's not for you to know the times or dates the Father is set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, no surprise there, and in all Judea. Interesting. And Samaria. Oh, wow, dang, that's where our hated ethnic enemies live. And to the ends of the earth. Like the last thing Jesus says, like literally in the next verse here in Acts, after Jesus gets on saying that, he ascends into heaven. The last thing he says in Luke Acts has the nations in view. The very last words of the book of Matthew, the very last things he says there are all authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. He sending a bunch of Jewish guys out to go and reach the nations to realize the vision of God's plan throughout the whole Old Testament, and specifically that last clause in the promise that was made to Abraham. All the nations are going to be blessed through you. There's more all over the New Testament. Maybe I'll get to that later on. There's stuff in Revelation, right at the end of Revelation, the vision of the nations is finally realized to this future vision of all the kings showing up and they're showing submission to the one true God and glorifying God. Obviously, Paul is going to pound this point about the plan of Abraham and the Gentiles being blessed along with Abraham throughout the rest of the New Testament. But I think we've done enough to make it really clear. The Old Testament says that what Paul is saying in the book of Galatians is not an innovation. Paul in the book of Galatians is right. He's rightly reading the scriptures. He's on the side of the unwavering plan of God as revealed to Abraham and through the entire Old Testament. Paul in Galatians chapter 3 is on the same team as Jesus in terms of the plan for the nations. This is for everybody. And Paul in Galatians chapter 3 is on the same page as everything else in the rest of the New Testament. It is totally understandable that there would be people who would look at this couple thousand-year-old religion, and then in the last few years Jesus came along, and they would be confused and it would be hard. They are the bad guys in the book of Galatians. They are the bad guys in the book of Matthew. But also, I get it. I feel empathy to them. I understand why it is hard. This isn't me piling on them. This is the New Testament piling on them. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs. He was not complimentary or patient with their not getting it-ness. Jesus treats them as though they are willfully disobeying the truth of God, not like they're just people who have a slightly different opinion. And Paul takes the exact same tone with them. That's how the scriptures treat the people who are on the other side of this issue. They're wrong. It's not another point of view. And further, the Bible treats them like they are sinfully wrong in holding this position. Again, not my perspective. That's just what the text teaches. The text assumes that the Bible has been crystal clear through the prophets in the Old Testament, through God sending his own Son to bring the same message. And now through everything that's happened under the influence of the Holy Spirit after the ascension of Christ, the Bible acts like this is so clear that it would be downright sinful to intentionally and willfully ignore the truth of what God is doing here. And that is that he redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.