The New Covenant is not about salvation. It is about dominion. Before you call in the inquisitors, have a look at this diagram from my book:

If you are not familiar with Ray Sutton’s 5 point Covenant discovery, read this first. I have used slightly different terms above, but the 5 points are the same.

My initial premise here is that the Treaty, as word, has 5 points, but that as it plays out in history, it has seven points. This is because there is a death and resurrection at the centre of the pattern. The “Ethics/Terms” point is split into three. It becomes Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, or Law/Testing/Law. Israel is slain under the Law (except for Joshua and Caleb, Jew and converted Gentile) and resurrected. The Ethics are given again to a new generation.[1]

Genesis – God’s call through a Single Mediator (Sabbath)
…..Exodus – A people leaves the world for worship (Passover)
……….Leviticus – Draws near to God and is given ……….instructions (Firstfruits)
……………Numbers – Put to the test under the instructions,
……………put to death under the Law (Pentecost)
……….Deuteronomy –  A resurrected generation given
……….the instructions (Trumpets)
…..Joshua –  An army reenters the world for
…..government (Atonement)
Judges – Corporate Mediator (Israel rules the world) (Booths)

Now, we know Judges is about Israel’s fundamental failure to be a nation of wise judges, and the Lord’s calling of new “singular” mediators to bring deliverance. Each of the stories in Judges roughly follows this Covenant history pattern.[2]

My point is, step 2, Passover, is only the covering of the new vassal people. God calls them out and covers them for previous sin. Passover is merely a reparation for the failure in the previous cycle. It is a new beginning made possible by substitutionary sacrifice, and not an end in itself. It simply makes us acceptable before God for service. We are slaves bought with a price. We fall down dead at His feet, He lifts us up, and then gives us a job to do.

So, the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood is basically a new opportunity for the people of God to become a corporate mediator on a greater scale. Salvation is your ticket to boot camp.

Unlike Israel, the firstfruits church did not fail as a people who became an army. Revelation describes their battles in the Herodian wilderness, their conquest of Jerusalem as Jericho and their passing on of the baton to us as Succession in AD70.

The post-apostolic church also will not fail. Filled with the Spirit, this guaranteed corporate (not individual) success is the fundamental definition of the perseverance of the saints. The church will dominate the world. She will not blow this Covenant opportunity because we are more than slaves. Our carcasses will not fall in the wilderness because we are children of faith. We are Joshua and Caleb.

Any system of eschatology other than postmillennialism paralyzes Christians at Passover. We are covered, and that’s all it’s about. No wonder our churches are filled with frozen lambs. Lambs in limbo (or kids in kindy?), is the heart of gnosticism. It is a debilitating truncation of the definition of the New Covenant.

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[1] I know in Sutton’s pattern that the Pentateuch is the 5 point Covenant, but this must only be for Moses as head. For Moses, Leviticus is Ethics, but for Israel, Lev/Numbers/Deut is combined as Ethics. For Moses, Numbers is Sanctions and Deuteronomy is Succession. For Israel, Joshua is Sanctions and Judges is Succession. We see the same thing in Christ. His ascension is Succession as head, but for the first century church (in this initial pattern) it is the taking of the gospel to the Gentiles (as the “four horsemen”) which is Succession. The resurrection/ascension was Deuteronomic for the disciples. This could be confusing so feel free to email me.

[2] After Judges, a “new Covenant” opportunity begins with the loss of the Ark, the dismembering and rebuilding of the Tabernacle and ends with Solomon as “Judge”.

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3)

Non-dispensationalists are often accused of “Replacement Theology,” that is, the church replaced Israel. But we find in the Old Testament many examples of the same process prefiguring what the people of God went through in the first century. It is not replacement, but transformation. 

James Jordan writes:

When God called Israel out of Egypt, most of the people refused to follow Him and died in the wilderness. The old Hebrew people ceased to exist and were transformed into Israel, their new name. (I have discussed this succession of names in my book, Through New Eyes.)

The Israel that entered into the promised land was a new people made up of a mixture of Hebrews and converted gentiles, the mixed multitude. Their leaders were Joshua, a converted Hebrew, and Caleb, a converted gentile Kenizzite (Gen. 15:19; Josh. 14:6). (By “conversion” I mean that they entered the Mosaic Covenant.) According to Numbers 13:6, Caleb’s family had not only been adopted into the tribe of Judah, but had risen to prominence in it.

This event is directly analogous to the New Testament situation. The wilderness wanderings lasted 40 years, as did the span between A.D. 30 and 70. The Jews were called by Jesus and the apostles, and many converted (that is, they entered the New Covenant). Some reverted to Judaism, turning into apostate Judaisers, and like the apostates in Moses’ day, they “died in the wilderness by A.D. 70. Meanwhile, many “mixed multitudes” gentiles joined the kingdom. By A.D. 70, it was time to enter the promised land, and the old Jewish people ceased to exist, being transformed into Christians, their new name.

The same kind of event happened at the Exile. A study of the book of Ezekiel will show that God called His people out of Judea into the wilderness of exile, where He tabernacled with them. The people were given a choice: either move forward with God or perish by looking backward to the old ways. During the time of exile, as we have seen, many gentiles were converted into the nation. By the time the Exile was over, and the people returned to the Promised Land, the old Israel ceased to exist, being transformed into Jews, their new name.

Let us return to the Mosaic transition and examine the phenomenon of “falling away.” At Mount Sinai, all the people accepted the new Mosaic Covenant. Before too long, however, a large group of people were objecting to one of the most distinctive features of the Mosaic Covenant. During patriarchal times, any man might offer sacrifice at an altar to God, but the worship of the Tabernacle was “closer” to God and therefore holier and more dangerous. It is dangerous for a sinner to get too close to the Consuming Fire, and so the only people allowed to approach the new Mosaic altar were the priests, who were specially ordained and anointed for this purpose. God forbade all sacrifice except that conducted at the Tabernacle, which meant that the Hebrew people were no longer permitted to build and sacrifice at altars.

As it became clear that the people had “lost” this “right,” those who did not perceive that the Mosaic Covenant was in fact more glorious than the Abrahamic Covenant had been, rebelled. Their argument was that “all the people are holy and all are priests” (Ex. 19:6) and that Moses and Aaron were exalting themselves over the congregation (Numbers 16-17). They were drawing the wrong inferences from Exodus 19:6 because they were clinging to the older covenant.

This group of rebels is closely paralleled by the Judaisers of the New Testament era. The Judaisers were people who became Christians, and then realised that the leaders of the Christian community were changing the rules on them. Just as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram did not want to give up the old Hebrew ways in order to become Israelites, so the Judaisers did not want to give up the old Jewish ways in order to become Christians.

Just as Korah and company accused Moses and Aaron of inventing their own religion, so the Judaisers accused Paul. Just as many of the Israelites in Moses’ day wanted to return to Egypt, so the Judaisers wanted to return to Judaism. This is the “falling away” to which the New Testament refers a number of times.1

“Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.”  (Jude 1:11)

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1  James B. Jordan, The Future of Israel Re-examined, here, in issues 13-15.

See also The Man of Sin.