Lesson 14 The Propitiation Set Forth

                                 The Propitiation Set Forth

                                  Genesis 6:8-13; Romans 3:21-26

                                     (1 Timothy 2:3-6; Hebrews 2:9-17; 1 John 2:1-2; 4:9-10)

The book of Genesis is the starting point of God’s gradually unfolding plan of the ages. Take away Genesis and you have lost the record of the beginning of the heavens and the earth. You have lost the purpose of God making man in His image. You have no explanation for the evil of the sin and death brought into the world by the first man. You have no explanation of all mankind having been tested in their progenitor. You have no understanding of the purpose and need of the redemption of the body of human flesh. And above all, no understanding of the love and grace of Jehovah God.

Take away the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ and you take away the consummation of all things begun by God. The end of the Covenant of Jehovah would be a mystery. One would not have the assurance of the evidence of the unseen, future spiritual realities. The completed truth of the regeneration of the heavens and the earth and the final Kingdom of God’s sons, where God is all in all, would be lost.

All in between the books of Genesis and Revelation tell us how God’s Eternal Covenant worked out down through the ages of time. God has shown man what can be known of Himself, that man might know God personally. Shame on us if we do not know Him.

We have been looking into the ways of Jehovah God in the beginning of His Covenant plan to have man in His image, after His likeness, as we are shown in the first chapters of the book of Genesis. They that come unto God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb.11:6b). What is the reward for those who believe that He is and who diligently seek Him?

Eternal life, to be received as life for the temporal dust body with life in the blood. Receiving eternal life as a gift from God is power to raise up a deathless, glorified body out from the dishonored body of human flesh, which became lifeless and returned to the dust of the ground. The earthly body is born again, born from above, born of the eternal life sent down from heaven in God’s Covenant Son, Jesus. The eternal life must be personally received for the person to become a son of God.

The apostle John made this clear. In his Gospel he wrote, “As many as received Him [the true Light], to them He gave the authority to become the children of God, to those that believe into His name” - Jesus, “Jehovah is salvation.” Children, “who were born, not of blood.” The body of human flesh with the life in the blood is born a child of Adam.

“Nor of the will of the flesh.” Like reproduces like. Human flesh reproduces after its kind bodies of human flesh in the image of the earthy. “Nor” are children of God born “of the will of man.” There is no way that a person in the flesh of humanity can keep his own body alive, nor can he bring it up alive out from the dead. Children of God are born “of God.” All is of God! (Jn.1:12-13).

Genesis begins, “In the beginning God” (Gen.1:1). As Jehovah told Moses to tell the sons of Israel, “I am that I am. You shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me unto you” (Ex.3:14).

I am - I am being - spirit.

I am - a personal being - a soul.

I have intellect - I think thoughts.

I have emotions - I have desires.

I have a will - I do as I please.

I have free will - I do whatever I choose to do at any time in any place.

God desired to make man after His image - sons of God. To fulfill God’s purpose to have His sons in His image, He covenanted with Himself that eternal life would be shared with His creation of man through His own Anointed Son in a body of human flesh prepared for Him, that He take the likeness of created mankind (see Is.9:6-7; 49:5; Jn.1:1-18; Phil.2:5-8; Rom.8:3; 2 Tim.1:9-10; Tit.1:2; Heb.2:9-17; 10:5).

Jehovah God Himself formed a body of human flesh for man from the dust of the ground, a tent to dwell in, a covering, clothing him. Jehovah God breathed into that body the breath [spirit] of life, His life, and man became a soul of life. Man came to be a personal being of spirit life, a living soul.

Through the life of God shared with him man, having the same life of spirit for his personal being, would be kindred with God, who is spirit being (Jn.4:24). Once one comes into being, one will always be. One will never stop being.

The soul, having intellect, will activate his mind to think thoughts. God, a spirit being, brought mankind forth as spirit being, that He might have a relationship with each personal being and share His thinking with each one who will receive.

If man so chooses to receive his learning from God Himself and reason with God and think as God thinks, God and that personal being will have the same thinking and be in agreement. If one will share God’s thinking, he will have the same desires for himself as God has for him. He will yield up his thinking for and to the wisdom of God and change his will to stop going his own way and have charge of his own thinking and one will make the same choices that God has made for His mankind. Then God and man can fellowship together and share the same interests. There is unity in purpose and enjoyment in sharing with one another (see 1 Jn.1:1-4).

The Eternal Covenant of God makes known the grace of God. In the Covenant we are shown the great favor that God has done us in His Covenant Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus, “God is salvation,” Christ, “Anointed,” God’s own Anointed Son of the Eternal Covenant.

All is done in God’s Eternal Covenant and all is made known in God’s Eternal Covenant. There must be a way to share the truth with each personal being born of human flesh of the seed of man. God must have a witness to man of His Covenant. The first witness is the gospel of the Anointed Covenant Son who will fulfill God’s purpose to have a Kingdom of sons of God who will share His inheritance of all that He has made, written in the heavens on the fourth day of creation and in the beginning taught by the pre-incarnate Christ to His first man and woman (see Gen.1:14-19; 3:8-21).

From the first man formed of the dust of the ground and the first woman taken from the body formed of the dust of the ground, the truth must be shared that each one in a body of human flesh might choose to believe God is and come unto Him, believing that, for coming, God will reward him with eternal life for his body of human flesh, that he might be born again a son of God.

That God might have the witness of the Anointed Covenant Son, who is eternal life for anyone who will believe and receive, God wrote the good news, the story of the birth of the Son and of the contest for His Kingdom and the victory of the Son’s coming into His inheritance in the stellar heavens. There is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,  as seen in the face of the Covenant Son, and declared in the signs and their constellations with the stars as figures of the Covenant Son, revealed in the names and the colors God gave the constellations and their decans and individual stars (see Job 38:31-33a; Ps.8:3; 19:1-6; 97:6; Is.40:26; 45:12).

Each one born of the flesh must choose to obey the truth. Once the body of flesh is left lifeless, the issue has been settled forever. Each one who has received the eternal life in the Son will be raised up out from the dead, a body of the Seed, Christ Jesus, a deathless, glorified body in which he will live forever (see Is.53:10; 1 Cor.15:35-57).

The Holy Spirit, who is God, comes to live with the new born again son of God to train him in the things of the spirit by enlightening the eyes of his understanding in the very spirit of his being. The Holy Spirit takes the things of God and shows them to the newborn son. He glorifies Christ, the Anointed Covenant Son, to the newborn son of God. (see Jn.14:15-26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15; Ac.5:32; Rom.8:9-17; 1 Cor.2:9-15; 3:16; 2 Cor.1:22; Eph.1:12-14; 2 Tim.1:14).

When the son of God takes his place as a learner and does not despise the training in righteousness, he learns from the Spirit of God and what the Holy Spirit shares is personally directly communicated from Himself to the very spirit of the son He is training. With the eyes of one’s understanding having been enlightened by the Spirit of God, the words of the Covenant Son have power and influence in the life of the born again son in his thinking and his desires. There is a change of will to be obedient to the will of God. This is a power and influence that mere knowledge of the facts cannot exert over the soul. The son’s faith has substance. In seeing in the understanding, the evidence of the unseen spiritual realities becomes clear.

Coming to know God in the understanding of one’s being, there is a reverential awe of God that is the beginning of wisdom. The primary meaning of wisdom is “skill.” One must become skilled in the ways of God that one might live out the righteousness of God one has become in God’s Anointed Son.

In the Proverbs Solomon exhorts: “Wisdom is the principal thing. Get wisdom and with all your getting, get understanding” (Prov.4:7; see also Prov.3:13-14). A reverential fear [awe] of God is the beginning of wisdom. The end of wisdom is righteousness and true judgment and equity. Wisdom is a gift of God to be shared “in Christ,” who is the “Wisdom” of God, as can be seen in light of verses 22 through 36 of Proverbs 8.

To obey and serve God is righteousness. To serve the sin is to obey “self” and serve the pride of self-will. The surest way to get wisdom is to ask of God, who gives liberally to all, but ask in faith, nothing wavering (Jas.1:5-7).

Sin is not the issue. Sin was dealt with in the death of the Covenant Son. The Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world (Rev.13:8; see Rom.5:6; 1 Tim.2:3-6;1 Pet.1:18-19). The sin and the physical death passed through to man was taken care of in the death of the Substitute who would come and die man’s death and set the believing one free from sin and death (Rom.6:10; Heb.7:27; 9:22-28; 1 Pet.3:18). All is done in the Eternal Covenant of God.

As all is done in God’s Covenant and all is His doing, God could and He did from the beginning set the Covenant Son forth to man as the Propitiation, as the One who satisfies God concerning sin and death. In the Covenant Son, whom we know as Christ Jesus, is the redemption. Whosoever believes may be freely justified; that is, to become the righteousness of God and be acquitted of all charges of sin and guilt and be born again with eternal life to raise up a deathless glorified body out from the dead.

Obedience to the truth is the issue. Eternal life for the body is imperative. One must be born of the incorruptible seed, the Word of God (1 Pet.1:17-25). The gospel, the good news of God’s Anointed Son, is planted in the heart of man through the hearing of the word. The seed of the word of God is planted in each heart of a man who is born of the seed of man and lives in a body of human flesh in the image of the earthy.

The truth of the good news is reported to the hearer through a witness of the spoken word or the witness of the written word. The word of God is sown in the mind, in the thinking, of the hearer to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God as seen in the face of the Anointed Son as the truth to be obeyed to be born of the incorruptible seed, the Word of God, who lives and abides forever. The truth must be obeyed to become a born son of God.

Except a man be born again, he will not enter the Kingdom of God. One must receive the eternal life sent from heaven above. In the end, only sons of God, born from above, born of water [the word of God] and the spirit [the eternal life shared in the Son] will live in the everlasting Kingdom of righteousness and peace forever (see Jn.3:3-21).

There in the heart, the seed of the word lies to germinate. The Holy Spirit faithfully waters the seed with more water of the word. If mixed with faith of the hearer, one day there is a breakthrough and the value of the Propitiation offered is seen in the light of the glory of the Person of the Covenant Son, who is God. The Propitiation is a Gift to be received (see Rom.3:21-26; 1 Tim.2:3-6; Heb.2:9-17; 1 Jn.2:1-2; 4:9-10).

The word of the testimony of the Word, who is God, takes root in the heart and the soul reaches for more light and in His light, one believes to see and be born of the begotten Son of God, who is eternal life. In receiving the Propitiation to become the righteousness of God and in receiving the redemption of the body to be raised up out from the dead, one is born from above - a son of the living God. The Spirit of God then comes to dwell in the tent of the earthly body that He might train the son of God in righteousness (Rom.8:14-39; 1 Cor.2:9-16).

For His first man and woman the Covenant Son Himself was the witness to the truth. The “good news” of the Propitiation was planted in the hearts of Adam and Eve by the very One into whom they must believe - the very One who is the eternal life they must receive. And they did believe and receive the eternal life, to be born from above sons of God - born of God. It was imperative God have His witnesses to the truth and imperative that the witnesses be firsthand witnesses. Each true witness must be a true son of God having experienced being born from above through the eternal life in the Covenant Son.

Born again sons of God plant the word of the incorruptible seed, the Word of God, in hearts of hearers, that the seed may germinate in the heart through faith and bring forth a born son of God. Through faith, the hearer of the Propitiation set forth believes that God is and comes to Him to receive the reward of eternal life for the power to raise up a body of eternal life out from his lifeless body of human flesh.

Sent outside the Garden to multiply and fill the earth after their kind, man in human flesh, Adam and Eve began to bear children. Each one born of the seed of Adam will hear the word of the incorruptible seed of eternal life from firsthand witnesses (see Jn.1:9; Col.1:23; Tit.2:11).

In Adam and Eve Jehovah God had born sons of God to tell the gospel of the Covenant Son as it is declared by the stellar heavens. The way in which God made Himself known was in the preaching of the gospel of His Covenant Son through men and women who had been born again and became the righteousness of God. Adam lived 930 years to share the good news of the coming Covenant Son with eternal life for the mortal body.

The gospel of the Covenant Son is the power unto God unto salvation of the soul through eternal life to raise up a new body born of God. It is the salvation of the soul to everyone who believes. For in it is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith (Rom.1:16-17). There would be those in opposition to the good news of the coming Son. They would suppress the truth. The Eternal Covenant written in the stellar heavens tells of the coming judgment on such wickedness.

And as Paul wrote, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because, when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools [moronic], and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their bodies between themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom.1:18-25).

What may be known of God is made known in the truth of the righteousness of God and the salvation of the soul. It is shown to man in the word of truth planted in his heart. When they had heard the word of God’s begotten Son, “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Godhead, so that they are without excuse” (see 1 Pet.3:18-20). The entire plan and purpose of Jehovah God is made clear in the Eternal Covenant declared by the stellar heavens.

Down through the generations of Cain and Seth and all of the other children born of Adam’s seed, the gospel of the righteousness of God through faith in His Covenant Son was being planted in the heart of each male and female brought into being, a soul of spirit life in a body of human flesh (see Mt.13:1-23; Mk.4:1-20; Lk.8:4-15).

The wrath of God on the wicked sons in the flesh, who would not receive the Propitiation, was also revealed in the gospel of the stellar heavens and also in the preaching of the word of the Covenant Son. The Holy Spirit was personally judging for conviction of the deceitfulness of the heart and ruling for repentance (Gen.6:3).

So it was in the days of Noah. The wickedness of man was great on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all day long, day after day. Man, whom God had created, must be destroyed (Gen.6:5-7).

Yet God must be faithful to His Covenant with Himself. And He must be faithful to those who had died in the faith (Heb.11:39-40). The Covenant Son must bring eternal life down to man. He must be born in the likeness of man. He must have a prepared body which could be raised up out from the dead. He must come to His own people and fulfill the Law and the prophecies shared with His nation. He must die for man’s sins according to the gospel and He must, after laying down his life and having been buried, take it up again to ascend back to heaven, crowned with glory and honor. He must return to claim His Kingdom. All is covenanted in the Son (see Lk.24:25-27, 44-48).

In the new beginning Jehovah God must have a spokesman, a prophet of the righteousness of God as set forth in the Anointed Covenant Son as the Propitiation acceptable to God. The Covenant Son is the One in whom is the redemption of the body of human flesh. The Gift of His begotten Son in whom is the righteousness of God for the personal being of a son of God and who is eternal life for the body of a son of God is the great undeserved favor that God has done His creation of man in a body of human flesh. That is the grace of God.

Noah found this grace and God saw that Noah had found grace and God had his spokesman - a prophet of righteousness. And Noah found this grace through the preaching of the righteousness of God in the gospel of the Covenant Son declared in the stellar heavens. There in the light of the Covenant Son Noah saw the light. And Noah came to God believing that He is and that God had given him eternal life to be received through faith. Noah would reveal the righteousness of God from his faith to anyone believing in the righteousness of God and putting their faith in the coming Anointed Covenant Son.

“These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (Gen.6:9).

Noah became a “righteous” man, or “just” man, as King James translates the Hebrew, and he was “perfect,” “upright” toward God. He was born again through faith in the righteousness of God. In the resurrection Noah will again stand upright in his deathless, glorified body upon the earth and receive His inheritance. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that through faith Noah became heir of the righteousness, which is through faith (Heb.11:7).

And Noah walked with God. Noah walked uprightly (see Mic.2:7). Noah, as a son of God, took his place as a learner and Noah learned to live righteous from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who had come to share the earthly tent. Noah did not despise the training in righteousness. He became a vessel fit for his Master’s use. “Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house” (Heb.11:7). Noah was not afraid of the judgment. He was in awe of God’s justice with His power of life and death.

Noah lived up to his name. His father Lamech named him Noah, “rest,” with a secondary meaning “comfort.” At Noah’s birth Lamech gave the reason for the name of his son. “This shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed” (Gen.5:29).

Eden was an agrarian economy. The curse had brought thorns and thistles (Gen.3:17-19). Righteous men could be comforted in the thought of entering into the Kingdom of sons of God with its righteousness and peace and all like a watered garden with the curse removed.

“Entering into rest” became symbolic of the sons of Israel possessing the land promised to Abraham for his nation. With Lamech’s comment, we see the men in the line of Seth all had the same hope. Up until now the sons of Israel have not entered into the rest God intended for them. But they will one day after another judgment of which the Flood is a type. That judgment of the Great Tribulation will be the birth pangs of the regenerate nation of Israel. Then they will enter into their land on a cleansed earth (see Is.65:9-25; 66:22-23; Heb.3:1-4:11).

In every generation from Adam and Eve on, the way to peace of mind and rest of heart desires is to give up one’s own way of thinking and live in obedience to the will of God, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life (Jn.14:6). What comfort! The only complete peace comes from obedience to wisdom through our Lord, who is Wisdom personified. The personified Wisdom is shared by the Holy Spirit with those who are His. One must lay hold of what the Spirit shares as He takes the things of Christ and makes them known to the believing soul (see Jn.14:26; 16:8-15; 1 Cor.2:9-16).

One lays hold of wisdom through faith. One believes and then reaches out for understanding. One needs to keep looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of the faith, meditating day and night on the things to which the Holy Spirit enlightens the understanding (Heb.12:1-2; see Ps.1).

There is no other way of bringing one into accord with their own personal being of spirit. The only complete peace comes from obedience to wisdom. It is the only way to end the conflict of soul and spirit. With the eyes of understanding in one’s very being of spirit enlightened to the wisdom of God, one sees through the mind having been stilled, that in whatever circumstances one finds oneself, all can be used of God for good and one is then no longer agitated and desirous of a quick change or of one doing something to change things (see Gen.50:15-20; Rom.8:26-39). God has limited Himself by giving man freedom of choice. Persons in the situation have the choice between God’s Way or one’s own way.

One has the choice to not remain restless and agitated, but to be quiet and wait on God. One can choose rather to think on that to which they are being enlightened for deeper understanding to know God, as He is and as He makes Himself known in His begotten Son. Quietly waiting at peace with God, one is therefore at peace in the very being of their spirit. Meek and quiet in spirit, one no longer minds the things done in flesh bodies, but the things of spirit being (see Rom.8:5-6). At peace in one’s personal being of spirit, one no longer contends or resists or fights the wisdom of God. In one’s very being one chooses to give up their own thinking and one’s own desires in the matter. One chooses to let God have His will. He knows best. He knows facts that we do not know. God always does good and he always does right because God knows the heart and He knows what He is doing. In circumstances out of his control, Noah rested himself on God, seeking His wisdom for the preparing of the ark to save his family (see Is.26:3-4).

Noah was righteous in his generations. Noah had lived in the family of Adam in the Theocratic economy of Eden, a descendant of Adam’s son Seth. Seth, we remember, is the son appointed to carry the seed for the coming Anointed Covenant Son of God (Gen.4:25). East of Eden in the city were the ungodly sinners, descendants of Cain, the firstborn son of Adam. At enmity with God in the mind, in the city man was building for man’s glory, a glory which must be destroyed.

Noah was the tenth generation from Adam. In Scripture, “ten” is the number of “man’s responsibility to his Maker. Much later in time Jehovah showed this to the sons of Abraham, the father of His nation, in a very clear way at Mount Sinai, with the giving of the Ten Words, better known as the Ten Commandments  (Ex.20:1-17; see also Num.14:20-23).

Jehovah had sent Moses down to Egypt to deliver His people out of the cruel bondage into which they had sold themselves. In Egypt Moses instituted the Passover, a figure of being redeemed with the blood of a substitute (Ex.12:1-28). Here was a picture of the redemption of the coming Covenant Son.

Then there was the deliverance through the Red Sea, which is a picture of going into death and coming up alive on the other side (Ex.14:13-31). There were more figures of the coming of the Anointed Covenant Son. Figures of the true are a way of making known the gospel of the love of God to send His only begotten Son that man might not perish but have eternal life with power to raise up a deathless glorified body out from the dead mortal body of human flesh (see Heb.8:5; 9:8-9, 22-10:1a).

Even so in Noah’s day, the preaching of the preparing of a body for the Covenant Son’s baptism into death, that He might take His household of sons of God into death with Him and lead them to glory to the salvation of their soul, is a like figure of Noah preparing an ark for the saving of the souls of his household alive through the judgment of waters (1 Pet.3:18-22; see Heb.2:9-17; 5:5-10).

At Mount Sinai Jehovah God personally came down on Mount Sinai to speak the Ten Words of man’s responsibility to the love of God for His creation of man. First Jehovah spoke of loving God and of not having other gods, or making images and bowing down to them and serving them. And of not taking His name in vain and remembering the sabbath day to keep it holy. “Sabbath” means “rest.” The sabbath, rest, for the nation of Israel was a sign of God’s Covenant (Ex.31:12-17). The sabbath was a figure of the heart rest and peace of mind provided by Jehovah for His personal beings of mankind.

The Covenant Son Himself had first spoken of the rest of His salvation to be entered into. He spoke it to Adam and Eve. The Spirit of God testified to the rest in the Covenant Son through the witnesses of the righteousness of God from Adam to Noah.

At Mount Sinai, next Jehovah spoke of the honor due the ones who honored you with a body that you might live in the flesh and choose to believe the righteousness of God and through faith in His Son, receiving eternal life and becoming a son of God. The next four words have to do with the responsibility to love one’s neighbor and finally, the final word, “You shall not covet.” That would be love of self. Love is for others (see Ex.19:1-20:17).

Jesus, the Anointed Son, is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Heb.13:8). It is easily seen that the Theocracy in Eden had the same teaching and the same Ten Words of man’s responsibility as the new nation of Israel was given at Sinai. Israel, as a nation, was shut up under the Law to preserve the Law of God (see Rom.9:4-5; Gal.3:19-24).

Someone has said that man’s responsibility to God is man’s response to God’s ability. God is love and He freely shares love with us, that we might share His love with Him and with others. The Royal Law of God’s Kingdom is Love. God does not ask us to do anything for which He has not provided us the means and the strength and the power to accomplish through our union with our Lord Jesus Christ. In sharing love, we are sharing Him who shared Himself with us (see Jn.13:31-35;15:1-17; 1 Jn.3:23-5:1).

God saw His man Noah had found grace, the great favor God has done man in His Anointed Covenant Son. In Noah God saw one righteous man. And He “looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, ‘The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth’” (Gen.6:12-13).

The earth was corrupt and filled with violence and man in the flesh, who had corrupted his way on earth and corrupted the earth and filled it with violence, must be destroyed. The end of the 120 years was near. Everything on the earth must die. But it is not the end of God’s creation. There will be a new beginning. God promised Noah, “But with you will I establish My Covenant,” the Eternal Covenant in the Anointed Son (Gen.6:18a).

Noah did not resist, contend or fight. Noah heard God and he took God at His word, and he began preparing to save his household from perishing in the waters of judgment, all through faith in the God whom Noah had believed (see Gen.6:14-22; Heb.11:7; 1 Pet.3:20).

Noah was a man who knew God. And God saw it. In verse 8 of Genesis chapter 6 we have the first occurrence of what later became a Hebrew idiom - “found grace in the eyes of” (Gen.18:3; 19:19; Ex.33:13; Jud.6:17; 1 Sam.20:29, etc.).

When Jehovah God planned to begin a new thing, He began with one man who had found grace in His eyes and He personally taught that one to be the very instrument for the beginning of the new thing. He had Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Joshua and Jesus and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. In the end, God had the apostle John, the lone survivor of the original twelve disciples, to write The Revelation of Jesus Christ, that we have the end of all things which God Himself began. Through these men as His instruments, Jehovah God kept His Covenant established on the earth, and He brought it to pass age after age. He has ratified His eternal Covenant in the blood of the Great Shepherd brought again from the dead (see Heb.13:20-21). The Chief Shepherd will come and establish His Kingdom on earth and fulfill the last age of the Eternal Covenant of God.

This concludes our lesson.