The Jesus I know, the God of covenant and promise

I am excited to bring you this end-time article by my dear friend and mentor Norm Frederick. Norm served as a senior leader of Shady Grove Church (now Gateway Church) and Gateways Beyond (an international Messianic Ministry) for 35 years. Norm and his wife Lynn are rich in the wisdom and revelation of God and His purposes on the earth. Read, study, meditate on what Norm writes, and please feel free to share it with your friends.

--Tom Grossman Sr.

Whenever someone engages me from a defensive posture and would rather argue than humbly search the Scriptures regarding the Lord’s return, I simply ask them this: “Tell me about the Jesus you know.” Most of these people have a challenging time answering that question because it’s easier to defend a position than share about a relationship. 

Truly, we’ve all done it. But the reality is that that response is rooted in insecurity about the one thing that truly defines us: our relationship to the Son of man, Jesus, our Messiah.

The admonition to “encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching” is vital for the people of God, especially as we look for and help to hasten His soon return. With that being said I want to share some thoughts about the “Jesus I know” that hopefully will encourage and strengthen your hearts in this pursuit.

A student of the Bible

To be a good student of the Bible requires a commitment to the whole of Scripture, as it’s very difficult to ascertain and understand the end of the story without the rest of the storyline. Would you watch the last 15 minutes of a movie to figure out the whole storyline? The end-time Scriptures (with their culmination in the book of Revelation) is best understood through the lens of the Old Testament.

It’s all one grand, epic storyline

The grand themes of Scripture (covenants and promises) work together to tell us of one great story that involves all of humanity, all of human history, and centers around a Redeemer with the majority of His story centered within the context of Israel. You and I are a part of an Israel-centric storyline involving the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Who chose to be born into Jewish lineage. Much of that storyline revolves around a covenant God initiated with a man named Abraham.

The promise and convenant

God's declaration of His intention to save all the peoples of the earth through one family, Abraham and his sons, is found in Genesis 12, 15, and 17. This covenant was completely unconditional in that God would do both His part and our part to fulfill the promises it contained.

God's promise to Abraham is that his family would dwell in a land that God gives them, and that Abraham’s Seed, the Messiah, will finally rule the nations of the earth from that land. The Seed,  Jesus, will be the head of Abraham's family (later called the Hebrews) and will rule from the land of Israel that was promised to Him. Thus, this one family will bless every family on earth.

How this unfolds in Scripture

This is a little long, but stay with it while we look at the strategic promises God makes with humans, culminating in Jesus’ return written about in the book of Revelation. It takes the whole of the story to begin to understand the mind-blowing scale of what God is doing.

Noah
Starting with His covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:8-17), God promises never again to destroy the earth with a flood, even placing a sign in the heavens to remind Him of this promise. 

Abraham
In Genesis 12, 15, and 17, God makes His covenant with Abraham: a land, a seed and a people, that will be a blessing to the whole earth. 

Moses
In Exodus 19-24 we find that after four hundred years, this family of Abraham had grown to become a nation. They were seeking to inherit the land God had promised to their ancestor Abraham and his children. God confirmed His covenant with His people during this time. He established His Law (the Torah) and called His people to covenant faithfulness in practicing it.

The Apostle Paul, in Galatians 3:19 and Romans 7:7, tells us why God did this. It was to reveal to His people how sinful they were. Remember, the covenant was unconditionally God’s to fulfill—the law reminded His people just how unable they were to fulfill it.

Therefore, this giving of the law to Moses and the people was not nullifying God’s previous covenant to Abraham, but was adding to it.

The prophets of the Old Testament
The storyline of the prophets was the continual calling back of the people of God to be faithful to these covenants and promises.

David
If we consider God's covenant with Abraham as with a man and his family, and God's covenant with Moses as with a nation, then God's covenant with David was about kingship. The greatness of the coming King and His kingdom are the focus of the promises made to David: a King with a great name would come, ruling a great people in a great land, where the government of God would be displayed.

Jesus
The question then that arises when considering the promise and covenant of the Old Testament is how God would accomplish these things.

The Seed of the Abrahamic covenant, the One who would embody the Law incarnate, the Psalm 2 King from the house of David, was Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth. Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah who would be the great King with a great Name ruling a great people from a great nation.

In the end….

If we have ears to hear and eyes to see, the culmination of the end-times is the battle over the fulfillment of these covenants and promises. In Tom’s book “Reign of Fire” he speaks of the legal testimony of Jesus which includes His own words of returning to the earth. This, then, is where it all points:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” Revelation 11:15

The fulfillment of the covenant and the promise

The great battles and hardships of John’s revelation, the evil one and his hordes, the patient enduring of the saints holding fast to the testimony of Jesus, even in martyrdom, and ultimately the return of Jesus Himself—all these are leading towards the fulfillment of these precious and great covenants and promises, spanning thousands of years.

Good news

Here’s the good news, beloved. There will be a people who have chosen to make themselves ready and will preserve till the end to be with their Beloved and rule on the earth with Him. This, then, is the Jesus I know: He is the culmination of the promises and covenants God has made with humans throughout all of history, and He is coming back in great power and glory to reign and rule forever.

I pray that the deep encouragement of the Word of God and the nearness of His Presence will empower you as you make this choice: to intentionally prepare as this spotless bride for His soon coming.

Pursuing God in the company of friends—

Norm Frederick