Hope and the Glorious Inheritance

Gary welcomes Kim Burgess back for one final episode of the series on 1 Corinthians 15.

Now, as we said previously, we are going to tell you up-front what we are going to be telling tell you in this series. As it were, regarding the ruling covenantal hermeneutic in Scripture, we are going to start with the bottom line first. What is coming now is really the most important lesson of all because of what I am about to say about what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman to illustrate what this ruling covenantal hermeneutic is. Whether you can understand it yet or not; whether you wind up being like a deer in the headlights on the same hermeneutical road as this woman was, this is still the bottom line about how we are to approach the subject. Let’s look at [John 4] verses 23 and 24.

“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

We hear this quoted all the time regarding worshiping God “in spirit and in truth.” What does it mean? I was part of a church plant where, in the liturgy each week, we were using this statement, “Yes, we will worship in spirit and in truth.” What is the context for the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman? Was Jesus only saying to her (and to us today), “Just make sure you worship God sincerely and from the heart.” Is this what Jesus was saying?

What Jesus was really doing was saying, “Here is the ruling covenantal hermeneutic that is about to be established.” But let me cut to the chase to make and underscore the profound redemptive-historical point that Jesus was making here. First, it is not “in spirit and in truth,” but “in Spirit and truth.” The “in Spirit” is in direct reference to the fact, as Jesus stated, that “God is Spirit.” The point being made is not, though it is most certainly true elsewhere in Scripture if not here, that true worship is from the heart, that it is spiritual worship. It is “in Spirit,” with a capital S—“In Spirit.” Then, in addition, the word “truth” (aletheia in the Greek) is the profound kicker. We are Westerners. We hear the word “truth,” and we think automatically in terms of true or false. But that is not what the word “truth” means here. It is a word rich in meaning in the Greek. Yes, the Greek word carries the idea of true versus false, but again, like in the mindset of the epistle to the Hebrews, the best alternative English word you could use for “truth” as Jesus was using it here is “reality.” Worship in truth—in reality.

The Hope of Israel and the Nations

The reader and student of the Bible must first understand the content of the New Testament writings in terms of how those in the first century would have understood it. The New Testament is written against the background of the Old Testament. The shadows of the Old were fulfilled in the reality of the New. All the rituals and ceremonies were fulfilled in Jesus. The same is true of the temple, land, blood sacrifices, the nature of redemption, the resurrection of the dead, the breaking down of the dividing wall dividing Jews and Gentiles, and so much more. The New Testament’s emphasis is on the finished work of Jesus and its application, not only to that Apostolic generation but to the world today.

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Gary welcomes Kim Burgess back for one final episode of the series on 1 Corinthians 15. In this last installment, Kim focuses on three words often used in the NT—hope, glory, and inheritance—and puts them into biblical context for the time in which they were written, namely the first century.

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