We completed Week 47 of Rightly Dividing The Word of Truth, looking at 2 Corinthians 3 this morning. As we continue our overview of Paul's epistles, it is good to distinguish between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians is a letter of correction / condemnation, while 2 Corinthians is a letter of reconciliation. In V.6, Paul made a clear distinction that we are part of the new testament, not enslaved to the letter of of the law, but have been set free by the Spirit who gives us life! As he states, the letter killeth – the Mosaic law is the law of sin and death. Our main focus was found in V.12-18: 12Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: 13And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: 14But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. 15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. 16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. 17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Paul addresses the issue of relation of Israel / the Jews to the Law. At this time, in this Mystery period, the dispensation of grace, they are blind in their pursuit of relationship with God. The promise is given in V.16, that when the nation turns to the Lord, the vail will be taken away. Also, any individual Jew who proclaims Jesus as Lord and Savior in this age of grace, will receive their spiritual sight! When will the nation turn to the Lord? Daniel 9:24-27: 24Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. 25Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. 26And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. 27And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. Matthew 24:15: 15When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 17Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. 19And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: 21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Revelation 12:1-6: 1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars (nation of Israel): 2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. 3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5And she (Israel) brought forth a man child (the Lord Jesus Christ), who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne (Acts 1:9). 6And the woman fled into the wilderness (Matthew 24:14-15), where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days (3 1/2 years). The vail will be removed from Israel's eyes when the nation sees the abomination of desolation in the temple, in the holy place, and flees into the wilderness, as commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 24. Paul touches on this event in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4: 1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ (the rapture of the Church Age saints) is at hand. 3Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day (the Day of the Lord) shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. As Daniel stated above, the abomination of desolation will be placed in the temple “in the midst of the 70th week, or in the middle. He will sit in the temple and present himself to be God. The Jews will have the vail removed from their eyes and flee into the wilderness and protected by God for 3 ½ years! Paul refers to this situation as the mystery of Israel's blindness in Romans 11:25-27: 25For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 26And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. The Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, will come out of Sion, at the 2nd Advent, and save Israel from utter destruction. Their blindness will be removed when they turn their hearts to the Messiah, and flee into the wilderness, but, right now, the vail is upon their heart, being blinded by the law of Moses. But, we all, who have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, have been changed from death to life – from glory to glory! Amen & Amen! We will do our best to walk through 2 Corinthians 4 & 5 this coming Sunday. Please read a chapter a day of this great book of reconciliation in preparation of our study. Your Fellow Bible Student, Ken Wooten 2 Timothy 2:15
