Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

GENESIS
Isaac, as two promises were fulfilled in his descendants.
The one line was “the seed of Abraham according to the
flesh,” and the other “the seed according to the spirit,”
the latter of which is reckoned the true line under the
covenant of the first promise. This excludes the children
according to the flesh from all rights and privileges per-
taining to the children according to the spirit. As respects,
therefore, their nature, rights, and privileges, the Jewish
and Christian institutions differ radically and entirely;
to that degree as to exclude the one wholly from the other.
The creation, the circumcision or seal, the purchase, and
the covenant, that made the descendants of Abraham
according to the flesh the people of God, have no place nor
value under the Christian institution. The latter has its
own creation, seal, purchase, and covenant, all of which
are spiritual and eternal, and these give the Christian no
rights or privileges under the former. Hence, as respects
institutions $if fering so completely and widely, there can
be no community of rights and privileges; nor can the one
flow out of the other so as to establish any genetic con-
nection between them.
As the spiritual and the eternal necessarily supersede
the fleshly and temporal, so does the Jewish institution, in
whole and in part, give way to the Christian. Under the
latter arises a people of God as distinct from the former
as spirit is from flesh. The Christian is a new creation,
and all that pertains to his creation is new. Before it the
Jew and Gentile stand on the same ground. Both must
become the subjects of this new creation before they can
be regarded as belonging to the people of God. All the
claim which the Jew once preferred, goes for naught under
the operation of the new creation. A new birth is just
as essential for the Jew as for the Gentile. Hence, the
Jew’s creation, seal, purchase, and covenant are all naught
when he stands before the Christian’s. His birth of the
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