Growing old (1095) gerasko by Greek Word Studies

Growing old (1095) (gerasko from geras = old, old age as in Lk 1:36; English "geriatrics") is used in John 21:18 (and often in the Lxx) of an individual growing old and figuratively here of the old covenant. Gerasko also can convey the sense of waning strength, growing weak with age. It speaks of being obsolescent or failing from age. The legal covenant is continually (present tense) growing old! The old covenant is like a very old person (I'm 66 so I understand this picture very well! I am near to disappearing!) The point is - "Hebrew readers. Don't put yourself back up under (subject to, enslaved to) the law, if you have come under grace through faith!" (cp Ro 6:14-note, Gal 4:9, 21) The only other NT use of gerasko is John 21:18 "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go." Gerasko - 14x in Lxx Genesis 18:13 And the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old?' Genesis 24:36 "Now Sarah my master's wife bore a son to my master in her old age, and he has given him all that he has. Genesis 27:1 Now it came about, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, that he called his older son Esau and said to him, "My son." And he said to him, "Here I am." 2 Isaac said, "Behold now, I am old and I do not know the day of my death. Joshua 23:2 that Joshua called for all Israel, for their elders and their heads and their judges and their officers, and said to them, "I am old, advanced in years. Ruth 1:12 "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, 1 Samuel 8:1 And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel....5 and they said to him, "Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations." 1 Samuel 12:2 "Now, here is the king walking before you, but I am old and gray, and behold my sons are with you. And I have walked before you from my youth even to this day. 2 Chronicles 24:15 Now when Jehoiada reached a ripe old age he died; he was one hundred and thirty years old at his death. Psalm 37:25 I have been young and now I am old, Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken Or his descendants begging bread. Proverbs 23:22 Listen to your father who begot you, And do not despise your mother when she is old. Job 14:8 "Though its roots grow old in the ground And its stump dies in the dry soil, Job 29:18 "Then I thought, 'I shall die in my nest, And I shall multiply my days as the sand. Ready (1451) (eggus) can speak of position of one thing close to another or of time, where it describes a point in time subsequent to another point in time, albeit still relatively close. One might picture it as "Right at the door". Ready to disappear - Although there is not total agreement on the interpretation, this phrase appears to be an allusion to the soon coming destruction of the Temple in 70AD when the Old Covenant with its temple rituals and sacrifices could no longer be practiced. In essence the Old Covenant with its Levitical system became obsolete and disappeared in 70AD. Disappear (854) (aphanismos) means vanishing away. It is suggestive of utter destruction and abolition. Aphanismos is used to describe laws which are abolished or which fall into disuse. Aphanismos is used in the Septuagint (LXX) of God destroying the enemies in the Promised Land Deuteronomy 7:2 and when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you, and you shall defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy (Lxx = aphanismos) them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Josephus used the word of cities that disappeared by destruction (Jos., Ant., 17:306) or of attempts to destroy (“cause to disappear”) the ancestry or heritage of the Jews (Jos., Ant., 19:174). In this passage the writer is declaring that the Old Covenant was disappearing and would be like a shadow that his readers might try to grasp at but never lay hold of because it had vanished into thin air. Arnold Fruchtenbaum a born again Jewish writer applies this truth of the old covenant ready to disappear in his discussion of the believer's freedom in Christ... The New Testament is clear that in the age of the Church the dietary laws, special feast days, and other legal observances are subsumed under our freedom in Christ. Paul stressed in Romans 14 (see notes beginning in Romans 14:1-note) that under the new covenant Christians can have the freedom to observe every day alike, rather than feeling the compulsion to fix certain days as unique, above the others. Since Christ has come, that to which all the shadows of the Old Testament were pointing (see Colossians 2:17-note), Paul encouraged the Colossians to “let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day” (see Colossians 2:16-note). Individual Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, have the freedom in Christ to enjoy all foods and days. They have the freedom to celebrate any number of Jewish events, (e.g., a bar mitzvah or Hannakah) as simply a part of the Jewish calendar, but not with any “redeeming” religious significance. Where the proponents of Hebrew Christian congregations err is in the incorporation of the “types and shadows” for the “Substance” of their worship. They err when they restrict their religious activities to the Sabbath, eat only kosher foods, and observe Yom Kippur and Passover, two holidays that have clearly passed away with the termination of the Levitical priesthood and sacrificial system of the old covenant (Hebrews 7:12-note, Heb 8:13- note). (Fruchtenbaum, A. G. Israelology : The Missing link in Systematic Theology. Tustin, Calif.: Ariel Ministries) F B Meyer explains that... When the Epistle of the Hebrews was written the institutions of the old covenant were becoming old, waxing aged, and were nigh unto vanishing away (Hebrews 8:13). But the destruction was only part of the natural process through which the ideal of the ancient Scriptures was being fulfilled. It was not a destruction which left no trace, as when the fire destroys the artist's studio, burning sketch and picture, the plaster cast and the finished statue, but the destruction of the less perfect form in face of the finished and completed design. Thus the rough sketch is superseded by the finished painting, the bud by the flower, the toys and the lesson-books of childhood by the interests of the mature man. The emblems of the kindergarten fulfil their work in the child's mind by giving it conceptions of shape and form, and its first rudimentary knowledge. They are then cast aside; but the conceptions that they helped to form are the permanent possession of the nature which thus made its first trials on the tiny lake before it launched out upon the mighty ocean with its boundless horizon. The Aaronic Priesthood was destroyed that it might be fulfilled in the one unchangeable priesthood of the Son of God. The altars on which ten thousand victims had been consumed were destroyed, and their ashes poured out upon the ground, because they were fulfilled in that one Altar on which the supreme Propitiation was made. The Temple was destroyed, because the Shekinah of God's Presence had gone forth to fulfil that temple which is composed of saved souls, and of which the Apostle says that "the building fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in the Lord." The whole system of ceremonial observance, with which Leviticus is full, has been destroyed, because love has come to be the inner principle of the Christian heart, and "Love is the fulfilling of the Law." (F. B. Meyer. The Directory of the Devout Life) Elwood McQuaid reminds us of the cultural climate at the time of the writing of the epistle of Hebrews... During the early days of the Church era, Jewish believers were faced with transitional questions that worked themselves out in due course as the composition and nature of the Church were clarified (see Will Varner’s article). Extremities of the problem are identified in the Book of Hebrews where the writer deals with the issue of Jewish believers incorporating Judaism into their worship and lifestyle. The Temple was standing at the time Hebrews was written, and the forms and rituals of their former way of life had a strong magnetism for those who were not wholly committed to full salvation in Christ. Some were wavering between Christ and returning to the rituals and requirements of Judaism. The key word in Hebrews is better. The good things of biblical Judaism had been made better in Jesus Christ. He is better than angels (Heb. 1:4). He is better than Moses (Heb. 3:3). He is better than Aaron (Heb. 7:11-22). His New Covenant is better than the Old (Heb. 8:6-13). Judaism, in the divine plan, had become only a “shadow of things to come” (Col. 2:17). Its temporary role gave way to Christ, who transformed the shadow into substance and reared a “greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands” (Heb. 9:11). “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Heb. 9:24). In totality, Hebrews emphatically sets forth the departure of the Old Covenant, with its institutions and rituals, in favor of Christ and the New Covenant. As the Law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, Judaism, with its sanctuary, sacrifices, services, and ceremonies, served to identify Him. Once this was done, biblical Judaism had served its lofty purpose. It was consummated in Christ. Thus, the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., while legitimately mourned as a lost architectural treasure, could not be wept for as an imparter of spiritual light and life. A greater light had arrived, entered the heavenly sanctuary with His own blood once for all (Heb. 9:12), and made all earthly altars obsolete. (Israel My Glory: Volume 49 Issue 1. 1999) The KJV Bible Commentary gives a succinct explanation of how Gentiles today relate to the New Covenant and how there is a yet future fulfillment to the New Covenant for all believers (when Israel is saved at the return of Christ)... The relation of the New Covenant to the gentile, church-age believer is commonly viewed in several ways. First, the amillennialists believe that the church replaces Israel; and so this covenant is fulfilled by the church. A second view proposes that this covenant, like Jeremiah 31 suggests, is for the nation of Israel alone. The third view suggests that two new covenants exist: one for Israel and one for the church. In the understanding of this writer (Ed note: And I strongly agree), the best view is that there is one New Covenant, which God will one day fulfill with Israel and in which the church participates soteriologically today. In other words, though the covenant is not fulfilled, Christ’s death has initiated its benefits for today for those who will some day share in its ultimate blessings when it is fulfilled with Israel. This view allows the witness of both the Old and New Testament to stand. Further, nowhere does Scripture speak of two new covenants, any more than it speaks of two old covenants. Paul was a minister to the churches of this New Covenant (2Cor 3:6). The ordinance of the Lord’s Supper that has been given to the church is based upon the sacrifice of the New Covenant—Christ’s death. Many references to the New Covenant within the New Testament clearly relate it to the church (Hebrews 12:23, 24; 1Cor 11:25; 2Cor 3:6), and others also relate it to Israel (Hebrews 8:10; 12:23, 24; Ro 11:27). As heirs of Christ’s kingdom, we partake of the New Covenant’s spiritual blessings today and in the future will share in its fulfillment with Israel. (Dobson, E G, Charles Feinberg, E Hindson, Woodrow Kroll, H L. Wilmington: KJV Bible Commentary: Nelson or Logos) F B Meyer in Our Daily Homily wrote... THERE had been a manifest decay and vanishing away of the first Tabernacle or Temple with its rites and services. At the time when these words were written there were evident symptoms of the approaching collapse of the whole system of which pious Jews had been wont to boast. But the Holy Spirit reassures their failing hearts. It is well, He seems to say, that these should vanish from the earth; that men may be certified that the old covenant, of which they were the sign and seal, has also gone--gone never to be recalled. Thereupon, the very natural enquiry was suggested: If the old covenant has decayed and vanished away, what is the agreement or arrangement under which we are living now? To this enquiry the present chapter is an answer. Those who believe in Christ are still in covenant relationship with God. A new covenant has been set up, which indeed is as old as the everlasting hills. It is the covenant of love; the covenant which says very little of what man does, and much of the I WILLS of Jehovah; a covenant which was entered into between God and His Son, standing as Mediator; a covenant which has been sealed with priceless blood. The provisions of that covenant are enumerated in the foregoing verses: that God will engrave His law on mind and heart, and take us to be His people and be our God, and remember our sins no more. As the decay of the symbols of the Old Testament indicated that it was vanishing, so the ever-fresh beauty of the supper of our Lord, as it was practiced in the first Church, witnessed to the permanence of the New Testament.

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Growing old (1095) gerasko

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