Failure or Planned Obsolescence?

Lately I have been spending some time chewing through an interesting topic, that arose for me after a couple of verses popped into my mind and I wanted to spend some time unpacking them.  The first is from Paul's letter to the Romans 9:6 NIV:

"It is not as though God's word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel."

Here Paul was writing about God's choosing of Israel as His people and their failure, for the most part, to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. 

The second is from the letter to the Hebrews 8:7-13 NIV:

[7] "For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. [8] But God found fault with the people and said : “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. [9] It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. [10] This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. [11] No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. [12] For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. ” 

[13] By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear." 

This is such an interesting concept, that God built into His Perfect Plan the "failure" of the first covenant, and the "failure" of Jews.  They were not really failures,  so much as they were opening the way for the greater revelation.  At the time, and from that perspective, it would seem that they failed, but in the light of New Covenant, they were types or foreshadowings of the things to come, the things to be revealed.  

I was just thinking about James Dyson, and his relentless inventing, learning from each failure, and revising his next prototype.  He was constantly working to improve his inventions, and we owned a couple of units and the latter ones were better than the first versions.   

I guess we could say that the Covenant of the Law was a sort of prototype covenant, put in place to lay the ground work of the New Covenant.  It is clear that this was God's plan all along, they just didn't understand it initially.  Even though Jesus talked about the New Covenant, He didn't lay out everything that was needed to transition to it, but He gave us the Holy Spirit to guide the early church.  I find Acts 8- 15 such interesting reading, seeing God moving the Church through major transition as He makes a way for the Gentiles to become part of the Body.  I think this is every bit as monumental as the establishment of the New Covenant, and yet it was something mostly hidden, and lightly addressed by the Lord, and earlier prophetic imagery.  He was releasing major revelation and change, at just the right time, in exactly the way He planned from before the creation of the world! 

It is interesting to think about God seemingly fine-tuning things (I think it is all part of His perfect merciful plan), but that is precisely how He works with us, with endless patience, carefully correcting us, bringing revelation when needed.  He never abandons us, never considers us failures, but rather as works in progress.  His mercy and compassion are such that He can have thousands of years of patience, centuries of revelation, and careful guidance and direction.  In our lives that revelation and change is always limited by our own physical lives (100 or so years), but in the record of the Bible, we see His plan being unfolded over thousands of years.  What was understood at one point, is in time over-written with new revelation, a sort of planned obsolescence, starting with Abraham all the way through the new covenant established by Christ Jesus, and into the time of the Gentiles becoming part of the Church. 

In Christ, and in His Gospel of Grace, we find almost all the promises and foreshadowings of the Old testament fulfilled and revealed.  We are now living in the time of the unfolding of the mystery that is the Kingdom of God and the New Covenant present and expanding on earth, as established by Jesus.  It is all perfectly timed, and perfectly orchestrated, but to us, in our limited view, sometimes it seems like things are failing.  These times are based on our expectations, not God's!  He isn't worried, and if asked would tell us that everything is working exactly the way He planned.  There are ages and eras that are waxing and waning, each bringing revelation and  experience which are fulfillment of part of the plan.  

Our limited human perspective struggles to deal with these big-picture perspectives, for we are all so focused on our own ideas and views.  We think somehow that our expectations have relevance in God's greater plan, and when unmet, then clearly God isn't with the program, and that is completely true!  God isn't with "our program" His is so much bigger, so much more complex, taking into account the billions of lives, and never missing a beat.  I can barely think beyond my circle of friends, maybe my neighborhood, and I am certainly not aware of all of the events that have occurred in their lives, nor their thoughts, dreams, promises, etc.  I go back to the famous verses from Isaiah 55:8-11 NIV: 

[8] “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 

[9] “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

[10] As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, 

so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 

[11] so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, 

but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

His ways are perfect, and our understanding is far from perfect.  We can only see dimly the full story this side of eternity (1 Cor 13:12).  We must learn to trust God that He will reveal all we need, in the time we need it, and when all is revealed we will see the glorious perfection of His whole plan. Paul wrote the following about the revelation concerning the Gentiles - Ephesians 3:8-12 NIV:

[8] "Although I am less than the least of all the Lord's people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, [9] and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. [10] His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, [11] according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. [12] In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence."

I believe that we will continue to see things revealed by God, that have been unknown or hidden by God until the time is right.  We must be willing to listen to Him, to trust Him, to believe that things that make no sense, or seem like a failure, will make complete sense in the fullness of time.  We must believe that all the words of the Lord will accomplish His desires and purposes!  We may see other planned obsolescences in our future, things the Lord put in place, until the time for the better version arrives.  He is much bigger than we can imagine or comprehend, and His plans are much more the same!

Let us entrust ourselves to the full leading of the Holy Spirit, and embrace the Lord's ways, even when they mean things we have believed previously need to change!   

Amen and Amen!