Objection: The New Testament Emphasizes Spiritual Blessings, Not Material Blessings

I will grant the objector’s point that many of the blessings in the Old Testament were related to this life – blessed animals, crops, physical health, and so on.  Under the Law, you could not have the vast spiritual blessings available to the born-again believer.

That is why the New Covenant is a better covenant established upon better promises (Hebrews 8:6).  You can enjoy spiritual blessings, especially true sonship, that even the Old Testament heroes of faith never enjoyed.  In fact, the difference is so drastic that Jesus said that the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than the greatest prophet who ever served under the Old Covenant (Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28)!

I agree with the objector that the New Covenant emphasizes spiritual blessings.  But if our covenant is truly better than the old one, especially by the drastic degree spoken of by Jesus, how could the Old Covenant physical blessings have been revoked today?  The Old Covenant said that God satisfies us with long life (Psalm 91:16), takes all sickness away from our midst (Deuteronomy 7:15), heals all our diseases (Psalm 103:3), and so on.  Have we been “ripped off” to the extent that these blessings no longer apply to us, and all we get today is “spiritual” blessings?  That doesn’t make one bit of sense.  If the physical blessings aren’t for us, we were robbed of them when Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant.

Abraham walked in a number of physical blessings, but we can tell for sure that they haven’t been done away with because Galatians 3:14 says that the blessing of Abraham has come upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ.  So physical blessings continue today along with the spiritual ones.

Now the physical blessings are ours to an even greater degree, because Jesus was made sick in our place so that we don’t have to be sick (Isaiah 53:4-5), and He was made poor so that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).  Our blessings under the New Covenant are all the surer because they are granted on a basis of 100% grace + 0% our personal merit.

Thank God, we have BOTH material and spiritual blessings under the New Covenant!