Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The New Covenant P8 (06-09-21)
Synopsis
What are those better promises under a New Covenant? First of all, it does not depend on us to keep it. Under an Old Covenant, if you failed but once, you are guilty of breaking all of the law, and are under a curse. For scripture tells us that cursed is everyone who does not continue to do all that is written in the book of the law. Under a New Covenant, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Second, God has given you everything you need for life and godliness. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He lives in you to instruct you and guide you into all truth. He loves and accepts you unconditionally. Then on that special day, when you shall leave this earth, you will see Him face to face. You will be changed in a twinkling of an eye, for you shall see Him as He really is.
Jesus is the guarantee of a promised eternal inheritance stored up in heaven for you, where moth and rust do not destroy. How can He guarantee this, this and all these wonderful promises for us? God is love, love does its neighbor no wrong, and love is the fulfillment of the law. God looked at mankind, all that He had made, and had pity on the mess we made from the day Adam sinned in the garden of Eden and caused the fall of the entire human race. He had then pursued His wonderful plan to redeem mankind back to Himself. We have the word of the prophets, such as from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, testifying of God’s unfolding plan, testifying to a future day when God will remember our sins no more, when the work Jesus came to do is completed.
What did Jesus do? Being God an eternal being, not created, and without any sin of His own, He was born of a virgin, not in the normal way through a man, like Adam, He took on human flesh. He then lived a perfect life, not by obeying the letter of the law, but by who He is, perfect love, thereby fulfilling all the requirements of the law perfectly for us. But since sin caused our death, He took upon our sins, and died in our place. He did this so that what caused our death, sin, would not cause us to die again. That way, that being accomplished, He can offer what He really wants to give us, new life in Him. That is also why He was raised from the dead, so that we can be raised to new life in Him.
After Jesus was buried in a tomb, the most amazing miracle of all happened. Being buried in a tomb was necessary to prove his death, as in a will, necessary to usher in a New Covenant, or new will, with man. Then, three days later, He rose from the grave, with evidence of an empty tomb. After being raised from the dead, He walked for a brief time on earth, and had told His disciples to wait in Galilee to receive the promised Holy Spirit. He had told them about even prior to His death.
So when He ascended back to His Father, where He is now sitting at the right hand of God, His work for us has now been completed. He said it is better for us that He goes away for now He can send His Spirit to live and dwell in all of us. So Jesus is longing for the day, in the life of every human being, to those who will believe in His name, to receive Him. So that just as we had a physical birth from mom and dad, you will have a spiritual birth, where the Holy Spirit comes to live in you, where you become alive in Christ Jesus.
With the Holy Spirit, alive, living in us, you can now understand spiritual things, have a dynamic relationship with God your creator, having now the mind of Christ to process that which He speaks to your inner being. So in a fallen world of sin, He is powerfully at work within us so that just as Jesus overcame the struggles and difficulties of this world, we too may experience His joy and peace that do not depend on the circumstances of life. The last words He told us was that in this world we will have trials and tribulations but to be of good cheer for He has overcome the world.
Jesus has become the mediator of this New Covenant of grace we are now under. We read about this blessed hope in 1 Peter, how this will that God has promised us, an eternal inheritance, is stored up in heaven for us. We read about all the wonderful promises of the New Covenant through the book of Hebrews, and we are reminded of the nature of God, His mercy and grace, as we read about that which He had spoken of while he walked on this earth in the gospels, doing the work for us, and submitting to the will of the Father, while telling those who were alive then of what He came to do and of the New Covenant to come. And you read from the epistles, particularly of the apostle Paul, you will understand further details of all that Jesus did to secure what we now have under a New Covenant. You will see how Christ truly is our life, a life to be lived out by faith in the one who accomplished all this for us by His death, burial and resurrection.
Transcript
We have been talking about a New Covenant. We are told in Hebrews 9 the reason that we have a New Covenant.
Hebrews 9:15
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
It is not only a new covenant but it is called a superior covenant.
Hebrews 8:6
6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.
It is a superior priesthood. It is a superior covenant. It is called the new covenant in comparison to the old covenant. As we talked about, a covenant is the same word as a testament. It is the same word as a will. We have to recognize the truth of that. We are told that a covenant, a testament or a will does not go into effect until the one who made it dies.
Hebrews 9:15-18
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.16 In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood.
We know that from our own law, that if you have a will, it will not go into effect until your death. We also know that along the way that you may have a number of wills. I have had two or three in my lifetime that keep changing. It changes as either things are accumulated or lost or changed or whatever it might be, and therefore, you change the will in regard to those who are going to receive what is written in the will at your death. The one that goes into effect is not the first one you made. It is the last one you made. So you need to make sure your will is up to date for that is what is going to go into effect in the event you have a sudden death. We think we are going to do something tomorrow but we do not know if we are going to have a tomorrow. So you need to keep it up to date as to what is going to those you want to inherit.
(In 1 Peter, we read about that blessed hope!)
1 Peter 1:3-9
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
The inheritance we have under this new covenant is one we are told in 1 Peter 1:4 that can never perish, never spoil and can never fade, and it is kept in heaven for you. Where do you keep your will? If you keep it in your drawer and a fire comes along to your house you have lost your will. You can keep it in a bank, and if the bank burns down you might be in trouble. Our will from God is kept in heaven. We do not have to worry about moth, fire or anything. The security of that statement is unbelievable. This will that God has promised me as a born again believer, that will is stored in heaven.
Hebrews 8:12
12 For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”[Jeremiah 31:31-34]
Now we are told that He made that covenant and in that covenant He says, “I will forgive their wickedness and I will remember their sins no more.” that is a promise of God (as foretold through the prophet Jeremiah). “That your sins and lawless acts I will remember no more and where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins.”
Hebrews 10:18
18 And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
Someone says the sacrificial system has stopped. And we know that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. The bible says there is no more sacrificial system. There is no more shedding of blood. You have to conclude that the one time that it was shed, not by the blood of a bull or a goat, but by the blood of the Lamb of God, God Himself, one time shed his blood for you and me, and cried out from the cross, “Paid in full”, that that is an act that has been accomplished. It has been done. It has been done forever and ever. It is secure in heaven. It is bound in heaven.
Hebrews 9:22
22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Hebrews 10:12
12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God
John 19:30
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
(In Greek, Tetelestai, translated as “It is finished.” in English, literally means “Paid in full.”)
That is why we have the ability to tell people that, that your sins are forgiven. Where would I get the audacity to sit here on radio day after day for all of these years and tell people that your sins are totally forgiven? Where would I get the audacity to do that unless it has been secured in heaven? I know that it is secured in heaven. We are told that. I know that. Therefore, it is not the audacity, but it is the privilege that I have, we are told, that we have been given the privilege of being ministers of a New Covenant, not of the old that kills, but of the new that gives life.
2 Corinthians 3:6
6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Because of it being bound in heaven, I can now bound that here on earth. In other words, I can express that and tell people that without any reservation at all. I am on solid ground.
Now he compares that in 2 Corinthians 3:7-8.
2 Corinthians 3:7-8
7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, fading though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
Someone says, “We know that we are no longer under the old dietary laws, but those big ten, do not tell me that we as Christians are not under the big ten. You do not do away with the law.” He knew people would be saying that. That is why this passage is in the scripture.
The ministry that brought death is the law. That which was engraved on stone is the ten commandments. He is comparing the old with the new. The old was glorious and the new covenant is more glorious. Why is it more glorious? Because God did something in us and to us that was not done prior to Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus was not able to give resurrected life to anyone until he was resurrected. There is a before Christ and an after Christ. After Christ, it was prophesied in Ezekiel, that this event was going to take place, where He is going to give you a new heart, and a new spirit in you and remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Then he says, the evidence of that taking place.
2 Corinthians 3:3
3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
The evidence of that is that you are a letter from Christ, which is the result of our ministry written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. In other words, it is going to be evident that you are a new creature because of the Spirit of God living in you. The Lord will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants so that you will love Him with all your heart, all your soul and all your life.
1 John 3:23
23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
We are told in John 13:34-35 a new command.
John 13:34-35
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
You will note that he does not say that the world of all men will know you are my disciples by your bumper stickers. I have often laughingly said, “I wonder what the poor Christian world did before we had bumper stickers and placards. I guess we put a placard on the back of a donkey and said ‘snort if you love Jesus’.” We wonder what we did before we had all these things that we consider biblical and spiritual. He did not say they will know you are my disciples by church attendance, tithing records, or visitation records. He did not say any of those things. As a matter of fact, when he said that men will know you are my disciples, it had nothing to do with where you go. It has something to do with who you are. “I put my love in you and the world will know you are my disciples because my love is in you.” The way they will know is by the way you express love to one another. Because we know through experience, that any Christian who has been a Christian for a while, “I cannot pull that one off.“ If all men will know you are my disciples by their love for one another. But I cannot pull this love off every day. You cannot even pull it off in half a day with the energy of your flesh. Agape love is love that comes from God. The source is God. Agape love is not a feeling. It is an action taken on behalf of another person. God’s agape love for you and me.
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God so loved that He gave. The giving was the evidence of His love. So we can do phileo love which is where we get our word Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, and philanthropic, brotherly love, but as far as producing agape love, which is unconditional love, we do not have a way in the world of pulling that off in the energy of our own flesh, as much as we would like to and as hard as we can try.
You have children and I think many times that a parent looking into the face of a newborn, and you see that little baby and the miracle of that birth, there is love that comes out of you that you didn’t know was there. I think many times it is put there by God, but you cannot sustain it. Why do we have divorce? These were people who were madly in love with one another at one time, standing in front of the pastor and the congregation and family saying, “I will be with this woman until death do us part” and then cannot wait for death. All of that sounds good and we wish we could pull it off, but we find out we cannot. Why can’t nations get along? I have a better question? Why can’t you get along? If you cannot get along with your family that you love, how in the world are you going to get along with neighbors that you do not know? How are you going to get along with countries that you do not know? How are you going to get along with people who are not like you at all when you cannot get along with people who are? The reason we have international wars going on and do not have international peace is because we do not have national peace. The reason you do not have national peace is because you do not have local peace. The reason you do not have local peace is because you do not have any peace in your family. The reason you do not have peace in your family is because you do not have any peace in your own heart. That is where Christ Jesus is totally relevant to international peace.
John 14:25-27
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
There will not be any peace in this world. I do not care how much Obama does, or any other president does who comes along, or the United Nations does in their meetings, or anything else that we come up with to develop. There is never going to be peace until the prince of peace comes on the scene and every knee will bow and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. You can have all the negotiations between the Arabs and the Jews that you want to. I have seen many presidents shake hands, and grin ear to ear. They boast that they brought the Arabs and the Jews together and within two weeks are bombing each other. You just cannot do it. You can try, but you are just not going to pull it off. This agape kind of love is a love that has to come from God and the source has to come from God.
Romans 14:10
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”[Isaiah 45:23]
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
It ties into that vine and branch, as Jesus talked to the disciples in John 15. I am a branch and Jesus is the vine. A vine must produce whatever is going to be produced in the branch. The vine is the source and the branch is the bearer. So there is no branch that can go out and produce fruit in and of itself. You and I cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit, which is agape love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self control (Galatians 5:22-23). You can get peace out on a mountainside doing some fishing, but as soon as you leave the stream, the peace goes. (That is the world’s peace but not the kind of peace that God gives. His kind of peace surpassess understanding.) All of those things have to come from God. You can have substitutions but you cannot get to the real source apart from God.
John 15:5
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
When He told us that I command you to love one another, it is a command that we cannot pull off in the energy of our own flesh, but with Christ, all things are possible including agape love. When I am yielding to the vine of agape love, I am going to see agape love flowing through me. When I do not, I am just going to see whatever Bob George will conjure up, which is not very much.
John 13:34-35
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Now, here is the problem. Man comes along and says “I cannot do that.” So we substitute. “Loving people go to church. I go to church. Therefore I must be loving.” “Loving people go to prayer meetings. I go to prayer meetings. Therefore I must be loving.” “Loving people tithe and I tithe. Therefore I must be loving.” What have we done? We put the love aside and say my activities are going to substitute for this agape love. So we become hypocrites. That is what the world looks out and says “You are a bunch of hypocrites.” When the world sees people truly loving one another with God’s love, they may say, “I do not know how you guys are pulling this off, but you have something I do not have. That is the only conclusion is that there must be something in that guy that I do not have.”
God commands us, and it is not one of those commands where if you do not do it God will zap you. It is saying that this is the lifestyle I designed for you. As a born again person, I designed you to be a lover, to be a person who allows the love of God, the agape love of God to flow in and through you at any time.
Matthew 22:37-40
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[Deuteronomy 6:5] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[Leviticus 19:18] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Then He made this statement. “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” He did not say some of the law. What are people thinking that say they obey the law? They are trying not to commit adultery. They are trying not to steal. They are trying not to have false gods. They go through all these things. But He says the law is summed up in love. He said all of the law, not some of the law, not some of the teaching of the prophets, but all of the teachings of the prophets and all of the teachings of the law are summed up on these two commandments. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those two fulfill all the law of Moses and the prophets.
You are not going to fulfill the law by going it and not doing something. You are going to fulfill the law when you abide in the vine that allows you to do something and that is to love one another.
We are told that when we come into this new covenant not only is it a better covenant and a superior covenant, but it is a covenant that gives us hope. We are told this in Romans 5:5
Romans 5:5
5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
So the same love that was poured out into our hearts has been given to you and me.
I remember when I was getting ready to do the bible study book on love, in our Closer Look series of books. I had done every other book except the New Covenant at that time. I thought this would be an easy one to do, on love. I tried to write that book and I could not write it. It did not make any sense. I could not get it down. I got frustrated and I got mad. That is not a sign of love. One day God said, “I want you to open up the scriptures and read them again.” I was reading, “I commend you for your faith, hope and love.” I began to see that it is a triplicate just like the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is a triplicate. You cannot have agape love apart from hope and you cannot have hope apart from faith. In other words, it is like you cannot have the Son without the Father and the Father without the Holy Spirit. They go together. They are separate but they are totally intertwined together. You cannot separate them. You cannot have one without the others. You cannot say, “I do not care about his love but give me hope.” I cannot give you love without hope and I cannot give you love without faith. When I saw this and began to teach the love of God in a triplicate then everything came together. I was able to get the book done and get rid of frustration. I was able to live with that knowledge and understanding ever since.
This hope that God gives us. In all areas of life, especially dealing with depression, you have to elevate the hope of a person. What is your first job to do when counseling a person with depression? To elevate their hope. When you lose hope, you have lost everything. You know that. You know that through the death of wife Dianne, if you were to lose hope you would have lost everything. You still have that hope, if the worse occurs, and if Diane does go, she will go to be with the Lord and not only that I am going to see her some day.
That is the blessed hope we have. Until we are prepared to die, not just prepared for my death, but also for the death of loved ones, we certainly are not prepared to live. This hope is a marvelous thing God has given us. You will never be disappointed if you hang onto hope that has been given to us in Christ Jesus. He has poured His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit of God He has given us. This is the hope we have, so hang onto it.
In His promises is also an unconditional acceptance. Under the Old Covenant, God promises the Israelites that He would be their God and He would be their people but what conditions were attached to that promise?
Exodus 19:5-6
5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
It is saying that if you do this, then I will do this. It is conditional, isn’t it? Then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession, if you obey my commands and obey them fully, not partially. Although God said, “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” These words were spoken to the Israelites but they seemed to forget their part, to fully obey His commandments. They did not and therefore the promises did not come true. They are totally conditional. The Israelites did not fulfill their end of the bargain.
In the New Covenant, there is no bargain. God in the New Covenant said, in essence, “There is no way for me to save these nitwits apart from leaving them out of the equation.” No conditions put on it at all. “Therefore, this New Covenant that I am going to put into effect is going to be a covenant of grace.” What is grace? “You are not in the equation. It is all me. I am going to do it all. When I put you in the equation, you messed it up. Therefore, you are out of it. I am going to do it all. I am going to do it for all. I am going to do it to all for you all.”
Man’s role in this New Covenant is to accept it by faith or reject it. Nothing else. I am not in there. There is nothing for me to do. There is no forgiveness for me to seek. I am already forgiven. I am a forgiven person. When He said it is finished, it was finished 2000 years ago. You were born forgiven. There is no more forgiveness to be executed on my behalf, and if there was, then I would have to die again because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” So recognize the truth of that and start saying thank you. “Thank you Jesus for the fact that you took away what caused my spiritual death to begin with. In such a loving fashion, you came to me and gave me life eternal that can never be taken away and is stored for me in heaven.”
