Fanning the Flames

Covenant Contrasts Part 18

The Old Testament is largely a description of the old covenant.  From Exodus chapter 19 to the end of the Old Testament (and technically until the death of Jesus), the Jews lived under the old covenant arrangement.

The book of Hebrews in the New Testament paints a clear picture of the contrast between the two covenants; the old and the new.  Over several chapters, the author unpacks the idea that the new covenant brought to us by Jesus is better than the old because …

 

• Jesus is better than Moses (Hebrews 3:1-6).
• Jesus brings a better hope (Hebrews 6:19-7:19).
• Jesus is a better priest (Hebrews 7:21-8:2).
• Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:4-13).
• Jesus is a better sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-28).
• Jesus is a better offering for sin (Hebrews 10:1-16).
• Jesus’ new covenant is built on better promises (Hebrews chapter 11).

 

(A more detailed verse by verse explanation of these Hebrews passages can be found in the Appendix of my book Jesus: The Purpose and the End of the Old Testament)

The author summarizes the fate of the old covenant in this way, “But now Jesus has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.  For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.  For finding fault with them God says, ‘Behold days are coming when I will effect a new covenant’ … When God said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.  But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”  (Hebrews 8:6-8,13).

“God made the first covenant [the old covenant] obsolete.”  What do you think about this concluding thought by the author of Hebrews?  What do you think about the finality of the old covenant being declared obsolete?  Not only is the new covenant superior to the old (from the list above), but the old covenant has actually gone away.

I like the paraphrase of The Message Bible for verse 13, “By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and His people, God put the old plan on the shelf.  And there it stays, gathering dust” (Hebrews 8:13).  That is quite a visual of the end of the old covenant.

The sun has set on the old covenant.  It has disappeared in the rearview mirror.  Look ahead.  Look up.  Your redemption, your rescue, your salvation, and your life in the new covenant is here!

Covenant Contrasts Part 17

When we preach a mixed covenant message, we are not drawing people into the kingdom of God.  Rather, we are literally “shutting the door” to the kingdom.  Listen carefully to these words of Jesus.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13).

How did the scribes and Pharisees “shut off the kingdom of heaven from people”?  First, they resisted Jesus and His kingdom message.  And they eventually succeeded in shutting Jesus up.  Or did they?  But even apart from their resistance to the gospel, Jesus was often calling them out for the incredible burdens they placed upon people with their myriad of nit-picking, man-made rules and regulations.  The scribes and Pharisees were a barrier to folks experiencing the kingdom of God.

How do we “shut off the kingdom of heaven from people” today?  I think we do this in two ways to two different kinds of people.

To the lost, we shut off the kingdom of heaven by preaching a message of rules and regulations to become a Christian.  We have painted Christianity as a religion of restrictions, sin management, and self-effort.  How is the message of try harder, clean yourself up, and then come to Jesus good news?  It’s not.

The grace of God is good news.  The love and forgiveness of Jesus that is waiting and available to you no matter where you are in your moral endeavors is good news.  The fact that Christ died in our place on a cross, finished the work, and took away our sin is great news!  Our response is to believe His gospel message and be saved.

When we preach an old covenant to-do list such as obeying the ten commandments as our path to God’s acceptance; when we preach the punishment awaiting us from an angry God when we stray; when we preach an Old Testament mindset as part of the Christian life, we are raising a barrier to receiving the gospel.

Jesus’ offer is “come as you are.”  Our offer is often “come when you have it all together.”  Preaching a behavioral requirement to becoming a Christian is shutting people out of the kingdom.  Preaching grace is throwing open a door to the kingdom.

Second, for those who already believe, we can shut the door to the joy, rest, and freedom that comes to us when we enter God’s family; when we enter the kingdom of heaven.

It seems everywhere I look, I see heavy chains placed upon believers.  Following rules, regulations, and spiritual disciplines are required to be considered a good Christian.  Folks are taught that their union with the Father is fragile, maintained only by a strict observance of His commands, and broken completely when we sin.  Forgiveness depends on how well you are doing at forgiving others and blessing depends on how well you obey.  Stop!  This transactional connection to the Father is NOT how grace works.  Jesus did the work.  And grace makes you the beneficiary of ALL that Jesus accomplished on your behalf the minute you believed the gospel message of Jesus.  A TRANSACTONAL love, acceptance, and forgiveness arrangement with God is old covenant and it is over.  GRACE has come!

So throw off your chains!  You are always in good standing with Jesus.  Why?  Because His love is unconditional, His death paid for all of your sins, and you believed His gospel message.

You are set free in Christ from rules, regulations, the Law, or any other burden that leaders send your way.  “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Throw open wide the doors to the kingdom of heaven so the lost can enter in and the saved can find joy and freedom in the journey.

Covenant Contrasts Part 16

Under the old covenant, animal sacrifices provided temporary forgiveness and cleansing.  I write “temporary” because the old covenant system required repeated sacrifice, confession, and forgiveness over and over again (Leviticus 5:10, 14:19, 14:25, 19:22, and elsewhere).

The promise of the new covenant is that when we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are immediately, completely, and forever forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus.  The minute we believed, Christ’s complete forgiveness and cleansing – accomplished on the cross – was granted to us; was credited to us.  Not because of anything we had done, but because of what Christ had done for us.

This is such an important promise to grasp.  Many of us have been taught that some process of continual confession of sin and seeking forgiveness is necessary to be in right standing with God.  But your right standing with God is totally based on Christ’s death in your place and your faith in what He accomplished for you.  Friend, if you have believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, the blood of Jesus Christ has eternally forgiven and internally cleansed you from your sin.  Once and done.

The completeness of our forgiveness is given so beautifully and succinctly by the apostle Paul in Colossians chapter 2.  “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us ALL our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).

According to these verses …

• What happened to the totality of your sin? “Having forgiven us ALL of our transgressions,” your sin – past, present, and future – has ALL been forgiven.
• What happened to the penalty of your sin? “Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us,” the penalty for your sin has been canceled.
• What happened to the placement of your sin? “He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”  Your sins are gone, having been nailed to the cross with Jesus.

Covenant Contrasts Part 15

(The old covenant verses that you will read in this series are true.  They are God-breathed Scripture.  But their time is over.  They have no bearing on our new covenant lives with Jesus.  Yet they are taught Sunday after Sunday as words to live by.  They fill our Christian books, devotionals, and sermons.  This mixed covenant message leads to confusion, frustration, angst, and a huge lack of confidence in our life with Jesus.  And this way of teaching must come to an end.  May you grow in the knowledge and grace of the new covenant as we study these covenant contrasts together.)

Anther contrast between the old and new covenants is a change of heart.  Yes, a real change of heart.  Under the old covenant, that heart was an entity that needed to be wrangled and tamed and renewed.  “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).  This describes the old covenant heart.

Unfortunately, I have heard this passage preached as a description of the believer’s heart more times than I can count.  I say “unfortunately” because I don’t believe this is the heart that beats inside you and me.  We have a clean heart.  We have a new heart.

Watchman Nee reminds us in The Normal Christian Life, “The heart, God says, is ‘desperately sick,’ and He must do something more fundamental than cleanse it; He must give us a new one.”  And a new heart is what we received when we believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ.

This new heart is the promise of the new covenant found in the prophets.  “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).  The new heart is a clean heart.  Peter reported to the church in Jerusalem regarding the gospel coming to the Gentiles, “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8-9).

And finally, the new heart is an obedient heart.  “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed” (Romans 6:17).

As with all of our new covenant promises, embracing your new heart is an act of faith.  Your new heart has a natural bent toward God.  You may not feel it all the time.  In fact, there may be times where you think, “This feels a lot like my old crummy heart.”  But we believe BY FAITH in the gifts of God that we cannot see with our eyes or feel with our skin.  And one of these gifts is a new clean obedient heart.

Covenant Contrasts Part 14

(The old covenant verses that you will read in this series are true.  They are God-breathed Scripture.  But their time is over.  They have no bearing on our new covenant lives with Jesus.  Yet they are taught Sunday after Sunday as words to live by.  They fill our Christian books, devotionals, and sermons.  This mixed covenant message leads to confusion, frustration, angst, and a huge lack of confidence in our life with Jesus.  And this way of teaching must come to an end.  May you grow in the knowledge and grace of the new covenant as we study these covenant contrasts together.)

A quick study of the tithe in the Old Testament produces these highlights.  First, it’s purpose was to meet the needs of the Levites.  This tribe of priests was not given any land as an inheritance.  So they relied on the tithe of the children of Israel for their sustenance.  “To the sons of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance, in return for their service which they perform, the service of the tent of meeting” (Numbers 18:21).

Second, the tithe items that appear in the Old Testament are seed, fruit, produce, oxen, sheep, grain, wine, and oil.  “Thus all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD’S; it is holy to the LORD” (Leviticus 27:30).  “You shall surely tithe all the produce from what you sow, which comes out of the field every year” (Deuteronomy 14:22).  “The sons of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of sacred gifts which were consecrated to the LORD their God, and placed them in heaps” (2 Chronicles 31:6).  “All Judah then brought the tithe of the grain, wine and oil into the storehouses” (Nehemiah 13:12).  A concordance search of “tithe” or “tithes” shows no evidence of money being collected.

Finally, God pronounced punishment upon the children of Israel when they abandoned the tithe, and prosperity when they put it back into practice.  ” ‘Will a man rob God?  Yet you are robbing Me!  But you say, “How have we robbed You?”  In tithes and offerings.  You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you!  Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows’ “ (Malachi 3:8-10).

My point?  ALL of this tithe business is old covenant.  And it is over for new covenant saints.  The word tithe only appears two times in the New Testament, both in Jesus’ accusation against the Pharisees that they tithe their garden herbs but ignore the more important practices of love, mercy, justice, and faithfulness.  Tithe or tithes is nowhere to be found in any of the apostles’ letters of instruction to the church.

So why do so many Bible teachers today emphasize the tithe or, in some cases, require a tithe to be collected from the congregation?  How many times, for example, have you heard this Malichi passage preached at you?  I can say with new covenant confidence, this warning and promise do not apply to God’s new covenant saints.  Do not let any church leader tell you what amount you are required to give to their ministry.  There are no godly percentages.  The requirement under the new covenant is ZERO!

So there is no giving under the new covenant?  Yes there is, but it is exactly that; GIVING as in a gift, not meeting a tithe requirement.  In the New Testament, Paul gives us at least four principles for new covenant giving.  Give generously.  Give purposely.  Give cheerfully.  Give according to your ability, according to what you have available to give.

Give generously.  “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6).  This “reaping” is not necessarily for yourself, but the fruit of the gospel going forth.

Give purposely and cheerfully.  “Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Give out of what you have.  “For if the desire to give is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have” (2 Corinthians 8:12).

And included in these instructions is “do not give under compulsion.”  Paul specifically addresses the pressure leaders place on their people to give.  You are free from giving under compulsion.  You are free of a percentage.  You are free of the tithe.  You are free to give generously, cheerfully, and according to your ability.  The old covenant is over.  The tithe is over.