Covenant Contrasts Part 3
As we covered last time, the “DO and RECEIVE” of the old covenant is over. So what process best describes our new covenant life with Jesus? The new path for you and me is “BELIEVE, RECEIVE, and DO.” First, BELIEVE the gospel message of Jesus Christ. Then, when we BELIEVE, we immediately RECEIVE His complete forgiveness, a secure union with the Father, the gift of eternal life, and a new identity that comes with all kinds of “new”; a new purity, a new heart, a new indwelling Spirit, a new nature, a new self, a new power over sin, a new freedom, and so much more.
Notice this new order. No more “DO and RECEIVE.” Now our DO comes AFTER our RECEIVE. We can only DO, we only have the power to DO, after we RECEIVE the life of Christ in us. His life in us is the only way to pull off this Christian life. We live from the inside out. We live out of the righteousness that Christ has put in us. Our DO is still important. It just fully depends on and is energized and empowered by the new life that we have RECEIVED. “BELIEVE, RECEIVE, and DO.”
Jesus introduced this new order to us this way, “Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you BELIEVE in Him whom He has sent.’ ” (John 6:28-29). Under the new covenant, our “work” is to BELIEVE. Under the old covenant, the “work” was to obey, to DO.
This distinction is so important to understand. You are not working, like God’s people of the old covenant, to earn God’s approval, acceptance, and blessing. You are under a new arrangement. And it is an arrangement that is so FREEING. The pressure is off. The death of Jesus worked; it accomplished the Father’s plan to restore you into a right relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is a relationship based purely on God’s gift of grace.
The pressure to live up to something is off. Rather than “live up,” you are now free to “live out” of the righteousness of Christ placed in you at your new birth. It’s in there! Allow it to shine forth as you “BELIEVE, RECEIVE, and DO.”