Covenant Contrasts Part 6
(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.)
“Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).
This verse and several Old Testament verses like it were an ever-present reality of the old covenant. God’s presence came and went in the lives of His people and their community. The children of Israel often faced separation from the Father because of their sin.
As new covenant believers, we face no such barrier in our all-of-the-time union with the Father. Our behavior has absolutely no bearing on God’s nearness to us. Why? Because, if we have believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, He is ALWAYS with us. God cannot get any closer to us, and we cannot get any closer to Him, than the ever-present reality that He lives in us! Wherever we go, He goes!
“In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I IN you” (John 14:20) “He Himself has said ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you’ ” (Hebrews 13:5). “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). “The Father will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you FOREVER … you know Him because He abides with you and will be IN you” (John 14:16-17). How long will the Spirit of Christ live in you? FOREVER; every day 24/7/365.
A dangerous mixed covenant message that we are taught week after week is that we grow closer to Jesus when we are doing well and fall further away from Jesus when we are doing poorly. But I cannot find this message anywhere in the new covenant. Yet many teachers bring this outdated old covenant message of our sin distancing us from the Father into our present-day Christian experience. And it is just not true.
Your union with God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is unbreakable, unshakable, secure, and rock-solid. You are one with Jesus. He will NEVER hide His face from you!