Category: Thoughts

Covenant Contrasts Part 8

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).  We think of Romans 6:23 as a salvation verse and it is.  The wages of sin, if never taken care of through faith in Jesus, will be spiritual death.  And the gift of life; eternal life, abundant life, resurrection life comes to us by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf.  Yes, this verse addresses our salvation choice; life or death.

But this wage-based vs gift-based way to look at things also applies to our covenant contrasts.  “For the wages of sin is death …”  The old covenant was a wage-based system.  A person was “paid” based on what they did.  This is the “DO and RECEIVE” model of the old covenant.  And in the Old Testament, the “wage” was often death.  Sin led to death, sometimes in the immediate timeframe.  We will expand on this thought in a future post.  For now, let’s move on to the second part of Romans 6:23.

“… But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The new covenant is all about the “gift” not the “wages.”  It is gift-based.  Everything we receive, all of the promise of the new covenant is brought to us purely by the grace of God.  No striving, no earning, no working for your “wage.”  We have received our new identity, our new purity, our new heart, our new Spirit, our new nature, our new self, our new power, and our new freedom all as gifts from the Father above.  “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17).

We have been empowered to walk righteously as a gift of God’s grace as well.  “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12).

To summarize, the old covenant was wage-based and the new covenant is gift-based.  And it is sad to see that there is still a vestige of preaching that puts believers under a “wage-based” system.  Don’t follow that path.  You are forgiven, clean, and close to the Father by one means only; by the GIFT of His grace.  Pure gift, pure grace.  We will explore what that gift looks like next time.

Covenant Contrasts Part 7

(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.)

“But my faithful love will never leave him [David] as it did when I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you” (2 Samuel 7:15).  Did you catch this little nugget?  God removed His faithful love from Saul.  Will God ever remove His faithful love from you?

Have you ever been taught that too many screw-ups, too many sins, and God will abandon you, turn His face from you, walk out on you, leave you to your own death-wish?  Similar to our last post where we learned that God will never leave us, today we learn that we can never lose His love.  His love is endless, relentless, and unconditional.

How do we know the love of God is unconditional?  Because when we were God’s enemies, He demonstrated His love for us by Jesus dying in our place “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:8-10).

You cannot get any farther from God than literally being His enemy.  But even there, His love came through.  He loved you in your lost condition and provided a way through Jesus for you to come home to Him.

Under the new covenant, God will never remove His love from you like He did Saul in the Old Testament.  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).

God’s love for you is ever-present.  Nothing, not even your sin, can separate you from the love of God.  “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are!” (1 John 3:1).  God’s faithful love is always around, among, and IN you, His beloved child!

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!

Covenant Contrasts Part 5

(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.)

“God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin” (Exodus 20:20).

The entire motivation for obedience under the Old Testament Law was fear.  God set it up that way.  When Moses delivered the Law to the children of Israel in Exodus chapters 19 and 20, its arrival was accompanied by “thunder, lightning, fire, and smoke” in order that “the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin” (Exodus 20:20).

Contrast this with the new covenant.  Under our new arrangement secured by Jesus, the fear factor as it relates to obedience is completely gone.  We now obey empowered by grace, not scared into obedience by fear of punishment.  We obey from a place of freedom.  We obey in alignment with our new identity as one who is loved, approved, accepted, forgiven, and complete in Christ.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:11-14).  Grace instructs us in righteous living.  God’s grace, working in us, literally makes us “zealous for good deeds.”

We obey out of our love for Jesus.  And this mutual love from God to us and us to God comes without any fear attached.  “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:18-19).

The love that God has so generously poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5) is fear-free.  It is an unlimited reservoir from which to draw as we express God’s love to those around us.  You are free to love, free to serve, free to obey, and free to worship without fear.  You are free!

Covenant Contrasts Part 4

(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.)

Another highlight of God’s old covenant arrangement is the phrase “OBEY and LIVE.”  In the book of Deuteronomy, for example, when the Israelites were poised to enter the promised land, God restated His old covenant promise.  “I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it” (Deuteronomy 30:16).

God make clear the responsibility of the people under the old covenant arrangement.  And it can be summarized in one word, “Obey!”  “If you obey …” appears in one form or another four times in Deuteronomy chapter 30 alone (vs 3, 8, 10, 16).  And the promise of God is very straightforward.  Obey and choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19).  Obey and live.  These are the terms of the old covenant.

Compare this to the new covenant with its whole new arrangement.  “Obey” is no longer in the equation.  Under the new covenant, the promise to us is, “BELIEVE and LIVE.”  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).  We passed from death to life when we BELIEVED the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  We passed from death to life BEFORE any obedient living on our part.

We received eternal life (John 5:24).  We received resurrection life (John 11:25).  We received abundant life (John 10:10).  Is “OBEY” important for new covenant saints?  Yes!  But it comes AFTER the “BELIEVE and LIVE.”  It comes AFTER Christ has imparted His eternal resurrection abundant life into us.  We OBEY as we learn and grow and mature into living according to our new identity as a beloved child of God.

The word “obedience” can be a trigger for those raised in a law-keeping system.  Years ago, my wife was mentoring a young woman who was newly discovering grace and leaving behind a legalistic mindset and lifestyle.  One of her first requests of Rhonda was, “Don’t talk to me about obedience!”  Her rule-keeping background had turned obedience into a chain.

So if the word “obedience” carries a negative connotation from your past, let me offer you this.  I like to use the word “alignment” for expressing my new walk with Christ as my life.  Empowered by the Spirit living inside us, we are free to align our thoughts and actions with our new creation identity.  It is not a chain.  It is actually an expression of our freedom in Christ.