The Covenants
Bible Study Time 1-21-07
Church links:
Bible Study Time 1-21-07
The past few weeks we have been looking at the fact that when we come to Jesus Christ in faith, believing that He died on the cross for our sins, we are positioned in Christ by the Holy Spirit, and we are given a new beginning. II Corinthians 5:17 says:
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJ)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Romans 6 says:
Romans 6:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
As Paul wrote to the Church which is the Body of Christ in Ephesians, Chapter 4, he said:
Ephesians 4:21-24 (NKJ)
21 if indeed you have heard (Christ) and have been taught by (Christ) . . .
22 (then) put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
23 (being) renewed in the spirit of your mind,
24 and . . . put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
These are just a few of the many verses which teach that God has given everyone of us a chance for a new beginning in Jesus Christ.
When the angel came to Mary and told her that she would conceive and bring forth a son who would sit upon David’s throne as the Son of the Highest, Mary said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
Even so, we can be confident today, that when we open our hearts to God and say, “Be it unto me according to thy word,” God will start to create within us something new, something so glorious that it is beyond our human comprehension, something that will bring glory and honor to God. Then, we will also say with Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
What a miraculous change God brings about in our hearts and in our lives when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. It makes me think of the old hymn which says:
What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
I have light in my soul for which long I had sought,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
Floods of joy o’re my soul like the sea billows roll,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
Well, all of this is available to us today because of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus upon the cross of Calvary. Jesus Christ came into the world through Mary. He was born of a woman, and He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
When Adam sinned in the Garden, the sin nature and the curse of sin fell upon all men. The Law wasn’t given to Moses for another 2500 years, but death still claimed the life of every person who lived between the time of Adam and the time of Moses.
You see, when Adam sinned, all men sinned because we were actually there, in Adam, at the time Adam sinned. Do you remember how the writer of Hebrews said that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek? He said that Levi paid that tithe because he was in the loins of Abraham when Abraham paid his tithe to Melchizedek.
Well, in that same way, all of humanity from the beginning to the end was there in Adam when Adam sinned against God. And yes, that included Eve too because Eve had been created from Adam’s flesh and bone. God sees everything that proceeds from Adam as being in Adam. Therefore, when Adam fell, the whole human race fell.
One of the ways that angels stand in contrast to humans is that angels were each individually created. They stand before God as individuals, while humans stand before God in Adam.
Now, as we know, when Adam sinned, he was denied access to the tree of life. He and Eve were locked out of the Garden so that they could not eat of the tree of life. But when the Lord Jesus came into the world, He said:
John 10:10 (NKJ)
10 . . . I have come that (the sheep) may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
And then He said:
John 10:11 (NKJ)
11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He did so in order to bring abundant life to all who believe. He died so that we might have access to the tree of life.
All those who are in Adam will have no access to the tree of life for all of eternity, but those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are taken out of Adam and are given a position in Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 15 says:
1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (NKJ)
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
Those who remain in Adam face eternal death, but those who are in Christ are given eternal life.
So even before the Law was given, death reigned over mankind, but when God gave the Law, the Law revealed the righteousness of God and sin became exceedingly sinful. In other words, there was a greater level of accountability on man’s part after the Law was given. This is one of those principles that we see throughout the scriptures, with greater knowledge comes greater responsibility.
But as we move into the scriptures of the New Testament, the Law of Moses becomes the center of debate. Jesus made it perfectly clear that he had not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. However, He was often questioned by the religious leaders because He did not abide by all of their traditions. They asked Jesus why He and His disciples didn’t wash their hands according to the Jewish traditions. They asked Him why He and His disciples didn’t fast or pay the temple tax as the traditions required.
After the cross the twelve Apostles went to the nation of Israel, spreading the gospel that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead by the power of God and had been taken up into heaven. However, they were careful to live by the Jewish traditions. As a result, the issue of the Law kind of died down for a while.
After about 12 years, however, the Lord called the Apostle Paul to start his ministry among the Gentiles, and in his teachings he revealed the fact that Jesus’ death on the cross had actually ushered in the New Covenant. In all of his early writings, he dedicated a great deal of time and energy comparing the glory of the New Covenant to the fading glory of the Law. In II Corinthians 3, Paul said:
2 Corinthians 3:4-8 (NKJ)
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Here, Paul says that the power of the New Covenant is found in the Holy Spirit while the Law has no spiritual power. He says:
2 Corinthians 3:3 (NKJ)
3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
The word of God doesn’t do anybody any good while it’s on tables of stone. Its power is revealed when the Holy Spirit applies it to our hearts.
Now these tables of stone are, of course, the tables of stone upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. God gave these stone tablets to Moses and told him to put them in the, what? The Arch of the Covenant. So the Law of Moses was a covenant of God.
We know that there were covenants made before the Law was given, but we call the Law of Moses the Old Covenant because it is the covenant which stands in contrast to the New Covenant. Paul never called the Law the Old Covenant per se, but it’s obvious that the covenant which stands in contrast to the New Covenant is the Law of Moses.
In II Corinthians 3, Paul goes on to say that:
2 Corinthians 3:7,8,11 (NKJ)
7 . . . if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
Now, what is it that’s passing away in this passage? It’s the covenant of death that was written on tablets of stone. Paul said that the Law was passing away, but he never said that the covenants of God which were made previous to the Law were passing away, not at all.
At the time of Adam’s sin, God promised to destroy the serpent with a mortal wound to the head, and that He was going to do so through the Seed of the woman. That promise is God’s Covenant of Redemption. Later, God made a covenant with Noah and promised that the earth would never again be destroyed by water. Then after that, God promised Abraham that Abraham would be given the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and that one of Abraham’s descendants would bring blessing to every nation on the earth.
So we see several covenants of the Lord which were made before the Law was given, but none of those covenants was affected by the passing away of the Old Covenant Law. In fact, because the New Covenant has to do with the redemption of the earth as well as the redemption of man, these previous covenants are all very much associated with the New Covenant.
The full redemption of the earth will be accomplished after the earth is destroyed by fire, not by water. The full redemption of the earth will be accomplished only after the destruction of the devil, and the full redemption of the earth will not take place until after the land of Canaan is given to Israel and the New Jerusalem is established.
In Paul’s early epistles, he spoke often of this contrast between the Law and the New Covenant. However, as we read Paul’s later epistles which were written from a Roman prison, we see no mention of New Covenant, or of Abraham, or of the restoration of the earth.
At the same time, it is in these prison epistles that Paul reveals the details of the Church which is the Body of Christ. The calling of the Church stands in contrast to the calling of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old and New Covenants both anticipated a restored earth. On the other hand, as members of the Church, we today are citizens of heaven where we are seated with Christ and blessed with every spiritual blessing.
We are not bound by the physical elements of this earth, but rather we are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. Furthermore, through faith in the working of God, we are baptized into the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ. As heavenly citizens, we have been promised that in the ages to come, God plans to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Because we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we can rest assured that we are partakers in every spiritual blessing of the Old Covenant and in every spiritual blessing of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was permanently set aside at the cross, but its spiritual blessings were brought to life through the power of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant. The New Covenant was temporarily set aside when Israel rejected Christ during the Acts period, but all of it’s glorious spiritual blessings have been passed on to us as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ.
As we read the Old Testament scriptures, we learn of God’s faithfulness. We learn of His miraculous power. We learn of His justice as well as His mercy and His grace. We learn about so many things that we can apply directly to our own circumstances in life. However, we must keep in mind that God has not promised us the land of Palestine, and we must keep in mind that the rituals that were required back then are no longer required today.
As we read the gospels, we see the miraculous power of God as it is seen in the birth and life of Jesus Christ. Everywhere He went, He did miracles, wonders and signs to prove that He really was the Son of God who came down from heaven. At the same time, we must realize that Christ is now in heaven and that anyone who claims to be the Christ is a liar and is of the devil.
We rejoice to see the miracles, wonders and signs which were done by the Apostles during the Acts period, but we are saddened to see the hardness of the hearts of the men of Israel. The miraculous works of Jesus and those of the Apostles were not enough to convince them that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Here too we must realize that the spiritual gifts of the Apostles are no longer being given to the saints. When someone says that they have the gift to heal others or the gift of prophesy, we know that they’re not telling the truth.
But then, when we come to the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ, we can not help but be humbled to think that God would love us enough to call us as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ. We were called before the foundation of the world, and by the grace of God, we have been accepted in Jesus Christ.
God no longer dispenses the miraculous sign gifts, but praise the Lord, He still does miracles in each of our lives. When we witness His power in our lives, we know that God is able and God is willing to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJ)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Romans 6 says:
Romans 6:3-4 (NKJ)
3 . . . do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
As Paul wrote to the Church which is the Body of Christ in Ephesians, Chapter 4, he said:
Ephesians 4:21-24 (NKJ)
21 if indeed you have heard (Christ) and have been taught by (Christ) . . .
22 (then) put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
23 (being) renewed in the spirit of your mind,
24 and . . . put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
These are just a few of the many verses which teach that God has given everyone of us a chance for a new beginning in Jesus Christ.
When the angel came to Mary and told her that she would conceive and bring forth a son who would sit upon David’s throne as the Son of the Highest, Mary said, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
Even so, we can be confident today, that when we open our hearts to God and say, “Be it unto me according to thy word,” God will start to create within us something new, something so glorious that it is beyond our human comprehension, something that will bring glory and honor to God. Then, we will also say with Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
What a miraculous change God brings about in our hearts and in our lives when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. It makes me think of the old hymn which says:
What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
I have light in my soul for which long I had sought,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
Floods of joy o’re my soul like the sea billows roll,
Since Jesus came into my heart.
Well, all of this is available to us today because of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus upon the cross of Calvary. Jesus Christ came into the world through Mary. He was born of a woman, and He came to seek and to save that which was lost.
When Adam sinned in the Garden, the sin nature and the curse of sin fell upon all men. The Law wasn’t given to Moses for another 2500 years, but death still claimed the life of every person who lived between the time of Adam and the time of Moses.
You see, when Adam sinned, all men sinned because we were actually there, in Adam, at the time Adam sinned. Do you remember how the writer of Hebrews said that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek? He said that Levi paid that tithe because he was in the loins of Abraham when Abraham paid his tithe to Melchizedek.
Well, in that same way, all of humanity from the beginning to the end was there in Adam when Adam sinned against God. And yes, that included Eve too because Eve had been created from Adam’s flesh and bone. God sees everything that proceeds from Adam as being in Adam. Therefore, when Adam fell, the whole human race fell.
One of the ways that angels stand in contrast to humans is that angels were each individually created. They stand before God as individuals, while humans stand before God in Adam.
Now, as we know, when Adam sinned, he was denied access to the tree of life. He and Eve were locked out of the Garden so that they could not eat of the tree of life. But when the Lord Jesus came into the world, He said:
John 10:10 (NKJ)
10 . . . I have come that (the sheep) may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
And then He said:
John 10:11 (NKJ)
11 "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He did so in order to bring abundant life to all who believe. He died so that we might have access to the tree of life.
All those who are in Adam will have no access to the tree of life for all of eternity, but those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are taken out of Adam and are given a position in Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 15 says:
1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (NKJ)
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
Those who remain in Adam face eternal death, but those who are in Christ are given eternal life.
So even before the Law was given, death reigned over mankind, but when God gave the Law, the Law revealed the righteousness of God and sin became exceedingly sinful. In other words, there was a greater level of accountability on man’s part after the Law was given. This is one of those principles that we see throughout the scriptures, with greater knowledge comes greater responsibility.
But as we move into the scriptures of the New Testament, the Law of Moses becomes the center of debate. Jesus made it perfectly clear that he had not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. However, He was often questioned by the religious leaders because He did not abide by all of their traditions. They asked Jesus why He and His disciples didn’t wash their hands according to the Jewish traditions. They asked Him why He and His disciples didn’t fast or pay the temple tax as the traditions required.
After the cross the twelve Apostles went to the nation of Israel, spreading the gospel that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead by the power of God and had been taken up into heaven. However, they were careful to live by the Jewish traditions. As a result, the issue of the Law kind of died down for a while.
After about 12 years, however, the Lord called the Apostle Paul to start his ministry among the Gentiles, and in his teachings he revealed the fact that Jesus’ death on the cross had actually ushered in the New Covenant. In all of his early writings, he dedicated a great deal of time and energy comparing the glory of the New Covenant to the fading glory of the Law. In II Corinthians 3, Paul said:
2 Corinthians 3:4-8 (NKJ)
4 And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
Here, Paul says that the power of the New Covenant is found in the Holy Spirit while the Law has no spiritual power. He says:
2 Corinthians 3:3 (NKJ)
3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
The word of God doesn’t do anybody any good while it’s on tables of stone. Its power is revealed when the Holy Spirit applies it to our hearts.
Now these tables of stone are, of course, the tables of stone upon which God wrote the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. God gave these stone tablets to Moses and told him to put them in the, what? The Arch of the Covenant. So the Law of Moses was a covenant of God.
We know that there were covenants made before the Law was given, but we call the Law of Moses the Old Covenant because it is the covenant which stands in contrast to the New Covenant. Paul never called the Law the Old Covenant per se, but it’s obvious that the covenant which stands in contrast to the New Covenant is the Law of Moses.
In II Corinthians 3, Paul goes on to say that:
2 Corinthians 3:7,8,11 (NKJ)
7 . . . if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
Now, what is it that’s passing away in this passage? It’s the covenant of death that was written on tablets of stone. Paul said that the Law was passing away, but he never said that the covenants of God which were made previous to the Law were passing away, not at all.
At the time of Adam’s sin, God promised to destroy the serpent with a mortal wound to the head, and that He was going to do so through the Seed of the woman. That promise is God’s Covenant of Redemption. Later, God made a covenant with Noah and promised that the earth would never again be destroyed by water. Then after that, God promised Abraham that Abraham would be given the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession, and that one of Abraham’s descendants would bring blessing to every nation on the earth.
So we see several covenants of the Lord which were made before the Law was given, but none of those covenants was affected by the passing away of the Old Covenant Law. In fact, because the New Covenant has to do with the redemption of the earth as well as the redemption of man, these previous covenants are all very much associated with the New Covenant.
The full redemption of the earth will be accomplished after the earth is destroyed by fire, not by water. The full redemption of the earth will be accomplished only after the destruction of the devil, and the full redemption of the earth will not take place until after the land of Canaan is given to Israel and the New Jerusalem is established.
In Paul’s early epistles, he spoke often of this contrast between the Law and the New Covenant. However, as we read Paul’s later epistles which were written from a Roman prison, we see no mention of New Covenant, or of Abraham, or of the restoration of the earth.
At the same time, it is in these prison epistles that Paul reveals the details of the Church which is the Body of Christ. The calling of the Church stands in contrast to the calling of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The Old and New Covenants both anticipated a restored earth. On the other hand, as members of the Church, we today are citizens of heaven where we are seated with Christ and blessed with every spiritual blessing.
We are not bound by the physical elements of this earth, but rather we are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands. Furthermore, through faith in the working of God, we are baptized into the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ. As heavenly citizens, we have been promised that in the ages to come, God plans to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Because we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we can rest assured that we are partakers in every spiritual blessing of the Old Covenant and in every spiritual blessing of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was permanently set aside at the cross, but its spiritual blessings were brought to life through the power of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant. The New Covenant was temporarily set aside when Israel rejected Christ during the Acts period, but all of it’s glorious spiritual blessings have been passed on to us as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ.
As we read the Old Testament scriptures, we learn of God’s faithfulness. We learn of His miraculous power. We learn of His justice as well as His mercy and His grace. We learn about so many things that we can apply directly to our own circumstances in life. However, we must keep in mind that God has not promised us the land of Palestine, and we must keep in mind that the rituals that were required back then are no longer required today.
As we read the gospels, we see the miraculous power of God as it is seen in the birth and life of Jesus Christ. Everywhere He went, He did miracles, wonders and signs to prove that He really was the Son of God who came down from heaven. At the same time, we must realize that Christ is now in heaven and that anyone who claims to be the Christ is a liar and is of the devil.
We rejoice to see the miracles, wonders and signs which were done by the Apostles during the Acts period, but we are saddened to see the hardness of the hearts of the men of Israel. The miraculous works of Jesus and those of the Apostles were not enough to convince them that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Here too we must realize that the spiritual gifts of the Apostles are no longer being given to the saints. When someone says that they have the gift to heal others or the gift of prophesy, we know that they’re not telling the truth.
But then, when we come to the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ, we can not help but be humbled to think that God would love us enough to call us as members of the Church which is the Body of Christ. We were called before the foundation of the world, and by the grace of God, we have been accepted in Jesus Christ.
God no longer dispenses the miraculous sign gifts, but praise the Lord, He still does miracles in each of our lives. When we witness His power in our lives, we know that God is able and God is willing to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Church links:
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