YOU HAVE A LIFE THAT IS YOURS THAT IS NOT YOUR OWN
22/01/21 15:54
Many Christians do not know about the covenants and some have made a ‘gospel’ out of the covenant God has left behind. In order for us to understand what Jesus achieved for us by being our Messiah, we need to see that there are two covenants and that the old covenant is no longer relevant. The law as a school master has been done away with so that Christ our life can be our life. We are talking life in the Spirit. Michael Kapler writes,
“There would’ve been no need for a different covenant if the first one had been successful. However, the covenant wasn’t the problem; it was with the people where fault was found. Observe carefully when God said this new covenant would not be anything like the first one, so we know that something different is being brought into play. I repeat, it would not be like the first covenant. The passage continues:
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbour and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
“In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:10-13).
THE LAW LENS
“For those who believe certain elements of the Mosaic law are still meant for us today, they like to point out from the above passage that God would write his laws on their hearts. The writer of Hebrews tweaked Jeremiah’s quote just the least little bit by using the phrase “my laws” and not my law. This is crucial to understand because the previous covenant had a package known as the Law.
NOT ABOUT ‘THE LAW’
“Realizing the second covenant would not be like the first, we can conclude this is not speaking about the law of Moses on our hearts, but something different. There are hundreds of references which reflect back on “the law” in the New Testament, but only twice do we find mention of God’s laws (plural). These are found in the passage above, and it is repeated in the tenth chapter of Hebrews, revealing the new covenant of Christ. So, if it’s not the old law of Moses written on our hearts, what is the writer talking about in relation to the New Covenant? In the book of Romans, Paul referred to the law of the Spirit of life and the law of faith.”
God puts Himself in us in Jesus Christ.
The law of the spirit of life is the conformity to God’s will that is ours in oneness with the trinity. In Jesus we are enfolded in the being of God so that Christ really is our life as Paul asserts. The kind of righteousness flagged by the writer of Hebrews called ‘laws on the heart’ is not Moses’ laws, neither is it the stipulations of any form of the knowledge of good and evil. This kind of law is Christ as you. When John urges that the difference between demonic teaching and correct Kingdom teaching is Christ come in our flesh, he is talking incarnation. The law of faith means that the person of Jesus manifests by the Spirit as Bill, Jack, Mabel and Gertrude. You become something that is holistic – the only real whole person approach which is Christ our life.