INTRODUCTION

BETTER COVENANT, BETTER PROMISES

HEBREWS CHAPTER 8

 6  “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 

 7  For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

 8  For he finds fault with them when he says:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

 9  not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

10  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.

11  And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

12  For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

WHAT ARE COVENANTS AND WHY DO THEY MATTER?

Houston, we have a problem—a big one. The Body of Christ has theoretically set its hope upon a salvation far greater than we truly understand, live for, or practically believe in. We have a gospel of salvation, a gospel of justice, even a gospel of Churchianity, but the ancient, apostolic gospel — “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) — has become quite muddled, mixed, and diluted over centuries of religious thought. 

Scholar Robert Mounce says, “The NT speaks of the gospel in a way that describes its benefits: it is ‘the gospel of God’s grace’ (Acts 20:24), ‘the gospel of salvation’ (Eph. 1:13), ‘the gospel of peace’ 6:19), and the gospel that holds out hope (Col. 1:23). The gospel is worth dying for (Mark. 8:35; 10:29; Acts 20:24-25).”

Obviously, the gospel holds great and diverse riches, but do you know them beyond the promise of escape from hell and entrance into heaven? Do you know them beyond “spiritual gifts?” Do you know them beyond transforming the Seven Mountains? When angels first announced the arrival of the Messiah, they said His coming would bring great joy to the human soul. Why?

“Good news of great joy!” the heavenly choir sang in the cold, starlit night above the hills of Bethlehem. “Peace on earth, goodwill (favor) toward men.”

That word in Greek, evangelion (“good news!” from which we derive our English word, ‘gospel’) was not invented by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. It actually enjoyed wide usage in the ancient Roman world and referred to the announcement of “glad tidings” regarding an emperor’s birthday, rise to power, or decree that heralded the fulfillment of hopes for peace and well-being across the world. Mark redefines this concept of “glad tidings” by introducing his gospel with the phrase, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,” (Mark 1:3) implying that it is really the birth and subsequent actions of Jesus that will change the face of the world in a cosmic way that no earthly king could ever do.

But proper perception and reception of the gospel of truth requires proper definition. This is what it means to evangelize: not simply to boldly “witness” to others or “share Jesus” so people can get forgiven or “saved.” A huge altar call may represent genuine salvation but very little evangelism if it lacks faith to see Jesus and His mission more clearly and thereby produce mature disciples.

I’m talking about the “depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom. 11:33) that goes far beyond our initial experience of salvation. If they contemplate such things at all, most “believers” feel only a vague, fuzzy sense of longing for such things. They wonder if, in fact, there is more to their walk with God than merely the grunt work of life. Apostolic preaching is dedicated to bringing clarity and revelation to the Body of Christ so that we can fully believe all that we are intended to perceive and therefore receive. In fact, Paul described his job in 2 Corinthians 4:1 as a “steward of the mysteries of Christ” and to “preach the unsearchable mysteries of His grace” (Eph. 3:8). 

The measure by which you should judge the teachings covered in both this introductory booklet and the full course include: 1) Are they biblical? 2) Does the Spirit bear witness? 3) Do they glorify Christ and increase your desire to know Him?

To understand the fullness of God’s plan means we must cover a scope of redemption far greater than John 3:16. We need to start at the beginning and get a clear grasp of who God is, how He thinks and operates, how He has intervened in history, and how He designed man to function and relate to Him in the world. To do this properly, we need a clear understanding of God’s covenantal nature. How does God relate to man? Since creation itself, God’s manner of interaction with humanity — the principles that govern these interactions — have been defined by a series of covenants. In general terms, a covenant is like a compact or contract, though far more serious, containing a specific series of requirements and pledges where God informs people about how He wants them to behave but also makes certain promises that will be enacted in various circumstances. Thus, a reasonable working definition of covenant is: an unchangeable, divinely imposed, legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship.

In other words, covenant helps us make sense of what we read in Scripture. Certain things happen for a reason! In modern times, we might read headlines of major events in the world, perhaps rumors of a war or one business suing another. These events might seem surprising, random or arbitrary, yet behind the scenes, lawyers, politicians, diplomats and generals are likely discussing various historic treaties and agreements previously enacted containing specific terms that are now being violated in some fashion. In other words, there is a story behind the story, but you can’t actually make sense of the headlines unless you know about those agreements. The covenants of Scripture are similar. They are an invisible, driving force behind biblical narratives spanning thousands of years. Much of the logic and rationale of divine behavior is explained by covenant because God generally intervenes in history in a manner that is inaugurated and/or sustained by defined terms contained in covenantal language.

Biblically, covenants fall into two categories: covenants of performance or covenants grace. Similarly, our responsibility to these two types of covenants is either to obey the code, law, or terms of the Covenants of Performance, where Covenants of Grace are received by faith. The coming of Jesus and His finished work on the Cross contains, brings to maturity, and fully encompasses every other covenant. He is the final word, the final message, the final covenant by which all other lesser expressions must be understood.  

Unfortunately, the word “covenant” has been used so frequently and with such elementary understanding that we end up smearing these words together in our minds as if all covenants are the same. Our Bibles are divided into the old covenant (Old Testament) and new covenant (New Testament), so it’s all the same, right? Right? Actually, depending on how you count them, Scripture records seven covenants (though some only count five):

1. Creation (by inference and language)
2. Adamic
3. Noahic
4. Abrahamic
5. Mosaic (Old)
6. Davidic
7. Christ (New)

Do all seven essentially serve the same purpose? Do they have the same value and require the same allegiance? Do they cover the same span of time? For that matter, what is a covenant even for? Does it have any bearing on our life now?

The answers to these questions matter far more than you might realize. Chances are, the way you think (or don’t think) about these crucial, foundational, spiritual dynamics dramatically affects your walk with God. Before we wade too much further into deeper waters, let’s get our vocabulary straight. I’ll tease out some differences, but in general, for the purpose of this course and booklet, the two major covenants are called Old and New, and are generally understood as the Covenant of Law given to Moses at Mount Sinai, followed by the Covenant of Grace enacted by Jesus in His death and resurrection.

The premise of The Total Superiority of the New Covenant is simple: The New Covenant is dramatically and intentionally superior to the Old in every way. It is fundamental to God’s eternal plan, revealed in Christ, but woefully underdeveloped in modern discipleship. However, we cannot get where we need to go unless we reclaim the full power of the New Covenant to bring about the fullness of New Creation life.

WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT THE GOOD NEWS?

Remember, gospel simply means “good news”…so what’s so good about it? Did Jesus come to create a “world religion” or simply make people behave better? Is the gospel a system of moralism?

Getting people saved and delivered from hell is good, but is that the good news? Attempting to eradicate abortion, sex trafficking, and poverty are all good things but are they the gospel? Discipling and equipping people to walk in their calling is awesome. Is that the good news?

Acceptance of different gospels has led to at least a fivefold crisis in the Church.

1. Where we should have clarity of the story, we have confusion.
2. Where we should have bold proclamation, we lack confidence.
3. Where we should be a leavening influence, we retreat from society or become/mirror it. 
4. Where we should demonstrate love, we judge and condemn ourselves & others.
5. Where we should experience personal transformation, liberation, and power, we remain in bondage, guilt, and weakness. 

Imagine going bowling with some friends. When you get there, they immediately raise the kiddie lane bumpers. Do you protest? If so, why? Is the point to learn to bowl and get a strike, or is the point to avoid the gutters? If you bowl a perfect 300 using the kiddie bumpers, does that mean you are a great bowler?

Clearly, no. There are lesser goals and there are ultimate goals. The gospel has an ultimate goal, but we have increasingly defined it by a series of lesser goals. The transforming, liberating mystery of the gospel is far more than behavior conformity or even your eternal residence.

To demonstrate this, let me give you a great sounding theological statement: “The gospel is the news that “Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy. That’s the gospel.”  

I like it! It’s beautiful and glorious…but faulty, since the gospel is not a system describing how people get saved. Here’s a better one: “The gospel is the proclamation of a perfect King and His perfect kingdom invading our broken world to redeem and restore humanity and elevate us to fellowship with Him forever.”

That’s also good, but as a matter of degrees, we’re still off course. The trouble lies in this: as a matter of time and distance, veering even a little bit off course leads to a lot off course. Let me give you an example: You take off in an airplane intending to circumnavigate the globe only once. Departing from the equator, you are one degree off a true, flat, east-west latitude. But hey, it’s only one degree! Oops. By the time you return to your original longitude, you will be 400 miles off course. 

Degrees matter.

Now imagine if we rank degrees by centuries and millennia. How much of the apostolic gospel has been lost? Since the time of Martin Luther in the 1500s, we have been in a Reformation cycle, which is essentially a series of corrective measures for the sake of restoring what had previously been lost or neglected, but Peter, in the Book of Acts, said that Jesus would remain in heaven “until the restoration of all the things” (Acts 3:21 NKJV).

Not only is the gospel being restored, but the gospel itself is a restoration story. Redemptive history is a play in three acts.  

• ACT 1: “The Collapse” — The curtain barely rises before Original Sin (unbelief, leading to rebellion) has spoiled the glorious Original Design of God, leaving humanity bereft of their full stature and status as the image of God. God’s “Dominion Mandate” to humanity was forfeited for a poisonous bite of fruit. Ruler became slave, son became orphan, a blessed creation became cursed, and death now reigns. In the midst of an ancient cosmic war that predates human history, creation itself collapses. Everything collapses.

• ACT 2: “The Rescue” — Yet as powerful as Original Sin seemed in its potency to ruin the glorious purpose of God, it is about to be matched and totally overwhelmed by Original Love. God is faithful and unchanging. He is with us, for us, and therefore became as us, so that He could dwell in us. This story will unfold for countless centuries but will not fully manifest until Christ is revealed and announces the inauguration of His kingdom on earth. This kingdom turns weakness into power, power into weakness, and challenges the kingdom of darkness in every way, every place, in every person.

• ACT 3: “The Restoration” — The Original Plan was always about restoration, about elevating a fallen thing to an even more noble stature than it formerly enjoyed. It is in this sense that “creation was subjected to futility” (Rom. 8:20). At a level of mystery beyond human fathoming, veering off course was part of the sovereign design. Why? So that for eternity we would be guarded by humility upon our full restoration to Original Design. Thus, there is plus at the end. It is the Original Plan+. This is because, biblically, to restore something is to bring it to a stature better than its original state. We are heading to a future that is better than Eden, and we are meant to live the great abundance of that promise…now.

Since the New Covenant is dramatically and unequivocally better than the Old Covenant, it follows that the New Creation is dramatically and unequivocally better than the Old Creation. We are meant to live a totally new kind of life, but unless we understand the terms and dynamics by which the New Covenant produces New Creation Life, we can technically be recipients of grace, truly saved and born again, but living under the inferior dictates of an old system that God Himself intended to relegate to obsolescence.

Let me say it more succinctly: You can be a New Covenant believer but still live under slavery as an Old Covenant Christian. Sadly, hundreds of millions of Christians do this every day and have lived this way for generations. How can you know if you are one of them? There are tell-tale signs. Are you…

• Spiritually and emotionally worn out?
• Exhausted with striving?
• Constantly aware of your sin?
• Unable to overcome habitual sin?
• Constantly measuring your failures and judging yourself?
• Morally succeeding in a manner that only makes you proud and judgmental of others?
• Lacking vitality, brightness and a sense of real connection to God?
• Generally detached from the experience of the abundant life Jesus described and embodied?
• Trapped in almost schizophrenic swings between highs and lows of faith and doubt?
• Constantly doubtful of the fundamental goodness of God’s nature and intentions?

I could go on and on, but you get the point. If this list describes you, chances are you unknowingly related to God from an Old Covenant heart. This booklet and, more completely, the full 58-session course (7-15 min each) have been specifically designed to help 1) reorient your focus, 2) repair faulty foundations in your core belief system, 3) realign your central paradigm, and 4) liberate and inspire faith by the power of anointed revelation, thereby, 5) setting you on a path to life as God designed, filled with mystery, beauty, connection, communion, grace, faith, blessings, and miracles.

The late Chinese writer and teacher, Watchman Nee, called this “The Normal Christian Life.”

Thus, Course One cannot begin arbitrarily here or there. It must begin with covenantal realities, for the covenantal language of scripture forms the substructures of faith. Certainly, an entire series could be devoted to the nature of God, which is the most eternal foundation of all, but insofar as human interaction with God is concerned, covenant is and must be the beginning of the apostolic gospel. Covenant is the foundation everything else must be built upon. By beginning here, and exploring this pivotal aspect of our relationship to God, the happy by-product is that we can and will come to understand His eternal nature, also.

THE HEART OF  OUR HEART PROBLEM

“Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness” (Jer. 3:22a).

Question: How do you heal faithlessness? How do you objectively reverse or transform a fundamentally emotional/spiritual construct? Since a leopard cannot change its spots (Jer. 13:23), this is the great dilemma of a God committed to restoring His fallen creation while not yielding central values such as freewill and voluntary love. Since God is fundamentally good, He longs to bless and provide for us as sons — “How I would set you among my sons…and I thought you would call me, My Father” (Jer. 3:19) — so in our wayward, broken exile, He committed Himself to restoring nothing less than full relationship to Himself as our Father. This is a promise of the new and better covenant to come, because it was precisely Israel’s disobedience (read: their unfaithfulness) to the terms of the old covenant that predicated their orphaned condition. But wait, the old covenant had so much awe and wonder! The radiant ark of the covenant, overshadowed by cherubim; the shekinah glory; the thundering mountain of God; the pillar of fire. But Jeremiah shocks us. In our full adoption as sons, God is going to do something surprising.

“In those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again” (vs. 16).

The New Covenant promises that there would no longer be an external ark of the covenant, not a golden box but a converted soul and an awakened spirit. So much of our discipleship wastes time trying to manipulate people into faithfulness with wrong motivations of dutiful compliance, sentimental loyalty, moral coercion, and guilt. Basically, try harder to prove your love! This is inherently contradictory, even futile, when the disease is faithlessness.

External pressure and conformity to a code of behavior will never heal the profoundly internal problem of a faithless heart. Thus, in the brilliant plan of God, He is going to relocate the ark of His Presence. But remember, the ark was called the “Ark of the Covenant.” Covenant moves inside. The Old Covenant — external, written on stone — enlarges through Christ until all things become new. In this scenario, the burden of faithfulness becomes His, not ours. The task of obedient sonship becomes His, not ours. The problem of guilt becomes His, not ours. And in response, the privilege and blessings of Christ become ours, because of Him! You don’t prove faithful to God with more effort, you simply fall into the mercy and grace of His perfect devotion and are thereby vindicated, made righteous, and filled with His faithful, devoted, Holy Spirit. The ark is no longer without, but within, because Christ is within. And this is our (only) hope: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

Listen, God doesn’t heal faithlessness, in the sense of propping up and repairing a broken thing. No, actually, He judges it. He crucified our faithlessness in the body of His faithful Son, who then rose and ascended, and now takes residence within by the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit, purging our orphan status and invites us to think and act like royal heirs. The New Covenant takes that stony, selfish, wounded, fearful heart of unbelief and rebellion and makes it a living heart of flesh.

CONDEMNATION  AND SURPASSING GLORY

“For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it” (2 Cor. 3:9-10).

In this verse, the Apostle Paul establishes many points of contrast between Law and Grace. I encourage you to study all of chapter 3 for yourself. It’s so rich and represents one of Paul’s clearest, most direct contrasts between the works of Moses and Christ. The ministry of condemnation clearly points to the law of Moses and the covenant God made at Sinai, while the ministry of righteousness is the work of the Spirit through the new and better Covenant of Grace.

Here’s how it shakes down. In the chart below, left to right represents the progression (literally, progress! — not just chronology of time) of Old Covenant to New Covenant.

In dealing with our faithless hearts, the people of God have to finally settle and submit to what God has known all along: Law will only prove your unfaithfulness. That’s the point of it! Law does not create unfaithfulness, it demonstrates it. You are unfaithful. You were born that way, and the Law brings you to full recognition of your guilt. The Law of Moses was meant to restrain our innate inclination toward sin, yet in the act of doing so, it further provokes it and, thereby, proves its stubborn, unyielding strength. This is the story of Romans 7. You were born that way because you were born into Adam. If you want to be born again, you must be born into Christ. Once you are in Christ, there is no reason to go back to the a temporary restraint system that is inferior to the interior work of Christ. The Law itself recognized and prophesied this reality when it proclaimed the need for a deep, inner work that fundamentally surpassed the external nature of the code in stone.

“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deut. 30:6).

Do you see? The first explicit whisper of the New Covenant extends all the way back to the booming oaths of the ministry of condemnation. Clearly, God was saying, “This shall not stand forever.”

So when Paul says we are now “partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:6), we must ask: which promise? Galatians 3:29 makes clear that the promise is the one made to Abraham, not Moses, otherwise it would not be a promise, but a command. This is a covenant of grace, not law. (By the way, such language could not have been more shocking to the sensibilities of both Jew and Gentile. Specifically, Paul is saying that outcast Gentiles are now “heirs together with Israel” . . . as if they had always been Abraham’s blood kin. 

The dramatic, almost incomprehensible fact is that salvation is not nearly so small as a Sinner’s Prayer accompanied by spiritual regeneration. Rather, it is literally God extending to you the full covenant He made with Abraham, yet enlarging it even more so that your inheritance is actually everything Christ is, was, offers, and possesses. Salvation is not merely a decision or a prayer; it is cutting covenant with God. Far more importantly: He cuts covenant with you! 

What does “cutting” covenant mean? The ancient practice of “cutting covenant” was a sober process intended to join two parties together in a binding life-agreement. Typically, one of greater strength (a king or chieftain) would cut covenant with one of lesser strength. The greater would provided certain benefits to the weaker party, while the weaker of the two would pledge their loyalty and services to the greater. To ratify the agreement, the two parties would conduct a ritual with sacrificial animals, typically in the presence of other witnesses, wherein the animals would literally be cut in half. The two halves would then be spread apart, forming a trough of freshly spilled blood in the middle. The two parties would then recite the terms of their agreement and walk together through the bloody middle, staining the hems of their long robes. They were basically saying to each other, “Let the same sort of judgement and terror fall upon me as befell these animals, even at the risk of my own life, if I do not keep my word and pledge to you.” Thus, to “cut covenant” goes far beyond our modern notions of treaties and contracts.

Now let me say it again. In the New Covenant, on the cross, God cut covenant with you.

So when Ephesians 3:6 says that we are “partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” the full benefit comes from truly knowing which promise you gain. The quality of your spiritual life depends on the identity you adopt relative to the promise you are given, the adoption you walk in, the faith you possess, and the rest you enjoy. 

You have been bought with a great price (1 Cor. 6:19-20). You are no longer your own. The most violent, powerful force for love in the universe has personally committed Himself to your absolute well-being! You said yes to Him, good! Far more sobering, liberating, captivating and anchoring is the unshakeable fact that He said yes to you. He has taken you at your word, and now taken over. This is the secret to the perseverance of the saints, that God Himself is faithful to His covenant to cause those that are HIs to persevere to the end, faithful and true (Jude 1:24, John 17:12,17). We must think like sons of the (New) Covenant or we will never be more than Heaven-bound orphans.

READY TO VANISH AWAY

“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” (Heb. 8:10).

At the start of this booklet I included a lengthy quotation from Hebrews chapter 8. It would benefit you to pause, go back, and ponder again why the ministry of Christ contains “better promises” than the Law of Moses — oh, how much better! — concluding, in fact, with a promise that was actually impossible under the Law: that God will be merciful not to our righteousness, but our unrighteousness. By contrast, the Law required dreadful curses be laid upon the unrighteous. Since all men were constantly unrighteous and frequently rebellious, the history of Israel is rife with curses being frequently enacted upon individuals, as well as the entire nation. Such sins were only temporarily atoned for by the sacrificial system, also provided for by the Law.

We readily receive our “better promise” at salvation as the work of God in “forgiving our wickedness” (NLT) — past tense — yet promptly forget those promises over the course of our sanctification process whenever we fail God or yield to sin, especially habitual sin. Yet the promise has not changed, only our confidence in it. Why does that happen? Why are we shaken? In Christ, the promise is actually perpetual — this is part of the “better” feature list. It requires no further action but faith on our part. (James makes clear that works will follow faith, but that is a different conversation). By contrast, the Law required constant maintenance and additional sacrifice, and still never really fulfilled the purpose of producing righteous inner conformity — heart level affection, submission, and trust — toward the Lord. This is why the Law was:

• only for a time (Gal. 3:17-25, Heb. 8:7, 9:10)
• of strict and limited purpose (1 Tim. 1:9, Rom. 7:5, 7) 
• entirely unsuccessful in transforming man (Heb. 7:19, 9:9, Rom. 8:3)
• equally unsuccessful in truly uniting man to God (Heb. 7:18-19, 8:13)

If we do not understand the present, perpetual grace of the New Covenant, we may not understand grace at all because it is only by understanding the covenantal mind of God that we can understand the radical, endless grace Christ offers. Only here, in the full force of the unmixed New Covenant, will the Accuser truly be silenced in our lives. 

I have a number of study bibles. The Orthodox Study Bible has a great summary of the central contrast between old and new: 

“Christ’s covenant solves the problems that Moses’ could not. Both covenants come from God’s grace and require man’s willed response. However, Moses’ covenant (1) is external to man and cannot solve the root of man’s problem, sin and death; (2) cannot reunite and reintegrate man’s soul; (3) is learned by teaching; (4) is heeded with fearful compliance; and (5) gives imperfect forgiveness. Christ’s covenant (1) is internal—it heals our nature; (2) unifies the inner man—heart and mind are joined in union with God; (3) is therefore grasped intuitively; (4) is heeded with willing cooperation (synergy); and (5) gives perfect forgiveness, even of those sins the old covenant was powerless to deal with.”

While this provides a useful summary, it does not address the central problem of sin, nor the hope of righteousness. Righteousness can be a fuzzy concept. We get it in a moment of revelation and grace, but then it slips away as law-thinking creeps back in. In this, Abraham shines as the premiere example of the type of righteousness God seeks, and it is for this reason that Abraham is called, “The Father of our Faith”.

“For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3-5).

The reason righteousness can feel so fuzzy and hard to grasp, so elusive that it slips away in moments of weakness, sin, and failure leaving us guilt-ridden and striving in the flesh, is because we aren’t exactly sure what defines righteousness to begin with! It is actually quite simple, as this legal, relational framework will demonstrate: The core theological concept behind righteousness is that a person is either in “right standing” with God, or they are not. Easy, right? Now let’s add a couple of definitions to remove ambiguity. We want righteousness and that means right standing. But what determines right standing?

• Righteousness = “Right Standing” = “The qualitative and relational status determined by fidelity to the terms of God’s covenant.”
• Simplified: “Righteousness is obedience to the terms of the covenant.”

In short, perhaps you now realize why it is critical to know which covenant you are under! Furthermore, you get to choose, i.e. the manner in which you “achieve” righteousness is the ultimate act of your own free will. You can produce righteousness with disciplined, perfectly consistent choices and actions of supreme moral virtue in full compliance with the Law of Moses, or by faith, you can allow God to impart His righteousness to you, totally unearned and undeserved. Like Abraham, you believe God, and it gets counted to you as righteousness.

Both are ways of relating to God. You can relate under the terms of an Old Covenant or a New Covenant. Either way, you choose! As a Christian, day by day, you still must choose. This is why Paul reminded the Colossians, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith” (Col. 2:6-7). In other words, how did you enter relationship with Christ? By grace, through faith.

 There is no other way. That’s the deal. That’s the terms of the New Covenant. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:8-9). 

You can’t add to it, He did it all. You don’t supply any righteousness, you draw on His. You don’t add any virtue or goodness. Quite the opposite, you bring your failures, shame and sin! He adds His virtue and goodness. He alone is the spotless lamb.

How did you receive Him? Did you find Him, or did He find you? Did you do well, or did He lavish mercy? We begin by grace through faith, we continue by grace through faith. Any subtle shift toward works or self-dependence is drifting from the Lord.

As you once received, keep receiving…so walk.

• Rooted in love (Eph. 3:17-19)
• Built up with gifts (1 Cor. 14:3, 26)
• Established in faith (Col. 2:7)
• Abounding in thanksgiving (Col. 2:7)

We are rooted and built up in Him, not by works, effort, or performance. This is how we walk. Or is it?

“Hey, how is your walk, brother?”

“Well, I haven’t fallen in three days. I’m reading my Bible, but I’m not praying like I should. I’m not thankful enough. I kicked my dog in anger, etc.”

No, no, no! That’s old thinking: old man, Old Covenant, old righteousness. The writer of Hebrews points to that and says it is obsolete, growing old, and ready to vanish away.

The new way, the new covenant, the better promise, is this:

You are “rooted and built up in Him.”

“So how is your walk, brother?”

“God is so faithful!” you reply. “I’ve stumbled, but He keeps talking to me and loving me. I can’t do anything that makes me righteous, but that was never the point. I can only grow in His righteousness. He is showing me that I can be His friend even in my weakness. One day at at time!”

Amen.

3 MAJOR COVENANTS: CONTRAST & OVERVIEW

Abraham enjoyed a Covenant of Grace received by faith. Interestingly, this covenant contained no curse for Abraham or his offspring…only blessings. Read that again. Curses were reserved by God for Abraham’s enemies.

Think of that — a pretty good deal for sure!

Unfortunately, centuries after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the fledgling slave nation of Israel failed the trial of faith in the wilderness. This wasn’t a single failure, but a sequence of failures at a heart level in their response to God. What do I mean? Read the progression from liberation through a series of events that finally culminated at Massah and Meribah (Exo. 17:1-7, Num. 20:13, Psa. 106:22-23, 95:7-8, Heb. 4:7) and you will see how they moved from immature complaining to deep-seated accusation against the fundamental goodness of the very same God who so dramatically and providentially rescued them in the first place. Israel abandoned the faith of their father Abraham, defined as a persistent expectation of goodness and promises fulfilled. Instead, they viewed God as a trickster, homicidal deity who actually intended to kill them, even though all He had done to that point was save, heal, provide, and deliver. As a result, at Sinai, they were offered a new deal, and they took it. They exchanged the extraordinary birthright of their Abrahamic blessing by agreeing to the terms of a replacement covenant proposed by God by which they would relate to God only based on the merit of their performance.

This is the absolutely worst trade-in-value, bad-lemon-car-deal of all time!

But they simply refused to believe. So God stipulated the terms of the new (at the time) covenant to Moses, which admittedly included massive Abrahamic-style benefits, but also, as a first for Abraham’s children, terrifying curses and negative consequences as a result of any moral failure or disobedience. If you read the terms of that covenant given in Leviticus 26:1-46 and Deuteronomy 28:1-30:20, you will see that the space given to delineating the curses is more than double the space given to the blessings! 

You have to understand something. God is not schizophrenic. He is not a different God here or there. He is the same God acting with total faithfulness to the terms of different covenants. Until Sinai, Abraham’s children were living under Abraham. After Sinai, they were living under Moses. Until Christ, we were all under Moses, which meant we were all condemned to death and spiritual separation from God. Now we are under Christ. 

Indeed, mercifully and thankfully, the rules have changed.

But here’s the deal: it doesn’t matter if don’t know it…and we don’t, or at least we all-too-easily lose it from one moment to the next. We have to know that Christ came to both restore and surpass the privileges of Abraham’s blessing to all who would likewise act in faith, both Jew and Gentile, while also bearing the full penalty of satisfying the curse which every generation, born and unborn, invoked by our collective failure to comply with the letter of the Law received at Sinai.

Many don’t know. Most don’t know. In fact, these are very likely such new concepts to so many, I think it would be advisable for me to pause here and insert an overview of the contrasting components of each of the three major covenants for further study. I’ve supplied a few Scriptures with each, though many more could be given. These truths are expounded upon in much greater detail in Course One, but if you aren’t ready to take the full course, I want to give you plenty to chew on. To that end, I hope you find this framework useful.

Do not miss this critical point. By faith, we are not under Moses any longer, but we can still live like we are. Our daily mindset can still be submitted in fear to Moses. If so, we are living a beggar’s life in great neglect of the costly sacrifice of Jesus.

Mind you, Christ does not replace, discount, ignore, or cheat the Law. No, no…He completely encompasses it. It is only by fulfilling it for us that He can legally make it obsolete to us with all its demands, penalties and requirements. Therefore, righteousness (and with it, a clean conscience and unending favor), are not produced by good works or—listen carefully!—even obedience, but faith. Only faith (Gal. 4:13-16). We can have this confidence because those are the terms of the New Covenant clearly spelled out in Scripture. You can live under the terms of the old if you choose, but why would you when the new is totally superior?

“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4).

The Law has not ended, but it no longer has any bearing on how the Father relates to humans in the measurement or determination of personal righteousness. 

CONFIDENT LIFE, NO MORE CURSE

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 

“Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, 

and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for 

“The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather 

“The one who does them shall live by them” (Gal. 3:10-12).

I don’t want to live under a curse, do you? Law, by definition, is about what I do, not what I believe. But that leads to a curse, because I inevitably do it wrong. If history tells us anything, it tells us that people, cultures, and nations do it wrong. This is a universal truth. It is called the sin nature. If avoiding wrongdoing is my focus, now I am focused on sin itself, not God. Do you see the irony? So if I come to God by grace for the sake of salvation, then proceed to live the outworking of my sanctification in dependence on the Law to justify myself, I expose myself, in practical terms, to the consequences of a different covenant. I can be a New Covenant believer living as an Old Covenant Christian.

When the Galatians started doing this, Paul was angry and perplexed. He asked a series of probing questions.

“Who has bewitched you?…Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal. 3:1-3).

You can’t come to Christ and then fall back to Law, yet in the mix of life’s complexities, pressures, circumstances, doubts, bad (but sincere) discipleship training, and faulty foundations, we do it all the time. Our paradigm slips, and our faith slips with it. Staying in the peace and grace of the New Covenant takes practice, renewal, confession, and much, much washing with the water of the Word. 

Remember, Law is conditional. Do this and God will be with you. Fail and you are cursed (Dan. 9:11). Your failure could be so great that His presence might even depart. This is the nature of the Law. It’s what Israel agreed to. By contrast, the covenant with Abraham was unconditional. God’s oath to the patriarchs was to give them countless descendants and eternal possession of the promised land (Gen. 12:7; 13:15-16; 15:5; 17:7-8). It was unilateral, unconditional, and irrevocable (Gen. 17:7; Deut. 4:31).

No wonder that when push came to shove, Moses did not try to convince God that Israel could improve or reform. Instead, he reminded God of the “merit of the ancestors” (“zekhut’ avot”) in Exo. 32-33 (see Deut 7:12, Deut. 7:12 for single verse summary). The superior promise of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob became the basis by which Moses (representing Law itself!) could appeal to God’s unfailing mercy and steadfast love, even when the newly ratified, conditional covenant terms ratified at Sinai (Exo.19. 5-6) would justify Him in destroying Israel. He said He would do, but because Moses appealed to Abraham’s standing before God, God relented. 

That faith is and always has been the basis of true righteousness. It is why we are meant to abide in Christ with total peace, confidence, and hope—because the conditions and the curse of the Law are nullified so that we now abide in the unconditional love of Christ who “will never leave us or forsake us.” The work of Christ is so vast, so complete, the half has not been told. It stretches in every direction, targeting every curse. Every Christmas we sing a famous line from Isaac Watts’ famous hymn, Joy to the World: “He (Jesus) comes to make His blessings flow, far as the curse is found”

Thus, as we draw this booklet to a close, I urge you to let the totality of the cross become re-plumbed in your soul and spirit with fresh revelation. That’s the point of this book, and this course. We must not grow dull to the singular terror, wretchedness, and majesty of this lonely, bloody day, by which all history and eternity are marked. Jesus said, “It is finished!” and He meant it. The cross is the devastating beachhead of redemption by which the Lord of Lords invades history to take back for us the ground which Adam forfeited. We do not yet live in the totality of it, for there must also be a process of renewal and appropriation, an overcoming tenacity, a progressive faith, filling of the Spirit, and glorification to come. But the cross stands forever as the anchor point upon which all of the enemy’s rage, power, and wisdom were brought to ruin, and the weight and penalty of sin (guilt, emotional torment, mental confusion, physical infirmity, rebellion, pride, vice) were brought to their proper, shameful end in His body.

The cross is thus the fulcrum upon which all of history turns, and it is eternally complete. There is nothing to add to it because absolutely nothing can be added to it. Every vestige of the curse is addressed at Calvary; therefore, every blessing now can flow.

Understanding this means we must recognize: Jesus did not merely take the curse in a generalized (albeit total) sense. No, He became…your curse. At this level, redemption is not cosmic and abstract victory, it is profoundly practical and highly personal. 

How far, how wide, how deep does the curse bleed into my human experience, failures, choices, and fears? However and wherever I find its stain, there I find a bleeding man on a cross.  He hangs there for a reason. Would I cut short his favor, his gift, his pain, through unbelief? Salvation and heaven, fine. Yes, thanks. But “this and this and this!” we protest in unbelief, seeing our sin as larger than His love. Under the Old Covenant, you cannot help but think that way. Under the new deal, freely offered, freely received, life is, well…new. 

See it for what it is. It is part of the curse, not the Kingdom. Open your eyes!