O.K., wait a minute, just what is it Paul is saying? If all have become partakers of God’s chastening, then all have become sons. This is a remarkable thought but can we trust that the word, all, means what we think it does? For a long time now it has bothered me that Christians die in hospital rooms right next to people who have never accepted Jesus’ death on the cross for sin. The scriptures tell us Jesus took our sickness and disease on the cross. We are told His body was so disfigured, He was hardly recognizable, yet Christians go right on suffering with the same sickness and disease Jesus took for us.
It was not until just recently, when I had the courage to embrace the truth of God’s Word, that I realized God uses sickness and disease to discipline mankind’s flesh. And that Christians are repenting of sins having no bearing on their lives, yet are failing to repent of the ones that do. “It has not entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for His Children,” because God prepared a new covenant with new commandments and Christians have no idea. Christians put their faith in Ephesians 2:8 and ignore Hebrews 5:9.
If salvation is by grace through faith, what does obedience have to do with it? Evidently much, but it is not the Ten Commandments; we should repent for disobedience of. There is another set of commandments Christians are answerable for. The reason Christians die in hospital rooms right next to lost souls in spite of being redeemed from sin is because it has not entered into their hearts to repent of disobedience of the commandments the Lord issued right before His ascension.
In 1John 2:2, we learn Jesus is the propitiation of our sins. This word, propitiation, means a covering. Jesus covered over our sin with His righteousness, thereby appeasing the wrath of God against us because of our sin. What we are taught is the blood of Jesus washes away our sins, but the truth is; the old covenant definition of sin is not washed away; it is propitiated.
Look it is as simple as this: Jesus did not enter the old covenant tabernacle with His blood, therefore sins against old covenant law cannot be washed away. Hebrews 8:5 tells us the old covenant tabernacle was built after a pattern of a tabernacle God built in heaven. It is in this heavenly tabernacle, which pertains to the new covenant that Jesus entered with His blood. It is sins against the new covenant law that are washed away through repentance.
Christians have failed to recognize or appreciate this new covenant. The problem is, 1John 2:2 continues “and not for ours only, but for the sins of the entire world.” You see, Jesus’ death is not just applied to your life because you accept that He died on the cross in your place, taking your sins in His own body, Jesus’ death is applied to the whole human race. This makes all humanity sons of God.
It is as we are told in 2Peter 3:9, “God is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” The promise is everlasting life. It was promised to all who believe in Jesus in John 3, but the promise has been extended to the whole human race. God is not willing that any should perish. Therefore, His chastisement, His discipline, His scourging, is universal to all mankind. He is not willing that any should perish, so He tries to correct the behavior of all.
The problem is, Ephesians 2:8 is speaking of salvation from sin. It is God’s great unmerited favor that sent Jesus to earth as a man, to live as a man, and be tortured and ridiculed and spat upon and crucified on a cross. That is the very picture of grace with thousands of exclamation marks behind the word but Jesus saw an opportunity and despised the shame of the cross to establish a new covenant upon His resurrection.
Jesus fulfilled the old covenant through living up to its standards for righteousness and then dying as one guilty of transgressing every one of its laws and statutes. A fulfilled contract goes out of force; it loses all authority, so all its promises were rolled into the new covenant. But, Jesus very clearly said, “I have not come to destroy the law.” By leaving the law intact, Jesus left a scaffolding for salvation from sin. Eternal life, however, is gained through obedience, according to Hebrews 5:9.
Lost souls must repent of sins against the old covenant law; they must acknowledge God’s standard for righteousness to be correct, but Christians have the law of the new covenant to keep and are disciplined for disobedience. Again, consider 1Corinthians 11. Even though it was the Christ who died on the cross, the sacrament is called the Lord’s Supper. The purpose of observing the Lord’s Supper is for Christians to examine themselves to see if they are living their lives worthy of the body and blood of the Lord, it is to check their obedience against the standard set for obedience by Jesus.
The distinction between the Christ and the Lord must be made, however, otherwise, Christians will judge themselves by old covenant standards to see if they are living worthy of the Christ and eat and drink damnation to themselves, not discerning it is the commandments of the Lord they must keep, new covenant commandments they must live worthy of, not the old.
You see, here’s the thing, if you have accepted Jesus’ death on the cross as payment of your sin, you’ve done well. You are a child of God, but make no mistake about it; the death of Jesus has been applied by God to the whole human race. Jesus is the propitiation of your sins, but not just your sins. He is the propitiation of the sins of the whole human race and God disciplines, chastises, and scourges all His children in an attempt to get them to live righteous before Him.
Here again the old covenant is juxtaposed with the new covenant. The definition of righteousness is different under the old covenant than it is under the new covenant. People come into the new covenant wearing the righteousness of the Christ. That’s what propitiation means. It means to wear the righteousness of another. Having obtained the righteousness of the old covenant by faith, there is the standard left for righteousness by Jesus, established by commandment, to keep.
All right, let’s see if we can make this just a bit clearer. The old covenant’s definition of righteousness is encapsulated in the Ten Commandments. To live by the Ten Commandments is to be righteous before the Father. But Jesus perfectly kept the Ten Commandments and it is His perfect keeping that is accredited to your account, propitiated, through faith in His death under penalty of your sin. After Jesus arose from the dead, He took His blood and sprinkled it over a new covenant and then came back to earth and issued three commandments to those first Christians. These commandments can be found in Acts 1:4, 5 and Matthew 28 and they define righteousness under the new covenant.
Again, it is vitally important to realize Jesus served His Father perfectly under the old covenant, but the Father made Jesus ruler over all under the new covenant. We serve a different God today under the new covenant than the Jews did under the old covenant. If you try to keep the Ten Commandments under the new covenant you will be judged unrighteous because Jesus already did that for you; you must keep the new covenant commandments. It is the keeping of the new covenant commandments that makes one righteous before the God of the new covenant.
This is the problem we have in the Church today. Christians are attempting to keep the Ten Commandments in order to be found righteous before God but the Father handed off that power and authority to Jesus when He raised Jesus from the dead. The Father is not the God Christians have to answer to. By trying to measure up to the Father’s standard for righteousness, Christians are sinning against Jesus and His Father. They sin against Jesus because by trying to keep the Ten Commandments they are in fact saying Jesus’ death was not sufficient payment for their sin. They sin against the Father because He, in fact, considers Jesus’ payment full and complete.
The word, Christian, in fact means to be in Christ. If you are in Christ, then Christ is the covering, He is the propitiation, for all transgressions against the old covenant law, both now and for all time, as long as you believe it to be so. But to be in Christ means you must answer to the Christ, who is now Lord and His definition of righteousness is different from His Father’s.
O.K., so what does all this mean? If Jesus’ death has been applied to all men, does that mean all men are saved? I don’t think so. Consider the parable of the two sons recorded in Matthew 21:28-32. Jesus said a man had two sons. He came to the first and said, Go work in the vineyard today, and the boy said, No sir, but later he changed his mind and went out to the vineyard to work. The man then came to the second son and said, Go work in the vineyard, and the boy said, Yes sir, but he didn’t go. Jesus then asked, “Which boy did the will of His Father?
Jesus went on to say those who were doing what God required were entering the kingdom of God while those who were not doing the will of the Father were not. So the man had two sons. Even though both boys were sons, only the obedient entered the kingdom of God. Now again, Jesus lived and died under the old covenant, but upon His resurrection he established a new covenant. The kingdom of God was the kingdom the Father set up with the old covenant but the new covenant established the kingdom of heaven, so what has changed.
As it turns out, very little. The New Testament speaks of the overcomer in several places and in Revelations 19; it is the overcomer who rules and reigns with Christ. So just who are these overcomers? Well, the problem we have in defining the overcomer is that the new covenant has been defined as a continuation of the old covenant with Jesus’ death and blood in lieu of the blood of animals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Still, the overcomer is defined as someone who gains a victory over hostile powers. When it comes to obeying God, whether it is the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ, it is the flesh that must be overcome. It is the flesh that rebels against God and refuses to keep God’s commandments.
Under the old covenant, the flesh rebelled against the Ten Commandments but under the new covenant, the flesh rebels primarily against the commandments Jesus issued just prior to His ascension. Old covenant saints struggle to keep the Ten Commandments but Jesus’ commandments were interpreted not to apply to Christians at all. As a result, there is no struggle against disobedience; it doesn’t even enter in the heart of Christians to obey. The overcomers are the ones who overcome the flesh to keep these commandments. The gift of tongues was purposely made to be offensive to mankind’s flesh, making overcoming the flesh in the new covenant age doubly difficult.
This is because the gift of tongues is offensive to mankind’s flesh but also to his mind. The gift of tongues appears to be foolishness on every level and for me to say it is the path to eternal life is ridiculous to any self respecting Christian. In order to keep Jesus’ commandments, Christians must overcome themselves. They must overcome an innate propensity toward understanding what is right and wrong and take God at His Word. They must be self effacing and walk in humility.
So, in Matthew 21:28-32, was Jesus speaking of the old covenant or the new covenant? He was speaking of both. There is a reason lost souls and Christians alike suffer equally under the Lord’s chastisement for disobedience. They are both failing to keep the same commandments.
So here is where we find ourselves today. Christians and non-Christians alike are being judged, chastised, disciplined, and scourged for non compliance of Jesus’ commandments. The first and primary commandment of the new covenant is judged to be a temporary commandment and not valid to Christians today and disobedience is universal. The Lord has become quite drastic, radical, extreme, and far reaching in His attempts to get Christians and lost souls alike to turn from their wickedness but how can they turn when no one recognizes the commandments as valid?
The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering, resigned, patient, and enduring, not willing that any should perish. In other words, God is willing to do what it takes to get human beings to turn and repent. The problem is: mankind is not turning and repenting. Mankind has built up doctrine and wrote theology and interpreted scripture to accommodate God’s chastisement, making the chastisement for disobedience a higher calling than repentance.
Books are written on why bad things happen to good people but these people aren’t “good people.” They are people who are disobedient of the Lord’s commandments. Their evil deeds are turned to stars in their crowns. If you are trying to keep the Ten Commandments, you are sinning against the Lord Jesus Christ, who died to deliver you from the need to keep the Ten Commandments! Jesus issued three commandments that are uniquely His: Saturate yourself with my Spirit daily, preach this gospel, the gospel of the new covenant, to your neighbor, your friend who lives across town, and all the strangers far and wide, and disciple the converts in this gospel.
The problem we have is: it is the old covenant commandments we try to keep, we preach the gospel of the old covenant and every convert is steeped in old covenant doctrine. How is mankind to escape this living hell? None of our Church scholars seem to know where the old covenant ends and the new covenant begins. They don’t even recognize a new covenant as being new at all. It has not even entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for His children. If you are a child of God, you have done well, but just know, the death of Jesus has been applied to the whole human race but it is those who do the will of the father who enter the kingdom. The will of the Father is that we keep the commandments of the Son.
In order for that to happen, mankind will need to come down from its high and lofty position, admit its mistakes, humble itself and let Jesus be the Lord of the new covenant. We must stop saying, “Jesus never commanded me to wait for a baptism with the Holy Spirit; He only commanded His apostles.”
O.K., are you really going to tell me you should obey every commandment of the old covenant law and the commandment Jesus issued as a man, to love one another, but you should disobey the commandments Jesus issued as Lord? Does this really feel like something that will work out good for you, to ignore the commandments of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?
Can a Christian prosper by denying the Lord obedience? Can Christians flourish while ignoring the blessed only Potentate? The only wise God? Can a Christian thrive while dishonoring Jesus? What is it that makes you think Jesus was only commanding the eleven disciples? The people who were there didn’t believe that.
While it is true Jesus commanded eleven men, 120 souls gathered in the upper room to obey and the scriptures tell us all received. If all received then the commandment was meant for all. Today, however, Christians do not go to the upper room to wait and believe the commandment has nothing to do with them. Moreover, by their disobedience, they prove to themselves they were not to receive.
All the while they are being judged for disobedience and chastised and disciplined and scourged in their flesh because they have foolishly judged disobedience of the Lord of heaven their best course of action. This can change. Obedience is possible for all humanity. If you have never waited for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, your first course of action should be repentance, real-heart-felt repentance.
I’m talking on your face, with great sorrow of heart repentance. For Jesus to have given up everything for mankind and come to earth with all the shame and indignity and embarrassment of the human experience, to come unto His own, only to be rejected and shamed and laughed at, to give His life for all humanity, to then be ignored by those He died to save is the ultimate humiliation. Can a Christian prosper while humiliating His Lord?
We must honor the Lord with obedience of His commandments. No Christian can truly believe that commandments Jesus issued after becoming Lord should be disobeyed. Or, that commandments issued with all power in heaven and earth would have less authority to command obedience than one commandment issued with no authority. It is truly ludicrous for Christians to exempt themselves of obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ’s commandments without explicit instructions to do so. Yet they do, and look at where it has gotten them. Christians are eat up with all manner of sickness and disease. They suffer with every kind of calamity, disaster, catastrophe, and mishap, yet still believe God loves them, and in truth, He does. He loves them enough to exact vengeance on them for disobedience of His commandments in an effort to cause them to repent.
Because Christians refuse to repent, the Lord Jesus Christ has to become more and more creative. All of the natural disasters of today are greater than mankind has ever seen. Hurricanes and cyclones are more destructive, tornadoes stronger. Mankind is being threatened by global warming and the seas are rising. Medical science is struggling against new, never before seen, diseases, and old diseases they thought were wiped out are making a comeback.
All of this and more besides is being done in an effort to get mankind, all the children of God, to turn and repent from disobedience. God is not willing than any should perish, but is longsuffering, that all should come to repentance. Once there was a man who had two sons. He came to the first and said, go work in my vineyard today and the boy said no, but he went anyway. The man then came to the second boy and said the same thing. This boy said, “Yes sir,” but he didn’t go. Only those who do the commandments enter into the kingdom.
This same Jesus who told this story issued three commandments upon His resurrection. He commanded that His followers wait for a saturation with the Holy Spirit. This saturation occurs as the gift of tongues flows out of your hearts. He further commanded that this gospel, the gospel of the new covenant, be preached far and wide, and He commanded that the converts be discipled in this gospel.
The world-wide Church ignores the first commandment, preaches the gospel of the old covenant and disciples believers in old covenant doctrine. The average Christians see none of these as commandments they should keep and are paying extremely high prices for their disobedience.