In Revelations 22:18-19, we are warned to respect God’s Word. Any man who adds to or takes away from the words of the book will find their names being removed from the rolls of heaven. We are told there is a “great book” that is taken down at the great judgment and people are judged according to the words of that great book. Now, scholars might debate about whether the warning of Revelations 22 applies to the whole Bible or just the book of Revelations but that eternal life was only offered by the new covenant is not debatable. In order to obtain new covenant salvation, one must keep new covenant law.
A perfect keeping of old covenant law does not afford new covenant salvation. Moreover, only Jews can gain access to the old covenant. The old covenant law is restrictive in that regard. The modern Church emphasizes God’s love, and they do well to do so, for God is love; but He is also holy, which is why there is a law. The phrase, “the law of life in Christ Jesus,” is sometimes misconstrued as a law of love but nothing could be further from the truth. There is an actual law, a set of commandments that determines whether an individual accesses the provisions of the new covenant. The reason there is a book in heaven that the whole human race is judged out of is because God is holy.
New covenant Christians must keep the law of life in order to gain access to the life it promises but does anybody know what that law is? One thing that is for sure is that it is not old covenant law; a law applicable only to Jews. God would not make the whole human race responsible for keeping laws only applicable to Jews in order to gain the salvation authored by Jesus for all mankind. That would be cruel and flies in the face of God’s love. No, the law of life is different than the law of death.
“The law of death” is the phrase Paul used concerning the old covenant law (Rom.7). You see, the purpose of the old covenant law was to prove to the Jews they could not measure up to God’s standard for righteousness. It was designed to prove to them that they needed a deliverer. They were supposed to come running to God, crying out to God for mercy, and confessing their inability to measure up to His standards but instead they instituted God’s law, interpreted it, and determined to keep it using the sacrificial system to cover their transgressions. However, as time went on, they quit trying to measure up to God’s standard, which is why Paul calls the old covenant law the law of death. It was never meant to convey life.
This sets up another conundrum. If the old covenant law was the law of death, Romans 8:2; designed to reveal mankind’s inability to measure up to God’s standard of righteousness, why would any part of it be reused under the new covenant? While it is clear the blood of Jesus was used to ratify the new covenant, it should be equally apparent the new covenant is represented by the tabernacle on which Jesus’ blood was sprinkled. In that Jesus’ blood is far superior to the blood of innocent animals, which is the ratifying force of the old covenant, why would old covenant law have anything to do with the new covenant?
No, my friends, the new covenant, think contract and laws or clauses governing the contract, is a better covenant than the old covenant built on better promises, Heb.8:6. Putting that phrase in simple English, the new contract is a better contract than the old contract God had with the Jews, built upon better promises than the old contract had to offer. Again, the old covenant had no provision of eternal life. I bet you never noticed how the Jews perked up when Jesus started talking about eternal life. It is because their covenant didn’t offer any. They recognized Jesus was talking about something new.
Here we have another conundrum. Just before Jesus goes to the cross, Jesus issues the disciples a “new” commandment. However, this commandment sounds awfully familiar. The new commandment was to love one another as I have loved you, which is amazingly similar to the second of the old covenant commandments to love your neighbor as yourself. Now if the commandment Jesus identified as new is to be truly new, there is more to it than what appears on the surface. It is not the same commandment as the second of the Ten Commandments. Again, if Jesus’ blood is superior to the blood of innocent animals, there would be no need for old covenant law in the new covenant.
My first thought is the Jews didn’t practice the second of the Ten Commandments therefore the commandment would be new to them, but I suspect the meaning is somewhat deeper. Years ago my roommate was reading a book entitled “Telling Yourself the Truth,” because so much of the time we lie to ourselves and it is the truth that sets us free. The fact that we lie to ourselves means that when we love our brother as we love ourselves, we lie to our brothers as well. Jesus, however, was brutally honest with His disciples while we are too busy trying to save each others feelings, or to not cause ill will, or rock the boat, as it were, to love honestly. We are not brutally honest with our neighbors, even though that was Jesus’ commandment and it was radically new. It takes a fair amount of courage to be honest with yourself and quite a bit more to be honest with your neighbor.
Let’s be fair, most human beings will love others sacrificially. Is it not almost weekly that we are treated to some story of one human being running to the aid of another at their own peril? Why, the very definition of our military is sacrificial love. And if we are honest with ourselves, how much easier is it to love sacrificially than to love honestly? If we are dishonest with ourselves, how can we be honest with our neighbors?
The new covenant is just that, “new.” It is not the old covenant with an addendum or the old covenant with a facelift or the old covenant remodeled. It is a new covenant with a new law and new promises. The idea that old covenant saints couldn’t go to heaven because the blood of animals was not sufficient to get them there is absurd. The old covenant could not provide eternal life even with the blood of Jesus because eternal life was not a provision of the old covenant; it was not one of its promises.
Now, let’s go back to revisit our original premise. If we add old covenant law to the new covenant have we transgressed the warning of Revelations 22? The answer is a moot point. If we practice old covenant law, adding in the blood of Jesus to wash away transgressions against old covenant law, we still cannot obtain eternal salvation because the old covenant did not promise eternal salvation. It promised an earthly salvation. It promised a long and prosperous life, but not eternal life. Which means, Christians, or followers of Christ, can receive the provision of Jesus’ death, which is righteousness but still not enter heaven, which requires a keeping of new covenant law. There is no substitute for obedience and ignorance is certainly not an excuse to those who have access to a Bible.
Jesus’ commandment to love one another as I have loved you should guarantee an honest discussion concerning new covenant law. The problem is; most of us are not honest with ourselves and cannot therefore be honest with our neighbors. The idea that Jesus was raised from the dead with all power in heaven and in earth and with the strongest words available to Him in the Greek language, issue a commandment to the founding members of His Church that the Church should ignore is the definition of lying to yourself.
This was the dilemma of the early Church fathers. A mechanism to control the behavior of Church members was needed but the gift of tongues could not be it. You see, the new covenant does not contain a long list of “thou shalts or thou shalt nots.” It simply commands a saturation with the Spirit of God daily. The only problem is, that puts the Holy Spirit in charge of the Church and He manifests Himself in the gift of tongues. The gifts of tongues is offensive to the flesh and the flesh is enmity with God. The flesh and soul are the source of the lies we tell ourselves. The Church fathers took it upon themselves to control church services because their flesh was offended at the gift of tongues. This means the gift of tongues had to be pushed aside and demeaned.
If we are honest with ourselves, we will see that the gift of tongues is integral to everlasting life. It is the reason Jesus issued this commandment first; it is this commandment on which the rest of the commandments of the new covenant pivot. It is how we are transformed from mortal to immortal. It is the daily saturating of the mortal with the immortal Holy Spirit that changes us completely. But, however, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to admit that to ourselves and even more to love one another with that truth. The flesh and soul of mankind cannot and will not bow its will to God easily but must do so in order to keep the principal commandment of the new covenant. Jesus called His disciples, both the twelve and all those who would follow, to honestly love one another with this truth.
The truth is though; we cannot be honest with ourselves about the commandment to love one another. We don’t have the courage to believe the Church is preaching the wrong gospel. We cannot accept this truth. Yet Jesus was standing on the old covenant side of the cross when giving this commandment and Jesus said, “As I have loved you.” The word, “have,” is the past tense of the verb “to have.” He had not died a sacrificial death yet so He could not possibly have been referring to a sacrificial love. He could, however, be referring to an honest love, a love of integrity, and a love that takes a different kind of courage.
This commandment, to love one another with integrity, is embodied in the three commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ: to saturate yourself with the Spirit of God, to preach this gospel, the gospel of the new covenant, an unpopular gospel, a gospel your neighbor will rebel against because the gift of tongues is offensive to the flesh and the flesh is at enmity with God and disciple or teach the converts.
James tells us, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways, let not that man think he will receive anything from the Lord,” Ja.1:8. The double minded man is the person who has one foot solidly in the old covenant and one foot timidly in the new covenant. If you consider yourself a sinner saved by grace you know you don’t deserve eternal life and your reliance will be on the blood of Jesus instead of the new covenant to get you there. This man is trying to access new covenant blessings by keeping old covenant law but again, the old covenant cannot provide anything it doesn’t promise, even with the blood of God. Can I say this again? I hate to be redundant but is it not clear the Word of God has been interpreted by mankind until there is very little resemblance between what it says and what is taught from its pages?
There is no pool of Jesus’ blood in heaven where believers can go wash themselves of their sin each time one is committed. Jesus took His blood to heaven where He sprinkled it over the articles of furniture in the heavenly tabernacle. The tabernacle is a life sized model of the new covenant. By sprinkling His blood over the furniture, He ratified the covenant. The blood of Jesus is where the new covenant gets its authority to bestow the blessings proclaimed with it. It is the new covenant that saves. It is the keeping of the new covenant, a covenant ratified with Jesus’ blood that saves.
The truth is the blood of the innocent animals sacrificed under the old covenant is where the old covenant got its authority to bestow the blessings proclaimed with it. It was the blessings of innocence, another word for righteousness that was contained in the old covenant. The reason the old covenant could not promise eternal life is because innocent animals have no eternal life to grant. The reason the old covenant had so many laws governing behavior was because the blood of animals has limited blessings to bestow.
The superiority of Jesus’ blood is found in the superiority of the life it represents. The reason the new covenant can offer eternal life with few commandments is because of the superiority of the life of God over the life of innocent animals. To try to access the life of the new covenant, a covenant based on the blood of God, by attempting to keep old covenant law, a law based on the life of animals, is to transgress against that blood. It is to treat the blood of God as equal to that of animals. It is a dangerous game.
So dangerous in fact that Paul warns new covenant believers not to receive the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner. It is not disobedience of old covenant law that makes one unworthy to receive the Lord’s Supper; it is attempting to keep old covenant law while attempting to receive new covenant blessings. This is disrespectful behavior. It is disrespectful to the Lord to attempt to receive the blessings He authored through His shed blood by keeping the law of the old covenant, the law of animal blood. We should judge ourselves by new covenant law in the new covenant age. Old covenant law has about as much to do with the new covenant as light has to do with darkness.
That being said, attempting to receive new covenant blessings while ignoring new covenant law is also disrespectful of the Lord of the new covenant. Jesus paid a huge price to author a new covenant after fulfilling the old covenant. The eternal life He authored was not cheap and we should respect the cost of it. He earned the right to issue the commandments that govern how mankind interacts with God under the new covenant. To pretend that these commandments are not valid or somehow outdated during the age of the new covenant is extremely prejudicial.
Romans 10:9-10 are some of my favorite verses of scripture. Jesus earned the title, “Lord” through His suffering and death. He earned the right to set up a new covenant after fulfilling the old covenant and God, the Father, gave Him the authority to do so, Phil.2:9-11. If we do not keep His commandments, commandments He issued after being made Lord of All, He is not Lord and we are not saved.
In Acts 15, the first recorded Church council is held to decide whether Gentile believers should keep old covenant law. After much debate, Peter rose up and said, “Why tempt God; to put a yoke upon the neck of the Gentiles, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” The decision of the council was that Gentile believers should abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood but the keeping of the law was not required. It wasn’t long though before the commandment to keep the Sabbath was amended to apply to Sunday and churches everywhere were remembering the Lord’s Day to keep it holy. Some churches avoided pork because of old covenant law and it didn’t take long before the Ten Commandments were up on church walls and believers were repenting of disobedience of old covenant law but new covenant law was ignored.
You see, if believers do not saturate themselves with God every day, some other means of control must be devised by the church. So while the gift of tongues was diminished and demeaned the old covenant commandments were brought back to control believers’ behavior. Instead of having the law of God written on their hearts, churches had them written on their walls. Allow me to explain. Jesus said, “He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me will be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest myself to him.
The new covenant is all about love but God defines love as obedience but not obedience of commandments we devise of our own accord but commandments He issued. Whether we agree with these commandments or think they make sense to us is immaterial. It is God who offers to mankind salvation and in order to reap the salvation God offers to mankind; mankind must keep God’s commandments.
It was Jesus who was highly exalted at His resurrection from the dead, given a name that is above every other name. It is Jesus who is the God of the new covenant. And it is Jesus who grants eternal life. It was the Father who instituted the old covenant. The Ten Commandments are the Father’s commandments. Which covenant do you want to access? If you keep the commandments of the God of the new covenant, think Jesus, His commandments are written on your heart and you will both have them and keep them. None of the commandments of the old covenant are valid, made so by the superiority of the blood of the Son of God.
Moreover, John told the Church, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God (think Jesus) and keep His commandments” 1John5:2. If we compare this statement to Jesus’ “new” commandment, “to love one another as I have loved you,” we can easily see the new commandment was a commandment of honesty. If we are honest with ourselves about the importance of the commandments Jesus left the Church before His ascension as the author and God of the new covenant, then we will love our fellow man with honesty concerning the path to salvation. The message we preach and teach will be pure; not a mix of old and new covenant.
However, if we are not honest with ourselves concerning the importance of the commandments Jesus left the Church just before His ascension, we will not be honest with others concerning which commandments belong to the new covenant. If we then preach our dishonesty, the lie we proclaim will prevent others from gaining new covenant salvation. Remember, the gift of tongues is offensive to the flesh and soul of man. Mankind’s intellect is deeply offended by the idea that God’s salvation is obtained through the foolishness of tongues but God designed eternal salvation to be so. This dynamic is why mankind opts for keeping old covenant law but expects the love of God to overcome His holiness to bestow new covenant blessings on old covenant saints. This is why so much emphasis is placed on God’s love.
Notice Romans 9:33, “As it is written, Behold I lay in Sion (that’s the Church) a stumbling stone (that’s Jesus and His commandment to be saturated with the Spirit daily) and rock of offense (the gift of tongues); and whosoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed.” To believe on Him is to obey.
We are identified by the commandments we keep. The covenants of God are legal documents. This is because God is righteous and holy and His righteousness cuts both ways. Those who keep old covenant law, using the blood of Jesus instead of the blood of animals to cover sin, have bastardized the old covenant. There is no such covenant; there is no such contract between God and man, and no promises to reap by this behavior. There is no buffet of promises and commandments where people can choose what commandments to keep for which promises to receive. We either keep God’s covenant or not; there is no wiggle room.
The love of God will not overpower His holiness and righteousness to give to us what we have not earned by obedience. The promises are built upon the commandments. Listen to the Word of God, “And it shall come to pass, if you will hearken diligently to my voice to observe and to do all of my commandments which I command you this day, the Lord thy God will set you on high above all nations of the earth,” Deu.28:1.
It was Jesus who was raised from the dead with all power in heaven and in earth; it was Jesus who was given a name above every other name and it was Jesus who issued three commandments on the day of His ascension; after He had established the new covenant with His blood. The Lord thy God under the new covenant is Jesus and it is His commandments we must keep. If we do not keep His commandments we have no expectation of eternal life.
If we keep the commandment to saturate ourselves daily by allowing the gift of tongues to pour from our belly and preach the gospel of the new covenant to one or thousands, teaching and discipling the converts, we are guaranteed a home in heaven because God is righteous and faithful.