So, in John 15:10, Jesus says, “I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in my Father’s love,” He then goes on to say, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Here, Jesus makes a clear distinction between two sets of commandments. He clearly states that in order to abide in the Father’s love, He had to keep the Father’s commandments, but in order to abide in His love, we must keep His commandments. It behooves us then to understand whose commandments are whose.
In Isaiah 53:6, we read these words, “And the Lord has placed on Him the iniquity of us all,” but then in Philippians 2:11 we find, “That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” From the words of Isaiah, we discern the Father was Lord of the old covenant, because the Father placed on Jesus the iniquity of us all. So the old covenant commandments are the Father’s commandments. Jesus is Lord of the new covenant so the new covenant commandments are Jesus’ commandments. The title and authority of Lord is the authority to issue commandments.
But how and when did Jesus become Lord? Again, in Philippians 2:8-9, we learn Jesus “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, but God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above all names,” that would be the name, Lord. This means Jesus’ commandments, the commandments we must keep to abide in His love, were issued after the cross.
Now, whose commandments should we keep, Jesus’ commandments, or, the Father’s commandments, or, both? In that the Father willingly and gladly made Jesus Lord, the Father then would rejoice if we made Jesus Lord and kept Jesus’ commandments. After all, going back to Philippians 2:11, “That every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” understanding that Jesus is made Lord by obedience.
Jesus further emphasizes His commandments by saying, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (Jn. 14:15), and, “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 manifest myself to him” (Jn. 14:21). In John 14:21, Jesus informs us those who keep His commandments will abide in the Father’s love as well as His love.
It should be clear the Father gave to Jesus the ability and power to issue commandments with His blessing to do so. To attempt to keep the Father’s commandments while the Son is Lord is ludicrous, but no more ludicrous than failing to keep Jesus’ commandments. Hebrews 5:9 informs us, “And being made perfect, He became the author of eternal life to all who obey Him.” So, in that Jesus is the author of eternal life and gives it to those who obey Him, it becomes critically important to discern between His Father’s commandments and Jesus’ commandments.
In that Jesus was not Lord before His death on the cross, everything Jesus would appear to issue as a commandment before His death on the cross must be rejected. We are looking for commandments Jesus issued after the cross, after He was made Lord by His Father, to the Father’s glory. Except for a short discourse with Peter about feeding His sheep, the only commandments Jesus issued after the cross are in Acts 1.
In Acts 1, Jesus gathers His disciples about Him and commands them. Now the word, command, here demands our utmost attention and consideration. It is no simple word, but indicates the all power and all authority that Jesus is now operating under. Jesus clearly is attempting to illustrate the issuance of the new covenant commandments by using this word. You see, the Greek language has several different words meaning, to command, and this one carries the most authority, the highest authority, of all of them. When Jesus commands His disciples to wait for a baptism with the Spirit, it should be understood Jesus is commanding all His disciples to wait, those present and those to come through all millennia. Even though we can’t all wait in Jerusalem, we can all wait where we are.
Moreover, Jesus said, keep my commandments. Obedience is not measured singularly but by constancy. It is not a matter of waiting one time for a baptism with the Spirit but a matter of maintaining a baptism with the Spirit. A clock keeps time by maintaining a state of being in time. Jesus went on to make a comparison between the old covenant and the new by saying, “John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” This should not be construed as a singular event; it should be understood as an ongoing condition. It should be understood, “You shall maintain a state of being of baptized with the Spirit.” This state of being is maintained through the use of a gift of tongues.
On that first day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came and rested on each of them and they all spoke with other tongues, that is, other than a known to them language. Now, going back to John 15:10, Jesus said, “I have kept my Father’s commandments.” He did that for us and in our stead because we could not. As a result, all mankind was made right before God, 1st John 2:2, and were given a gift of the Holy Spirit. We can all speak with tongues; we all have the ability, but not all have allowed the Holy Spirit to flow out. Therefore all have the ability to obey Jesus’ commandment. According to 1st John 1:9, repentance, or the acceptance of a responsibility to obey, is counted as obedience.
Jesus’ second commandment is to preach this gospel, the gospel of baptism with the Holy Spirit; the gospel of maintaining a state of being of baptism. Again, Jesus used John the Baptist as a comparison, a teaching tool, and John preached baptism in water. His whole life revolved around this message and His message was not a one time baptism in water but an ongoing cleanliness before God, maintained by keeping the law of God, but John’s God was the Father and Lord of the old covenant. Our God is Jesus, who is Lord of the new covenant.
Jesus’ final commandment, found in Acts 1:8, is to disciple believers. To be a witness for Jesus is to preach and teach the message of Jesus, which is not found in the four gospels, but here in the first chapter of Acts. Very early in Jesus’ ministry Jesus said, “Think not that I have come to destroy the law, I came not to destroy, but to fulfill” Matthew 5:17. Now, in order for any man to fulfill the law, they would have to keep it perfectly, then die under its penalties for disobedience. Jesus did that. He fulfilled the law for us.
Everything Jesus did and said during His earthly ministry was in fulfillment of the law, but the old covenant law, being fulfilled, has passed out of favor with God. There is a new God and Lord and His name is Jesus. It is those who keep His commandments that gain everlasting life. Going back to Hebrews 5:9, Jesus is the author of eternal life, not His Father. Therefore, it is Jesus’ commandments we must keep, not the Father’s. The only commandments that are unique to Jesus are found in Acts 1.
So, again, in John 15:10, Jesus says, In order for you to abide in my love, you must keep my commandments, but which commandments are Jesus’ commandments? Jesus was not Lord before His death on the cross and therefore had no authority to issue commandments unique to Him. He operated under His Father’s authority and had authority to emphasize and expound upon His Father’s commandments, but no authority to issue His own. Any commandments Jesus issued therefore are found after Jesus fulfilled His Father’s law. That would be after the cross.
The only commandments that can reasonably be assigned to Jesus, therefore, are found in Acts 1 or Matthew 28. The language and account of Acts 1 and 2 makes it clear Matthew left out the first commandment in his gospel for unknown reasons. Jesus’ language and demeanor in Acts 1, plus Luke’s accounting of it, emphatically supports this being the issuance of a new covenant. After this, Jesus was taken up and a cloud received Him out of their sight. If there is a new covenant, and we know there is, where and when was it issued to mankind? Acts 1 is the only possible account.
In Acts 1, Luke begins by referencing his former treatise, the book of Luke, in which he enumerated all Jesus “began to both do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after that He, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the apostles (which were not now apostles, the word, apostle, meaning sent) whom He had chosen: to whom also He showed himself alive after His passion (death on the cross) by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” So we see the disciples were in an awful state of shock. After Jesus had died on the cross, it took many infallible proofs over a period of forty days to convince the disciples that indeed, Jesus was not dead. (They believed He was a disembodied spirit.) Interwoven with these many infallible proofs, Jesus showed how the kingdom of God had to be fulfilled, and His life and death had accomplished that. Then, Jesus issued the new covenant.
The sequence is this: Jesus dies on the cross, arises from the dead, and then, by many infallible proofs, over 40 days, finally convinces the disciples He is not a ghost. In order for there to be a new covenant, the old covenant had to be fulfilled. In Matthew 11:11, Jesus had said, “Of those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John, howbeit, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.” Jesus is clearly talking about two kingdoms: the kingdom John lived under and the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom John lived under was the kingdom of the old covenant, or kingdom of God, the Father.
In this same way, Jesus takes the disciples back through His teaching to show how He fulfilled the old covenant, but also wove teaching of the new covenant in. Similarly, when Luke picks back up the narrative in verse 4, He quotes Jesus saying: “But wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard of me.” If we go back to John 7:38, we find the reference to which Jesus spoke: “He that believes on me, as the scriptures has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” The promise of the Father is to have rivers of living water flowing out of the belly but there is no promise in the old covenant law to this effect. It is a promise of the new covenant. Thus, it is not faith in the Jesus who fulfilled the law that causes the rivers of living water to flow. We must exercise faith on the risen Lord.
The work of the Christ and the work of the Lord must be separated just as the kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven must be separated and differentiated. Too many Christians do not know the difference and cannot discern between faith in the Christ and faith on the Lord and think the two are the same. They are missing out on eternal life because the commandments of the Father are not Jesus’ commandments and vice versa.
So, even though Jesus has spent three plus years keeping the old covenant law perfectly and not transgressing it in the least, He has also woven in new covenant doctrine. The Holy Spirit is the Living Water and He manifests Himself as a gift of tongues as the river departs the mouth. In this manner, Jesus takes the disciples back through the kingdom of God, showing them how it was necessary that He be crucified and die but be raised again from the dead and issue a new covenant. This event, depicted in Acts 1:4-8, is the issuance of the new covenant.
Therefore, the reason believers today do not experience Living Water while speaking in tongues is clear. Christians today do not recognize Jesus’ commandments, or recognize Him as Lord, or perform obedience. Faith is exercised in the Christ and though the Lord is quoted and called on, belief is exercised in the one who died on the cross.
A contract is between two entities and is dependent on each entity keeping its part of the contract. Notice the wording of the Father’s contract, If you will keep all these commands I command you this day, I will allow none of the diseases of Egypt to fall upon you, Exodus 15:26. Obedience caused the Israelis to flourish and kept them healthy; disobedience cursed their existence. All contracts work this way. If anyone signs a contract with a lender to buy a car, as long as payments are made by contract law, the buyer has complete freedom to use the car. However, if payments are not made according to the contract, the lender will take the car back.
When Jesus said, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love,” the opposite was also true, If you keep not my commandments, you cannot abide in my love. This is covenant language. The universal disobedience of Jesus’ commandments has shut up the kingdom of heaven against us. Modern Christians experience all the diseases of Egypt with a few new ones added. Trouble is on all sides and true blessings from God are rare and hard to come by. Jesus said, “He that believes on me will do the works I have done and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father,” Jn 14:12, but Christians today do not believe in the Christ that went to the Father, they believe in the one who died on the cross.
Anyone can keep the new covenant, whether they can speak with tongues or not. All it takes is recognition that the Father raised Jesus with all authority; Jesus used that authority to issue a new covenant, and Jesus’ commandments are valid. The believer simply attempts obedience and repents of disobedience. As long as true repentance is expressed, true forgiveness is offered.
Now, all covenants have contingency clauses. These contingency clauses explain what happens in what if scenarios. For example, what if a guy borrows money to buy a car but misses three payments. At what point do the collections proceedings begin? Is there a clause that explains how a person might redeem themselves if they find themselves in arrears? Can the contract be paid off early?
Jesus did not give us these contingency clauses. What we know is the early Church never fully understood the new covenant. Matthew never inserted Jesus’ first commandment into His gospel and it appears Peter went out on that first Pentecost preaching baptism in water, which is old covenant theology. Sixty years after Jesus’ death on the cross, John writes to a church to say, “If we say we have no sin (in failing to keep Jesus’ commandments), we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us,” 1John 1:8. And in 1John 2:4, John writes, “He that says I know Him and keeps not His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.” How widespread was this disobedience? It appears that by the end of the first 100 years, disobedience was the accepted norm and for nearly 2,000 years, no one has preached the gospel I’m preaching to you.
Does the new covenant have a provision to be restarted by obedience after so long a period of disobedience? I think not. What we need is a reissuing of the covenant with a large group of people fully versed in the new covenant who can then go out preaching it and just such an event might be planned by God. In Hebrews 10:12-13, we find a curious thought. These verses read: “But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool.”
These two verses contain two idioms. An idiom is a group of words that mean something different from what the actual words convey. The phrase, to set at the right hand, does not mean to literally set at someone’s right side; it actually means to be the top dog, the one in authority. Likewise, the phrase, till your enemies be made your footstool, does not have a literal meaning. It means to make your enemies into your servants.
We know Jesus is not subservient to His Father in this present age from numerous other verses in the scriptures. Philippians 2 tells us the Father highly exalted Jesus, giving Him the name above all other names that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, that every tongue confess Jesus as Lord. Jesus bows to no one, to the glory of God the Father, which means, the Father exalted His Son above Himself.
But what about this second idiom? For nearly 2,000 years, the Church has worked against the Lord in that, the Lord commanded us to keep His commandments but the Church comes along telling us we don’t have to keep Jesus’ commandments. The Church is full of friends of the Christ but enemies of the Lord. Jesus is waiting for His enemies to be called up to serve Him. 1Thessalonians 4:16 describes just such an event. It says the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trump of God. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead with a shout. It was an archangel that explained the visions to Daniel. And armies are rallied with a trumpet blast.
I assume we have all heard of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones? God asked Ezekiel, Can these bones live? Why are these in 1Thessalonians 4 described as the “dead in Christ?” They are not the living but the dead. Does the Church not tell us believers in Christ do not die, but live on in heaven? Why then does Paul call them dead? John 15:10 tells us we must keep Jesus’ commandments to abide in His love and Hebrews 5:9 tells us He only gives eternal life to those who obey Him.
While the Church tells us we don’t have to keep the commandments Jesus issued in Acts 1 and even interprets their meaning and context, the scriptures do not exempt us of obedience and nowhere is it stated they do not apply. The truth is: you cannot live if you do not keep Jesus’ commandments. Will these dead in Christ be called upon to preach a message they preached against while alive? Can this be a reissuing of the new covenant?