These are the words Peter uttered on the day of Pentecost, after 3,000 people asked, “What must we do to be saved?” My last two Bible studies have focused on the truth that Jesus did not commission His Church with a message of repentance. Jesus commissioned His Church with a command to wait for a baptism with the Holy Spirit. The three thousand souls who witnessed the coming of the Holy Spirit were already cleansed of their sins.
It is in Matthew 5:17 where Jesus said “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, I came not to destroy but to fulfill.” The old covenant law was a contract between God and the Jews. To destroy a contract is an act of violence against law but to fulfill is a peaceful act of completion. Jesus did not come to commit violence against His Father; He came to fulfill His Father’s wishes.
1John 3:4 tells us, “Sin is the transgression of law,” but where “there is no law, there is no sin,” according to Romans 4:15. Jesus’ completion of the law made it null and void; it no longer had the authority to assign sin to those who transgressed it. God instituted His law, and God removed His law from consideration.
2Corinthians 5:19 reveals, “God was in Christ not imputing men’s sins against them.” If God is in Christ, not imputing men’s sins against them, what right do we have to assign sin against mankind? By saying, “Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” Peter was assigning sins against these three thousand souls the Father and Jesus had not assigned to them.
1John 2:2 reveals, “Jesus propitiated our sins (the sins of the Jews) but not ours alone, Jesus propitiated the sins of the entire world,” or all humanity. The word, propitiate, means, to make right with God. The old covenant, with its Ten Commandments, was fulfilled in Jesus, and neither Jesus nor His Father, holds any man to account for transgressions of these commandments. “Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.”
Again, Galatians 4:4 reveals, “In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Again, it was God that instituted the Ten Commandments as His law of righteousness and it was God, working through Christ, that redeemed mankind from that law. God made the law and God set the law aside. If we consider just who was under the law, we can discern who was redeemed from it. The old covenant was made with the Jews, so technically they were the only ones who could break it. No man could keep the law, however, which made all men subject to it. Thus, all mankind was under the law and all mankind was redeemed from it.
The will of the Father was perfect obedience to His standard for righteousness but the Father sent Jesus to accomplish that goal and Jesus gave the perfect obedience He accomplished to the whole human race as an act of extreme grace. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” The inference is we are no longer sinners. We cannot sin if there is no law to transgress. Ephesians 2 reveals, “For by grace are you saved (from your sins) through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” The gift of God is salvation from the sins of the old covenant law. If there is no law, no man can break it and therefore cannot be guilty of transgression.
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” In other words, there is no condemnation for sin because the law was fulfilled in Christ. Gone is the guilt and shame of disobedience and we are all in Christ for God was “in Christ, not imputing men’s sin against them.” Mankind has been made free from the law of condemnation.
The old covenant law, ie, the Ten Commandments has a built in mechanism of guilt and shame. It is called a conscious. Hebrews 9:14 reveals, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscious from dead works to serve the living God.” In other words, your conscious will demand you keep the Ten Commandments unless you allow the knowledge that you have been redeemed from the law wash over you again and again.
Your conscious will demand that you keep the Ten Commandments and the keeping of the Ten Commandments provides no benefit whatsoever, now that Jesus has redeemed us from it. Keeping the Ten Commandments is dead works, works that no longer serve your good. The old covenant law, however, has authority to assign guilt and shame. If you attempt to live by the Ten Commandments, you will die according to their prescription. No man can keep them and those who attempt to will die under their curse. The curse of the law is sickness and death. Throw off that burden of keeping the old covenant law and live free in Jesus.
The Father is no longer holding mankind accountable to the old covenant law but mankind has failed to understand the freedom Jesus purchased and continues to hold itself accountable. And, continues to hold each other accountable. Mankind is ruled by its conscious. The members of the church are doubly guilty of this offense and routinely condemn those redeemed from the law with transgressions of the law.
The preaching of repentance was altogether appropriate for the Jews before Jesus’ death on the cross. They were subject to the law. John the Baptist was correct to call the Jews to repentance and his preaching made a straight path for Jesus, who was to follow in his footsteps and build on the foundation he laid. The Jews in Acts 2 were not guilty of sin however. Jesus had died and been raised from the dead. The old covenant law had been fulfilled; where there is no law, there is no sin against it. God was in Christ not imputing men’s sins against them.
This is the lesson we should learn from Acts 10. I hate to beleaguer a point, but the lie is so deeply ingrained in Christianity, it bears repeating. Peter is sent down to Cornelius’ house with the instruction not to call unclean that which God had called clean. God was not talking about a few animals; He was talking about mankind, Jew and Gentile alike. Again, Ephesians 2:15, “Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments… to make in himself one new man, so making peace.” That’s peace between God and man. We, mankind, was once enemies of God, but now in Christ, mankind is God’s friend. The hostilities from God’s side have ended.
The preaching of repentance from sin was altogether inappropriate here. And God demonstrated that fact with a huge exclamation point when the Holy Spirit poured out of the hearts of those present without repentance or forgiveness. What did Peter do? He scrambled to baptize these people in water for the remission of sins. What sins were they guilty of? The old covenant law was no more. Instead of Jew and Gentile, there was one new man.
2Corinthians 5:17, “If any man be in Christ,” and all men are now in Christ, that is what we just learned from Ephesians 2:15. “He,” the one who is in Christ, “is a new creation, old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new.” When God says “All things,” He means all things. There is nothing that has not been made new. The old covenant law, with its ability to assign sin and guilt and shame has passed away. Your conscious will still attempt to get you to observe the law and your conscious will condemn any behavior that does not measure up to the law but God will not. It is up to you to silence your conscious. If God does not condemn you, neither should you condemn yourself.
The problem is: there is always a “but,” and 2Corinthians 5:17 reveals it. Jeremiah 31:31 states, “Behold the day comes that I will establish a new covenant with the house of Judah and the house of Israel.” This new covenant was not just made with the house of Judah and the house of Israel; it was made with all mankind. A new covenant indicates new law. A covenant is a contract and all contracts are governed by the law the contract prescribes. This is the new 2Corinthians 5:17 reveals. To break God’s law is sin and sin needs to be repented of.
So even though the message of repentance is inappropriate today when it comes to the old covenant, it is entirely appropriate to the new covenant. In fact, those who attempt to keep the old covenant law in order to gain favor with God are sinning against the new covenant and need to repent. The message of repentance is altogether appropriate.
We looked at Hebrews 9:14 a minute ago, now let’s look at 9:15, “And for this cause He (Jesus) is the mediator of a new covenant.” When was this new covenant instituted and what is the law that governs it? Every covenant has commandments, or statutes, and it is the keeping of each covenants statutes that allow one to reap the benefits of the contract. A contract or covenant is a legal document controlled by law. A document is a written record of an event.
The new covenant is not unlike the old covenant in that it has commandments and promises. In order for there to be a covenant, there must be a written record. Just like the old covenant was delivered by Moses and written down by the scribes, the new covenant is no different. Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, dictated the covenant to His disciples, and it was written down. We have a copy of it today. It is found in Acts 1:4, 5, and 8.
The new covenant, when considered next to the old covenant, seems overly simplistic. It has a total of three commandments. In Acts 1:4 we are told, “And being assembled together with them, commanded them.” Now the, them, here is the eleven disciples, they were the seedbed of the Church, its earliest beginnings. This is the commissioning of the Church. The disciples were not called to go out and start a Church, they were the Church. This number of eleven grew to 120 by the day of Pentecost and three thousand were added to that number on that day. Again in Acts 2:38, Peter instructs these three thousand to repent, even though their sins have been removed from them as far as the east is from the west, but then states, and you shall, (must have to) receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Now, just as with Cornelius’ house, these people already had the Holy Spirit in their hearts and just needed to let him flow out, manifesting Himself as a gift of tongues as He passed over the tongue. The gift of the Holy Spirit from Acts 1:4 is a baptism with the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5. A baptism is a wetting event, the word, baptism, meaning, to saturate. A true saturation takes time; therefore one must wait as the Holy Spirit flows out. The commandment Jesus issued was to wait for a baptism with the Holy Spirit, the disciples just happened to be in Jerusalem at the time. Jesus said, Do not depart, but wait.
Thus, the new covenant has a commandment to wait for a baptism with the Holy Spirit, it has the instruction to preach this gospel, the gospel of the baptism, and disciple, or teach converts. Again, overly simplistic, but very easy to keep. The provision of the new covenant is eternal life, something the old covenant never promised and cannot deliver in its fulfilled state. It is as Hebrews 5:9 states: “He gives eternal life to those who obey Him.”
Christians today need to be told to repent! But not for the reasons they think. Christians cannot sin against commandments God removed but they can sin against commandments brought forward by Jesus. The new covenant is recorded in Acts 1. Mankind can teach and preach all sorts of doctrines that say we don’t need to keep these commandments but it will not work in mankind’s favor.
Let’s go back to Revelation 7:14. John is shown a great company of people and is asked, “What are these arrayed in white robes.” John is not asked, “Who are these,” He is asked, “What are these,” because these people represent a single event. They represent the rapture. John is told, “These are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes.” Now why would they need to wash the white robe of righteousness? The reason is sin is the transgression of law, according to 1John 3:4. Where there is no law, there is no transgression, according to Romans 4:15, but where there is a law, transgression of it is sin and sin soils the white robe of righteousness.
The problem is: there is an old and a new covenant. To be delivered from the old covenant is only half of the salvation God has provided for mankind. A new covenant is a new contract. A contract is a legally binding document between at least two parties that defines and governs the rights and duties of the parties to an agreement. A contract is legally enforceable because it meets the requirements and approval of law. The part that defines and governs is the commandments. Jesus made the new covenant with the whole human race, which makes the whole human race one of the parties of the contract. In order to receive the everlasting life promised with the new covenant, mankind must perform the duties prescribed.
According to Hebrews 8:15, the old covenant has waxed old and is ready to vanish, meaning, its commandments no longer have any meaning and no authority. The old covenant is void. The new covenant, however, is valid and mankind is being held to account of it. Church scholars have wiped it from the Church age. It seems no one attempts to keep it. Revelation 7:14 records the fallacy of this decision. The fact is, Christians must wash the white robe they receive from the Christ in the blood of the Lamb in order to arrive in heaven. This means they failed to keep commandments after their sins were removed as far as the east is from the west from them, after they were given the white robe of righteousness. It also reveals there is a second blood event after the cross.
In order for those in Revelation 7:14 to be able to wash the robe of righteousness in the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the Lamb was poured out after the cross. This makes sense because Jesus died on the cross to fulfill the old covenant. The old covenant, or contract if you will, was made with the Jews by God. The new covenant is made with the whole human race by Jesus. The old covenant was sealed with the blood of animals. It was fulfilled, not with blood, but with Jesus’ perfect keeping of it and dying under its penalties for disobedience. When Jesus commands His disciples to love one another as I have loved you, He is talking about His keeping of the law for us.
When Jesus died on the cross under the penalty of our disobedience, it required the shedding of blood, but that blood does not cleanse of sin, it delivers mankind from the law. The fulfillment of the law, and remember, Jesus said, “I came to fulfill the law,” removes the law from consideration as far as righteousness is concerned. The old covenant provided for God’s protection, physical protection, monetary protection, and protection from enemies, it did not provide eternal life.
The old covenant was not just fulfilled, it was replaced. There is a new standard for righteousness between God and man. So even though the righteousness Jesus earned by keeping the old covenant law perfectly was given to the whole human race as a free, unmerited gift, a new standard for righteousness was issued by Jesus. Failure to keep that standard of righteousness is sin and sin soils the white robe worn by mankind.
This was the reason for the writing of 1John. John says, “If we sin,” because unlike the old covenant which no man could keep, the new covenant is easily kept. It is also easy to fail to keep. If the commandments of Jesus are not respected and publicized, mankind as a whole will fail to keep them. This is the reason for the second and third commandments. We must preach this gospel, the gospel of the first commandment, and disciple new converts in this gospel. Otherwise, people will not know they need to.
Now again, the first commandment is to remain in a state of saturation with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God and the person who is saturated with the Holy Spirit is saturated with God. Since the old covenant is a fulfilled contract, no one can sin against it by failing to keep it. Not so with the new covenant. Anyone who fails to keep the new covenant sins against the one who instituted it. Thus, mankind can wear the righteousness of the old covenant law, which was instituted by the Father, as a robe, or covering, but still fail to make heaven home by failing to maintain the righteousness instituted by Jesus.
Now Revelation 7:14 speaks of the blood of the Lamb. We are all familiar with the blood of the Christ, which Jesus shed in His fulfillment of the old covenant, but what about the blood of the Lamb? The Jews were not instructed to torture and kill the Lamb, so the Lamb’s blood was not shed at the cross. The phrase, blood of the Lamb, refers to a different event, one in which a sacrifice was offered.
Going back to Hebrews 9:14: this verse states that Jesus “offered Himself without spot to God.” This phrase suggests Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice on an altar. Hebrews 8:5 reveals there was a tabernacle in heaven on which the tabernacle on earth was patterned but why would heaven need a sacrificial altar? Whose blood would have been offered on a sacrificial altar in heaven?
This truth of Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself in heaven has been hidden from mankind, even though it is published fact. The same is true of the commandments of Jesus. Peter failed to realize Jesus had fulfilled the law when He preached to the first 3,000 souls on the day of Pentecost. This truth grew within Him, however, and when He wrote 1Peter, we can see that He understood. Hebrews 5:9 reveals, “He gives eternal life to those who obey Him,” so there has to be an opportunity given for those who failed to obey Jesus’ commandments in this life, to obey Him before the end.
Again, it has not been understood that Jesus returns in the air to call those who were faithful to the old covenant back to life in the beginning of the tribulation period. Or that He sends them out with instructions. According to Revelation 7:14, Christians must wash the robe of righteousness in the blood of the Lamb. In order to do so, someone will have to instruct them to, someone they respect. In order to wash the white robe of righteousness in the blood of the Lamb, repentance must be exercised, and obedience performed.