As the Lord gives me understanding, longevity, and passion, I will seek to lay out the various ways God has reached out to mankind through covenants. But for now, it’s important to understand that the way in which God decides to offer Himself to mankind at any given time in history must be the way in which they are saved. If God says He will save in one way, and a human thinks to be saved in another fashion, there is no hope for that soul. If God says that He will not justify according to the works of the law (Gal. 2:16), and one seeks to be redeemed by the works of the law, they will not be saved. God sets the terms for His covenants because it is His salvation.
In the covenant that God made with national Israel in the Old Testament, He clearly told them that when they conquered foreign nations, they were not to seek to adapt their worship of Yahweh according to the practices of their conquered foes. God emphatically declared, “You shall not worship the LORD your God that way…” (Deut. 12:31) Those who try to reach out to God in a way that is not prescribed by Him, do so in futility because they worshiped what they do not know. (John 4: 22) When it came time for God’s covenant to be perfected in the New Testament, Jesus again laid the groundwork of an equally exclusive nature: To the Samarian woman (“the woman at the well”), Jesus stated, “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.” (John 4:22-23) Jesus was telling the woman that she was worshiping in a way that was not honored by God, but the time had come for God-honoring worship to be redefined.
The whole point of the covenant requirements is that God is the One who is reaching out to us, and He makes the rules.
In the following discussion concerning the various covenants God has used, I will outline the specific requirements, but for now I just want you to realize the importance of the revealed guidelines.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Covenant Religion, Part 1: The Necessity of Covenants
How many religions will assert that their God has condescendence to enter into a covenant with them? For that matter, how many religions will even admit that they need such a thing?
The biblical understanding of redemption includes far more than “do this” and “don’t do that.” The Bible talks a lot about works, about love, about mercy, about forgiveness, about faith, and so on. However, it’s a big mistake to assume that any of those are the key to our acceptance before God. What I will seek to create in your mind is the understanding that things like justification, faith, works, redemption, sanctification, glorification, and the rest, are elements of covenants. In so saying, I hope to alleviate the conception that we should focus solely on any one of these means.
The big picture looks like this: Humans have been defiled and failed to be redeemed. And God has been loving and has not forsaken us.
But why do we need a legal pact like a covenant? Why can’t God just forgive us?
Such questions arise from a wrong perception of the spiritual world. The earth is not a classroom; it’s not a playground; and God didn’t simply place us here to see whether we would obey Him or not. We are caught right in the middle of a war between the forces of good and the forces of evil; between the powers of darkness and the powers of light; and between the realm of death and the realm of life.
The simple fact of the matter is you’re either on God’s side or you're on Satan’s side. So you see it’s not really an issue of whether your good deeds out way your bad and so on, but whether you’re fighting with God or against Him. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were pretty good people on the outside, but Jesus told them that they were of their father, the devil—and that, not just because they did evil, but because they wanted to do evil. (John 8:44)
It's a shame that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. He sold his very livelihood to satisfy a craving and it brought him much sorrow. (Heb. 12:17) But what of this: Adam sold the human race to Satan for the ability to know what evil was. (I plan to discuss this more later.) Foolishness has marked our existence from the very beginning. When Adam sinned, birth itself became an enlistment into Satan’s army. David even says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psa. 51:5) We can say from a human perspective that Adam started a tragic cycle. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12)
So it’s no wonder that we are born into a world that is quite alive but ever dying. If we were on God’s side, we could expect things to be very different, but as Thomas Boston points out: “Is man’s nature wholly corrupt? Then, no wonder that the grave opens its devouring mouth for us, as soon as the womb has cast us forth; and that the cradle is turned into a coffin, to receive the corrupt lump: for we are all, in a spiritual sense, are dead-born; yea, and filthy (Psa. 14:3), noisome, rank, and stinking as a corrupt thing, as the word imports.”
Paul tells us that if we sin, we fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) In other words, he means that we’re not good enough to be part of God’s forces. So we need reconciliation: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom. 5:10)
Covenants are the way that God has extended His hand to some of His enemies. In the end, God’s going to win. But for us, it’s God’s love that determines the difference between destruction and redemption.
The biblical understanding of redemption includes far more than “do this” and “don’t do that.” The Bible talks a lot about works, about love, about mercy, about forgiveness, about faith, and so on. However, it’s a big mistake to assume that any of those are the key to our acceptance before God. What I will seek to create in your mind is the understanding that things like justification, faith, works, redemption, sanctification, glorification, and the rest, are elements of covenants. In so saying, I hope to alleviate the conception that we should focus solely on any one of these means.
The big picture looks like this: Humans have been defiled and failed to be redeemed. And God has been loving and has not forsaken us.
But why do we need a legal pact like a covenant? Why can’t God just forgive us?
Such questions arise from a wrong perception of the spiritual world. The earth is not a classroom; it’s not a playground; and God didn’t simply place us here to see whether we would obey Him or not. We are caught right in the middle of a war between the forces of good and the forces of evil; between the powers of darkness and the powers of light; and between the realm of death and the realm of life.
The simple fact of the matter is you’re either on God’s side or you're on Satan’s side. So you see it’s not really an issue of whether your good deeds out way your bad and so on, but whether you’re fighting with God or against Him. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were pretty good people on the outside, but Jesus told them that they were of their father, the devil—and that, not just because they did evil, but because they wanted to do evil. (John 8:44)
It's a shame that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. He sold his very livelihood to satisfy a craving and it brought him much sorrow. (Heb. 12:17) But what of this: Adam sold the human race to Satan for the ability to know what evil was. (I plan to discuss this more later.) Foolishness has marked our existence from the very beginning. When Adam sinned, birth itself became an enlistment into Satan’s army. David even says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.” (Psa. 51:5) We can say from a human perspective that Adam started a tragic cycle. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12)
So it’s no wonder that we are born into a world that is quite alive but ever dying. If we were on God’s side, we could expect things to be very different, but as Thomas Boston points out: “Is man’s nature wholly corrupt? Then, no wonder that the grave opens its devouring mouth for us, as soon as the womb has cast us forth; and that the cradle is turned into a coffin, to receive the corrupt lump: for we are all, in a spiritual sense, are dead-born; yea, and filthy (Psa. 14:3), noisome, rank, and stinking as a corrupt thing, as the word imports.”
Paul tells us that if we sin, we fall short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) In other words, he means that we’re not good enough to be part of God’s forces. So we need reconciliation: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom. 5:10)
Covenants are the way that God has extended His hand to some of His enemies. In the end, God’s going to win. But for us, it’s God’s love that determines the difference between destruction and redemption.
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