"Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless" (Titus 3:9). Paul's caveat is certainly applicable to this current work. If a discussion of the law and covenant(s) results in nothing more than an exchange, sometimes a clash, of ideas, then we may be among those indicted by the prophet Isaiah: "Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high" (Isa. 58:4).
That warning must haunt every discussion of theology and every evangelistic presentation. Theology and evangelism that are true to their names should draw the theologians and evangelists themselves nearer to the true heart of God and should engage them in His true fast:
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say, Here am I. (Isa. 58:6-9)
It is one thing to study the covenants, but it is another to let our study impact our lives, leading us to be more Christlike, living to bless others through acts of selfless service. If it does not, then we have become "a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal" that Paul warned against (1 Cor. 13:1).
How living the new covenant experience will express itself in our lives will vary from person to person. Here is what living an old covenant versus a new covenant experience means to me relative to the four promises/provisions of God's covenant.
Promise/Provision 1
(Sanctification): "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts."
Old Covenant Experience
• I treat the commandments of God lightly and am willing to settle for less than full, uncompromising commitment to God and His will.
• I rely on church attendance, tithe paying, and abstinence from pornography, tobacco, alcohol, etc. as that which will put me in good standing before God in the final judgment.
• I serve in a church ministry to put icing on the merit cake.
New Covenant Experience[1]
• I rely completely on the mercy and grace of God as the only sufficiency for my salvation and all that attends it.
• I rejoice that by His grace my name is written in heaven.
• I seek and rely on God's presence moment by moment to enable me to love Him with all my heart and soul and strength, and my neighbor as myself.
• I am not content with nothing less than perfect conformity to God's will, but I realize that such conformity can only be attained by Jesus living and abiding in me constantly.
• I trust God to finish in His own time and way the good work He has begun in me.
• I believe that as I behold Him daily through prayer and meditation on His word, God is at work by His Spirit to restore His image in me, bringing every thought and action into obedience to Christ.
• I trust that He will lead me by His Spirit into a life of wholehearted "obedience that comes from faith" as a natural, spontaneous expression of the love that He has poured out into my heart.
• I pray, "Turn my heart to You, that I might walk in all Your ways."
Promise/Provision 2
(Reconciliation): "I will be their God and they will be my people."
Old Covenant Experience
• I think of my spiritual life as a set of rules that I must strive to comply with.
• I consider devotional exercises as tasks that need to be done to gain acceptance with God and a place in heaven.
• I am content with a lifetime of meaningless and lifeless episodes of Bible study, prayer, and religious activities.
New Covenant Experience[2]
• I approach my spiritual life as a developing and growing relationship with God in which I constantly seek to know Him better and to grant Him deeper access to my heart and thinking through prayer and meditation on His word.
• I take seriously those times when my religious experience feels like a spiritual funk. I will pray about it, continue to attend religious services, seek help from spiritual mentors, join a group, or do whatever it takes to refocus my attention and hope on Christ.
• I trust Him, and by His enabling grace remain faithful to Him and to those things He has asked me to do, whether or not I ever "feel" accepted by God.
• I commit my feelings, my daily life and needs, and my ultimate salvation to Him who is able to guard whatever I commit to Him against that Day.
• I rest, by God's grace, ever more fully in Him who is my true Sabbath, and in His love for me and commitment to me.
• I trust that He who authored my faith will also finish it by that Day.
• I pray and desire to be led by the Spirit to "grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that [I] may be filled to the measure of the fullness of God."
Promise/Provision 3
(Mission): "No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."
Old Covenant Experience
• I no longer hunger or crave to know more and still more of Him whom to know is eternal life.
• I am content with a laissez-faire attitude toward others who do not yet know Jesus and may be confused, hurting, and drifting toward destruction.
New Covenant Experience[3]
• I ask God to show me His glory.
• I ask God to endow me with His passion for sharing the transforming knowledge of God with others-that through acts of selfless service, loving generosity, and healing words I might share His love with everyone I meet, beginning with my own family and extending out as far as God gives me influence.
• I pray that I, my family, and my spiritual network might be among those through whom God "spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him," so that we might be "to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing."
Promise/Provision 4
(Justification): "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
Old Covenant Experience
• I deny that I, a long-time Christian, am still a sinner and still sinning, and have specific sins to confess and repent of.
• I take the forgiving grace of God for granted, presuming on it flippantly, not appreciating what it cost Him to provide it, and not taking seriously the truth that "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed."
New Covenant Experience[4]
• I live so close to Jesus, by His enabling grace, that I become increasingly aware of how far I fall short of being like Him.
• I confess my known sins to God, asking Him to forgive and cleanse me from all known and unknown sin.
• I trust God's promise to forgive me and cleanse me of my sin.
• I grow in, and express, gratitude to God for the incredible sacrifice He made through Jesus to win back my allegiance and secure my place in His eternal kingdom.
• I recognize that there is absolutely nothing I can possibly add to the work God has already done for me and the salvation He has secured for me through Jesus's death and resurrection; I can only accept His incredible gift by faith.
• I pray, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."
• I pray that the purpose for which Christ died might be fulfilled in me by the mighty working of His Spirit within me: "He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."
Benediction
"May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen" (Heb. 13:20-21).
Notes: