Text Box: At Calvary, God replaced the Old Testament covenant, the Law, with the New Testament covenant, grace through Jesus Christ. “For this cause Jesus is the Mediator of the New Testament, [the Covenant of Grace]. This is the blood of the New Testament which God has joined unto you.” - Heb. 9:15-20. The Covenant of the New Testament is the only covenant between God and the spiritual nation of New Testament believers. It is exclusively obtained through our faith in Christ and maintained by our contextual obedience to Him: Rom. 3:28; Eph. 2:8; Acts 5:32b; Jn. 14:21-24. A covenant consists of giving and receiving. God’s part of the New Covenant comprised of sacrificing His only Son in our place. Our part of the New Covenant comprises of obediently accepting His Gift and, in return, sacrificing our entire lives in His service: Rom. 12:1-2; Jam. 1:21. In this regard many believers accept the atoning work of Christ, but never surrender their old will and ways, and their entire lives to Him. They confess Jesus and all He has done for them, but they never serve, obey or follow Him. However, our covenant-relationship with God, as any other relationship, is a two-way street. Obedience, self-sacrifice, or crucifying the old sin-nature, is our share of the Covenant, which we must continually uphold in a practical way: Mt. 24:13; Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:17. Once, a dying woman said to me: “Although I knew Jesus nearly all my life, I never really served Him. And now I am on my way to meet Him…” This heartrending statement reminded me of Jesus’ words in Mt. 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of My Father Who is in heaven… So everyone who hears these words of Mine and act upon them, obeying them, will be like a sensible man who built his house upon the rock.” The main cause of such sad circumstances is the many manmade dogmas, which are all detrimental to our spiritual health. The main ingredient of these poisonous potions is a mixture of the Old- and the New Covenants in the Bible. Since the early centuries after Christ, Satan used these Covenants to confuse and delude the believers. His purpose, of course, is to rob them of their spiritual life and their blessed state in Christ on this side of life, as well as their eternal life in the presence of God: 2 Pet. 2:1-3. Truth is that, at any given time, we can only live in one of the two Covenants. God annulled the first, His Old Testament Law. To become partakers of the second, each and every person must execute their own free will to choose Jesus as their Christ. With one foot in the Old Covenant and the other in the New, no one can ever be saved, redeemed, cleansed and blessed in Christ: Heb. 10:1,14; Jn. 1:12-13. Some denominations teach that, under the New Covenant of grace, believers can never experience God’s punishment. In ‘The New Testament Nation’ and ‘Judgement Day For The Believers’, we discuss these fallacies in detail: Heb. 6:4-6; 2 Pet. 2:18-22. Meanwhile, we should understand that the completed work of Christ only pertains to those who made a sincere, deep commitment to Him, and to those who continually and steadfastly, until the end of this life, walk sincerely therein: 2 Ths. 1:8. In addition, another doctrine declares that every warning and teaching from Scripture must be ‘balanced’ with grace or love to be true, otherwise it does ‘not build up the believers’; consequently it ‘cannot be of God’. But if we rule out carnal criticism and needless bickering, we can safely view every warning from Scripture AS the grace and love of God. Without considering the full context of Scripture, these people draw on texts like Rom. 5:20b: “Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.” To them this means that the more sinfully and disobediently they live, the more God’s grace abounds to them. The followers of this once-saved-always-saved doctrine of ‘unconditional security’ do not realise that the Word was written for believers, not the unbelieving world. They ignore important warnings from Scripture and search for texts, which express grace, when they should merely repent with a willing decision to obey God: 1 Jn. 1:8-10. The truth is that all of God’s grace is available through the New Covenant. God does not allow humankind to diminish His grace; neither are they allowed to add anything to it. The only way to receive God’s grace is to obey Him contextually in everything, which Christ had commanded - Jn 14:22-24. The full context of Rom 5:20b is therefore the following, (from verse 1): The Law cannot make us acceptable to God; we need the redemptive work of Christ. By way of one person - who represents the whole of humankind - sin entered into the physical realm of the flesh and all people died spiritually. However, through one man, Jesus, God gives life to everyone who chooses to accept Him. Where the sin that came through Adam abounds, the grace that arrived through Jesus Christ abounds much more. As a result, the only ‘balance’ for sin is the atoning work of Christ. This does not mean we may keep on sinning because we live under the Covenant of grace. Paul warned in Rom. 6:1-2: “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, who are dead to sin, [in order to live in the grace of Christ], live any longer therein?” The belief that we may take the Word of God lightly, living a shallow church-life in ‘abounding grace,’ is a deceitfully ‘easy’ gospel that is rotten to the core: Rev. 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:1-9; 2 Ths. 2:10-12; 1 Tim. 6:3-5. We either accept God’s Covenant of grace, only obtainable through our belief in Jesus Christ, or, in deliberate insubordination, we reject His Covenant completely: Jn 15:1-6; Gal. 2:21. Contact us Find more discussions on our Main Page Discover the apologetic discussions in our Sub Domain The New Testament Covenant The Only Way to God The Father Repent from freemasonry and false doctrine and accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior

THE NEW TESTAMENT COVENANT

 

Renette Vermeulen

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