The New Covenant (Part 2)

The New Covenant was originally given to Israel and includes a promise of fruitfulness, blessing, and a peaceful existence in the Promised Land.

Ezekiel 36:28–30 “Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. . . . I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine.”

Deuteronomy 30:1–5 contains similar promises related to Israel under the New Covenant. After the resurrection of Christ, Gentiles were brought into the blessing of the New Covenant, too. The fulfillment of the New Covenant will be seen in two places: on earth, during the Millennial Kingdom; and in heaven, for all eternity.

1. We are no longer under the Law but under grace-Romans 6:14, 5.

2. The Old Covenant has served its purpose and it has been replaced by “a better covenant” according to Hebrews 7:22.

Hebrew 8:6 “In fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.”

Remember:

a. Under the New Covenant, we are given the opportunity to receive salvation as a free gift-Ephesians 2:8–9.

b. Our responsibility is to exercise faith in Christ, the One who fulfilled the Law on our behalf and brought an end to the Law’s sacrifices through His own sacrificial death.

c. Through the life-giving Holy Spirit who lives in all believers, we share in the inheritance of Christ and enjoy a permanent, unbroken relationship with God.

Do you know Jesus? If not, accept Him today and begin to live under the New Covenant.

Changed (P 5)

Romans chapter 12 is full of instructions on the practical aspects of living the Christian life. The first issue that Paul deals with is the issue of “worship.” Worship, for the Gentile Christians, as for the Old Testament Israelites, has a priority in our lives.

We need to notice the dispensational emphasis of Romans 12:1. When Paul writes, “I beseech you by the mercies of God,” he’s not referring to the mercy of the Lord in general, but to the specific mercy that he has just written about in the previous chapter.

Romans 11:30, 31 “For as you (Gentiles) were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their (Israel’s) disobedience, even so these (the Jews) also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy.”

Here Paul describes the changing of the dispensations. In previous times Israel had fellowship with God while the Gentiles were afar off, without God and without hope in the world. Yet now, because of Israel’s disobedience, the Gentiles have obtained mercy. The Messiah had come to Israel in fulfillment of the promises made to their fathers, but the people of Israel had rejected Him and crucified Him. Still Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The early chapters of the Book of Acts reveal how the Holy Spirit preached forgiveness to Israel, if they would repent and believe in their risen and ascended Messiah. But again Israel was disobedient, persecuting the apostles and Messianic believers, and finally stoning Stephen, a man filled with the Holy Spirit.

Because of Israel’s disobedience, God “cast them away” in Romans 11:15 and raised up a new apostle, Paul, the leader of Israel’s disobedience saved by pure grace, and revealed to him, “the dispensation of the grace of God” in Ephesians 3:1, 2. Because of Israel’s disobedience, mercy went to the Gentiles, but because of the mercy shown to the Gentiles, the Jew also now may receive mercy and be saved by the grace of God through faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul is writing Chapter 12 in the light of the dispensational change that the Lord had revealed to him. The Gentiles who were once far off, not allowed to enter any further than the “vestibule” of the temple, now saved by grace, are invited to worship God. But note carefully how they were to worship the Lord. Not by imitating Israel’s worship, not by building a temple, not even by going to the temple in Jerusalem (it was still standing and operating when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans), but by “presenting your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship.”

There was a profound change in God’s plan for acceptable worship. It once required all those complicated requirements for acceptable worship: a temple building, with furniture and relics and a priesthood and an altar and animal sacrifices according to the calendar, but now all that is changed. God no longer has a temple building of stone and wood, but in this new dispensation of the grace of God, the temple of God is the believer’s body!

“Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” (1 Cor. 6:19).

That is just the beginning of the changes. Today we worship God, not by going to a building (after all, we are God’s building), making use of certain furniture, and the appropriate personnel, and observing a certain ritual; our worship is to present our bodies a living sacrifice. When Paul writes, “which is your reasonable service,” we should underline the word “your.” Israel’s acceptable worship was there at the temple, doing the prescribed ritual, but Paul writes, “YOUR worship, the worship God had commanded from you Gentiles, you members of the Body of Christ, YOUR worship is to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.”

Changed (P 4)

Paul writes in Romans 12:1 about our “reasonable service.” This word “service” could just as well be translated “worship.” This same word, “service,” is used several times in Hebrews Chapter 9:

Verse 1 “Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.”

Here Paul’s word, “service,” is translated by the fuller phrase, “divine service.” The writer to the Hebrews is describing the worship that God ordained or “the ordinances,” under the Law of Moses for the people of Israel. He begins in Verse 1 writing about the “earthly sanctuary,” referring to the tabernacle in the wilderness, and later to the temple that then stood in the center of Jerusalem, where the worship of Israel was continually carried out. He goes on to a detailed explanation of Israel’s worship:

Verses 2-5 “For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary [margin: “holy place”]; and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, which had the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.”

 As the writer describes the worship that God commanded for Israel, he walks us through the tabernacle describing the architecture: two rooms, the holy place and the Holy of Holies, and two veils; the furniture: a table and a lampstand; certain “relics” that were preserved in the Holy of Holies: the Ark of the Covenant, the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s rod that budded, a pot of manna.

Then he goes on to describe how these things were actually used in the worship:

Verses 6, 7 “Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part [The Holy of Holies] the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance.”

Here we read about the personnel who were required in order to worship the Lord and the calendar of feasts that governed the worship. We read that the ordinary priests went into the first room, the holy place, performing the worship, but into the Holy of Holies only the High Priest went, and that on only one day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On that day he could go into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood on the ark, or mercy seat, and make atonement for the sins of the people.

If a person in Israel wanted to worship the Lord, he couldn’t do it in just any way that he desired, in any place that he desired. God had prescribed the way to worship Him acceptably, and the Israelite had to obey, or be guilty of breaking the covenant. To worship the Lord he had to go to a particular city, Jerusalem, and to a certain building, the temple. He would have to be concerned about certain furniture, certain relics that had to be present, about a certain ritual, the proper sacrifices and manner of performing them. He had to be concerned about a priesthood, and the calendar, the yearly cycle of feasts and the weekly Sabbaths. In Verse 10 we read about “foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances…”  Worship was a complex undertaking, but these were God’s instructions to Israel about how He wanted them to worship Him.

It might be complicated, and it might at times be burdensome, but still, what a privilege! God said to these people that He wanted to have fellowship with them, and that He was providing an access, a way that they, through their High Priest representative, could come into His very presence and have fellowship with Him and make atonement for their sins. This fellowship was limited, only the High Priest could come, and that only once a year, but it was real, and it was unlike anything that any other people on the face of the earth enjoyed. This was the “divine service,” the worship, of Israel.

Changed (P3)

Romans 12:1, 2 connects with Romans 11 in which Paul shows the mercy of God in admitting gentiles as well as Jews into the privilege of being selected as prospective members of the bride of Christ. Pleading these extended mercies, Paul urges nothing less than a total commitment, a sacrifice as animals were sacrificed in Israel’s ancient worship. This sacrifice would be different, though, in that it would be living or a day by day presentation of one’s self to the service of God.

-It was holy in that it would be first covered by the merit of Jesus’ own blood, justifying the recipient so that he could be acceptable in God’s sight. This presentation is described as a reasonable service in that it is a service of reason, a logical conclusion of the individual in response to what Christ has done for him.

2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."

-The consecration, or presentation, in Verse one would lead naturally to the transformation of Verse two. The contrasting verbs conformed and transformed are based on two different Greek root words.

The word conformed is the Greek "suschematizo" based on the same root from which we get our English word "scheme", whereas the word transformed is a translation of the word "metamorphoo" from which we derive our word "metamorphosis." The thought is that we are not to allow peer pressure to bend our actions according to the outward "scheme" of this world, but are to be changed from the inside, from the heart, metamorphosed like a caterpillar to a butterfly.

This inward change is to be accomplished by obtaining a a new set of values through the renewing of our mind. It is through this new way of looking at things that we can prove what is God’s will for our lives, which is what is good, acceptable, and perfect.

-Then Paul cautions that we do not make this evaluation of the role Christ would have us play with too high an esteem of our personal worth. The word "soberly" implies that we do not err to the other extreme either, having too low of an estimation of our talents.

The key to balancing between these extremes is the measure of faith which God has given to each. The principle was laid down by Jesus in other circumstances:

Matthew 15:28 "According to thy faith be it unto thee." 

Changed (P1)

Paul’s first great exhortation is to be renewed in our minds:

Romans 12:1, 2 "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The phrase “the mercies of God” refers to all of what has preceded in chapters 1-11. The exhortation that Paul presents is that since we have been the gracious recipients of God’s great mercies, we are to be “living sacrifices” to God. How do we do this? We are living sacrifices to God by not conforming to this world, but by being transformed by the renewal of our minds.

This exhortation really serves as a summary statement of all that follows. A living sacrifice to God is one who does not conform, but is transformed. We are not to be conformed to this world. Paul is using the word "world" here to refer to the spirit of the age. In other words, "world" refers to the popular worldview that rejects God and His revelation. As unbelievers, we are naturally conformed to the world according to Ephesians 2:1–3. As believers, we are no longer conformed to this world because we no longer belong to the spirit of this age. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. Therefore, rather than continuing to conform to this world, we are to be transformed by having our minds renewed.

Paul says that we must be transformed by the renewing of our “minds.” The mind is the key to the Christian life. The reason why non-Christians do not respond to Christian truth is that they cannot discern spiritual truth. The gospel is a call for the unbeliever to repent of his sin and embrace Christ by faith. The Greek word translated “repentance” carries the notion of a change of mind. Our thinking must be changed (transformed) from old, ungodly ways of thinking into new, godly ways of thinking. What we know in our minds to be true forms a conviction in our hearts of that truth, and that conviction in our hearts translates into action. Therefore, we must first renew our minds.

The only way to replace the error of the world’s way of thinking is to replace it with God’s truth, and the only infallible source of God’s truth is His revealed Word, the Bible. Transformation through renewed minds comes as believers expose themselves to God’s Word through the faithful exposition of it each week in church, personal Bible study, and group Bible study. A solid church that believes in preaching the Word, reading the Word, and singing the Word is invaluable in helping us renew our minds.

There are no shortcuts. There is no magical formula for renewing our minds. We must fill our minds with God’s Word.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” 

Changed (P2)

How do we obey the command in Romans 12:2 to “be transformed in the renewing of your mind?”

First, before we can do anything, an action of the Holy Spirit is required and then we join him in these actions. The reason the Holy Spirit is required is because this word “renewal” in Romans 12:2 is only used one other place in all of the Greek Bible, namely, Titus 3:5 where Paul says this: “[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

There’s the word “renewal” which is so necessary and it is renewal “of the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit renews the mind. It is first and decisively his work. We are radically dependent on him. Our efforts follow his initiatives. 
Now what is the work that he must do to renew our minds so that all of life becomes worship?

2 Corinthians 3:18 sets the stage for the answer:

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." 

What does the Spirit do to “transform” us into the image of the Son of God? He enables us to “behold the glory of the Lord.” This is how the mind is renewed by steadfastly gazing at the glories of Christ for what they really are.

But to enable us to do that, the Spirit must do a double work. He must work from the outside in and from the inside out. He must work from the outside in by exposing the mind to Christ-exalting truth. That is, he must lead us to hear the gospel, to read the Bible, to study Christ-exalting writings of great, spiritual men, and to meditate on the perfections of Christ.

This is exactly what our great enemy does not want us to do according to 2 Corinthians 4:4:

“The god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.”

Because to see that for what it really is, Paul says, will renew the mind and transform the life and produce unending worship.

And the Spirit must work from the inside out, breaking the hard heart that blinds and corrupts the mind. The Spirit must work from the outside in, through Christ-exalting truth, and from the inside out, through truth-embracing humility. If he only worked from the outside in, by presenting Christ-exalting truth to our minds but not breaking the hard heart and making it humble, then the truth would be despised and rejected. And if he only humbled the hard heart, but put no Christ-exalting truth before the mind, there would be no Christ to embrace and no worship would happen.

Your Promise (Part 3)

The blessings God conferred upon Abraham which are passed on to you as his spiritual seed, endue you with power for an abundant life.  They assure power for success, prosperity, fruitfulness, healing, blessing, and long life.  The blessings of Abraham were given from God through Christ to you in Galatians 3:16 NIV. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The scripture doesn't say "and to seeds", meaning many people, but "to your seed", meaning one person, who is Christ.

The provisions of this covenant are yours, passed on to you from God through Jesus Christ. This is what makes an understanding of this covenant so vital. Many believers are living far below their spiritual heritage because they do not understand that this covenant extends to them.  They do not understand its provisions or how to receive the benefits.  This lack of knowledge results in many living defeated and desperate lives.  God’s Word declares in Hosea 4:6 that, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...” 

The covenant is confirmed in your life the same way it was in the life of Abraham-by God alone.  Jesus Christ walked alone to Calvary and, through His blood sacrifice, paid the price for your salvation and the spiritual benefits of this covenant:

2 Corinthians 1:21, 22 "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."

The fulfillment of this covenant is not dependent upon you.  It is only dependent upon your obedience to accept and act upon the terms of the covenant.  You must believe in Jesus Christ and accept Him as your Savior in order to become the spiritual seed of Abraham:

Romans 10:8-10 "But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."


The promises of the Abrahamic covenant are received through faith, just as your salvation is secured: 

Ephesians 2:8, 9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."


2018 is the beginning of your new ending. Your calling is without repentance. Trust God to help you fulfill it in 2018.