A Better Covenant

One thing I realized quite early in my Christian life was that things were supposed to change. I was a rather bad fellow as a nonbeliever and I usually took God hating to the extreme. I was engaged in activity that I knew was wrong (most were illegal) and there was always a sense of guilt attached to those wrongs. When I became a Christian I knew automatically that I could not continue to do the things that I was doing and say that I love Jesus. I remember hearing “If you love me keep my commandments”. I think the first book of the bible I read was the Gospel of John and there were verses that I couldn’t get past. I then started to read the other gospels and phrases like “pickup your cross and follow me”, “no man who touches the plow”, “let the dead bury their dead”, “deny yourself”, “any tree that does not bear fruit”, this distinction between “sheep and goats” and the parable of the seed jumped right off the page.

It was only later that I started to dive into the epistles and again I saw the same theme “no one can practice sin”, “faith without works”, “how can we who died to sin continue to live in it”, the different type of people who Paul says “will not inherit the kingdom of God” and the fact that I was to “put on the new man”. I again realized that the New Testament puts a high emphasis on how I should behave and things I should abstain from. You see it was only later that I was taught Justification, Perseverance and the Doctrines of Grace and I am so glad it happened that way for me. Why? Well….

As I now read a few books and listen to a few sermons I have come to realize that many today teach that Discipleship is something you do versus something you become. What does that mean. Well you see today I can profess to be a Christian while simultaneously holding on to everything that Christ delivered me from. Or as many put it. Discipleship is a separate work solely dependent upon me and really I choice that I can make to gain more rewards in heaven. So you become a Christian one day and, well, later you can become a Disciple when you decide to become serious about Christianity.

So many churches offer what they call a “call to discipleship” as if Christ work on the cross only purchased your salvation but the sanctification/discipleship process well thats on you. I don’t believe anything if further from the truth than this. The bible makes no such distinctions and I think it reduces Christ work on the cross.  I believe that Hebrews 8 paints a totally different picture:

6 But as it is, Christ [2] has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

8 For he finds fault with them when he says: 

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”

13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Above is the New Covenant applied to the Church. Back in Jeremiah 31 we see this prophecy first mentioned. Why must there be a New Covenant? Well lets see what our brother Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

The letter killed! Which letter you may ask. The letter written on tablets of stone:

7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?

These are the commandments the covenant given at Sinai. This covenant was one of “death” as Paul calls it in verse 7. Why? Well we see it in the terms of the New Covenant. It specifically says “I will write my laws on their heart”. Now I don’t want you to get me wrong here. The First Covenant was a “glorious covenant” and Paul also says in Romans 7:12 that it is “holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good”. The problem isn’t the law the problem is our hearts under that Law. Under the First Covenant God issues the commandments and says “obey it”. The problem is we can’t. Our depravity doesn’t allow us and the covenant gives us no power to obey those commands. So it kills us everytime we look at it. Everytime we approach it we die! Why? Paul also says in Romans 7:

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

I don’t believe this is the wrestling Christian but the Israelite looking for justification by the law coming to the conclusion that “I CAN’T DO IT”. We see the law and all we see is death. We can’t obey it. This is why I have a huge problem with Christians who expect nonbelievers to behave like believers. Paul says earlier in Romans 6 “when you were slaves to sin” sinners do as sinners are. It is in their nature to rebel and to run to sin and enjoy sin and try to get everyone else to join in their sin bath. I don’t expect better. That is why we have laws. God in His manifold wisdom set up governments to execute some type of moral order in the world if not we would have become extinct about 2 weeks after Adam and Eve were thrown out. But back to the point at hand.

Under the New Covenant we are not only given God’s law we are given a new heart to follow it. These commands don’t become burdensome they become light! Why? Because in the inauguration of the New Covenant Christ sends the Spirit to reside in us and through this we now have the ability to obey. So no longer do we die when we see God’s commands we embrace and love those commands. How does this apply to discipleship? Well immediately upon regeneration we get a New Heart. This New Heart causes us to approach the throne of Grace with “boldness”. No longer do we duck and hide or run from God. No longer is their a “veiled face mediator” but there is Jesus with an unveiled face saying “come, come”! He causes us to obey by writing His law on our hearts! Thus discipleship is simultaneously we run to God not from God through Christ.

A call to discipleship denies the new heart and salvation becomes a mere act of “fire insurance” and not the full purchase of sanctification. 1 John says “if you are growing in these things, then you know”. If someone denies discipleship they deny conversion. If someone says “I like Jesus and my profession proves it” but there lives say “I hate Jesus because I don’t want to obey” then it isn’t a lack of information it is a lack of regeneration. I am not promoting a perfectionist theology here but the simple and straightforward teaching of Scripture. We don’t want to give people false hope. We are too quick in saying “oh yes you made a profession you are sealed”. Well the bible gives litmus test throughout the OT and NT of those who profess to love God but by actions deny Him.

MacArthur wrote a wonderful book called “The Gospel According to Jesus” which gives a systematic and biblical approach to this subject. Also Jim Eliff wrote a book called “Wasted Faith” which is much shorter and gets straight to the point. He doesn’t horseplay. He hits the scripture then charges them to your heart. We must not be so quick to give out get out of hell free cards at profession. We must preach the entire counsel of God and as the writer of Hebrews, Paul and John all sing the same tune of “endurance” not mere “profession”. We must value the New Covenant much more than we do today. It is a gracious covenant that gives us the power to obey our God. I am thankful for it and we must preach it with great confidence