The New Testament makes a clear distinction between covenants of Law and covenants of Promise. Saint Paul or Apostle Paul spoke of these "Two Covenants" that is, one originating "from Mount Sinai" the other from "the Jerusalem above."

Saint Paul or Apostle Paul also explained explicitly that the covenant established at Mount Sinai, the Law, is a "ministry of death" and "condemnation" - a covenant that cannot be obeyed because of man's weakness and sin.

You want to be subject to the Law? Then listen to what the Law says. It says, if you remember that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl, and one by his free-born wife. The child of the slave-girl was born in the ordinary way; the child of the free woman was born as a result of a promise. This can be regarded as an allegory: the women stand for the two covenants.

The first who comes from Mount Sinai, and whose children are slaves, is Hagar - since Sinai is in Arabia - and she corresponds to the present Jerusalem that is a slave like her children. The Jerusalem above, however, is free and is our mother, since sacred scripture says: Shout for joy, you barren women who bore no children! Break into shouts of joy and gladness, you who were never in labour. For there are more sons of the forsaken one than sons of the wedded wife.

Now you, my brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise, and as at that time the child born in the ordinary way persecuted the child born in the Spirit's way, so also now. Does not scripture say: Drive away that slave-girl and her son; this slave-girl's son is not to share the inheritance with the son of the free woman? So, my brothers, we are the children, not of the slave-girl, but of the free-born wife. - Gal. 4:21-31 - 

Does this sound like a new attempt to commend ourselves to you? Unlike other people, we need no letters of recommendation either to you or from you, because you are yourselves our letter, written in our hearts, that anybody can see and read, and it is plain that you are a letter from Christ Jesus, drawn up by us, and written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on the tablets of your living hearts.

Before God we are confident of this through Christ: not that we are qualified in ourselves to claim anything as our own work: all our qualifications come from God. He is the one who has given us the qualifications to be the administrators of this new covenant which is not a covenant of written letters but of the Spirit: the written letters bring death, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the administering of death, in the written letters engraved on stones, was accompanied by such a brightness that the Israelites could not bear looking at the face of Moses, though it was a brightness that faded.

Then how much greater will be the brightness that surrounds the administering of the Spirit! For if there was any splendour in administering condemnation, there must be very much greater splendour in administering justification. In fact, compared with this greater splendour, the thing that used to have splendour now seems to have none; and if what was so temporary had any splendour, there must be more in what is going to last for ever.

Having this hope, we can be quite confident; not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites would not notice the ending of what had to fade. And anyway, their minds had been dulled; indeed, to this very day, that same veil is still there when the old covenant is being read, a veil never lifted, since the Lord Jesus Christ alone can remove it.

Yes, even today, whenever Moses is read, the veil is over their minds. It will not be removed until they turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord Jesus Christ, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ who is Spirit.

Since we have by an act of mercy been entrusted with this work of administration, there is no weakening on our part. On the contrary, we will have none of the reticence of those who are ashamed, no deceitfulness of watering down the word of God; but the way we commend ourselves to every human being with a conscience is by stating the truth openly in the sight of God.

If our gospel does not penetrate the veil, then the veil is on those who are not on the way to salvation; the unbelievers whose minds the god of this world has blinded, to stop them seeing the light shed by the Good News of the glory of Christ Jesus, who is the image of God.

For it is not ourselves that we are preaching, but Christ Jesus as the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. It is the same God that said, "Let there be light shining out of darkness" who has shone in our minds to radiate the light of the knowledge of God's glory, the glory on the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. - 2 Cor. 3:1-18, 4:1-6 -

The "New Covenant" God has made with mankind, based on the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. The concept of a new covenant originated with the promise of the prophet Jeremiah that God would accomplish for His people because they did detestable things that God's never ordered. In other words, the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah greatly sinned against Yahweh and the old covenant.

For the sons of Israel and of Judah have done nothing but displease Me from their youth up (the sons of Israel, in fact, have done nothing but provoke Me by their actions - it is Yahweh who speaks.) Yes, from the day when it was built until today, this city has been such cause of anger and of wrath to me that I mean to remove it from My sight, because of all the wickedness the sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have committed to provoke Me; they, their kings, their nobles, their priests and their prophets, the men of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem.

They turned their backs to Me, never their faces; and though I taught them so urgently, so persistently, they would not listen and learn the lesson. They have put their abominations in the Temple that bears My name to defile it. They have built the high places of Baal in the Valley of Ben-hinnom, there to make their sons and daughters pass through fire in honour of Molech - something I never ordered, for it never entered My thoughts that they would do such detestable things - and so they have led Judah into sin. - Jer. 32:30-35 -

Under this "New Covenant" God would write His Law on human hearts. This promised action suggested a new level of obedience, a new knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a new forgiveness of sin. The "New Covenant" accomplished what the old covenant could not, that is, removal of sin and cleansing of the conscience.

The New Testament which itself means "New Covenant" interprets the fulfillment and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ as bringing this promised "New Covenant" into being. In the New Testament, the Gospel According To Saint Luke, when Jesus ate the Passover meal at the Last Supper with His disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of the cup as "The New Covenant In My Blood".

Then Jesus took some bread, and when Jesus had given thanks, broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My Body which will be given for you; do this as a memorial of Me." Jesus did the same with the cup after supper, and said, "This cup is the "New Covenant In My Blood" which will be poured out for you. - Luke 22:19-20 -

When the apostle Paul recited the tradition he had received concerning or pertaining to the Last Supper, he quoted these words of the Lord Jesus Christ about the cup as "The New Covenant In My Blood." Thus, if a person who eats and drinks without recognising the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation.

For this is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you: that on the same night that He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus Christ took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, "This is My body which is for you; do this as a memorial of Me." In the same way He took the cup after supper, and said, "This cup is a "New Covenant In My Blood." Until the Lord Comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming His death, and so anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord Jesus Christ unworthily will be behaving unworthily towards the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Everyone is to recollect himself and herself before eating this bread and drinks this cup; because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation. In fact, that is why many of you are weak and ill and some of you have died. If only we recollect ourselves, we should not be punished like that. But when the Lord Jesus Christ does punish us like that, it is to correct us and stop us from being condemned with the world.

So to sum up, my dear brothers and sisters, when you meet for the Meal, wait for one another. Anyone who is hungry should eat at home, and then your meeting will not bring your condemnation. - 1 Cor. 11:23-34 -

The reason, therefore, why those who are in Christ Jesus are not condemned, is that the law of the spirit of life in the Lord Jesus Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death. God has done what the Law, because of our unspiritual nature, was unable to do. God dealt with sin by sending His own Son in a body as physical as any sinful body, and in that body God condemned sin. He did this in order that the Law's just demands might be satisfied in us, who behave not as our unspiritual nature but as the spirit dictates.

The unspiritual are interested only in what is unspiritual, but the spiritual are interested in spiritual things. It is death to limit oneself to what is unspiritual; life and peace can only come with concern for the spiritual, That is because to limit oneself to what is unspiritual is to be at enmity with God: such a limitation never could and never does submit to God's law. People who are interested only in unspiritual things can never be pleasing to God.

Your interest, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to Him. Though your body may be dead it is because of sin, but if the Lord Jesus Christ is in you then your spirit is life itself because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through His Spirit living in you.

So then, my brothers and sisters, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives. If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live. - Rom. 8:1-13

The "Covenants of Promise" are God's guarantees that He will provide salvation in spite of man's inability to keep his side of the agreement because of his/her sin. ("....... do not forget, I say, that you had no Christ Jesus and were excluded from membership of Israel, aliens with no part in the covenants with their Promise; you were immersed in this world, without hope and without God. But now in the Lord Jesus Christ, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ............") - Eph. 2:11-22 -

The provision of a Chosen People through whom the Messiah would be born is the promise of the covenants with Adam and king David. - Gen. 3:15; 2 Sam. 7:14-15 - The covenant with Noah is God's promise to withhold judgment on nature while salvation is occurring. In the covenant with Abraham, God promised to bless Abraham's descendants.

These many covenants of promise may be considered one covenant of grace which was fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension ushered in the new covenant under which we are justified by God's grace and mercy rather than our human attempts to keep the law. The Lord Jesus Christ is the "Mediator" of this better covenant between God and human beings.

Jesus' sacrificial death served as the oath, or pledge which God made to us to seal this "New Covenant". The Lord Jesus Christ is determined to give us eternal life with Him, in spite of our unworthiness. This is still God's promise to any person who turns to Him in repentance.

To suit us, the ideal high priest would have to be holy, innocent and uncontaminated, beyond the influence of sinners, and raised up above the heavens; one who would not need to offer sacrifices everyday, as the other high priests do for their own sins and then for those of the people because He has done this once and for all by offering Himself. The Law appoints high priests who are men subject to weakness; but the promise on oath which came after the Law, appointed the Son - the Lord Jesus Christ - who is made perfect for ever. - Heb. 7:26-28 -

The Letter To The Hebrews ( A Letter Addressed To A Jewish-Christian Community) gives the "New Covenant" more attention than any other books in the New Testament. It includes quotations from the Old Testament. The "New Covenant" accomplished what the old covenant could not: removal of sin and cleansing of the conscience. The work of Jesus Christ on "The Cross" fulfills the promises of God and thus makes the old covenant "Inefficacious".

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Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless. 

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Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -