Covenants

Ignorance and Responsibility

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I work occasionally as a parking enforcement officer–a job I started to get myself through college, and have enjoyed so much I probably will never fully quit.

As I write parking tickets, I’ve often encountered angry people and have had to share with them what they’ve done, while still executing justice.  I’ve heard every excuse, and one time was nearly killed by a man who had parked over an hour in a 30 minute parking zone and, in rage, attempted to run me over with his truck before the police got involved.

One of the most common excuses is not knowing the rules of the road: “I didn’t know that wasn’t a parking space.”, “I didn’t know I needed a permit in that area.”, “No one told me I couldn’t drive through the bus center.”, and so forth.  Some of the people I meet are really nice people who really didn’t know they were in the wrong; more of them are lying (evidenced by the computerized system I carry of every ticket and warning they’ve had in the past).  Regardless, it’s the responsibility of those who drive to know the rules of the road (and of parking).  It’s my responsibility as parking enforcement officer to judge rightly and execute judgment according to the law.

I say this because many Christians neglect to actively pursue the Lord–even though it’s clear that love (demonstrated through obedience) is the first and foremost commandment.  We don’t, in the new covenant, have a rule book to follow as the Jews did; instead, the Holy Spirit writes the law on our hearts and connects us to God so that we can know and walk out His will.  Without the pursuit of God through the Holy Spirit (by reading the Bible, dialoguing with the Lord in prayer, connecting with other Christians in fellowship,…) we miss knowing Him.  And if we don’t know Him, well, He’ll still have to execute perfect judgment.

The season of God’s mercy is NOW.  Right now we’re alive and have the choice whether to learn God’s heart and choose His ways, or whether to drive our lives by our own rules.  And while I can give ‘warnings’ to those parked in the wrong spot (the gift of surprise mercy), God’s mercy is only available until we die, after that His judgment can be nothing but Just because He can’t go back on His word.

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What’s the point of Jesus?

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God created.  His creations chose to sin (disobey God).  The world was no longer good.  But God STILL wanted a relationship with us, so He chose the smallest and weakest of the people groups (the Jews) and gave them extraordinary favor that they may demonstrate His glory to the nations.  God always wanted the nations, but He chose the Jews to be the evangelical messengers.

To the Jews, God made four covenants (with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David).  In the covenant with Moses, God gave 613 commands for His people to follow, and the idea was that by acting out righteousness, their hearts would begin to manifest a burning desire for God.  Unfortunately (and quite fortunately for us gentiles!), there were very few Jewish people who really developed that love.  And sacrifice without love is meaningless.  That’s where Jesus comes in.

Jesus is God.  He’s the physical representation of the invisible God (Col 1:15).  He’s the outward manifestation–the exact representation–of God (Heb 1:3).  And He’s God’s Son (Matt 3:17, Matt 17:5, Mark 9:7, Luke 9:35).

When God saw that the Jewish people struggled to keep His commandments and develop true love for Him, He spoke to His prophets about a new covenant that He would bring.  The new covenant would allow the people to really connect with Him because His commandments would be written on their hearts (internally) instead of on stone (externally).  And though Christians are still to follow the commands of the Lord, Jesus promises that we would find rest for our souls, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt 11:29-30).

Jesus came to earth for several reasons (He tells us many in the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).  But these I want to highlight:

Without Jesus, it would be impossible for us to overcome; but when He died, was buried, and was resurrected for our sins, He also sent power through the Holy Spirit that we may intimately connect with Him and the Father (John 16:7).  It is such a powerful promise that we would be able to intimately communicate with the God of the universe!

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Individual faith; intimate relationship

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This is a short segment of an email I wrote today responding to a discussion based on an article about hearing from the Lord (the author of the article argues that dreams and visions have no place among today’s Christians and therefore, come from a demonic or natural source when experienced):

In the Old Testament, God’s relationship with the people was corporate—if the husband of the family was saved, the rest of the family would also be saved and so on.  It was because of the people’s sin that they could not interact personally with the Father, and, in fact, the Glory of the Lord acts so powerfully against sin that they could not safely approach the places where the Lord would choose to rest His presence (the Mountain, the Holy of Holies, etc).

The Holy Spirit was not fully available, so God would pick only one or a couple of the most righteous people to send the Holy Spirit to, that they would be able to speak to His people.  Notice that in Numbers 11, Moses wanted the burden of prophet/judge to be split among other men because it was so much for him to bear, so God led him to appoint seven elders to share leadership.  And God does something surprising: He says, “I will take of the Spirit that is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not bear it alone.”  The Holy Spirit wasn’t fully available yet—and couldn’t be under the Mosaic Covenant—so God the Father split the portion He gave to Moses so that they each had a piece of the responsibility (for that instance; after they had prophesied once, they never did again: Num 11:25).

Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection was the sealing factor in a new covenant—the Messianic Covenant—and as a result, He promised that the Holy Spirit would now be available to every believer.  Not only that, but because God could now communicate with each individual person, people would be judged individually for their sins.  We’re now entirely responsible for our own relationship to the Lord; and Jesus promises that His sheep will hear His voice (John 10) and that the Holy Spirit would be with us to lead us into all Truth (John 14 and John 16), but we do have to diligently ask to receive the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13)—not just one time, but consistently so that we can truly walk in the Spirit.  The power of the Holy Spirit became fully available at Pentecost, but we can only receive as much as we can handle and as much as we want, and since we are continuously sanctified and growing in faith, we need to continue to ask for Him so that the world doesn’t seep into us instead.

Also, God does speak to us through the Bible, and we should always compare everything to it.  However, it’s important to realize that when Hebrews 1:2 says God speaks to us through His SON, it means exactly that—Jesus is Living and He speaks.  He speaks to us through the scriptures (which are the inspired Word of God through the Holy Spirit), but He also speaks to us through prayer, dreams, visions, the gift of tongues with interpretation, and even through other people as they are led by the Holy Spirit.  I agree that we should test every spirit to see if it is of God—the devil is speaking too, and since he doesn’t have the power to create as God does, he uses the gifts that God has already set up for his purposes.  Many people think they’re hearing from Jesus through dreams, visions, pastors, prayer, tongues and a variety of other sources when they’re really hearing from deceptive spirits or false prophets!  That’s why it’s so important to stay in the Bible (John 8:31-32) and to spend lots of time practicing hearing the Lord’s voice.  We can’t assume that all of the God-given gifts are bad, but we do have to be very aware so that we can discern whether the voice being heard is from God or the devil.

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