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Ephesians 1:4 According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
How is perfect righteousness, truth and holiness defined? It is defined by a perfect law. However, God is not subject to law, God's law is the transcript of His character. The righteous principles of His law is part of His very Being. And it is that character which God wishes to impart to every created being.
Prior to sin, angelic beings dwelt in a perfect environment – perfect happiness, harmony, love. They knew nothing of killing, stealing, lying, coveting, lust, taking advantage of one another, or taking God’s name in vain. They worshipped and obeyed God out of love and made Him God of their lives. God’s everlasting law of righteousness was in their hearts and minds.
Sin changed all that. The sin wasn’t just taking that forbidden fruit, though that was the evidence of sin. Satan, that old serpent, directed his attack against the integrity and truthfulness of God (Gen. 3:4) and promised Eve that if she disobeyed and ate the fruit she would be like God, she would know what was good and what was bad, and would no longer have need for God to tell what she could and couldn’t do.
Sin destroys and erases God’s law from the mind and heart. Sin places its own law of selfishness, greed, and self exaltation into our natures. As Paul stated:
So God reveals His everlasting covenant with man --
4. And finally, the covenant promises restoration of all things to perfect Eden. (Isa. 65:17., Rev. 21-22)
ISSUES CONCERNING “NEW COVENANT THEOLOGY”
This "new covenant theology does not approach God’s covenant from the “everlasting covenant” viewpoint, it maintains that somehow God has two different plans of salvation: one for Israel, and another for Christians. The Old Covenant which God gave the people, they maintain, was based on “works” while the new covenant is based on “grace”. Somehow the people of the Old Testament were under a covenant that required them to work their way to eternal life by keeping the commandments. Finally, after hundreds of years, God realized this wasn’t working, so now He came up with a totally different plan, complete with new commands based on love rather than law, called the new covenant.
What is the problem with this theology?
1. It makes God the author of legalism. If indeed he gave His pre-cross believers a covenant based on works.
2. It separates -- dissects the covenant of God and then pits various aspects of the covenant against each other.
3. This reasoning is a direct challenge to the moral consistency of God's government. It is a direct challenge to God's authority and wisdom in defining moral consistency. It is basically an admission that God finally figured out that His law can't be kept so He has to save people without requiring them to accept His moral principles. This is blasphemy in my thinking.
4. The N.T covenant. is built on the ten commandments as the standard for God's moral government in the same way the OT covenant was built on the ten commandments, thus for someone to interpret texts to say the law is done away with, is inconsistent with the rest of the Bible.
In Matthew 5 Christ explains the true meaning of the 10 commandments, he doesn't do away with them. Christ shows that love is manifested in obedience to God's laws. He clearly states this truth. John 14.15 "If you love me, keep my commandments." John 14.21 "He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."
Paul is often quoted as proof that the law was done away with, yet an honest reading of his books clearly reveals that Paul rejects the law only as a method of works to merit salvation. He upholds the law as a standard for Christian conduct and as an indicator to reveal sin. He says "man is justified by faith apart from works of the law (Romans 3:28) then in Romans 7:7 he says we only know what sin is because we have the 10 commandments. In Romans 6 the whole chapter stresses the importance of obedience and putting away sin. And in Romans 13:8,9, he lists commandments as the guide to fulfilling love.
Would God really expect people for 4000 years to do the impossible? And then punish them because they failed? I heard one man say, "In the Old Testament there was no mercy, they either obeyed or they were lost." I went home and looked up the word mercy in the old testament, and it was all over the place! Others don't go quite that far, but they still hold to the theory that Israel was saved by keeping the ten commandments. In simple words, they say in the Old covenant the plan was "obey and live" in the new covenant the plan is "believe and live".
Yes, there is a "new covenant", but are the distinctions between the "old" and the "new" two radically different ways of salvation? How can we believe this? Two plans of salvation— the old covenant a plan of works, the new covenant a plan of grace?
1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
1:20 Who indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
Rev. 13:8 Jesus is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Matt. 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Duet. 32:4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.
1 John 1:5 in him is no darkness at all.
That covenant promises:
2. Sins and iniquities would all be forgiven (Lev. 4:26, Heb. 10:17)
3. Character transformation, bringing our characters back into harmony with God’s law of righteousness.
36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do [them].
Jeremiah 31:33 I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Under the new covenant the ten commandments are supposedly no longer of any binding nature upon the Christian, since scripture says the ten commandments were the covenant given to Israel. (Ex. 31:18) And Galatians and Hebrews say the old covenant is “fading away”, and must be “cast out”. The old covenant, so they say, required people to obey if they wanted to be counted as God's people. They had to earn God's favor. Thus the old covenant is defined as being built on the ten commandments and obedience, but the new covenant is built on love and grace.
They were saved in the same way we are today— by the blood of Christ!!!! Did their sacrificial system save them? NO,the blood of animals can’t save, it pointed forward to the ALL SUFFICIENT sacrifice. Did the keeping of the commandments save or justify them? NO, the commandments can’t forgive those that have transgressed. The commandments were given to point out sin, they show where we miss the mark in holy living, and they still point out sin. (Romans 7:7) The sacrificial system was given them to understand that sin causes death, and that Christ would someday die for them. It taught them a substitute would be provided.
The truth concerning God’s mercy was beautifully revealed in the ark of the covenant.
The commandments were placed in the ark, and what is ABOVE those commandments? There was a special covering called THE MERCY SEAT. That mercy seat was BETWEEN the commandments and the glorious Shekinah. And on the mercy seat was sprinkled the cleansing blood.
The Mercy Seat covered the two tables of stone on which were written, by the very finger of God, the WORDS of God’s law. This law was placed inside the Ark of the Covenant under the mercy seat. (Exodus 25:21-22). Above the ark was the glorious Shekinah light, where Gods’ presence was revealed. Here is a bridge that bridges the gap as it connects the moral law defining a holy Character inside the Ark with the Shekinah Glory above the Mercy Seat.
It bridges the gap caused by sin and the transgression of the law, and brings mankind back into relationship with God!
Their faith was in promises yet to be fulfilled, our faith rests on the more sure evidence of promises already fulfilled.
The whole earthly sanctuary served only one purpose — to point people to Christ's sacrifice and ministry, and that through Him they could be justified and sanctified. The purpose of the sanctuary doctrine is to do precisely the same thing.
The keeping of God's law is just as important now as it was then. Will a Christian living under grace, who is no longer condemned by the law, continue in sin, which is the transgression of God's law? Paul says emphatically, "God forbid!" (Romans 6:1,15)
A person who teaches that the New Covenant abolishes God's moral law responded:
But scriptures say:
There is only ONE way to heaven.
"You mentioned that we seem to be coming at this from diametrically opposed viewpoints. . .you hit the nail on the head with the observations on the two covenants. As it turns out, many of us who are labeled "liberals" have come to believe in two covenants, with two ways to salvation; two different treatments of law; two different schemas of eschatology. It may surprise you to know this, but millions of Christians in many different fellowships around the world accept that there are two, radically different covenants, I don't have the time this morning to start you down that particular trail, but I'm glad you made the observation."
Two covenants, with two ways to salvation?