Category: Covenants

Have you made yourself ready for the new heavens and the new earth? Make this truly not just a new year, but a new eternity!

Most people agree that the sermon on the mount is one of the most eloquent and profound sermons ever, if not the most eloquent and profound. We can learn numerous lessons concerning that which is good and right. The question has arisen, however, “Is the sermon on the mount a clarification of the Law of Moses or is it the Lord’s preparation for the kingdom which was yet to come?” We deny the former and affirm the latter. Yet, there are those who disagree with us and say that the sermon is just Jesus’ attempt to set the Jews straight on the real meaning of the Law of Moses. Is this true? Can the argument be sustained? Let us investigate.

The things written before were written for our learning (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:6), but we do not live under that covenant. God spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but today He speaks through His Son (Heb. 1:1,2). The “word spoken through angels” (Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19) is contrasted with the “great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him” (Heb. 2:2,3).

The “rest” of Hebrews 4:1-11 is a promise to be enjoyed, not a command to be kept, or observed. In this, it is parallel to Holy Spirit baptism. The baptism of the Spirit was never a command to be obeyed. Rather, it was a promise which certain ones were to receive (Acts 1:4-8). So, likewise, Hebrews 4:1-11 deals with a promise to be received by certain ones.

What we have observed in our study is that God fulfilled the covenant He made with Abraham. The last part of that covenant was the promise to bless all nations of people on earth with the offer of salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord! Have you submitted to the call of our Lord? He still stands with open arms and calls.

The Bible presents Jesus as the Mediator of a new and better covenant. He is also presented as the testator of His new testament. We must not deprive the gospel of its testamentary attributes, since Hebrews 9:15-17 ascribe such traits to it. We must be content to allow God to depict the covenant of Christ as He sees fit. He has described the new covenant as a testament which contains an eternal inheritance when the conditions of His will are met.

Brethren, if the priesthood did not change and Christ did not give a new covenant, how are we going to look to the New Testament as a pattern for our worship, organization or work? This theory is indeed the “new hermeneutics” in different attire, and like any other rejection of New Testament authority will result in total departure from God’s pattern.

The seventh chapter of Hebrews completely demolishes the false doctrine of those who advocate the “one covenant theory”.

Observance of the Sabbath is not commanded in the New Covenant which was sealed by the blood of the Son of God. The “rest” to which we look is eternal in nature. Let us not turn back into denominational error by accepting the erroneous idea that there has only been “one covenant” and Jesus did not nail the old law to the cross, thus leading us to accept the old testament as binding.

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Nowadays, we have men who are supposed to be New Testament Christians turning back into hybrid Christianity. They are espousing the idea that God has not given two covenants, but that He has always only had one (contra Heb. 8:6-7). The result is that these men are being led–or will be led–into other error. Some have even admitted that they see nothing immoral about polygamy! What will end up happening is they will go right back into the denominational error from which others so desperately fought to escape.

God gave His pattern for marriage in the beginning. Under Moses, God allowed man to deviate from His original intent. Jesus makes it clear that God will no longer tolerate that deviance. Jesus’ Law on divorce and remarriage is different than Moses because it goes back to what God wanted all along.

We are sanctified by the blood of Jesus, His blood dedicated the new covenant, the new covenant is based on the heart, on the mind of man. In the new covenant God remembers our sins against us no more. In the new covenant we are not to exhort one another saying, “Know the Lord,” for all of God’s children are to know Him from the least unto the greatest. And while we are not under the law of Moses we are under the law of liberty, under the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. What does this mean? Hear me! Under the law of Moses a man was kept from sin by statute if kept from it at all; such a thing as liberty was not known, not recognized, not dreamed of. Under the Gospel, under Christ with His law written in the heart, and in the conscience-we have liberty!

2 Chronicles 34:15 BackgroundAfter the death of Solomon, Israel and Judah were divided into separate kingdoms. Both had periods in which they were in rebellion…

To confine a covenant solely to a relationship is to fall into the same error as the Calvinists who insist we are saved by faith only. We are saved by faith, but not faith only. And while a covenant includes a relationship, there is often more to a covenant that relationship; oftentimes it is law as it was with the Old Covenant and as it is with the New.

The Old Testament long prophesied that there was a day coming when God would establish his kingdom (Mic. 4:1-3; Dan. 2). This new kingdom would have a new law (Jer. 31:31-34). It was this kingdom that Jesus Christ came to establish (Matt. 16:18). Therefore, we affirm that in the sermon on the mount, Jesus is preaching things which concern his kingdom and its law.

Churches of Christ have faithfully taught that we must rightly divide the old from the new and that we are to follow the new and not the Old Covenant. We have correctly taught that the New Covenant is our guide and authority. We learn from the Old Covenant (Rom. 15:4,) but it is not our guide and authority. We have taught this because the Bible clearly teaches it.

The fact that there are many similarities between the two covenants does not prove that we live under the old covenant. (There are many similarities between my right hand and my left, but they are two different hands!) Have we forgotten: “God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds”? (Heb. 1:1,2). If it is not in the New Covenant, we cannot do it and please God.

Paul in Colossians says ‘blotting out the handwriting of ordinances.” “It” was taken out of the way and “it” was nailed to his cross. “It,” the handwriting of ordinances,” “the middle wall of partition,” “the law of commandments,” the “ordinances” were nailed to the cross. This is so plain. This is the reason these one covenant advocates have got to get something besides the law of Moses nailed to the cross. This passage stands in their way. Brethren have well understood it down through the years.

The Testaments of God were given by God to man. God made the rules and presented them to man who had no choice in what the rules would be. Man would be blessed if he followed them and condemned if he didn’t.