The Daily Word of Righteousness

Grace, and the New Covenant, #7

That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. (Luke 1:74,75)

Here we have the true Christian Gospel. It is fundamentally of the Jews, and it is designed to deliver us from Satan and his demons so we can serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness.

All Christian theology, all Christian worship services, should reflect the purpose of the new covenant, which is that the members of God's elect, God's priesthood of which we converted Gentiles are an integral part, serve God each day without fear in a holy, righteous manner.

In your mind, how does this concept compare with what you perceive concerning the Christian Gospel?

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (II Timothy 4:3,4)

An Assortment of Errors and Myths

Now let us think about some of the errors and myths that have become part of the Christian Gospel. If we had insisted on viewing our Gospel as a fulfillment of the utterances of the Hebrews Prophets we would not be in the theological confusion of today.

The interpretation of Paul's teaching of "grace" to mean the Divine salvation consists of the forgiveness of all of the believer's sin, past, present, and future regardless of how the believer behaves. Defining grace as a perpetual covering for sinful behavior is at the root of many of the errors of today.

The father of John the Baptist declared that the Hebrew Prophets announced the Divine salvation that is in Christ. However, one could never find in the Prophets the prediction of a change in God such that He was ready to forgive Gentiles (or Jews either) of all their sins and then not require that they behave righteously! The very idea is so foreign to the Old Testament Scriptures that we would have to view this fantasy as a special intervention of God never envisioned by the Prophets.

But this cannot be because the New Testament in several places reveals the inseparable connection between the old covenant and the new; between the Prophets of the Jews and the Apostles of the New Testament.

And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. (Acts 13:32,33)

But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets: (Acts 24:14)

And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: (Acts 26:6)

Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: (Romans 15:8)

And so on, and on, and on. To maintain that the new covenant, the Christian Gospel, is a special Divine forgiveness directed toward Gentiles to bring them to Heaven apart from any moral transformation of their personality, that new-covenant grace is unconditional and permanent such that morally unchanged people dwell in the Paradise of God forever—or worse yet, govern the nations of the earth as royal priests, has no basis in the Prophets of the Old Testament or the Apostles of the New.

To be continued.