The Daily Word of Righteousness

A Description of the Kingdom of God, #18

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inner parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-33)

It is taught that the law of God, the Ten Commandments, has been done away. But this is not true. The new covenant is not the doing away of the Ten Commandments. The new covenant is the putting of the Torah, the law, in our minds and the writing of the law in our hearts. To state that New Testament grace is the removal of the law is to misunderstand the new covenant.

The law referred to here is not the Law of Moses but the eternal moral law of God, of which the Law of Moses is an abridged, negative, covenantal form.

The above could not be termed a doing away with the law.

Grace is much more than imputed (assigned) righteousness. God's grace includes imputed righteousness but has much more to do with the actual practice of righteousness. Christ did not come to forgive the works of the devil. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil.

The current definition of grace is limited to forgiveness and imputed righteousness. It is incorrect and misleading to say that the Kingdom of God consists of "sinners who are saved by grace," unless by "saved by grace" one means delivered from the person and works of Satan and brought into the Person and works of Christ (which is the New Testament concept of redemption).

The truth is, there are no sinners in the Kingdom of God. Those who practice the works of the flesh cannot possibly inherit the Kingdom of God (Galatians 5:21).

The Kingdom of God is the doing of God's will. The Kingdom of God does not consist only of an imputed (assigned) righteousness. The Kingdom of God consists of actual righteousness, actual peace, and actual joy in the Holy Spirit—the eternal moral law of God placed in the mind and engraved on the heart.

It is correct to state that the Kingdom of God consists of sinners who are being changed by grace.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not come from Heaven so men would not reap what they sow. Rather, He came from Heaven so men would have better seed to sow.

Any human being who transgresses the moral law of God will die. The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross in order to suspend the sentence of death until the transgressor has had an opportunity to avail himself of Christ's Virtue, Substance, and Nature, thus to be transformed from the image of Satan into the image of God.

But the permanent doing away with the sentence of death is dependent on the believer keeping his part of the contract.

To be continued.