31 October 2022
It's so very easy to embrace the deception and forget the truth. One of Satan's primary lies is that this life -- his feudal domain -- is all you'll ever have. He denies Eternity. It's the default of our fallen nature to start with the assumption he gives us. It's not enough to teach people the truth; it requires a miracle. To know the truth requires an intervention from God, because the only possible way you can receive the truth about Eternity is to become eternal. It's a closed loop; you cannot receive eternal truth without being eternal yourself.
The next best thing that we can do for people on our level is to teach the Covenant. Yes, the Covenant stands on eternal truth, but it manifests that truth in fallen human terms. Obeying the provisions of the Covenant is within reach of the fleshly nature. The flesh cannot gain eternal life by any means, but it can embrace the whole of God's promised blessings while living on this earth. It is the only hope they have for touching Eternity. There simply is no possible way for clinical language to describe the full situation, but the result is that God holds forth the demand that all of humanity is obliged to embrace the Covenant in the flesh, and from their hearts, because it is possible.
Jesus gave us the Great Commission:
And Jesus came up to them and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on Earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20 NASB 1977)
That's actually not the best translation, but it's close enough. None of the standard English translations do this passage justice. You must read it from the context of what Jesus taught, which was the restoration of the Covenant of Moses in it's fullness. His teaching and example is that restoration. He made some modifications to update the terms of the Covenant and take it closer to the ideal God had in mind, the ideal of holiness behind the Covenant. Then Jesus translated that Covenant into a fresh statement of the ideal of holiness, a New Covenant. He is the Covenant.
At this point, the whole of today's organized Christian religion drops out of the covenantal nature of things. In the minds of the leadership, the Covenant of Christ is fulfilled in just getting your head in the right place. There's nothing of the heart; conviction is thrown out the window. To be more precise, conviction itself is obscured by the notion that faith is an intellectual proposition, instead of an exercise of will (the heart is the seat of the will).
Sure, you can get Christian leaders to echo those words, but they invest those words with a different meaning. They approach it from western assumptions and never find their way back to the ancient biblical source. They simply assert that their approach is from the Bible. This is easily the single biggest issue between us and them. Almost everything else we have to say about the Bible and the Covenant of Christ would be easy to embrace once we get past this issue of how the Bible uses the word "heart" as a symbol for something dramatically different from what it means in western English.
Jesus as the living Covenant of God is on a level higher than mere written words. The words can indicate something about Him. We still live in this fallen world, this lying deception of an existence. Words and actions are all we have for those who cannot sense by their hearts. It's how we declare the living Christ as Covenant. It's where they start on the path to whatever it is God wants for them. The best approximation we have for them is the Code of Noah (God's Law for Gentiles); that is as much of Christ as they can grasp until they get closer to the truth.
Whatever it is we do in this world, a part of that is publicizing this truth. To those who have not received grace, this law is their token of grace. It is a sacrament in the sense of being a transmission of grace. We who have grace do not struggle with that law; we love it. Those who need grace will come closer by that law.
This is not a message that can be shared in soundbites. It's hard work to deflate all the false barriers people have raised up against it, but it's a chore that we cannot avoid. It's part of the Covenant. As a response to this duty, I am working with others on a new project in which we hope a somewhat larger audience can access the joy we have found. We will tune the message to those inside the churches; it is the false parts of their message that we need to counter so that folks outside church can also receive it.
Pray with us as we work on this thing.
This document is public domain; spread the message.