A GENUINE BRIDE OF CHRIST

Some Believers, live from the old covenant and make a religion out of the law, which is to live in imagined separation from God. Whole groups of Believers may claim freedom from the law, yet their culture is substantially old covenant, meaning the separated life of Adam and Moses. Before the cross people could live righteous lives but none lived in oneness with God.

‘Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he’ Matt 11.11 NIV. The kingdom began with the resurrection of Jesus. This Kingdom is multiplied by the incarnation and the anointing of Holy Spirit.

Christ come in our flesh is the reality of Kingdom life that distinguishes son and daughters from workers and slaves. The latter always live from some version of the law whether it is the Ten Commandments or ‘Christian Values. Righteousness is great but it is genuine and whole when we are sons rather than slaves.

In Galatians Paul wrote, ‘His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise. These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children’ Gal 4.23-25 NIV.

All who live from the law are slaves outside their inheritance in Christ – sons in name but not in substance. Members of the body but of this body of death.

YOU ARE INCLUDED

Christ’s gospel is our new covenant union with God. This union undoes the separation wrought by Adam. Now we have Christ as our life we belong to the Family of God in spirit and in truth. The trinity live in us as and we in them. We are rooted in the life-hub of the universe as trees of life. Christ the Vine joins us to the fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Son of Man joins us to our fellow men and women. We are sons. As sons and daughters, we are the manifestation of God. We are whole and we are holy in the person of Jesus. How come? Because God made an agreement with Himself that this is so. He brought to an end the regime of the law and did away with our ineffectual bids to be holy under the old covenant and brought in a new one.

OLD BUS BE GONE

“The old bus Israel was traveling on brought them to a stop at the cross, where they would be allowed to transfer to an entirely different and brand new, luxurious bus. To be perfectly clear: it’s not called the updated covenant, it’s not the amended covenant, or the revised covenant—God said this would be a new covenant. The word new here means fresh and unused.” (1)

A man was given a picture from Jesus about a community who had adopted the Holy Spirit and the gifts. In the picture the community was depicted as an old bus with a new coat of paint. Why? Although the gifts were a new coat of paint the bus remained the ‘old covenant law bound bus’ tied to what God has made passé by the cross, resurrection and incarnation. To put it bluntly the old covenant ties us to Adam and his culture of death.

TOTALLY NEW

The new covenant is not an adjustment to the old. Neither is it life in the law with Jesus help. It is an absolute break with the past which is the cutting off and circumcision of the law of sin and death in Jesus. It’s a complete break with the body of death that is the life and culture of Adam and Moses and the start of the new and living way that is - . This began with the resurrection of Jesus, which is the resurrection of the human race. In the new covenant we have an Easter life. In the old covenant we have no life at all. But we make religion out of telling ourselves we do.

(1) Kapler, Michael C.. Clash Of The Covenants: Escaping Religious Bondage Through The Grace Guarantee (Kindle Locations 446-449). Kindle Edition.