My Story – Moses Wrote About Me

I spent years as a Christian preoccupied with God’s law. Not Moses, but New Testament law. What was commonly termed the law of Christ. I came to the realization in the mid-90s that the Old Covenant was no more and the law of that covenant, the law given to Israel through Moses, was non-binding on the conscience of a believer today. But that didn’t stop me from adopting a new moral code from the New Testament and becoming convinced that my obedience to that code was the test for the genuineness of my faith. I think I understood grace on paper only. The burning question each day was how is my obedience. As I spent countless hours, days, months, and years muscling my way through my sanctification, certain that my obedience was THE barometer for knowing I was a believer and knowing God was pleased with me, I assumed I had a high view of God’s law. After all, I was pulling it off, or so I thought. I was at least doing it better than most of those around me. Or so I thought.

But then I discovered through severe trials that a preoccupation with God’s law doesn’t mean one has a high view of God’s law. Quite the opposite. I found out the hard way that my preoccupation with God’s law actually resulted in my having a very low view of it for the simple reason that I thought I could pull it off. I thought God’s holy standard was attainable by my Continue reading “A High View of God’s Law”

A New Covenant without Jesus? It happens. I’m living proof. “Without” may be the wrong word. A “Jesus-lite” theology of the New Covenant is a more accurate description of what I want to talk about. Twice in the Old Testament book of Isaiah (Isaiah 42:6 and Isaiah 49:8), the coming Messiah himself is called the promised New Covenant. He is the covenant. The New Covenant isn’t something outside of Jesus that he brought with him, he himself is the New Covenant. His shed blood is the blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:28). He is both the covenant-maker and the mediator of the covenant (Hebrews 6:13-20).

But when our pursuit of the New Covenant becomes more about gathering information than it is about knowing the Person who is the covenant, things get ugly. When our study of the New Covenant becomes more about data mining the Continue reading “How to Have a Jesus-Lite Theology of the New Covenant”