Exactly Who is Holy?

In my last blog, I wrote about how I have experienced a shift in my views on a number of pivotal matters over the past few years. I indicated that I would be writing about some of those changes in my thinking in blogs to follow. I described how I have moved away from the Calvinist perspective I held for over twenty five years when I began to try to reconcile the fact that "God is love" with the viewpoint that Jesus actually only died for the elect. My opinion then was that not everybody is elect. It was by realizing that the Greek word for "all" actually has two legitimate definitions and the only thing I needed to align my understanding of salvation (soteriology) with my view of God's nature (theology)was to recognize that "all" does indeed mean every person, not every type of person, as I had previously held. (You can read my last blog to see my thoughts on that matter.)

Now I'd like to set forth another change in how I think now from the way I understood a matter in the past. It's about the issue of who is holy and who isn't. God has shown me that I shouldn't call any man unholy. That's right. Nobody. If me telling you that causes you to want to click a new link to get away from this blog, read the next paragraph first. Then if you still want to go away, well - okay.

When I say that God has shown me that I shouldn't call any man unholy, I am actually quoting a Bible verse. When speaking in the house of Cornelius, the Apostle Peter said this: "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean" (Acts 10:28,emphasis added). Peter was referring to Cornelius, a man who was not a believer at the time Peter said those words. In essence he said, "God told me not to call Cornelius unholy." Let's back up and look at the context of his statement.

In Acts 10:9-16, God gave Peter a vision of a blanket descending from heaven with all kinds of animals in it, both clean and unclean. The Lord spoke to Peter and told him to kill and eat the animals. Seeing the unclean animals there and being a devout Jew who would never eat any kind of unclean animal, Peter protested. "There's no way, Lord! I've never eaten anything unholy or unclean!"

The key to us understanding this vision is to recognize that God wasn't trying to teach Peter something about animals. He was teaching him something about people. He was about to direct Peter to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile. That commission was going to take some advance preparation if Peter was to go there. As he pointed out to them when he got to Cornelius' house, it was unlawful for a man who was a Jew "to associate with a foreigner (Gentile) or visit him" (Acts 10:28). Gentiles were considered to be unholy and unclean and no respectable Jew would go into a Gentile's home. But Peter had something to learn about how far reaching God's grace is.

His response to being told to eat the animals was in perfect alignment with his religious training. Jews don't eat pork. It's that simple. But God is interested more interested in people than pork, so He didn't mince words when He told Peter not to call unholy what He had made holy.

Peter got the message and about that time there was a knock at the door. "Go downstairs and accompany them without misgivings, for I have sent them Myself," God told Peter. (Acts 10:20) So off this Jewish evangelist went to a Gentile's house. With a new mindset and a message Cornelius needed to hear.

Cornelius was what we often call today "a seeker." He wasn't a believer when Peter got there. In fact, when he came to the door and saw Peter he fell down and started to worship him until Peter made him get up. (See Acts 10:25-26) It's important to understand what I just wrote: Cornelius was not a believer when Peter arrived at his house. Later, when Peter was explaining why He went to there and what happened, he described what Cornelius had said to him about how an angel appeared to him and told him that Peter "will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household" (Acts 11:14). Again, once more for emphasis, I encourage you to take note that Cornelius was not a believer when Peter came to his house.

Peter walked into his house and once inside, the first thing he said to the group was, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean." In other words, "I know you're all wondering why I'm breaking the rules about coming into the house of an unholy and unclean man. Well, here's why: God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean."

Was Cornelius a believer at the time Peter said that? No, he was not. Was he holy when Peter spoke those words? I think the Lord had made that quite clear to Peter already, don't you? The man was already holy, before he believed.

Let's go back to the statement I made at the beginning of this blog: God has shown me that I shouldn't call any man unholy. If it bothers you for me to suggest such a thing, what are you going to do with the fact that He showed Peter the same thing?

In an earlier blog, I wrote about the vocabulary we use in regard to faith and how we need to make sure we are using the right definition when we use words to define and describe our faith. "Holy" is a word that is widely misunderstood in the church world. Many think it refers strictly to the way a person lives. It is generally associated with a squeaky-clean lifestyle like one might imagine a monk or a nun or maybe a really great pastor to live. (I won't take the time to ruin your illusion about that opinion right now.)

The word "holy" isn't a word that refers to a lifestyle as much as it denotes something else. For instance, we refer to the "Holy Bible" but realize that a Bible isn't holy because it behaves a particular way. It doesn't behave any way. It's a book.

Holy is the Greek word, hagios and means "to be set apart; to dedicate or consecrate." It is the same word that is often translated as "saint" in the New Testament. The word has to do with God's choice of a person, not how a person behaves.

So Cornelius was a holy man because God had set His heart on Him to have him for Himself. That's what make anybody holy. If God has chosen to love us, we are holy. If He has set us apart as somebody He wants, we are holy. Many believe (as I did for years) that God only loves the elect and does not love those who are not the elect, but the good news of the gospel is this: In Jesus Christ you are elect! Your God wants you! He has dealt with the sin of those He has chosen and that makes them holy, regardless of whether they know it, believe it, feel it or act like it. We don't make ourselves holy. He does. If Christ came to save you, then you are holy. Who did Jesus Christ come to save? He came to seek and to save those who are lost. (See Luke 19:10) He gathered up Adam's race into Himself and dealt with our sin, once for all. That makes us holy. "He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy . . ." (Colossians 1:22). This verse suggests that anybody who has been reconciled has been made holy and "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

We must reject the idea that holiness is contingent upon how a person behaves or even believes. That view is legalism in its most raw form. Holiness comes from what Christ has done for us. If He died for somebody, He has chosen that person and if He has chosen them, they are holy. After all, did Jesus die for anybody He doesn't really want? Of course not!

Hebrews 10:10 says, "We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (NIV). Who has been made holy? We have. Who are the "we" in this verse? Those for whom Jesus sacrificed His body. And who is that? Once for all.

I know this teaching can raise questions that stem from misunderstanding, so I will state a few disclaimers here in an attempt to avoid being misunderstood.

I am not saying that everybody is a Christian. A Christian is one who expresses faith in Christ. I am saying that everybody is included in the work of Jesus at the cross and has been made holy by God but for that reality to have personal meaning to us, we must believe it. But we are holy whether we believe it or not. God's truth is not nullified by our unbelief. The Apostle Paul asked, "What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?" (Romans 3:3) What Jesus did, He did, whether we believe it or not.

Some will say that Acts 10 is about how that all people groups, and not just Jews, are those God wants. Their argument is, "This is teaching that it's not only Jews who are God's chosen people now but all nations and ethnic groups have been chosen by Him." I wouldn't disagree that all nations have been chosen, but it's not just about nations. It's individual people for whom Jesus died. Peter said that God showed him not to call any man unholy or unclean. Jesus didn't just die for people in every people-group. He died for every person. That makes every person holy.

What difference does it make whether we see every person as holy or not? The difference is that we will either see people the way our Father sees them - included in the work of the cross, loved, having great value, and being chosen by Him (made holy), as evidenced by the fact that Christ died for them - or we will see them as standing on the other side of a line we have imagined in our minds. It's an imaginary line that divides the "haves" from the "have-nots."

The truth is that there are no haves and have-nots in God's economy. We are all included in the finished work of Jesus at the cross. It wasn't just for those who have believed it. He tasted death for everybody. (See Hebrews 2:9) Our joy is to declare to every person that their Creator loves them and has chosen them for His own. As we proclaim that good news (the gospel), we will draw people in as opposed to repelling them, which is what religion does.

As we proclaim to them what Jesus has already accomplished for them and they believe it, those who are lost will discover they have been found and those who are blind will begin to see. Those who are dead to what He has done will come alive to the truth of being in Christ. In discovering and seeing and coming alive to what Jesus has done for them, they will be "born again" and begin to enjoy the Life that is ours in Christ. They will delight in knowing that they were holy before the messenger ever got to their door. They will thrill in knowing that God demonstrated His love toward humanity in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (See Romans 5:8) And when He did that, everything changed for everybody. The work of the cross is so much bigger than we have known!

Let's tell others about this and watch what happens. There is indeed power in the proclamation of the finished work of Jesus Christ for mankind. Tell people about it and you'll see for yourself.

We Misunderstood . . .

"Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you." - Paul

"You had a dream. You misunderstood. You thought we were separate but now you hear my voice and you can relax now. Come on and open your eyes." (You Can Relax Now by Shaina Noll)

Same Vocabulary, Different Dictionary

I've visited many cultures and countries around the world in the past twenty years. One of the things I learned early on in my interaction with people in other places is that words have different meanings in different cultural contexts. I've committed a faux pas more than a few times when I've spoken in other countries by saying a word that meant something very different to my listeners than it did to people in my country. I'd give a few examples now but can't because, though the words wouldn't mean anything bad in the United States, people in other places would most surely be offended. (I've even made a blunder in Canada!) So it's possible to use the same vocabulary but our understanding be very different from each other because we're not united on which definition of the word we are choosing from the dictionary.

This challenge doesn't just exist with international travel. One place it has had a huge effect on people is in studying the Bible. We read our Bibles and draw our conclusion about what what we have read based on what we understand the words there to mean. It may seem that if we just "believe what the Bible plainly says," we will have a unified understanding of the Scripture. The problem comes because of this matter of how we understand words. What the Bible "plainly says" to one person is understood in a different way by somebody else. The issue is more than what the Bible says. Each of us must interpret what it says by coming to a conclusion about what we have read means. The Bible was written in two languages originally. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, referring to the common Greek language (as opposed to a literary style Greek) of the people then. Just like in any other language, the Greek words used in the New Testament can be understood in more than one way. Sometimes the way we understand the word can make a monumental difference in our theological viewpoint.

Take for instance the biblical truth that Jesus died for all. There are numerous verses that make that claim. One might think there is very little room for differences on something as "plain" as the assertion that Jesus died for all people. But one would be wrong.

The word "all" is the Greek word pas. Paul wrote in Romans 8:32 that God "did not spare His own son, but delivered Him over for us all." Does that sound clear to you? Don't assume that everybody else understands the meaning of that verse the way you do.

Based on that verse (and others like it), some would contend that Jesus died for every person, excluding none. To them, it's clear: "All" means all. None are left out.

To others, though, the matter is not so clear cut. Their view is that Christ didn't die for every single individual but only for the elect ones chosen from the foundation of the world. They would contend that the word "all" doesn't mean every person but instead some of all types of people. In other words, He died for some for every people group in the world, but not every single individual.

If one holds the latter definition, that he died for all types of people but not every person individually, their understanding of salvation will probably best fit with those who often identify themselves as "Calvinists." (John Calvin popularized this viewpoint, although those who hold this position will quickly remind others that their view comes from the Bible, not a man named Calvin.)

Those who argue that the word "all" means everybody, without exception, will likely find themselves identifying with other non-Calvinist groups such as Arminians, Trinitarians or even Universalists.

Which is the correct use of the word? What is the definition of "all?" Everybody or some of all types? The answer is both. Here's a link to the Greek Lexicon where you can see the Greek word and its meaning: http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/pas.html

Which group believes what the Bible says? Both do! The point of tension isn't what the Bible says, but what it means. Sincere Bible students with equal hunger for the truth can come to very different conclusions that are both based on the Bible.

There are many examples of words used in the Bible where more than one definition is possible. There is an academic discipline taught in seminaries that addresses how to study the Bible. It's called "hermeneutics" and focuses on how to interpret Scripture. One of the main principles of hermeneutics is context. It suggests that the meaning of a word should be understood in light of its context within the biblical text. Of course, the problem with that is that even trying to consider context, serious Bible students still come to different conclusions. Two opposing viewpoints can both make claim to have considered context in defining the meaning of a word and interpreting the meaning of a statement.

Over the past years my own theological views have changed in significant ways as I have reexamined various biblical texts. For much of my life my views were the fruit of an underlying perspective I held about God. My view of His nature was that He is a loving God but that His love is simply one of His characteristics to be seen among others of equal importance. That viewpoint informed my understanding about what certain things in the Bible mean.

Almost six years ago I began to realize that the love of God isn't simply one aspect of his character. It defines Him. Love is who God is, or to put it in biblical expression, "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Love is the DNA of our Triune God. Since God is pure love, everything that flows from Him must be an expression of that love. If something other than pure love were to come from God, then none could argue that He is pure love. Pure Love can do nothing but love. To do otherwise is a violation of His own nature and not possible.

This viewpoint of God as love has done much to affect how I understand the Bible. Passages that used to sound to me like they described a side of God that wasn't loving have risen to the surface so that I've had to go back and reexamine them again. I approach the Bible now with an understanding that unless I come to Love as a stopping place in my interpretation of a text, I haven't gone far enough in my study.

The result is that I now see various biblical passages and various subjects very differently than I have in the past. There are many resources available today to those who want to seriously study the Bible. However, there is a foundation upon which our understanding of the Bible will hinge. The way you see God will determine the way you understand the Bible. That fact cannot be overstated. Don't kid yourself by thinking that you or anybody else comes to the Bible from a place of absolute neutrality. We don't. We come to our Bibles with preexisting, underlying assumptions that have been forged in us by a variety of influences. Those assumptions have everything to do with how we understand what we read in the Bible.

I have come to a place where I've decided that my hermeneutic of Scripture will always stand on the premise that God is love. That is the underlying current that carries me through any and all interpretation of what the Bible means. Approaching the Scripture from that starting place has reversed some things I used to believe. It has enhanced other things. It has also introduced new things to me from the Bible.

In blogs to follow and as time permits, I intend to present various topics and truths that I see differently now than I used to understand them. The example I have given in this blog illustrates the kind of shift in my thinking that has happened to me. I used to believe the word "all" in various texts about the death of Jesus referred to some of every type. Then I began to ask how that definition lined up with a God whose DNA is love and I concluded it doesn't. So I changed my mind (repented) and began to see the matter differently. If love isn't one aspect of who God is, but if it is indeed His very essence He wouldn't die for some and leave others to have no hope. Christ died for every person. He "taste(d) death for everyone" (Hebrews 2:9).

Yes, I know there are verses that seem, on the surface, to suggest that God can be angry with man and even hate people at times. I've read the verses that seem to suggest that there are qualities He possesses that stand in contrast to love, but I've come to peace with those verses. Some of them I have come to understand to my own satisfaction. Others I haven't. But I'm not going to let what I don't understand nullify what I do understand - and what I do understand is that, "God is love."

So when we read our Bibles it's important to navigate through Scripture with the love of God as our GPS. Words often are ambiguous but one thing is not ambiguous and that is the love of the Father expressed through the Son in the power of the Spirit.

More to come . . .

The Propitiation for Sin

In an ongoing effort to challenge readers of my blog to rethink the whole question of whether or not the cross was a place where the Father of Jesus punished the Son by pouring out anger on Him, I want to bring forward a verse that may suggest something very different from what many have been taught and believed thus far. As regular readers of my blog and listeners to my teachings know, I do not hold the penal substitution view of the work of the cross. In other words, I don't believe that the Father was in any way pouring out anger on Jesus while He was on the cross. To the contrary, the work of the cross was a unified expression of love by our Triune God. The Father was "in Christ" while Jesus was on the cross (see 2 Cor 5:19) and this rescue mission for humanity was accomplished as Jesus offered Himself "through the eternal Spirit." (see Hebrews 9:14) So the whole Godhead was at work in securing our salvation from the death sin brings.

In Romans 3:25, Jesus is referred to as the One,"whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith." The word "propitiation"is a key word in understanding the meaning of the atonement. It is a word that has often been used to indicate an appeasement for sin, in a punitive sense. The English word comes from the Greek hilasterion and is defined as, "relating to an appeasing or expiating, having placating or expiating force, expiatory; a means of appeasing or expiating." Here's the link to the Greek Lexicon online so that you can see the word for yourself: http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/hilasterion.html

At first pause, the word can certainly suggest the sort of act that makes Jesus the recipient of retribution from His Father, especially if our minds are already hardwired to see God the Father as somebody who just had to vent all that anger we have wrongly imagined Him to hold toward us because of our sin.

I suggest, however, that there is another way to see the word "propitiation." Note in the Greek Lexicon that the definition is further expressed as, "a propitiation used of the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was sprinkled with the blood of the expiatory victim on the annual day of atonement."

Here's where we can interpret the Bible in a way that is consistent with "God is love" as our point of origin in discovering its meaning. Note that this aspect of its meaning refers to the mercy seat that covered the Ark of the Covenant. It was on that mercy seat that the blood of the sacrificial animals was poured out and the efficacy of that blood poured out at that place brought the remission of sins for another year.

So the word "propitiation" is used not only to refer to an expiation in a judicial sense but also to refer to a place - the place where sin was dealt with by the blood of a sacrifice. The Septuagint is a translation in which the Old Testament Scriptures (written in Hebrew) were translated into Greek. When the translators came to the Hebrew word kaporeth (mercy seat), they chose to use the Greek word, hilasterion (propitiation)as the equivalent. So they obviously held the view that propitiation had more to do with the remedial aspect of the sacrifice for sin than it did for any sort of retribution exploding out of an angry Father upon His Son. The propitiation was the place where sin was dealt with. In other words, the cross was the New Covenant substance foreshadowed through the Old Covenant shadow of the mercy seat.

The cross was no more a place where God poured out anger on Jesus that the Mercy Seat was a place where an Old Testament high priest poured out anger on a lamb. Propitiation was remedial, not retributive! The cross was the place of Divine Agape not divine anger! The only anger there that day was the anger of sinful humanity unleashed on Pure Love.

Another interesting aspect of the word hilasterion (propitiation) is that it shares the same family history as the word hilaros. (Think "hilarious"). It refers to a place of Divine Joy, not rage.

The cross of Jesus Christ is the most pure expression of love that has ever or will ever exist. In that place of propitiation, Pure Agape submitted Himself to the ferocity of sinful humanity while at the same time absorbing our sin into Himself so that we would be delivered from its consequence.

Your God isn't angry with you. He never has been. The cross proves that. Religion has smeared His face with mud from the Garden of Guilt after the fall of man, but that false image doesn't negate the reality of who He is at all. "God is Love." Always has been. Always will be.

Theology Through Music

When I was in California a few weeks ago, Joe Tkach (President of Grace Communion International) mentioned Jeremy Begbie to me. I hadn't heard of him but googled him when I came home. Wow! Here's a great example of what I've taught in the past about how our Father reveals Himself in non-religious ways and how, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we will discover how the whole world declares Him to us. I've written about our Father's revelation of Himself to us through the arts, but Begbie says it with an eloquence and accompanying musical gift that is awesome. He is the Thomas A. Langford Research Professor at Duke Divinity School, Duke University. Here's a video where he is speaking about understanding theology through the arts:



If you liked the video and want to see/hear some really interesting teaching from Dr. Begbie, here's another link to a video called, "The Sense of an End." I think it's a great teaching that illustrates the longing of all creation for our Father to bring all things to the Divine consummation. I'll warn you though- the video below is an hour and a half long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GfEbzr09q0

God's Opinion of You

One of the reasons we get confused about spiritual matters is because of the way we misunderstand and misapply words we use all the time. For instance, consider the word, "glory." In Hebrews 1:3, the Bible says Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. What does the writer mean by that? Does He mean that Jesus shines as brightly as the Father in His splendor? Perhaps, but I think the verse is much richer than that.

The word "radiance" is the Greek word apaugasma, which means "out-raying." Jesus is the expression of God's glory just as the rays of light that come from the sun express its essence. But what about this "glory" that Jesus perfectly expresses?

The word, "glory" is the word doxa. Here's the link to the Greek Lexicon so that you can see the word for yourself: http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/doxa.html Look at the first definition given there: "opinion, judgment, view." It's not until we come to the third definition in the list that we find anything having to do with brightness or splendor.

The first definition is the best definition in understanding what Hebrews 1:3 means when it tells us that Jesus is the radiance of God's glory. To be literal the verse could read this way, "Jesus is the out-raying of God's opinion." The verse goes on to elaborate by saying that He is the "exact representation of His nature."

Jesus exactly represents the nature of God and perfectly expresses the Father's opinion. The question arises, "Jesus expresses the Father's opinion of what or of whom?" The answer is, "you!" Why would I suggest that is the answer? It's simple. Jesus came to show us the heart of the Father toward us. One of the last things He did was to pray for us to know just how much we are loved. He even compared the perichoretic love shared in heaven with the love He wanted us to know. (See John 17)

The opinion of the Father toward us isn't one of condemnation. Sin has done enough of that to us already. His heart toward us is to love us and then love us and, having done that, He then will love us. If you want to see God's attitude toward you, look at how Jesus acted toward those who had sinned. All love, all the time. The only people you ever see the ire of Jesus directed toward were the self-righteous who loved themselves so much that there was no room in their lives for God's love.

So, when you read about the glory of God, think about the Father's opinion of you. Know that He loves and adores you, as Jesus made clear. Don't see yourself through the eyes of others who, at the least, love you less than perfectly. Don't see yourself through your own eyes, blurred by legalistic self-judgment and self-righteous scrutiny. See yourself as His beloved, in whom He is well pleased.

God is Love. That's the starting point for our properly understanding Him and it's the all inclusive framework through which we must see ourselves if we are to live healthy lives.

For God so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son so that you might see and believe how much He loves you and so that sin wouldn't have its natural outcome in your life by causing you to perish away but instead Agape will see to it that you have everlasting Life, abundant life, His life.

Stop depending on other people, yourself, your church background, your misbehavior, or even the way you have misread your Bible to give you your image of yourself. God has an opinion of you. Jesus has made it clear what that opinion is. He adores you. So don't insult Him by disputing His opinion of you. By faith, own it. Whether you feel it or not, own it. Whether you see it or not, own it. That's how faith works and as you exercise your faith in Him and His love, you will find healing and wholeness increase exponentially in your life.

Two Covenants, Not One

For the past three weeks, I've been sharing a three-part series of teachings on the "Sunday Preaching" broadcast called, "Two Covenants, Not One." For many years, I stayed confused when I read the Bible because I didn't understand this simple aspect of understanding the Scripture. The Old and New Covenant are very different from each other in many ways. God told those in the old covenant that a day was going to come when He would make a new covenant with His people and it would not be like the covenant He had made with them through their Fathers. (See Jeremiah 31:31-32) Through Jesus Christ, that day came to us so that now the covenant He has made is totally different - not at all the same. It's new and, according to Hebrews 8:13, the old one is "obsolete." It has passed away. It's gone, expired, finished, over!

This fact is a sticking point in many people's minds. "Isn't the Old Testament God's Word?" they will ask? Of course the Old Testament is as much a part of the Bible as the New Testament, but here's a key that will help us immeasurably when we understand it. The Old Testament was not written to us! It was written for us, but not to us. (See Romans 15:4) There's a big difference. That's why the Apostle Paul cautioned Timothy to take great care to ensure that he would "rightly divide the word of truth" when he taught the Bible. (See 2 Timothy 2:15) All kind of trouble is created in our minds and lives when we don't do that.

First of all, the Law was never even given to the Gentiles. It was given to Israel. Consider these texts:

These are the statutes, the ordinances, and the laws that the Lord gave between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses” (Leviticus 26:46).

He tells His words to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. He did not do so to any nation … (Psalm 147:19-20).

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves. . . (Romans 2:14).
Christians today put themselves in a confusing cycle of condemnation when they try to apply an Old Covenant mentality to understanding the Bible. The New and the Old don’t mix!

Example: Do you believe your heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things? If you do, its' because you've failed to "rightly divide the word." God had Jeremiah tell the people that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9) but in Romans 5:5 Paul said that "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts." Which is true? They both are! It was true when Jeremiah said it to those to whom He spoke in the Old Covenant and Paul's words are true for we who live under the New Covenant! Do you see the confusion that happens when we fail to make the distinction between the covenants? There are many biblical texts like that. When we read the Bible, we need to ask ourselves, "Who is speaking? To whom is he speaking? When is He speaking?" These are basic questions that will settle a lot of confusion in reading the Bible.

Remember this: The new covenant doesn't start at Matthew 1:1. It starts at the death of Jesus. The importance of this fact can't be overstated. Hebrews 9:16 says, " For where a testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it." In other words, a Last Will & Testament means nothing until the person who wrote it dies. That's important even when we read the New Testament pages.

For instance, you'll get yourself into a world of confusion if you try to apply the Sermon on the Mount to yourself. Remember that Jesus hadn't died when He spoke those words. He was talking to them, not you. They were a group of people who thought they could gain righteousness by their moral living so Jesus showed them just how impossible that is. He said things like, "If you lust, gouge your eye out. If you steal, cut your hand off." So here's the question: Do you really believe that's what you're supposed to do? "Of course not!" a critic might respond, "It was obvious He didn't really mean that!" Wait, a minute. If you claim that we're supposed to do everything Jesus said, you can't take that cop-out. The Bible isn't a menu you can choose from.

The fact is that if we don't rightly divide the covenants, we will end up treating the Bible like a buffet where we take the things we like but leave the things we don't like. That's no way to treat the Scripture. Better to respect the Scripture enough to accurately interpret it instead. No, Jesus wasn't telling you to pluck your eye out. He wasn't even talking to you.

One more example: Jesus said that if we don't forgive people who have offended us, then God won't forgive those who don't forgive. (See Matthew 6:14-15) Do you really think that's for you??? Do you honestly believe that it's possible that you've trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, walked with Him, known and loved Him, trusted in His finished work on the cross and now, if it should happen that somebody offends you and you die before you've forgiven them that you won't be forgiven??? Anybody who even slightly uses common sense knows that can't be right!

What's the answer? The answer is that Jesus spoke those words before the cross - before the inauguration of the New Covenant. Notice how everything changed after the cross.

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Notice here that we forgive because we have already been forgiven, not so we can get it.

What does Colossians 3:13 teach is our motivation to forgive others? "... bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you."

See how everything changes with the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New?

Let's get our covenants separated. That simple step will make a world of difference in understanding our Bibles.

If you want to hear the whole teaching, check out www.gracewalkresources.com in a few days. The whole series will be available there. In the meantime, watch the last installment on www.gracewalk.org. It's part three in this series, called "Two Covenants, Not One."