One Great Advantage of the New Covenant is Walking With Yeshua!
submitted by Ms Lydia Hamby
Ah, but under the New Covenant, the “new and living way,” one is instructed to walk with a living Savior, not to meditate on His attributes, for example.
The law itself was not a living thing, but was, as it were, an inanimate object. One was required to study it day and night, but one could not speak to a law book and expect an answer. One could not draw near to it, face to face, in order to have a conversation with it.
But Christ is a living Lord, and whereas we love to read about Him, and study His ways, it is our living relationship with Him, our drawing near to speak with Him, and Him with us, that marks the difference between adherence to a code, and life from the dead.
Consider the old – “Your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You” – in light of the new – “You are in my heart that I might not sin against You”! Not only do we not sin against, but also we walk with, talk with, and be with Him, praises to Jesus!
Perhaps Jesus – so to speak – drew the law up within Himself so that if one looks to Him (Hebrews 12:2), one cannot help keeping the law as well, in the Spirit. It doesn’t work the other way around, though. Since Jesus, in a sense, now embodies the law, one cannot come at the law without coming through Him personally. He is not the law, but the Person of God, who in fact wrote the law, and has all justice and righteousness within Himself. Therefore, “in righteousness He judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11b).
Therefore, He Himself knows how His children need to come to Him, how they are to think, look, act, speak; having the law within Himself now, in a manner of speaking, He has the right and authority to declare persons righteous or unrighteous – and He never makes a mistake.
Therefore, if we look to Him, walking with and in Him, we need not worry whether we’re defrauding our brother, for example, because in Him is fulfilled all righteousness. He is our justifier, and if we are in Him, and He in us, we are not walking any old kind of way, but He is keeping our feet on His narrow path of righteousness.
Furthermore, we are not alone, but He is our life’s companion, our most precious friend. There is none like Him in all the earth, or in heaven, or under the earth! And that includes His law; it isn’t God, but was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Now that He has come, we need to seek Him early, while He may be found; in short, we need to “walk before Him and be blameless” (Genesis 17:1). Having done this, we have kept all the law and the prophets.
For how can we hate our brother if we are in love with our Father? He will show us all things of how to walk. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:4-5).
If we come to Him, He will in no wise cast us out. He is our righteousness; He is our peace.
He is also our Sabbath of rest. As one day in seven was set aside, under the Old Covenant, in which to reflect on God’s work rather than on our own, so we are at all times under the New Covenant, to rest in Christ’s completed work rather than in our own.
The blood of bulls and goats that, with living faith, covered the sins of the children of Israel in times past, was a picture in miniature of the saving work that is done by Jesus’ blood alone. So to rely on keeping of the old law after the cross is to “trample the Son of God underfoot,” to “count the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing,” and to “do despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29).
We are to rest in His completed work, not in the works of the flesh under an Old Covenant law once the New Covenant has come.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 tells us of the Sabbath day – “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you [nor any of your folks]. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”
The parallel passage in Exodus 20:8-11 is a little bit different, especially in the last sentence – “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
In the Deuteronomy text, the reason for resting is because of God’s completed saving work. In Exodus 14:13, remember, Moses told the people, “Fear not. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today.”
Jesus has done the work, and we are to rest in Him, hallelujah! This is not a rest as though we were going to sleep, but a laboring always to enter into that rest; our work is to believe on Him whom the Father sent. Nor are we to rest presumptuously, saying, “Oh, well, Jesus took care of it; it’s a done deal – no need for me to lift a finger.” It is forever to put off our will in favor of His will. It is a faithful, diligent, difficult, and often dangerous pursuit of Him and His righteousness. It is a labor, a burden, a work, a yoke – but it is a light burden and an easy yoke (Matthew 11:30).
He pulls the load, and we follow along. Our path is perilous, lonely, difficult, frightening and steep – yet as the old hymn declares, “See His footprints all the way”!
Jesus is our Sabbath of rest – praise God!
The law itself was not a living thing, but was, as it were, an inanimate object. One was required to study it day and night, but one could not speak to a law book and expect an answer. One could not draw near to it, face to face, in order to have a conversation with it.
But Christ is a living Lord, and whereas we love to read about Him, and study His ways, it is our living relationship with Him, our drawing near to speak with Him, and Him with us, that marks the difference between adherence to a code, and life from the dead.
Consider the old – “Your word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You” – in light of the new – “You are in my heart that I might not sin against You”! Not only do we not sin against, but also we walk with, talk with, and be with Him, praises to Jesus!
Perhaps Jesus – so to speak – drew the law up within Himself so that if one looks to Him (Hebrews 12:2), one cannot help keeping the law as well, in the Spirit. It doesn’t work the other way around, though. Since Jesus, in a sense, now embodies the law, one cannot come at the law without coming through Him personally. He is not the law, but the Person of God, who in fact wrote the law, and has all justice and righteousness within Himself. Therefore, “in righteousness He judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11b).
Therefore, He Himself knows how His children need to come to Him, how they are to think, look, act, speak; having the law within Himself now, in a manner of speaking, He has the right and authority to declare persons righteous or unrighteous – and He never makes a mistake.
Therefore, if we look to Him, walking with and in Him, we need not worry whether we’re defrauding our brother, for example, because in Him is fulfilled all righteousness. He is our justifier, and if we are in Him, and He in us, we are not walking any old kind of way, but He is keeping our feet on His narrow path of righteousness.
Furthermore, we are not alone, but He is our life’s companion, our most precious friend. There is none like Him in all the earth, or in heaven, or under the earth! And that includes His law; it isn’t God, but was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Now that He has come, we need to seek Him early, while He may be found; in short, we need to “walk before Him and be blameless” (Genesis 17:1). Having done this, we have kept all the law and the prophets.
For how can we hate our brother if we are in love with our Father? He will show us all things of how to walk. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (Psalm 37:4-5).
If we come to Him, He will in no wise cast us out. He is our righteousness; He is our peace.
He is also our Sabbath of rest. As one day in seven was set aside, under the Old Covenant, in which to reflect on God’s work rather than on our own, so we are at all times under the New Covenant, to rest in Christ’s completed work rather than in our own.
The blood of bulls and goats that, with living faith, covered the sins of the children of Israel in times past, was a picture in miniature of the saving work that is done by Jesus’ blood alone. So to rely on keeping of the old law after the cross is to “trample the Son of God underfoot,” to “count the blood of the covenant as an unholy thing,” and to “do despite unto the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29).
We are to rest in His completed work, not in the works of the flesh under an Old Covenant law once the New Covenant has come.
Deuteronomy 5:12-15 tells us of the Sabbath day – “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you [nor any of your folks]. And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”
The parallel passage in Exodus 20:8-11 is a little bit different, especially in the last sentence – “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.”
In the Deuteronomy text, the reason for resting is because of God’s completed saving work. In Exodus 14:13, remember, Moses told the people, “Fear not. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today.”
Jesus has done the work, and we are to rest in Him, hallelujah! This is not a rest as though we were going to sleep, but a laboring always to enter into that rest; our work is to believe on Him whom the Father sent. Nor are we to rest presumptuously, saying, “Oh, well, Jesus took care of it; it’s a done deal – no need for me to lift a finger.” It is forever to put off our will in favor of His will. It is a faithful, diligent, difficult, and often dangerous pursuit of Him and His righteousness. It is a labor, a burden, a work, a yoke – but it is a light burden and an easy yoke (Matthew 11:30).
He pulls the load, and we follow along. Our path is perilous, lonely, difficult, frightening and steep – yet as the old hymn declares, “See His footprints all the way”!
Jesus is our Sabbath of rest – praise God!