Category: Teaching

Understanding Covenant

So far, I think we have done a pretty decent job of explaining the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His kingdom.  Now our aim must be to understand exactly how all this works, and how we can apply this fundamental knowledge to our lives.

If you have been following me in our gospel story, then you have heard me emphasize the difference between knowing Jesus verses knowing about Jesus.  Let me assure you, there is a vast difference between the two, especially where your salvation is concerned.

Why is this important?  Because knowing about Jesus will not grant you entry into His kingdom.  

When we come to Jesus Christ for salvation, we enter into a covenant relationship with Him remarkably similar to that of a marriage.  In fact, I believe the relationship between a man and a woman through the covenant of marriage was given to us to beautifully illustrate this concept.  

Most people today, even bible believing Christians, do not know what a covenant is, let alone what it means to enter into one.  So, for clarity sake, let’s start there.

A covenant is a kind of ancient term for what we would refer to today as a contract.  It is a legal instrument that acts as a binding agent between two parties.   It would be an agreement that would hold up in a court of law. There would be legal ramifications for breaking it. Examples of a modern-day covenant would be a will, a lending agreement, or a business trust.  By far, the most common form of covenant that we are familiar with today is that of a marriage. 

In ancient times, a covenant was created to unite the two parties into one entity.  This would have been done, for example, when two tribes created an alliance against a common enemy.  It would have been done to create property boundaries and to protect water and grazing rights.

The two parties would come together to perform an act that was called “cutting” a covenant.  In this ceremony, various rites would be performed that would enact the legal union.  These elements usually included such things as:

1. Defining the terms, or the responsibilities and expectations of the involved parties.
2. A garment or personal item that represented each party would be exchanged as a symbol.
3. Sometimes, parts of their names would be exchanged or incorporated into their own.
4. Witnesses were present.
5. Blood was shed whereby an animal would be killed and separated into two halves.  The two equal parts would be laid opposite of each other.  The two parties, or their designated representatives, would pass between the two halves.  This was done as a symbol of what would happen if either party failed to uphold the terms of the covenant; the “one” entity that was being created would be separated, or “cut” into two, thereby breaking the covenant.
6. Typically, afterwards the two parties would sit at a common table and share a meal.

From this, you can see where many of our wedding ceremony traditions come from.  The terms are established through the repeating of the vows.   Rings are exchanged as a sign.  Witnesses are required, and customarily, some type of celebratory meal is shared. The bride then relinquishes part of her own name and takes the name of her new husband.   She then dwells in his house and lives under the protection and provision of her new identity.  Any children she bears, any fruit of her womb, will be born under the name of her husband.

One of the aspects of the wedding ceremony that has lost its significance in recent decades is the symbolic act of “consummating” the marriage.  I am speaking, of course, of the physical union that occurs between the husband and wife through sexual intercourse, the “two becoming one”.  In many cultures, the marriage was not considered legally binding until this union had been established.  And if it had not, the marriage contract could be legally revoked without severe ramifications.

This act provided the “shedding of blood” that was necessary for the covenant to be binding.  The virginal blood that ruptured during the first physical encounter was proof that the bride had not before entered into a marital relationship with any other man.   It could be done only once. The physical union was the act that completed or fulfilled the covenant.  

By now you may be asking yourself just how all of this has anything to do with knowing Jesus.  Well, bear with me because I am about to get to that.

It all boils down to the biblical meaning of the word “knowing”.  At its core, that word, in certain biblical contexts, is a sexual word indicating the intimate physical relationship between a husband and a wife.   It is first used this way in Genesis 4:1 where it states, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived…”.   Matthew 1:25 says, speaking of Joseph taking Mary as his wife, that he “knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son...”  This means that Joseph refrained from having a sexual relationship with his wife until after giving birth to Jesus.  It indicates the physical union that occurs between a man and a woman, when the two become one.

When you come to Christ for salvation, you are entering into a covenant relationship with Him whereby you become “one” with Him.  I am going to leave you with a few verses from the gospel of John.  In my next post, we will unpack all of this a little further and you will begin to see how the gospel is applied to you and your life through a covenantal relationship that strikingly parallels that of a marriage.

I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.  While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;  that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.    

John 17:11,12,21

Let’s say you develop a painful lump somewhere on your body.  You go to the doctor and after a thorough examination he determines that it is very suspicious and recommends a biopsy. He doesn’t want to alarm you, but he tells you that he has seen this type of lump before and the odds are high it could be malignant.  And worse, these types of malignancies, if not treated in time, are almost always fatal.

He isn’t trying to frighten you; he simply wants to prepare you for the worst.  The biopsy is taken and now you are to go home and wait.  In that time, you prepare yourself and your family for the real possibility that the news could be very bad.   

Imagine now, how relieved you are when the results come back negative!  Would that be just “ok” news, or would it be the best kind of good news ever, worthy of a real celebration?  Of course, it would be wonderful!  A huge burden has just been lifted from you and your whole family.  Relief doesn’t come close to describing how you feel!  You have just been granted a new lease on life!

You could say that, metaphorically speaking, in Adam, each one of us has inherited a fatal malignant tumor. Simply put, we are born with it and left untreated, it will kill us. That is the sad, sober news.

But we are not left to despair. We are not without hope.  In fact, there is a cure with a 100% recovery rate! 

You see, we didn’t have to do anything wrong, per se, to inherit this condition, right?  I mean, all we did was to simply be born.  What if I told you that the answer to situation was to simply, be born again?  

That sounds impossible.  What exactly does it mean to be “born again”?  Thankfully, you weren’t the first person to ask, and we can go directly to our bibles for an answer.  A guy by the name of Nicodemus asked Jesus the very same question. 

We pick up this story in the third chapter of the gospel of John .  Here we learn that Nicodemus is a “man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews”.  In short, he was kind of a big deal in the Jewish culture at the time.  A Pharisee was someone who had studied the Law of Moses quite extensively.  The name itself means “separate ones” and they saw themselves as a cut above the average Jewish person.  They believed in and taught a strict adherence to Jewish traditions and religious practices.  This particular Pharisee comes to Jesus one night for a rather covert meeting.  He opens the discussion in a benign way, acknowledging Jesus as “Rabbi” and says,

“We know you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

 Jesus is going to take the opportunity to reveal to Nicodemus that God is not merely “with Him”.    Jesus dispenses with the pleasantries and straight away makes a pointed statement.

“Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”

Jesus answers a question Nicodemus hasn’t even asked yet.

This, of course, was the real reason he came to Jesus in the first place, but now he is rather perplexed. 

Nicodemus is old.  Too old and too big to “enter into his mother’s womb a second time and be born again.”  This, to him, is ridiculous.

But Jesus continues,

“…unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Jesus is saying that when you are born into this world, into the kingdom of the earth as a son or daughter of Adam, you are born of the flesh, with a body and a soul only.  Flesh is the life of earth.

In order to have the ability to enter and dwell in the kingdom of God (aka the kingdom of Heaven), you must have the life of heaven, which is the life of the Spirit.   Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50).

 And Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus that being born of the Spirit not like being born physically but is more like experiencing the wind.  You cannot touch it or see it, yet you can perceive it; you can discern its effects. And just as you were born of the flesh, receiving earthly life from your earthly father, you must be born of the Spirit and receive heavenly life from your Heavenly Father.

And then Jesus kind of chastises Nicodemus.  He is saying, look, you regard yourself as an expert in spiritual matters and you don’t even know this?  Even if I tell you of earthly things you don’t believe me, how are you going to believe me if I tell you of heavenly things?  No one has gone up into heaven, Nicodemus, but there is One has actually come down from there.   

And then Jesus drives the point entirely home when He says, 

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18

Jesus is revealing to Nicodemus that He is not just a teacher, He is not just a rabbi, and God is not merely “with Him”.  He is declaring that He Himself is this Son of God that has come down from heaven, that He now possesses the Spirit and life of heaven. And to receive it from Him, you must believe in Him.

He is stating that all one must do to be born again is to merely believe in Him. 

Now you may be asking, “Is it really as simple as all that?”  And the honest answer would be yes… and no.  Yes, in that there is absolutely nothing you can do for yourself to gain this eternal life, except to receive it by faith.  And no, because it is more than just believing that Jesus is, you have to know Him personally.

As we progress along in our gospel story, I will explain exactly what I mean by this.  We will journey together into all the aspects of Who Christ is as the Son of God and how everything He did, He did to secure our eternal home in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

 I do hope you will come back for the next post because we are only just beginning to get to the most amazing part of the story.  When we are all finished, you will appreciate the gospel in a way you never have before.

Before we go any further in our teaching, I want to make sure we fully understand what we have covered up to now. So, a little review.

Number one, remember that the story of the gospel is present from Genesis to Revelation, and already in the first three chapters of Genesis, we begin to see the gospel being revealed.

Thus far we see that God has created the earth, its solar system, and the plant and animal kingdoms. He has also created man and given him dominion over the entire earthly creation.  Through an act of willful disobedience, the man has now fallen into sin, and the dominion of his earthly kingdom has been forfeited to the devil, who at some point in eternity past has been cast to the earth for a similar sin.   The bible calls the devil “the god of this world” (2Corinthians 4:4),or the “ruler of this world” (John 12:31,14:30, 16:11).  1 John 5:19 tells us that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” .

The kingdoms of heaven and earth are now separated.  No longer is the Creator able to walk with His creation in intimate fellowship.  God’s holiness is incompatible with the nature of the fallen world.  God Himself has driven the man out of the Garden of Eden, barring him forever from the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24).   

When God gave Adam the commandment, He specifically stated that the consequence for disobedience would be death (Genesis 2:17).   As a result of their sin, Adam and his wife did die spiritually that day, when the Spirit of God separated from them (remember that death is separation). The absence of the Spirit of God revokes their access to the Kingdom of God.

But that is not all.  Their physical lives were also required of them as payment for their sin.  But that day God revealed an aspect of His character that had not been previously disclosed.  When the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife in order to clothe them (Genesis 3:21), the first blood was shed on planet earth. That animal, whatever it was, died in their place.  It gave its life as a substitute or a sacrifice for theirs. God allowed this to happen by reason of His Grace and Mercy.

(I took the liberty in my previous post to illustrate this animal as a lamb even though the bible does not specifically say so.  I did this because this is a type and shadow of Jesus Christ, He who would come in the future as the Lamb of God, to die a substitutionary death for the sins of mankind.)  

And also as a review, let us define again what we mean when we use the word sin.

This is one of those tricky words that can be used as a noun as well as a verb, so it is true that one can possess sin as well as commit a sin.  The Hebrew word used as a verb is chata’ (pronounced khaw-taw) and it means to miss, to forfeit, or to lack.  Chatta’ah (khat-taw-aw) is the noun version of the word that means an offence or an offender. 

Adam and Eve committed an offense against the LORD God and as a result, they now lack the perfection of their original creation.  They have forfeited the Spirit of God that once made them whole and complete and reflective of His image.  The bible states that the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23). 

Not only are they in this state, but every child that they produce into the world will have the same condition.  Adam cannot pass to his children a Life that he does not possess.  Therefore, we can say that mankind is born in sin, even before a child is able to say his first word, take his first step or act out in any sinful manner.  They are born in the state of sin regardless of whether or not they act sinfully.

Every one of us as descendants of Adam are born with in this condition.  There is nothing we can do of ourselves to change this.  No amount of good behavior, rule following or law keeping can restore unto us the Spirit of God that was lost when our first earthly parents sinned.  

As human beings, we are now severely flawed.  We are corrupted by sin, destined to live and die on earth with our souls forever separated from God. 

But none of this took Our Heavenly Father by surprise.  From eternity past, God had a wonderful plan to restore and repair all that was broken and lost in Adam.

God’s redemptive plan provided a way to remove sin from us completely, to restore to us the Eternal Spirit of God and thereby grant us access once again into the Kingdom of Heaven. That is why the Gospel is the Good News!  It is more than that, it is wonderful news! 

As we continue in our story, we shall learn exactly who Jesus Christ is, and why everything He did was very purposeful for our salvation.  We will begin to see how it was that He had to come as a man, die for our sins, and then be resurrected unto eternal life.  And we can learn how all of that can apply to us if we just come to Him with believing faith. 

… so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.  This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,  in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.

Ephesians 3:10-11

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. Genesis 3:1

In this post, we are going to explore the events that transpired that fateful day when Adam and his wife were enticed to sin against God in the Garden of Eden.  (In my next post, we will delve into the effects of what happened that day.)

What happened on that day has everything to do with where you and I stand in the kingdom of God.  It deserves to be carefully and thoroughly examined.  We start in Genesis 3 with a conversation that ensues between the woman and the serpent.

Now the idea that Adam and his wife are engaging in a conversation with a talking snake tends to trip up some of the thinking skeptics in our midst.  But perhaps it is not as simple as that.

The word translated serpent here is the Hebrew word nachash, and while it does mean a serpent or a snake, it is derived from another word that is used to describe one who was a whisperer of divine enchantments.  It carries with it the idea of a soothsayer, or one who practiced the art of divination.  Ah, now we are getting closer to the truth about the nature of our serpent character.  We are not talking about your average variety of garden snake.  They are having an encounter with the one scripture refers to as “the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan” (Revelation 20:2). The Serpent comes as a slithering, cunning deceiver and is the one the bible calls “the father of the lie” (John 8:44).

 And he knows that if he is going to seduce Adam into acting in direct opposition to the will of God, he must first change what Adam believes about God.

It was proven quite painfully to the devil that he did not possess the power to create, it was true.  But he did have the power to transform, to corrupt and to destroy.  And if he can manage to carry out the plan formulating in his twisted, diabolical mind, he thinks he can terminate the course of human history before it even begins. 

And to strike Adam in his most vulnerable place, he approaches his woman.

“Indeed,” comes the slow, seductive whispers from the misty shadows, “has God said, ‘You shall not eat from EVERY tree of the Garden’?  You can eat from ALL of them, is that right? I mean, they are all quite lovely… and delicious.”

“Well no.”, she confesses honestly, “We can eat from all but one.”

“Oh? Isn’t that interesssting… Well, I must sssay, that is just like Him.”

“What do you mean?” is the inquisitive reply.

“Oh nothing, really.  I only mean that it is just like Him to withhold the best.”

 “All the Father does and gives is good,” she replies.  “He has provided all for us.  What do you mean He withholds the best?  What does He deny us?”

“Well, let me just say that I know your Father in a way you do not. He and I have a story of our own, you know.  There was a thing, a thing that should have been mine, a best thing… it should have been mine!  And yet… it was withheld from me.   Maybe He is not who you think He is…” 

A penetrating pause follows.

He breaks her gaze as if to peer into the distant past.  She ponders the ground under her feet.

“He said that we should not eat from it or even touch it, or we would die.” She responds quietly.

“Oh?  He sssaid THAT? Hmmm… Well, I must say, it does sssound like His words, ever so dramatic as they may be.  You WON’T die. Believe me.  No, but you WILL become LIKE Him!” The lies slip effortlessly from the tip of his forked tongue.  “Your eyesss will be open, your mind, expanded, and the hidden mysteries of the worlds within your grasp!  You will know what HE knows! Of COURSE, He withholds that!  Where would His power over you then be?”

The serpentine enchanter could barely contain his fiendish enthusiasm.

The soil had been tilled. The seeds sown.  Now to wait patiently and reap the fruit of his wicked labors.

Contemplating what she has just heard; she cautiously approaches the tree.  Around and around she walks, looking, studying, yet inching ever closer to it.  She can smell its fragrance.  She can see how delicate and inviting the fruit appears; indeed, it is a delight to her eyes.  The desire for it, and for the knowledge it promises, intensifies within her.  It has become an obsession, the thought of it consumes her.  The other fruit of the Garden all at once seems inadequate and unattractive.  Every natural sense she possesses holds her in strange bondage to this one tree. 

Adam sees her.  The bible says he is with her.  He witnesses the whole unfolding scene.  He, too, is captivated by the wonder of this one forbidden thing.  Without realizing it, he too has become entangled in the sticky web of the enchanter.  The questions of God’s essence penetrate his mind, doubt about His goodness take root in his heart.  “Has God been withholding what is best from us?   Is He denying us our full potential? Is He really who He claims? Can He be trusted?”

She reaches.  The fruit is in her hand, its skin struggles to contain the juices that subtly drips onto her fingers.  She raises it to her face and breathes in its intoxicating aroma.  The man’s eyes are fixed on it and desire swells within him.  She raises the fruit to her mouth, inch by inch, ever so close, until finally the skin touches her lips.  There for a moment she hesitates.

She knows the point she has come to.  She knows that she is one fraction away from… something.  One bite… and then… what?

Why on earth doesn’t the man stop her?  Why doesn’t he reach out and slap that thing out of her hand?!

Because the serpent enchants from the shifting shadows.  Provocative whispers slither out of the darkness, “Go on, do it.  Taste of freedom from your limitations. Break free of the bonds that keep you from your rights and your power!”

Teeth part and sink into the tender fruit.  She sees the longing in Adam’s eyes and with one outstretched hand, delivers to him.  He receives it, pauses ever so slightly, yet within seconds succumbs to the same lustful temptation. 

And in that instant, it is over.

Pieces of its flesh are still in their teeth.  They have scarcely swallowed before the gravity of what has transpired bears upon them with the greatest of force.  She sinks to the ground, crushed beneath the weight of her guilt.  He collapses beside her, fallen.  The hard realization of what they have just done presses brutally upon them. They could not have anticipated the severity of this pain.

Fallen.  Oh God, it is true.

So, this was sin.  This was death.

“But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” James 1:14-15

In my previous post Understanding Adam and the Kingdom of the Earth, we talked about the ways that Adam was created in the image of God.  We stated that he was God’s first earthly son, created to act as God’s reflection in the kingdom of the earth and given ruling authority over this kingdom. We talked about how he was created to be a father with the ability to procreate sons after his own image through his seed, and how he originally possessed eternal life.  We also talked about how the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth were originally integrated, meaning that from their inception the two kingdoms were meant to interact and intersect with each other.  These things all represent attributes that are associated with the external nature of Adam and the realm of earth.

But there is yet one more important aspect about Adam that made him like God, and this has to do with the internal aspect of Adams nature.

We learn from studying the scriptures that God is a triune being- meaning that He is three in one.  Within the unity of the Godhead is three distinct Persons- that of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  These three do not represent three different gods, but three elements of One God.

 In a similar way, Adam was also created tripartite– or three parts that make up one being. He was created of three distinct elements; of body, soul and spirit, and these three parts comprised the whole of his being. 

Let’s take a close look at these three elements and discover what they are and how they work together.

As a man, Adam was created with a physical body created from the organic elements of the earth, or as the bible states it, of “the dust of the ground” (Gen 2:7).   His body was made of tangible matter; of flesh and blood. The body acts as the external dwelling, or vehicle, for the internal elements of his being.  It gives us physical presence and identity.

God imparted the breath of life into Adam and the bible says he became a living soul (Gen 2:7). The soul animates or brings life to the body. The body and soul combined made Adam a living being.   The body and the soul are intrinsically united, meaning that they do not act or survive apart from one another.  What happens to one innately affects the other.  The bible refers to this body and soul combination as “the flesh”.  The flesh is the life that is uniquely of the earth. 

But the body and soul combination are so much more.  It is literally who we are as a child of our biological parents, as the offspring of their seed. It makes us the unique and individual person that we are, unlike any other person on the earth. 1 Corinthians 15:38 says that “God gives a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.”  It is the spring of our personality, our gifts and abilities, our character, our intellect and our emotional nature. These things give us our personal identity. 

There is one more aspect of man’s internal nature that causes him to be made in the image of God and that is that he possesses a spirit.

 There can be much confusion as to the difference between the soul and the spirit, but I have found a very easy way to understand it. 

As the soul is the life force of the earthly realm, spirit is the life of the heavenly realm.

Beings created to inhabit the earthly realm possess the life force of the soul, and beings created to inhabit the heavenly realm possess the life force of spirit. 

The life of the Spirit of God within Adam gave him the identity of God’s son.

Man, in his original form, was created with the life of both; of heaven and of the earth, because men were originally created to one day enter and dwell in the kingdom of heaven.

And as the external kingdoms of heaven and earth were united in the beginning, so were the internal realms of Adam.  Adam possessed within himself the life of both kingdoms.

Now as confusing as all of this may seem at the moment, (and believe me when I tell you that I am trying very hard to make it as simple as possible), it is very important for us to understand ALL of who Adam was and what he had. 

One more thing before we close. 

We know something that Adam didn’t know.  You and I know what death is.  We understand that if any one aspect of a man’s constitution is separated from another aspect, a death occurs. Death at its core is separation.  If a part of a man’s body becomes “cut off”, either completely, or by lack of blood flow, that part dies. When the soul is separated from its body, the whole body dies.   And when the spirit separates from the soul, spiritual death occurs.

And now we begin to understand why the man Adam was such a strategic target for the Adversary.  To cut off Adam from the life of God, would be to sever the two kingdoms as well.  Adam and the kingdom he ruled would be the Serpents domain.  It is true that the devil cannot create, but he could transform and corrupt all that God had created.

But you and I know something the devil didn’t know.  And that is that God had a strategy of His own, prepared from the eternal ages, to undo all the devil had purposed in his darkened, evil heart to do. 

Stay tuned, friends.  We are just getting started unfolding all the wonders of that glorious and marvelous plan that even the devil couldn’t have seen coming!