New Law Theology

Shortly following the Exodus from Egypt, Yahweh established a new covenant: the Mosaic covenant.  The Mosaic covenant was established in the wilderness at Sinai.  At that moment, the covenant was given by the Lord to Israel through Moses.  The Mosaic covenant was God's desire to make a holy nation for Himself, a chosen and priestly nation.  

There were two major parts of this covenant that distinguished and sealed it: the Law, and the Sabbath.  The Sabbath served as a sign of the covenant, sealing it much like circumcision sealed the Abrahamic covenant.  More significant than the establishment of the Sabbath though was God's deliverance of the Law.  The Law was God's most significant revelation of His character in all of history up to that point and it came to dominate and define Israel.

A general synopsis and simplification of Mosaic Law would be that it is a revelation of God's holiness.  Mosaic Law is the majority content of the Pentateuch, especially Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.  It is often oversimplified to just the Ten Commandments but it entails much more.  The major theological thrust and purpose of the Law was to reveal God's character, particularly His holiness.

Holiness is defined in two ways: to be set apart and to be pure.  The Mosaic Law was a set of regulations for cleanliness and sacrifice, offerings that covered the sinfulness of man in order for man to come near the holy presence of God.  The problem with this was that the blood of bulls and goats is unable to cleanse sin or truly forgive iniquity; therefore, a holy offering had to be made.  Enter Christ.

Jesus became the perfect, sinless, spotless sacrificial lamb.  In a real sense, He was the final sacrifice under the Mosaic law.  He in fact abolished the law and made it obsolete by His death and resurrection (Col. 2:13-14; Heb 8; 10).  Now man can become holy by the blood of the holy lamb that is Christ.  Whereas the Mosaic covenant exposed the sinfulness of man but was unable to truly atone for sin, the New covenant, made in Jesus, atones for man's iniquity and restores the right relationship with the Lord that sin had broken.

The point is that the Mosaic law, its regulations and requirements, has been made obsolete in that it is no longer necessary to sacrifice bulls and goats to obtain the holiness of God. Now, holiness is attained through confession and belief in Jesus as God.  The Law does serve a purpose though.  It still reveals who God is as holy and perfect, pure and set apart.  

Although, thankfully, believers do not need to hold to the regulations of the Mosaic law as Israel did, the law still serves to expose sin.  The difference is that while the Mosaic system was unable to atone for the iniquity that it exposed, Christ, through His death and resurrection, has perfectly atoned for the sin that the law reveals.  Praise be to God that He would condescend into the world in order that we would be able to draw to Him by His righteousness!

Piece of Peace

Peace is an interesting word.  Its meanings range from quiet to solitude, from tranquility to contentment. The breadth of peace's place in the believer's life is huge.  This peace, divine peace, is a gift from God and is to cover our hearts and lives.  We are to live in the peace that God bestows upon us.

The peace that Christ gives to believers surpasses all understanding and is to guard our hearts and our minds (Phil. 4:7).  Peace serves a purpose, it is not just an attitude but is a state of being that keeps and protects believers from sin.  When we let the peace of Christ rest over our hearts, it acts as a protectant that prevents us from things like malice and envy, sin that can taint.

When peace is our state and how we handle the waves of this life, we will not let the fickle and mercurial nature of the world hinder our ability to live godly lives.  Jesus gives a peace that is dependable.  We can rest upon it.  This becomes crucial when we are constantly pushed to not be peaceful.  When life throws curves we should rely on the peace that God bestows to carry us through the toughest of situations with grace and dignity.

Being full of peace, peaceful, is also a way to live, an attitude to handle all of life's struggles.  Living in a state, an attitude, of peacefulness can be invaluable because we will become not be able to be overly-encumbered or overwhelmed by the world but will be in a place of contentment grounded in the Lord.  If the root of our peace is the Lord, we will not be shaken for the peace that passes understanding will help us to maintain a life of satisfaction.

The reality is that God desire for us to delight in Him and to only seek our satisfaction in Him.  This is what peace is all about: having our contentment and satisfaction met in Him.  When we truly rely on the Lord as the source of our strength and fulfillment, then we will understand what peace is all about.

Magnifying the Lord

Throughout the Scripture, particularly in Psalms, there is an attitude of praise presented in terms such as these: my soul magnifies/glorifies the Lord.  God is the focus of Christian life but how Christians handle that focal point is worth addressing.  The concept of soul magnification and God glorification is to be the content of this dialogue.

Magnification is an ocular term.  It refers to looking at something through a lens and making it more visible through magnification.  Physically, this happens through the use of lenses placed at particular angels and distances in order to reflect and refract light so that objects appear larger and with more definition that they would otherwise.  Think about binoculars.  The objects that we aim binoculars at become more visible and accessible images due to the effectiveness of the lenses within the binoculars.

In a spiritual sense, Christians are binoculars to the Lord.  We are meant to magnify the Lord and glorify His name.  Like ocular magnification, this happens through properly placed lenses.  The lenses of spiritual magnification are the Word and the Holy Spirit.  When we are in the Word and the Holy Spirit is working in us, we will magnify the Lord.  The Word and the Holy Spirit sanctify believers.  To continue the metaphor, sanctification is like replacing and cleaning the lenses of believers so that they work properly.

So, who do we magnify the Lord for, or, who is looking through the binoculars of our lives?  Simply put, the world.  We glorify and magnify the Lord because it is right and joyous to do so; however, the purpose is to draw the world to who He is.  A part of this is denying the natural tendencies to glorify and magnify ourselves.  In truth, we are only able to magnify one thing at a time; you can only aim the binoculars at one thing at a time to the denial of looking at other things.

Ultimately, we are commanded to worship Him at the denial of self.  This is beautiful.  We are conduits of His glory, meant to serve as walking magnifiers of who He is.  What a wonderful gift, that God would use such as us for His glory and purposes!

Right Priority

We live in a world of fragments and compartmentalization.  Work doesn't mix with home nor school with family nor church with state: fragmentation.  The underlying question that this world of fragmentation begs is a matter of priorities.  Because we are constantly shifting gears and hats to adjust to constantly changing environments, we often look more like walking, talking chameleons than human beings.

The reality is that this is not the way it is supposed to be.  In the biblical sense, wherever we are is where we are supposed to worship and give thanks.  Whether we are at work, at school, with family, with friends, voting at the booths, or praying in the pews, we are to maintain a consistent life, one in which we do not compromise that which is most important: God.

The point here is priority.  The Lord and only He is to be the only basis for all and every aspect of our lives.  Practically speaking, this means that when we go to work, to school, to friends, to anywhere, we are still grounded in the most foundational of truths.  This is how we live out Jesus' command to be salt and light wherever we may go.

When we are constantly aware of the Lord, we will be apt to live lives and make sound decisions that are guided by the Holy Spirit.  If He, the Lord, is to be the master  of our lives, and if we are to love Him with all of our hearts, minds, and souls, then we need to be dedicated in the the discipline of focusing on Him in every environment.  If we only live out our Christian beliefs when we are at the church building then we are not letting Him permeate every crevice of our beings.

The truth is that living a life of right priority is anything but easy.  To be sure, it is difficult. But the reward for living a life focused on Christ far surpasses any sacrifice of self that we could possibly offer.  The Lord Himself is the reward for devotion.  The fact that God Himself, through His Holy Spirit, would reside within our lives is the most wonderful and beautiful gift that God could or would ever bestow upon His children.  Thanks be to God for He has given us His Son, Jesus, and His Holy Spirit, that we could live lives that bring Him glory!

Die to Live

Sin creates a chasm of unholiness between creation and its holy creator.  Sin must be paid and atoned for.  The wages of sin are death, meaning that in order for the cost of sin to be covered, blood must be spilled.  Under the Mosaic covenant sin was covered by the sacrificial offerings of bulls and lambs.

However, these sacrifices were wholly unable to remove iniquity, and the sin of man still stood as a debt. God was not pleased with the sacrifices of bulls and goats and desired a perfect sacrifice.  Fortunately, the Lord Himself determined to condescend into creation to become the perfect spotless sacrifice, Jesus (Heb. 10:4-14).

Because Jesus paid man's sin debt in full, spilt blood is no longer required for salvation.  Now salvation comes through true confession that Jesus is Lord and belief that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:19).  Additionally, we are saved by God's grace alone, not by works so that no one can boast of his own righteousness (Eph. 2:8-10).

Before Christ, we were required to die, literally, to pay the penalty of our sin.  Under grace we still die physical deaths, this truth is not disputed; however, the physical death that we die now is a gateway into eternity, damnation or exaltation.  There's more to the story though: we now die to self in order to live to Christ.

In Colossians 3, Paul exhorts believers to die to sin, die to self, and be made alive to the Spirit, alive to God.  This is the Christian life in a nutshell.  When we die to our flesh, we are able to live a life unencumbered with the trappings of the world because it will no longer hold any weight in our eyes.  Also, we begin to see what really matters, what's actually worth living for.

Dying to self so that we can live to Christ is one of the sincere joys and constant challenges of the Christian life.  It is the essential truth.  To live a life of belief is to live a life of denying and dying to self in order to be made new in Jesus Christ, the Lord of all creation.  This is not a passive activity, we do not die to self apathetically.  On the contrary, truly dying to self in order to live to Christ, requires a very active believer.  We are to be in the Word and praying regularly, meditating on His precepts constantly, and pursuing Him.  This is how we live to God and die to self.

Submission

Submission means relinquishing authority to another to the denial of self.  Needless to say, this is so intricately woven into the tapestry of the Christian life that it warrants discussion.  There are three basic authoritative forces that Christians are to submit to: God, church leadership, and the state.

The most obvious and central object of submission is and should always be God.  Submitting to the Lord and to His will is the foundation of all Christian life.  The Lord requires obedience and submission to His holiness in our lives: sanctification.  When, as we are reading and meditating on the Word and/or praying, He speaks to us, we are to listen and submit.  This is true submission.

After God, the next authority that we are to submit to is the leadership of the church: elders, deacons, wise teachers, etc.  Those that God has blessed with sanctification and wisdom are spiritual elders, divinely-gifted to guide and train believers.  This does not, however, mean that we should unequivocally and unabashedly accept any and all teaching that our church leaders give us.  Instead, we should weigh every teaching against the Word and the Holy Spirit.  Again, submitting to God should never be usurped by submitting to the church.  The church submits to God, His Word and the Holy Spirit, not ever should that hierarchy be overturned.

The other authority that we are to submit to is political authority.  Both Paul and Peter exhort believers to submit to civil leaders and authorities (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17).  The important point here is that believers should never submit to the civil authorities of government and leadership if it goes against the Will and Word of God.  Again, any authority that warrants submission is secondary to submitting to the Lord Almighty.

Submission is a challenging activity.  It requires denying the self in order to acquiesce to the commands and wills of another.  This stands in direct contrast to our natural inclinations of self-determination and manifest destiny.  However, when we submit to God, we enter into His kingdom as heirs.  Submission to the Lord should be pursued.  In a real sense, we should strive for opportunities to devote ourselves in submission to the Lord.  The beautiful thing here is that when we submit to Him, He promises to bless us.

The Holy Intercessor

Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as a helper, a comforter, and an advocate who will come and abide within us, aiding us to traverse the pitfalls and obstacles of this life as well as interceding on our behalf throughout this life (John 14).  In reality, the Holy Spirit is the indwelling of God into the lives (heart, body, mind, soul) of His children.

The Holy Spirit is the perfect guide and voice of wisdom to believers that helps us to discern right paths, make right choices, and follow through when the time is right.  But, much like the Holy Spirit seals guarantees believers (Eph. 1:13-14; 2 Cor. 1:21-22), the Holy Spirit has a number of specific tasks in the lives of Christians.

One of the tasks that the Holy Spirit performs is interceding in prayer at the behest of believers.  Only rarely do we, as finite and fallible creatures, truly understand and know what we need or what is best for us, particularly when we are weak under the weight of life.  It is in this that we rely on the Holy Sprit to intercede for us, praying for us that which, for whatever reason, we are incapable of (Rom. 8:26-27, 34-35).

The issue here is a matter of recognition and reliance.  When we recognize our inabilities and shortcomings, it should prompt us to rely on the Lord.  Under strain and in duress, when our discernment can be clouded or our vision hazy, the Holy Spirit not only keeps our paths true, but also intercedes for us.  This causes believers to more fully rely on the Lord to comfort, heal, strengthen, etc.

Intercession, in this sense, could be referred to as a direct conduit that channels our specific needs to God, who fulfills.  Often times we do not realize or know that this communication is happening because so rarely our we truly in tune with the depths of ourselves.  But God is.  He, through the Holy Spirit, is thoroughly entrenched in the mire that sloshes in our deepest parts.  He communicates our most dire and desperate needs to God because He is God.  Remember: One God, three distinct persons.

That God would so love and care for us that He would indwell within us is a marvelous propositional truth. When we become believers, the Paraclete, enters into us and advocates before the Father and for our growth and devotion.  This is a beautiful and mysterious thing and we should rejoice that the Almighty Lord Himself would not only save us on the cross through Jesus, but would walk within us and care for us directly through the Holy Spirit.