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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The True Nature of the New Covenant, #14
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. II Corinthians 3:18)
Our task as Christians is to abide in Christ so the Holy Spirit can write God's laws in our mind and heart. We are to obey God, to confess our sins, and to resist the devil. By so doing we enter the Kingdom of God; we grow in Christ's righteousness; we fulfill the new covenant. The end is our transformation into the image of the Glory of the Lord.
To change the new covenant of transformation into an excuse for the sins of Gentiles so they may be received into Heaven, apart from a transformation into Christ's image, is to misunderstand both the method and the goal of the Christian salvation.
Now, let us look at the two models of salvation we are contrasting.
The currently taught concept of salvation offers an eternal forgiveness not affected significantly by our conduct or our personal spiritual growth. The objective of such forgiveness is that we may be admitted to the spirit Paradise, there to live forever. The goal of admittance to Paradise is that we may enjoy eternal bliss.
The scriptural concept of salvation requires an abiding in Christ that, by repeated "deaths" and "resurrections," results in a day-to-day conversion into the moral image of Christ.
The scriptural concept of salvation includes eternal forgiveness; but such forgiveness depends on and has as its goal our walking each day in Christ and bearing fruit. The blood of Christ keeps our conscience undefiled so we may make continual progress in our walk with the Lord.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (I John 1:7)
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. (John 15:6)
The objective of the new covenant is a new creation in Christ's image.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [a new creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, . . . . (II Corinthians 5:17,18)
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be changed into the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)
The goal of creating us in Christ's image and bringing us into untroubled union with God through Christ is that we may enter God's Kingdom purposes concerning us.
It may be obvious to the reader that these two models are different in process and goal. They both cannot be the new covenant. One or the other is an incorrect interpretation.
To be continued.