8 February 2015
Dear Phyllis,
A couple months ago Paul challenged me to get more active in outreach. I asked, “How?”. Paul suggested that he would post anything I wrote on his Uncle Paul's Bible Study on Facebook. This got me going on writing a daily devotional. A couple weeks ago the well ran dry and I couldn't think of anything more to say. Then the Lord reminded me of an interesting study I had while pastoring a church in Karuizawa.
I was preaching my way through the book of Hebrews when I ran across the statement, “For this is the new covenant”. Unlike the English which has two words for the same thing – covenant and testament – the Japanese has only one word. When I saw this in the Japanese Bible that raised the question in my mind, “What is the New testament?”. I asked a number of friends and found no one had the answer. As I couldn't answer the question in my own mind, that triggered a very productive in depth study. Ironically I discovered the answer to that question in the verses following the introductory statement, “This is the New Testament (covenant) in Heb. 8:10-12. Discovering that, and subsequently reading Andrew Murray; this has had a major impact on my life. I decided to pull this out of the file for writing a series for Paul's Bible Study. I have enjoyed this like nothing I have ever written. Day by day when I sit down to compose the article for that day I pray, “Lord if You have assigned me the task of writing this article, You must give me the material You want to say.” When I finish that day frequently I say, “Wow, that is terrific!” I feel like I am plagiarizing someone else' material. I can honestly say what I am writing is not original. I don't have that kind of insight. The Holy Spirit is writing things that I have never thought of.
We can never understand what the New Testament is if we don't first have a solid grounding in knowing what the Old Testament was. There are several covenants God made with various people in the OT but we see that the Old Covenant was the one that God made with Israel at Mt. Sinai (Heb. 8:9). In the simplest terms, basically what that covenant was, was a marriage relationship of God with Israel. This was something God had never done with any nation before. If there is to be harmony in that marriage it is essential that both partners be of the same mind. You can't have unity when one partner wants to go north and the other one wants to go south. Both partners must be on the same page. What God was asking of Israel was not unreasonable.
I have said that the Ten Commandments are a definition of the character of God. There is the negative aspect of the Ten Commandments, but in the positive aspect we see that basically this is what God is. And perhaps to put it more understandably the Ten Commandments are a portrait of Jesus. If you would sew together a garment of the Ten Commandments you would see that it fits Christ perfectly.
The article for last Tuesday was as follows:
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The 6th Commandment
The six commandment is “Thou shalt not kill”.This is probably the most misunderstood of all the commandments. God made man to have dominion over all the earth (Gen. 1:26). The devil is trying to put man at the bottom under flies. In India and Nepal cows are more valuable than humans. In Kathmandu cows help themselves to fruit stands and it is illegal to stop them. I was stunned to learn that now, in Nebraska, it is illegal to sell a horse to a slaughter house. In Tibet it was illegal to kill a worm. If you dug a hole you had to be careful not to injure a worm. If PETA has their way, soon fly swatters will be illegal and it will be against the law to spray mosquitoes. Capital punishment is commanded of God, and Saul was rejected for being king because he didn't kill Agag (1 Sam. 15). The 6th commandment is not about killing, but the sanctity of life.
The greatest feature of all God's creation is life. Adam was made perfect. He had DNA and everything before God breathed in him the spirit of life (Gen.2:7). Life is the greatest gift He ever gave to man. And He has placed it at the top of the chart that man should sanctify it.
I have said many times that Jesus never came to start another religion but to give us life. There is a vast difference between religion and life. Religion is of man and life is from God. The first thing John told us about Jesus was “in Him was life” (Jn 1:4). In his 1st epistle John says again, “And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” (1 Jn. 5:11,12). All Christians are born twice. The 2nd birth is when Jesus comes to live in our heart.
The fundamental difference between the OT and the NT is the priesthood. The OT was the Levitical priesthood and the law was carnal commandments. But the main feature of the NT Melchizedek priesthood is that “it is after the power of eternal life” (Heb. 7:16). The written law has no power to change us but eternal life does. I knew a girl in Tokyo that was living with a boy. She was a piece of clay in his hands, and then she got saved. Suddenly, she was a piece of tungsten steel and said goodbye. He was stunned. He said, “What kind of power is this?”. Jesus is eternal life. The main feature of eternal life is not the length of it, but the quality and power of it. The greatest gift that God has ever given to us is life. He wants us to sanctify it. Thou shalt not kill.
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As I have written these articles I have seen as never before how they tell us so perfectly what is the character of God. I still have probably another week of material or more before we get to the bottom line of what the New Testament is. I am generally surprised myself and I hope this is a blessing to others. I will give you a clue. It is Jesus living in us.
See you next week,
bill
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