Discussion Covenants

franky67 said:

Referring to Romans ch 11, how would you define, "the rich root of the olive tree"

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SpiritPsalmist said:

True, it's what man did to God's perfect laws that made them a burden. I had not thought of that before. Well, I had but I just did not say it as well as you did. Thanks

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Gideons300 said:

What? How well did Paul do with the law? It made him miserable! Defeated! Guilt ridden! Do you not realize that the "perfect law" being discussed says that if you break even one of the commandments, you are guilty of breaking all of them? Do you not realize that it is not just adultery that is against the perfect law of God, it is lust in our hearts that Jesus said is doing the same exact thing? Can man choose to not lust by his own volition? Good luck.

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Gideons300 said:

The law can make no man righteous. Those who try to fulfill it in the flesh will end up in a life of Romans 7, and yes, they ARE a burden until we figure out the only way to get out of the grip of the curse of the law is to die. Unfortunately, we have assumed that means when our fleshly bodies die, but the truth is it is our fleshly natures, our tainted hearts that must die. Only then can we find that obedience, demanded under the law, and unattainable to even the most dedicated of men, IS our promised portion when we finally agree to reckon ourselves as dead. It is only then that the strength of sin in our lives is broken, for the strength of sin is the law itself and the law has dominion over us as long as we live. The solution? BE DEAD. Believe that we are no longer in the flesh and owe it nothing. It is the only way.

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1 Cor 15:56 "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law". Paul add in Romans a more complete explanation:

The Problem of Indwelling Sin
Romans 7:7 - 7:25 (One New Man Bible)

7:7. Then what will we say? Is the Torah (Teaching) sin? God forbid! But I did not know sin except through Torah (Teaching): for I would not have known coveting except the Torah (Teaching) was saying, "You will not covet." (Exodus 20:14) 8. But sin, because it took the opportunity through the commandment, was producing every desire in me: so without Torah (Teaching) sin is dead. 9. And once I was living without Torah (Teaching), but, after the commandment came, sin became alive, 10. and the commandment which was found in me for the bringing of life, this resulted in death and I died: 11. for after sin took an opportunity through the commandment, sin deceived me and it killed me through this commandment. 12. So indeed the Torah (Teaching) is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

7:13. Therefore did the good Torah (Teaching) become death in me? God forbid! but sin, so that sin would appear, through the good Torah (Teaching) in me, when sin produced death in me, that sin would become sinful beyond measure through the commandment. 14. For we know that the Torah (Teaching) is spiritual, but I myself am fleshly, since I have been sold as a slave under sin. 15. For I am producing what I do not know: for I do not want this that I am doing, but I hate this, which I am doing: 16. But if I do not want this that I do, I agree with the Torah (Teaching) because it is good. 17. But now I no longer am producing this myself but the sin swelling in me produces it. 18. For I know that no good is dwelling in me, that is, in my flesh:for desire to do good is present in me, but to produce good is not: 19. for I do not do the good that I want to do, but I do this evil that I do not want to do. 20. But if I myself do this that I do not want, I am no longer producing this, but the sin dwelling in me is producing it.* 21. So I find the Torah (Teaching), in my wanting to do good things, that evil is present in me: 22. for I rejoice together in the Torah (Teaching) of God with respect to the inner man, 23. but I see another law in my members warring against the Torah (Teaching) of my mind and taking me captive in the law of sin, the one which is in my members. 24. Wretched man that I am: who will rescue me from this body of death? 25. But thanks to God He will through Y'shua Messiah or Lord. So then this - on the one hand in my mind I am serving the Torah (Teaching) of God, but on the other hand in the flesh I serve the law of sin.

So Paul asks (paraphrased) "are the instructions God set up for us to have a fruitful and abundant life sinful"? He responds with "God forbid"....meaning absolutely not. How could a Holy God give instructions that are sinful? It's impossible. Paul says he would not have known coveting if the Torah had not been there to show him. That does not mean that he would not have coveted, it means he would not have known that what he was doing was was coveting if the teaching had not shown it to him.Sin was alive and well in him and through the teaching (which is good), took the opportunity to bring in more sin. Without the instructions showing us where we are missing it, we become dead in our spirits to God's instructions and just sin, sin, sin, and we have no clue as to what it is that we are doing that is causing such havoc in our lives. Remember Adam & Eve in the garden? God had given the instructions "do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". The serpent said to Eve, "did God really say"? The serpent deceived her by using the instruction given by God. He caused her to question what she had been told. She was deceived. Then, she ate from the tree then called her husband over and he joined her in the act against God's instruction. God's instruction to them at that point became death to them...just as God had said. (Gen 3:1-19)

So we have the instructions from God (the Scriptures) and sin takes opportunity in us to use those instructions to bring us down to sins level. The instructions show us what we should be doing, yet the sin working in our members are attacking. We want to do right (we should anyway) but the sin in our members is causing us to do what we don't want to do. There is war going on between our mind (where we know what is right) and our flesh (our body desires: putting others down, lying, stealing, etc.). So Paul says "Wretched man that I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is bringing me death by it's disobedience to God's instructions"? Then he proclaims, really I can almost hear him shouting it in jubilation, the answer to his question, "thanks be to God, HE WILL!" Through Yeshua the Messiah, HE WILL deliver me. * (v 20) To keep verses 13-20 in perspective, see 1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1, and Phil. 3:17 where Paul says to imitate him. The sins he refers to here are those inadvertent things that we all do and say - or should do or say, but fail to. None of us is perfect, so we too need the attitude Paul has here, to recognize that although none of us is perfect, we should still be good examples to others.​

Gideons300 said:

If we want to lift up the law as our guide, rather than relying on the indwelling Spirit to fill us and lead us and keep us from falling, we will find we are in direct opposition to God, who set us free from the law and its unyielding demands. We simply need to start with the first commandment to see the impossibility of simply following the ten commandments..

Thou shalt love thy God with ALL your heart and ALL your mind and ALL your soul and ALL your strength.

When we can finally admit that we are not doing so, and that there are rooms in our soul that Jesus has no access to even after many years of walking as His child, it is then that we are ready for the next step. But not until then.

Blessings,

Gideon

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Truthfrees said:

The perfect laws of the Lord were never a burden.

Jesus called the man-made laws a burden. (Matthew 23:4, Luke 11:46)

What made the OC weak was the flesh. Now that we have the Holy Spirit, the perfect laws of the OT are easily doable.

In fact Jesus says anyone who doesn't obey God's laws and teaches others to disobey is the least in the kingdom. (Matthew 5:19)

"For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." - Romans 8:3-4

"The law of the LORD is perfect." - Psalms 19:7

"Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good." - Romans 7:12

"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:17-19

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Gideons300 said:

What? How well did Paul do with the law? It made him miserable! Defeated! Guilt ridden! Do you not realize that the "perfect law" being discussed says that if you break even one of the commandments, you are guilty of breaking all of them? Do you not realize that it is not just adultery that is against the perfect law of God, it is lust in our hearts that Jesus said is doing the same exact thing? Can man choose to not lust by his own volition? Good luck.

The law can make no man righteous. Those who try to fulfill it in the flesh will end up in a life of Romans 7, and yes, they ARE a burden until we figure out the only way to get out of the grip of the curse of the law is to die. Unfortunately, we have assumed that means when our fleshly bodies die, but the truth is it is our fleshly natures, our tainted hearts that must die. Only then can we find that obedience, demanded under the law, and unattainable to even the most dedicated of men, IS our promised portion when we finally agree to reckon ourselves as dead. It is only then that the strength of sin in our lives is broken, for the strength of sin is the law itself and the law has dominion over us as long as we live. The solution? BE DEAD. Believe that we are no longer in the flesh and owe it nothing. It is the only way.

If we want to lift up the law as our guide, rather than relying on the indwelling Spirit to fill us and lead us and keep us from falling, we will find we are in direct opposition to God, who set us free from the law and its unyielding demands. We simply need to start with the first commandment to see the impossibility of simply following the ten commandments..

Thou shalt love thy God with ALL your heart and ALL your mind and ALL your soul and ALL your strength.

When we can finally admit that we are not doing so, and that there are rooms in our soul that Jesus has no access to even after many years of walking as His child, it is then that we are ready for the next step. But not until then.

Blessings,

Gideon

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franky67 said:

The following is quoted from Jay Snell, writing on the subject of "covenants'

Speaking of those living during the Old Testament, he said, " they came to view the law,not as an act of grace to enable them to maintain the blessings promised through Abraham, but as a system of works, whereby they might approach God, and obtain His blessings. "

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Andry said:

There seems to some confusion in this thread. The Abrahamic Covenant is not the same as the Mosaic Covenant (Old Covenant), and the two aren't interchangeable, especially semantically. Then another topic altogether are the differences between the Old and the New Covenant - and one of them is no longer valid.

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franky67 said:

The Abrahamic covenant is the one we are joint heirs with Christ to inherit the blessing of, so IMHO, that is the one He meant when He said it was an everlasting covenant. Only one everlasting covenant

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Biblicist2 said:

Even though you've raised a valid point regarding the two differeing OT Covenants, I think that we can at least divide the Covenants between that/those which preceeded the Cross and the one that proceeded after the Cross.

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Andry said:

That's fine, but what's the thread about then?

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franky67 said:

The Abrahamic covenant is the one we are joint heirs with Christ to inherit the blessing of, so IMHO, that is the one He meant when He said it was an everlasting covenant. Only one everlasting covenant

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SpiritPsalmist said:

From an article by John Piper:

The OT believers experienced the new birth and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When Nicodemus was bewildered about Jesus' demand for new birth by the Spirit, Jesus responded (Jn 3:10), "Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand this?" In other words, I'm not teaching or requiring anything new. Any Israelite who has ever been saved had to be born again by God's Spirit. Otherwise how would they ever overcome their natural hostility to God? How could they have ever submitted to God's law and pleased him—as many did, like Abel and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Rahab and Ruth and Deborah and David?


Paul says in Rom 8:7–9, "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed, it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit if the Spirit of God really dwells in you." There are two groups of humans: those in the flesh (born of the flesh) and those in the Spirit (born again of the Spirit). Those in the flesh are devoid of the Spirit and cannot submit to God's law or please God. Those in the Spirit are indwelt by the Spirit and are enabled by him to fulfill the just requirement of the law.


This means that all the saints of the OT who trusted God and followed his ways in the obedience of faith were born again by the Spirit and indwelt by the Spirit. For example, Num 14:24 says of Caleb, "My servant Caleb, because he has a different Spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into this land." And Num 27: 18 says, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Take Joshua the son of Nun, in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand upon him.'" The OT believers were saved the same way we are: they were born of the Spirit, they trusted in God's promises, and they followed his commandments in the obedience of faith.

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Biblicist2 said:

When I first read your post I had to go and make sure that it was actually from John Piper, where, to my utter emazement, I discovered that he actually did write it way back in 1984. I wonder if he knows that it is still on his website, where I would like to think that it would be something that he would now utterly reject. So, it seems that even the illustrious commentators can even get things about as wrong as one could ever wish to get on a particular subject.

http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/how-believers-experienced-the-spirit-before-pentecost

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Of course I differ with you and don't think he's wrong at all. We're saved by grace through faith. Abrahams faith was accounted unto him as righteousness, making him saved by faith. So is all that long list of others mentioned in Hebrews 11. They were saved by their faith just like we are. They had High Priests who administered the blood of the sacrificial lamb, we have the blood of Jesus that washes our sins away and He was the Lamb of God who took away our sins and there is no more sin sacrificing to be done.

SpiritPsalmist said:

Of course I differ with you and don't think he's wrong at all. We're saved by grace through faith. Abrahams faith was accounted unto him as righteousness, making him saved by faith. So is all that long list of others mentioned in Hebrews 11. They were saved by their faith just like we are. They had High Priests who administered the blood of the sacrificial lamb, we have the blood of Jesus that washes our sins away and He was the Lamb of God who took away our sins and there is no more sin sacrificing to be done.
I think the illustrious commentators get things wrong quite often and that's why Christians have such a skewed understanding of what the scriptures actually say.
As Piper pointed out, Jesus spoke about a "new birth" and expected that Nicodemus, knowing Torah as well as he did, should have known about it already, how do you explain that?

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SpiritPsalmist said:

From an article by John Piper:

The OT believers experienced the new birth and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When Nicodemus was bewildered about Jesus' demand for new birth by the Spirit, Jesus responded (Jn 3:10), "Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand this?" In other words, I'm not teaching or requiring anything new. Any Israelite who has ever been saved had to be born again by God's Spirit. Otherwise how would they ever overcome their natural hostility to God? How could they have ever submitted to God's law and pleased him—as many did, like Abel and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Rahab and Ruth and Deborah and David?


Paul says in Rom 8:7–9, "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed, it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit if the Spirit of God really dwells in you." There are two groups of humans: those in the flesh (born of the flesh) and those in the Spirit (born again of the Spirit). Those in the flesh are devoid of the Spirit and cannot submit to God's law or please God. Those in the Spirit are indwelt by the Spirit and are enabled by him to fulfill the just requirement of the law.


This means that all the saints of the OT who trusted God and followed his ways in the obedience of faith were born again by the Spirit and indwelt by the Spirit. For example, Num 14:24 says of Caleb, "My servant Caleb, because he has a different Spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into this land." And Num 27: 18 says, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Take Joshua the son of Nun, in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand upon him.'" The OT believers were saved the same way we are: they were born of the Spirit, they trusted in God's promises, and they followed his commandments in the obedience of faith.

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Biblicist2 said:

Undoubtedly Jesus would have expected Nicodemus to connect the dots, where having just witnessed the Power that Jesus was exhibiting through the Holy Spirit and with how Israel was 'supposed' to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit at some future time, be it now or sometime in the immediate future he should have undertood its implications.

Jesus would not have expected the average Jew to understand this but as a leading teacher of Israel the proverbial penny should have dropped where he should have understood that Jesus was preceding the outpouring of the Holy Spirit after his impending death.

As for John Piper, he is both an amazing and a complicated individual where he has frequently got himself into hot water with both the Pentecostals and the Evangelicals. Having just come across the article you posted, I am absolutely astounded and perplexed with how someone of his calibre could believe such a thing.

Quest. Did someone maybe hack his website and malevolently insert the article?!?

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franky67 said:

Read Galatians 3:13-29, and then look up the meaning of the two Greek words for "new", "neos" and "kainos" and then see which Greek word is used with the word "covenant"

Neos in the Greek means chronologically new, and kianos means qualitatively new

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